TRAVELLING.
[To TILE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR."] do not want to enter the lists against a lady, especially against one who handles her pen with so much point and effect as does " A Wife on Her Travels." I would only say that stay-at- home travellers ought to have a hearing, and as one of the number I am anxious to show that the enjoyment derivable from change of air and scene may be obtained within British bounds. Even Edward's excellent wife must expect to be weary of foreign travel. The time will come when the Continent will have lost its aspect of novelty, when Colin and his sisters will be grown into intelligent companions, and the faithful Hannah be superannuated. Then, I venture to prophesy, will Mrs. Edward think with favour of the plan I have followed for some years, a plan which, with your permission, I will roughly sketch out here. I had had my fill of the Continent. The Seine, the Rhine, the Elbe, even the Vistula and the Volga, had borne me on their turbid bosoms. Pine clad hills more than enough had come into my view. Famous and beautiful cities, with their museums and galleries, their curiosities and their art treasures, were laid open to me. Paris and Prague, Hamburg and Cologne, Copenhagen and Berlin, Dresden and Leipsic, Petersburg and Moscow, became severally and by turns a nine days' wonder after that, a weariness of the flesh and of the bones.
For picturesque loveliness, pure air, variety of scene, including quiet corners for seclusion and bustling centres of animation, England was found to transcend all the places I had seen. It is now some eight years ago that with these feelings I began to deviate from the regular plan of summer pastime, having discovered that a set visit to Margate, Ramsgate, Hastings, or Brighton was anything but recreative or refreshing. Eleven months in London gave enough of the excitement that springs from crowded streets, spurious nigger minstrels, and Punch and Judy. These attrac- tions at the sea side were not attractive in that one duodecimal fragment of the year which made and still makes our holiday. My little society was large enough in numbers and height to make seclusion not solitude. , So I resolved to explore the neighbourhood of some town at the sea-side for a quiet village where a modest lodging might be found. Brighton was the scene of my first and least fortunate adventure. A march eastward as far as Rotting- dean proved fruitless and unpleasant, the rain coming down smartly. The railway train then bore me westward to Lancing, where a few days after 1 and mine settled fora month in a cottage that might have been comfortable but for the cross old dame who owned it, and her cross daughter, and a miserable granddaughter, who was crying all day, owing to the ill treatment of the other two. From this distressing music we escaped by passing our time out of doors, on the shingle, in walks to Worthing, Broadwater, Shore- ham, and once, with the assistance of a donkey for the young, to that fine old site, Bramber Castle. Well stored fruit gardens gave a pleasant flavour to the few charms of this not very romantic region in Sussex.
The next year we were lucky enough to secure a clean little house at Sandown, in the Isle of Wight. The furniture was of the scantiest, and our luggage in consequence rather voluminous, including, as it did, much that the lodging-house keeper usually
provides. But then the rent was only four guineas a month. I must here explain that the modest apartments I look for are seldom to be found in the best sites or close to the sea. But happily we have no invalid in the party, and for reinvigorating purposes a quarter or half an hour's walk to the beach is practically the same thing as a long stroll on the beach, especially when the approach to the shore is picturesque, as we have often found it. More difficult is the matter of bathing where there are no bathing- machines. At Sandown there were but two, which was practically ivti equivalent to none. At the time of our visit these two were monopolized during the best bathing hours by the Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, who drove in from some distance to take possession of them. With a little care and circumspection, and a few yards of serge, we have always been able to accomplish this delicate business with decency and propriety. Unhappy must be the mind that cannot enjoy a month of fine weather in the Isle of Wight. We did enjoy our month, visiting with ease Shanklin, Ventnor, Brading, St. Helen's, the Downs, Newport, and Canis- brooke Castle.
Another summer found us at St. Margaret's, on the Kentish coast. Travellers along the high road from Dover to Widmer, when they have surmounted the hill and passed round tho Castle, proceed over a well tilled bit of table-land. About two miles on- ward may be seen, on the east, one or two houses and a church tower. They announce the pretty village of St. Margaret-at- Cliffe, which, on closer inspection, proves to be more considerable than it seems from the highway. Comfortable lodgings, a com- fortable landlady (spite of her twins), a field in front of the garden, and a very picturesque beach, made us consider this ven- ture. a complete success. Weimer, remarkable for nothing so much as its occupants, the Lord Wardens, was within a walk, and quaint old Deal too. Dover was at an easy distance, and con- tributed an incident to the newspapers in our presence by pre- senting a portrait of the Lord Warden, the veteran Palmerston, to itself. It may not be widely known that St. Margaret's has a coinage of its own. The master of a large boys' school there has had the wit to provide a brass token for his pupils' pocket-money that passes current in the village, and preserves the young gentle- men from spendthrift habits beyond bounds. The sea view from the cliff in fine weather is charming, showing just enough of the French coast to induce pleasant vague thoughts of foreign lands. A peculiar interest among our little society here was excited by a small circumstance that had nothing unusual about it but that it was real and sad. The bed- room window of a sick boy was to be seen across the field in front of our house. His thin, white hands, and pale, wasted face were often raised as he lay near the window, while the sun in the west shed a ruddy glory over the unhedged wheat-fields that stretched far around. The face was not melancholy, and sympathy with it was not altogether sadness. But I am digressing. The act of recalling these pleasant trips brings the accompanying incidents of interest and pleasure to the surface. I spare you further reminiscences, and will not now ask for space to tell of other Augusts and Septembers spent at Blundeston, famous in David Copperfield, Penzance and St. Michael's Mount, Lulworth and Lulworth Castle. All these expeditions, let me add, without being deemed sordid, were comparatively inexpensive, and there- fore within the reach of all the gentlemen in that Civil Service which Edward adorns. We do not at such times expect to have the indoor comforts and luxuries of home, but living in the open air as much as possible, we get hungry enough to enjoy a meal in a plain sitting-room, and tired enough to sleep soundly in a
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