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[a] Well here I am at Roe Head,¹ it is seven o’clock at night the young ladies are all at their lessons the school-room is quiet the fire is low. a stormy day is at this moment passing off in a murmuring and bleak night. I now assume my own thoughts my mind relaxes from the stretch on which it has been for the last twelve hours & falls back onto the rest which no-body in this house knows of but myself. I now after a day’s weary wandering return to the ark which for me floats alone on the face of this world’s desolate & boundless deluge² it is strange. I cannot get used to the ongoings that surround me. I fulfil my duties strictly & well, I not so to speak if the illustration be not profane as God was not in the wind nor the fire nor the earth-quake so neither is my heart in the task, that the theme or the exercise. it is the still small voice³ alone that comes to me at eventide, that which like a breeze with a voice in it over the deeply blue hills & out of the now leafless forests & from the cities on distant river banks it is that now calling of a far & bright continent.⁴ It is that which takes my spirit & engrosses all my living feelings, all my energies which are not merely mechanical & like Haworth & home wakes sensations which lie dormant elsewhere. last night I did indeed hav lean upon the thunder-wakening wings of such a stormy blast as I have seldom heard blow & it whirled me away like heath in the wilderness⁵ for five seconds of ecstasy – and as I sat by myself in the dining-room while all the rest were at tea the trance seemed to descend on a sudden & verily this foot trod the war-shaken shores of the Calabar & these light eyes saw the defiled & violated Adrianopolis shedding its lights on the river from lattices whence the invader looked out & was not darkened:⁶ I went through a trodden garden whose groves were crushed down I ascended a colossal great terrace, whose marble the marble surface of which shone wet with rain where it was not darkened by the crowds of dead leaves which were now showered on & now swept off by the vast & broken boughs which swung in the wind above them. I went to the wall of the palace to the line of latticed arches which shimmered in light, passing along quick as thought I glanced at what the internal glare revealed through the crystal. there was a room lined with mirrors & with lamps on tripods & very decorated [?] & splendid couches & carpets & large half lucid vases white as snow, thickly embossed with whiter mouldings & one large picture in a frame of massive beauty representing a young man [Zamorna] whose gorgeous & shining locks seemed as if they would wave on the breath & whose eyes were half hid by the hand carved in ivory that shaded them & supported the awful looking coron[eted?] head: a solitary picture, too great to admit of a companion – a likeness to be remembered full of luxuriant beauty not displayed for it seemed as if the form had been copied so often in all imposing attitudes that at length the painter satiated with its luxuriant perfection had resolved to conceal half & make the imperial Giant bend & hide under his cloud like tresses, the radiance he was grown tired of gazing on. Often had I seen this room before and felt as I looked at it the simple and exceeding magnificence of its single picure, its five colossal cups of sculptured marble – its soft carpets of most deep and brilliant hues, & its mirrors broad, lofty & liquidly clear. I had seen it in the stillness of evening when the lamps so quietly & steadily burnt in the tranquil air & when their rays fell upon but one living figure: a young lady who generally at that time appeared sitting on a low sofa, a book in her hand her head bent gently over it as she read her light brown hair falling dropping in loose & unwaving curls her dressing falling to the floor as she sat in sweeping folds of silk. All stirless about her except her heart softly heaving under her dark satin bodice & all silent except her regular and very gentle respiration. The haughty sadness of grandeur beamed out of her intent fixed hazel eye & though so young I always felt as if I dared not have spoken to her for my life. how lovely were the lines of her straight delicate features how exquisite was her small & rosy mouth but how very proud her white brow, spacious and wreathed with ringlets & her neck which though so slender had the superb curve of a queen’s about the snowy throat! I knew why she chose to be alone at that hour & why she kept that shadow in the golden frame to gaze on her & why she turned sometimes to her mirrors & looked to see if her loveliness & her dreadornments were quite perfect. However this night she was not visible – no – but neither was her bower void. the red ray of the fire flashed upon a table covered with wine flasks some drained and some brimming with the crimson juice. the cushions of a voluptuous ottoman⁷ which had often supported her slight fine form were crushed by a dark bulk flung upon them in drunken prostration. Aye where she had lain robed imperially robed and decked with pearls, every waft of her garments as she moved diffusing perfume, her beauty slumbering & still glowing as dreams of him for whom she kept herself in such hallowed and shrine-like separation, wandered over her soul on her own silken couch, a swarth & sinewy moor intoxicated to ferocious insensibility had stretched his athletic limbs weary with wassail and stupefied with drunken sleep. I knew it to be Quashia himself and well could I guess why he had chosen the queen of Angria’s sanctuary⁸ for the scene of his soliatry revelling. While he was full before my eyes lying in his black dress on the disordered couch, his sable hair dishevelled on his forehead & tusk-like teeth glancing vindictively through his parted lips his brown complexion flushed with wine & his broad chest heaving wildly as the breath issued in snorts from his distended nostrils while I watched the fluttering of his white shirt ruffles starting through the more than half-unbuttoned waistcoat & beheld the expression of his Arabian countenance savagely exulting even in sleep⁹ – Quamina triumphant Lord in the halls of Zamorna! in the bower of Zamorna’s lady! while this apparition was before me the dining-room door opened and Miss W[ooler] came in with a plate of butter in her hand. “A very stormy night my dear!” said she: “it is ma’am” said I

[b] Friday afternoon – Feb 4^th 1836¹⁰

Now as I have a little bit of time there being no French lessons this afternoon I should like to write something. I can’t enter into any continued narrative¹¹ – my mind is not settled enough for that but if I could call up some slight & pleasant sketch, I would amuse myself by jotting it down¹² let me consider the other day I appeared to realize a most delicious hot day in the most burning height of summer A gorgeous afternoon of idleness & enervation descending upon the hills of our Africa An evening enfolding a sky of profoundly deep blue & fiery gold about the earth. dear me! I keep heaping epithets together and I cannot describe what I mean – I mean a day whose rise progress & decline seem made of sunshine. As you are travelling you see the wide road before you the fields on each side & the hills far, far off all smiling, glowing in the same amber light and you feel such an intense light heat, quite incapable of chilling damp or even refreshing breeze a day when fruits visibly ripen, when orchards appear suddenly to change from green to gold. it seemed to me such a day I saw flaming over the distant Sydenham hills in Hawkscliffe Forest. I saw its sublime sunset, pouring beams of crimson through as the magnificent glades. It seemed to me that the war was over,¹³ that the trumpet had ceased but a short time since and that its last tones had been pitched on a triumphant key It seemed as if exciting events tidings of battles of victories of treaties of meetings of mighty powers had diffused an enthusiasm over the land that made its pulses beat with feverish quickness After months of bloody toil a time of festal rest was now bestowed on Angria; the Noblemen the Generals & the Gentlemen were at their country seats & the Duke young, but war-worn was at Hawkscliffe A still influence stole out of the stupendous forest, whose calm was now more awful than the sea-like rustling that swept through its glades in time of storm. Groups of deer appeared & disappeared silently amongst the prodigious stems & now & then a single roe glided down the savannah park, drank of the Arno & fleeted back again

Two gentlemen in earnest conversation¹⁴ were walking in St Mary’s Grove & their deep commingling voice tones very much subdued softly broke the silence of the evening. Secret topics seemed to be employed implied in what they said, for the import of their words was concealed from every chance listener by the accents of a foreign tongue All the soft vowels of Italian articulation¹⁵ flowed from their lips as fluently as if they had been natives of the European Eden. “Henrico”¹⁶ was the appellative by which the taller & younger of the two addressed his companion & the other replied by the less familiar title of Monsignore. that young Signior or Lord, often looked up at the Norman towers of Hawkscliffe that which rose even above the lofty elms of St Mary’s grove the sun was shining on their battlements kissing them with its last beam that rivalled in hue the fire-dyed banner hanging motionless above them. “Henrico” said he speaking still in musical Tuscan. “this is the 29^th of June.¹⁷ neither you nor I ever saw a fairer day to me it will return no more What does it remind you of? all such sunsets have associations.” Henrico knitted his stern brow in thought & at the same time fixed his very penetrating dar black eye on the features of his noble comrade, which invested by habit & nature with the aspect of command & pride were at this sweet hour relaxing to the impassioned & fervid expression of romance “What does it remind you of, my lord” said he briefly. “Ah! many things Henrico! ever since I can remember the rays of the setting sun have acted on my heart, as they did on Memnon’s wondrous statue.¹⁸ the strings always vibrate, sometimes the tones swell in harmony sometimes in discord they play a wild air just now – but sweet & ominously plaintive. Henrico can you immagine what I feel when I look into the dim & gloomy vistas of this my forest & at yonder turrets which the might of my own hands has raised not the halls of my ancestors like hoary Mornington. Calm diffuses over this wild wide wood a power to stir & thrill the mind such as words can never express. Do ye Look at the red west the sun is gone & it is fading to Gas & into those mighty groves supernaturally still & full of gathering darkness listen how the Arno moans!