The rain, which with short intervals accompanied me from London, remained constant to me to-day; but the weather seems now inclined to change for the better. I have all sorts of things to tell you, and a very interesting day to recount. Before I left Llangollen I recollected the two celebrated ladies who have inhabited this valley for more than half a century, and of whom I had heard once as a child, and again recently in London. You have doubtless heard your father talk of them,—‘si non voilà leur historie.’ Fifty-six years ago, two young, pretty and fashionable ladies, Lady Eleanor Butler, and the daughter of the late Lord Ponsonby, took it in their heads to hate men, to love only each other, and to live from that hour in some remote hermitage. The resolution was immediately executed; and from that time neither lady has ever passed a night out of their cottage. On the other hand, no one who is presentable travels in Wales unprovided with an introduction to them. It is affirmed that the ‘scandal’ of the great world interests them as much as when they lived in it; and that their curiosity to know what passes has preserved all its freshness. I had compliments to deliver to them from several ladies, but I had neglected to furnish myself with a letter. I therefore sent my card, determined if they declined my visit, as I was led to fear, to storm the cottage. Here, as elsewhere, however, in England, a title easily opened the door, and I immediately received a gracious invitation to a second breakfast. Passing along a charming road, through a trim and pretty pleasure-ground, in a quarter of an hour I reached a small but tasteful Gothic cottage, situated directly opposite to Dinas Bran, various glimpses of which were visible through openings cut in the trees. I alighted, and was received at the door by the two ladies. Fortunately I was already prepared by hearsay for their peculiarities; I might otherwise have found it difficult to repress some expression of astonishment. Imagine two ladies, the eldest of whom, Lady Eleanor, a short robust woman, begins to feel her years a little, being now eighty-three; the other, a tall and imposing person, esteems herself still youthful, being only seventy-four. Both wore their still abundant hair combed straight back and powdered, a man’s round hat, a man’s cravat and waistcoat, but in the place of ‘inexpressibles,’[96] a short petticoat and boots: the whole covered by a coat of blue cloth, of a cut quite peculiar,—a sort of middle term between a man’s coat and a lady’s riding-habit. Over this, Lady Eleanor wore, first, the grand cordon of the order of St. Louis across her shoulder; secondly, the same order around her neck; thirdly, the small cross of the same in her button-hole, and, ‘pour comble de gloire,’ a golden lily of nearly the natural size, as a star,—all, as she said, presents of the Bourbon family. So far the whole effect was somewhat ludicrous. But now, you must imagine both ladies with that agreeable ‘aisance,’ that air of the world of the ‘ancien regime,’ courteous and entertaining, without the slightest affectation; speaking French as well as any Englishwoman of my acquaintance; and, above all, with that essentially polite, unconstrained, and simply cheerful manner of the good society of that day, which, in our serious hard-working age of business, appears to be going to utter decay. I was really affected with a melancholy sort of pleasure in contemplating it in the persons of the amiable old ladies, who are among the last of its living representatives; nor could I witness without lively sympathy the uninterrupted, natural and affectionate attention with which the younger treated her somewhat infirmer friend, and anticipated all her wants. The charm of such actions lies chiefly in the manner in which they are performed,—in things which appear small and insignificant, but which are never lost upon a susceptible heart.
I began by saying that I esteemed myself fortunate in being permitted to deliver to the fair recluses the compliments with which I was charged by my grandfather, who had had the honour of visiting them fifty years ago. Their beauty indeed they had lost, but not their memory: they remembered the C—— C—— very well, immediately produced an old memorial of him, and only expressed their wonder that so young a man was dead already. Not only the venerable ladies, but their house, was full of interest; indeed it contained some real treasures. There is scarcely a remarkable person of the last half century who has not sent them a portrait or some curiosity or antique as a token of remembrance. The collection of these, a well furnished library, a delightful situation, an equable, tranquil life, and perfect friendship and union,—these have been their possessions; and if we may judge by their robust old age and their cheerful temper, they have not chosen amiss.
I had made my visit to them in a tremendous rain, which continued undiminished as I proceeded on my journey past the ruins of an abbey, and then by the palace of Owen Glendower, a personage whom you must remember from my Shaksperian readings at M——. The variety of the scenery is extraordinary; sometimes you are hemmed in by a chaotic heap of mountains, of every form; in a few minutes you have so extensive a view before you that you could almost believe yourself in a level country; the scene shifts again, and you are in a road enclosed and overshadowed by wood. Further on, the stream turns a peaceful mill, and immediately after rushes foaming over masses of rock, and forms a magnificent waterfall.
But the vale of Llangollen is only the proem to the true epopea, the high mountain district. After quitting the waterfall and riding for about half an hour through a nearly level country, all at once, a little beyond the inn at Cernioge Maur, you enter the holy of holies. Huge black rocks form a sublime amphitheatre, and their jagged and rent peaks seem to float in the clouds. Below, at a depth of eight hundred feet of perpendicular rock, the mountain torrent forces its difficult way, leaping headlong from chasm to chasm. Before me lay mountains rising one above another in endless perspective. I was so enchanted that I exclaimed aloud with delight. And in the midst of such scenery, it is impossible to say enough in praise of the road, which, avoiding every great inequality of surface, allows the traveller to enjoy at his ease all the ‘belles horreurs’ of this mountain region. Wherever it is not protected by the rocks, it is fenced by low walls; at equal distances are niches neatly walled in, in which are deposited the stones for mending the roads: this has a much better effect than the open heaps by the sides of our roads.
The mountain region of Wales has a very peculiar character, which it is difficult to compare with any other. Its height is about that of the Riesengebirg, but it is infinitely grander in form, richer in striking and picturesque grouped peaks. The vegetation is more varied in plants, though there is less wood, and it contains rivers and lakes, in which the Riesengebirg is quite deficient. On the other hand, it wants the majestic impervious forests of the abode of Rübezahl;[97] and in some places cultivation has already occupied the middle ground in a manner which would harmonize better with the beautiful than with the sublime. The road from Capel Cerig to within a few miles of Bangor is, however, wild and rugged as can be desired; and broad masses of red and yellow heath flowers, ferns and other plants which do not bloom in our severe climate, clothe the rocks and replace the trees which do not flourish at such an elevation. But the most striking variety of the picture is produced by the strange, wild and colossal forms of the mountains themselves; some of them are much more like clouds than solid masses. The peak of Trivaen is surmounted by such extraordinary basaltic pillars, that travellers can hardly be persuaded they are not men: they are only mountain spirits, keeping the everlasting station to which Merlin condemned them.
I was struck with the good taste which had rendered all the houses along the high-road so perfectly in keeping with the scenery: they are built of rough stone of a reddish colour, roofed with slate, in a heavy, simple style of architecture, and enclosed by iron gates, the gratings of which are so disposed as to represent the intersecting rays of two suns. The post-boy pointed out to me the remains of a Druidical castle, into which, as my guide-book informed me, Caractacus retired after his defeat at Caer Caredoc. The Welsh language sounds like the cawing of rooks. Almost all their names begin with C, pronounced with a guttural explosion which no foreign organs can imitate. The ruin is converted into two or three inhabited huts, nor are the boundaries of the original building even distinguishable.
A more remarkable object is a rock a little further on, in the form of a bishop with crozier and mitre, as if he had just started from the caverns of the mountain to preach Christianity to the heathen. Whence comes it that when Nature plays these sportive tricks, the effect is almost always sublime; when Art seeks to imitate them, it is invariably ludicrous?
A minor ‘tormento’ in this region is the multitude of children, who start up and vanish like gnomes: they pursue the carriage, begging with inconceivable pertinacity. Wearied by their importunity, I had made a positive determination not to give anything to any-body; a single deviation from which rule insures your never being rid of them for a moment. However, one little girl vanquished all my resolutions by her perseverance: she ran at least a German mile, up hill and down dale, at a brisk trot, sometimes gaining upon me a little by a foot-path, but never losing sight of me for a minute. She ran by the side of the carriage, uttering the same incessant tone of plaintive lamentation, like the cry of a sea-mew, which at length became so intolerable to me that I surrendered, and purchased my deliverance from my untireable pursuer at the price of a shilling. The ill-boding tone had however taken such possession of my ear, that I could not get rid of it for the whole day.
August 16th.
I have slept admirably, and am now sitting at the window of an inn on the sea-shore, and enjoying the sight of the ships cutting the transparent waters in every direction. On the landward rises a castle built of black marble, surrounded by ancient oaks.