SOCIETY AT ROYAL TUNBRIDGE WELLS - Online Book

People, Society & Culture of Tunbridge Wells in the 18th Century & later.

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Since the Eighteenth Century
there for the last time in July 1853, before going abroad, staying, as he wrote to Mr. Ellis, in "a house in a delightful situation. The drawing-room is excellent; the dining-room so much overshadowed by trees and a verandah that it is dark even in the brightest noon. The country looks lovely. The heath is close to the door. I have a very pleasant room for you; a large tub; half-a-dozen of the best sherry, and a dozen of good champagne; and Plato and Lucian." It was there that Macaulay revised his speeches for publication in book-form, which was designed as a counter­blast to Vizetelly's unauthorised edition. The next literary visitor, and the last to be men­tioned in these pages, was Hawthorne, who spent a few hours there in 1856, and noted the fact in his English Note-Books. " The next day was spent at Tunbridge Wells, which is famous for a chalybeate spring," he wrote, ** and is a watering-place of note, most health­ily situated on a high, breezy hill, with many pleasant walks in the neighbourhood." Thackeray was again at " The Wells " four years after Hawthorne, accompanied by his parents and children, with two puppies called Gumbo and Saidie, after the two nigger boys
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