Dear Mr. Sharp,
This would have been headed to your wife, but for the chances of her flying, and the letter after her. Tell her we are grieved to lose the pleasure her company would give, and trust to welcome her on her return. When she looks on Tyrol, let her strain an eye to see my heart on the topmost peak. We hope for your coming on Saturday.
Yours very truly,
George Meredith.
He looked forward to his American tour with keen delight. New experiences were ever alluring; he had the power of throwing himself heart and soul into every fresh enjoyment. Going by himself seemed to promise chances of complete recovery of health; the unexplored and the unknown beckoned to him with promise of excitement and adventure.
As he wrote to Mr. Stedman: “I am a student of much else besides literature. Life in all its manifestations is of passionate interest for me, and I cannot rest from incessant study and writing. Yet I feel that I am but on the threshold of my literary life. I have a life-time of ambitious schemes before me; I may perhaps live to fulfil a tenth part of them.”
Mid-August found him in Canada. Fine as he considered the approach to Nova Scotia, Newfoundland impressed him more. At Halifax he was the guest of the Attorney General. He wrote to me “Mr. and Mrs. Longley were most kind, and so were all the many leading people to whom I was introduced. I was taken to the annual match of the Quoit Club, and was asked to present the Cup to the winner at the close, with a few words if I felt disposed. Partly from being so taken aback, partly from pleased excitement, and partly from despair, I lost all nervousness and made a short and (what I find was considered) humourous speech, so slowly and coolly spoken that I greatly admired it myself!”
At Halifax, which he considered “worth a dozen of the Newfoundland capital,” he was met by Professor Charles Roberts who had come “to intercept me so as to go off with him for a few days in Northern Scotia and across the Straits to Prince Edward Island. So, a few days later Prof. Roberts and I, accompanied for the first 100 miles by Mr. Longley, started for Pictou, which we reached after 5 hours most interesting journey. The Attorney General has kindly asked me to go a three days’ trip with him (some 10 days hence) through the famous Cape Breton district, with the lovely Bras D’Or lakes: and later on he has arranged for a three days’ moose-hunt among the forests of Southern Acadia, where we shall camp out in tents, and be rowed by Indian guides.”
New Glasgow delighted him; he visited Windsor and Halifax: “I went with Charles Roberts and Bliss Carman through Evangeline’s country. En route I travelled on the engine of the train and enjoyed the experience. Grand Pré delighted me immensely—vast meadows, with lumbering wains and the simple old Acadian life. The orchards were in their glory—and the apples delicious! At one farm house we put up, how you would have enjoyed our lunch of sweet milk hot cakes, great bowls of huckleberries and cream, tea, apples, etc.! We then went through the forest belt and came upon the great ocean inlet known as the “basin of Minas,” and, leagues away the vast bulk of Blomidon shelving bough-like into the Sea....”