Selected Journal Entries by Beatrix Potter - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)

Beatrix Potter, Delphi Classics

• Publisher: Delphi Classics (Parts Edition)
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781788774550
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Classics
• Index: Literature

This eBook features the unabridged text of 'Selected Journal Entries by Beatrix Potter - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)' from the bestselling edition of 'The Complete Works of Beatrix Potter'.

Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. The Delphi Classics edition of Potter includes original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of the author, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.

eBook features:
* The complete unabridged text of 'Selected Journal Entries by Beatrix Potter - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)'
* Beautifully illustrated with images related to Potter's works
* Individual contents table, allowing easy navigation around the eBook
* Excellent formatting of the text
Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to learn more about our wide range of titles

1892

FALMOUTH

We came to Falmouth on 31st of March 92 for our Easter holiday. It is a tremendous long journey, perhaps seeming longer than it is because one is less conversant with the route than with either of the lines to the North. We started at 10.15 stopping only twice (Swindon and Taunton) before reaching Exeter, and got in at six.

I may mention we came on the Broad Gauge. An ordinary width of carriage but the wheels projecting almost outside it. I understand it is to be finally abolished in May.

It was a cloudless day, but a cold east wind in town. As we got west the sun became more powerful, and by the time we reached Exeter people were walking along the dusty roads with umbrellas.

The spring growth is far more advanced here, green leaves burst on hawthorn and some sycamores, where in London are bare sticks. On the whole the spring is late, however, doubtless from want of rain, for it has been as hot as mid-summer and smothered with dust. This dry dustiness is a little unlucky for seeing the famed Falmouth Tropical Gardens, but one cannot have everything, and we never before had such a glory for weather, cloudless days, burning sun, and an air so pure that it transmits every smell within twenty yards, from wall-flowers to fish and manure.

We have had only two cloudy days out of twelve, on one of which were a few drops of rain. On many nights it was so warm that one could sit out till nine o’clock watching the waves in the moonlight. It is a peculiarity of this climate, that, apart from actual sunshine, the night feels scarcely colder than the day, which happens because a great proportion of the warmth comes from the sea.

As to this county of Cornwall, the part which most surprised me was Liskeard and Bodmin roads, on the backbone of the county as it were. It reminded me of Wales. Great plantations, very remote and uninhabited, with the evening light striking sideways through the gaps in the hills, and a beautiful bright stream, the Fowey, sparkling under the oak trees. I thought there were no trees in Cornwall.

After Lostwithiel, we got into a district which realized my expectation of a Cornish wilderness. Such a nasty place, not a town nor even a straggling line like the Welsh miners’ villages, but about one cottage to every two fields, scattered evenly over the whole landscape without visual thoroughfares, but that matters the least as there are no gates to the gaps in the stone dykes.

There is a mine on the average to every hundred acres, and deserted shafts, usually unprotected, as common as rabbit holes, and a sprinkling of china-clay all over the county.

The latter in itself is rather a beautiful substance, though it is said to infect and ruin the rivers. I saw it stored (in blocks rather larger than salt) in St Austell, in a long range of sheds beside the line. It is of a softer and more pleasing colour and consistency than chalk.

To the north over above this interesting landscape, one could see the skirts of Dartmoor forming a howling wilderness, once inhabited by a race appropriately named the Gubbins.

On the left the railway skirted the coast, alternately looking down now and then on little creeks and harbours deep below, where the china clay was being loaded in Brigs, and we got our first sight of the green Cornish sea, and cutting across further inland, the creeks running up into deep combes, over which we passed, a single line of rails on perfectly frightful white wooden bridges.

One is apt to smile at the descriptions in old county histories of terrific cliffs and horrid gorges, where real nature on enquiry presents very ordinary rocks, but I wonder what Gilpin Esq would have said to those bridges. When it comes to green flags and a wobbling motion, it is quite time they were rebuilt of stone. We must have crossed at least twenty.

The combes themselves seen from this giddy height were very pretty, the steep sides clothed with hanging woods of stunted oak and fine wild hollies, and down below in the distance a glimpse of brilliant sea. On the uplands between them more tin mines, of forlorn appearance.

The industry is said to be in a bad way at present, but I imagine it always presents rather a scaly aspect, having all the ugliness without the size and importance of a coal or iron foundry.

Falmouth, or rather Penryn, though not over promising, is most disfigured by a foreground of this unpleasing character. I believe there are no active mines actually near the town.

The railway takes a sweep to the left and comes round above the south beach, the terminus being on the Isthmus at the back of Pendennis Castle. The harbour and town on the left, the hotel and the commencement of villas on the right above the beach, and the railway cuts through some delightful little old houses and gardens.

How can one complain of a line that has palms planted along its embankments? They are the first thing that strikes a new arrived. I do not admire them myself, but they are perfectly well-grown specimens of their kind, i e they have no stunted or starved appearance of exotics out of place.

There are very fine evergreen oaks, bay tree, aloes and hollies. One eucalyptus tree about thirty-five feet high in the old Killigrew Garden, but it has been touched by the wind. In the same garden of the quaint old manor house, Arwenack, now Lord Kimberley’s estate office, is a red camellia in full flower, and the children offer camellias and rhododendrons in the market quite commonly.

This old-fashioned residential end of the town is very pretty. We walk about and peep wistfully over the garden walls of the Foxes. They are garnished with barbed wire, and I have even observed broken glass, but inside the sacred precincts all is exceedingly peaceful and sunny. So much so that my father the day after our arrival expressed a strong wish to turn Friend.

One garden at Penjerrick, the residence of Miss Fox, who with her nephew Mr Robert Fox, seems to be the head of the family - is thrown open to visitors twice a week. It is a rambling old house full of aviaries and pets, doves cooing, and beautiful Persian cats walking about under the rookery on the lawn.

The house stands at the very head of a straight narrow combe, with trees shutting in either side, a tropical garden in the steep trough of the ravine, and a little patch of blue sea far below in the distance. It is the most successful and striking piece of landscape-gardening I ever met with, but struck me as being almost too picturesque. It must be extremely beautiful in summer, but after all, tree ferns and feathery canes are rather out of place in an old English garden. There is nothing like a box-border and the scent of wall-flower and polyanthus over a snug brick wall.

One thing at Penjerrick amused us, an ingenious arrangement of cord and pulley, whereby the old dame at the Lodge was able to open the gate without leaving the porch of her Cottage, a charming example of that union of kindly comfort and successful usefulness in which Quakers excel.

Those of this town have fixed their dwellings in pleasant places, but do not seem over-burdened with wealth. Perhaps the property of the Foxes has decreased through sub-division. They seem very numerous. Mr R. Fox and his aunt are said to be the only members of the family who are well-off.

The name appears constantly in the town, intermingled with the Cornish Tre, Pol, and Pen, also Hodgekins and Peases intermarried. St Mawes also is said to be full of Quakers, but I do not see that they have any Meeting House on that side of the bay.

They are not recognizable in the streets, having altogether dropped the Quaker costume, but I fancy they have retained more of the old-fashioned enthusiasm and simplicity than the Friends in London. All the same, it does not strike me as a strong Congregation, this point of vitality, exceedingly earnest, and the building almost full, but would not hold above fifty or sixty persons. So many were old men.

But indeed these interesting people are almost certain to dwindle out of existence in time. They are too good for this world, even for this cloudless beautiful Land’s End.

The Chapel is a good modern building, but from its small size, I doubt if the Quakers are really so numerous in this town as one had supposed. They seem however, to be much respected, and presumably a power in the place. Whether it be owing to their influence or a characteristic of Cornwall.

This is a quiet, well-conducted town, which is the more remarkable owing to the number of British and foreign seamen loitering about. It forms a great contrast to Devonshire towns, particularly Ilfracombe, but it may be the Welsh who upset the latter place.

I have seen only one man drunk since we have been here, and observed no fighting or roughness of any sort amongst the sailors. They loll about in the main street, spitting on the pavement, their only objectionable habit; shake hands with one another in an elaborate manner, and stare unmercifully for the first week. Indeed all the people do that, and appear inquisitive, and if you look back they pass the time of day amiably.

The foreign sailors stare impartially at everything in a fidgety inquisitive fashion. Some of them are very picturesque. I saw one leaning against a post on the quay for hours, in a scarlet woollen cap, bright blue jersey, and great sea-boots, others with sashes round their middles, and one old Frenchman in sabots. They appear on their good behaviour and attract no attention amongst the natives.

The town is cosmopolitan, one sees five languages on the window of the barber’s shop. Everything has a nautical flavour, the baker sells ship bread, the grocer calls himself a ship’s chandler, the ironmonger’s window is full of binnacles, pulleys and lanterns, sail cloth is the leading article at the drapers, and in one shop they announce fresh water on sale. Also, every mortal shop sells Valencia oranges, such bad ones too.

It is a poor town for shops, except one or two connected with the shipping, and the streets very narrow and steep. They are not overclean either, and in the morning every householder sets out a pail or wooden box of refuse, right out on the pavement, and there is a smell of rotten fish.

Burton’s old curiosity shop which makes the greatest display is quite a museum, crammed from floor to garret with odds and ends, but the great part absolute rubbish. The foreign things, which form the greater part of the stock, struck me as not so much bona-fide curios bought from sailors, as an inferior class of article imported wholesale. Perhaps the oddest part of this collection was a great quantity of French cavalry sabres, pistols, helmets and bayonets from German battlefields and the surrender of Metz.

How he got them I know not, but they were certainly genuine, any quantity of sabres at five shillings apiece and holster pistols, said to be Waterloo, and rusty enough for Blenheim, at about the same price. There were hideous African idols and weapons labelled ‘poisoned’ in large letters, which is a novel way of attracting purchasers, but indeed it seemed more of a museum than a shop.

Mr Burton, a stout grey gentleman in spectacles reading a paper, would hardly answer enquiries lest he should appear to press one, and his trust and confidence were really charming. Ladies and gentlemen were requested to walk up into twelve rooms including the garrets, and on the stairs tumble over several large ships’ bells which they may ring if they want an attendant.

Little Miss Burton, who explained from a long way off that I had not broken some dancing Japanese pottery, which was true, but she could not possibly see. I bought a white pot-head of bone which was one of the few English curios of any antiquity, excepting a man-trap and sundry small cannon-balls.

Outside the shop on a plank were some old books at twopence each, which was not so cheap as appears at sight, for they were mostly second volumes of sermons, also one Latin Boethius of great size bound in calf, all at twopence.

I am afraid old books are at a discount down here, my father gave us an absurd account of a book sale he attended at Truro, to pass the time, with a little old auctioneer, ‘Do I see a Penbury? seventeen volumes for ten-pence — do I see a rise of suspense?’, pointing with a pencil, and knocking down the lots therewith. Somebody On the Atonement and three other works thrown in, for which a curate offered five-pence but was cut out by another bid of eightpence. The volume The Odyssey of Homer four-pence, so Mr Burton may make a profit after all.

As to his trust and confidence, I fancy it is justified by the conduct of the town. There are three policemen - I have seen one of them at the Barbers. They have a Hutch no larger than the Tub of Diogenes, at the back of Custom House Quay, with a great flag-staff and a very little garden.

They are the most odd specimens, just ordinary natives dressed up in blue clothes, and all seem to have bunions, or very mis-fitting boots. They are on friendly conversational terms with the other sailors, and I have seen one of them having eggs at a Butchers.

The people here are all singularly alike, and one can well believe the statement that they are the purest bred race in Britain. I am only surprised that the old Cornish dialect has died out earlier than several others, for they are extremely isolated in situation, and if one or two persons whom I have talked to were fair examples, they are naïve and unspoiled to an amusing degree. Very friendly, kindly, cheerful, healthy, long-lived, and the numerous old people very merry, which speaks well for a race.

The children are extremely pretty, but like the Welsh, it goes off.

The women certainly are not on the whole, though intelligent and fresh-complexioned. The universal type is black or rusty, with crisp hair, women more black than men, and blue eyes very common with both shades.

An ordinary type with the men, (the young men especially, are so like as to be twins), is a short thick neck, slump in the chops, short straight nose, (with the women very commonly turns up, which is a reason why they are the less good looking), and in both sexes a straight narrow forehead, eyebrows strongly marked and deep-set.

As the men’s faces become thinner throug...

Table of contents

• Title page
• BEATRIX POTTER
• COPYRIGHT
• Beatrix Potter: Parts Edition
• Parts Edition Contents
• Selected Journal Entries
• CONTENTS
• 1881
• 1882
• 1883
• 1884
• 1885
• 1886
• 1887
• 1890
• 1891
• 1892
• 1893
• 1894
• 1895
• 1896
• The Delphi Classics Catalogue