The New Inn, Gloucester Aug. 30, 1926
Dear Honey:-
Now I'll have a pause in letters again, but I think I had five from you and lots of others while I was in London, so I ought to be able to get on. And some did get lost for Charlotte sent me one that had been returned to her from Amsterdam. We left our addresses everywhere there. I had a hunch that was the place where things got hung up. The Bennett's knew very little English and the Amer. Exp. was very casual indeed. I think I've had all your letters, but it has been hard to be sure when you were speeding on so fast.
Let me see, I sent your letter off the night after Anne left, I think, after I had finally bought your scarf and my raincoat. I saved the envelope the scarf came in, but I couldn't keep my box - such a nice, pretty one.
A youth and maiden have just come in, perchance seeking privacy - but I can't help being here - no place to write in my room. A noisy bunch of English working at a cross-word puzzle has just left. They were awfully giggly - as bad as any American crowd I ever saw. Well-dressed - not scum.
Well, Saturday I did just a few errands - and it was lunch-time! But I ran down the thing I failed on before - pictures of living British physiologists. One is in hand, and maybe a half dozen ordered - from photographers of the Bachrach variety. One would make any size, but I paused at that costing 12/6 for Bayliss, Starling &c. I hope they'll come all right. They might arrive before I do! If there is any question about duty, let the matter stand until I get there. Of course there should be none. One or two trifles I have for you will amuse you. The latest is a cake of soap from Yardley's! You'll see why I bought it when you get it. And I have a half pound of tea like N. Nielson's. [sic] That I'll give you a drink of.
Saturday afternoon I went to the Tower! Never got there before. Too many folks, but otherwise interesting. Those crown jewels are wonderful, especially George's crown and sceptre with the new South African diamonds in. The one in the head of the sceptre was shaped roughly and with many facets - also considerably larger than this. [drawing of a rounded triangle about two inches long] 'Twas the most blazing thing I ever beheld. Those things didn't seem real somehow - they were so gorgeous. The golden salt cellars amused me. The "Armouries" were likewise impressive - and this summer has made me reflect ont he amount of attention the human race has given to war-like instruments and protections. This collection has an amazing lot of things, plain spears and up to armor suits for men and horses. I don't like to have the war emphasis so common.
Sept. 1 - Hereford.
I'm out in a very pleasant park, sitting on a bench with the cathedral tower in sight through the trees and directly in front a bowling green where 5 groups of men are playing quietly. One first rolls a white ball any old distance I should judge. Then each rolls two larger black balls at it - and I have been told the black balls are loaded and the fine art consists in getting the curve. It is very apparent that they roll in curves, but I've seen nobody hit a white ball yet! It's pretty - why don't we do it?
To go back. Sunday forenoon I went to church at Westminster because there was no Temple Church service. Lots of folks, but no remarkable music or sermon. Then I sat around on park benches until time for lunch - at the sam place in the Strand we found so good. After that I went to the National Gallery, which certainly is wonderful. It has been all rearranged since 1922 and it certainly does give the impression of all masterpieces. But for Dutch it can't touch that Rijks Museum in Amsterdam. I certainly wish I had had time to get a copy of one thing there - Nicholas Maes' Grace before Meat. It's much more like my mother in spirit than any portrait of her could ever be. There were no pictures on sale Sunday, but neither did I really want anything much. We had only a little time in the British portrait gallery, but even if all the pictures aren't masterpieces it certainly does give an extraordinary sense of a country's achievement, not to mention royalty. That Reynolds - Romney- Lawrence set of portrait painters was almost as satisfying as some of the Dutch ones.
Never got even inside the portal of the Brit. Mus. though it basked up on the garden of the house we stayed in! A week is no time at all in London. Sunday I took a bus out to Kew and played arounda while there - wonderful place in spite of thousands of folks. The English public is peaceful and doesn't eat peanuts or scatter papers.
Monday I left fairly early for Gloucester with no events on the way. The cathedral is most interesting and spots are lovely, for instance the tower and the Perp. choir. But it does try me to have the architecture all mixed up. There wasn't a place that I could find where it really gave the effect of one style except inside the choir, and even then you had to avoid looking through to a choir aisle! I'm getting quicker at seeing details - give me time and I might recognize a few things. The nave has pillars almost as big as Durham's but not so lovely, for the triforium is very low and the vaulting is not Norman at all but Gothic - it spoils the effect. The choir is fine Perp. They claim this began with the Gloucester masons, and it's surely beautiful, a sort of cage inside the Norman shell. The big east window is very cleverly arranged so that the Lady Chapel beyond does not shade it. There are Perpendicular cloisters, glazed, which seemed to me the most exquisitely proportioned example of that style I've ever seen. I got you a card if I can find it. They have a charming private garden in the middle, but the second verger who took me around revealed it. On one side there is a long scriptorium with spaces for many monks. Near the door which led to the refectory there is a side place parallel to the cloister, also beautifully vaulted, with a long trough having several outlets to a tank effect in the garden and thence to the river - where they washed their hand[s] before meals! Across the cloister is another offset where they say the monks hung their towels, with a flue to give air-current to dry them. Along near by on the wall bench are several "boards" cut in the stone, for games, to be sure - and some of the Englis recognized the type of game! It is pleasant to think they played games - but the passage where they entertained callers did not conduce to cheerful lingering. The crypt has squatty Norman pillars, some doubled to hold the weight of the central tower when that was added.
Note - it's five o'clock. This place is nearly deserted - tea-time! There have been many here before.
The Gloucester choir was good - and likewise the audience, but there weren't many at Hereford yesterday. It's well the cathedrals are endowed!
Tuesday morning I stayed around the Gloucester cathedral some more hours, but there is a spell of murk over this part of the world and even I saw no point in going up the tower. The paper calls it a "shallow depression" and hope is extended today that it is passing! No pictures possible even with my new camera, alas, and it's a good picture region.
Yesterday I came on to Hereford at noon, and found my Amsterdam acquaintance (who has a Bryn Mawr fellowship this year) was most friendly. Nowe, Katharine Wallis. She has been to my address - she'd asked me in Amsterdam to stay with her, but I didn't, though I let her ask me to her house - and left a note asking me to go out after the cathedral service. This cathedral is small and mixed but with soem nice places - e.g. a little chantry with modern windows one of which shows the cathedral as it was before the west end fell in 1786. There's a Norman nave again, with lovely decoration getting richer toward the east. There's a beautiful place where you can see Norman decoration still kept on low Gothic arches, and there's an Early English crypt and Lady Chapel above it. I've bought another cathedral back, for these things do fascinate me. A verger gave me a real architectural private lecture this morning - very improving. If it weren't so darned dark I could see more - not rain, but plain murk. (How do you spell it?)
After service I got a taxi out to Miss Wallis' and this was an occasion to be remembered. Mother and father are away - she and sister alone. Sister is not a university woman but makes the most adorable little sketches you ever saw. Those she did in Holland were exquisite, of canals and boats and doorways and such. They took one of the Federation trips and had a poor time - no good arrangements made, &c. Also they had the official report, from which all is left out which one wishes to know!
We had tea in a room with so many lovely things in it - also good tea. Beautiful old dishes, several generations back. Then we saw the garden. The place is 3 acres, on the edge of town - old cedar trees &c on one side which is high above the roads, and then all kinds of gardens. We must have a rockery some where - so many things grow in one. There's a beauty in the Sargent estate - we could do it. This one was long and varied, and then there were all the nice smelling things, herbs and flowers - and roses and jasmine and gladioli and so many things. A green big enough for tennis only they don't do it, an orchard, and of course a hedge around it all. It seems like continued comfort, not wealth. Then we talked a while, and I could give travel hints in the U.S.A. as well as get information about here, and then we had supper. Both maids are away, so this was sister's effort. Soup, poor! "Cold joint," delicious, anda grand salad - they've been rare this summer. Then we had "Castle pudding" - little tall cakes standing on a heap of applesauce - quite English, I'm told - then mulberries, huge, juicy things, of which I'd liek some more this minute. Then they showed me the family china - very beautiful, but also lots of little dinky things, like a little Royal Worcester basket bought on grandmother's honeymoon! But they were a sight to feast your eyes on, Royal Worcester and Spade and other like names.
About then I left and Miss Wallis insisted on walking in with me, though I'm sure sister was scared to stay alone. They have no telephone (!) and the town wasn't running its electric lights. It's as big as Northampton for a guess, and in this weather it was surely dark, though only about nine.
But wasn't that a nice episode? She will come to Mt. H- this year, I think, and I hope she'll like the U.S.A. I don't think she starts out with a sure feeling of return, she might stay. She's not young - may be 30-35, though I think her grad. work has not been great. But she's interesting and of that cultured background we do not have, that's all. She sails the 15th, on the Homeric.
I'll go and mail this and see if I have any more mail. A letter written by my cousin Jessee on July 27 in Alaska reached me here. She had received about ten days before my letter written before I sailed! Now Alaska is remote! She had crossed the Arctic Circle, but not for long. Was having a fine time up there with the Clough family. I have my tickets for the Music Festival and Miss Wallis says the soloists are fine. They always begin with Elijah, which I hear, and end with the Messiah. I get two concerts, each of which is done in two parts, with lunch in the intermission - 11:30-1, 2:30-4 +/-. Also I have a place at the British Camp Hotel from Sept. 2-7, and at Worcester for Sept. 7 & 8, that last almost unexpectedly good fortune. I hope Alma has done as well and that we'll meet. I've written today for my last night over here, at Southampton.
This will reach you about as you get back to South Hadley, probably, though it may wait for you. Mails are faster here than in Scandinavia! I'm so glad you've been having such a good trip and have felt so well. It'll give you a good start for the year.
If this should reach you in Newburyport, my greetings to your family. I have a little joke for your sister - I think I've heard her say things that make it appropriate - but she may not get it for a spell.
Much love, honey dear -
Abby