Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete

N >> Nathaniel Hawthorne >> Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete

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Last week I dined at Mr. F. Heywood's to meet Mr. Adolphus, the author of
a critical work on the Waverley Novels, published long ago, and intended
to prove, from internal evidence, that they were written by Sir Walter
Scott. . . . . His wife was likewise of the party, . . . . and also a
young Spanish lady, their niece, and daughter of a Spaniard of literary
note. She herself has literary tastes and ability, and is well known to
Prescott, whom, I believe, she has assisted in his historical researches,
and also to Professor Ticknor; and furthermore she is very handsome and
unlike an English damsel, very youthful and maiden-like; and her manners
have all ardor and enthusiasm that were pleasant to see, especially as
she spoke warmly of my writings; and yet I should wrong her if I left the
impression of her being forthputting and obtrusive, for it was not the
fact in the least. She speaks English like a native, insomuch that I
should never have suspected her to be anything else.

My nerves recently have not been in an exactly quiet and normal state. I
begin to weary of England and need another clime.

September 6th.--I think I paid my last visit to the Exhibition, and feel
as if I had had enough of it, although I have got but a small part of the
profit it might have afforded me. But pictures are certainly quite other
things to me now from what they were at my first visit; it seems even as
if there were a sort of illumination within them, that makes me see them
more distinctly. Speaking of pictures, the miniature of Anne of Cleves
is here, on the faith of which Henry VIII. married her; also, the picture
of the Infanta of Spain, which Buckingham brought over to Charles I.
while Prince of Wales. This has a delicate, rosy prettiness.

One rather interesting portion of the Exhibition is the Refreshment-room,
or rather rooms; for very much space is allowed both to the first and
second classes. I have looked most at the latter, because there John
Ball and his wife may be seen in full gulp aid guzzle, swallowing vast
quantities of cold boiled beef, thoroughly moistened with porter or
bitter ale; and very good meat and drink it is.

At my last visit, on Friday, I met Judge Pollock of Liverpool, who
introduced me to a gentleman in a gray slouched hat as Mr. Du Val, an
artist, resident in Manchester; and Mr. Du Val invited me to dine with
him at six o'clock. So I went to Carlton Grove, his residence, and found
it a very pretty house, with its own lawn and shrubbery about it. . . . .
There was a mellow fire in the grate, which made the drawing-room very
cosey and pleasant, as the dusk came on before dinner. Mr. Du Val looked
like an artist, and like a remarkable man. . . . . We had very good talk,
chiefly about the Exhibition, and Du Val spoke generously and
intelligently of his brother-artists. He says that England might furnish
five exhibitions, each one as rich as the present. I find that the most
famous picture here is one that I have hardly looked at, "The Three
Marys," by Annibal Caracci. In the drawing-room there were several
pictures and sketches by Du Val, one of which I especially liked,--a
misty, moonlight picture of the Mersey, near Seacombe. I never saw
painted such genuine moonlight. . . . .

I took my leave at half past ten, and found my cab at the door, and my
cabman snugly asleep inside of it; and when Mr. Du Val awoke him, he
proved to be quite drunk, insomuch that I hesitated whether to let him
clamber upon the box, or to take post myself, and drive the cabman home.
However, I propounded two questions to him: first, whether his horse
would go of his own accord; and, secondly, whether be himself was
invariably drunk at that time of night, because, if it were his normal
state, I should be safer with him drunk than sober. Being satisfied on
these points, I got in, and was driven home without accident or
adventure; except, indeed, that the cabman drew up and opened the door
for me to alight at a vacant lot on Stratford Road, just as if there had
been a house and home and cheerful lighted windows in that vacancy. On
my remonstrance he resumed the whip and reins, and reached Boston Terrace
at last; and, thanking me for an extra sixpence as well as he could
speak, he begged me to inquire for "Little John" whenever I next wanted a
cab. Cabmen are, as a body, the most ill-natured and ungenial men in the
world; but this poor little man was excellently good-humored.

Speaking of the former rudeness of manners, now gradually refining away,
of the Manchester people, Judge ------ said that, when he first knew
Manchester, women, meeting his wife in the street, would take hold of her
dress and say, "Ah, three and sixpence a yard!" The men were very rough,
after the old Lancashire fashion. They have always, however, been a
musical people, and this may have been a germ of refinement in them.
They are still much more simple and natural than the Liverpool people,
who love the aristocracy, and whom they heartily despise. It is singular
that the great Art-Exhibition should have come to pass in the rudest
great town in England.

LEAMINGTON.

Lansdowne Cirrus, September 10th.--We have become quite weary of our
small, mean, uncomfortable, and unbeautiful lodgings at Chorlton Road,
with poor and scanty furniture within doors, and no better prospect from
the parlor windows than a mud-puddle, larger than most English lakes, on
a vacant building-lot opposite our house. The Exhibition, too, was fast
becoming a bore; for you must really love a picture, in order to tolerate
the sight of it many times. Moreover, the smoky and sooty air of that
abominable Manchester affected my wife's throat disadvantageously; so, on
a Tuesday morning, we struck our tent and set forth again, regretting to
leave nothing except the kind disposition of Mrs. Honey, our housekeeper.
I do not remember meeting with any other lodging-house keeper who did not
grow hateful and fearful on short acquaintance; but I attribute this, not
so much to the people themselves, as, primarily, to the unfair and
ungenerous conduct of some of their English guests, who feel so sure of
being cheated that they always behave as if in an enemy's country, and
therefore they find it one.

The rain poured down upon us as we drove away in two cabs, laden with
mountainous luggage to the London Road station; and the whole day was
grim with cloud and moist with showers. We went by way of Birmingham,
and stayed three hours at the great dreary station there, waiting for the
train to Leamington, whither Fanny had gone forward the day before to
secure lodgings for us (as she is English, and understands the matter)
We all were tired and dull by the time we reached the Leamington station,
where a note from Fanny gave us the address of our lodgings. Lansdowne
Circus is really delightful after that ugly and grimy suburb of
Manchester. Indeed, there could not possibly be a greater contrast than
between Leamington and Manchester,--the latter built only for dirty uses,
and scarcely intended as a habitation for man; the former so cleanly, so
set out with shade trees, so regular in its streets, so neatly paved, its
houses so prettily contrived and nicely stuccoed, that it does not look
like a portion of the work-a-day world.

KENILWORTH.

September 13th.--The weather was very uncertain through the last week,
and yesterday morning, too, was misty and sunless; notwithstanding which
we took the rail for Kenilworth before eleven. The distance from
Leamington is less than five miles, and at the Kenilworth station we
found a little bit of an omnibus, into which we packed ourselves,
together with two ladies, one of whom, at least, was an American. I
begin to agree partly with the English, that we are not a people of
elegant manners. At all events there is sometimes a bare, hard, meagre
sort of deportment, especially in our women, that has not its parallel
elsewhere. But perhaps what sets off this kind of behavior, and brings
it into alto relievo, is the fact of such uncultivated persons travelling
abroad, and going to see sights that would not be interesting except to
people of some education and refinement.

We saw but little of the village of Kenilworth, passing through it
sidelong fashion, in the omnibus; but I learn that it has between three
and four thousand inhabitants, and is of immemorial antiquity. We saw a
few old, gabled, and timber-framed houses; but generally the town was of
modern aspect, although less so in the immediate vicinity of the castle
gate, across the road from which there was an inn, with bowling-greens,
and a little bunch of houses and shops. Apart from the high road there
is a gate-house, ancient, but in excellent repair, towered, turreted, and
battlemented, and looking like a castle in itself. Until Cromwell's
time, the entrance to the castle used to be beneath an arch that passed
through this structure; but the gate-house being granted to one of the
Parliament officers, he converted it into a residence, and apparently
added on a couple of gables, which now look quite as venerable as the
rest of the edifice. Admission within the outer grounds of the castle is
now obtained through a little wicket close beside the gate-house, at
which sat one or two old men, who touched their hats to us in humble
willingness to accept a fee. One of them had guide-books for sale; and,
finding that we were not to be bothered by a cicerone, we bought one of
his books.

The ruins are perhaps two hundred yards from the gate-house and the road,
and the space between is a pasture for sheep, which also browse in the
inner court, and shelter themselves in the dungeons and state apartments
of the castle. Goats would be fitter occupants, because they would climb
to the tops of the crumbling towers, and nibble the weeds and shrubbery
that grow there. The first part of the castle which we reach is called
Caesar's Tower, being the oldest portion of the ruins, and still very
stalwart and massive, and built of red freestone, like all the rest.
Caesar's Tower being on the right, Leicester's Buildings, erected by the
Earl of Leicester, Queen Elizabeth's favorite, are on the left; and
between these two formerly stood other structures which have now as
entirely disappeared as if they had never existed; and through the wide
gap, thus opened, appears the grassy inner court, surrounded on three
sides by half-fallen towers and shattered walls. Some of these were
erected by John of Gaunt; and among these ruins is the Banqueting-Hall,--
or rather was,--for it has now neither floor nor roof, but only the
broken stone-work of some tall, arched windows, and the beautiful, old
ivied arch of the entrance-way, now inaccessible from the ground. The
ivy is very abundant about the ruins, and hangs its green curtains quite
from top to bottom of some of the windows. There are likewise very large
and aged trees within the castle, there being no roof nor pavement
anywhere, except in some dungeon-like nooks; so that the trees having
soil and air enough, and being sheltered from unfriendly blasts, can grow
as if in a nursery. Hawthorn, however, next to ivy, is the great
ornament and comforter of these desolate ruins. I have not seen so much
nor such thriving hawthorn anywhere else,--in the court, high up on
crumbly heights, on the sod that carpets roofless rooms,--everywhere,
indeed, and now rejoicing in plentiful crops of red berries. The ivy is
even more wonderfully luxuriant; its trunks being, in some places, two or
three feet in diameter, and forming real buttresses against the walls,
which are actually supported and vastly strengthened by this parasite,
that clung to them at first only for its own convenience, and now holds
them up, lest it should be ruined by their fall. Thus an abuse has
strangely grown into a use, and I think we may sometimes see the same
fact, morally, in English matters. There is something very curious in
the close, firm grip which the ivy fixes upon the wall, closer and closer
for centuries. Neither is it at all nice as to what it clutches, in its
necessity for support. I saw in the outer court an old hawthorn-tree, to
which a plant of ivy had married itself, and the ivy trunk and the
hawthorn trunk were now absolutely incorporated, and in their close
embrace you could not tell which was which.

At one end of the Banqueting-Hall, there are two large bay-windows, one
of which looks into the inner court, and the other affords a view of
the surrounding country. The former is called Queen Elizabeth's
Dressing-room. Beyond the Banqueting-Hall is what is called the Strong
Tower, up to the top of which we climbed principally by the aid of the
stones that have tumbled down from it. A lady sat half-way down the
crumbly descent, within the castle, on a camp-stool, and before an easel,
sketching this tower, on the summit of which we sat. She said it was Amy
Robsart's Tower; and within it, open to the day, and quite accessible, we
saw a room that we were free to imagine had been occupied by her. I do
not find that these associations of real scenes with fictitious events
greatly heighten the charm of them.

By this time the sun had come out brightly, and with such warmth that we
were glad to sit down in the shadow. Several sight-seers were now
rambling about, and among them some school-boys, who kept scrambling up
to points whither no other animal, except a goat, would have ventured.
Their shouts and the sunshine made the old castle cheerful; and what with
the ivy and the hawthorn, and the other old trees, it was very beautiful
and picturesque. But a castle does not make nearly so interesting and
impressive a ruin as an abbey, because the latter was built for beauty,
and on a plan in which deep thought and feeling were involved; and having
once been a grand and beautiful work, it continues grand and beautiful
through all the successive stages of its decay. But a castle is rudely
piled together for strength and other material conveniences; and, having
served these ends, it has nothing left to fall back upon, but crumbles
into shapeless masses, which are often as little picturesque as a pile of
bricks. Without the ivy and the shrubbery, this huge Kenilworth would
not be a pleasant object, except for one or two window-frames, with
broken tracery, in the Banqueting-Hall. . . . .

We stayed from eleven till two, and identified the various parts of the
castle as well as we could by the guide-book. The ruins are very
extensive, though less so than I should have imagined, considering that
seven acres were included within the castle wall. But a large part of
the structures have been taken away to build houses in Kenilworth village
and elsewhere, and much, too, to make roads with, and a good deal lies
under the green turf in the court-yards, inner and outer. As we returned
to the gate, my wife and U---- went into the gate-house to see an old
chimney-piece, and other antiquities, and J----- and I proceeded a little
way round the outer wall, and saw the remains of the moat, and Lin's
Tower,--a real and shattered fabric of John of Gaunt.

The omnibus now drove up, and one of the old men at the gate came
hobbling up to open the door, and was rewarded with a sixpence, and we
drove down to the King's Head. . . . . We then walked out and bought
prints of the castle, and inquired our way to the church and to the ruins
of the Priory. The latter, so far as we could discover them, are very
few and uninteresting; and the church, though it has a venerable
exterior, and an aged spire, has been so modernized within, and in so
plain a fashion, as to have lost what beauty it may once have had. There
were a few brasses and mural monuments, one of which was a marble group
of a dying woman and her family by Westmacott. The sexton was a cheerful
little man, but knew very little about his church, and nothing of the
remains of the Priory. The day was spent very pleasantly amid this
beautiful green English scenery, these fine old Warwickshire trees, and
broad, gently swelling fields.

LIVERPOOL.

September 17th.--I took the train for Rugby, and thence to Liverpool.
The most noticeable character at Mrs. Blodgett's now is Mr. T------, a
Yankee, who has seen the world, and gathered much information and
experience already, though still a young man,--a handsome man, with black
curly hair, a dark, intelligent, bright face, and rather cold blue eyes,
but a very pleasant air and address. His observing faculties are very
strongly developed in his forehead, and his reflective ones seem to be
adequate to making some, if not the deepest, use of what he sees. He has
voyaged and travelled almost all over the world, and has recently
published a book of his peregrinations, which has been well received. He
is of exceeding fluent talk, though rather too much inclined to unfold
the secret springs of action in Louis Napoleon, and other potentates, and
to tell of revolutions that are coming at some unlooked-for moment, but
soon. Still I believe in his wisdom and foresight about as much as in
any other man's. There are no such things. He is a merchant, and
meditates settling in London, and making a colossal fortune there during
the next ten or twenty years; that being the period during which London
is to hold the exchanges of the world, and to continue its metropolis.
After that, New York is to be the world's queen city.

There is likewise here a young American, named A------, who has been at a
German University, and favors us with descriptions of his student life
there, which seems chiefly to have consisted in drinking beer and
fighting duels. He shows a cut on his nose as a trophy of these combats.
He has with him a dog of St. Bernard, who is a much more remarkable
character than himself,--an immense dog, a noble and gentle creature; and
really it touches my heart that his master is going to take him from his
native snow-mountain to a Southern plantation to die. Mr. A------ says
that there are now but five of these dogs extant at the convent; there
having, within two or three years, been a disease among them, with which
this dog also has suffered. His master has a certificate of his
genuineness, and of himself being the rightful purchaser; and he says
that as he descended the mountain, every peasant along the road stopped
him, and would have compelled him to give up the dog had he not produced
this proof of property. The neighboring mountaineers are very jealous of
the breed being taken away, considering them of such importance to their
own safety. This huge animal, the very biggest dog I ever saw, though
only eleven months old, and not so high by two or three inches as he will
be, allows Mr. ------ to play with him, and take him on his shoulders (he
weighs, at least, a hundred pounds), like any lapdog.

LEAMINGTON.

Lansdowne Circus, October 10th.--I returned hither from Liverpool last
week, and have spent the time idly since then, reposing myself after the
four years of unnatural restraint in the Consulate. Being already pretty
well acquainted with the neighborhood of Leamington, I have little or
nothing to record about the prettiest, cheerfullest, cleanest of English
towns.

On Saturday we took the rail for Coventry, about a half-hour's travel
distant. I had been there before, more than two years ago. . . . . No
doubt I described it on my first visit; and it is not remarkable enough
to be worth two descriptions,--a large town of crooked and irregular
streets and lanes, not looking nearly so ancient as it is, because of new
brick and stuccoed fronts which have been plastered over its antiquity;
although still there are interspersed the peaked gables of old-fashioned,
timber-built houses; or an archway of worn stone, which, if you pass
through it, shows like an avenue from the present to the past; for just
in the rear of the new-fangled aspect lurks the old arrangement of
court-yards, and rustiness, and grimness, that would not be suspected
from the exterior.

Right across the narrow street stands St. Michael's Church with its tall,
tall tower and spire. The body of the church has been almost entirely
recased with stone since I was here before; but the tower still retains
its antiquity, and is decorated with statues that look down from their
lofty niches seemingly in good preservation. The tower and spire are
most stately and beautiful, the whole church very noble. We went in, and
found that the vulgar plaster of Cromwell's time has been scraped from
the pillars and arches, leaving them all as fresh and splendid as if just
made.

We looked also into Trinity Church, which stands close by St. Michael's,
separated only, I think, by the churchyard. We also visited St. John's
Church, which is very venerable as regards its exterior, the stone being
worn and smoothed--if not roughened, rather--by centuries of storm and
fitful weather. This wear and tear, however, has almost ceased to be a
charm to my mind, comparatively to what it was when I first began to see
old buildings. Within, the church is spoiled by wooden galleries, built
across the beautiful pointed arches.

We saw nothing else particularly worthy of remark except Ford's Hospital,
in Grey Friars' Street. It has an Elizabethan front of timber and
plaster, facing on the street, with two or three peaked gables in a row,
beneath which is a low, arched entrance, giving admission into a small
paved quadrangle, open to the sky above, but surrounded by the walls,
lozenge-paned windows, and gables of the Hospital. The quadrangle is but
a few paces in width, and perhaps twenty in length; and, through a
half-closed doorway, at the farther end, there was a glimpse into a
garden. Just within the entrance, through an open door, we saw the neat
and comfortable apartment of the Matron of the Hospital; and, along the
quadrangle, on each side, there were three or four doors, through which
we glanced into little rooms, each containing a fireplace, a bed, a chair
or two,--a little, homely, domestic scene, with one old woman in the
midst of it; one old woman in each room. They are destitute widows, who
have their lodging and home here,--a small room for each one to sleep,
cook, and be at home in,--and three and sixpence a week to feed and
clothe themselves with,--a cloak being the only garment bestowed on them.
When one of the sisterhood dies each old woman has to pay twopence
towards the funeral; and so they slowly starve and wither out of life,
and claim each their twopence contribution in turn. I am afraid they
have a very dismal time.

There is an old man's hospital in another part of the town, on a similar
plan. A collection of sombre and lifelike tales might be written on the
idea of giving the experiences of these Hospitallers, male and female;
and they might be supposed to be written by the Matron of one, who had
acquired literary taste and practice as a governess,--and by the Master
of the other, a retired school-usher.

It was market-day in Coventry, and far adown the street leading from it
there were booths and stalls, and apples, pears, toys, books, among which
I saw my Twice-Told Tales, with an awful portrait of myself as
frontispiece,--and various country produce, offered for sale by men,
women, and girls. The scene looked lively, but had not much vivacity in
it.

October 27th.--The autumn has advanced progressively, and is now fairly
established, though still there is much green foliage, in spite of many
brown trees, and an enormous quantity of withered leaves, too damp to
rustle, strewing the paths,--whence, however, they are continually swept
up and carried off in wheelbarrows, either for neatness or for the
agricultural worth, as manure, of even a withered leaf. The pastures
look just as green as ever,--a deep, bright verdure, that seems almost
sunshine in itself, however sombre the sky may be. The little plats of
grass and flowers, in front of our circle of houses, might still do
credit to an American midsummer; for I have seen beautiful roses here
within a day or two; and dahlias, asters, and such autumnal flowers, are
plentiful; and I have no doubt that the old year's flowers will bloom
till those of the new year appear. Really, the English winter is not so
terrible as ours.

October 30th.--Wednesday was one of the most beautiful of all days, and
gilded almost throughout with the precious English sunshine,--the most
delightful sunshine ever made, both for its positive fine qualities and
because we seldom get it without too great an admixture of water. We
made no use of this lovely day, except to walk to an Arboretum and
Pinetum on the outskirts of the town. U---- and Mrs. Shepard made an
excursion to Guy's Cliff.

[Here comes in the visit to Leicester's Hospital and Redfern's Shop, and
St. Mary's Church, printed in Our Old Home.--ED.]

From Redfern's we went back to the market-place, expecting to find J-----
at the Museum, but the keeper said he had gone away. We went into this
museum, which contains the collections in Natural History, etc., of a
county society. It is very well arranged, and is rich in specimens of
ornithology, among which was an albatross, huge beyond imagination. I do
not think that Coleridge could have known the size of the fowl when he
caused it to be hung round the neck of his Ancient Mariner. There were a
great many humming-birds from various parts of the world, and some of
their breasts actually gleamed and shone as with the brightest lustre of
sunset. Also, many strange fishes, and a huge pike taken from the river
Avon, and so long that I wonder how he could turn himself about in such a
little river as the Avon is near Warwick. A great curiosity was a bunch
of skeleton leaves and flowers, prepared by a young lady, and preserving
all the most delicate fibres of the plant, looking like inconceivably
fine lace-work, white as snow, while the substance was quite taken away.
In another room there were minerals, shells, and a splendid collection of
fossils, among which were remains of antediluvian creatures, several feet
long. In still another room, we saw some historical curiosities,--the
most interesting of which were two locks of reddish-brown hair, one from
the head and one from the beard of Edward IV. They were fastened to a
manuscript letter which authenticates the hair as having been taken from
King Edward's tomb in 1739. Near these relics was a seal of the great
Earl of Warwick, the mighty kingmaker; also a sword from Bosworth Field,
smaller and shorter than those now in use; for, indeed, swords seem to
have increased in length, weight, and formidable aspect, now that the
weapon has almost ceased to be used in actual warfare. The short Roman
sword was probably more murderous than any weapon of the same species,
except the bowie-knife. Here, too, were Parliamentary cannon-balls,
etc. . . . .