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They spoke also of Foxholes, of Letty and Grizel, of Sedley and Bearwood, and Dick Ashbridge at whose name Prissy laughed saucily, and Fiddy bit her lips and frowned as fiercely as she was able. With what penetration Mistress Betty read their connections, and how blithely and tenderly she commented upon them!
Still journeying westward, the route passes Wokingham, where Gay, Swift, Pope, and Arbuthnot were on one occasion detained at the Rose Inn in wet weather, and whiled away the time by composing the song of "Molly Mog." Just beyond Wokingham is the fine estate of Bearwood, the seat of John Walter, Esq., the proprietor of the London Times, one of the stately rural homes of England.
November 19. To Mortimer, near Reading, on a visit to Sir Paul Hunter, who once visited me at Cornell. Extracts from my diary of this visit are as follows: November 20. To Bearwood, the seat of John Walter, M.P., proprietor of the "Times," and for the first time in my life saw a fox hunt, with the meet, the huntsmen in red coats, and all the rest of it. November 21.
It is at Bearwood, however, that his philanthropic ideas also find a broad field of usefulness in caring for those who have grown gray in the service of the Times, and thither every year go the entire corps of employés to enjoy an annual picnic under the spreading foliage of the park, while no home in England is more frequented by Americans or extends to kin from across sea a more generous hospitality.
The estate includes several thousand acres, and in the many pleasant cottages scattered over it and the homes at Bearwood village many of the aged and infirm employés of the Times pass their declining years.
Larks' Hall, Foxholes, Bearwood, the Vicarage of Mosely, and their outlying acquaintances, their yeomen and their labourers, lived as old-fashioned and hearty a life as if the battle of Sedgemoor had never been fought.
What swept away all but a thin cap of them on the upper part of Dogmersfield Park, another under Winchfield House; another at Bearwood, and so forth? The convulsions of a third world; more fertile in animal life than those which preceded it: but also, more terrible and rapid, if possible, in its changes. Its changes are so complicated that geologists have as yet hardly arranged them.
Her own family know nothing of the publication, which seems to have been suggested by her and my friend, John Ruskin. Of course, she must have her probation, but I know of no young writer so likely to rival your new American school. I sent your gift-books of Hawthorne, yesterday, to the Walters of Bearwood, who had never heard of them!
Here, in a large and beautiful park which retains much of its original forest character, and standing upon the terraced bank of a lovely lake, Bearwood House has within a few years been entirely rebuilt, its feature being the central picture-gallery containing a fine collection of paintings, around which clusters a suite of grand apartments.
Walter in reply to mine of grief at the death of MacDonald, tells the story of their relation better than I can. Bearwood, December 19, 1889. Dear Mr. Stillman, One appreciates true sympathy at such a time as this, and none that I have received has touched me more than yours. It is sad indeed to go down to the office and be no more greeted with MacDonald's cheery voice and kindly look.
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