Frances Rolleston
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog: Today Back Then
  • People
  • Places
  • Activities & Accomplishments
    • Writings >
      • Mazzaroth
    • Poetry
    • Painting

Mountains by Name

7/25/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
July 26, 1847

FR has been in the Lakes District now for a month. "Depend on it," she writes to Rev. Irons, "the mountains have waked a new chord in my lyre." She is finally seeing real mountains after years of copying those in other paintings, and she decides that no painting can come up to the colours as they truly are.

So far she has climbed only one, the minor one at the head of the lake. That day "all was purple splendour with waves of silver clouds forming and breaking over the summits. . . . The continual action of the clouds on the hues and forms of the mountains no painting can even attempt, nor had I imagined; you look in amazed delight, and it is gone, and another form, as beautiful, is coming."

"I study them hourly," she says, and her diligence has earned her the reputation of knowing the names and forms of the mountains better than the natives. Already tourists go to her for advice.

She encloses a couple lithographs
in her letter to Rev. Irons and makes a pen-and-ink sketch on the page. "This No. 2 is but a tame view of the mountains as you see them from below. Here you see the two grand ones, Langdale Pikes, besides. . . . From this house a good road leads to a rocky hill, considerably higher than that above the church, called Brant Fell, ranges of rock like castle walls in ruin crown it; mountain air, heath and thyme, a few sheep, and deep mossy turf; not very steep, and perfectly safe everywhere; I rejoice to be so near; I send all tourists there."

At this point FR does not know if she will make this area her permanent home, but within months
she has decided. This is where she lives her last sixteen years.

0 Comments

Wordsworth and Oak Trees

7/18/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Wordsworth's Oak
July 17, 1850

FR and a friend, who also was a great admirer of Wordsworth, went on an excursion to Applethwaite Ghyll to buy strawberries from tenants of Wordsworth's land. Graves, his old tenant, was happy to relate to the two women that when Wordsworth last visited, he "showed him two fine young oaks which he thought spoiling each other's growth, and wanted to have one cut down; 'No,' said Wordsworth, 'they have grown together like brothers' ('like twins' added the old woman), 'they shall not be separated.' . . . They said he often visited them, and spoke 'kind.'"

The old tenants talked some more about Wordsworth's history and his kindness to them. "Last summer they thought him failing, very feeble and tottering, and on the spot they showed me they saw him 'doff his hat and look up on high, and,' said the tenant's son, 'we do not know what his thoughts were, but he seemed in contemplation like.' . . . They said they wished there was a stone for Wordsworth on the spot where he 'doffed his hat;' I said 'plant an acorn this autumn, call it Wordsworth's Oak, it will be a far better monument;' they promised, and I hope to put them in mind, and to plant one there myself."

Whether the oak pictured above was planted by Graves, FR, or someone else is uncertain.
0 Comments

Fern Craze (Pteridomania)

7/11/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Lady Fern (Athyrium filix-femina)
July 11, 1850

England is in the midst of a craze for ferns. People scour the countryside for
native ferns to add to their collections. In addition to keeping live ferns, they use the fern motif in their arts and crafts.

FR gets caught up in the mood. When her friend Miss Hutton asks her to collect Osmunda for her, FR undertakes the mission and brings home such a bundle that Miss Hutton is overjoyed. However, an acquaintance faults her for not leaving any for others. FR is sure there is plenty.

Eventually a number of ferns in Scotland and Ireland did become endangered, and remain so to this day.

Here is a nice article in Wikipdedia about this fern craze of the 19th century.




0 Comments

Suitable Reading for Children

7/4/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
July 1839

FR related a story from her childhood and her mother's childhood:

"You perhaps never heard my mother's story of an alarm fire in Baker's Court, when she was about twelve years old. Her father met her coming down stairs half clad, but with her new beaver hat and feathers on her head, and tucked up in her petticoat her last new book, the Arabian Nights' Entertainments.

"In consequence of this story, when our grandmother Rolleston asked me what book she should give me, I chose that, to the no small horror of sage and elderly relatives."

What do you think? Read Arabian Nights' Entertainments online and see if it is suitable for a twelve-years-old child.

Because of her love for children and interest in young mothers, FR often recommended books for children. One writer she felt to be entirely safe was the American James Fenimore Cooper.

0 Comments

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    October 2021
    March 2021
    October 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    January 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    September 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014

    Categories

    All
    Anglo Saxon
    Anglo-Saxon
    Annesley Hall
    Antiques
    Astronomy
    Ballad
    Bible
    Book
    Buildings
    Canticles
    Cartography
    Character Trait
    Charity
    Charles Dickens
    Christmas
    Colony
    Comfort
    Country Life
    Darwin
    Dean Alford
    Death
    Eclipse
    Epidemic
    Fables
    Famine
    Ferns
    Fog
    Frances Rolleston
    Friendship
    Geology
    Ghosts
    Hannah More
    Health
    Hebrew
    H K White
    Horace Walpole
    Humphry Davy
    Hymns
    Infant School
    James Cook
    James Fenimore Cooper
    Janet Taylor
    John Milton
    John Musters
    John Wesley
    Keswick
    Lakes District
    Language
    Law
    Magazines
    Mary Chaworth
    Mathematics
    Mazzaroth
    Missions
    Monarchy
    Motherhood
    Mountains
    Music
    Nature
    Newstead
    Notable People
    Oaks
    Painting
    Penmanship
    Philosophy
    Poetry
    Prayer
    Reading
    Reform
    Regency Period
    Religion
    Riots
    Robert Burns
    Romantic Love
    Royalty
    Shelty
    Sir Walter Scott
    Slavery
    Sleep
    Snow
    Song
    Sonnet
    Teaching
    Temperance
    Thomas Gainsborough
    Travel
    Tudors
    Violets
    Visits
    War
    Washington Irving
    Watnall
    Wedding
    William Herschel
    William Hone
    William Wilberforce
    William Wordsworth
    Women
    Work
    Yorkshire

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photos used under Creative Commons from eamoncurry123, JamesGardinerCollection, chrisada, Kate. Get the picture., aenigmatēs, summonedbyfells, earlynovelsdatabase, Graeme Darbyshire, deweggis, Bosc d'Anjou, Ross Elliott, meret.fuchs, isawnyu, nillamaria, Stifts- och landsbiblioteket i Skara, Newburgh_pig_rm ( pka piggy raymond morelli), Space Ritual, weegeebored, MDreibelbis, Joseph Surface, john_seaman@ymail.com, gailhampshire, j. kunst, Andrew E. Larsen, faith goble, Stefan Müller (climate), BFS Man, summonedbyfells, ell brown, forum.linvoyage.com, Stuart Grout, PhotoAtelier, Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com, kellyv, Chajm, ell brown, riptheskull, Jonathan Rubio, Books18, garryknight, Boston Public Library, Digital Sextant, CircaSassy, Tim simpson1, Tim Pierce, Matthew's Foundation, Newsum Antiques, wht_wolf9653, Matt From London, UpSticksNGo, gvgoebel, Matt From London, romana klee, Accretion Disc, Emma, Michael and Elway's Excellent Adventures, postman.pete, quinn.anya, distar97, liebeslakritze, andryn2006, Eddi van W., sarahstierch, Joanna Bourne, Kevin Hutchinson, Graham C99, NASA Goddard Photo and Video, f/orme, Kevin M. Gill, @sage_solar
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog: Today Back Then
  • People
  • Places
  • Activities & Accomplishments
    • Writings >
      • Mazzaroth
    • Poetry
    • Painting