But all the rest of us were
caught to the life, and I was really a little startled at recognizing
myself so apart from myself, and done so quickly too.
This was the last important incident of our visit to Oxford, except that
Mr. Spiers was again most hospitable at lunch. Never did anybody attend
more faithfully to the comfort of his friends than does this good
gentleman. But he has shown himself most kind in every possible way, and
I shall always feel truly grateful. No better way of showing our sense
of his hospitality, and all the trouble he has taken for us (and our
memory of him), has occurred to us, than to present him with a set of my
Tales and Romances; so, by the next steamer, I shall write to Ticknor and
Fields to send them, elegantly bound, and S----- will emblazon his coat
of arms in each volume. He accompanied us and Mr. and Mrs. Hall to the
railway station, and we left Oxford at two o'clock.
It had been a very pleasant visit, and all the persons whom we met were
kind and agreeable, and disposed to look at one another in a sunny
aspect. I saw a good deal of Mr. Hall. He is a thoroughly genuine man,
of kind heart and true affections, a gentleman of taste and refinement,
and full of humor.
On the Saturday after our return to Blackheath, we went to
HAMPTON COURT,
about which, as I have already recorded a visit to it, I need say little
here. But I was again impressed with the stately grandeur of Wolsey's
great Hall, with its great window at each end, and one side window,
descending almost to the floor, and a row of windows on each side, high
towards the roof, and throwing down their many-colored light on the stone
pavement, and on the Gobelin tapestry, which must have been gorgeously
rich when the walls were first clothed with it.
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