A Cathedral Courtship

Published：2026-07-29 18:08:08 Source: weighted stuffed animals for 7 year olds under 50 dollars Author: Plush Animals

Transcribed from the 1893 Gay and dress up accessories ltdBird edition by David Price,email [email protected]

A CATHEDRAL COURTSHIP

by
KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN

WITH FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS
BY CLIFFORD CARLETON

LONDON: GAY AND BIRD
5 CHANDOS STREET STRAND
1893

All rights reserved

First Edition June 1893.
Second Edition July 1893.
Third Edition September 1893.
Fourth Edition November 1893.
Fifth Edition October 1894.

to my bostonfriend
SALEMINA
no anglomaniac, but
a true briton

SHE

Winchester, May28, 1891
The Royal Garden Inn.

We are doing the English cathedral towns, aunt Celia andI.  Aunt Celia has an intense desire to improve mymind.  Papa told her, when we were leaving Cedarhurst, thathe wouldn’t for the world have it too much improved, andaunt Celia remarked that, so far as she could judge, there was noimmediate danger; with which exchange of hostilities theyparted.

We are traveling under the yoke of an iron itinerary,warranted neither to bend nor break.  It was made out by ayoung High Church curate in New York, and if it had been blessedby all the bishops and popes it could not be more sacred to auntCelia.  She is awfully High Church, and I believe she thinksthis tour of the cathedrals will give me a taste for ritual andbring me into the true fold.  I have been hearing dear oldDr. Kyle a great deal lately, and aunt Celia says that he is themost dangerous Unitarian she knows, because he has leaningstowards Christianity.

Long ago, in her youth, she was engaged to a youngarchitect.  He, with his triangles and T-squares and things,succeeded in making an imaginary scale-drawing of her heart (upto that time a virgin forest, an unmapped territory), whichenabled him to enter in and set up a pedestal there, on which hehas remained ever since.  He has been only a memory for manyyears, to be sure, for he died at the age of twenty-six, beforehe had had time to build anything but a livery stable and acountry hotel.  This is fortunate, on the whole, becauseaunt Celia thinks he was destined to establish Americanarchitecture on a higher plane,—rid it of its base,time-serving, imitative instincts, and waft it to a height where,in the course of centuries, we should have been revered andfollowed by all the nations of the earth.  I went to see thelivery stable, after one of these Miriam-like flights of prophecyon the might-have-been.  It isn’t fair to judge aman’s promise by one performance, and that one a liverystable, so I shall say nothing.

This sentiment about architecture and this fondness for thevery toppingest High Church ritual cause aunt Celia to look onthe English cathedrals with solemnity and reverential awe. She has given me a fat notebook, with “KatharineSchuyler” stamped in gold letters on the Russia leathercover, and a lock and key to protect its feminineconfidences.  I am not at all the sort of girl who makesnotes, and I have told her so; but she says that I must at leastrecord my passing impressions, if they are ever so trivial andcommonplace.

I wanted to go directly from Southampton to London with theAbbotts, our ship friends, who left us yesterday.  RoderickAbbott and I had had a charming time on board ship (more charmingthan aunt Celia knows, because she was very ill, and her naturalpowers of chaperoning were severely impaired), and the prospectof seeing London sights together was not unpleasing; but RoderickAbbott is not in aunt Celia’s itinerary, which reads:“Winchester, Salisbury, Wells, Bath, Bristol, Gloucester,Oxford, London, Ely, Lincoln, York, Durham.”

Aunt Celia is one of those persons who are born to command,and when they are thrown in contact with those who are born to becommanded all goes as merry as a marriage bell; otherwisenot.

So here we are at Winchester; and I don’t mind all theRoderick Abbotts in the universe, now that I have seen the RoyalGarden Inn, its pretty coffee-room opening into the old-fashionedgarden, with its borders of clove pinks, its aviaries, and itsblossoming horse-chestnuts, great towering masses of pinkbloom!

Aunt Celia has driven to St. Cross Hospital with Mrs.Benedict, an estimable lady tourist whom she “pickedup” en route from Southampton.  I am tired, and stayedat home.  I cannot write letters, because aunt Celia has theguide-books, so I sit by the window in indolent content, watchingthe dear little school laddies, with their short jackets and widewhite collars; they all look so jolly, and rosy, and clean, andkissable!  I should like to kiss the chambermaid, too! She has a pink print dress; no bangs, thank goodness (it’scurious our servants can’t leave that deformity to theupper classes), but shining brown hair, plump figure, soft voice,and a most engaging way of saying, “Yes, miss? Anythink more, miss?”  I long to ask her to sit downcomfortably and be English, while I study her as a type, but ofcourse I mustn’t.  Sometimes I wish I could retirefrom the world for a season and do what I like, “surroundedby the general comfort of being thought mad.”

An elegant, irreproachable, high-minded model of dignity andreserve has just knocked and inquired what we will have fordinner.  It is very embarrassing to give orders to a personwho looks like a judge of the Supreme Court, but I saidlanguidly, “What would you suggest?”

“How would you like a clear soup, a good spring soup, tobegin with, miss?”

“Very much.”

“And a bit of turbot next, miss?”

“Yes, turbot, by all means,” I said, my mouthwatering at the word.

“And what for a roast, miss?  Would you enjoy ayoung duckling, miss?”

“Just the thing; and for dessert”—Icouldn’t think what we ought to have for dessert inEngland, but the high-minded model coughed apologetically andsaid, “I was thinking you might like gooseberry tart andcream for a sweet, miss.”

Oh that I could have vented my New World enthusiasm in ashriek of delight as I heard those intoxicating words, heretoforemet only in English novels!

“Ye-es,” I said hesitatingly, though I waspalpitating with joy, “I fancy we should like gooseberrytart (here a bright idea entered my mind) and perhaps in case myaunt doesn’t care for the gooseberry tart, you might bringa lemon squash, please.”

Now I had never met a lemon squash personally, but I had oftenheard of it, and wished to show my familiarity with Britishculinary art.

“One lemon squash, miss?”

“Oh, as to that, it doesn’t matter,” I saidhaughtily; “bring a sufficient number for twopersons.”

* * * *

Aunt Celia came home in the highest feather.  She hadtwice been taken for an Englishwoman.  She said she thoughtthat lemon squash was a drink; I thought it was a pie; but weshall find out at dinner, for, as I said, I ordered a sufficientnumber for two persons.

At four o’clock we attended even-song at thecathedral.  I shall not say what I felt when thewhite-surpliced boy choir entered, winding down those vaultedaisles, or when I heard for the first time that intoned service,with all its “witchcraft of harmonic sound.”  Isat quite by myself in a high carved-oak seat, and the hour waspassed in a trance of serene delight.  I do not have manyopinions, it is true, but papa says I am always strong onsentiments; nevertheless, I shall not attempt to tell even what Ifeel in these new and beautiful experiences, for it has beenbetter told a thousand times.

There were a great many people at service, and a large numberof Americans among them, I should think, though we saw nofamiliar faces.  There was one particularly nice young man,who looked like a Bostonian.  He sat opposite me.  Hedidn’t stare,—he was too well bred; but when I lookedthe other way, he looked at me.  Of course I could feel hiseyes,—anybody can, at least any girl can; but I attended toevery word of the service, and was as good as an angel. When the procession had filed out and the last strain of thegreat organ had rumbled into silence, we went on a tour throughthe cathedral, a heterogeneous band, headed by a conscientiousold verger who did his best to enlighten us, and succeeded invirtually spoiling my pleasure.

After we had finished (think of “finishing” acathedral in an hour or two!), aunt Celia and I, with one or twoothers, wandered through the beautiful close, looking at theexterior from every possible point, and coming at last to acertain ruined arch which is very famous.  It did not strikeme as being remarkable.  I could make any number of themwith a pattern, without the least effort.  But at any rate,when told by the verger to gaze upon the beauties of thiswonderful relic and tremble, we were obliged to gaze also uponthe beauties of the aforesaid nice young man, who was sketchingit.  As we turned to go away, aunt Celia dropped herbag.  It is one of those detestable, all-absorbing,all-devouring, thoroughly respectable, but never proud Bostonbags, made of black cloth with leather trimmings, “C. VanT.” embroidered on the side, and the top drawn up withstout cords which pass over the Boston wrist or arm.  As forme, I loathe them, and would not for worlds be seen carrying one,though I do slip a great many necessaries into auntCelia’s.

I hastened to pick up the horrid thing, for fear the niceyoung man would feel obliged to do it for me; but, in myindecorous haste, I caught hold of the wrong end and emptied theentire contents on the stone flagging.  Aunt Celiadidn’t notice; she had turned with the verger, lest sheshould miss a single word of his inspired testimony.  So wescrambled up the articles together, the nice young man and I; andoh, I hope I may never look upon his face again!

There were prayer-books and guide-books, a bottle of soda minttablets, a spool of dental floss, a Bath bun, a bit of gray frizzthat aunt Celia pins into her steamer cap, a spectacle case, abrandy flask, and a bonbon box, which broke and scattered clovesand cardamom seeds.  (I hope he guessed aunt Celia is adyspeptic, and not intemperate!)  All this was hopelesslyvulgar, but I wouldn’t have minded anything if there hadnot been a Duchess novel.  Of course he thought that itbelonged to me.  He couldn’t have known aunt Celia wascarrying it for that accidental Mrs. Benedict, with whom she wentto St. Cross Hospital.

After scooping the cardamom seeds out of the cracks in thestone flagging, he handed me the tattered, disreputable-lookingcopy of “A Modern Circe” with a bow thatwouldn’t have disgraced a Chesterfield, and then went backto his easel, while I fled after aunt Celia and her verger.

Memoranda: The Winchester Cathedral has the longestnave.  The inside is more superb than the outside. Izaak Walton and Jane Austen are buried there.

HE

Winchester, May28, 1891
The White Swan.

As sure as my name is Jack Copley, I saw the prettiest girl inthe world to-day,—an American, too, or I’m greatlymistaken.  It was in the cathedral, where I have beensketching for several days.  I was sitting in the end of aseat, at afternoon service, when two ladies entered by the sidedoor.  The ancient maiden, evidently the head of the family,settled herself devoutly, and the young one stole off by herselfto one of the old carved seats back of the choir.  She wasworse than pretty!  I took a sketch of her during service,as she sat under the dark carved-oak canopy, with this Latininscription over her head:—

Carltoncum
Dolby
Letania
IX Solidorum
Super Flumina
Confitebor tibi
Düc Probati

There ought to be a law against a woman’s making apicture of herself, unless she is willing to sit and besketched.

A black and white sketch doesn’t give any definite ideaof this charmer’s charms, but some time I’ll fill itin,—hair, sweet little hat, gown, and eyes, all in goldenbrown, a cape of tawny sable slipping off her arm, a knot ofyellow primroses in her girdle, carved-oak background, and theafternoon sun coming through a stained-glass window.  GreatJove!  She had a most curious effect on me, that girl! I can’t explain it,—very curious, altogether new, andrather pleasant!  When one of the choir boys sang, “Ohfor the wings of a dove!” a tear rolled out of one of herlovely eyes and down her smooth brown cheek.  I would havegiven a large portion of my modest monthly income for thefelicity of wiping away that teardrop with one of my newhandkerchiefs, marked with a tremendous “C” by mypretty sister.

An hour or two later they appeared again,—the dragon,who answers to the name of “aunt Celia,” and the“nut-brown mayde,” who comes when you call her“Katharine.”  I was sketching a ruinedarch.  The dragon dropped her unmistakably Boston bag. I expected to see encyclopædias and Russian tracts fallfrom it, but was disappointed.  The nut-brown mayde (who hasbeen brought up rigidly) hastened to pick up the bag, for fearthat I should serve her by doing it.  She was punished byturning it inside out, and I was rewarded by helping her pick upthe articles, which were many and ill assorted.  My littleromance received the first blow when I found that she reads theDuchess novels.  I think, however, she has the grace to beashamed of it, for she blushed scarlet when I handed her “AModern Circe.”  I could have told her that such ablush on such a cheek would atone for reading Mrs. Southworth,but I refrained.  After she had gone I discovered a slip ofpaper which had blown under some stones.  It proved to be anitinerary.  I didn’t return it.  I thought theymust know which way they were going; and as this was preciselywhat I wanted to know, I kept it for my own use.  She isdoing the cathedral towns.  I am doing the cathedraltowns.  Happy thought!  Why shouldn’t we do themtogether,—we and aunt Celia?

I had only ten minutes—to catch my train for Salisbury,but I concluded to run in and glance at the registers of theprincipal hotels.  Found my nut-brown mayde at once on thepages of the Royal Garden Inn register: “Miss Celia VanTyck, Beverly, Mass.; Miss Katharine Schuyler, NewYork.”  I concluded to stay over another train,ordered dinner, and took an altogether indefensible andinconsistent pleasure in writing “John Quincy Copley,Cambridge, Mass.,” directly beneath the charmer’sautograph.

SHE

Salisbury, June1
The White Hart Inn.

We left Winchester on the 1.06 train yesterday, and here weare within sight of another superb and ancient pile ofstone.  I wanted so much to stop at the Highflyer Inn inLark Lane, but aunt Celia said that if we were destitute ofpersonal dignity, we at least owed something to ourancestors.  Aunt Celia has a temperamental distrust of joyas something dangerous and ensnaring.  She doesn’trealize what fun it would be to date one’s letters from theHighflyer Inn, Lark Lane, even if one were obliged to consortwith poachers and cockneys in order to do it.

We attended service at three.  The music was lovely, andthere were beautiful stained-glass windows by Burne-Jones andMorris.  The verger (when wound up with a shilling) talkedlike an electric doll.  If that nice young man is making acathedral tour, like ourselves, he isn’t taking our route,for he isn’t here.  If he has come over for thepurpose of sketching, he wouldn’t stop at sketching onecathedral.  Perhaps he began at the other end and workeddown to Winchester.  Yes, that must be it, for the Emssailed yesterday from Southampton.

* *

June 2.

We intended to go to Stonehenge this morning, but it rained,so we took a “growler” and went to the Earl ofPembroke’s country place to see the pictures.  Had adelightful morning with the magnificent antiques, curios, andportraits.  The Van Dyck room is a joy forever.  Therewere other visitors; nobody who looked especiallyinteresting.  Don’t like Salisbury so well asWinchester.  Don’t know why.  We shall drive thisafternoon, if it is fair, and go to Wells to-morrow.  Mustread Baedeker on the bishop’s palace.  Oh dear! if onecould only have a good time and not try to know anything!

Memoranda: This cathedral has the highest spire. Remember: Winchester, longest nave;Salisbury, highest spire.

The Lancet style is those curved lines meeting in arounding or a sharp point like this

[Drawing like two very circularn’s next to each other]

and then joined together like this:

[Drawing like \/\/\/]

the way they used to scallop flannel petticoats. Gothic looks like triangles meeting together in various spotsand joined with beautiful sort of ornamented knobs. I think I know Gothic when I see it.  Then thereis Norman, Early English, fully developed EarlyEnglish, Early and Late Perpendicular, andTransition.  Aunt Celia knows them all apart.

HE

Salisbury, June3
The Red Lion.

I went off on a long tramp this afternoon, and coming on apretty river flowing through green meadows, with a fringe oftrees on either side, I sat down to make a sketch.  I heardfeminine voices in the vicinity, but, as these are generally apart of the landscape in the tourist season, I paid no specialnotice.  Suddenly a dainty patent-leather shoe floatedtowards me on the surface of the stream.  It evidently hadjust dropped in, for it was right side up with care, and wasdisporting itself right merrily.  “Did everJove’s tree drop such fruit?” I quoted, as I fishedit out on my stick; and just then I heard a distressed voicesaying, “Oh, aunt Celia, I’ve lost my smart littleLondon shoe.  I was sitting in a tree, taking a pebble outof the heel, when I saw a caterpillar, and I dropped it into theriver, the shoe, you know, not the caterpillar.” Hereupon she came in sight, and I witnessed the somewhat unusualspectacle of my nut-brown mayde hopping on one foot, like adivine stork, and ever and anon emitting a feminine shriek as heroff foot, clad in a delicate silk stocking, came in contact withthe ground.  I rose quickly, and, polishing the patentleather ostentatiously, inside and out, with my handkerchief, Ioffered it to her with distinguished grace.  She swayed onher one foot with as much dignity as possible, and thenrecognizing me as the person who picked up the contents of auntCelia’s bag, she said, dimpling in the most distractingmanner (that’s another thing there ought to be a lawagainst), “Thank you again; you seem to be a sort ofknight-errant!”

“Shall I—assist you?” I asked.  (Imight have known that this was going too far.)

“No, thank you,” she said, with polarfrigidity.  “Good-afternoon.”  And shehopped back to her aunt Celia without another word.

I don’t know how to approach aunt Celia.  She isformidable.  By a curious accident of feature, for which sheis not in the least responsible, she always wears an unfortunateexpression as of one perceiving some offensive odor in theimmediate vicinity.  This may be a mere accident of highbirth.  It is the kind of nose often seen in the“first families,” and her name betrays the fact thatshe is of good old Knickerbocker origin.  We go to Wellsto-morrow.  At least I think we do.

SHE

Gloucester, June9
The Spread Eagle.

I met him at Wells, and again at Bath.  We are alwaysbeing ridiculous, and he is always rescuing us.  Aunt Celianever really sees him, and thus never recognizes him when heappears again, always as the flower of chivalry and guardian ofladies in distress.  I will never again travel abroadwithout a man, even if I have to hire one from a Feeble-MindedAsylum.  We work like galley slaves, aunt Celia and I,finding out about trains and things.  Neither of us canunderstand Bradshaw, and I can’t even grapple with thelesser intricacies of the A B C railway guide.  The trains,so far as I can see, always arrive before they go out, and I cannever tell whether to read up the page or down.  It iscertainly very queer that the stupidest man that breathes, onethat barely escapes idiocy, can disentangle a railway guide, whenthe brightest woman fails.  Even the Boots at the inn inWells took my book, and, rubbing his frightfully dirty fingerdown the row of puzzling figures, found the place in a minute,and said, “There ye are, miss.”  It is veryhumiliating.  All the time I have left from the study ofroutes and hotels I spend on guide-books.  Now I’msure that if any one of the men I know were here, he could tellme all that is necessary as we walk along the streets.  Idon’t say it in a frivolous or sentimental spirit in theleast, but I do affirm that there is hardly any juncture in lifewhere one isn’t better off for having a man about.  Ishould never dare divulge this to aunt Celia, for shedoesn’t think men very nice.  She excludes them fromconversation as if they were indelicate subjects.

But, to go on, we were standing at the door of Ye Olde Belland Horns, at Bath, waiting for the fly which we had ordered totake us to the station, when who should drive up in afour-wheeler but the flower of chivalry.  Aunt Celia wassaying very audibly, “We shall certainly miss the train ifthe man doesn’t come at once.”

“Pray take this fly,” said the flower ofchivalry.  “I am not leaving till the nexttrain.”

Aunt Celia got in without a murmur; I sneaked in afterher.  I don’t think she looked at him, though she didvouchsafe the remark that he seemed to be a civil sort ofperson.

At Bristol, I was walking about by myself, and I espied asign, “Martha Huggins, Licensed Victualer.”  Itwas a nice, tidy little shop, with a fire on the hearth andflowers in the window, and, as it was raining smartly, I thoughtno one would catch me if I stepped inside to chat withMartha.  I fancied it would be so delightful and Dickensy totalk quietly with a licensed victualer by the name of MarthaHuggins.

Just after I had settled myself, the flower of chivalry camein and ordered ale.  I was disconcerted at being found in adramshop alone, for I thought, after the bag episode, he mightfancy us a family of inebriates.  But he didn’t evincethe slightest astonishment; he merely lifted his hat, and walkedout after he had finished his ale.  He certainly has theloveliest manners!

And so it goes on, and we never get any further.  I likehis politeness and his evident feeling that I can’t beflirted and talked with like a forward boarding-school miss, butI must say I don’t think much of his ingenuity.  Ofcourse one can’t have all the virtues, but, if I were he, Iwould part with my distinguished air, my charming ease, in factalmost anything, if I could have in exchange a few grains ofcommon sense, just enough to guide me in the practical affairs oflife.

I wonder what he is?  He might be an artist, but hedoesn’t seem quite like an artist; or a dilettante, but hedoesn’t seem in the least like a dilettante.  Or hemight be an architect; I think that is the most probable guess ofall.  Perhaps he is only “going to be” one ofthese things, for he can’t be more than twenty-five ortwenty-six.  Still he looks as if he were something already;that is, he has a kind of self-reliance in his mien,—notself-assertion, nor self-esteem, but belief in self, as if hewere able, and knew that he was able, to conquercircumstances.

HE

Gloucester, June10
The Bell.

Nothing accomplished yet.  Her aunt is a Van Tyck, and astiff one, too.  I am a Copley, and that delaysmatters.  Much depends upon the manner of approach.  Afalse move would be fatal.  We have six more towns (as peritinerary), and if their thirst for cathedrals isn’t slakedwhen these are finished we have the entire continent to do. If I could only succeed in making an impression on the retina ofaunt Celia’s eye!  Though I have been under her feetfor ten days, she never yet has observed me.  Thisabsent-mindedness of hers serves me ill now, but it may prove ablessing later on.

SHE

Oxford,June12
The Mitre.

It was here in Oxford that a grain of common sense entered thebrain of the flower of chivalry.  You might call it the dawnof reason.  We had spent part of the morning in High Street,“the noblest old street in England,” as our dearHawthorne calls it.  As Wordsworth had written a sonnetabout it, aunt Celia was armed for the fray,—a volume ofWordsworth in one hand, and one of Hawthorne in the other. (I wish Baedeker didn’t give such full information aboutwhat one ought to read before one can approach these places in aproper spirit.)  When we had done High Street, we went toMagdalen College, and sat down on a bench in Addison’sWalk, where aunt Celia proceeded to store my mind with theprincipal facts of Addison’s career, and his influence onthe literature of the something or other century.  Thecramming process over, we wandered along, and came upon“him” sketching a shady corner of the walk.

Aunt Celia went up behind him, and, Van Tyck though she is,she could not restrain her admiration of his work.  I wassurprised myself: I didn’t suppose so good looking a youthcould do such good work.  I retired to a safe distance, andthey chatted together.  He offered her the sketch; sherefused to take advantage of his kindness.  He said he would“dash off” another that evening, and bring it to ourhotel,—“so glad to do anything for afellow-countryman,” etc.  I peeped from behind a treeand saw him give her his card.  It was an awful moment; Itrembled, but she read it with unmistakable approval, and gavehim her own with an expression that meant, “Yours is good,but beat that if you can!”

She called to me, and I appeared.  Mr. John QuincyCopley, Cambridge, was presented to her niece, Miss KatharineSchuyler, New York.  It was over, and a very small thing totake so long about, too.

He is an architect, and of course has a smooth path into auntCelia’s affections.  Theological students, ministers,missionaries, heroes, and martyrs she may distrust, butarchitects never!

“He is an architect, my dear Katharine, and he is aCopley,” she told me afterwards.  “I never knewa Copley who was not respectable, and many of them have beenmore.”

After the introduction was over, aunt Celia asked himguilelessly if he had visited any other of the Englishcathedrals.  Any others, indeed!  This to a youth whohad been all but in her lap for a fortnight!  It was a blow,but he rallied bravely, and, with an amused look in my direction,replied discreetly that he had visited most of them at one timeor another.  I refused to let him see that I had evernoticed him before; that is, particularly.

Memoranda: “The very stones and mortar of this historictown seem impregnated with the spirit of restfulantiquity.”  (Extract from one of aunt Celia’sletters.)  Among the great men who have studied here are thePrince of Wales, Duke of Wellington, Gladstone, Sir Robert Peel,Sir Philip Sidney, William Penn, John Locke, the two Wesleys,Ruskin, Ben Jonson, and Thomas Otway.  (Look Otway up.)

HE

Oxford,June13
The Angel.

I have done it, and if I hadn’t been a fool and a cowardI might have done it a week ago, and spared myself a good deal ofdelicious torment.  I have just given two hours to a sketchof Addison’s Walk and carried it to aunt Celia at theMitre.  Object, to find out whether they make a long stay inLondon (our next point), and if so where.  It seems they godirectly through.  I said in the course of conversation,“So Miss Schuyler is willing to forego a Londonseason?  Marvelous self-denial!”

“My niece did not come to Europe for a Londonseason,” replied Miss Van Tyck.  “We go throughLondon this time merely as a cathedral town, simply because itchances to be where it is geographically.  We shall visitSt. Paul’s and Westminster Abbey, and then go directly on,that our chain of impressions may have absolute continuity and befree from any disturbing elements.”

Oh, but she is lovely, is aunt Celia!

Lincoln,June20
The Black Boy Inn.

I am stopping at a beastly little hole, which has the onemerit of being opposite Miss Schuyler’s lodgings.  Mysketch-book has deteriorated in artistic value during the lasttwo weeks.  Many of its pages, while interesting to me asreminiscences, will hardly do for family or studioexhibition.  If I should label them, the result would besomething like this:—

1.  Sketch of a footstool and desk where I first saw MissSchuyler kneeling.

2.  Sketch of a carved-oak chair, Miss Schuyler sittingin it.

3.  “Angel Choir.”  Heads of MissSchuyler introduced into the carving.

4.  Altar screen.  Full length figure of MissSchuyler holding lilies.

5.  Tomb of a bishop, where I tied Miss Schuyler’sshoe.

6.  Tomb of another bishop, where I had to tie it againbecause I did it so badly the first time.

7.  Sketch of the shoe; the shoe-lace worn out with muchtying.

8.  Sketch of the blessed verger who called her“madam,” when we were walking together.

9.  Sketch of her blush when he did it the prettiestthing in the world.

10.  Sketch of J. Q. Copley contemplating the ruins ofhis heart.

“How are the mighty fallen!”

SHE

Lincoln,June22
At Miss Brown’s, Castle Garden.

Mr. Copley hasdone something in the world; I was surethat he had.  He has a little income of his own, but he istoo proud and ambitious to be an idler.  He looked so manlywhen he talked about it, standing up straight and strong in hisknickerbockers.  I like men in knickerbockers.  AuntCelia doesn’t.  She says she doesn’t see how awell-brought-up Copley can go about with his legs in thatcondition.  I would give worlds to know how aunt Celia everunbent sufficiently to get engaged.  But, as I was saying,Mr. Copley has accomplished something, young as he is.  Hehas built three picturesque suburban churches suitable forweddings, and a state lunatic asylum.

Aunt Celia says we shall have no worthy architecture untilevery building is made an exquisitely sincere representation ofits deepest purpose,—a symbol, as it were, of itsindwelling meaning.  I should think it would be verydifficult to design a lunatic asylum on that basis, but Ididn’t dare say so, as Mr. Copley seemed to think it allright.  Their conversation is absolutely sublimated whenthey get to talking of architecture.  I have just copied twoquotations from Emerson, and am studying them every night forfifteen minutes before I go to sleep.  I’m going toquote them some time offhand, just after morning service, when weare wandering about the cathedral grounds.  The first isthis: “The Gothic cathedral is a blossoming in stone,subdued by the insatiable demand of harmony in man.  Themountain of granite blooms into an eternal flower, with thelightness and delicate finish as well as the aerial proportionand perspective of vegetable beauty.”  Then when hehas recovered from the shock of this, here is my second:“Nor can any lover of nature enter the old piles of Oxfordand English cathedrals without feeling that the forestoverpowered the mind of the builder, and that his chisel, his sawand plane, still reproduced its ferns, its spikes of flowers, itslocust, elm, pine, and spruce.”

Memoranda: Lincoln choir is an example of Early English orFirst Pointed, which can generally be told from somethingelse by bold projecting buttresses and dog-tooth moulding roundthe abacusses.  (The plural is my own, and it does notlook right.)  Lincoln Castle was the scene of manyprolonged sieges, and was once taken by OliverCromwell.

HE

York,June24
The Black Swan.

Kitty Schuyler is the concentrated essence of femininewitchery.  Intuition strong, logic weak, and the twoqualities so balanced as to produce an indefinable charm;will-power large, but docility equal, if a man is clever enoughto know how to manage her; knowledge of facts absolutely nil, butshe is exquisitely intelligent in spite of it.  She has away of evading, escaping, eluding, and then gives you anintoxicating hint of sudden and complete surrender.  She isdivinely innocent, but roguishness saves her frominsipidity.  Her looks?  She looks as you would imaginea person might look who possessed these graces; and she is worthlooking at, though every time I do it I have a rush of love tothe head.  When you find a girl who combines all thequalities you have imagined in the ideal, and who has added adozen or two on her own account, merely to distract you past allhope, why stand up and try to resist her charm?  Down onyour knees like a man, say I!

* * * *

I’m getting to adore aunt Celia.  I didn’tcare for her at first, but she is so deliciously blind! Anything more exquisitely unserviceable as a chaperon Ican’t imagine.  Absorbed in antiquity, she ignores thebabble of contemporaneous lovers.  That any man could lookat Kitty when he could look at a cathedral passes hercomprehension.  I do not presume too greatly on herabsent-mindedness, however, lest she should turn unexpectedly andrend me.  I always remember that inscription on the backs ofthe little mechanical French toys,—“Quoiqu’ellesoit très solidement montée, il faut ne pasbrutaliser la machine.”

And so my courtship progresses under aunt Celia’s verynose.  I say “progresses,” but it is impossibleto speak with any certainty of courting, for the essence of thatgentle craft is hope, rooted in labor and trained by love.

I set out to propose to her during service this afternoon bywriting my feelings on the fly-leaf of the hymn-book, orsomething like that; but I knew that aunt Celia would neverforgive such blasphemy, and I thought that Kitty herself mightconsider it wicked.  Besides, if she should chance to acceptme, there was nothing I could do, in a cathedral, to relieve myfeelings.  No; if she ever accepts me, I wish it to be in alarge, vacant spot of the universe, peopled by two only, andthose two so indistinguishably blended, as it were, that theywould appear as one to the casual observer.  So I practicedrepression, though the wall of my reserve is worn to the thinnessof thread-paper, and I tried to keep my mind on the droning minorcanon, and not to look at her, “for that way madnesslies.”

SHE

York,June26
High Petersgate Street.

My taste is so bad!  I just begin to realize it, and I amfeeling my “growing pains,” like Gwendolen in“Daniel Deronda.”  I admired the stained glassin the Lincoln Cathedral, especially the Nuremberg window. I thought Mr. Copley looked pained, but he said nothing. When I went to my room, I looked in a book and found that all theglass in that cathedral is very modern and very bad, and theNuremberg window is the worst of all.  Aunt Celia says shehopes that it will be a warning to me to read before I speak; butMr. Copley says no, that the world would lose more in one waythan it would gain in the other.  I tried my quotations thismorning, and stuck fast in the middle of the first.

Mr. Copley says that aunt Celia has been feeing the vergersaltogether too much, and I wrote a song about it called“The Ballad of the Vergers and the Foolish Virgin,”which I sang to my guitar.  Mr. Copley says it is clevererthan anything he ever did with his pencil, but of course he saysthat only to be agreeable.

We all went to an evening service last night.  Cominghome, aunt Celia walked ahead with Mrs. Benedict, who keepsturning up at the most unexpected moments.  She’sgoing to build a Gothicky memorial chapel somewhere.  Idon’t know for whom, unless it’s for BenedictArnold.  I don’t like her in the least, but four iscertainly a more comfortable number than three.  I scarcelyever have a moment alone with Mr. Copley; for go where I will anddo what I please, aunt Celia has the most perfect confidence inmy indiscretion, so she is always en évidence.

Just as we were turning into the quiet little street where weare lodging I said, “Oh dear, I wish that I knew somethingabout architecture!”

“If you don’t know anything about it, you arecertainly responsible for a good deal of it,” said Mr.Copley.

“I?  How do you mean?” I asked quiteinnocently, because I couldn’t see how he could twist sucha remark as that into anything like sentiment.

“I have never built so many castles in my life as sinceI’ve known you, Miss Schuyler,” he said.

“Oh,” I answered as lightly as I could,“air-castles don’t count.”

“The building of air-castles is an innocent amusementenough, I suppose,” he said, “but I’mcommitting the folly of living in mine.  I”—

Then I was frightened.  When, all at once, you find youhave something precious you only dimly suspected was to be yours,you almost wish it hadn’t come so soon.  But just atthat moment Mrs. Benedict called to us, and came tramping backfrom the gate, and hooked her supercilious, patronizing arm inMr. Copley’s, and asked him into the sitting-room to talkover the “lady chapel” in her new memorialchurch.  Then aunt Celia told me they would excuse me, as Ihad had a wearisome day; and there was nothing for me to do butto go to bed, like a snubbed child, and wonder if I should everknow the end of that sentence.  And I listened at the headof the stairs, shivering, but all that I could hear was that Mrs.Benedict asked Mr. Copley to be her own architect.  Herarchitect indeed!  That woman ought not to be at large!

Durham,July15
At Farmer Hendry’s.

We left York this morning, and arrived here about eleveno’clock.  It seems there is some sort of an electiongoing on in the town, and there was not a single fly at thestation.  Mr. Copley walked about in every direction, butneither horse nor vehicle was to be had for love nor money. At last we started to walk to the village, Mr. Copley so ladenwith our hand-luggage that he resembled a pack-mule.  Wemade a tour of the inns, but not a single room was to be had, notfor that night nor for three days ahead, on account of that sameelection.

“Hadn’t we better go on to Edinburgh, auntCelia?” I asked.

“Edinburgh?  Never!” she replied. “Do you suppose that I would voluntarily spend a Sunday inthose bare Presbyterian churches until the memory of these pastideal weeks has faded a little from my memory?  What, leaveout Durham and spoil the set?”  (She spoke of thecathedrals as if they were souvenir spoons.)  “Iintended to stay here for a week or more, and write up a recordof our entire trip from Winchester while the impressions werefresh in my mind.”

“And I had intended doing the same thing,” saidMr. Copley.  “That is, I hoped to finish off myprevious sketches, which are in a frightful state ofincompletion, and spend a good deal of time on the interior ofthis cathedral, which is unusually beautiful.”  (Atthis juncture aunt Celia disappeared for a moment to ask thebarmaid if, in her opinion, the constant consumption of maltliquors prevents a more dangerous indulgence in brandy andwhiskey.  She is gathering statistics, but as the barmaidscan never collect their thoughts while they are drawing ale, auntCelia proceeds slowly.)

“For my part,” said I, with mock humility,“I am a docile person who never has any intentions of herown, but who yields herself sweetly to the intentions of otherpeople in her immediate vicinity.”

“Are you?” asked Mr. Copley, taking out hispencil.

“Yes, I said so.  What are you doing?”

“Merely taking note of your statement, that’sall.—Now, Miss Van Tyck, I have a plan to propose.  Iwas here last summer with a couple of Harvard men, and we lodgedat a farmhouse half a mile from the cathedral.  If you willstep into the coffee-room of the Shoulder of Mutton andCauliflower for an hour, I’ll walk up to FarmerHendry’s and see if they will take us in.  I think wemight be fairly comfortable.”

“Can aunt Celia have Apollinaris and black coffee afterher morning bath?” I asked.

“I hope, Katharine,” said aunt Celiamajestically,—“I hope that I can accommodate myselfto circumstances.  If Mr. Copley can secure lodgings for us,I shall be more than grateful.”

So here we are, all lodging together in an ideal Englishfarmhouse.  There is a thatched roof on one of the oldbuildings, and the dairy house is covered with ivy, and FarmerHendry’s wife makes a real English courtesy, and there areherds of beautiful sleek Durham cattle, and the butter and creamand eggs and mutton are delicious; and I never, never want to gohome any more.  I want to live here forever, and wave theAmerican flag on Washington’s birthday.

I am so happy that I feel as if something were going to spoilit all.  Twenty years old to-day!  I wish mamma werealive to wish me many happy returns.

Memoranda: Casual remark for breakfast table or perhaps forluncheon,—it is a trifle heavy for breakfast: “Sincethe sixteenth century and despite the work of Inigo Jones and thegreat Wren (not Jenny Wren—Christopher), architecture hashad, in England especially, no legitimate development.”

HE

Durham,July19

O child of fortune, thy name is J. Q. Copley!  How did ithappen to be election time?  Why did the inns chance to befull?  How did aunt Celia relax sufficiently to allow me tofind her a lodging?  Why did she fall in love with thelodging when found?  I do not know.  I only know Fatesmiles; that Kitty and I eat our morning bacon and eggs together;that I carve Kitty’s cold beef and pour Kitty’ssparkling ale at luncheon; that I go to vespers with Kitty, anddine with Kitty, and walk in the gloaming with Kitty—andaunt Celia.  And after a day of heaven like this, like LornaDoone’s lover,—ay, and like every other lover, Isuppose,—I go to sleep, and the roof above me swarms withangels, having Kitty under it!

We were coming home from afternoon service, Kitty and I. (I am anticipating for she was “Miss Schuyler” then,but never mind.)  We were walking through the fields, whileMrs. Benedict and aunt Celia were driving.  As we cameacross a corner of the bit of meadow land that joins the stableand the garden, we heard a muffled roar, and as we looked roundwe saw a creature with tossing horns and waving tail making forus, head down, eyes flashing.  Kitty gave a shriek.  Wechanced to be near a pair of low bars.  I hadn’t beena college athlete for nothing.  I swung Kitty over the bars,and jumped after her.  But she, not knowing in her frightwhere she was nor what she was doing; supposing, also, that themad creature, like the villain in the play, would “stillpursue her,” flung herself bodily into my arms, crying,“Jack! Jack!  Save me!”

“It was the first time she had called me Jack,”and I needed no second invitation.  I proceeded to saveher,—in the usual way, by holding her to my heart andkissing her lovely hair reassuringly, as I murmured: “Youare safe, my darling; not a hair of your precious head shall behurt.  Don’t be frightened.”

She shivered like a leaf.  “I am frightened,”she said.  “I can’t help being frightened. He will chase us, I know.  Where is he?  What is hedoing now?”

Looking up to determine if I need abbreviate this blissfulmoment, I saw the enraged animal disappearing in the side door ofthe barn; and it was a nice, comfortable Durham cow,—thatsomewhat rare but possible thing, a sportive cow!

“Is he gone?” breathed Kitty from mywaistcoat.

“Yes, he is gone—she is gone, darling.  Butdon’t move; it may come again.”

My first too hasty assurance had calmed Kitty’s fears,and she raised her charming flushed face from its retreat andprepared to withdraw.  I did not facilitate thepreparations, and a moment of awkward silence ensued.

“Might I inquire,” I asked, “if the dearlittle person at present reposing in my arms will stay there(with intervals for rest and refreshment) for the rest of hernatural life?”

She withdrew entirely now, all but her hand, and her eyessought the ground.

“I suppose I shall have to now,—that is, if youthink—at least, I suppose you do think—at any rate,you look as if you were thinking—that this has been givingyou encouragement.”

“I do indeed,—decisive, undoubted, barefacedencouragement.”

“I don’t think I ought to be judged as if I werein my sober senses,” she replied.  “I wasfrightened within an inch of my life.  I told you thismorning that I was dreadfully afraid of bulls, especially madones, and I told you that my nurse frightened me, when I was achild, with awful stories about them, and that I never outgrew mychildish terror.  I looked everywhere about: the barn wastoo far, the fence too high, I saw him coming, and there wasnothing but you and the open country; of course I took you. It was very natural, I’m sure,—any girl would havedone it.”

“To be sure,” I replied soothingly, “anygirl would have run after me, as you say.”

“I didn’t say any girl would have run afteryou,—you needn’t flatter yourself; and besides, Ithink I was really trying to protect you as well as to gainprotection; else why should I have cast myself on you like acatamount, or a catacomb, or whatever the thing is?”

“Yes, darling, I thank you for saving my life, and I amwilling to devote the remainder of it to your service as a pledgeof my gratitude; but if you should take up life-saving as aprofession, dear, don’t throw yourself on a fellowwith”—

“Jack! Jack!” she cried, putting her hand over mylips, and getting it well kissed in consequence.  “Ifyou will only forget that, and never, never taunt me with itafterwards, I’ll—I’ll—well, I’ll doanything in reason; yes, even marry you!”

Canterbury, July31
The Royal Fountain.

I was never sure enough of Kitty, at first, to dare risktelling her about that little mistake of hers.  She is suchan elusive person that I spend all my time in wooing her, and cannever lay flattering unction to my soul that she is reallywon.

But after aunt Celia had looked up my family record and givena provisional consent, and papa Schuyler had cabled a reluctantblessing, I did not feel capable of any furtherself-restraint.

It was twilight here in Canterbury, and we were sitting on thevine-shaded veranda of aunt Celia’s lodging. Kitty’s head was on my shoulder.  There is somethingvery queer about that; when Kitty’s head is on my shoulder,I am not capable of any consecutive train of thought.  Whenshe puts it there I see stars, then myriads of stars, then, oh! Ican’t begin to enumerate the steps by which ecstasy mountsto delirium; but at all events, any operation which demandsexclusive use of the intellect is beyond me at these times. Still I gathered my stray wits together and said,“Kitty!”

“Yes, Jack?”

“Now that nothing but death or marriage can separate us,I have something to confess to you.”

“Yes,” she said serenely, “I know what youare going to say.  He was a cow.”

I lifted her head from my shoulder sternly, and gazed into herchildlike, candid eyes.

“You mountain of deceit!  How long have you knownabout it?”

“Ever since the first.  Oh, Jack, stop looking atme in that way!  Not the very first, not when I—notwhen you—not when we—no, not then, but the nextmorning I said to Farmer Hendry, ‘I wish you would keepyour savage bull chained up while we are here; aunt Celia isawfully afraid of them, especially those that go mad, likeyours!’  ‘Lor’, miss,’ said FarmerHendry, ‘he haven’t been pastured here for threeweeks.  I keep him six mile away.  There ben’tnothing but gentle cows in the home medder.’  But Ididn’t think that you knew, you secretive person!  Idare say you planned the whole thing in advance, in order to takeadvantage of my fright!”

“Never!  I am incapable of such an unnecessarysubterfuge!  Besides, Kitty, I could not have made anaccomplice of a cow, you know.”

“Then,” she said, with great dignity, “ifyou had been a gentleman and a man of honor, you would havecried, ‘Unhand me, girl!  You are clinging to me undera misunderstanding!’”

SHE

Chester,August8
The Grosvenor.

Jack and I are going over this same ground next summer, on ourwedding trip.  We shall sail for home next week, and wehaven’t half done justice to the cathedrals.  Afterthe first two, we saw nothing but each other on a generalbackground of architecture.  I hope my mind is improved, butoh, I am so hazy about all the facts I have read since I knewJack!  Winchester and Salisbury stand out superbly in mymemory.  They acquired their ground before it was occupiedwith other matters.  I shall never forget, for instance,that Winchester has the longest spire and Salisbury the highestnave of all the English cathedrals.  And I shall neverforget so long as I live that Jane Austen and Isaac Newt—Ohdear! was it Isaac Newton or Izaak Walton that was buried inWinchester and Salisbury?  To think that that interestingfact should have slipped from my mind, after all the trouble Itook with it!  But I know that it was Isaac somebody, andthat he was buried in—well, he was buried in one of thosetwo places.  I am not certain which, but I can ask Jack; heis sure to know.

Related articles