ing up a steep hill or mountain. I believe
his method was of very great value to the patient who was
in my company. The Baron thought he could effect a complete
cure if she could stay with him several months. But that
was impossible.

CHAPTER XXIII
VISITS TO ENGLAND
1899

I visited England again in 1899. I did not go to the Continent
or Scotland. My wife consulted a very eminent London physician
for an infirmity of the heart. He told her to go to the Isle
of Wight; remain there a few weeks; then to go to Boscombe;
stay a few weeks there; then to Malvern Hills, and thence
to a high place in Yorkshire, which, I believe, is nearly,
if not quite, the highest inhabited spot in England. This
treatment was eminently advantageous. But to comply with the
doctor's direction took all the time we had at our command
before going home.

We had a charming and delightful time in the Isle of Wight.
We stayed at a queer little Inn, known as the "Crab and Lobster,"
kept by Miss Cass, with the aid of her sister and niece. We
made excursions about the island. I saw two graves side by
side which had a good deal of romance about them. One was
the grave of a woman. The stone said that she had died at
the age of one hundred and seven. By its side was the grave
of her husband, to whom she had been married at the age of
eighteen, and who had died just after the marriage. So she
had been a widow eighty-nine years, and then the couple, separated
in their early youth, had come together again in the grave.

We found a singular instance of what Americans think so astonishing
in England, the want of knowledge by the people of the locality
with which they were familiar in life, of persons whose names
have a world-wide reputation. In a churchyard at Bonchurch,
about a mile from our Inn at Ventnor, is the grave of John
Stirling--the friend of Emerson--of whom Carlyle wrote a memoir.
Sterling is the author of some beautiful hymns and other poems,
including what I think is the most splendid and spirited ballad
in English literature, "Alfred the Harper." Yet the sexton
who exhibited the church and the churchyard did not seem to
know anything about him, and the booksellers near by never
had heard of him. The sexton showed, with great pride, the
grave of Isaac Williams, author of the "Shadow of the Cross"
and some other rather tame religious poetry. He was a devout
and good man, and seemed to be a feeble imitator of Keble.
I dare