Pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

We lived a mile from the sea. The Sutherlandshire coast is tame enough, but beautifully desolate — no travellers, no tourists, nothing to disturb the solitude. I am not very fond of the East Coast, as there in the afternoon one is only able to enjoy reflected sunshine. It always reminds me of friends as they grow cold ; they ex- pect us to be warmed by the sunshine of yesterday. Once I went down alone to the shore ; it was a beauti- ful evening, with hundreds of shades of pearly greys and pinks reflected on sand and wave — an evening to make mean things noble and costly things ridiculous, an evening that humbles one down to the very dust, and yet lifts one clean off one's feet with enthusiasm and exultation. I remember years ago a friend of mine telling me she had met Jenny Lind, who had then just left the stage, at a quiet South Coast seaside bathing-place. Jenny Lind was sitting on the steps of a bathing-machine, and my friend began talking to her and asking her ' if she did not think she would miss terribly the excitement of acting.' ' Very likely,' she answered, 'but I had ceased to be able to admire that,' pointing to the great gold sun going down in its glory, ' and I had ceased to be able to read this,' tapping a Bible that lay on her knees. ' Don't you think it was time to give it up ? ' I had not been five minutes on this lonely Sutherland shore before I counted quite ten wild sea-birds of dif- ferent kinds flying around, screaming to each other, and AUGUST 155 floating about on the tiny waves that broke gently on the sand. I suppose few can hear that sound of the waves without thinking of Tennyson's 'Break, break, break.' A little poem of Emerson's, much less known, is a great favourite of mine, full as it is of a tender double meaning :— The delicate shells lay on the shore ; The bubbles of the latest wave Fresh pearl to their enamel gave, And the bellowing of the savage sea Greeted their safe escape to me. I wiped away the weeds and foam, And brought my sea-born treasures home ; But the poor, unsightly, noisome things Had left their beauty on the shore With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar. I feel these lines reproach me for my many quotations. Have we any right to pick beautiful things out of books and quote them without their context ? I suspect not, and I beg you all to consider, if you find them deficient, that it is I who have taken them away from ' the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.' In the grounds of the great castle we were near was a very interesting museum. What an excellent thing is a private museum in a large place ! It would be a great advantage, I think, if it were started on many estates, or even in villages, as then the barbaric things and various specimens of natural history which different members of a family bring home might be kept where they are of distinct interest, instead of crowding up a modern sitting-room, where they look totally inappropriate and even ugly. There had always been a tradition that one of the ships belonging to the Spanish Armada had been wrecked off this coast, but no treasure had ever been found. Two years ago, when the river was low, a 156 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN