Lucy Montgomery - The Alpine Path

York, England

August 27, 1912

Last Monday we went to Keswick and stayed there until Thursday. It is impossible to exaggerate the beauty of the Lake District:

"The haughtiest heart its wish might bound

Through life to dwell delighted here."

And then it is so interwoven with much of the best in English literature. The very spirit of Wordsworth seems to haunt those enchanted valleys, those wild passes, those fairy-like lakes.

Monday afternoon we took a coach-drive around Lake Derwentwater. All was beautiful. An interesting sight was the Castle Rock, which figures as the magic castle of St. John in Scott's "Bridal of Triermain." There is only one point where the resemblance to a castle - said to be very striking - can be seen, and we were not fortunate enough to see it from that particular point.

Tuesday we went to Buttermere Lake; Wednesday we motored for eighty miles around Lake Windermere. Some of the huge rocks on the mountain tops are of very peculiar shape. One of them is named, 'The Lady Playing on the Organ.' It is on the very top of a majestic mountain and certainly does, from one point of view, look exactly like a woman seated at a huge organ. Somehow, it captivated my imagination and I wove a hundred fancies around it. Who was the player, sitting forever at her mighty instrument? And what wonderful melodies did she play on it when the winds of heaven blew about her and the mountain tempest thundered and the great stars stayed to listen?

That evening we walked out to the 'Druid Circle', a ring of large stones on a hill-top, supposed to have been in old time a temple of the sun.

Nothing I have seen thus far made such a vivid impression on me as this. The situation is magnificent. The hill is completely encircled by a ring of the most famous mountains in the Lake District, Helvellyn and Skiddaw among them, and the sense of majesty produced was overwhelming. Certainly those old sun-worshippers knew how to choose their sites. To stand there, at sunset, in the temple of a departed creed, surrounded by that assembly of everlasting hills and picture the rites, perchance dark and bloody, which must once have been celebrated there, was an experience never to be forgotten.

Friday we came to York, mainly to see the magnificent cathedral. It is magnificent, a dream of beauty made lasting in stone.

Yesterday afternoon I became the proud and happy possessor of a pair of china dogs!

I have been pursuing china dogs all over England and Scotland. When I was a little girl, visiting at Grandfather Montgomery's I think the thing that most enthralled me was a pair of china dogs which always sat on the sitting room mantel. They were white with green spots all over them; and Father told me that whenever they heard the clock strike twelve at midnight they bounded down on the hearth-rug and barked. It was, therefore, the desire of my heart to stay up until twelve some night and witness this performance, and hard indeed did I think the hearts of my elders when this was denied me. Eventually I found out, I forget how, that the dogs did nothing of the sort. I was much disappointed over this but more grieved still over the discovery that Father had told me something that wasn't true. However, he restored my faith in him by pointing out that he had only said the dogs would jump down when they heard the clock strike. China dogs, of course, could not hear.

I have always hankered to possess a pair of similar dogs, and, as those had been purchased in London, I hoped when I came over here, I would find something like them. Accordingly I have haunted the antique shops in every place I have been but, until yesterday, without success. Dogs, to be sure, there were in plenty but not the dogs of my quest. There was an abundance of dogs with black spots and dogs with red spots; but nowhere the aristocratic dogs with green spots.

Yesterday in a little antique shop near the great Minster I found a pair of lovely dogs and snapped them up on the spot. To be sure they had no green spots. The race of dogs with green spots seems to have become extinct. But my pair have lovely gold spots and are much larger than the old Park Corner dogs. They are over a hundred years old and hope they will preside over my Lares and Penates with due dignity and aplomb.

Russell Hotel, London

September 18, 1912

So much has been crammed into this past fortnight that I have a rather overfed feeling mentally. But when time is limited and sights unlimited what are harassed travellers to do? The British Museum, the Tower, Westminister Abbey, Crystal Palace, Kenilworth Castle, the Shakespeare Land, Hampton Court, Salisbury and Stonehenge, Windsor and Parks and Gardens galore!

Our hotel is in Russell Square, the haunt of so many of the characters in Vanity Fair. One expects to see Amelia peering out of a window looking for George, or perhaps Becky watching for Jos.

Our afternoon at Kenilworth Castle was a delight. Of course, we had to be pestered with a guide; but I succeeded in forgetting him, and roamed the byways of romance alone. I saw Kenilworth in its pride, when aspiring Leicester entertained haughty Elizabeth. I pictured poor Amy Robsart creeping humbly into the halls where she should have reigned as Mistress. Back they thronged from the past, those gay figures of olden days, living, loving, hating, plotting as of yore.

Last Thursday we went to see the Temple Church, in the grounds of which Oliver Goldsmith is buried. The church is a quaint old place, set in a leafy square which, despite the fact that Fleet Street is roaring just outside it, is as peaceful and silent as a Cavendish road. But when I recall that square it is not of the quaint old church and Poor Noll's grave that I shall think. No, it will be of a most charming and gentlemanly pussy cat, of exquisite manners, who came out of one of the houses and walked across the square to meet us. He was large and handsome and dignified, and any one could see with half an eye that he belonged to the caste of Vere de Vere. He purred most mellifluously as I patted him, and rubbed himself against my boots as though we were old acquaintances, as perchance we were in some other incarnation. Nine out of ten cats would have insisted on accompanying us over to Oliver's grave, and perhaps been too hard to get rid of. Not so this Marquis of Carabas. He sat gravely down and waited until we had gone on, seen the grave and returned to where he sat. Then he stood up, received our farewell pats, waved his tail amiably, and walked gravely back to the door from which he had emerged, having done the honor of his demesne in most irreproachable fashion. Truly he did give the world assurance of a cat!

We sail for home next Thursday on the Adriatic. I am glad, for I am replete with sight-seeing. I want now to get back to Canada and gather my scattered household gods around me for a new consecration.

As my husband was pastor of an Ontario congregation, I had now to leave Prince Edward Island and move to Ontario. Since my marriage I have published four books, Chronicles of Avonlea, The Golden Road, Anne of The Island, and The Watchman, the latter being a volume of collected verse.

The "Alpine Path" has been climbed, after many years of toil and endeavor. It was not an easy ascent, but even in the struggle at its hardest there was a delight and a zest known only to those who aspire to the heights.

"He ne'er is crowned

With immortality, who fears to follow

Where airy voices lead."

True, most true! We must follow our "airy voices," follow them through bitter suffering and discouragement and darkness, through doubt and disbelief, through valleys of humiliation and over delectable hills where sweet things would lure us from our quest, ever and always must we follow, if we would reach the "far-off divine event" and look out thence to the aerial spires of our City of Fulfilment.