I will proceed here with our visit to Redcar, though that occurred in
1859, when we had returned from Rome.
Redcar is in the midst of a stately region, grand with an outline of
hard-bosomed, endless beach and vast sky, of sea and sand-hills, where
my father stands forth very distinctly in my memory. When he went out
at fixed hours of the day, between the hours for writing, he walked
over the long, long beach, and very often with my brother and myself;
stopping now and then in his firm, regal tread to look at what nature
could do in far-stretching color and beckoning horizon line. Along the
sand-hills, frolicking in the breeze or faithfully clinging in the
strong wind to their native thimbleful of earth, hung the cerulean
harebells, to which I ardently clambered, listening for their chimes.
In the preface to "Monte Beni," the compliment paid to Redcar is well
hidden. My father speaks of reproducing the book (sketched out among
the dreamy interests of Florence) "on the broad and dreary sands of
Redcar, with the gray German Ocean tumbling in upon me, and the
northern blast always howling in my ears." Nothing could have pleased
him better as an atmosphere for his work; all that the atmosphere
included he did not mean to admit, just then. And London was not so
very far away.
On September 9, 1859, my mother says in her diary, "My husband gave me
his manuscript to read." There are no other entries on that clay or
the next, except, "Reading manuscript.
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