n early recollections
are much more closely associated.

My mother was a daughter of the Ven. Archdeacon Froude, and sister of
three distinguished brothers--Hurrell Froude, prominent as a leader of
the Tractarian movement, Antony Froude the historian, and William
Froude, who, though his name is less generally known, exercised, as will
be shown presently, an influence on public affairs greater than that of
many cabinet ministers. The Archdeacon of Totnes, their father, was a
Churchman of a type now extinct as the dodo. Born in the early part of
the reign of George III, and inheriting a considerable fortune, he was
in his youth addicted to pursuits a proficiency in which is now regarded
by no one as absolutely essential to a fitness for Holy Orders. He was
famous for his horses, and also for his feats of horsemanship, one of
these being the jumping of a five-barred gate without losing either of
two guinea pieces which were placed at starting between his knees and
the saddle. To the accomplishments of an equestrian he added those of a
dilettante. He was an architect, a collector of pictures, a herald and
archaeologist, and also (as Ruskin declared, to whom some of his
drawings were exhibited) an artist whose genius was all but that of a
master. Like other young men of fortune, he made what was then called
the "grand tour of Europe," his sketchbooks showing that he traveled as
far as Corfu, and subsequently, when he settled for life as the vicar of
Dartington parish, he was regarded as one of the most enlightened
country gentlemen of the district, active in improving the roads, which,
till his time, were abominable, and in bringing poachers to punishment
if not to repentance.

Within a short walk of the parsonage, over the brow of a wooded hill, is
another house, which in the scenery of my childhood was an object no
less familiar--Dartington Hall, the home of the Champernowne family,
with which, by marriage and otherwise, my father's was very closely
connected. Yet another house--it has been mentioned already as
associated with my childhood also--is Denbury Manor, with its stucco
chimneys and pinnacles, its distance from Dartington being something
like eight miles. These four houses--Denbury Manor, Dartington
Parsonage, Dartington Hall, and Cockington Court--all lying within a
circle of some twelve miles in diameter, represent, together with their
adjuncts, the material aspects of the life with which I was first
familiar.