Leaving a hamlet near one bridge, the river runs through such a lonely land that even on stormy nights it is heard only by the groups and groves of oaks that guard the stony and tussocky pastures. Here and there, on either hand, a brook adds a murmur to its music. A throbbing flock of lapwings for ever wheels and gleams and calls over it. The royal fern basks on its edge. And there Autumn abides.
When it reaches the next village, the river is so yellow and poisonous that only in great floods dare the salmon come up. There, with two other rivers, it makes a noble estuary, and at the head of that estuary and in the village that commands it, the old and the new seem to be at strife.
On the one hand are the magnificent furnaces; the black, wet roads; the ugly houses, that have the one pleasing virtue of not pretending to be anything else, with their naïvely chosen names, such as "Bryn Gwyn Bach" and Mazawattee Villa; the cheap and pretentious chapels; yet all of them filled with people bearing the old names,—the women called Olwen, Myfanwy, Angharad,—loving the old songs, theologies, histories. I heard of one man there who once heard part of Robinson Crusoe told on a winter night. For a year he struggled and learned to read, and found no version in Welsh. Then he went to London, and while he helped to sell milk, learned to read English, and came back home with a copy of the desirable book.
OLD CASTLE KEEP, CARDIFF
On the other hand, there is the great water, bent as if it were a white arm of the sea, thrust into the land to preserve the influence of the sea. Close to the village stands a wooded barrow and an ancient camp; and there are long, flat marches where sea-gulls waver and mew; and a cluster of oaks so wind-worn that when a west wind comes it seems to come from them as they wave their haggish arms; and a little desolate white church and white-walled graveyard, which on December evenings will shine and seem to be the only things at one with the foamy water and the dim sky, before the storm; and when the storm comes the church is gathered up into its breast and is a part of it, so that he who walks in the churchyard is certain that the gods—the gods that grow old and feeble and die—are there still, and with them all those phantoms following phantoms in a phantom land,—a gleam of spears, a murmur of arrows, a shout of victory, a fair face, a scream of torture, a song, the form of some conqueror and pursuer of English kings,—which make Welsh history, so that to read it is like walking in that place among December leaves that seem never to have lived and been emerald, and looking at the oaks in the mist, which are only hollows in the mist, while an ancient wind is ceaselessly remembering ancient things.
APPENDIX
For those who care to go into some of the art questions suggested by the illustrations and their originals, we have included a short appreciative criticism by Mr. A. J. Finberg. From experience we have found that the general reader and art-lover derives enhanced pleasure from having certain qualities brought to his notice. The art expert also may find some interest in the artist's point of view and methods of working.
A. & C. BLACK.