“To love is to burn, to be on fire.” This line delivered by Marianne Dashwood in Ang Lee’s 1995 film adaptation of Sense and Sensibility replayed over and over in my head as I strolled along and through the gardens around Eltham Palace. I must admit, I’ve never read the novel by Jane Austen and believe me, I spend a significant amount of time kicking myself over the fact that I haven’t, so I do not need any backlash from you either. However, I do pride myself in being rather well-versed in the movie, so I am willing to meet halfway on this issue. Hopeless romantic Marianne admits her expectations about love and what love is—and all the suffering that accompanies it. Love is dangerous, she implies, and it consumes and engulfs the loving.
Time is much slower here. You have time to stop and take pictures and breathe and just take it all in. You’re still in the city, in fact you can see the skyline if you look out past the open horse fields. This contrast between old and new creates a sort of imbalance, like one of these two things is out of place. Whichever you believe to be the thing that’s out of place is entirely up to you—it just depends on how you see London. Do you see it as the classic, romantic, and elegant place that Austen describes and Lee shows? Is it wide open green fields that stretch on for miles and miles with full trees and blossoming gardens where girls in corsets stroll around confessing their admiration for a gentleman caller? Or do you see it how it’s become? The industrialized and constructed cityscape with skyscrapers, middle fingers, bicyclists, and garbage. I invite you to reflect on your answer, then make the decision as to which aspect of London seems a bit misplaced.
The famous line played over in my head, like that of a skipping tape or CD. Eltham Palace had that power over you though—to take its guests in the modern era and transport them back to the Victorian era in which it was inhabited and even the several centuries prior to then. It took you back to a time when that classical Victorian quote wasn’t cliché or overdramatic, but hopelessly romantic and fitting. The palace’s exuding elegance and class made for any ordinary Westerner (hi), with all my Americanness, modernity, and lack of elegance seem quite unfit. Yet, at the same time, its budding orchids and open daffodils that peaked out of the vibrant green and freshly cut grass that contrasted perfectly against the tainted, dusted, and weathered brown brick that laid the exterior of the palace could make any foreigner feel at home. The architecture in itself, the high ceilings, the towers situated on almost every corner of the building, the stretch windows, and the spiral staircases provided a sense of safety and comfort in a total stranger’s home.
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