|
 Home
away from home
[Hobart] is a much smaller place than Sydney, but its home-like
English aspect at once won my preference…
... April in England... sweet English spring flowers, looking happy
and healthy, like stout rosy children that everywhere reminded me
of HOME.. English attribute of comfort.
Louise Anne Meredith My home in Tasmania,
during a residence of nine years London: John Murray, 1852,
p. 22
Security
The almost darling feeling of security, as it first seemed
to me, which is general here...
Louise Anne Meredith My home in Tasmania,
during a residence of nine years London: John Murray, 1852,
p. 100
Compared to Sydney
I must confess that I felt less regret than I could have
believed possible, at leaving a country which had been my home for
above a year; and if a wistful thought did stray back to the bright
and beautiful gardens, the lovely wild flowers, the delicious fruits,
and the deep blue sky of the ever-brown land, such a thick hot cloud
of dust, flies, mosquitoes, and other detestabilities, rose in imagination
before me, as threw a veil over all such charms; and I parted from
them with a stout heart, full of hopefulness for the future, and
rejoicing, above all things, to take our baby-boy into a more temperate
climate, where the fair promise of his infancy might have some prospect
of being realised in a life of health, strength, and intelligence.
Louise Anne Meredith My home in Tasmania,
during a residence of nine years London: John Murray, 1852,
p. 2
 Right
side of the earth again
"The scenery around New Town is the most beautiful I have seen
on this side of the world-very much resembling that of the Cumberland
Lakes. The broad and winding estuary of the Derwent flows between
lofty and picturesque hills and mountains, clothed with forests,
whilst at their feet lie level lawn-like flats, green to the water's
edge. But the most English, and therefore the most beautiful things
I saw here, were the hawthorn hedges ... It seemed like being on
the right side of the earth again, to see rosy children with boughs
of flowering "May", and to feel its full luscious perfume
waft across me."
Meredith quoted in Vivienne Rae-Ellis Louise
Anne Meredith: A Tigress in Exile Hobart: St David's Park Publishing,
1990 (orig. 1979), p. 93
Tiger
"He had the animal secured by a chain and a collar, and when
it was to be carried off, slipped a strong bag over its head and
shoulders, pushed the hind legs in and fastened it. I pitied the
unhappy beast most heartily, and would fain have begged more gentle
use for him; but I was compelled to acknowledge some coercion necessary,
as when I softly stroked his back (after taking the precaution of
engaging his great teeth in the discussion of a piece of meat) I
was in danger of having my hand snapped off."
Vivienne Rae-Ellis Louise Anne Meredith:
A Tigress in Exile Hobart: St David's Park Publishing, 1990
(orig. 1979), p. 147
Cambria
"The house at 'Cambria' commands an extensive view of large
tracts both of 'bush' and cultivated land; and, across the Head
of Oyster Bay, of the Schoutens ... Below a deep precipitous bank
on the south side of the house flows a winding creek, the outlet
of the Meredith River, gleaming and shining along its stony bed,
and richly fringed by native flowering shrubs, mingled with garden
flowers half-wild, poppies, stocks, wallflowers, and bright-eyed
marigolds looking merrily up, amidst thickets of the golden wattle
and snowy tea-tree; whilst, on the higher ground, huge old gumtrees
stand majestically ... Large tracts of cleared, fenced and cultivated
land form a nearly level plain in front and towards the north, in
which direction the cottage, formerly the residence of our family,
peeps from its grove of wattle trees."
Mereith quoted in Vivienne Rae-Ellis Louise
Anne Meredith: A Tigress in Exile Hobart: St David's Park Publishing,
1990 (orig. 1979), p. 103
|
