Died in Lebanon, Engaged in Mission Work, October 25th, 1881

High on the hills we laid her in repose,
        And left our treasure, but we little wist
    How soon the ranges of deep amethyst
That roll up heavenward to the Syrian snows
Would yield to this one jewel where it glows
    Midway ’twixt blue and blue.  Beloved of Christ,
    Not vainly was thy pure life sacrificed
For Him who led thee bravely to the close.

Where’er among the vales of Lebanon
    Between the olives and the mulberries
      We catch a glimpse of Him they crucified,
      We see thee ever walking at His side,
    And by the fuller sunlight of thine eyes
We know thy heart its happiness has won.

(Valete: Tennyson and other Memorial Poems, p. 123)

Hits: 5226

The main feature of the immediate surroundings of the town [Barmouth] is the gorse-clad steep of Dinas Oleu, with its sunburnt grasses contrasting with the vivid fern and rocky outcrop, and made beautiful on its lower slopes by witch-elms and long-limbed beeches, whose tall smooth trunks stand out white as the rocks shine white upon the cliff side. (p. 17)

Whether the cliff obtained its name from the whiteness of rock, or in olden days from some beacon which shone out at night-time to guide the fishermen to the haven, is unknown;  but a “Fortress of Light” it is to all who, with heavy hearts in this dark and cloudy day of war, pass up by its many paths of access to the sunshine and the glory of the seascape as seen therefrom. (p. 17)

I do not know any cliff with such fellside beauty so easily accessible from a village town, and happy are the inhabitants who have this recreation ground sealed to their use for ever.  Climb up the sloping path at the back of the Cors-y-gedol Hotel, and in five minutes you will be above the town and the happy shouts of children below, while the murmur and scent of the “infinite sea” fill the air. (pp. 17-18)….

Passing upward till we gain one of the main means of access to the famous Panorama Walk, we come upon the terraced gardens and high uplifted house of Tyn-y-fynnon, which seems to take us back to Italy as we look at its quaint steps and its architectural substructures.  Here dwelt, till her death in 1917, Fannie Talbot, the mother of the remarkable artist Quartus Talbot, and gifted friend of John Ruskin, Frances Power Cobbe, and Francesca Alexander.  With her wisdom she was the constant counsellor and friend of the Barmouth people, rich and poor;  public spirited as she was generous, it was she who, in 1874, having learned of Mr. Ruskin’s newly formed Guild of St. George, which he had set on foot in 1871, for the salvation of England, offered him twelve or thirteen of the cottages on the steep immediately below her house. (pp. 18-19)….

It was whilst I was staying in her hospitable house, in the year 1895, that Mrs. Talbot determined to present the cliff adjacent to her garden to the National Trust, and as it is the first property the National Trust ever received it is worth while telling the story of how it came about.  I was in correspondence with Horne and Birkett, solicitors, who had sent me, at Sir Robert Hunter’s request, the proposed articles of association of the Trust, which was then being formed.  Mrs. Talbot had a natural love for law, and she desired to look through the papers.  At the end she said: “I am so grateful for this chance, for I perceive your National Trust will be of the greatest use to me.  I have long wanted to secure to the public for ever the enjoyment of Dinas Oleu, but I wish to put it into the custody of some society that will never vulgarize it, or prevent wild Nature from having its own way; I have no objection to grassy paths or to stone seats in proper places, but I wish to avoid the abomination of asphalt paths and the cast-iron seats of serpent design which disfigure so largely our public parks, and it appears to me that your association has been born in the nick of time to be my friend.  If your Trust will accept it, Dinas Oleu shall be yours so soon as lawyers can make arrangements.”

(A Nation’s Heritage, pp. 13-26)

Hits: 5583

[And so I] gained the Duddon Bridge.  There as I stood watching the water, crystal-clear, cast the shadows of its dimpling upon the grey blue shallows, I was suddenly attracted to a gleam of gold in the sparse woodland by the bank, and passing by the forge up the road through the open copse towards Duddon Hall, the scent, not of violets, but of garlic for the moment troubled me; but I forgot all about the wild garlic in the beauty of the white anemones and the scentless grey blue violets which spangled the under growth, and after about a hundred yards I found myself at the beginning of such a woodland field of the cloth of gold as ever was laid for the coming of a May Queen, or the royal pageant of spring.  I had no right to leave the road, but if all the retinue of the laird of Donnerdale had come out against me, I feel I should have made a dash for it, for here, in the copse of grey ash shoots, and purpling birches, and glossy hazels, filled with the song of birds innumerable, with the sound of Duddon lisping among its pebbles and chiming merrily in my ear, were thousands upon tens of thousands of the bright-eyed daffodils growing in silent splendour unimaginable. (pp. 8-9)

The children of countless years, they seemed to have possessed themselves of every square foot of the tender undergrowth, they found foothold on the runnel edges, they glowed within the shadow of the woodland trenches, they dazzled the sun itself from the rocky knolls, they shook with delight upon the river islands and nodded and moved to their own shadows in the quiet pools.  “A poet could not but be gay in such a jocund company.”  One felt oneself smiling all over with pure gladness to think of the happiness of this vast multitude of April children, and one thanked the poet of the Duddon for having put into such simple verse his faith to make it the faith of others, namely that “every flower enjoys the air it breathes.” (p. 9)….

Sunshine showered upon me as I passed along the Duddon, and the old disused millrace.  At my side, the shells of the wind-flower, opened so wide for delight, one felt they would not care to close again.  Here and there like bits of lapis lazuli, the first bluebell was seen, and there in deepest gold, the marigold clusters shone.  Lifting one’s eyes from the daffodils for a moment, and looking up towards the copses on the opposite shore one saw, as my honest friend had told me, “sic sheets of primroses as nivver waur.”  They broidered the hedgerows, they sheeted the meadow lands and filled the cool interspace of shade and sun with tender light, and the blackbirds carolled with their deepest altos, the thrushes called with their highest trebles, and the chiffchaffs quavered and thrilled from the fragrant larch tresses, and with the sound of water in my ears, and melody of birds filling the air, I passed to where nearer Duddon Hall the daffodil myriads shone in their royallest splendour.  Here in their wanton love of wandering they had passed beyond the edges of the copse-land, and madcap revellers were tossing their heads in the open meadow-land with such sense of exuberance of joy as made one just sit down amongst them and let their golden frolic fill one’s blood.  The inexorable hours would not allow of one’s remaining, or one might have been sitting there in daffodil delight now.  Never did Duddon valley, with its blue distance, and its hanging woods by Osier and Donnerdale, its crystal river, and its blue grey shadows, seem more fair. (pp. 10-11)

I passed back a happier man and leaned upon the Duddon Bridge; I was in good company, the Poet of the daffodil was at my side; it was for all I knew the last time I should be permitted to see so fair an April day, the river “gliding at its own sweet will” downward to the sea had glided thus, before the druids went a-worshipping beneath yonder hill, and if the Barrow Waterworks Company will permit, will go on gliding for ten thousand years, with just such crystal clearness, just such sound.  These daffodils that lay their golden light along the stream, and fill the woodland with their “stationary sunshine,” so grew, and so lightened the copses, when the Britons clomb the Pen, or the Roman soldiers made their great coast road, or the Vikings grazed their horses on Hest Fell.  Ten thousand years hence these daffodils shall shine for other eyes with just the same power to touch the human heart with tender gratitude and springtide joy. (pp. 11-12)

(A Rambler’s Notebook at the English Lakes, pp. 1-12)

Hits: 5484

Sir,—Your correspondent who complains of the broken bottle and litter nuisance at Nower, near Dorking, has sounded a note of real alarm for the public enjoyment of beautiful open spaces.  In Whitsun week at Haydon-Ball a resident near the summit of the hill told me that she and her daughter collected in one day three bushels of wastepaper and three boxes full of broken bottles and glass.  Within a few yards of the top the local committee of the National Trust had a notice asking visitors not to leave litter about.  I cannot help thinking we shall not get rid of this nuisance until our education authorities, through the teachers of all our schools, make a point of calling the children’s attention (1) to the unsightliness of such litter and (2) to the thoughtlessness and selfishness which destroy the amenities of the place for those who come after them.

(The Times, 1916, 24 June, p. 9.)

Hits: 5415