Now, _these_
castles are real. They are hoary with antiquity. Schloss Tyrol is
Romanesque--tenth or eleventh century." (He had been reading it up
in Baedeker.) "That's the sort of place for _me_!--tenth or eleventh
century. I could live here, remote from stocks and shares, for ever;
and in these sequestered glens, recollect, Sey, my boy, there are
no Colonel Clays, and no arch Madame Picardets!"
As a matter of fact, he could have lived there six weeks, and then
tired for Park Lane, Monte Carlo, Brighton.
As for Amelia, strange to say, she was equally taken with this new
fad of Charles's. As a rule she hates everywhere on earth save
London, except during the time when no respectable person can be
seen in town, and when modest blinds shade the scandalised face of
Mayfair and Belgravia. She bores herself to death even at Seldon
Castle, Ross-shire, and yawns all day long in Paris or Vienna. She
is a confirmed Cockney. Yet, for some occult reason, my amiable
sister-in-law fell in love with South Tyrol. She wanted to vegetate
in that lush vegetation. The grapes were being picked; pumpkins hung
over the walls; Virginia creeper draped the quaint gray schlosses
with crimson cloaks; and everything was as beautiful as a dream of
Burne-Jones's. (I know I am quite right in mentioning Burne-Jones,
especially in connection with Romanesque architecture, because I
heard him highly praised on that very ground by our friend and
enemy, Dr.
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