This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from ...
Show synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 Excerpt: ...Lewes. Brookhouse is a commodious country residence of later Georgian date, '1' with stuccoed walls and beautiful grounds ornamented with beeches, firs, chestnuts, sycamores and other picturesque trees; whose leaves in the fall of the year, shed on pond, lawn and winding path, completely cover them as with cloth of gold. On the lawn (which is bordered on one side by a great billowy rhododendron hedge--the rhododendron walk of one of Pater's poems) are peacocks and storks in stone, and the eye takes in many a seducing nook and leafy vista. "l It is now (1006) the residence of Mr. J. R. McQueen, who inherited it, through his mother, from his maternal grandfather, Rear-Admiral Rainier. In the house is a noble and wonderfully-carved cabinet'1l which came from one of those old dark houses in the Precincts of Canterbury, of which we have often spoken, while the white marble mantelpieces, and the tall and handsome silver candlesticks which gleam above the snowy napery of the dining-table remind of two of Pater's predominant enthusiasms--whiteness and silver. One room has the original wall paper--hung previous to the battle of Waterloo--the pattern--a noble one, with life-sized figures of jungle fowl--being as bright as on the day it was first unrolled; and among the treasures of the house is a silver and tortoiseshell box brought home in 1798 by Mr. McQueen's grandfather after the capture of the Spice Islands from the Dutch; and there are other reminders of war, chiefly pictures, including one of Mr. McQueen's gorgeous father. We would not insist that Brookhouse was drawn upon by Pater when he was describing "White Nights" in Matins or the homes of Florian Deleal and Emerald Uthwart; still he may have had it in mind. Of the Huguenot ancestry of the M...
Hide synopsis
