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Lisbon, Oct 28 1894
My dearest Helen: I wrote to mamma two days ago instead of to you, because there was a question she wanted answered. I did not say much of my passage south, reserving that for my more regular letters - not indeed that there was much to say. For nearly ten days before we started the weather had been exceptionally fine, with an unusually high barometer - indeed the previous month had been very quiet despite the very heavy storms you had in the U.S. During my visit to Plymouth it was beautiful. Three or four days before our sailing, however, the barometer began to fall
getting as low as 29.50 and when we left on the 20th the sky was threatening, and the pilot said we were sure to have very bad weather. The wind was then east, but by nine at night it had got round to South West and freshened very considerably. The admiral thought of going into Plymouth, but I didn't want to, so we kept on, and on Sunday evening rounded Ushant Island with a more moderate sea, and stood across the Bay of Biscay for Cape Finisterre. The weather behaved very curiously, now clearing up and again clouding over and blowing hard, always from South West. When it did clear it was wonderful to see the
extraordinary lucidity of the atmosphere. It seemed to be of infinite depth yet perfectly transparent, and the stars seemed to swim in it, while the great white clouds sweeping by intensified the effect by the contrast. I remember while sitting on a chest and looking at the sky I recalled some lines of Byron's, which made me think again of what I once said to you: that we are too apt to rest in the [??illegible??] melody or sweetness of poetry, without making the mental effort to appreciate its intellectual quality. The deep dark sky and the placid stars shining, not so much brilliantly as intensely, for they did not twinkle in the least, showed me how carefully Byron had worked out his words from what his eyes had seen of dark and bright
She walks in beauty, like the night of cloudless chines and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and in her eyes; Thus mellowed to that tender light Much heaven to gaudy day denies
You will find the rest in his Hebrew Melodies if you can to follow the verses Golden Treasury p.206 and trace the same idea worked in and running though the whole . Well, in three or four hours that brilliant sky misted over, a rainbow came round the moon and the next day was blowing and mizzling, the barometer dancing a jig - up & down. At night I was very tired and the weather so thick you couldn't see more than half a
mile so [??illegible??] orders to the officer of the deck that he must look out - I could not get up in time if wanted - and I lay down to sleep. At quarter before twelve I was waked with a message that it was blowing a gale, raining very hard and impossible to see any distance. So I got up put on some clothes, and when I got on deck there was the same old blue sky and white clouds - Every - thing had cleared off and the same lustrous calm eyes looking down from heaven. Everything ha Notwithstanding, the next day was also unpleasant raining and drizzling, and the night after we passed Finisterre we stood along, scarce able to see anything at times - only knowing that steamers
would pass, and they did pass, very close to us. It was an anxious time and I kept saying to myself "Oh thou of little faith, wherefor dost thou doubt?" but it was hard to prevent the feeling of uneasi - ness. I got Mr Clover to take four hours of that night for me - but two of them I could not sleep owing to the jarring of the ship as she plunged into the head seas. The next day it moderated and cleared - Wednesday - & we ran in for the coast which we made and skirted, but could not get to Lisbon before night; so we anchored about fifty miles north under a cape with good promise for next day, which however proved delusion At 7 in the morning it was blowing