Richard le Gallienne wrote a wonderful account of visiting Kelmscott a couple of years after William Morris's death; he took tea with Jane Morris in the orchard, and she gave him a jar of quince jam (which she had made herself) to take home with him. He wrote: "It was like receiving it at the hands of Helen of Troy... It was a dreamlike afternoon, and as I departed with my quince jam, it seemed to me that it must indeed have come to me in a dream. I cannot recall now what became of it. Perhaps it vanished back into dreamland, for it cannot be conceived that it was eaten in commonplace fashion, like other earthly jams." No quinces, but I brought back an early windfall apple - it might not have been spirited there from Avalon or the Garden of the Hesperides, or fallen from the silver bough of Irish myth, but its fresh scent and its warm, redolent ripeness carries with it something of the Otherworld, a dreamland, a land where it is always summer... #kelmscottmanor #williammorris #janemorris #richardlegallienne #summer #summerland #preraphaelites #artsandcrafts #dantegabrielrossetti #cotswolds #societyofantiquaries #manorhouse #orchard #topiary #countrygarden #wildprofusion #windfallapple #strawberrythief #summerfruits #hollyhocks #books #beauty #art https://www.instagram.com/p/B0YrZr0AmdM/?igshid=w3352pm1z2mq
