[Here follows the drive to Cumnor Place, Stanton Harcourt, Nuneham
Courtney, Godstowe, etc.,—already published in Our Old Home.—ED.]
September 9th.—The morning after our excursion on the Thames was as bright and beautiful as many preceding ones had been. After breakfast S——- and I walked a little about the town, and bought Thomas a Kempis, in both French and English, for U——. . . . . Mr. De la Motte, the photographer, had breakfasted with us, and Mr. Spiers wished him to take a photograph of our whole party. So, in the first place, before the rest were assembled, he made an experimental group of such as were there; and I did not like my own aspect very much. Afterwards, when we were all come, he arranged us under a tree in the garden,—Mr. and Mrs. Spiers, with their eldest son, Mr. and Mrs. Hall and Fanny, Mr. Addison, my wife and me,—and stained the glass with our figures and faces in the twinkling of an eye; not S——-'s face, however, for she turned it away, and left only a portion of her bonnet and dress,—and Mrs. Hall, too, refused to countenance the proceeding. But all the rest of us were caught to the life, and I was really a little startled at recognizing myself so apart from myself, and done so quickly too.
This was the last important incident of our visit to Oxford, except that Mr. Spiers was again most hospitable at lunch. Never did anybody attend more faithfully to the comfort of his friends than does this good gentleman. But he has shown himself most kind in every possible way, and I shall always feel truly grateful. No better way of showing our sense of his hospitality, and all the trouble he has taken for us (and our memory of him), has occurred to us, than to present him with a set of my Tales and Romances; so, by the next steamer, I shall write to Ticknor and Fields to send them, elegantly bound, and S——- will emblazon his coat of arms in each volume. He accompanied us and Mr. and Mrs. Hall to the railway station, and we left Oxford at two o'clock.
It had been a very pleasant visit, and all the persons whom we met were kind and agreeable, and disposed to look at one another in a sunny aspect. I saw a good deal of Mr. Hall. He is a thoroughly genuine man, of kind heart and true affections, a gentleman of taste and refinement, and full of humor.
On the Saturday after our return to Blackheath, we went to
HAMPTON COURT,
about which, as I have already recorded a visit to it, I need say little here. But I was again impressed with the stately grandeur of Wolsey's great Hall, with its great window at each end, and one side window, descending almost to the floor, and a row of windows on each side, high towards the roof, and throwing down their many-colored light on the stone pavement, and on the Gobelin tapestry, which must have been gorgeously rich when the walls were first clothed with it. I fancied, then, that no modern architect could produce so fine a room; but oddly enough, in the great entrance-hall of the Euston station, yesterday, I could not see how this last fell very much short of Wolsey's Hall in grandeur. We were quite wearied in passing through the endless suites of rooms in Hampton Court, and gazing at the thousands of pictures; it is too much for one day,—almost enough for one life, in such measure as life can be bestowed on pictures. It would have refreshed us had we spent half the time in wandering about the grounds, which, as we glimpsed at them from the windows of the Palace, seemed very beautiful, though laid out with an antique formality of straight lines and broad gravelled paths. Before the central window there is a beautiful sheet of water, and a fountain upshooting itself and plashing into it, with a continuous and pleasant sound. How beautifully the royal robe of a monarchy is embroidered! Palaces, pictures, parks! They do enrich life; and kings and aristocracies cannot keep these things to themselves, they merely take care of them for others. Even a king, with all the glory that can be shed around him, is but the liveried and bedizened footman of his people, and the toy of their delight. I am very glad that I came to this country while the English are still playing with such a toy.
Yesterday J——- and I left Blackheath, and reached Liverpool last night. The rest of my family will follow in a few days; and so finishes our residence in Bennoch's house, where I, for my part, have spent some of the happiest hours that I have known since we left our American home. It is a strange, vagabond, gypsy sort of life,—this that we are leading; and I know not whether we shall finally be spoiled for any other, or shall enjoy our quiet Wayside, as we never did before, when once we reach it again.
The evening set in misty and obscure; and it was dark almost when J——- and I arrived at the landing stage on our return. I was struck with the picturesque effect of the high tower and tall spire of St. Nicholas, rising upward, with dim outline, into the duskiness; while midway of its height the dial-plates of an illuminated clock blazed out, like two great eyes of a giant.
September 13th.—On Saturday my wife, with all her train, arrived at Mrs. B———'s; and on Tuesday—vagabonds as we are—we again struck our tent, and set out for