



Produced by Marc-AndrA(C) Seekamp, Ann Jury and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)









                          AUTUMN IMPRESSIONS
                            OF THE GIRONDE




                  In Crown 8vo, Cloth Gilt. Price 6s.

                           RUSSIA OF TO-DAY

                                  BY

                          E. VON DER BRUeGGEN

                           THE TIMES says:--
"Few among the numerous books dealing with the Russian Empire which
have appeared of late years will be found more profitable than Baron
von der Brueggen's 'Das Heutige Russland,' an English version of which
has now been published. The impression which it produced in Germany
two years ago was most favourable, and we do not hesitate to repeat
the advice of the German critics by whom it was earnestly recommended
to the notice of all political students. The author's reputation
has already been firmly established by his earlier works on 'The
Disintegration of Poland' and 'The Europeanization of Russia,' and in
the present volume his judgment appears to be as sound as his knowledge
is unquestionable."




  Illustration: ANCIENT HEADDRESS IN AIRVAULT (DEUX SEVRES).
                                                       [_Frontispiece._




                          Autumn Impressions
                            of the Gironde

                                  BY

                         I. GIBERNE SIEVEKING

                               AUTHOR OF

            "Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman," and
                "A Turning Point of the Indian Mutiny."

Once or twice, in every life--it may be in one form, it may be in
another--there comes one day the possibility of a glimpse through the
Magic Gates of Idealism. Some of us are not close enough to the opening
gates to catch a sight of what lies beyond, but in the eyes of those
who have seen--there is from that moment an ineffaceable, unforgettable
longing.

                            [Illustration]

                         _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS_

                                LONDON
                           Digby, Long & Co.
                18, Bouverie Street, Fleet Street, E.C.
                                 1910




                              TO FRANCE--
                      THE COUNTRY OF MANY IDEALS




PREFACE


To each man or woman of us there is the Country of our Ideals. The
ideals may be newly aroused; they may be of long standing. But some
time or other, in some way or other, there is the country; there is the
place; there is the sunny spot in our imagination-world which _calls_
to us--and calls to us in no uncertain voice.

It is true we are not always susceptible to that call: it is true we
are not always responsive, but it is there all the same. Sometimes
there comes to us a day when that "call" is insistent, all-compelling,
irresistible; a day in which it sounds with indescribable music,
indescribable vibration, through that inner world into which we all go
now and again, when days are monotonous or depressing.

It is impossible to conjecture why some country, some place, some
woman, should make that indescribable appeal which lays a hand on
the latch of those gates leading to that world of imagination which
exists in most of us far, far below the placid, shallow waters of
conventionalism. It is impossible to conjecture when or where the
voice and the call will sound in our ears. The man who hears it will
recognise what it means, but will in no way be able to account for it.

He will only know with what infinite satisfaction he is sensible of the
touch which enables him to "slip through the magic gates," as a great
friend once expressed it, into the world of Idealism, of Imagination.

True, the pleasure, the satisfaction, is elusive. He can lay no hand
upon those wonderful moments which come thus to him. Even before he
is aware that they have begun, he is conscious that they are already
slipping out of his grasp.

What play has ever shown this more clearly than Maeterlinck's "Blue
Bird"? Though the children go from glory to glory of lustrous
imagination, though they can go back to the land of Old Memories, to
the land of the Future, yet they cannot stay there. Though they see and
rejoice to the full in the "Blue Bird," the spirit of Happiness, yet
that one soft stroking of its feathers is all that is possible before
it flies away. For every Ideal is winged: every Conception of Happiness
but a passing vision. We have but to attempt to grasp them to find
their elusiveness is a fact from which we cannot get away.

For me, the France about which I have written in the following pages is
a country which calls to me from the world of my ideals, from the world
of my imagination. From across the seas that call stirs me and thrills
me indescribably. It is not the France of the Parisian; it is not the
France of the automobilist; it is not the France of the Cook's tourist.
It is the France upon whose shores one steps at once into _the land of
many ideals_.

I should like here to thank three friends, Messieurs Henri Guillier,
Goulon, and E. G. Sieveking, who have most kindly given me permission
to print their photographs of the part of France through which I
travelled, and more than all, the greatest friend of all, who alone
made the journey possible.
                                                  I. Giberne Sieveking.




                          Autumn Impressions
                            of the Gironde




CHAPTER I


"Mails first!" shouted the captain from the upper deck, as the steamer
from Newhaven brought up alongside the landing stage at Dieppe, and the
eager flow of the tide of passengers, anxious to forget on dry land how
roughly the "cradle of the deep" had lately rocked them, was stayed.

I looked round on the woe-begone faces of those who had answered the
call of the sea, and whose reply had been so long and so wearisome
to themselves. Why is it that a smile is always ready in waiting
at the very idea of sea-sickness? There is nothing humorous in its
presentment; nothing in its discomfort to the sufferers; but yet to the
bystander it invariably presents the idea of something comic, and, to
the man whose inside turns a somersault at the first lurch of the wave
against the side of the steamer, _mal-de-mer_ seems both a belittling,
as well as a very uncomfortable, part to play!

At Dieppe the train practically starts in the street; and while it
waited for its full complement of passengers, two or three countrywomen
came and knocked with their knuckles against the sides of the
carriages, and held up five ruddy-cheeked pears for sale. (One uses the
term "ruddy-cheeked" for apples, so why not for pears, which shew as
much cheek as the former, only of a different shape?)

The Dining-Car Service of the "_Chemin de fer de L'Ouest_," at Dieppe
airs some delightful "English" in its advertisement cards. For
instance: "A dining-car runs ordinary with the follow trains."