BY ELIZABETH BUTLER WITH TWENTY-EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR AND TWENTY-ONE SMALL SKETCHES IN THE TEXT BY THE AUTHOR colophon LONDON ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK, SOHO SQUARE, W. BURNS AND OATES, 28 ORCHARD STREET, W. 1909...

TO MY SISTER, ALICE MEYNELL I HAVE an idea of writing to you, most sympathetic Reader, of certain days and nights of my travels that have impressed themselves with peculiar force upon my memory, and that have mostly rolled by since you and I set out, at the Parting of the Ways, from the paternal roof-tree, within three months of each other. First, I want to take you to the Wild West Land of Ireland, to a glen in Kerry, where, so far, the tourist does not come, and then on to remote Clew Bay, in

M Y diary must introduce you to Glenaragh, where I saw a land whose beauty was a revelation to me; a new delight unlike anything I had seen in my experiences of the world’s loveliness. To one familiarized from childhood with Italy’s peculiar charm, a sudden vision of the Wild West of Ireland produces a sensation of freshness and surprise difficult adequately to describe. “— June ‘77.—At Killarney we left the train and set off on one of the most enchanting carriage journeys I have ever made, pass

I WISH you would make a summer tour to Mayo. It is simple; yet what a change of scene, of sensations, of thoughts one secures by this simple and direct journey—Euston, Holyhead, Dublin, Mulranny. You travel right across Ireland, getting a very informing vista of the poverty and stagnation of those Midland counties till your eyes greet the glorious development of natural beauty on the confines of the sea-girt Western land. I went there tired from London and came on a scene of the most perfect rep

T O the East! What a thrill of pleasure those words caused me when they meant that I was really off for Egypt. The East has always had for me an intense fascination, and it is one of the happiest circumstances of my life that I should have had so much enjoyment of it. My childish sketch-books, as you remember, are full of it, and so are my earliest scribblings. To see the reality of my fervid imaginings, therefore, was to satisfy in an exquisite way the longing of all my life. The Gordon expedit

A ND now for Luxor. Of all the modes of travel there is none, to my mind, so enjoyable as that by water—fresh water, be it understood—and if you can do this in a house-boat with your home comforts about you, what more can you desire? We had the “Post Boat” to Luxor, and the sailing dahabieh after that. Travelling thus on the Nile you see the life of the people on the banks, you look into their villages, yet a few yards of water afford you complete immunity from that nearer contact which travel b

O UR subsequent experiences of Egypt at Alexandria from ‘90 to ‘93 made me acquainted with the Delta and that “Lower Nile” which has a very particular charm of its own, and possesses the precious advantage of being out of the tourist track altogether. Not the least amongst the attractions of an Egyptian command (to Madame!) is the yearly autumn journey to that country through Italy, with Venice as an embarkation point. Madame knows nothing of the horrors of the summer months endured by the “man

I DON’T know whether in the Atlantic that lies between England and America you have had calm moonlight nights such as, taking the ocean longitudinally, one may have an impressive experience of, if timing the voyage rightly. I don’t suppose a more favourable time for “detachment” could be easily obtained than those night hours on board a great ship out at sea, when one more easily realizes than in the daytime how the huge “Liner” is but a pathetic little speck on the landless and fathomless water

“S TRANGE land; strange birds with startling cries; strange flowers; strange scents! I received a bouquet of welcome on my arrival composed of grass-green flowers with brilliant rose-coloured leaves. Where am I? Where are the points of the compass? “I was watching the sun travelling to his setting this evening, and, forgetting I was perforce facing North to watch him, he seemed to be sloping down towards the East! And lo! when he was gone, the crescent moon on the wrong side of the sunset and tu

A DESCENT from the Apennine on a September evening into Tuscany, with the moon nearly full—that moon which in a few days will be shining in all its power upon the delights of the vintage week—this I want to recall to you who have shared the pleasure of such an experience with me. A descent into the Garden of Italy, spread out wide in a haze of warm air—can custom stale the feeling which that brings to heart and mind? Railway travel has its poetry, its sudden and emotional contrasts and surprises

A TWO days’ excursion to Sienna at the close of our second vintage at Caravaggio was a fit finale to the last visit you and I ever paid to Italy en garçon . From Tuscany to Etruria—deeper still into the luxury of associating with the past. Honey-coloured Sienna! It dwells in my memory bathed in sunshine; the little city like a golden cup overflowing with the riches it can scarcely hold; the home of St. Catherine and the scene of her ecstasies and superhuman endeavours: the battlefield of St. Ber

R OME ! I am almost inclined to leave out this central fact, although I never kept a fuller diary than I did during those seven months of my student life there that followed Florence. How can I approach it and say anything but platitudes on the subject? Every one has tried his or her hand upon this theme, and many dreadful banalities have come of it; many pert assertions, ignorant statements, sentimentalities. Rome has always impressed me as being the centre of the world—not as the Ancient Roman