Diary, 1861.
Aug. 17.—Mr. Pigott and Mr. Redford came, who gave us some music.
Aug. 20.—This morning I conceived the plot of my novel with new distinctness.
Aug. 24.—Mr. Pigott and Mr. Redford came, and we had music. These have been placid, ineffective days, my mind being clouded and depressed.
Aug. 26.—Went with Barbara to her school, and spent the afternoon there.
Aug. 31.—In the evening came Mr. Pigott and Mr. Redford, and we had some music.
Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 11th Sept. 1861, from Malvern.
Your letter was a great delight to us, as usual; and the check, too, was welcome to people under hydropathic treatment, which appears to stimulate waste of coin as well as of tissue. Altogether, we are figures in keeping with the landscape when it is well damped or "packed" under the early mist.
We thought rather contemptuously of the hills on our arrival; like travelled people, we hinted at the Alps and Apennines, and smiled with pity at our long-past selves, that had felt quite a thrill at the first sight of them. But now we have tired our limbs by walking round their huge shoulders we begin to think of them with more respect. We simply looked at them at first; we feel their presence now, and creep about them with due humility—whereby, you perceive, there hangs a moral. I do wish you could have shared for a little while with us the sight of this place. I fear you have never seen England under so lovable an aspect. On the southeastern side, where the great green hills have their longest slope, Malvern stands, well nestled in fine trees—chiefly "sounding sycamores"—and beyond there stretches to the horizon, which is marked by a low, faint line of hill, a vast level expanse of grass and cornfields, with hedge-rows everywhere plumed with trees, and here and there a rolling mass of wood; it is one of the happiest scenes the eyes can look on—freundlich, according to the pretty German phrase. On the opposite side of this main range of hills there is a more undulated and more thickly wooded country which has the sunset all to itself, and is bright with departing lights when our Malvern side is in cold evening shadow. We are so fortunate as to look out over the wide southeastern valley from our sitting-room window.
Our landlady is a quaint old personage, with a strong Cheshire accent. She is, as she tells us, a sharp old woman, and "can see most things pretty quick;" and she is kind enough to communicate her wisdom very freely to us less crisply baked mortals.