eh, for a summer home, i s'pose it'll do

You know that sense of awe that would come over you as you and your field trip group would step into a very old building? As you held your sack lunch, you didn't know how tightly you were squeezing the paper? And although you knew you were supposed to be paying good attention to the dates, facts and interesting tidbits about the history of the land, you couldn't help but lose yourself a little in imagining
what life must have been like in that place one hundred years ago? Well, I know exactly how that feels and a couple of weeks ago I had that same feeling all over again. I went with the Pritchett Family to the Biltmore house in North Carolina. The house itself was enough to flabbergast a soul, but on top of that there was the grounds, stables, greenhouse. Inside, from floor to ceiling there were myriads of wonders to look at. The tapestries, the paintings and secret passageways, the exquisite architecture and design. Every room was another reason to sigh in ecstatic wonder. I fell in love with the whole family. George, Edith and (especially) CORNELIA. Cornelia was pretty muchly amazing and I stalked her from museum to museum and read every sign or plaque that had her name on it. I mean - she had a pet skunk for goodness sake! (among her other pets including four St. Bernards, a parrot and a donkey which she RODE!!! (That struck me as funny, for she had access to fine horses and yet she rode a donkey? Yeah, major points for her.) You don't beat that. In my estimation, she was as spunky, charming and affable as they come.
We had coffee - so very yummy and hot and it was cold outside. On the whole, it was beautiful. We had snowball fights, a chat with Dianna (goddess of the hunt), smelled all the flowers in the greenhouse, checked out the kitchen (which smelled of cinnamon, yam and pipe tobacco to me), made sure their water pipes hadn't frozen (whitney turned on the water to be sure)
and skipped down George Vanderbilt's driveway.
There's nothing quite like that feeling of awe. That feeling of being in the midst of something so magnificent and beautiful and feeling so very small and peepish surrounded by it all, yet wanting to break out in a jubilant jig just because of the ridiculously amazing magnitude of the beauty and wonder. I can't quite reckon how the Vanderbilts coped with that feeling day in and out. Perhaps by wearing a perpetual look of amazement on their faces?


I wonder, if James Whitcomb Riley had visited that house, would he, in any way have been temted to recite "Out to Old Aunt Mary's" ?