9 November 1885 – 15 November 1885

Hallam met Helen yesterday at Haslemere and invited us to come to luncheon to-day. We found T. just untying the dogs for his morning walk. He proposed to take Helen and me to an old ruinous cottage, Dickhurst, he had often told us of, and thought H. might like to paint. So we three went down the new road, a few apples still in the orchard, out by the lower gate, and a mile or so along the roads of the Sussex Weald ; a fine day, though with some mist, and the half-bare copses and hedges still rich with their tarnished-gold russet. T. said he never was in an oak country in Spring till last year and was astonished at the colours. A highish field gate was locked, and T. climbed over — then trudg- ing through a swampy field we came to the deserted half- ruinous cottage, with long slope of tiled roof, broken windows and empty barns. H. made a pencil sketch, and T. and I went on farther, but could not get through the copse. Hallam appeared with a pony- carriage and drove off Helen and his cousin Mrs. Pope. T, and I walked back. He spoke of the Lincolnshire farmers of his early days, and what ' beasts ' they were. I said : * You ought to be more tolerant to poor Paddy — he has better manners at least.' T. — ' I count Paddy a child. But his mutilation of animals is shocking ; — worse than shooting men.' W. A. — ' I have heard it said that in Catholic countries there is less humanity towards animals than in Protestant: Catholicism teaches that animals are created solely for man's use.' We spoke of the cruelties of the Inquisition. T. said, ' A Catholic priest said to me, all those were political, not ecclesiastical.' W. A. — ' That takes away the sole possible excuse for them, namely that they were done in defence of the one true Faith and to save souls from perdition.' We then went back to Irish and Keltic peoples in general. I said, ' Perhaps England owes most of its finer qualities, its poetry, music, and art, to the Ancient British elements.' T. said, but not very confidently, ' I doubt that.'