living in the same spot as lived, we find, if we consult the Heralds'
Visitations, armigerous families of the same name in the sixteenth
century, already ancient, and perhaps bearing, it is curious to note, the
same Christian names as the family which has forgotten them bears to-day.

So it is that in that innate ennoblement which implies no superiority
either of the intellect or of the heart, but merely a greater refinement
of the nervous tissue, the Cornish have displayed, from the earliest
period we can discern, a slight superiority over us English. Drake, a man
of this district if not a Cornish-man, when sailing on his daring
buccaneering adventures, dined and supped to the music of violins, a
refinement which even his Pole-hunting successors of our own day scarcely
achieved. Raleigh, partly a Cornishman, still retains popular fame as the
man who flung his rich cloak in the mud for the Queen to step on. To-day a
poet of Cornish race when introduced in public to Sarah Bernhardt, the
goddess of his youthful adoration, at once kissed her hand and declared to
her that that was the moment he had all his life been looking for. But we
English are not descended from the men who wrote the _Mabinogian_; our
hearts and souls are expressed in _Beowulf_ and _Havelok_, and more
remotely in the _Chanson de Roland_. We could not imitate the Cornish if
we would; and sometimes, perhaps, we would not if we could.


_October_ 4.--I lay with a book on the rocks, overlooking a familiar
scene, the great expanse of the sands at low tide. In the far distance
near the river was a dim feminine figure in a long coat, accompanied by
three dogs. Half an hour later, when I glanced up from my book, I chanced
to notice that the slender feminine figure was marching down to the sea,
leaving a little pile of garments on the middle of the sands, just now
completely deserted. The slender figure leisurely and joyously disported