Perhaps Devonshire, stripped of its bold, red rocks, drained of its brilliant blue sea, and despoiled of its dark moors, might be too sugary sweet with its flower-draped cottages, and lanes like green-walled conservatories; but it is so well balanced, with its intimate sweetnesses, and its noble outlines. I think you are rather like Devonshire, you're so perfect, and you are the most well-balanced person I was ever introduced to—except Dad. I'm proud that his ancestors were Devonshire men. And oh, the junket and Devonshire cream are even better than he used to tell me! I haven't tasted the cider yet, because I can't bear to miss the cream at any meal; and the chambermaid at Sidmouth warned me that they "didn't mix."
Bits of Devonshire are like Italy, I find. Not only is the earth deep red in the meadows, where the farmers have torn open its green coat, and many of the roads a pale rose-pink—dust and all—but lots of houses and cottages are pink, a real Italian pink, so that whole villages blush as you look them in the face. Sometimes, too, there's a blue or a green, or a golden-ochre house; here and there a high, broken wall of rose or faded yellow, with torrential geraniums boiling over the top. And the effect of this riot of colour, in contrast with the silver gray of the velvety thatch, or lichen-jewelled slate roofs, under great, cool trees, is even more beautiful than Italy. If all England is a park, Devonshire is a queen's garden.
From Sidmouth we went to Budleigh Salterton (why either, but especially both?), quaintly pretty, and rather Holland-like with its miniature bridges and canal. Then to Exmouth, with its flowering "front," its tiny "Maison Carrée" (which would remind one more of Nîmes if it had no bay windows), and its exquisite view across silver river, and purple hills that ripple away into faint lilac shadows in the distance. Then we struck inland, to Exeter, and at Exeter we stopped two days, in the very oldest and queerest but nicest hotel imaginable.
I wasn't so very happy there, because the Thing I'm going to tell you about in good time hadn't happened yet. But I'm not sure that I wasn't more in tune with Exeter than if I had been as happy as I am now. The scenery here suits my joyous mood; and the grave tranquillity of the beautiful old cathedral town calmed my spirit when I needed calm.
I've given up expecting to love any other cathedral as I loved Winchester. Chichester I've half forgotten already—except some of the tombs. Salisbury was far more beautiful, far more impressive in its proportions than Winchester, yet to me not so impressive in other ways; and Exeter Cathedral struck me at first sight as curiously low, almost squat. But as soon as I lived down the first surprise of that effect I began to love it. The stone of which the Cathedral is built may be cold and gray; but time and carvings have made it solemn, not depressing. I stood a long time looking up at the west front, not saying a word; but something in me was singing a Te Deum. And how you would love the windows! You used always to say, when we were in Italy and France, that it was beautiful windows which made you love a cathedral or church, as beautiful eyes make one love a face.
This Cathedral has unforgettable eyes, and a tremendously long history, beginning as far back as nine hundred and something, when Athelstan came to Exeter and drove out the poor British who thought it was theirs. He built towns, founded a monastery in honour of Saint Mary and Saint Peter, not having time, I suppose, to do one for each. And afterward the monastery decided that it would be a cathedral instead. But two hundred and more years earlier, that disagreeable St. Boniface, who disliked the Celts so much, went to a Saxon school in Exeter! I wonder what going to school was like when all the world was young?
I wandered into the Cathedral both mornings to hear the music; and something about the dim, moonlit look of the interior made me feel good. You will say that's rather a change for me, perhaps, because you tell me reproachfully, sometimes, after I've thought about the people's hats and the backs of their blouses in church, that I have only a bowing acquaintance with religion. I don't know whether I mayn't be doing the most dreadful wrong every minute by pretending to be Ellaline; but it was begun for a good purpose, as you know, and you yourself consented. And though I have twinges sometimes, I did feel good at Exeter. Oh, it did me heaps of good to feel good! You have to live up to your feelings, if you feel like that. And I prayed in the Cathedral. I prayed to be happy. Is that a wrong note for a prayer? I don't believe it is, if it rings true. Anyway, it makes me feel young and strong to pray, like Achilles, after he'd rolled on the earth. And I do feel so young and strong just now, dear! I have to sing in my bath, and when I look out of the window—also sometimes when I look in the glass, for it seems to me that I am growing brighter and prettier.
I love to be pretty, because it's such a beautiful world, and to be pretty is to be in the harmony of it. Though, perhaps—only perhaps, mind!—I'm glad I'm not a regular beauty. It would be such a responsibility in the matter of wearing one's clothes, and doing one's hair, and never getting tanned or chapped.
And I love to be thin, and alive—alive, with my soul in proportion to my body, like a hand in a glove, not like a seed in a big apple. But isn't this funny talk, in the midst of describing Exeter? It's because of the reaction from misery to ecstasy that I'm so bubbly. I can't stop; but luckily it didn't come on in Exeter, because the delightful, queer old streets aren't at all suitable to bubble in. It's impertinent to be excessively young there, especially in the beautiful cathedral close, where it is so calm and dignified, and the rooks, who are very, very old, do nothing but caw about their ancestors. I think some curates ought to turn into rooks when they die. They would be quite happy.
Our hotel, as I said, was fascinating, though Mrs. Norton fell once or twice, as there were steps up and down everywhere, and Dick bumped his forehead on a door. (I wasn't at all sorry for him.) Mrs. Senter said, if we'd stopped long she would have got "cottage walk," and as she already had motor-car face and bridge eye, she thought the combination would be trop fort. If she weren't Dick's aunt, and if she weren't so determined to flirt with Sir Lionel without his knowing what she's at, and if she didn't make little cutting speeches to me when he isn't listening, I think I should find her amusing.