Its Norman roots;
but I am bound to say that family trees sometimes throw a good deal of
shade over their owners, especially when they have gaps in them, which
seems contrary to nature, but is true to fact.
Letter Number Twenty-six
SOUTHWESTERN HOTEL, SOUTHAMPTON
To-morrow our steamer sails, and this is the last letter I write on
English soil; and although I haven't done half that I wanted to, there
are ever so many things I have done that I can't write you about.
I had seen so few cathedrals that on the way down here I was bound to
see at least one good one, and so we stopped at Winchester. It was
while walking under the arches of that venerable pile that the thought
suddenly came to me that we were now in Hampshire, and that, perhaps,
in this cathedral might be some of the tombs of my ancestors. Without
saying what I was after I began at one of the doors, and I went clean
around that enormous church, and read every tablet in the walls and on
the floor.
Once I had a shock. There was a good many small tombs with roofs over
them, and statues of people buried within, lying on top of the tombs,
and some of them had their faces and clothes colored so as to make them
look almost as natural as life.
