John Stuart Mill: A Criticism with Personal Recollections

FORD ABBEY. 5
"
Up another staircase is a large saloon, hung with admirable
tapestry, as also a small library. From this saloon issues a
long range of rooms, of which one is fitted up in the Chinese
style, and another is hung with silk. There is a little further
on a room, which, it is said, was once a nursery ; though the
old farmer Clyde, who lives hard by, called out his sons to hear
the novelty of a child crying in the Abbey
happened for the whole time he had lived here, being near
! which had not
thirty years. Down a staircase from here is a long range of
bedrooms, generally
called the Monks Walk. From it is a
staircase leading into the cloisters. The rest of the house is
not worth mentioning. If I was to mention the whole it would
tire you exceedingly, as this house is in reality so large that the
eight rooms on one floor of the wing which we inhabit, which
make not one-quarter of even that floor of the whole house, are
as many as all the rooms in your house, and considerably
larger.
"
I have been to the parish church which is at Thornecomb.
Mr. Hume has been here a great while. Mr. Koe came the
other day, and Admiral Chietekoff is expected. Willie and
I have had rides in Mr. Hume s curricle."
" What has been omitted here will be
He goes on to say
found in a journal which I am writing
He then incontinently
of this and
plunges again
last
into
year s journeys ",
descriptive particulars about the fish-ponds, the river Axe, the
deer-parks, the walks, and Bentham s improvements. The
performance is not a favourable specimen of his composition ;
the hand-writing is very scratchy, and barely shows what it
became a few years later. The reference to Joseph Hume s
visit has to be connected with the passage at arms between the
elder Mill and Bentham, which I had formerly occasion to
notice (Biography ofJames Mill, p. 136).
By far the most important record of Mill s early years is his
diary during part of his visit to France, in his fifteenth year ;