Beatrix Potter's Journal by Beatrix Potter

Author:Beatrix Potter [Potter, Beatrix]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780723265580
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2011-08-28T16:00:00+00:00

EXETER

We hurried away next morning to Exeter, so it is hardly fair to record an unfavourable impression of Plymouth, except I may safely say I was disappointed with the Hoe. It is exactly like the grounds of the Naval Exhibition, broad asphalt promenades, cigar kiosks, and even the Lighthouse all complete.

I believe the latter is really the old Eddystone, not a sham, but it looks one, stuck on a grass-plot. At the foot of the Hoe is a frightful iron pier covered with advertisements of soap.5

The Sound, though doubtless wider, is not to compare with Falmouth Roads, which had spoiled us for beauty, and I could not realize the distance and consequent length of the Breakwater. I think we ought to have gone out to it and round to Devonport by water, but we could not stand the hotel.

The natives are rough, and there is a superabundance of new brick streets and repellent granite forts about the Hoe. We went out in a row-boat after tea, with a tired boatman who had been up the river on a job with dynamite. I don’t know how many tons, but I remember he had caught two tons of herring in one night, and seventeen dozen of mackerel close to the steps, and a Conger eel that weighed 148 lb.!

The sun went down before we got round Drake’s Island; the moon came up over one of the Hill Batteries and in the other direction we could see the occasional twinkle of the revolving Eddystone light. The water was of oily smoothness and reflected the ship’s lights red and green, in long wavering streaks. It was very cold and I wondered if my bed was clean, what do chamber maids do with a dry mangle in the kitchen closet? I have a not unmixed memory of Plymouth.

I am very fond of Exeter. Even on a great Railway like the Great Western, it retains its primitive self-contained air of importance. Macaulay never bestowed a more appropriate epitaph than the ‘Metropolis of the West’. The lower parts of the town are somewhat squalid, but the High Street and adjacent neighbourhoods are animated in the extreme, and display most excellent shops.

The Cathedral Towers rise solemn and peacefully, casting a shadow of respectable antiquity over the bustling town. (I regret to state they light bonfires in the Close on the 5th. November, the Exeter rabble are notorious.)

In the Close are many gabled old houses, with quaint sundials and carving. We strolled about peeping down the entries into little pebbled garden courts, a patch of sunlight framed in an ancient doorway. The sun came out again while we were at Exeter, and the world looked fresher for the rain. Flower-women were selling Lent-lilies at every corner, and the prettiest Italian girl I ever saw going about with a tambourine, while her dusky companion ground a jingling piano organ, somewhat incongruous with cathedral bells.

The pear trees were white as snow in the Deanery garden, the lilac touched with green, and

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