* * * * *

One day, standing in that wild region of bare rock and sea, called
Cornwall Point, whence one can see the crags and postillion wild rocks
where Land's End dashes out into the sea, and all the wild blue sea
between, and not a house in sight, save the chimney of some little
mill-like place peeping between the rocks inland--on that day I finished
what I may call my official search.

In going away from that place, walking northward, I came upon a lonely
house by the sea, a very beautiful house, made, it was clear, by an
artist, of the bungalow type, with an exquisitely sea-side expression. I
went to it, and found its special feature a spacious loggia or verandah,
sheltered by the overhanging upper story. Up to the first floor, the
exterior is of stone in rough-hewn blocks with a distinct batter, while
extra protection from weather is afforded by green slating above. The
roofs, of low pitch, are also covered with green slates, and a feeling
of strength and repose is heightened by the very long horizontal lines.
At one end of the loggia is a hexagonal turret, opening upon the loggia,
containing a study or nook. In front, the garden slopes down to the
sea, surrounded by an architectural sea-wall; and in this place I lived
three weeks. It was the house of the poet Machen, whose name, when I saw
it, I remembered very well, and he had married a very beautiful young
girl of eighteen, obviously Spanish, who lay on the bed in the large
bright bedroom to the right of the loggia, on her left exposed breast
being a baby with an india-rubber comforter in its mouth, both mother
and child wonderfully preserved, she still quite lovely, white brow
under low curves of black hair. The poet, strange to say, had not died
with them, but sat in the sitting-room behind the bedroom in a long
loose silky-grey jacket, at his desk--actually writing a poem! writing,