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Title: The Story of My Life, volumes 4-6
Author: Hare, Augustus J. C. (Augustus John Cuthbert), 1834-1903
Language: English
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note)
THE STORY OF MY LIFE
VOL. IV
[Illustration: Augustus J. C. Hare]
THE STORY OF
MY LIFE
BY
AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE
AUTHOR OF “MEMORIALS OF A QUIET LIFE.”
“THE STORY OF TWO NOBLE LIVES.”
ETC. ETC.
VOLUME IV
LONDON
GEORGE ALLEN, 156, CHARING CROSS ROAD
1900
[_All rights reserved_]
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
At the Ballantyne Press
PREFACE
With the exception of the last two chapters, these three volumes were
printed at the same time with the first three volumes of “The Story of
my Life” in 1896, therefore many persons are spoken of in them as still
living who have since passed away, and others, mentioned as children,
have since grown up.
Reviews will doubtless, in general, continue to abuse the book,
especially for its great length. But personally, if I am interested in a
story, I like it to be a long one; and there is no obligation for any
who dislike a long book to read this one: they may look at a page or two
here and there, where they seem promising; or, better still, they can
leave it quite alone: they really need have nothing to complain of.
In the later volumes I have used letters for my narrative even more than
in the former. Many will feel with Dr. Newman that “the true life of a
man is in his letters.... Not only for the interest of a biography, but
for arriving at the inside of things, the publication of letters is the
true method. Biographers varnish, they assign motives, they conjecture
feelings, but contemporary letters are facts.”
AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE.
CONTENTS
PAGE
IN MY SOLITARY LIFE 1
LITERARY WORK AT HOME AND ABROAD 162
LONDON WALKS AND SOCIETY 352
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VOL. IV
AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE. _From a photograph by Hill and
Sounders._ (_Photogravure_) _Frontispiece_
PAGE
HIGHCLIFFE, THE KING’S ORIEL 9
FRANCIS GEORGE HARE. (_Photogravure_) _To Face_ 20
THE CHURCHYARD AT HURSTMONCEAUX 15
GIBRALTAR FROM ALGECIRAS. (_Full-page woodcut_) _To face_ 34
TOLEDO. (_Full-page woodcut_) _To face_ 38
SEGOVIA. (_Full-page woodcut_) _To face_ 42
FOUNTAIN OF S. CLOUD 45
FROM THE LIBRARY WINDOW, FORD 52
HATFIELD 75
FIDENAE 86
VIEW FROM THE TEMPIETTO, ROME 91
SUBIACO. (_Full-page woodcut_) _To face_ 96
ISOLA FARNESE 96
PONTE DELL’ ISOLA, VEII 97
CASTEL FUSANO 100
CYCLOPEAN GATE OF ALATRI 104
THE INN AT FERENTINO 105
PAPAL PALACE, ANAGNI 106
TEMPLES OF CORI 107
NINFA 108
S. ORESTE, FROM SORACTE 109
CONVENT OF S. SILVESTRO, SUMMIT OF SORACTE 111
SUTRI 112
CAPRAROLA 113
PAPAL PALACE, VITERBO 114
FROM THE WALLS OF ORVIETO 115
PORCH OF CREMONA 120
PIAZZA MAGGIORE, BERGAMO 121
THE HOSPICE, HOLMHURST 130
LANGLEY FORD, IN THE CHEVIOTS 138
RABY CASTLE 146
LAMPEDUSA FROM TAGGIA 167
STAIRCASE, PALAZZO DELL’ UNIVERSITA, GENOA 168
CLOISTER OF S. MATTEO, GENOA 169
COLONNA CASTLE, PALESTRINA 172
GENAZZANO 173
SUBIACO 174
SACRO SPECO, SUBIACO 175
S. MARIA DI COLLEMAGGIO, AQUILA 176
SOLMONA 177
HERMITAGE OF PIETRO MURRONE 178
CASTLE OF AVEZZANO 179
GATE OF ARPINUM 180
TRIUMPHAL ARCH, AQUINO 181
PORTO S. LORENZO, AQUINO 182
FARFA 190
GATE OF CASAMARI 191
LA BADIA DI SETTIMO 195
AT MILAN 197
PARAY LE MONIAL 198
THE GARDEN TERRACE, HIGHCLIFFE 210
THE HAVEN HOUSE 211
THE LIBRARY, HIGHCLIFFE 214
THE FOUNTAIN, HIGHCLIFFE 216
GATEWAY, LAMBETH PALACE 220
THE BLOODY GATE, TOWER OF LONDON 221
COMPIÈGNE 225
HOLLAND HOUSE 227
HOLMHURST, THE ROCK WALK 229
HOLLAND HOUSE (GENERAL VIEW) 231
HOLLAND HOUSE, THE LILY GARDEN 234
COBHAM HALL 238
LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD. (_Line engraving_) _To face_ 256
THE SECRET STAIR, FORD 257
NORHAM-ON-TWEED 259
THE KING’S ROOM, FORD 263
THE PINETA, RAVENNA 302
IL SAGRO DI S. MICHELE 313
CANOSSA 314
URBINO 315
GUBBIO 316
LA VERNIA 319
CAMALDOLI 320
BOBBIO 321
FRANCES, BARONESS BUNSEN. (_Line engraving_) _To face_ 322
LOVERE, LAGO D’ISEO 322
LAMBETH, INNER COURT 324
DORCHESTER HOUSE 332
CROSBY HALL 337
THE GARDEN PORCH, HIGHCLIFFE 341
THE SUNDIAL WALK, HIGHCLIFFE 342
FOUNTAIN COURT, TEMPLE 361
IN FRONT OF ST. PAUL’S 364
CHAPEL AND GATEWAY, LINCOLN’S INN 372
STAPLE INN, HOLBORN 373
JOHN BUNYAN’S TOMB, BUNHILL FIELDS 377
TRAITOR’S GATE, TOWER OF LONDON 378
THE SAVOY CHURCHYARD 380
RAHERE’S TOMB, ST. BARTHOLOMEW’S, SMITHFIELD 381
THE SLEEPING SISTERS, ST. MARY OVERY 382
CHARLTON HALL 389
COURTYARD, FULHAM PALACE 399
HOLMHURST 405
LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD. _From a photograph
by W.J. Reed._ (_Photogravure_) _To face_ 406
CHURCHYARD OF ST. ANNE, SOHO 413
LONDON BRIDGE FROM BILLINGSGATE 485
XVI
IN MY SOLITARY LIFE
“Console if you will, I can bear it;
’Tis a well-meant alms of breath;
But not all the preaching since Adam
Has made Death other than Death.”--LOWELL.
“Whoever he is that is overrun with solitariness, or crucified with
worldly care, I can prescribe him no better remedy than that of
study, to compose himself to learning.”--BURTON, _Anatomy of
Melancholy_.
“E certo ogni mio studio in quel temp’ era
Pur di sfogare il doloroso core
In qualche modo, non d’acquistar fama,
Pianger cercai, non già del pianto onore.”
--PETRARCH, _In Morte di Laura_, xxv.
“Why should we faint, and fear to live alone,
Since all alone, so Heaven hath willed, we die,
Nor even the tenderest heart, and next our own,
Knows half the reasons why we smile or sigh?”
--KEBLE.
“Let us dismiss vain sorrows: it is for the living only that we are
called to live. Forward! forward!”--CARLYLE.
I spent the greater part of the fiercely cold winter of 1870-71 in
complete seclusion at Holmhurst, entirely engrossed in the work of the
“Memorials,” which had been the last keen interest of my Mother’s life.
In calling up the vivid image of long-ago days spent with her, I seemed
to live those days over again, and I found constant proof of her loving
forethought for the first months of my solitude in the materials which,
without my knowledge, and without then the slightest idea of
publication, she must have frequently devoted herself to arranging
during the last few years of her life. As each day passed, and the work
unravelled itself, I was increasingly convinced of the wisdom of her
death-bed decision that until the book was quite finished I should give
it to none of the family to read. They must judge of it as a whole.
Otherwise, in “attempting to please all, I should please none: shocking
nobody’s prejudices I should enlist nobody’s sympathies.”
Unfortunately this decision greatly ruffled the sensibilities of my
Stanley cousins, especially of Arthur Stanley and his sister Mary, who
from the first threatened me with legal proceedings if I gave them the
smallest loop-hole for them, by publishing a word of their own mother’s
writing without their consent, which from the first, also, they declared
they would withhold. They were also “quite certain” that no one would
ever read the “Memorials” if they were published, in which I always
thought they might be wrong, as people are so apt to be when they are
“quite certain.”
My other cousins did not at first approve of the plan of the
“Memorials,” but when once completely convinced that it had been their
dear aunt’s wish, they withdrew all opposition.
Still the harshness with which I was now continually treated and spoken
of by those with whom I had always hitherto lived on terms of the utmost
intimacy was a bitter trial. In a time when a single great grief
pervades every hour, unreasonable demands, cruel words, and taunting
sneers are more difficult to bear than when life is rippling on in an
even course. I was by no means blameless: I wrote sharp letters: I made
harsh speeches; but that it was my duty to fight in behalf of the
fulfilment of the solemn duty which had devolved upon me, I never
doubted then, and I have never doubted since. In the fulfilment of that
duty I was prepared to sacrifice every friend I had in the world, all
the little fortune I had, my very life itself. I felt that I must learn
henceforth to act with “Selbständigkeit,” which somehow seems to have a
stronger meaning than independence; and I believe I had in mind the
maxim of Sœur Rosalie--“Faites le bien, et laissez dire.”
A vivid impression that I had a very short time to live made me more
eager about the _rapid_ fulfilment of my task. I thought of the Spanish
proverb, “By-and-by is always too late,” and I often worked at the book
for twelve hours a day. My Mother had long thought, and latterly often
said, that it was impossible I could long survive her: that when two
lives were so closely entwined as ours, one could not go on alone. She
had often even spoken of “when we die.” But God does not allow people to
die of grief, though, when sorrow has once taken possession of one, only
hard work, laboriously undertaken, can--not drive it out, but keep it
under control. It is as Whittier says:--
“There is nothing better than work for mind or body. It makes the
burden of sorrow, which all sooner or later must carry, lighter. I
like the wise Chinese proverb: ‘You cannot prevent the birds of
sadness from flying over your head, but you may prevent them from
stopping to build their nests in your hair.’”[1]
I had felt the _gradual_ separation of death. At first the sense of my
Mother’s presence was still quite vivid: then it was less so: at last
the day came when I felt “she is nowhere here now.”
It was partly owing to the strong impression in her mind that I could
not survive her that my Mother had failed to make the usual arrangements
for my future provision. As she had never allowed any money to be placed
in my name, I had--being no legal relation to her--to pay a stranger’s
duty of £10 per cent on all she possessed, and this amounted to a large
sum, when extended to a duty on every picture, even every garden
implement, &c.[2] Not only this, but during her lifetime she had been
induced by various members of the family to sign away a large portion of
her fortune, and in the intricate difficulties which arose I was assured
that I should have nothing whatever left to live upon beyond £60 a year,
and the rent of Holmhurst (fortunately secured), if it could be let. I
was urged by the Stanleys to submit at once to my fate, and to sell
Holmhurst; yet I could not help hoping for better days, which came with
the publication of “Walks in Rome.”
Meanwhile, half distracted by the unsought “advice” which was poured
upon me from all sides, and worn-out with the genuine distress of my
old servants, I went away in March, just as far as I could, first to
visit the Pole Carews in Cornwall, and then to the Land’s End, to
Stephen Lawley, who was then living in a cottage by the roadside near
Penzance. I was so very miserable and so miserably preoccupied at this
time, that I have no distinct recollection of these visits, beyond the
image on my mind of the grand chrysoprase seas of Cornwall and the
stupendous rocks against which they beat, especially at Tol Pedn
Penwith. I felt more in my natural element when, after I had gone to
Bournemouth to visit Archie Colquhoun,[3] who was mourning the recent
loss of both his parents, I was detained there by his sudden and
dangerous illness. While there, also, I was cheered by the first
thoughts for a tour in Spain during the next winter.
* * * * *
_To_ MARY LEA GIDMAN.
“_Penzance, March 13, 1871._--I know how much and sadly you will have
thought to-day of the last terrible 13th of March, when we were awakened
in the night by the dear Mother’s paralytic seizure, and saw her so
sadly changed. In all the anguish of looking back upon that time, and
the feeling which I constantly have now of all that is bright and happy
having perished out of my life with her sweet presence, I have much
comfort in thinking that we were able to carry out her last great wish
in bringing her home, and in the memory of the three happy months of
comparative health which she afterwards enjoyed there. Many people since
I left home have read some of the ‘Memorials’ I am writing, and express
a sense of never having known before how perfectly beautiful her
character was, and that in truth, like Abraham, they ‘entertained an
angel unawares.’ Now that dear life, which always seemed to us so
perfect, has indeed become perfected, and the heavenly glow which came
to the revered features in death is but a very faint image of the
heavenly glory which always rests upon them.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS WRIGHT.
“_Stewart’s Hotel, Bournemouth, March 30, 1871._--The discussion of a
tour in Spain comes to me as the pleasant dream of a possible future....
It is of course easy for us to see Spain _in a way_ in a few weeks, but
if one does not go in a cockney spirit, but really wishing to _learn_,
to open one’s eyes to the glorious past of Spain, the story of Isabella,
the Moorish dominion, the boundless wealth of its legends, its proverbs,
its poetry--all that makes it different from any other country--we must
begin in a different way, and our chief interest will be found in the
grand old cities which the English generally do _not_ visit--Leon,
Zaragoza, Salamanca; in the wonderful romance which clings around the
rocks of Monserrat and the cloisters of Santiago; in the scenes of the
Cid, Don Roderick, Cervantes, &c.
“You will be sorry to hear that I am again in my normal condition of day
and night nurse, in all the varying anxieties of a sick-room. I came
here ten days ago to stay with Archie Colquhoun, whom I had known very
little before, but who, having lost both father and mother lately,
turned in heart to me and begged me to come to him. On Tuesday he fell
with a great crash on the floor in a fit, and was unconscious for many
hours.... It was a narrow escape of his life, and he was in a most
critical state till the next day, but now he is doing well, though it
will long be an anxious case.[4] You will easily understand how much
past anguish has come back to me in the night-watches here, and I feel
it odd that these duties should, as it were, be perpetually _found_ for
me.”
* * * * *
In May I paid the first of many visits to my dear Lady Waterford at
Highcliffe, her fairy palace by the sea, on the Hampshire coast, near
Christ Church, and though I was still too sad to enter into the full
charm of the place and the life, which I have enjoyed so much since, I
was greatly refreshed by the mental tonic, and by the kindness and
sympathy which I have never failed to receive from Lady Waterford and
her friend Lady Jane Ellice. With them, too, I was able to discuss my
work in all its aspects, and greatly was I encouraged by all they said.
[Illustration: HIGHCLIFFE, THE KING’S ORIEL.][5]
For many years after this, Highcliffe was more familiar to me than any
other place except my own home, and I am attached to every stone of it.
The house was the old Mayor’s house of Les Andelys, removed from
Normandy by Lord Stuart de Rothesay, but a drawing shows the building as
it was in France, producing a far finer effect than as it was put up in
England by Pugin, the really fine parts, especially the great window,
being lower down in the building, and more made of. In the room to which
that window belonged, Antoyne de Bourbon, King of Navarre, died. The
portraits in the present room of the Duchess of Suffolk and her second
husband, who was a Bertie, have the old ballad of “The Duchess of
Suffolk” inscribed beneath. They fled abroad, and their son Peregrine,
born in a church porch, was the progenitor of the present Berties. I
have myself always inhabited the same room at Highcliffe--one up a
separate stair of its own, adorned with great views of the old
Highcliffe and Mount Stuart, and with old French furniture, including a
chair worked in blue and red by Queen Marie Amélie and Madame Adelaïde.
The original house of Highcliffe was built on land sold to Lord Stuart
by a Mr. Penlees, who had had a legacy of bank-notes left him in the
case of a cocked-hat--it was quite full of them. Mr. Penlees had built a
very ugly house, the present “old rooms,” which Lord Stuart cased over.
Then he said that, while Lady Stuart was away, he would add a few rooms.
When she came back, to her intense consternation, she found the new
palace of Highcliffe: all the ornaments, windows, &c., from Les Andelys
having been landed close by upon the coast. I always liked going with
Lady Waterford into the old rooms, which were those principally used by
Lady Stuart, and contained a wonderful copy of Sir Joshua which Lady
Waterford made when she was ten years old. There was also a beautiful
copy of the famous picture of Lord Royston, done by Lady Waterford
herself long ago; a fine drawing of the leave-taking of Charles I. and
his children--Charles with a head like the representations of the
Saviour; and a portrait of the old Lady Stuart, “Grannie Stuart,” with
all the wrinkles smoothed out. “Oh, if I am like that, I am only fit to
die,” she said, when she saw it.[6]
I have put down a few notes from the conversation at Highcliffe this
year.
* * * * *
“Mr. M. was remonstrated with because he would not admire Louis
Philippe’s régime. He said, ‘No, I cannot; I have known him before so
well. I am like the peasant who, when he was remonstrated with because
he would not take off his hat to a new wooden cross that was put up,
said he couldn’t _parceque je l’ai connu poirier_.’”
“Some one spoke to old Lady Salisbury[7] of Adam’s words--‘The woman
tempted me, and I did eat.’ ‘Shabby fellow,’ she said.”
“Lady Anne Barnard[8] was at a party in France, and her carriage never
came to take her away. A certain Duke who was there begged to have the
honour of taking her home, and she accepted, but on the way felt rather
awkward and thought he was too affectionate and gallant. Suddenly she
was horrified to see the Duke on his knees at the bottom of the
carriage, and was putting out her hands and warding him off, when he
exclaimed, ‘Taisez-vous, Madame, voilà le bon Dieu qui passe.’ It was a
great blow to her vanity.”
“Old Lord Malmesbury[9] used to invent the most extraordinary stories
and tell them so well; indeed, he told them till he quite believed them.
One was called ‘The Bloody Butler,’ and was about a butler who drank the
wine and then filled the bottles with the blood of his victims. Another
was called ‘The Moth-eaten Clergyman;’ it was about a very poor
clergyman, a Roman he was, who had some small parish in Southern
Germany, and was a very good man, quite excellent, absolutely devoted to
the good of his people. There was, however, one thing which militated
against his having all the influence amongst his flock which he ought
to have had, and this was that he was constantly observed to steal out
of his house in the late evening with two bags in his hand, and to bury
the contents in the garden; and yet when people came afterwards by
stealth and dug for the treasure, they found nothing at all, and this
was thought, well ... not quite canny.
“Now the diocesan of that poor clergyman, who happened to be the
Archbishop of Mayence, was much distressed at this, that the influence
of so good a man should thus be marred. Soon afterwards he went on his
visitation tour, and he stopped at the clergyman’s house for the night.
He arrived with outriders, and two postillions, and four fat horses, and
four fat pug-dogs, which was not very convenient. However, the poor
clergyman received them all very hospitably, and did the best he could
for them. But the Archbishop thought it was a great opportunity for
putting an end to all the rumours that were about, and with a view to
this he gave orders that the doors should be fastened and locked, so
that no one should go out.
“When morning came, the windows of the priest’s house were not opened,
and no one emerged, and at last the parishioners became alarmed, for
there was no sound at all. But when they broke open the doors, volleys
upon volleys of moths of every kind and hue poured out; but of the poor
clergyman, or of the Archbishop of Mayence, or of the outriders and
postillions, or of the four fat horses, or of the four pug-dogs, came
out nothing at all, for they were all eaten up. For the fact was that
the poor clergyman really had the most dreadful disease which bred
myriads of moths; if he could bury their eggs at night, he kept them
under, but when he was locked up, and he could do nothing, they were too
much for him. Now there is a moral in this story, because if the people
and the Archbishop had looked to the fruits of that excellent man’s
life, and not attended to foolish reports with which they had no concern
whatever, these things would never have happened.
“These were the sort of things Lord Malmesbury used to invent. Canning
used to tell them to us.”
“I call the three kinds of Churchism--Attitudinarian, Latitudinarian,
and Platitudinarian.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS WRIGHT.
“_Holmhurst, June 12, 1871._--In a few days’ solitude what a quantity of
work I have gone through; and work which carries one back over a wide
extent of the far long-ago always stretches out the hours, but how
interesting it makes them! I quite feel that I should not have lived
through the first year of my desolation without the companionship of
this work of the ‘Memorials,’ which my darling so wisely foresaw and
prepared for me. Daily I miss her more. Now that the flowers are
blooming around, and the sun shining on the lawn, and the leaves out on
the ash-tree in the shade of which she used to sit, it seems impossible
not to think that the suffering present must be a dream and that she is
only ‘not yet come out;’ and what the empty room, the unused pillow are,
whence the sunshine of my life came, I cannot say. On Thursday I am
going for one day to Hurstmonceaux, to our sacred spot. The cross is to
be put up then. It is very beautiful, and is only inscribed:--
MARIA HARE,
Nov. 22, 1798. Nov. 13, 1870.
Until the Daybreak.
No other words are needed there; all the rest is written in the hearts
of the people who loved her.
[Illustration: THE CHURCHYARD AT HURSTMONCEAUX.]
“I have been thinking lately how all my life hitherto has been down a
highway. There was no doubt as to where the duties were; there could be
no doubt whence the pleasures, certainly whence the sorrows would come.
Now there seem endless byways to diverge upon. But all the interest of
life must be on its highway: the byways may be beautiful and attractive,
but never interesting.”
* * * * *
“_Sept. 26._--I much enjoyed my Peakirk visit to charming people (Mr.
and Mrs. James) and a curious place--an oasis in the Fens, the home of
St. Pega (sister of St. Guthlac), whose hermitage with its battered but
beautiful cross still remains. I saw Burleigh, like a Genoese palace
inside; and yesterday made a fatiguing but worth while pilgrimage, for
love of Mary Queen of Scots, to Fotheringhay. One stone, but only one,
remains of the castle which was the scene of her sufferings; so people
wondered at my going so far. ‘Why cannot you let bygones be bygones?’
said young W. to me. However, the church is very curious, and contains
inscriptions to a whole party of Plantagenets--Richard, Earl of
Cornwall; Cicely, Duchess of York; Edward, father of Edward IV.--for
Fotheringhay, now a hamlet in the fen, was once an important place: the
death of Mary wrought the curse which became its ruin.”
* * * * *
I have said little for many years of the George Sheffield who was the
dearest friend of my boyhood. He had been attaché at Munich, Washington,
Constantinople, and was now at Paris as secretary to Lord Lyons. In this
my first desolate year he also had a sorrow, which wonderfully reunited
us, and we became perhaps greater friends than we had been before.
Another of whom I saw much at this time was Charlie Dalison. A younger
son of a Kentish squire of good family, he went--like the young men of
olden time--to London to seek his fortunes, and simply by his good
looks, winning manners, and incomparable self-reliance became the most
popular young man in party-giving London society; but he had many higher
qualities.
I needed all the support my friends could give me, for the family feud
about the “Memorials” was not the only trouble that pressed upon me at
this time.
It will be recollected that, in my sister’s death-bed will, she had
bequeathed to me her claims to a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds. It was
the very fact of this bequest which in 1871 made my poor Aunt Eleanor
(Miss Paul) set up a counter-claim to the picture, which was valued at
_£_2000.
Five-and-twenty years before, the picture had been entrusted for a time
to Sir John Paul, who unfortunately, from some small vanity, allowed it
to be exhibited in his own name instead of that of the owner. But I
never remember the time when it was not at Hurstmonceaux after 1845,
when it was sent there. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was an intimate family
friend, painted it in the house of Bishop Shipley, when my father was
two and a half years old. It was painted for my great-aunt Lady Jones,
widow of the famous Orientalist. Lady Jones adopted her nephew Augustus
Hare, and brought him up as her own son, but, as she died intestate, her
personalty passed, not to him, but to her only surviving sister, Louisa
Shipley. Miss Shipley lived many years, and bequeathed the portrait to
her youngest nephew, Marcus Hare. But Marcus gave up his legacy to my
Uncle Julius, who always possessed the picture in my boyhood, when it
hung over the dining-room chimney-piece at Hurstmonceaux Rectory. Uncle
Julius bequeathed the portrait, with all else he possessed, to his
widow, who transferred the picture at once to my adopted mother, as
being the widow of the adopted son of Lady Jones.
The claim of the opposite party to the picture was that Mrs. Hare
(“Italima”) had said that Lady Jones in her lifetime had promised to
give her the picture, a promise which was never fulfilled; and that my
sister, after her mother’s death, had said at Holmhurst, “If every one
had their rights, that picture would belong to me, as my mother’s
representative, for Lady Jones promised it to my mother,” also that she
proved her belief in having a claim to it by bequeathing that claim to
me. But the strongest point against us was that somehow or other, _how_
no one could explain, the picture had been allowed to remain for more
than a year in the hands of Sir John Paul, and he had exhibited it.
Though the impending trial about the picture question was very different
from that at Guildford, the violent animosity displayed by my poor aunt
made it most painful, in addition to the knowledge that she (who had
inherited everything belonging to my father, mother, and sister, and had
dispersed their property to the four winds of heaven, whilst I possessed
_nothing_ which had belonged to them) was now trying to seize property
to which she could have no possible moral right, though English law is
so uncertain that one never felt sure to the last whether the fact of
the picture having been exhibited in Sir John Paul’s name might not
weigh fatally with both judge and jury.
For the whole month of November I was in London, expecting the trial
every day, but it was not till the evening of the 6th of December that I
heard that it was to be the next morning in the law-court off
Westminster Hall. The court was crowded. My counsel, Mr. Pollock, began
his speech with a tremendous exordium. “Gentlemen of the jury, in a
neighbouring court the world is sitting silent before the stupendous
excitement of the Tichborne trial: gentlemen of the jury, _that_ case
pales into insignificance--pales into the most _utter_ insignificance
before the thrilling interest of the present occasion. On the narrow
stage of this domestic drama, all the historic characters of the last
century and all the literary personages of the present seem to be
marching in a solemn procession.” And he proceeded to tell the really
romantic history of the picture--how Benjamin Franklin saw it painted,
&c. I was called into the witness-box and examined and cross-examined
for an hour by Mr. H. James. As long as I was in the region of my
great-uncles and aunts, I was perfectly at home, and nothing in the
cross-examination could the least confuse me. Then the counsel for the
opposition said, “Mr. Hare, on the 20th of April 1866 you wrote a
letter, &c.: what was in that letter?” Of course I said I could not
tell. “What do you think was in that letter?” So I said something, and
of course it was exactly opposite to the fact.
[Illustration: _Francis George Hare_
(Photogravure)]
As witnesses to the fact of the picture having been at the Rectory at
the time of the marriage of my Uncle Julius, I had subpœnaed the
whole surviving family of Mrs. Julius Hare, who could witness to it
better than any one else, as they had half-lived at Hurstmonceaux
Rectory after their sister’s marriage. Her two sisters, Mrs. Powell and
Mrs. Plumptre, took to their beds, and remained there for a week to
avoid the trial, but Dr. Plumptre[10] and Mr. (F. D.) Maurice had to
appear, and gave evidence as to the picture having been at Hurstmonceaux
Rectory at the time of their sister’s marriage in 1845,[11] and having
remained there afterwards during the whole of Julius Hare’s life. Mr.
George Paul was then called, and took an oath that, till he went to
America in 1852, the picture had remained at Sir John Paul’s; but such
is the inattention and ignorance of their business which I have always
observed in lawyers, that this discrepancy passed absolutely unnoticed.
The trial continued for several hours, yet when the court adjourned for
luncheon I believed all was going well. It was a terrible moment when
afterwards Judge Mellor summed up dead against us. Being ignorant,
during my mother’s lifetime, of the clause in Miss Shipley’s will
leaving the picture to Marcus Hare, and being anxious to ward off from
her the agitation of a lawsuit in her feeble health, I had made
admissions which I had really previously forgotten, but which were most
dangerous, as to the difficulty which I then felt in establishing our
claim to the picture. These weighed with Judge Mellor, and, if the jury
had followed his lead, our cause would have been ruined. The jury
demanded to retire, and were absent for some time. Miss Paul, who was in
the area of the court, received the congratulations of all her friends,
and I was so certain that my case was lost, that I went to the solicitor
of Miss Paul and said that I had had the picture brought to Sir John
Lefevre’s house in Spring Gardens, and that I wished to give it up as
soon as ever the verdict was declared, as if any injury happened to it
afterwards, a claim might be made against me for £2000.
Then the jury came back and gave a verdict for ... the defendant!
It took everybody by surprise, and it was the most triumphant moment I
ever remember. All the Pauls sank down as if they were shot. My friends
flocked round me with congratulations.
The trial took the whole day, the court sitting longer than usual on
account of it. The enemy immediately applied for a new trial, which
caused us much anxiety, but this time I was not required to appear in
person. The second trial took place on the 16th of January 1872, before
the Lord Chief Justice, Judge Blackburn, Judge Mellor, and Judge Hannen,
and, after a long discussion, was given triumphantly in my favour, Judge
Mellor withdrawing his speech made at the former trial, and stating
that, after reconsideration of all the facts, he rejoiced at the
decision of the jury.
As both trials were gained by me, the enemy had nominally to pay all the
costs, but still the expenses were most heavy. It was just at the time
when I was poorest, when my adopted mother’s will was still in abeyance.
There were also other aspirants for the picture, in the shape of the
creditors of my brother Francis, who claimed as representing my father
(not my mother). It was therefore thought wiser by all that I should
assent to the portrait being sold, and be content to retain only in its
place a beautiful copy which had been made for me by the kindness of my
cousin Madeleine Shaw-Lefevre. The portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds was
sold at Christie’s in the summer of 1872 for £2200, and is now in the
National Gallery of America at New York.
A week after the trial, on the 13th of December, I left England for
Spain. It had at first been intended that a party of five should pass
the winter there together, but one after another fell off, till none
remained except Miss Wright--“Aunt Sophy”--who joined me in Paris. The
story of our Spanish tour is fully told in my book “Wanderings in
Spain,” which appeared first as articles in _Good Words_. These were
easily written and pleasant and amusing to write, but have none of the
real value of the articles which I afterwards contributed on “Days near
Rome.” I will only give here, to carry on the story, some extracts from
my letters.
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Paris, Dec. 14, 1871._--How different France and England! At Holmhurst
I left a green garden bright with chrysanthemums and everlastings: here,
a pathless waste of snow up to the tops of the hedges became so deep
near Creil that, as day broke, we remained fixed for an hour and a half
in the midst of a forest, neither able to move backwards or forwards.
And by the side of the rail were remains of a frightful accident of
yesterday--engine smashed to bits, carriages cut in half, the linings
hanging in rags, cushions lying about, &c. The guard was not
encouraging--‘Oui, il y avait des victimes, pas beaucoup, mais il y a
toujours des victimes.’ ... The state of Paris is unspeakably wretched,
hillocks of snow, uncarted away and as high as your shoulder, filling
the sides of the streets, with a pond in the intervening space. The
Tuileries (after the Commune) looks far worse than I
expected--restorable, but for the present it has lost all its form and
character. We went inside this morning, but were soon warned out on
account of the falling walls weakened by the frost.”
* * * * *
“_Pau, Dec. 20_.--I was glad to seize the opportunity of Aunt Sophy’s
wishing for a few days’ rest before encountering Spain to pay a visit to
the Taylors.[12] ... This morning I have walked on the terrace of the
park, and lived over again many of those suffering scenes when we were
here before. Truly _here_ I have no feeling but one of thankfulness for
the Mother’s release from the suffering body which was so great a burden
to her. I went to the Hotel Victoria, and looked up at the windows of
the rooms where, for the first time, we passed together through the
valley of the Shadow of Death.”
* * * * *
_To_ MARY LEA GIDMAN,
“_Jan. 2._--You will imagine how the long-ago came back to me at
Pau--the terrible time when we were hourly expecting the blow which has
now fallen, and which we both, I know, feel daily and hourly. But I
think it was in mercy that God spared us then: we were better prepared
for our great desolation when it really came, and in the years for which
our beloved one was given back to us, she was not only our most precious
comfort and blessing, for her also they were filled with comfort, in
spite of sickness, by the love with which she was ever surrounded. When
I think of what the great blank is, life seems quite too desolate; but
when I think of her _now_, and how her earthly life must have been one
of increasing infirmity, instead of the perfected state from which I
believe she can still look down upon us, I am satisfied.
“Do you still keep flowers or something green in her room? I hope so.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Convent of Montserrat, in Catalonia, Jan. 4, 1872._--At the best of
times you would never have been able to travel in Spain, for great as is
the delight of this unspeakably glorious place, I must confess we paid
dear for it in the sufferings of the way. The first day introduced us to
plenty of small hardships, as, a train being taken off _al improviso_,
we had to wade through muddy lanes--and the Navarre mud is _such_
mud--in pitch darkness, to a wretched hovel, where we passed the night
with a number of others, in fierce cold, no fires or comforts of any
kind. From thence (Alasua) we got on to Pamplona, our first picturesque
Spanish town, where we spent part of Christmas Day, and then went on to
Tudela, where we had another wretched posada; no fires; milk, coffee,
and butter quite unknown, and the meat stewed in oil and garlic; and
this has been the case everywhere except here, with other and worse
in-_conveniences_.
“At Zaragoza we were first a little repaid by the wonderful beauty of
the Moorish architecture--like lace in brick and stone, and the people
as well as the place made a new world for us; but oh! the cold!--blocks
of ice in the streets and the fiercest of winds raging.... No words
certainly can describe the awful, the hideous ugliness of the railway
the whole way here: not a tree, not a blade of grass to be seen, but
ceaseless wind-stricken swamps of brown mud--featureless, hopeless,
utterly uncultivated. However, Manresa is glorious, a sort of mixture of
Tivoli (without the waterfall) and Subiaco, and thence we first gazed
upon the magnificent Monserrat.
“We have been four days in the convent. I never saw anything anywhere so
beautiful or so astonishing as this place, where we are miles and miles
above every living thing except the monks, amid the most stupendous
precipices of 3000 feet perpendicular, and yet in such a wealth of
loveliness in arbutus, box, lentisc, smilax, and jessamine, as you can
scarcely imagine. Though it is so high, and we have no fires or even
_brasieros_, we scarcely feel the cold, the air is so still and the
situation so sheltered, and on the sunlit terraces, which overlook the
whole of Catalonia like a map, it is really too hot. The monks give us
lodging and we have excellent food at a _fonda_ within the convent
walls, and are quite comfortable, though it must be confessed that my
room is so narrow a cell, that when I go in it is impossible to turn
round, and I have to hoist myself on the little bed sideways.
“It has been a strange beginning of the New Year. We breakfast at eight,
and all day draw or follow the inexhaustibly lovely paths along the
edges of the precipices. Yesterday we ascended the highest peak of the
range, and were away nine hours--Aunt Sophy, the maid, and I; and
nothing can describe the sublimity of the views across so glorious a
foreground, to the whole snowy Pyrenean ranges and the expanse of blue
sea.
“I act regular courier, and do all the work at inns, stations, &c., and
Miss Wright is very easy to do for, and though very _piano_ in
misfortunes, is most kind and unselfish. The small stock of Spanish
which I acquired in lonely evenings at Holmhurst enables me to get on
quite easily--in fact, we never have a difficulty; and the kindness,
civility, and helpfulness of the Spanish people compensates for all
other annoyances. No one cheats, nor does it seem to occur to them. All
prices are fixed, and so reasonable that my week’s expenses have been
less than I paid for two dismal rooms and breakfast only in Half-Moon
Street.”
* * * * *
“_Barcelona, Jan. 9_.--We arrived here on the evening of the Befana--a
picturesque sight. It was coming into perfect summer, people out walking
in the beautiful Rambla till past 12 P.M., ladies without bonnets and
shawls. It is a very interesting place, full of lovely architecture,
with palms, huge orange-trees, and terraces, and such a deep blue sea.”
* * * * *
_To_ MARY LEA GIDMAN.
“_Barcelona, Jan. 17._--We have good rooms now, but everywhere the food
is shocking. At the _table-d’hôte_ one of the favourite dishes is
snail-soup, and as the snails are cooked in their shells, it does not
look very tempting. If the food were improved, this coast would be
better for invalids in winter than the Riviera, as it is such a splendid
climate--almost too dry, as it scarcely ever rains for more than fifty
days out of the 365. The late Queen ordered every tree in the whole of
Spain which did not bear fruit to be cut down, so the whole country is
quite bare, and so parched and rocky that often for fifty miles you do
not see a shrub, but in some places there are palms, olives, oranges,
and caroubas.
“We are very thankful for the tea which Miss Wright’s maid makes for us
in a saucepan.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Tarragona, Jan. 19._--We delighted in Barcelona, and wondered it did
not bring people to this coast instead of to the south of France.... We
get on famously with the Spaniards. I talk as much as I can, and if I
cannot, smile and look pleased, and everybody seems devoted to us, and
we are made much of and helped wherever we go. It is quite different
from Italy: and we are learning _such_ good manners from the incessant
bowing and complimenting which is required.”
* * * * *
“_Cordova, Feb. 6._--We broke the dreadful journey from Valencia to
Alicante by sleeping at Xativa, a lovely city of palms and rushing
fountains with a mountain background, but the inn so disgusting we could
not stay. Alicante, on the other hand, had no attraction except its
excellent hotel, with dry sheets, bearable smells, no garlic, and
butter. The whole district is burnt, tawny, and desolate beyond
words--houses, walls, and castle alike dust-colour, but the climate is
delicious, and a long palm avenue fringes the sea, with scarlet
geraniums in flower. With Elche we were perfectly enraptured--the
forests of palms quite glorious, many sixty feet high and laden with
golden dates; the whole place so Moorish, and the people with perfectly
Oriental hospitality and manners. We spent four days there, and were out
drawing from eight in the morning to five in the afternoon; _such_
subjects--but I lamented not being able to draw the wonderful
figures--copper-coloured with long black hair; the men in blue velvet,
with _mantas_ of crimson and gold and large black sombreros.
“It was twenty-three hours’ journey here, and no possible stopping-place
or buffet. But as for Miss Wright, she never seems the worse for
anything, and is always equally kind and amiable. She is, however, very
_piano_ in spirits, so that I should be thankful for a little pleasant
society for her, as it must have been fearfully dull having no one but
me for so long.
“We were disappointed with Murcia, though its figures reach a climax of
grotesque magnificence, every plough-boy in the colours of Solomon’s
temple. But though we had expected to find Cordova only very
interesting, it is also most beautiful--the immense court before the
mosque filled with fountains and old orange-trees laden with fruit, and
the mosque itself, with its forest of pillars, as solemn as it is
picturesque.”
* * * * *
TO MARY LEA GIDMAN.
“_Seville, Feb. 10._--The dirt and discomfort of the railway journey to
Cordova was quite indescribable, but the mosque is glorious. It is so
large that you would certainly lose your way in it, as it has more than
a thousand pillars, and twenty-nine different aisles of immense length,
all just like one another. We made a large drawing in the court with its
grove of oranges, cypresses, and palms, and you would have been quite
aghast at the horrible beggars who crowded round us--people with two
fingers and people with none; people with no legs and people with no
noses, or people with their eyes and mouths quite in the wrong place.
“The present King (Amadeo) is much disliked and not likely to reign
long. Here at Seville, in the Carnival, they made a little image of him,
which bowed and nodded its head, as kings do, when it was carried
through the street, and all the great people went out to meet it and
bring it into the town in mockery; and yesterday it was strangled like a
common criminal on a scaffold in the public square; and to-day tens of
thousands of people are come into the town to attend its funeral.
“The Duchesse de Montpensier, who lives here, does a great deal of good,
but she is very superstitious, and, when her daughter was ill, she
walked barefoot through all the streets of Seville: the child died
notwithstanding. She and all the great ladies of Seville wear low
dresses and flowers in their hair when they are out walking on the
promenade, but at large evening parties they wear high dresses, which
is rather contrary to English fashions. Miss Wright’s bonnet made her so
stared at and followed about, that now she, and her maid also, have been
obliged to get mantillas to wear on their heads instead, which does much
better, and prevents their attracting any attention. No ladies ever
think of wearing anything but black, and gentlemen are expected to wear
it too if they pay a visit.
“I often feel as if I must be in another state of existence from my old
life of so many years of wandering with the sweet Mother and you, but
_that_ life is always present to me as the reality--this as a dream.
There is one walk here which the dear Mother would have enjoyed and
which always recalls her--a broad sunny terrace by the river-side edged
with marble, which ends after a time in a wild path, where pileworts are
coming into bloom under the willows. I always wonder _how_ much she
knows of us now; but if she can be invisibly present, I am sure it is
mostly with me, and then with you, and in her own room at Holmhurst,
whence the holy prayers and thoughts of so many years of faith and love
ascended.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Seville, Feb. 13._--Ever since we entered Andalusia it has poured in
torrents, but even in fine weather I think we must have been
disappointed with Seville. With such a grand cathedral interior and such
beautiful pictures, it seems hard to complain, but there never was
anything less picturesque than the narrow streets of whitewashed houses,
uglier than the exterior of the cathedral, or duller than the
surrounding country. Being Carnival, the streets are full of masks, many
of them not very civil to the clergy--the Pope being led along by a
devil with a long tail, &c. Every one speaks of the Italian King
(Amadeo) as thoroughly despised and disliked, and his reign (in spite of
the tirades in his favour in English newspapers) must now be limited to
weeks; then it must be either a Republic, Montpensier, or Alfonso. Here,
where they live, the Montpensiers are very popular, and they do an
immense deal of good amongst the poor, the institutions, and in
encouraging art. Their palace of San Telmo is beautiful, with a great
palm-garden. When we first came, we actually engaged lodgings in the
Alcazar, the great palace of the Moorish kings, but, partly from the
mosquitoes and partly from the ghosts, soon gave them up again.”
* * * * *
“_Algeciras, Feb. 25._--Though we constantly asked one another what
people admired so much in Seville, its sights took us just a fortnight.
Our pleasantest afternoon was spent in a drive to the Roman ruins in
Italica, and we took Miss Butcher with us, who devotes her life to
teaching the children in the Protestant school, for which she gets well
denounced from the same cathedral pulpit whence the _autos-da-fé_ were
proclaimed, in which 34,611 people were burnt alive in Seville alone!
“What a dull place Cadiz is. Nothing to make a feature but the general
distant effect of the dazzling white lines of houses rising above a
sapphire sea. We had a twelve hours’ voyage to Gibraltar. I was very
miserable at first, but revived in time to sketch Trafalgar and to make
two views in Africa as we coasted along. At last Gibraltar rose out of
the sea like an island, and very fine it is, far more so than I
expected, though we have not seen the precipice side of the rock yet. As
we turned into the bay of Algeciras, numbers of little boats put out to
take us on shore, and we are so enchanted with this place that we shall
remain a few days in the primitive hotel. Our sitting-room opens by
large glass doors on a balcony. Close below is the pretty beach with its
groups of brilliant figures--Moors in white burnooses, sailors, peasants
in sombreros and _fajas_. Across the blue bay, calm as glass, with white
sails flitting over it, rises the grand mass of the Rock, with the town
of Gibraltar at its foot. All around are endless little walks along the
shore and cliffs, through labyrinths of palmito and prickly pear, or
into the wild green moorlands which rise immediately behind, and beyond
which is a purple chain of mountains. It is the only place I have yet
seen in Spain which I think the dear Mother would have cared to stay
long at, and I can almost fancy I see her walking up the little paths
which she would have so delighted in, or sitting on her camp-stool
amongst the rocks.”
[Illustration: GIBRALTAR FROM ALGECIRAS]
* * * * *
“_Gibraltar, March 2._--It was strange, when we crossed from Algeciras,
to come suddenly in among an English-talking, pipe-smoking,
beer-drinking community in this swarming place, where 5000 soldiers
are quartered in addition to the crowded English and Spanish population.
The main street of the town might be a slice cut out of the ugliest part
of Dover, if it were not for the numbers of Moors stalking about in
turbans, yellow slippers, and blue or white burnooses. Between the town
and Europa Point, at the African end of the promontory, is the beautiful
Alameda, walks winding through a mass of geraniums, coronillas, ixias,
and aloes, all in gorgeous flower: for already the heat is most intense,
and the sun is so grilling that before May the flowers are all withered
up.
“I am afraid we shall not be allowed to go to Ronda. Mr. Layard has sent
word from Madrid to the Governor to prevent any one going, as the famous
brigand chief Don Diego is there with his crew. We had hoped to get up a
sufficiently large armed party, but so many stories have come, that Aunt
Sophy and her maid, Mrs. Jarvis, are getting into an agony about losing
their noses and ears.
“The Governor, Sir Fenwick Williams, has been excessively civil to us,
but our principal acquaintance here is quite romantic. The first day
when we went down to the _table-d’hôte_, there were only two others
present, a Scotch commercial traveller, and, below him, a rather
well-looking Spaniard, evidently a gentleman, but with an odd short
figure and squeaky voice. He bowed very civilly as we came in, and we
returned it. In the middle of dinner a band of Scotch bagpipers came
playing under the window, and I was seized with a desire to jump up and
look at them. Involuntarily I looked across the table to see what the
others were going to do, when the unknown gave a strange bow and wave
of _permission_! With that wave came back to my mind a picture in the
Duchesse de Montpensier’s bedroom at Seville: it was her brother-in-law,
Don Francisco d’Assise, ex-King of Spain! Since then we have breakfasted
and dined with him every day, and seen him constantly besides. This
afternoon I sat out with him in the gardens, and we have had endless
talk--the result of which is that I certainly do not believe a word of
the stories against him, and think that, though not clever and rather
eccentric, he is by no means an idiot, but a very kind-hearted,
well-intentioned person. He is kept here waiting for a steamer to take
him to Marseilles, as he cannot land at any of the Spanish ports. He
calls himself the Comte de Balsaño, and is quite alone here, and
evidently quite separated from Queen Isabella. He never mentions her or
Spain, but talks quite openly of his youth in Portugal and his visits to
France, England, Ireland, &c.
“I have remained with him while Miss Wright is gone to Tangiers with her
real nephew, Major Howard Irby. This beginning of March always brings
with it many sad recollections, the date--always nearing March 4--of all
our greatest anxieties, at Pau, Piazza di Spagna, Via Babuino, Via
Gregoriana. It is almost as incredible to me now as a year and a half
ago to feel that it is all over--the agony of suspense so often endured,
and that life is now a dead calm without either sunshine or storm to
look forward to.
“The King says that of all the things which astonish him in England,
that which astonishes him most is that the Anglo-Catholics (so called),
who are free to do as they please, are seeking to have confession--‘the
bane of the Roman Catholic religion, which has brought misery and
disunion into so many Spanish homes.’ One felt sure he was thinking of
Father Claret and the Queen, but he never mentioned them.”
* * * * *
“_March 6._--The poor King left yesterday for Southampton--a most
affectionate leave-taking. He says he will come to Holmhurst: how odd if
he does!”
* * * * *
“_Malaga, March 17._--Our pleasantest acquaintances at Gibraltar were
the Augustus Phillimores, with whom we spent our last day--in such a
lovely garden on the side of the Rock, filled with gigantic daturas,
daphnes, oranges, and gorgeous creeping Bougainvillias. Admiral
Phillimore’s boat took us on board the _Lisbon_, where we got through
the voyage very well, huddled up under cloaks on deck through the long
night. There is nothing to see at Malaga--a dismal, dusty, ugly place.”
* * * * *
“_Hôtel Siete Suelos, Granada, March 19._--We had a dreadful journey
here--rail to Las Salinas and then the most extraordinary diligence
journey, in a carriage drawn by eight mules, at midnight, over no road,
but rocks, marshes, and along the edge of precipices--quite frightful.
Why we were _not_ overturned I cannot imagine. I could get no place
except at the top, and held on with the greatest difficulty in the
fearful lunges. We reached Granada about 3½ A.M., seeing nothing that
night, but wearily conscious of the long ascent to the Siete Suelos.
“How lovely was the morning awakening! our rooms looking down long
arcades of high arching elms, with fountains foaming in the openings of
the woods, birds singing, and violets scenting the whole air. It is
indeed alike the paradise of nature and art. Through the first day I
never entered the Alhambra, but sat restfully satisfied with the
absorbing loveliness of the surrounding gorges, and sketched the
venerable Gate of Justice, glowing in gorgeous golden light. This
morning we went early to the Moorish palace. It is beyond all
imagination of beauty. As you cross the threshold you pass out of fact
into fairyland. I sat six hours drawing the Court of Blessing without
moving, and then we climbed the heights of S. Nicolas and overlooked the
whole palace, with the grand snow peaks of Sierra Nevada rising behind.”
* * * * *
“_Granada, April 1--Easter Sunday._--To-day especially I do not feel as
if I was at Granada, but in the churchyard at Hurstmonceaux. I am sure
Mrs. Medhurst and other loving hands will have decorated our most dear
spot with flowers. Aunt Sophy is most kind, only too kind and indulgent
always, but the thought of the one for and _through_ whom alone I could
really enjoy anything is never absent from me. I feel as if I lived in a
life which was not mine--beautiful often, but only a beautiful
moonlight: the sunlight has faded.”
[Illustration: TOLEDO.]
* * * * *
“_Toledo, April 11._--We had twelve hours’ diligence from Granada, saw
Jaen Cathedral on the way, and joined the railroad at the little station
of Mengibar. Next morning found us at Aranjuez, a sort of Spanish
Hampton Court, rather quaint and pleasant, four-fifths of the place
being taken up by the palace and its belongings, so much beloved by
Isabella (II.), but since deserted. We went to bed for four hours, and
spent the rest of the day in surveying half-furnished palaces, unkempt
gardens, and dried-up fountains, yet pleasant from the winding Tagus,
lilacs and Judas-trees in full bloom, and birds singing. It was a nice
primitive little inn, and the landlord sat on the wooden gallery in the
evening and played the guitar, and all his men and maids sang round him
in patriarchal family fashion.
“On the whole, I feel a little disappointed at present with this
curious, desolate old city: the cathedral and everything else looks so
small after one’s expectations, and the guide-books exaggerate so
tremendously all over Spain.
“My last day at Granada was saddened by your mention of what is really a
great loss to me--dear old Mr. Liddell’s death,[13] so kind to me ever
since I was a little boy, and endeared by the many associations of most
happy visits at Bamborough and Easington. I had also sad news from
Holmhurst in the death of dear sweet Romo, the Mother’s own little dog,
which no other can ever be.”
* * * * *
“_Madrid, April 20._--We like Madrid better than we expected. It is a
poor miniature of Paris, the Prado like the Champs Elysées, the Museo
answering to the Louvre, though all on the smallest possible scale. It
has been everything to us having our kind friends Don Juan and Doña
Emilia de Riaño here, and we have seen a great deal of them. They have a
beautiful house, full of books and pictures, and every day she has come
to take us out, and has gone with us everywhere, taking us to visit all
the interesting literary and artistic people, showing us all the
political characters on the Prado, escorting us to galleries, &c., and
in herself a mine of information of the most beautiful and delightful
kind--a sort of younger Lady Waterford. She gives a dreadful picture of
the immorality of society in Madrid under the Italian King, the want of
law, the hopelessness of redress; that everything is gained by influence
in high places, nothing by right. A revolution is expected any day, and
then the King must go. The aristocratic Madrilenians all speak of him as
‘the little Italian wretch,’ though they pity his pretty amiable Queen.
All seem to want to get rid of him, and, whatever is said by English
newspapers, we have never seen any one in Spain who was not hankering
after the Bourbons and the handsome young Prince of Asturias, who is
sure to be king soon.
“The pleasantest of all the people Madame de Riaño has taken us to visit
are the splendid artist Don Juan de Madraza and his most lovely
wife.[14]
“The Layards have been very civil. At a party there we met no end of
Spanish grandees. The Queen’s lady-in-waiting (she has only two who
will consent to take office), Marqueza d’Almena, was quite lovely in
white satin and pearls--like an old picture.”
* * * * *
“_Segovia, April 28._--I was quite ill at Madrid with severe sore throat
and cough, and this in spite of the care I was always taking of myself,
having been so afraid of falling ill. But it is the most treacherous
climate, and, from burning heat, changes to fierce ice-laden winds from
the Guadarama and torrents of cold rain. I was shut up five days, but
cheered by visits from Madame de Riaño, young Arthur Seymour an attaché,
and the last day, to my great delight, the well-known Holmhurst faces of
Mr. and Mrs. Scrivens (Hastings banker), brimming with Sussex news. Mr.
Layard was evidently very anxious to get us and all other travelling
English safe out of Spain, but we preferred the alternative, suggested
by the Riaños, of coming to this ‘_muy pacifico_’ place, and waiting
till the storm was a little blown over. Madrid was certainly in a most
uncomfortable state, the Italian King feeling the days of his rule quite
numbered, houses being entered night and day, and arrests going on
everywhere. I do not know what English papers tell, but the Spanish
accounts are alarming of the whole of the north as overrun by Carlists,
and that they have taken Vittoria and stopped the tunnel on the main
line.
“It was a dreadful journey here. The road was cut through the snow, but
there was fifteen feet of it on either side the way on the top of the
Guadarama. However, our ten mules dragged us safely along. Segovia is
gloriously picturesque, and the hotel a very tolerable--pothouse.”
* * * * *
“_Salamanca, May 5._--One day at the Segovia _table-d’hôte_ we had the
most unusual sight of a pleasing young Englishman, who rambled about and
drew with us all afternoon, and then turned out to be--the Duchess of
Cleveland’s younger son, Everard Primrose.[15]
“May-day we spent at La Granja, one of the many royal palaces, and one
which would quite enchant you. It is a quaint old French château in
lovely woods full of fountains and waterfalls, quite close under the
snow mountains; and the high peaks, one glittering mass of snow, rise
through the trees before the windows. The inhabitants were longing there
to have the Bourbons back, and only spoke of the present King as ‘the
inoffensive Italian.’ Even Cristina and Isabella will be cordially
welcomed if they return with the young Alfonso.
[Illustration: SEGOVIA]
* * * * *
“On May 2nd we left Segovia and went for one night to the Escurial--such
a gigantic place, no beauty, but very curious, and the relics of the
truly religious though cruelly bigoted Philip II. very interesting.
Then we were a day at Avila, at an English inn kept by Mr. John Smith
and his daughter--kindly, hearty people. Avila is a paradise for
artists, and has remains in plenty of Ferdinand and Isabella, in whose
intimate companionship one seems to live during one’s whole tour in
Spain. It was a most fatiguing night-journey of ten hours to Salamanca,
a place I have especially wished to see--not beautiful, but very
curious, and we have introductions to all the great people of the place.
“I shall be _very_ glad now to get home again. It is such an immense
separation from every one one has ever seen or heard of, and such a long
time to be so excessively uncomfortable as one must be at even the best
places in Spain. Five-o’clock tea, which we occasionally cook in a
saucepan--without milk of course--is a prime luxury, and is to be
indulged in to-day as it is Sunday.”
* * * * *
“_Biarritz, May 12._--We are thankful to be safe here, having seen
Zamora, Valladolid, and Burgos since we left Salamanca. The stations
were in an excited state, the platforms crowded with people waiting for
news or giving it, but we met with no difficulties. I cannot say with
what a thrill of pleasure I crossed the Bidassoa and left the great
discomforts of Spain behind. What a luxury this morning to see once more
tea! butter!! cow’s milk!!!”
* * * * *
“_Paris, May 20._--Most lovely does France look after Spain--the
flowers, the grass, the rich luxuriant green, of which there is more to
be seen from the ugliest French station than in the whole of the
Spanish peninsula after you leave the Pyrenees. I have spent the
greater part of three days at the Embassy, where George Sheffield is
most affectionate and kind--no brother could be more so. We have been
about everywhere together, and it is certainly most charming to be with
a friend who is always the same, and associated with nineteen years of
one’s intimate past.”
* * * * *
“_Dover Station, May 23._--On Monday George drove me in one of the open
carriages of the Embassy through the Bois de Boulogne to S. Cloud, and I
thought the woods rather improved by the war injuries than otherwise,
the bits cut down sprouting up so quickly in bright green acacia, and
forming a pleasant contrast with the darker groves beyond. We strolled
round the ruined château, and George showed the room whither he went to
meet the council, and offer British interference just before war was
declared, in vain, and now it is a heap of ruins--blackened walls,
broken caryatides.[16] What a lovely view it is of Paris from the
terrace: I had never seen it before. Pretty young French ladies were
begging at all the park gates for the dishoused poor of the place, as
they do at the Exhibition for the payment of the Prussian debt. George
was as delightful as only he can be when he likes, and we were perfectly
happy together. At 7 P.M. I went again to the Embassy. All the lower
rooms were lighted and full of flowers, the corridors all pink geraniums
with a mist of white spirea over them. The Duchesse de la Tremouille was
there, as hideous as people of historic name usually are. Little fat
Lord Lyons was most amiable, but his figure is like a pumpkin with an
apple on the top. It is difficult to believe he is as clever as he is
supposed to be. He is sometimes amusing, however. Of his diplomatic
relations with the Pope he says, ‘It is so difficult to deal
diplomatically with the Holy Spirit.’ He boasts that he arrived at the
Embassy with all he wanted contained in a single portmanteau, and that
if he were called upon to leave it for ever to-day, the same would
suffice. He has collected and acquired--nothing! He evidently adores
George, and I don’t wonder!”
[Illustration: FOUNTAIN OF S. CLOUD.][17]
* * * * *
_To_ MISS WRIGHT.
“_Holmhurst, May 24, 1872._--You will like to know I am safe here. I
found fat John Gidman waiting at the Hastings station, and drove up
through the flowery lanes to receive dear Lea’s welcome--most tearfully
joyous. The little home looks very lovely, and I cannot be thankful
enough--though its sunshine is always mixed with shadow--to have a home
in which everything is a precious memorial of my sacred past, where
every shrub in the garden has been touched by my mother’s hand, every
little walk trodden by her footsteps, and where I can bring up mental
pictures of her in every room. In all that remains I can trace the sweet
wisdom which for years laid up so much to comfort me, which sought to
buy this place when she did, in order to give sufficient association to
make it precious to me; above all, which urged her to the supreme effort
of returning here in order to leave it for me with the last sacred
recollections of her life. In the work of gathering up the fragments
from that dear life I am again already engrossed, and Spain and its
interests are passing into the far away; yet I look back upon them with
much gratitude, and especially upon your long unvaried kindness and your
patience with my many faults.”
* * * * *
“_May 26._--To-night it blows a hurricane, and the wind moans sadly. A
howling wind, I think, is the most melancholy natural accompaniment
which can come to a solitary life. After this, I must give you--to
meditate on--a beautiful passage I have been reading in Mrs.
Somerville--‘At a very small height above the surface of the earth the
noise of the tempest ceases, and the thunder is heard no more in those
boundless regions where the heavenly bodies accomplish their periods in
eternal and sublime silence.’”
* * * * *
It is partly the relief I experienced after Spain and the animation of
ever-changing society which make me look back upon the summer of 1872 as
one of the happiest I have spent at Holmhurst. A constant succession of
guests filled our little chambers, every one was pleased, and the
weather was glorious. I was away also for several short but very
pleasant glimpses of London, and began to feel how little the virulence
of some of my family signified when there was still so much friendship
and affection left to me.
* * * * *
_To_ MISS WRIGHT.
“_Holmhurst, June 21, 1872._--I am feeling ungrateful for never having
written since my happy fortnight with you came to a close, a time which
I enjoyed more than I ever expected to enjoy anything again, and which
made me feel there might still be something worth living on for, so much
kindness and affection did I receive from so many. It is pleasant too to
think of your comfortable home, which rises before me in a gallery of
happy pictures, and I know it all so well now, from the parrot in Mrs.
Jarvis’s room to the red geraniums in your window. I have had Mrs. and
Miss Kuper here, and now I am alone, no voice but that of the
guinea-fowls shrieking ‘Come back’ in the garden. I miss all my London
friends very much, but suppose one would not enjoy it if it went on
always, and certainly solitude is the time for work: I did eleven hours
of it yesterday. As regards my books, I feel more and more with Arnold
that a man is only fit to teach as long as he is himself learning
daily.”
* * * * *
“_Holmhurst, June 25._--‘Poor Aunt Sophy’ would not have thought she had
done nothing to cheer me, could she have seen the interest with which I
read her letter and returned to it over and over again. Such a letter is
quite delightful, and here has the effect of one reaching Robinson
Crusoe in Juan Fernandez, so complete is the silence and solitude when
no one is staying here.
‘The flowers my guests, the birds my pensioners,
Books my companions, and but few beside.’[18]
“How I delight in knowing all that the delightful human beings are
about, of whom I think now as living in another hemisphere. I should
like to see more of people--perhaps another year I may not be so busy:
that is, I long for the cream which I enjoyed with you, but I should not
care for the milk and water of a country neighbourhood. If one has too
much people-seeing, however, even of the London best, one feels that it
is ‘a withering world,’[19] and that if--
‘The world is too much with us, late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.’[20]
“I have been made very ill-tempered all day because Murray, during my
absence in Spain, has published a second edition of my Oxfordshire
Handbook, _greatly_ altered, without consulting me, and it seems to me
utterly spoilt and vulgarised. He is obliged by his contract to give me
£40, but I would a great deal rather have seen the book uninjured and
received nothing.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER (after a long visit from her at Holmhurst).
“_Holmhurst, August 18, 1872._--There seems quite a chaos of things
already to be said to the dear cousin who has so long shared our quiet
life, and who has so much care for the simple interests of this little
home. Much have I missed her--in her chair, with her crotchet; sitting
on the terrace; and especially in the early morning walk yesterday, when
the garden was in its richest beauty, all the crimson and blue flowers
twinkling through a veil of dewdrops, and when ‘the gentleness of Heaven
was on the sea,’ as Wordsworth would say. I am grieved to think of you
in London, instead of in your country home.
“Our visit to Hurstmonceaux was thoroughly enjoyed by Mr. and Mrs.
Pile.[21] For myself, I shall always feel such short visits produce
such extreme tension of conflicting feelings that they are scarcely a
pleasure. Most lovely was the drive for miles through Ashburnham beech
and pine woods and by its old timber-yard. At Lime Cross we saw Mrs.
Isted at her familiar window, and the dear woman sat there all the
afternoon to have another glimpse on our return. We drove to the foot of
the hill and walked up to the church. Our sacred spot looked most
peaceful, its double hedge of fuchsia in full flower, and the turf as
smooth as velvet. We had luncheon in the church porch, and then went to
the castle, and back through the park uplands, high with fern, to
Hurstmonceaux Place. How often, at Hurstmonceaux especially, I now feel
the force of Wordsworth’s lines:
‘Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.’”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS WRIGHT.
“_Holmhurst, Sept. 6, 1872._--If my many guests of the last weeks have
liked their visits, I have most entirely enjoyed having them and the
pleasant influx of new life and new ideas. Dear old Mrs. Robert Hare is
now very happy here, and most grateful for the very small kindness I am
able to show. I have pressed her to make a long visit, as it is a real
delight to give so much pleasure, though humbling to think that, when
one can do it so easily, one does not do it oftener. She is quite
stone-deaf, so we sit opposite one another and correspond on a
slate.[22] On Tuesday I fetched Marcus Hare from Battle. He also is
intensely happy here; but his aunts, the Miss Stanleys, have written to
refuse to see him again or allow him to visit them, because he has been
to see the author of the ‘Memorials.’ I took him to Hurstmonceaux
yesterday, and lovely was the first flush of autumn on our dear woods,
while the castle looked most grand in the solemn stillness of its misty
hollow. Next week I shall have George Sheffield here.”
[Illustration: FROM THE LIBRARY WINDOW, FORD.][24]
In September I paid a pleasant visit to my cousin Edward Liddell, whom I
found married to his sweet wife (Christina Fraser Tytler) and living in
the Rectory in Wimpole Park in Cambridgeshire, close to the great house
of our cousin Lord Hardwicke, which is very ugly, though it contains
many fine pictures.[23] In the beginning of October I was at Ford with
Lady Waterford, meeting the Ellices, Lady Marion Alford, and Lady
Herbert of Lea, who had much to tell of La Palma, the _estatica_ of
Brindisi, who had the stigmata, and could tell wonderful truths to
people about their past and future. Lady Herbert had been to America,
Trinidad, Africa--in fact, everywhere, and in each country had, or
thought she had, the most astounding adventures--living with bandits in
a cave, overturned on a precipice, &c. She had travelled in Spain and
was brimful of its delights. She had armed herself with a Papal permit
to enter all monasteries and convents. She had annexed the Bishop of
Salamanca and driven in his coach to Alva, the scene of S. Teresa’s
later life. The nuns refused to let her come in, and the abbess
declared it was unheard of; but when Lady Herbert produced the bishop
and the Papal brief, she got in, and the nuns were so captivated that
they not only showed her S. Teresa’s dead body, but dressed her up in
all S. Teresa’s clothes, and set her in S. Teresa’s arm-chair, and gave
her her supper out of S. Teresa’s porringer and platter. “Can you see
Lady Jane Ellice’s face,” I read in a letter from Ford to Miss
Leycester, “as Lady Herbert ‘goes on’ about the Blessed Paul of the
Cross, the holy shift of S. Teresa, and the saintly privileges of a
hermit’s life?” The first evening she was at Ford Lady Herbert said:--
* * * * *
“Did you never hear the story of ‘La Jolie Jambe’? Well, then, I will
tell it you. Robert, my brother-in-law, told me. He knew the old lady it
was all about in Paris, and had very often gone to sit with her.
“It was an old lady who lived at ‘le pavillon dans le jardin.’ The great
house in the Faubourg was given up to the son, you know, and she lived
in the pavillon. It was a very small house, only five or six rooms, and
was magnificently furnished, for the old lady was very rich indeed, and
had a great many jewels and other valuable things. She lived quite alone
in the pavillon with her maid, but it was considered quite safe in that
high-terraced garden, raised above everything else, and which could only
be approached through the house.
“However, one morning the old lady was found murdered, and all her
jewels and valuables were gone. Of course suspicion fell upon the maid,
for who else could it be? She was taken up and tried. The evidence was
insufficient to convict her, and she was released, but every one
believed her guilty. Of course she could get no other place, and she was
so shunned and pointed at as a murderess that her life was a burden to
her.
“One day, eleven years after, the maid was walking down a street when
she met a man, who, as she passed, looked suddenly at her and exclaimed,
‘Oh, la jolie jambe!’ She immediately rushed up to a sergeant-de-ville
and exclaimed, ‘Arrêtez-moi cet homme.’ The man was confused and
hesitated, but she continued in an agony, ‘Arrêtez-le, je vous dis: je
l’accuse, je l’accuse du meurtre de ma maîtresse.’ Meanwhile the man had
made off, but he was pursued and taken.
“The maid said at the trial, that, on the night of the murder, the
windows of the pavilion had been open down to the ground; that they were
so when she was going to bed; that as she was getting into bed she sat
for a minute on its edge to admire her legs, looked at them, patted one
of them complacently, and exclaimed, ‘Oh, la jolie jambe!’
“The man then confessed that while he had been hidden in the bushes of
the garden waiting to commit his crime, he had seen the maid and heard
her, and that, when he met her in the street, the scene and the words
rushed back upon his mind so suddenly, that, as if under an irresistible
impulse, his lips framed the words ‘Oh, la jolie jambe.’ The man was
executed.”
* * * * *
Lady Herbert also told us that--
* * * * *
“Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, had a sheep-dog to which he was quite
devoted, and which used to go out and collect his sheep. One day in
winter a thick snow came on, and Hogg was in the greatest anxiety about
his flocks. He called his dog and explained all the matter to him,
telling him how he was going all round one side of the moors himself to
drive in his sheep, and that he was to go the other way and collect. The
dog understood perfectly. Late in the evening the Shepherd returned
perfectly exhausted, bringing in his flock through the deep snow, but
the dog had not come back. Hour after hour passed and the dog did not
return. The Shepherd, who was devoted to his dog, was very anxious about
it, when at last he heard a whining and scratching at the door, and
going out, found the dog bringing all his sheep safe, and in its mouth a
little puppy, which it laid at its master’s feet, and instantly darted
off through the snow to seek another and bring it in. The poor thing had
puppied in the snow, but would not on that account neglect one iota of
its duty. It brought in its second puppy, laid it in its master’s lap,
looked up wistfully in his face as if beseeching him to take care of it,
and--died.”
* * * * *
Lady Marion Alford is a real _grande dame_. Some one, Miss Mary Boyle, I
think, wrote a little book called the “Court of Queen Marion,”
descriptive of her and her intimate circle. At Ford she talked much of
the pleasure of Azeglio’s _Ricordi_, how he was the first Italian
writer who had got out of the ‘_conciosiachè_ style,’ and she was
delightful with her reminiscences of Italy:--
* * * * *
“Once when I was spending the summer in Italy I wanted models, and I was
told by an old general, a friend of mine, that I had better advertise,
send up to the priests in the mountains, and tell them to send down all
the prettiest children in their villages to be looked at: the lady
wanted models; those she chose she should pay, the others should each
have sixpence and a cake. I was told I had better prepare for a good
many--perhaps a hundred might come. When the day came, I never shall
forget our old servant’s face when he rushed in--‘Miladi, Miladi, the
lane is full of them.’ There were seven hundred. It was very difficult
to choose. We made them pass in at one door of the villa and out at the
other. Those we selected we sent into the garden, and from these we
chose again. Some were perfect monsters, for every mother thought her
own child perfection. Those we selected to come first were a lovely
family of three children with their mother. They were to come on a
Wednesday. The day came, and they never appeared: the next, and still
they did not come. Then we asked our old general about it, and he said,
‘The fact is, I have kicked my carpenter downstairs this morning because
he said you were sending for the children to suck their blood, and they
all think so.’ They none of them ever came.
“Our old maid Teresa was of a very romantic turn of mind. We used, when
I was a child, to live in the Palazzo Sciarra, where the ‘Maddalena
della Radice’ is. She used to stand opposite to the picture and exclaim
in gulpy tones, ‘Sono bestia io, e non capisco niente, ma questo me
pare--pittoresco.’ My little sister, when our father was away, stood one
day at the top of the stairs and said, ‘Io son padrona di casa, e no son
padrona di casa: voi siete la servitu, e non siete la servitu.’ Teresa
exclaimed, ‘Questa diavola, com’ é carina.’ We used to hear Teresa
talking to our other maid, and they boasted of the number of times they
had been beaten by their husbands. One day--it was during the French
occupation, when the bread was doled out--Teresa took her tambourine
with her when she went to get it, for they all loved flirting with the
soldiers; and when her husband asked her what it was for, she said it
was to bring back the bread in. But when she got inside the circle of
soldiers, they had a merry _saltarello_. The husband was kept back
outside the circle, and stood there furious. At first she laughed at
him, but then when he went away and came back again, she got really
frightened. And when she came out of the circle he flogged her with a
whip all the way back to the Trastevere, and she ran before him
screaming.
“How curious it is that ‘_Est locanda_’ is still to be seen in Roman
windows of houses to be let--the one little relic of Latin: and how odd
the word for lodgings being the same in all languages--Quartier,
Quartos, Quartiere, Quarter, &c.”
Lady Marion also said:--
* * * * *
“As we were leaving Gibraltar, three of the shells from the practising
fell quite close to our yacht. ‘Are you not very much frightened?’ said
a French gentleman on board. ‘Not in the least,’ I said. ‘How could I
be? our men are such perfect marksmen;’ but of course I was dreadfully.”
* * * * *
This story is wonderfully characteristic of the speaker: the Empress
Catherine might have given such an answer. About ghosts Lady Marion was
very amusing:--
* * * * *
“When I went to Belvoir with Lady Caroline Cust, they danced in the
evening. I went upstairs early, for I was tired. As I was going to my
room, Lady Jersey--it was wrong of her, I think--said, ‘Oh, I see you
are put into the ghost-room.’ I said, ‘I am quite happy; there are no
real ghosts here, I think.’--‘Well,’ said Lady Jersey, ‘I can only say
Miss Drummond slept there last night, and she received letters of
importance this morning and left before breakfast.’ Well, I went into my
room, and lit the candles and made up the fire, but very soon I gave a
great jump, for I heard the most dreadful noise close at my
elbow--Oh-o-oo-oo!’ I thought of course that it was a practical joke,
and began to examine every corner of the room, thinking some one must be
hidden there; then I rang my bell. When my maid came in I said, ‘Now
don’t be frightened, but there is some one hidden in this room
somewhere, and you must help me to find him.’ Very soon the noise came
again. Then Lady Caroline came, and she heard it: then her maid came.
The noise occurred about every five minutes. We examined everything and
stood in each corner of the room. The noise then seemed close to each of
us. At last Lady Caroline said, ‘I can stand this no longer, and I must
go,’ and she and her maid went away and shut themselves into the next
room. Then I said to my maid, ‘If you are frightened you had better go,’
but she protested that she would rather stay where she was; after what
she had heard, anything would be better than facing the long lonely
passages alone. However, just at that moment ‘Oh-o-oo-oo!’ went off
again close to her ear, and with one spring she darted out of the room
and ran off as hard as ever she could. I went courageously to bed and
determined to brave it out. But the thing went to bed too, and went off
at intervals on the pillow close to my face. And at last it grated on my
nerves to such a degree that I could bear it no longer, and I dragged a
mattress into Lady Caroline’s room and slept there till dawn. The next
morning I also received letters of importance and left before breakfast.
“Before I left, I sent for the housekeeper, and said, ‘You really should
not put people into that room,’ and told her what had happened. She was
much distressed, and told me that there really was no other room in the
house then, but confessed it had often happened so before. Some time
after I went over to Belvoir with some friends who wanted to see the
castle, and the housekeeper then told me that the same thing had
happened again in that room, which was now permanently shut up.”
* * * * *
Other guests at Ford were Mrs. Richard Boyle (known as E. V. B.), and
her daughter--very quaint and original, and the mother a capital artist.
We went to the Rowting Lynn, a beautiful spot surrounded with rocks
overhung by old oak-trees. “Did you enjoy your walk?” said Lady
Waterford to Mrs. Boyle as we came in. “Yes, excessively. You never told
me you had a waterfall. You offered me a coal-pit, but the waterfall you
forgot to mention.”
Lady Waterford was herself more delightful than ever. As Marocetti said
of her, “C’est un grand homme, mais une femme charmante.” Here are some
scraps from her conversation:--
* * * * *
“That is a sketch of L. H. She did not know I was drawing her. She looks
sixteen, but is quite middle-aged. Mama used to say she was like
preserved green peas. Preserved green peas are not quite so good as real
green peas, but they do very nearly as well.’
“I always take a little book with me in the train and draw the things as
I pass them. That is some railings against a sunset sky when it was
almost dark: I thought it was like a bit of Tintoret.
“How trying it is to be kept waiting for people. Don’t you know the
Italian proverb?--
‘Aspettare e non venire,
Star in letto e non dormire,
Vuol piacer, e non gradire.’
Miss Boyle had a much better one, though--
‘To do, to suffer, is a glorious state,
But a more noble portion is to _wait_.’
“How beautiful the singing was in our young days--Grisi and Mario and
Lablache, who went straight to one’s heart and fluttered there.
“Some one, old Madame de Flahault I think it was, asked what she could
give as a present. It must be ‘très rare et pas coûteux,’ and it was
suggested that she should give a lock of her hair.
“You are like the old lady who said she had never had a ripe peach in
her life, because when she was young all the old people had them, and
when she grew old all the young people had them.
“I am longing to read ‘Marjory,’[25] but I cannot when I have my house
full--my novel _en action_. When people are here and tell me their
little stories, that is what I like best to read.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS WRIGHT.
“_Crook Hall, Lancashire, Oct. 20, 1872._--My visit at Ford was
perfectly enchanting, and I made several new friendships there in what
you think my sudden way, especially one with Lord Ronald Gower, which I
think may become a pleasure. I much enjoyed, too, making friends with
Mr. Beaumont and Lady Margaret B., one of the very best types of a fine
lady it is possible to meet, almost funnily aristocratic in all her
ideas, and high-minded in proportion. Her little person is arrayed in
gowns which were as much things of beauty _in their way_ as a mountain
landscape; there is such a difference between ‘smart dress,’ and such a
lovely harmony of shade and colour, as one can scarcely think of as mere
clothing. Then I saw a great deal of the dear Lady Waterford, and am
more than ever instructed and touched by her beautiful, noble, holy
life. It is absolutely impossible to her to ‘think any evil,’ and so, to
her, the best side of every one comes out. As an easier ‘let down’ than
anything else, I accepted an invitation from thence to Lord and Lady
Grey for three days at Howick on the wild sea-coast, and enjoyed my
visit immensely. No one has more completely ‘l’art de narrer’ than Lady
Grey, and he is full of old-fashioned courtesy and kindness, such
winning manners and heart-whole goodness.
“My ‘Memorials’ are out! Ere this all will have it. I know there will be
much abuse and many varieties of opinion, but I am conscious of having
carried out the book as I believe to be best for others, not for myself,
and in this consciousness can bear what is said. ‘Je laisse couler le
torrent,’ as Mme. de Sevigné used to say. One thing I dread is, that
people should think I am a better person than I am, on reading the book:
for I suppose it is always the fact that a man’s book is the best of
him, his thought better than his life. But in any case, it is a relief
to have it out (as Arthur and Mary Stanley, at the last moment,
persuaded Mr. Murray to go to my publishers to try to stop the
publication), yet it is also a wrench to part with the occupation and
chief thought of two desolate years.”
* * * * *
“_Dalton Hall, Oct. 28._--A second edition of the ‘Memorials’ was called
for before it had been out three days. I have had many letters about
it--charming ones from Mrs. Arnold and the old Baroness de Bunsen. The
olive-bearing dove has gone out with healing on his wings, and all the
mists are cleared off and the long-standing feuds of the Hare family
healed by the book. Still the Stanleys make no sign.
‘Alas! how easily things go wrong!
A sigh too much or a kiss too long,
And there follows a mist and a weeping rain,
And life is never the same again.’[26]
“I certainly do suffer very much when people mean me to do so, to a
degree which must be quite satisfactory to them; but then in
compensation I always enjoy very much when it is the reverse. It is as I
read somewhere--‘He who is the first to be touched by the thorns is
soonest awake to the flowers.’
“From the Oswald Penrhyns’ at Huyton I saw in the same day two great
houses--the vast and hideous Knowsley, which interested me from its
connection with my Mother’s youth, and the glorious old hall of Speke,
which has an air of venerable beauty quite unrivalled. Then I went for
some days to Lord Brougham’s, a delightful place, full of tapestry and
pictures, but though it looks old, really a modern castle, with the
ruins of the truly ancient castle on the river-bank hard by.”
* * * * *
In November I went north again to stay for the first time at Bretton
near Wakefield, a great house in the Black Country, built by the famous
“Madam Beaumont,” who followed the example of her ancestors in making an
enormous fortune by her skilful management of her lead-mines. It is
recorded that when Mr. Pitt was dining with her, and all her magnificent
plate was set out, she exclaimed, with pardonable pride, “That is all
the lead-mines,” when he replied, “Oh, really, I thought it was silver,”
and would talk on, to her great annoyance, and never allow her a moment
to explain. I had made friends with her grandson, Wentworth Beaumont, at
Ford, when he was there with his wife Lady Margaret, whom I have always
regarded as the most thoroughly pleasant specimen in existence of a
really fine lady. Her powers of conversation were boundless, her gift of
repartee unequalled, and her memory most extraordinary. She was the
daughter of Lady Clanricarde, celebrated for her conversational talents,
and whom I remember Lady Carnarvon describing as “the most agreeable
woman in England, because she was not only massive, but lively.” Lady
Margaret was like a little queen amongst her guests, entertaining with
the simplicity of real kindness and thoughtfulness for others, whilst
her manner was equally agreeable to all, and she never usurped
attention, but rather exerted herself to draw others out and to show the
best side of them. She could be alarming as an enemy, but she was a most
faithful friend, and would exert herself to take definite trouble for
her friends, never deserting them unless they were proved to be really
unworthy. She was not exactly pretty, but her animation was more
charming than mere beauty. Dress with her was not a mere adjunct, but
was made as much a thing of poetic beauty as a landscape or a flower.
She was devoted to her husband, but theoretically she disapproved of
love in a general way. Still she was only worldly in principle and not
in practice, and she was ever a devoted mother to her children, seeking
their real happiness rather than their advancement before the world.[27]
I have often been at Bretton since my first visit there, and always
enjoyed it from the constant animation which the hostess shed around
her; the excessive comfort of the house and of the thoroughly
well-regulated household; the plenty of time for work and writing, and
yet the constant variety afforded by the guests coming and going: while
with the children of the house I was very intimate, and with the
youngest, Hubert, long on terms of almost elder-brotherly affection.
Lady Francis Gordon was generally at Bretton when I have been there,
rather an amusing than an agreeable person, but an immense talker. One
of her first remarks to me was characteristic--“I am quite past the age
of blushing: when I want to do anything of that kind, I what they call
_flush_ now.” I have frequently seen Colonel Crealock[28] at Bretton,
who drew animals so splendidly. He told me once--
* * * * *
“Old Lady Selby of the Mote at Ightham had been out to some grand party
in all her diamonds and jewels. She slept in a room which still remains
the same, hung all round with tapestry representing events in the life
of Julius Caesar. Through this room was the dressing-room, in which she
kept her jewels and valuables. On the night of her return from the
party, as she was undressing and taking off her jewels, she looked up at
the figure of Julius Caesar in the tapestry, and thought she saw
something peculiar in one of his eyes. She looked again, and felt sure
the eye moved. She quietly proceeded, however, to take off her jewels
and put them away. Having done that, she locked the jewel-case, left it
in the dressing-room, and went to bed.
“She had not been in bed long when a man appeared in the room with a
candle and a knife. Coming up to the bed, he passed the light again and
again close before her eyes. She bore it without flinching in the least,
only appeared to become restless and turned over in her sleep. Then he
proceeded to the dressing-room and became occupied over the jewels. As
soon as she was aware that he was entirely engrossed, she darted out of
bed, banged to the door of the dressing-room, locked it on the outside,
and rang violently for assistance. When help came, and the door was
opened, they found the man strangled from trying to get through the iron
bars of the window.
“The portrait of old Lady Selby still remains at the Mote.”[29]
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Bretton Park, Nov. 21, 1872._--To-day we went--Lady Francis Gordon,
Mrs. Lowther, Mr. Doyle, and I--to luncheon at Walton, an extraordinary
house in the middle of a lake, which belonged to the Roman Catholic Mr.
Waterton, the great ornithologist. It is approached by a long drawbridge
and is most curious. A Mr. Hailstone lives there now, a strange man,
who spends his large fortune on antiquities, and has a wife who writes
on lace, and wonderful collections.[30] Their son has never eaten
anything but buttered toast, cheese, and port-wine (has never tasted
meat, vegetables, or fruit), but is eight years old and very
flourishing.
“Lord and Lady Salisbury are here. The latter can only be described by
the word ‘jocund,’ except when she does not wish to make acquaintance or
desires to snub people, when she becomes hopelessly impenetrable. There
is a party of fourteen, all new to me, but I get on very well. They look
upon me as an aboriginal from another hemisphere, and indeed they are
that to me; but it is too new a set to feel the least shy in. There is
great satisfaction in being only a _background_ figure, and Lady
Margaret is quite charming, the house handsome, and the park pretty. We
all went to church this morning in a sort of family drawing-room in the
grounds, the vulgar herd screened off by red curtains, only the
clergyman in his pulpit visible above the screen.”
* * * * *
I made a very interesting excursion with Lady Margaret and some of her
guests to Haworth, the wild weird home of the Brontës on the Yorkshire
fells, where the steep street with the stones placed edgeways, up which
the horses scramble like cats, leads to the wind-stricken churchyard,
with its vast pavement of tombstones set close together. On one side of
this is the dismal grey stone house where the three unhappy sisters
lived, worked, and suffered, with the window at the side through which
Patrick Brontë used to climb at night. Not a tree is to be seen in the
neighbourhood except the blackened lilac before the Rectory door. Nature
is her dreariest self, and offers no ameliorations. The family were
buried beneath their pew in the church,[31] so that Charlotte, the last
survivor, sat in church over the graves of her brothers and sisters. The
people seemed half savage, most of all the Rector, who violently hurled
Lady Margaret and Lady Catherine Weyland from his door when they asked
to see the house, being bored, I suppose, by the pertinacity of
visitors.
The Brontës were really Pronty--Irish--but when old Mr. Brontë went to
college, he did the wise thing of changing his name, and the family kept
to it.
I went for two days from Bretton to Lord Houghton at Fryston, which has
since been burnt, but which was so filled with books of every kind that
the whole house was a library, each bookcase being filled with a
different subject--the French Revolution, Demonology and Witchcraft,
&c., &c. Lady Houghton was living then, a most gentle, kind woman, a
sister of Lord Crewe. From Lord Houghton I received constant kindness
and protection from my first entering upon a literary life, and, in
spite of his excessive vanity, I was always sincerely attached to him.
“Butterfly to the hasty eye, he was firm in his friendships, firmest of
all in his fearless championship of the weak, the strugglers, the
undeservedly oppressed.” As Johnson says of Garth--“he communicated
himself through a very wide extent of acquaintance.” His conversation
was always interesting, but I have preserved scarcely any notes of my
visit to Fryston, and chiefly remember his mentioning that Sydney Smith
had said to him, what I have so often thought, “It is one of the great
riddles of life to me why good people should always be so dreadfully
stupid.” He also spoke of the many proverbs which discouraged exertion
in “doing good,” from the Persian “Do no good, and no harm will come of
it,” to the French--
“Pour faire du bien
Ne faites rien.”
Talking of the Baroness Burdett Coutts, Lord Houghton said, “Miss
Coutts likes me because I never proposed to her. Almost all the young
men of good family did: those who did their duty by their family
_always_ did. Mrs. Browne (Miss Coutts’ companion) used to see it
coming, and took herself out of the way for ten minutes, but she only
went into the next room and left the door open, and then the proposal
took place, and immediately it was done Miss Coutts coughed, and Mrs.
Browne came in again.”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Dec. 10, 1872._--Went to visit the Ralph Duttons at Timsbury near
Romsey. The house is in a flat, and sees nothing but clipped laurel
hedges. Mr. Dutton is a sporting politician: Mrs. Dutton a politician
too, but _on the other side_. Both are full of pleasant conversation,
and most kind. Regarding English country-houses, however, it is as
Carlyle truly says, ‘Life may be as well spent there as elsewhere by the
owners of them, who have occupations to attend to. For visitors, when
large numbers are brought together, some practice is required if they
are to enjoy the elaborate idleness.’
“We drove to visit Mr. Cowper Temple at Broadlands--a pleasant liveable
house with beautiful flowers and pictures, the most remarkable of the
latter being Guercino’s ‘Hagar and the Angel’--an angel which poises and
floats, and Sir J. Reynolds’ ‘Infant Academy’ and ‘Babes in the Wood.’
In Mr. Cowper Temple’s room upstairs is Edward Clifford’s family group
of the ‘Maimed and Halt’ being called in to the feast, the figures being
those of the Cowper-Temples, Augustus Tollemaches, Lord Roden, Lady
Palmerston, and Clifford’s favourite drummer. They are wonderful
likenesses, but it is a strange picture, with our Saviour looking in at
the window.”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 13._--I arrived at Hatfield in the dark. A number of carriages
from the house met the guests at the station. As I emerged from it, a
little groom touched his hat and said, ‘Please, sir, are you the Lord
Chancellor?’ I thought I must have grown in dignity of aspect. The Lord
Chancellor was expected, and came later in the evening.
“I found Lord and Lady Salisbury in the library, lined with Burleigh
books and MSS. Mr. Richmond the artist was with them. He has the most
charming voice, which, quite independently of his conversation, would
make him agreeable. He talked of the enormous prices obtained for
statues and pictures at the present time, while Michelangelo only got
£90 and a block of marble for the great David at Florence, and Titian
the same for his Assumption at Venice. He spoke of the amount of
chicanery which existed amongst artists even then--how the monks, and
the nuns too, would supply them with good ultra-marine for their
frescoes, and how they would sell the ultra-marine and use smalt. He
described how Gainsborough never could sell anything but portraits:
people came to him for those, but would not buy his other pictures, and
his house was full of them when he died. Gainsborough gave two pictures
to the carrier who brought his other pictures from Clifton to London:
the carrier would take no fare, so he painted his waggon and horses and
another picture and gave them to him: these two pictures have been sold
lately for £18,000.
“Besides the Lord Chancellor Selborne with his two pleasant unaffected
daughters, Miss Alderson was here the first day, and Sir Henry and Lady
Maine. With the last I rambled in search of adventures in the evening,
and we walked in the long gallery, which is splendid, with a gilt
ceiling, only it is incongruous to see the old panelled wall brilliantly
lighted with gas.
“Lord Salisbury is delightful, so perfectly easy and unaffected: it
would be well if little great men would take pattern by him. Lady
Salisbury is equally unassuming, sound sense ever dropping from her lips
as unconsciously as Lady Margaret Beaumont’s bon-mots.”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 14._--Lady Salisbury showed us the house. In the drawing-room,
over the chimney-piece, is a huge statue of James I. of bronze. It is
not fixed, but supported by its own weight. A ball was once given in
that room. In the midst of the dancing some one observed that the bronze
statue was slowly nodding its head, and gave the alarm. The stampede was
frightful. All the guests fled down the long gallery.
“In the same room is a glorious portrait of Lord Salisbury’s grandmother
by Reynolds. It was this Lady Salisbury who was burnt to death in her
old age. She came in from riding, and used to make her maid change her
habit and dress her for dinner at once, as less fatiguing. Then she
rested for two or three hours with lighted candles near her, and read or
nodded in her chair. One evening, from the opposite wing of the house,
the late Lord Salisbury saw the windows of the rooms near hers blazing
with light, and gave the alarm, but before anybody could reach his
mother’s rooms they were entirely burnt--so entirely, that it would have
been impossible to identify her ashes for burial but for a ruby which
the present Lady Salisbury wears in a ring. A little heap of diamonds
was found in one place, but that proved nothing, as all her jewels were
burned with her, but the ruby her maid identified as having put on her
finger when she dressed her, and the ashes of that particular spot were
all gathered up and buried in a small urn. Her two favourite dogs were
burnt with her, and they are probably buried with her.[32] It was this
Lady Salisbury who was inadvertently thrown down by a couple waltzing
violently down the long gallery, when Lord Lytton, who was present,
irreverently exclaimed:
‘At Hatfield House Conservatives
Become quite harum-scarum,
For Radical could do no more
Than overturn Old Sarum.’[33]
[Illustration: HATFIELD.]
“In ‘Oliver Twist,’ Bill Sykes is described as having seen the fire at
Hatfield as he was escaping from London.
“In the dining-room there is a portrait by Wilkie of the Duke of
Wellington, painted when he was here after the battle of Waterloo. There
is also at Hatfield a beautiful picture of Mary Queen of Scots at
fifteen.[34] This, however, is not the authentic portrait. There is
another, a replica of that at Hardwicke, taken in a widow’s dress
shortly before her execution, which is one of the three portraits
certainly painted from life. It was sent by the Queen to the Duke of
Norfolk and intercepted by Lord Burleigh. One of the other two
portraits belonged to Louis Philippe. As Sir Henry Bulwer was waiting
for an audience of the king, another gentleman was in the room with him.
The portrait of Queen Mary hung on the wall. The stranger looked at it,
walked backwards and forwards to it, and examined it again and again. At
last he walked up to Sir Henry Bulwer and said, ‘Can you tell me, sir,
whom that portrait represents?’--‘Yes, I can,’ said Sir Henry; ‘but will
you tell me why you ask?’--‘Because it is the lowest type of criminal
face which is known to us.’ The stranger was Fouché the famous
detective.
“In Lady Salisbury’s own room is a picture of Miss Pine, Lord
Salisbury’s other grandmother, by Sir Joshua; also the Earl and Countess
of Westmoreland and their child, by Vandyke; also a curious picture of a
lady.
“‘She looks dull but good,’ said Miss Palmer.
“‘She looks clever but bad,’ said I.
“‘She _was_ desperately wicked,’ said Lady Salisbury, ‘and therefore it
is quite unnecessary to say that she was very religious. She endowed
almshouses--‘Lady Anne’s Almshouses,’--they still exist, and she sent
her son to Westminster with especial orders that he should be severely
flogged, when he was seventeen, and so soured his temper for life and
sent him to the bad entirely; and none but ‘a thoroughly
highly-principled woman’ could do such a villainous action as that. The
son lived afterwards at Quixwold, and led the most abominably wicked
life there, and died a death as horrible as his life. He sold everything
he could lay hands on, jewels and everything, all the old family plate
except one very ugly old flat candlestick and six old sconces, which
were painted over mahogany colour, and so were not known to be silver.
His is the phantom coach which arrives and drives up the staircase and
then disappears. Lord Salisbury heard it the other night when he was in
his dressing-room, and dressed again, thinking it was visitors, and went
down, but it was no one.’
“There is a picture of Elizabeth by Zucchero in the famous dress, all
eyes and ears, to typify her omniscience, and with the serpent of wisdom
on her arm: she loved allegorical dress. Her hat is here--an open-work
straw hat--and in the recess of the gallery her cradle, with A. R. for
Anne Boleyn. Elizabeth hated Hatfield. She was here in her childhood and
all through Mary’s reign, and she constantly wrote from hence complaints
to her father, to Mary, and to the Ministers, and they told her she must
bear it; but she hated it, and after she became queen she never saw
Hatfield again. The relics of her remain because James I. was in such a
hurry to exchange Hatfield for Theobalds, on account of the hunting
there, that he did not stop to take anything away.
“In the afternoon we had games, charades--Pilgrim, Pirate, Scullion, and
stories.”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 15._--Breakfast at a number of little round tables. I was at one
with Miss Palmer, the Attorney-General, and his daughter Miss Coleridge.
The Attorney-General told a story of a Mr. Kerslake, who was 6 feet 8
inches in height. A little boy in the Strand, looking up at him, said,
‘I say, Maister, if you was to fall down, you’d be halfway t’ome.’
“My cough prevented my going out, but we had Sunday-afternoon service in
the chapel, with beautiful singing. In the evening Lady Salisbury asked
me to tell stories to all the party, and it was sufficiently alarming
when I saw the Lord Chancellor in the first row, with the
Attorney-General on one side of him and Lord Cairns on the other. In
repeating a story, however, I always think of a bit of advice Mr. Jowett
gave me long ago--‘Try to say everything as well as you can say it.’ The
Attorney-General afterwards told us--
“There is at Clifton a Mr. Harrison, who is the second medical authority
there, a man of undoubted probity and reputation. He told me this.
“At Clifton lived a Mrs. Fry with her brother-in-law and his two
daughters, Elizabeth and Hephzibah. These were persons who, like many
Bristol people, had large property in the West Indies--the Miles’s, for
instance, made their fortunes there. The elder daughter, Elizabeth, had
been born in the West Indies, and when she fell into bad health, her
father took the opportunity of taking her back to benefit by her native
air, when he went to look after his West Indian property, leaving his
younger daughter, Hephzibah, with Mrs Fry.
“They had not been gone long when Hephzibah took a chill, and in a very
few days she died. Mr. Harrison attended her. Some days after he called
as a friend upon Mrs. Fry, when she said, ‘I want to tell you something
which has happened to me: I have seen Elizabeth.’--’ Impossible,’ said
Mr. Harrison. ‘No,’ she said, ‘it was so. I was sitting reading the
“Promise”’ (so I believe ‘Friends’ always call the Bible), ‘when I fell
into a state which was neither sleeping nor waking, and in that state--I
was not asleep--I saw Elizabeth standing by me. I spoke to her, and,
forgetting what had happened in my surprise, I told her to call her
sister. But she said to me that she had seen her sister already, and
that she was in a box, and had a great deal of sewing about her chest.
She especially used the word “sewing:” then she vanished away, and the
place in the Promise where I had left off was changed: some one had
turned it over.’ Mr. Harrison noted all this.
“Some time after came a letter from the father to Mrs. Fry, written
before he had heard of Hephzibah’s death. After speaking of other
matters he said, ‘I must now tell you of a very curious circumstance
which has occurred, and which is much on my mind. The other day
Elizabeth, who had been much better, and who is now nearly well,
surprised us by falling into a stupor, and when she came to herself she
would insist upon it that she had been to Clifton, and that she had seen
you and Hephzibah, and that Hephzibah was in a long box, with a great
deal of sewing upon her chest: and she says so still.’ The dates were
precisely the same.
“Hephzibah’s death was so sudden that there was a post-mortem
examination, though it was not considered necessary to distress Mrs. Fry
by telling her of it. On this occasion Mr. Harrison was unable to be
present. He went afterwards to the student of the hospital who was
there, and who remembered all about it, and he said--what Mr. Harrison
had not previously known--that after the examination the body was sewn
up, with a great deal of sewing upon the chest.”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 16._--The Archbishop of Canterbury and Mrs. Tait arrived before
afternoon-tea, at which there was much lively conversation. Apropos of
Radicalism and the conversation of Bishops, Lord Salisbury mentioned
Sydney Smith’s saying that he would ‘rather fall a victim to a
democratic mob than be sweetly and blandly absorbed by a bishop.’
“In speaking of Jenny Lind, Mr. Richmond said that she had ‘none of the
warm ruddy glow of the sunny South in her character, it was rather the
soft calm beauty of Swedish moonlight.’ He spoke of the faces he had
drawn--of the interest of the ugly faces, if the lines had character; of
the difficulty of translating a face like a moon or a footstool; that
still such faces were quite the exception, and that he believed the
reason why he succeeded better than some others of his confraternity was
that he was better able to realise to himself the good in the character
of his subjects.”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 17._--Mr. Richmond was at the same little table at breakfast. He
talked of great writers and talkers, how their art was not the creation
of something new, but the telling of old things well in a new dress--the
bringing up the thoughts long bedridden in the chambers of their own
brain.
“He talked of Carlyle--of how his peculiarities began in affectation,
but that now he was simply lost in the mazes of his own vocabulary. One
night, he said, he met a man at Albert Gate at 12 P.M., who asked for a
light for his cigar. He did not see who it was till, as he was turning
away, he recognised Carlyle, who gave a laugh which could be heard all
down Piccadilly as he exclaimed, ‘I thought it was just any son of Adam,
and I find a friend.’ It was soon after the Pope’s return to Rome, and
Mr. Richmond spoke of him. ‘The poor old Pope,’ said Carlyle, ‘the
po-o-r old Pope! He has a big mouth! I do not like your button-holes of
mouths, like the Greek statues you are all so fond of.’
“Our third at the breakfast-table was a Mr. Jeffreys. Mr. Richmond said
afterwards that he was a conchologist, which he regarded as the very
tail of science--the topmost twig of the tree looking up at the sky.”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 19._--Yesterday I drew the gallery and chapel. There is something
mediæval in the band playing all dinner-time, yet without the sound
being overwhelming, from the great size of the room; in the way the host
and hostess sit in the middle like royalty, and in the little lovely
baskets of hot-house flowers given to each lady as she goes down the
staircase to dinner.”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 20._--The last collection of guests have included the Duke of
Wellington, the Cowleys, Lord and Lady Stanhope, and M. and Madame de
Lavalette--all full of interest. Certainly Hatfield is magnificent and
grandly kept up. I had much talk with Mrs. Lowe,[35] who delights in
tirades against Christianity. She said how absurd it was to expect
belief in the Bible, when no one could agree upon so recent a subject as
Lord Byron: that half the Bible was contrary to all reason: that it was
monstrous to suppose that the Deity could enjoin a murder like that of
Isaac, &c.”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 27, East Sheen._--Mrs. Stuart Wortley came to luncheon. She
remarked how that which was most striking in Italy was not the effect of
light, but of shadow. Into the shadows of England you could not
penetrate, but the shadows of Italy were transparent; the more you
looked into their cavernous depths, the more you saw there, discovering
marvels of beauty which existed there in repose.
“She told us that the secret of ‘the Haunted House in Berkeley Square’
is that it belonged to a Mr. Du Pré of Wilton Park. He shut up his
lunatic brother there in a cage in one of the attics, and the poor
captive was so violent that he could only be fed through a hole. His
groans and cries could be distinctly heard in the neighbouring houses.
The house is now to be let for £100 the first year, £200 the second,
£300 the third, but if the tenant leaves within that time, he is to
forfeit £1000. The house will be furnished in any style or taste the
tenant chooses.”
* * * * *
To MISS WRIGHT.
“_Holmhurst, Jan. 10, 1873._--I have had a pleasant visit at Battle
Abbey. The Duchess (of Cleveland) received me very kindly. The house is
comfortable and the library is first-rate, and there is always a
pleasure in a house which has ruins, cloisters, haunted yew
walks--history, in fact--in its garden. The Duke, who is one of the few
living of my father’s old friends, was very cordial; and Lord and Lady
Stanhope, whom I am devoted to, arrived with me. The rest of the guests
were Harry Stanhope, a clergyman, Colonel and Mrs. Heygarth, Colonel and
Mrs. Byng, Mr. Newton the Lycian archæologist, Mr. Planché the Somerset
Herald, and Mr. Campbell of Islay--a party which had plenty of good
materials. We drew, acted, and all tried to make ourselves agreeable.
The Duchess was a perfect hostess, amused us all very much, and was
intensely amused herself.”
* * * * *
My book “Wanderings in Spain,” came out in the autumn of 1872, and met
with a more enthusiastic reception from the public than anything I have
ever written. Three editions were called for in six weeks, but there the
sale ended.[36] The reviews were rapturously laudatory, but I felt at
the time how little reliance was to be placed upon their judgment,
though for the moment it was agreeable. The _Times_ declared that no
one ought to go to Spain without the book; the _Athenæum_, that only in
one instance had pleasanter sketches fallen under its notice; while the
_Spectator_ blew the loudest trumpet of all:--
* * * * *
“In this least commonplace, and yet most comprehensive of works of
travel, we find everything we have previously learnt of that
comparatively unworked mine of history, art, poetry, and nature, Spain,
as well as a great deal which is entirely novel. But the old is placed
in a dazzling light of fancy, association, and suggestion, and the new
is captivating. The skies of Spain shine, the wide-sweeping breezes
blow, the solemn church music swells, the ancient grandeur, gravity, and
dignity of the history and life of the country, the old Moorish
magnificence, the splendid chivalry, the religious enthusiasm, the stern
loyalty and narrow pride of the races of Arragon and Castile, all live
again in the vivid pages of this book.”
* * * * *
The unusual success which was attending my “Walks in Rome,” and the many
notes which I already possessed for a similar work in the neighbourhood,
made me now devote my time to “Days near Rome,” and in January I left
England to make Rome a centre from whence to revive my recollection of
the towns I had already visited in the Campagna and its surrounding
mountains, and to examine and sketch those I had not yet seen.
Altogether, “Days near Rome” is the one of my books in the preparation
of which I had the greatest enjoyment, and from which I have had least
disappointment since its publication.[37] I was, however, terribly ill
soon after my arrival at Rome, and nearly died there.
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Paris, Jan. 19, 1873._--I have felt most dolorous on the journey, and
often repented having decided to come abroad: I so dread seeing Rome
again. Still, as last year I added £252 to my income by small writings
exclusive of the ‘Memorials,’ I must look upon it as a profession, and
of course as _such_ it is very pleasant. This morning I am cheered by
George Sheffield’s pleasure at seeing me, and I am going to dine with
the Comte and Comtesse de Clermont-Tonnerre.”
* * * * *
“_Florence, Jan. 23._--All descriptions of ‘sensations’ in the Mont
Cenis tunnel must be pure imagination. It is exactly like any other
tunnel. I came all the way from Paris with two American ladies, one of
them very handsome, but the sort of person who said, ‘I guess I am
genteelly well satisfied’ when she had finished her dinner, and that she
had read ‘Walks in Rome,’ which ‘was a very elegant book, a very elegant
book indeed.’”
[Illustration: FIDENAE.][38]
* * * * *
“_81 Via della Croce, Rome, Jan. 27._--I left Florence on a still,
mizzly morning. How familiar all the dear places seemed on the way, and
yet how changed the feeling with which one saw them--Thrasymene,
Perugia, Assisi, Spoleto--all so much to _us_, so woven into _our_
lives, and I was thankful for the twilight obscurity before the steep of
Fidenae rose beside us, and then the towers of the beloved city crested
the hill, the hill down which my darling drove so often in her little
carriage to the Ponte Salario and the Ponte Nomentano, drinking in the
full beauty of the historic loveliness. On Saturday I removed to these
rooms in the house of Voight, a German artist, much beloved by the
Bunsens, and indeed married to his old still-existing Signora from their
house. I think that the rooms will answer sufficiently, though, as the
Voights have never let rooms before, there is a terrible amount of
talking over everything I need. The whole family, of three generations,
were called into council the first time I desired to have an egg for
breakfast, and then it came in raw, and yesterday the scene was
repeated. However, ‘_pazienza_.’
“On Sunday I went up first to the Pincio, and I cannot say--indeed no
one could understand--all that that walk is to me, where day after day,
for so many feeble winters, we helped my darling along; whence she
looked down upon the windows so sacred to her in the San Sebastianello;
where every shrub was familiar and commented upon, as not even those in
the garden at Holmhurst have ever been. Nothing has been more _our_
garden. It seemed almost sacrilege to see the changes, and they are not
many. In the afternoon I went again with my old friend Stopford
Sackville.
“It has been a great effort--a gasp--coming here, but I am thankful now
that I came. There is something in the simple greetings of all our poor
friends--‘Lei stá solo adesso--ahi poverino!’--far more to me than
anything else could be, and the very trees and ruins talk to me, only
that as _she_ saw her Augustus’s, so I see my Mother’s name engraven on
every stone. In some ways I seem every day to make fresh acquaintance
with my solitary life.
“It is perfect summer here, the Villa Doria a sheet of flowers, anemones
of every hue, violets almost over. ‘How full of sources of comfort has
God made this lovely woe-world,’ as Mrs. Kemble says.”
* * * * *
“_Feb. 1._--I have been very ill for the last three days with Roman
fever, which has brought on a violent return of my cough. It all came
from going out for one _instant_ upon the balcony at night without extra
clothing: in that instant I felt the seizure like a stab, and the most
violent shivering fits came on immediately. Perhaps the chill of these
rooms has something to do with it. I feel much the absence of the
sympathising help I have had here in illness before, especially of Lea’s
good food and attentions; and now, if I ask even for a cup of tea, the
commotion is enough to bring the house down.... I am especially sorry to
be shut up at this time, as there are so many pleasant people in Rome,
not least the really charming Prince Arthur, to whom I was presented the
other day, and whom I think most engaging, and hope--if I can only get
better--to see more of next week, when I have been asked, and have
promised, to go with him to several sights. Amongst his suite is Sir
Howard Elphinstone, a capital artist, who is quite a friend of mine, and
went out drawing with me before I was taken ill.
“The _old_ interest of Rome has wonderfully passed away, not only to me,
but I think also to many others. The absence of pope, cardinals, and
monks; the shutting up of the convents; the loss of the ceremonies; the
misery caused by the terrible taxes and conscription; the voluntary
exile of the Borgheses and many other noble families; the total
destruction of the glorious Villa Negroni and so much else of interest
and beauty; the ugly new streets in imitation of Paris and New York, all
grate against one’s former Roman associations. And to set against this
there is so very little--a gayer Pincio, a live wolf on the Capitol, a
mere scrap of excavation in the Forum, and all is said.
“Old Beppino (the beggar of the Trinità steps) escaped from a bad
accident the other day and announced it thus--‘Ho mancato póco d’andare
in Paradiso, che Dio me ne guarda!’”
* * * * *
“_Il Tempietto, Feb. 4._--Since I last wrote I have been terribly ill.
On Friday night I was seized with feverish convulsions, and with loss of
speech for four hours. The first night I was too ill to call for any
help, but next morning kind Dr. Grigor came, and I decided to forfeit
the rent of my other rooms and move up here to our dear old apartment,
having more than ever the immoral conviction I have always had, that one
never does anything economical without doing something very foolish
also. These dear rooms have all their old homelike charm. I sit in the
Mother’s chair with her little table by my side, and Madame da Monaca,
our old landlady, is perfectly charmed to have me back.”
* * * * *
“_Feb. 9._--I have still some sparks of life in me, which really two
days ago I did not feel, it has been such a suffering illness and the
cough has quite worn me out. I am sure, in thinking of dangerous illness
henceforward, I shall always remember the long nights here, nights of
pain and fever, tossing restlessly and longing for the morning, and
first knowing it had dawned by the tinkling bells of the goats coming to
be milked under the windows, followed by the familiar cry of--
‘Acqua Acetosa
Buona per la sposa.’
“Charlie Dalison, who has been in Rome, has been most kind, and the
Archbishop of Dublin and Mrs. Trench, living just underneath, have been
incessant in their attentions. Endless little comforts have also been
supplied to me by the constant kindness of two ladies who live together,
Miss Freeman Clarke, an American authoress, who has visited all the
places in Italy connected with Dante, and drawn and described them; and
Miss Foley, a most charming young sculptress, as clever as she is
attractive.”[39]
* * * * *
“_Feb. 16._--Last week I felt as if life was really passing away--such
was my utter exhaustion and suffering.... After a most kind touching
note about the ‘Memorials,’ I have had an hour’s visit from Lord
Chichester, and he is coming again often. I constantly see Lady
Ashburton, who rains her benefits upon me. I am doing all I can to be
able to go out with the Prince soon, having put him off again and again
with a greater pang each time, but I wish I could feel a little less
dreadfully weak.
“I think the ‘Memorials’ will soon reach a sale like that of the _Récit
d’une Sœur_. Hatchard is pushing the ‘Alton Sermons’ under its
shadow. ‘Wanderings in Spain’ also sells beyond all expectation.”
[Illustration: VIEW FROM THE TEMPIETTO, ROME.]
It was on the 18th of February that I was first able to have one of my
lectures for Prince Arthur. It was arranged for the Palace of the
Cæsars. I had asked him if Lady Ashburton and her daughter might go with
us, and to this he had consented. Lady Ashburton insisted upon coming
to fetch me, but, knowing her unpunctual habits, I was most unwilling
she should do so. Nothing else would serve her, however, and she
promised again and again to be punctual. However, the time came and she
did not arrive. Having secured no other carriage I waited minute after
minute in an agony, and not till after the time at which we ought to
have been at the Palatine did Lady Ashburton appear on the Pincio. When
we reached the Palatine, the Prince and all his suite were still in the
road, unable to enter without my order. “I have been waiting ten
minutes,” he said, “and they wouldn’t let me in.” It was a terrible
beginning. However, his lively pleasure and active interest in all that
was to be seen soon made me at home with him. If anything especial
attracted his notice, he generally asked, “Do you think my brother and
sister (the Prince and Princess of Wales) saw this?”
A few days after, I had another lecture for the Prince on the Cœlian.
This time I refused altogether to go with Lady Ashburton, and when I
arrived ten minutes before the time at the steps of S. Gregorio, found
that she had already been there half-an-hour, walking up and down in the
dew! This time the Prince was even pleasanter than before. Generally he
begged that his name might not be mentioned, but this was necessary to
get into the garden of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, which at that time was
always closed. While we were in the church, a monk came up to me and
said that the General of the Passionists was coming to pay his respects
to the Prince. I said, “Sir, the General of the Passionists is coming to
have the honour of being presented to you.” The Prince began to say “No,
no, no,” but at that moment the white robes of the abbot appeared in the
doorway, followed by a whole train of monks. The Prince immediately did
the right thing, receiving them and speaking to them on the steps of the
tribune, and I have often thought what a picture the scene would have
made. In the shadow of royalty, Lady Ashburton was the first woman
allowed to visit the Passionist garden, but to the Prince’s great
annoyance, three Americans (probably not knowing who it was) got in too,
by pretending to belong to our party. They followed us afterwards to the
Villa Mattei. The Prince then asked Lady Ashburton to sit down near the
entrance, and we raced up and down the walks, with the Americans
cantering after us, and eventually slipped under one of the high box
hedges, returned by the concealed way, snapped up Lady Ashburton, and
escaped from the Villa, the gates of which were locked behind us; and
how those Americans got out I have never known.
I was truly sorry when the Prince went away to Naples. He sent me from
thence some friends of his--Colonel Crichton and his most sweet wife
Lady Madeleine (a daughter of Lord Headfort, who has died since), and
asked me to do what I could for them. I knew that this meant lectures of
the same kind which I had given for the Prince himself, and thus was
originated my long course of Roman lectures.
At one of my lectures at the Palace of the Cæsars a curious thing
happened. We were about forty in number, and I had taken my company all
over the palace, explaining and telling the story of the different rooms
as we went. Finally, as was my habit, I assembled them on the slope
towards the Forum for a sort of recapitulation and final discourse on
all we had seen. I had observed a stranger who had attached himself to
our party looking more and more angry every minute, but the “why” I
could not understand. When I had concluded, the stranger stepped
forward, and in a very loud voice addressed the whole party--“Gentlemen
and ladies, it is not my habit to push myself forward, and it is
excessively painful to me to do it on the present occasion; but there
are some things which no gentleman ought to pass unnoticed. All that
this _person_ has been telling you about the Palace of the Cæsars, he
has had the effrontery to relate to you as if it were his own. You will
be astounded, gentlemen and ladies, to hear that it is taken, word for
word--word for _word_, without the slightest acknowledgment, from Mr.
Hare’s ‘Walks in Rome!’”
I only said, “Oh, I am _so_ much obliged to you. I did not know there
was anybody in the world who would defend my interests so kindly. I am
Augustus Hare.”
* * * * *
_TO_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Il Tempietto, Rome, March 9, 1873._--I am much better, but still have
fever every three days. The weather is glorious, and Miss Wright, who
arrived ten days ago, is revelling in the hot sunshine.
“On Monday we had an enchanting expedition to Veii; there were twelve
riders and five carriages. I went with Miss Baring[40] and her
governess, and we had quite a banquet near the waterfall, with the old
castle of Isola Farnese opposite, and the woods around us carpeted with
cyclamen, violets, and blue and white anemones, while the cliffs were
snow-drifted with laurustinus. After luncheon, the adventurous part of
the company, the Sackvilles, Miss Wright, &c., went on with me to the
Ponte Sodo and the painted tombs--_such_ a hot walk through the woods,
but we came back to Rome before sunset.
[Illustration: ISOLA FARNESE.][41]
“At the end of this week I have a lecture on the Christian history of
the Trastevere.
[Illustration: VALLEY OF SUBIACO.]
[Illustration: PONTE DELL’ ISOLA, VEII.][42]
“I think a Republic here will soon follow that of Spain. Victor Emmanuel
is so hated, and the profligacy of the Court and the cruel taxes are
hastening the end. People already shout ‘Viva la Republica’ and bawl
Garibaldian hymns all night. I wonder whether you would think the
freedom of religious worship a compensation for the moral changes
here--the shops always open on Sundays, which were formerly so strictly
closed, the churches deserted, stalls for infidel books in the streets,
and an ostentatious immorality which was formerly unknown. In the
Carnival, in insulting reference to the Pope, a pasteboard dome of St.
Peter’s was made to travel up and down the Corso in a car, with a
parrot imprisoned in a cage on the top, ‘_pappagallo_’ being Italian for
a parrot, and ‘Papa Gallo’ a nickname given to Pio Nono during the
French occupation. The parrot struggled and fluttered through the first
day, but it died of sea-sickness in the evening, and afterwards it
appeared stuffed. The Pope has felt bitterly the confiscation of the
convents and other religious institutions which the Sardinian
Government, when it first entered Rome, promised so strictly to respect;
and _triduos_ have been held at St. Peter’s and at S. Ignazio to implore
that the spoliation may be averted, or that a judgment may follow the
spoiler. In St. Peter’s twenty thousand persons were collected on Sunday
afternoon to join with one voice in this supplication. Pius IX. took no
part in the manifestation: on Sunday afternoon he is quietly occupied as
a bishop in the Sala Regia, in explaining the Epistle and Gospel for
the day, and praying with the people of the different Roman parishes,
who come to him in turn, attended by their priests. Amongst the nuns who
have suffered most are the Poor Clares of S. Lorenzo Panisperna, who,
when they were driven out of the greater part of their convent in
February 1872, were allowed to retain and fit up a few small rooms, from
which they are now forcibly ejected altogether. The nuns of S. Antonio
on the Esquiline, who plaited all the palms used in the processions at
St. Peter’s, were driven out more than a year ago, though their convent
has never hitherto been used for anything else. The nuns of S. Giacomo
alla Lungara are reduced to absolute beggary. The Carmelites of S. Maria
Vittoria have been driven out, and their Superior died of a broken heart
on the day of their ejection. The nuns of S. Teresa, when driven out of
their convent, were permitted to take refuge in that of Regina Cœli,
where they were allowed to fit up a corridor with canvas partitions: now
they are driven out again, in spite of solemn promises, and without any
compensation. If the dowries of all these ladies, given to them by their
parents exactly as marriage portions are given, were restored,
comparatively little could be said, but their fortunes are all
confiscated by the Government. A pitiful allowance is promised, just
sufficient to keep body and soul together, but even this is seldom paid;
for instance, in the case of the nuns of S. Teresa, the ‘_assegno_’ for
the first half of 1871 was not paid till October 1872, and since then
nothing has been paid. In the same way it is supposed that the
conventual buildings and gardens are paid for at a valuation, yet the
real value of those of the Cappuccini, in one of the most important
situations of the town, is £40,000, and it is expropriated at 4000
francs (£160), while even this is to be paid in paper and at great
intervals of time. Amongst the last institutions seized are the Orphan
Asylum of the Quattro Incoronati, and the Conservatorio Pio, an especial
and beloved institution of Pio Nono, intended as a school for servants
and for instructing young girls in household work.[43]
“The heads of the clerical schools have inquired from Pius IX. whether
their pupils were to salute Queen Margaret when she passed them.
‘Certainly,’ answered the Pope; ‘is she not a member of the royal house
of Savoy?’
“There is a stall for Bibles now opposite S. Carlo. A great dog manages
it, such a fine beast. He cannot be expected to do all the business, so
he just receives the customers, and, when any one wants a Bible, he puts
his feet up and barks.
“I am very glad to hear of Sir George Grey having given the ‘Memorials’
to the Queen, and I have a most kind letter from Lord Stanhope,
delighted with ‘Wanderings in Spain.’”
* * * * *
“_March_ 17.--Yesterday I drove with Lady Ashburton to Castel Fusano;
Miss Wright, Miss Howard, and Walter Jekyll going in another carriage,
and we picnicked under the grand old pine-trees, and had a delicious
day, wandering through the labyrinths of sweet daphne and rosemary, and
over carpets of cyclamen in fullest bloom.
[Illustration: CASTEL FUSANO.][44]
“I have had several more lectures. There was a party of forty, which is
the largest I can manage, at the one on the Early Christian Church in
the Trastevere. We met on the Island, where I gave a sort of preliminary
discourse, and led my troop to everything connected with the Christian
martyrs. To-morrow I have the same kind of lecture on the Esquiline.
Mrs. Locke and her pretty charming little grand-daughter[45]
unexpectedly joined us at S. Cecilia, and seemed much interested, never
having visited the Roman sights before. I dined with them last night--an
exceptionally pleasant party, as Mrs. Locke, the Duchess, and the little
Countess move about constantly all evening, and do their utmost to amuse
their guests, unlike most stiff Italian hostesses. They seem to me to
have three grades of beauty, the grandmother’s being the highest.”
“_14 Trinità de’ Monti, March 29._--There are many quiet hours here,
such as one gets nowhere else, and yet endless society of the most
interesting kind; troops of visitors of every sort, and what contrasts
those of a single day furnish--Madama de Bonis at breakfast, for help
with her photographs; then Rosina the poor donna; then Lady Howard de
Walden and a daughter; then Signor Monachesi, the Italian master; then
the Marchese Carcolo, fresh from Perugia; then three ugly old ladies,
whose names I failed to discover, who wanted to be told where to live,
how to live, and what to live upon; then Mrs. Foljambe from Villa
Savorelli; then Signor Altini the sculptor, to ask for recommendations:
and this is only an ordinary Roman day, yet I cannot feel it is a
_useless_ life.”
“_Albano, April 6._--Yesterday, after dining with Mrs. Lockwood, I went
to meet Princess Alice at the S. Arpinos’. They have a beautiful suite
of rooms in the Bonaparte Palace, the same in which ‘Madame Mère’ died.
Many ambassadors and Roman princes and princesses were there, but only
five English. I was presented at once to Prince Louis, who is very
German and speaks very broken English, but is much better-looking than
his photographs. He talked for a long time about Rome and my book. Later
in the evening I was presented to the Princess. She said at once, ‘Oh, I
know your face, I have seen you before,’ and with royal memory
recollected all about coming to see my Mother, &c. She said, ‘I have
gone about everywhere with your book, and I am so pleased to be able to
say that I have found out a mistake in it: you say that the church at
the Navicella was designed by Michelangelo, and it was not; it was
designed by Raffaelle: I know all about it, for my dear father had the
original plan and sketch for it. My dear father always took a great
interest in the Navicella. I have been to see the martyrdoms at S.
Stefano: they are quite shocking.’ She talked for some time, then some
one else was brought up. She is grown much fatter and prettier, and was
very simply dressed in high slate-coloured silk with a pearl necklace.
We all stayed till she left at 11 P.M., and then made an avenue down the
reception rooms, through which she passed, saying a little separate word
to each lady.
“Mrs. Locke[46] said Princess Margherita was deep in ‘Walks in
Rome,’[47] and had desired her to get me to tell _her_ (Mrs. Locke) a
ghost-story, and then come and retail it immediately!
“Yesterday I went with Lady Howard and her daughter and Miss Wright to
Tusculum and Frascati. I never saw the Villa Mondragone before. How
_very_ grand it is, and the view was exquisitely lovely--such blue
shadows cast by the clouds upon the pink campagna. All the ascent to
Tusculum was fringed with cyclamen, large purple violets, laurustinus,
and blue and white anemones, also the loveliest little blue squills.
“On Wednesday I met Miss Wright and Miss Howard at Albano, and we had an
interesting afternoon amongst the huge Cyclopean remains of Alatri,
driving on in the beautiful gloaming to Ferentino, where we slept at a
primitive but clean Italian tavern. The next day we reached Segni, a
Pelasgic city on the very highest peak of the Volscian mountains. On
Friday I joined Lady Howard de Walden and her two daughters, and with
them revisited the glorious old Papal citadel of Anagni, where Boniface
VIII. was imprisoned, and where there are many relics of him, though to
me Anagni has an even deeper interest, because from its walls you can
see, on the barren side of the mountain, the brown building of Acuto,
where my sister’s revered friend Maria di Matthias preached the sermons
which had such an extraordinary influence throughout this wild
country.”
[Illustration: CYCLOPEAN GATE OF ALATRI.][48]
* * * * *
“_Subiaco, April 16._--We spent Good Friday on the seashore at Porto
d’Anzio, a delightful place, overgrown with gorgeous pink
mesembryanthemum, and with huge remains of Nero’s palace projecting far
into the sea. For Easter we were at Velletri, and on Monday drove
through the blooming country to Cori, where, after seeing the beautiful
temple, we rode along the edge of stupendous precipices to Norba, and
the man-deserted flower-possessed fairy-like town of Ninfa, returning
by the light of the stars--‘le Ninfe eterne’ of Dante. Tuesday we went
to Palestrina, an extraordinary place with a perfectly savage
population; and Wednesday we came hither through Olevano, which is a
paradise of beauty. This place seems quite as grandly beautiful as we
thought it fifteen years ago.”
[Illustration: THE INN AT FERENTINO.][49]
* * * * *
“_Rome, April 28._--I parted with my kind Miss Wright at Tivoli, and
next day returned to Rome in the public omnibus.”[50]
[Illustration: PAPAL PALACE, ANAGNI.][51]
[Illustration: TEMPLES OF CORI.][52]
[Illustration: NINFA.][53]
A few days later I left Rome again with Mr. and Mrs. Arbuthnot Feilden
and the Misses Crawford (daughters of Mrs. Terry, and sisters of Marion
Crawford) for a tour in the Ciminian Hills, which always comes back to
me as a dream of transcendent loveliness.
We left the railway at Civita Castellana, an unspeakably beautiful
place, which I drew in the early dewy morning, sitting on the edge of
its tremendous rocky gorge, above which Soracte, steeped in violet
shadows, rises out of the tender green of the plain. On May-day we
ascended Soracte, queen of lovely mountains, mounting gradually from the
rich lower slopes into the excelsior of olives, and thence to steeps of
bare grey rock, crowned--in the most sublime position--by the ruined
monastery of S. Silvestro. It is the most exquisite drive from Civita
Castellana, by Nepi, with a great machicolated castle overhanging a
foaming waterfall, and Sutri--“the key of Etruria”--with its solemn
Roman amphitheatre surrounded by some of the grandest ilexes in the
world, to Ronciglione. Hence we visited Caprarola, and I will insert a
little extract from “Days near Rome” about this expedition, it reminds
me of so wondrously beautiful and delightful a day.
[Illustration: S. ORESTE, FROM SORACTE.][54]
* * * * *
“From the little deep-blue lake of Vico it is a long ascent, and oh!
what Italian scenery, quite unspoilt by the English, who never come here
now. The road is generally a dusty hollow in the tufa, which, as we
pass, is fringed with broom in full flower, and all the little children
we meet have made themselves wreaths and gathered long branches of it,
and wave them like golden sceptres. Along the brown ridges of thymy
tufa by the wayside, flocks of goats are scrambling, chiefly white, but
a few black and dun-coloured creatures are mingled with them, mothers
with their little dancing elf-like kids, and old bearded patriarchs who
love to clamber to the very end of the most inaccessible places, and to
stand there embossed against the clear sky, in triumphant quietude. The
handsome shepherd dressed in white linen lets them have their own way,
and the great rough white dogs only keep a lazy eye upon them as they
themselves lie panting and luxuriating in the sunshine. Deep down below
us, it seems as if all Italy were opening out, as the mists roll
stealthily away, and range after range of delicate mountain distance is
discovered. Volscian, Hernican, Sabine, and Alban hills, Soracte nobly
beautiful--rising out of the soft quiet lines of the Campagna, and the
Tiber winding out of the rich meadow-lands into the desolate wastes,
till it is lost from sight before it reaches where a great mysterious
dome rises solemnly through the mist, and reminds one of the times when,
years ago, in the old happy _vetturino_ days, we used to stop the
carriage on this very spot, to have our first sight of St. Peter’s.
[Illustration: CONVENT OF S. SILVESTRO, SUMMIT OF SORACTE.][55]
“Near a little deserted chapel, a road branches off on the right, a
rough stony road enough, which soon descends abruptly through chestnut
woods, and then through deep clefts cut in the tufa and overhung by
shrubs and flowers, every winding a picture, till in about half-an-hour
we arrive at Caprarola. Why do not more people come here? it is so very
easy. As we emerge from our rocky way, the wonderful position of the
place bursts upon us at once. The grand, tremendous palace stands backed
by chestnut woods, which fade into rocky hills, and it looks down from a
high-terraced platform upon the little golden-roofed town beneath, and
then out upon the whole glorious rainbow-tinted view, in which, as
everywhere we have been, lion-like Soracte, couching over the plain, is
the most conspicuous feature. The buildings are so vast in themselves,
and every line so noble, every architectural idea so stupendous, that
one is carried back almost with awe to the recollections of the
great-souled Farnese who originated the design, and the grand architect
who carried it out. S. Carlo Borromeo, the great patron of idle
almsgiving, came hither to see it when it was completed, and complained
that so much money had not been given to the poor instead. ‘I have let
them have it all little by little,’ said Alessandro Farnese, ‘but I have
made them earn it by the sweat of their brows.’
[Illustration: SUTRI.][56]
* * * * *
“Are we really in Arcadia, when the old steward opens the door from the
dark halls where the Titanic forms of the frescoed figures loom upon us
through the gloom, to the garden where the brilliant sunshine is
lighting up long grass walks between clipped hedges, adding to the
splendour of the flame-coloured marigolds upon the old walls, and even
gilding the edges of the dark spires of the cypresses which were planted
three hundred years ago? From the upper terraces we enter an ancient
wood, carpeted with flowers--yellow orchis, iris, lilies, saxifrage,
cyclamen, and Solomon’s seal. And then we pause, for at the end of the
avenue we meet with a huge figure of Silence, with his finger on his
lips.
[Illustration: CAPRAROLA.][57]
[Illustration: PAPAL PALACE, VITERBO.]
* * * * *
“Here an artificial cascade tumbles sparkling down the middle of the
hillside path, through a succession of stone basins, and between a
number of stone animals, who are sprinkled with its spray, and so we
reach an upper garden before the fairy-like casino which was also built
by Vignola. Here the turfy solitudes are encircled with a concourse of
stone figures in every variety of attitude, a perfect population. Some
are standing quietly gazing down upon us, others are playing upon
different musical instruments, others are listening. Two Dryads are
whispering important secrets to one another in a corner; one impertinent
Faun is blowing his horn so loudly into his companion’s ears that he
stops them with both his hands. A nymph is about to step down from her
pedestal, and will probably take a bath as soon as we are gone, though
certainly she need not be shy about it, as drapery is not much the
fashion in these sylvan gardens. Above, behind the Casino, is yet
another water-sparkling staircase guarded by a vast number of huge lions
and griffins, and beyond this all is tangled wood and rocky
mountain-side. How we pity the poor King and Queen of Naples, the actual
possessors, but who can never come here now. The whole place is like a
dream which you wish may never end, and as one gazes through the stony
crowd across the green glades to the rosy-hued mountains, one dreads the
return to a world where Fauns and Dryads are still supposed to be
mythical, and which has never known Caprarola.”
[Illustration: FROM THE WALLS OF ORVIETO.]
* * * * *
We spent several days at Viterbo--“the city of beautiful
fountains”--which has never been half appreciated by travellers, and
made many curious excursions into Etruria, which are all described in my
book; and then proceeded to Orvieto--all-glorious Orvieto. Once more I
will quote “Days near Rome.”
* * * * *
“Long before reaching Orvieto, one comes in sight of it. It occupies an
Etruscan site. On turning the crest of the hills which shelter Bolsena,
one looks down into a wide valley filled with the richest
vegetation,--peach-trees and almonds and figs, with vines leaping from
tree to tree and chaining them together, and beneath, an unequalled
luxuriance of corn and peas and melons, every tiniest space occupied.
Mountains of the most graceful forms girdle in this paradise, and, from
the height whence we first gaze upon it, endless distances are seen,
blue and roseate and snowy, melting into infinity of space; while, from
the valley itself, rises, island-like, a mass of orange-coloured rock,
crowned with old walls and houses and churches, from the centre of which
is uplifted a vast cathedral, with delicate spray-like pinnacles, and a
golden and jewelled front,--and this is Orvieto.
“The first impression is one which is never forgotten,--a picture which
remains; and the quiet grandeurs of the place, as time and acquaintance
bring it home to one, only paint in the details of that first picture
more carefully.
“We descend into the plain by the winding road, where wains of great
oxen are always employed for the country-work of the hillside, and we
ascend the hill on which the city stands and enter it by a gate in rocky
walls. The town is remarkably clean, but one has always the feeling of
being in a fortress. Unlike Viterbo, gaiety and brightness seem to have
deserted its narrow streets of dark houses, interspersed with huge tall
square towers of the Middle Ages, and themselves, in the less frequented
parts, built of rich brown stone, with sculptured cornices to their
massive doors and windows, and resting on huge buttresses. From one of
the narrowest and darkest of these streets we come suddenly upon the
cathedral, a blaze of light and colour, the most aërial gothic structure
in the world, every line a line of beauty. There is something in the
feeling that no artists worked at this glorious temple but the greatest
architects, the greatest sculptors of their time, that no material was
used but that which was most precious, most costly, and which would
produce the most glorious effect, which carries one far away from all
comparisons with other earthly buildings--to the description in the
Revelation of the New Jerusalem. The very platform on which the
cathedral stands is of purple Apennine marble; the loveliest jaspers and
_pietre dure_ are worked into its pinnacles and buttresses; the main
foundation of its pictured front is gold. A hundred and fifty-two
sculptors, of whom Arnolfo and Giovanni da Pisa are the greatest names
handed down to us, worked upon the ornamentation near the base:
sixty-eight painters and ninety workers in mosaic gave life to the
glorious pictures of its upper stories. All the surroundings are
harmonious--solemn old houses, with black and white marble seats running
along their basement, on which one may sit and gaze: a tower surmounted
by a gigantic bronze warrior, who strikes the hours with the clash of
his sword upon a great bell: an ancient oblong palace with gothic arches
and flat windows, where thirty-four popes have sought a refuge or held
a court at different times--all serving as a dark setting to make more
resplendent the glittering radiancy of the golden front of the temple in
their midst.
“No passing traveller, no stayer for one night, can realise Orvieto.
Hours must be passed on those old stone benches, hours in reading the
wondrous lessons of art, of truth, of beauty and of holiness which this
temple of temples can unfold. For Orvieto is not merely a vast
sculpture-gallery and a noble building, but its every stone has a story
to tell or a mystery to explain. What depths of thought are hidden in
those tremendous marble pictures between the doors! First the whole
story of Genesis, then the Old Testament story which followed Genesis,
leading on to the birth of Christ; then the story of our Saviour’s life
upon earth; and lastly, the lesson of His redemption wrought for us, in
the resurrection of the dead to the second life. Even the minor figures
which surround these greater subjects, how much they have to tell us!
Take the wondrous angels which surround the story of Christ; the
Awe-stricken Angel of the Salutation, the Welcoming Angel of the Flight
into Egypt, the Praying Angel of the Temptation, the Suffering Angel of
the Betrayal, the Agonised Angel (and, oh, what a sublime figure, with
its face covered with its hands!) of the Crucifixion, the Angel, rapt in
entire unutterable beatitude, of the Resurrection. Or let us look at the
groups of prophets, who, standing beneath the life of Christ, foresee
and foretell its events,--their eager invocation, their meditation,
their inspiration, their proclamation of that which was to be.”
* * * * *
My companions returned to Rome from Orvieto and I went on to Florence,
where I found two old friends of my childhood--Ann-Emilia and Kate
Malcolm, the latter of whom has always been one of the most agreeable
and charming women I have ever known.[58] I remember her telling me, on
this occasion, of a friend of hers who was one day sitting at the end of
her terrace at a retired watering-place, and heard a bride and
bridegroom talking together beneath. “My dear,” said the bridegroom, “I
think it would not be unpleasant if a friend were to turn up this
evening.”--“My dear,” retorted the bride, “I should be thankful to see
even _an enemy_.” She had also a story of an old Scotch minister, who,
being summoned to marry some couples, thus addressed them:--“Ma freends,
to many, marriage is a great curse: ma freends, to some marriage is a
great blessing: ma freends, to all marriage is a great uncertainty: wull
ye risk it?” and they all said “Yes.” With the Malcolms I saw much of
Sir James Lacaita. He was very full of convents and their abuses. He
told me that he had personally known a nun who was forced into a convent
to prevent her from marrying the man she loved; but he made a silken
ladder, and, by bribing the gardener, got it fixed to her window. The
nun escaped, but was in such a hurry to descend, that she slid down the
cords, cut open both her hands, and bore the marks all her life. Her
lover was rich, had relays of horses, and they escaped to Sicily, were
married at once, and had eleven children. Lacaita also told me:--
[Illustration: PORCH OF CREMONA.][59]
* * * * *
“A beautiful girl of good family was left £6000 by her father, on
condition that she did not enter a convent. To prevent her doing so, he
ordained that the money should revert to her brother in case of her
becoming a nun.
[Illustration: PIAZZA MAGGIORE, BERGAMO.][60]
* * * * *
“The girl hated the very idea of a convent, but the brother made a
compact with an abbess to give her a third of the girl’s fortune if they
could force her to take the veil. She resisted vigorously, though the
brother’s wife ill-treated her in every possible way, and she had no
other home. She possessed a lover, who professed great devotion, but
never would come to the point. At last the time came when the brother
had arranged for her to go to the convent. Her treatment was such that
she had no other course. Her lover came and pitied her. She implored
him: she knelt at his feet: she stretched out her hands: she said, ‘You
know you can save me;’ but he feared the priests, the Church, and her
brother too much. As she knelt there, her sister-in-law opened the door.
Then her horror at her position was so great, she at once declared that
she would take the veil: she only wished the event hurried on.
“At last the day of the sacrifice arrived. Lacaita was present. The
bride came in, in her wedding splendour, _fière_, darting defiance at
them all; but Lacaita said he never should forget the shriek she gave
when all was over and the grille closed upon her.
“The remorse of the lover began at once: he never spoke to a woman for
twenty years: then he---- married!”
* * * * *
Lacaita also told me a most interesting story concerning persons whom he
had known, of which I forget the details, but the substance was that--
* * * * *
A beautiful girl in Sicily, of very noble family, was engaged by her
parents to make a magnificent marriage with an Italian prince of the
highest rank, who had never seen her, and had only heard the report of
her beauty. As she loved another, she made great friends with the
gardener’s daughter, and persuaded her--for she was very lovely also--to
personate her, which the peasant girl, pleased at the notion of being a
princess, was very willing to do. Meantime the young Countess, supposed
to have gone to her nuptials, eloped with the lover she preferred. The
peasant bride was married, but her prince soon began to think she was
wonderfully little educated, for he had heard of her great learning as
well as her beauty, and especially of her wonderful artistic powers, and
two years after he obtained a divorce on the plea that she was married
under a false name.
* * * * *
From Florence I went to Cremona and Bergamo, lingering at them and
seeing them thoroughly in glorious weather, which made one observe that,
though the Southern Italian skies are the opal ones, the Northern are
the blue.
* * * * *
I spent June (1873) in London. At luncheon at Lady Marion Alford’s I met
Mr. Carlyle, who was full of the “Memorials.” He said, “I do not often
cry and am not much given to weeping, but your book is most profoundly
touching, and when the dear Augustus was making the hay I felt a lesson
deep down in my heart.” He talked of Lady Ashburton--“Ah! yes, Lady
Ashburton is just a bonnie Highland lassie, a free-spoken and
open-hearted creature as ever was; and Hattie Hosmer, she is a fanciful
kind of a being, who does not know yet that art is dead.” Finally he
went off into one of his characteristic speeches. “That which the warld
torments me in most is the awful confusion of noise. It is the devil’s
own infernal din all the blessed day long, confounding God’s warks and
His creatures--a truly awfu’ hell-like combination, and the warst of a’
is a railway whistle, like the screech of ten thousand cats, and ivery
cat of them all as big as a cathédral.”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.--_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_London, June 14, 1873._--I have seen and heard much that is
interesting. Yesterday I met Lord Aberdeen at luncheon, and liked him
very much. Then I went to old Lady Wensleydale’s afternoon reception,
intending to stay ten minutes, and did stay two hours and a half, it was
so agreeable, and I saw so many old friends. Mrs. W. Lowther is always
pleasant, the rooms are delightful, and the charming garden full of
flowers.”
* * * * *
“_June 19._--Dined with Lord Ravensworth--a very pleasant party, to meet
poor Lord Durham, whom I had not seen since his great sorrow. He looks
as if he had cried night and day ever since, and _did_ cry in a corner
when a touching song was sung about a young wife. I was very glad to
meet him again. He is quite devoted to his thirteen children, and the
eldest girl, of thirteen, manages everything.”
* * * * *
“_July 3._--The most extraordinary thing the Shah has done has been
offering to buy Lady Margaret Beaumont (to carry off to Persia) for
£500,000!”
* * * * *
“_July 24, 1873._--I went to luncheon with Lady Barrington, and found
her still in tears for the Bishop of Winchester’s[61] death. He had
dined with her a few days before, and she had spoken of the pleasure it
would be to him to go to Farnham. ‘Oh, I shall _never_ go to Farnham,’
he said; ‘the old Bishop of Winchester will long survive me;’ and so it
was. ‘Oh, what a joyful surprise for him!’ said Carlyle when he heard of
the Bishop’s sudden death. ‘He is our _show_ man for the Church of
England,’ Hugh Pearson used to say.
“Dined at Lord Salisbury’s, and sat between Miss Alderson and Lady Cork.
I had always heard of Lady Cork as one of the best talkers in London,
but was not prepared for such a display of summer lightning as it was.
Here is a trifling specimen.
“_Lord Salisbury._--‘I am so glad he speaks English. I find it such an
extra fatigue to have to struggle with a foreign tongue, and to think of
the words as well as the ideas.’
“_Lady Cork._--‘Well, I am afraid when I talk, I think neither of the
one nor the other.’
“_Lord S._--‘Yes, but then you come of a race’ ...
“_Lady C._--‘Wha-a-at, or I had better use that most expressive French
expression ‘Plait-il?’ ... We have only one English sentence which would
do as well--‘I beg your parding’--with a _g_.’”
* * * * *
“_July 26._--I reached Chevening about 6 P.M. It is a dull square white
house with wings, but was once red, and was designed by Inigo Jones,
from whom it retains the old plan, not only of the building, but of the
straight avenue, the lake, and the fountain with water-lilies before the
door. Between the house and the lake is the loveliest of flower-gardens,
a wilderness of old-fashioned flowers, most perfectly charming. Here
Lady Stanhope was sitting out with Lord and Lady Carnarvon and Lord and
Lady Mahon. Lord Carnarvon is agreeable and his wife most lovely and
piquant. Lady Mahon, very prettily dressed _en bergère_, looked like a
flower herself as she moved in her bright blue dress through the living
labyrinth of colour.
“Lady Carnarvon gave an amusing account of her visit to Dulwich College,
of which her husband is a governor, and how she had produced a great
effect by remarking that they used a new pronunciation of Latin; ‘and my
little girl behaved very well too, and, though she was most awfully
bored, smiled and bowed at all the right moments.... We came away before
the speeches, which were all quite horrid, I believe, except
Carnarvon’s, and that I am quite sure was very nice indeed.”
“Lord Stanhope talked of chess--a Persian game: in Germany they retain
the old names: checkmate is _Shahmate_. He said when the Shah of Persia
was in London it was quite impossible to make him understand how the
telegraph worked, until some one had the presence of mind to say, ‘If
your Majesty will imagine an immense dog, so big that his tail is in
London while his head is in Teheran, your Majesty will see that if some
one treads upon his tail in London, he will bark in Teheran.’
“Lord Stanhope spoke of the total absence of commissariat management in
England, so that, if there was an invasion, the salvation of the country
would positively have to be abandoned to Messrs. Spiers & Pond.
“Lord Carnarvon asked why Oxford was like an old Roman arsenal ‘Because
the honours are _classes_, the men are _puppes_, and the women are
_nautes_.’”
* * * * *
“_Sunday, July 28._--We had a dull missionary sermon at church, in which
the clergyman spoke of the poor Bishop of Winchester’s death as if it
was a judgment for his crimes. After service Lady Airlie talked of the
‘Memorials,’ which she discussed as we walked round the lake. She spoke
much of prevailing religious opinions, and said that it would be as
difficult to believe in complete inspiration now as to believe in
witchcraft. I startled her by telling her I did believe in witchcraft,
and told something of Madame de Trafford. In the afternoon we drove with
Lord Stanhope to Knockholt Beeches and back by the steep park drive. The
country was quite lovely. Lord Stanhope entertained us constantly with
that essence of courtesy and good-breeding which almost makes you feel
as if you were the entertainer and the obliging, instead of the
entertained and the obliged--indeed such perfection of courteous
kindness I have never seen elsewhere in any one. I walked with Lady
Airlie up to the beeches, and she talked of Lady Waterford, whom, she
said, she worshipped afar off, as I did nearer.”
* * * * *
“_July 29._--A long talk about art and drawing and Italy with old Mr.
Cheney, who said, speaking of the best buildings, ‘They are much too
good for this generation: it will destroy them because they are so
beautiful.’ He is so pleasant that I could understand a bit of a
dialogue I overheard between him and Lady Airlie.
“_Lady A._--‘I am so sorry Englishwomen are not like French: they have
not always _le désir de plaire_.’
“_Mr. C._--Well I confess I always like Englishwomen best, and even
their manners seem to me far more charming.’
“_Lady A._--‘Oh, yes; I can quite understand that _all_ must have _le
désir de plaire_ when they are near _you_.’
“I walked with Mahon in the gardens and up the hill, crushing the wild
thyme and sweet marjory, and then drove with Lord Stanhope, a long
charming drive up the Brasted hill, by poor Vine’s Gate and Chartwell,
both of many associations. He stopped the carriage to have some
foxgloves gathered, and said how the name pleased him, for the plant was
the fairies’ own special flower, and the name came from folks’ love. He
would only have one great stem of each foxglove gathered, the rest must
be left for the fairies. Lord Stanhope told me that when he took
Macaulay up that hill he looked long at the view and then said, ‘How
evident it is that there has never been, can never have been, an
invasion here: no other country could supply this view.”
“Lord Stanhope talked much of the poet Claudian, so superior to
Statius--his descriptions so picturesque, especially that of an old man
who had never been outside the walls of his native city, and how they
took him out in his extreme old age, and of all that he said, &c.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS WRIGHT.
“_Holmhurst, Sept. 10, 1873._--I enjoy your detailed letters. In them a
breeze from the outer world sweeps in upon my solitude. Not that it is
quite solitude either, for Charlotte Leycester is still here, and Fanny
Tatton is at Hastings, and often coming up to luncheon, and Miss Cole
has been here for ten days, and her sister Louisa for three. Both these
old friends are most pleasant and charming, and I was very glad to
receive here again those whom the dear Mother was so fond of seeing in
her little home. And we talked much of her, they so truly feeling all
that she was, that it is as if a fragrance out of her beautiful past was
hallowing their lives.
“The little Hospice has been full all summer. The present inmates are
most romantic in title as well as dress--‘Sister Georgina Mary, Sister
Mildred, and Sister Lilian.’ They come from St. Alban’s, Holborn, so
you may imagine that Charlotte Leycester has already had some passages
at arms with them. But they are truly excellent as well as pleasant
guests, and I console Charlotte by telling her that if she likes to
supply me with any suffering Methodists when they are gone, I shall be
equally glad to see them. Certainly, the only real pleasure in having
any money is the opportunities it gives.
[Illustration: THE HOSPICE, HOLMHURST.]
“Admirable, holy, saint-like, as I think dear Charlotte Leycester, her
Sabbatarianism is a sore small trial to me when she lives with me for
months. I love her most dearly, but I often long to say to her something
like the words of Bussy-Rabutin, ‘Souvent on arrive à la même fin par
différentes voies: pour moi, je ne condamne pas vos manières, chacun se
sauve à sa guise; mais je n’irai point à la béatitude par le chemin que
vous suivez.’”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Holmhurst, Sept. 19, 1873._--Yesterday I took Hugh Pearson[62] to
Hurstmonceaux. The walk through the wild ferny park and its decaying
beeches was most delightful, with the softest lights and shadows
glinting over the delicate distances of the Levels. What a place of
memories it is! every tree, every pathlet with the reminiscences of so
many generations.”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Sept. 30._--I came to Binstead Wyck[63] from Thornhill. It is a
charming family home on the edge of a deep declivity, with wide views
into the purple hollows between the beech-trees. From the windows we
could see Blackmoor, whither we went the next day--the great modern
mediæval house of the Lord Chancellor Selborne, set down, as it were,
anywhere in an utterly inexpressive part of his large low-lying
property, but with pleasant Scotchified views of heath and fir
plantations. The Chancellor, pleasant and beaming, was kind, Lady
Selborne very nice, and the four daughters charming. The next day we
went to ‘White’s Selborne,’ through bowery lanes, where the hedges are
all bound together by clematis. It is a beautiful village, just under a
wooded hill called ‘the Hanger.’ The old house of Gilbert White is now
inhabited by a striking old man, Mr. Bell, a retired dentist, the
beneficence, the ‘Bon Dieu,’ of the neighbourhood. He showed us his
lovely sunny lawn, with curious trees and shrubs, sloping up to the rich
wooded hillside, and, in the house, the stick, barometer, and spectacles
of Gilbert White.
“The adjoining property belonged to Sir Charles Taylor. His father was a
fine old man, and some of his jokes are still quoted.
“‘How are you, sir? I hope you are quite well,’ said a young man who
came on a visit.
“‘_Well_, sir! I am suffering from a mortal disease.’
“‘A mortal disease! and pray what may that be?’ said the young man,
aghast.
“‘Why, I am suffering, sir, from--Anno Domini.’
“Close to Selborne we saw the source of the Wey--a pretty spring
tumbling over a rock near the road.”
* * * * *
“_Oct. 4-10._--A charming visit at Shavington, the great desolate brick
house of Lord Kilmorey.[64] It has very little furniture, but some fine
pictures, the best of them, by Gainsborough, representing an Hon.
Francis Needham of the Grenadier Guards, who was poisoned at a
magistrates’ dinner at Salthill in 1773. Lady Fanny Higginson[65] talked
much of their old neighbours the Corbets of Adderley: how, when Lady
Corbet was a child, she squinted very much, and how Dr. Johnson, when
she was introduced to him, said, ‘Come here, you little
Squintifinko’--which gave her the greatest horror of him. When the
family doctor called at Adderley, it was generally just before dinner,
and Lady Corbet used to ask him to stay for it, and he found this so
pleasant that he came very often in this way, merely for the sake of the
dinner; but when his bill came in, she found all these visits charged
like the others. She returned it to him with his visits divided into two
columns, one headed ‘Official’ and the other ‘Officious,’ and she always
afterwards spoke of him as ‘the officious official.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Ford Castle, Oct. 18, 1873._--The long journey and the bitterly cold
drive across the moors from Belford almost made me think before arriving
that absence must have exaggerated the charms of this place; but the
kind welcome of the hostess in the warm library, brilliant with flowers
and colour, soon dispelled all that. There is only a small party here,
what Lady Waterford calls a _pension des demoiselles_--the two Miss
Lindsays (Lady Sarah’s daughters), Mrs. and Miss Fairholme, Lady Taunton
and her daughter, and Lady Gertrude Talbot. All are fond of art and not
unworthy of the place.
“I _should_ like you to see it. No description gives any idea, not so
much of the beautiful old towers, the brilliant flower-beds in the
embrasures of the wall, the deep glen of old beeches, the village
clustering round its tall fountain, and the soft colouring of the
Cheviots and Flodden,--as of the wonderful atmosphere of goodness and
love which binds all the people, the servants, the guests, so
unconsciously around the beautiful central figure in this great _home_.
Each cottage garden is a replica--the tiniest replica--of Lady
Waterford’s own, equally cared for by her; each village child nestles up
to her as she appears, the very tiny ones for the sugar-plums which she
puts into their pockets, the elders to tell her everything as to a
mother. And within the house, everything is at once so simple and so
beautiful, every passage full of pictures, huge ferns, brilliant
geraniums, tall vases, &c. In the evening Lady Waterford sings as
delightfully as ever, and in all the intervals talks as no one else
can--such exquisite stories of olden times, such poetical descriptions
of scenery, and all so truth-inspiring because so wonderfully
simple.”[66]
* * * * *
“_Oct. 19._--You will never guess what I was doing yesterday--preaching
to the children!
“In the morning, to my great surprise, Mr. Neville, the clergyman, came
while Lady Waterford was at the school, to say he had no help that day:
would I help him? There was a service for children in the church: would
I undertake the sermon part? I thought it quite impossible, and utterly
refused at first, only promising to read the Morning Lessons. However,
in the afternoon, when I found it was not only wished but _wanted_, I
consented. I took one of Neale’s Sermons as a foundation, and then
discoursed--half story, half sermon; the story being of the departure of
the swallows from Etal and Ford and Flodden at this time of year; the
training from their parents--so much depending upon whether they
attended or not, whether they practised their wings in preparation for
the long journey or were idle; then of the temptations they had to
idleness, &c.; of the journey, the crossing the sea (of death in the
moral), of the difficulty of crossing alone, of the clinging of some to
the mast of a ship (the Saviour), which bore them through the
difficulties. I was dreadfully alarmed at the idea, but, having once
begun, had no difficulty whatever, and it all came quite fluently
without any seeking, though beforehand I could think of nothing to say;
so that Lady Waterford said the only fault the children would find was
that it was so much longer than their usual sermons. There was a great
congregation of children, and all the guests in the house, and many of
the servants.”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Oct. 16._--Mrs. Fairholme talked of her visit to Jedburgh--that she
had said to the old man who showed it, ‘Do you know, I admire your abbey
a great deal more than Melrose.’--‘Yes,’ he said, ‘there is no doubt it
is a great deal the finer; but then you know, Ma’am, Sir Walter has cast
such a halloo over Melrose that it has thrown everything else into the
shade.’”
* * * * *
“_Oct. 17._--Mrs. Fairholme brought down a beautiful miniature of an
unknown lady to breakfast, which was the subject of much discussion.
Lady Waterford said how she had designed a series of drawings for the
whole ‘Story of a Picture.’
“1. A Louis XIV. beauty sitting to a painter, with all her adorers--a
whole troop of them--behind her, quite beautiful, radiant, and
vain-glorious.
“2. The portrait hanging in the room in another generation.
“3. A young girl _à l’Empire_, with her waist in her mouth, waving her
hand towards the portrait, and telling the servant to take that ugly old
picture up to the garret.
“4. Boys in the garret shooting at the old picture as a target.
“‘Do you know,’ said Lady Waterford to-day, ‘that Jane Ellice has got
one convert to her teetotalism; and do you know who that is? That is
_me_. I have not touched wine for six months. I think it is good for the
household. They used to say, if they saw me as strong as a horse, “Ah!
there, look at my lady; it is true she is as strong as a horse, but then
she always has all the wine she wants,” but now they say, “My lady has
no wine at all, and yet you see she is as strong as a horse.”’
“Mrs. Fairholme spoke of Curramore, and how she disliked somebody who
pretended that the beautiful terraces there were designed by herself and
not by Lady Waterford. With her generous simplicity, Lady Waterford
said, ‘Oh, I don’t see why you should do that at all: I think it was
rather a compliment, for it showed she admired the terraces, or she
would not have wished it to be supposed that they were due to her.’
“Miss Fairholme was tired. ‘Now do rest,’ Lady Waterford said--‘there is
the sofa close by you--qui vous tend les bras;’ and then she talked to
us of old Lady Balcarres, ‘the mother of Grandmama Hardwicke’--the
severe mother, who, when one of her little boys disobeyed her, ordered
the servants to fling him into the pond in front of the house. He
managed to scramble out again; she bade them throw him in a second time,
and a second time he got out, and, when she ordered it a third time, he
exclaimed in his broad Scotch accent, ‘Woman, wad ye droun yer ain son?’
“In the afternoon we were to have gone to the Heathpool Lynn, but did go
to Langley Ford by mistake--a very long walk, after leaving the
carriage, up a bleak moorland valley. I walked chiefly with Miss
Lindsay. She talked of the extraordinary discovery of the well at Castle
Hedingham by ‘a wise woman’ by the power of the hazel wand--the hazel
twig bending on the right spot, not only upon the ground itself, but
upon the representation of it on the map. She talked of the blind and
dumb Sabbatarianism of the Presbyterians. She asked a respectable poor
woman how she liked the new preacher. ‘Wad I presume?’ she replied.”
* * * * *
“_Oct. 18._--This morning Lady Waterford wished that the Misses Lindsay
had been dressed alike even in details. ‘It is a law of nature, I think,
that sisters should dress alike. A covey of partridges are all alike;
they do not want to have feathers of different colours; and why not
children of the same family?’
[Illustration: LANGLEY FORD, IN THE CHEVIOTS.][67]
“We had a charming walk to Etal in the afternoon--lovely soft lights on
the distant hills, and brilliant reflections of the autumnal foliage in
the Till. We went to the castle, and then down the glen by St. Mary’s
Oratory and Well. Lady W. talked of the beauty of the sedges and of
their great variety--of the difficult law, or rather no law, of
reflections. Then of marriages--of the number of widows being so much
greater than that of widowers, and of the change which the loss of a
husband made in all the smallest details of life: of the supreme
desolation of Lady Charlotte Denison, ‘after a honeymoon of forty-three
years.’ Old Lady Tankerville was of another nature. She was urging a
widowed friend to do something. ‘Oh, but my cap, my cap!’ groaned the
friend. ‘Comment,’ exclaimed Lady Tankerville, ‘c’est le vrai bonnet de
la liberté.’
“Speaking of complexions--‘My grandmother used to say,’ said Mrs.
Fairholme, ‘that beauty “went out” with open carriages. “Why, you are
just like men, my dear,” she said, “with your brown necks, and your
rough skins, and your red noses. In our days it was different; young
ladies never walked, ate nothing but white meat, and never washed their
faces. They covered their faces with powder, and then put cold cream on,
and wiped it off with a flannel: that was the way to have a good
complexion.’”
“‘I think it was Henri III.,’ said Lady Waterford, ‘who used to go to
sleep with raw veal chops on his cheeks, and to cover his hands with
pomade, and have them tied up to the top of the bed by silk cords, that
they might be white in the morning.’”
* * * * *
“_Oct. 21._--Lady Waterford talked of her maid Rebekah, who lived with
her so long. ‘The mistake was that we were together as girls and used to
romp together; and so, when I married, she thought she was to rule me.
But she became the most dreadful tyrant: Tina used to say I wore her as
a hair-shirt.’”
* * * * *
“_Oct. 23._--Lady Waterford talked of ‘Grandmama Hardwicke’--how
terrified she was of robbers: that one day, when she was going to cross
a wide heathy common, she said, ‘If any one comes up to the carriage, I
shall give up all I have at once: I shall give him no chance of being
violent.’ Soon after, a man rode up. ‘Oh, take my money, but spare my
life,’ exclaimed Lady Hardwicke, and threw her purse at him. ‘My good
woman, I don’t want your purse,’ said the man, who was a harmless
traveller.”
* * * * *
“_Oct. 24._--Lord Houghton arrived. He is rather crusty, but most
amusing. His conversation is always interesting, even when no one else
can speak, and he seems to be saying, with Sydney Smith, to the art
circle here--‘My dears, it’s all right; you keep with the dilettanti: I
go with the talkettanti.’ He talked of Alnwick. ‘It was there I first
met Père Hyacinthe. He did not strike me as anything remarkable. One
evening he gave us a “Meditation.” It was just a falling into a topic
and going on upon it; but nothing original or particular. I heard his
sermons at Rome. He used to say a thing and then back out of it; but
under the pulpit sat three Inquisitors, and they were finding him out
all the time. One thing he said--speaking of religious differences--was,
“N’oublions jamais que le premier crime du monde était une querelle
entre deux sacerdos.”’
“Lord Houghton talked of the Bonapartes, and of the graves of Josephine
and Hortense at Rueil, and of Madame Mère. ‘I had a very narrow miss of
seeing Madame Mère, and I am very sorry I did not do it, for it would
only have cost a scudo. She was a very long time dying, it was a kind of
lying in state, and for a scudo the porter used to let people in behind
a screen which there was at the foot of the bed, and they looked at her
through the joinings. I was only a boy then, and I thought there was
plenty of time, and put it off; but one day she died.’
“Lord Houghton also said--
“‘One of the prettiest ghost stories I ever heard is that of General
Radowitz. He was made Governor of Frankfort, and not being able to go
himself, and having servants who had lived with him a long time and knew
all his tastes, he sent them on before him to secure a suitable house
and get everything ready. They chose an excellent house, with a large
garden full of lilacs and laburnums, overlooking the glacis. When
General and Madame Radowitz arrived some time after, they found
everything as they wished, and began to question their old servants as
to how they had got on, and especially as to the neighbours. The
servants said that the next villa was inhabited by a person who was
quite remarkable--a lady who was always known in Frankfort as the
“weisse Frau,”--a very sweet, gentle person, who was full of charity and
kindness, and greatly beloved. She had, however, quite lost her memory
as to the past since the death, very long ago, of her lover in battle:
she had even forgotten his name, and answered to all questions about him
or her own past, “Ich weiss nicht! ich weiss nicht!” but always with a
sweet sad smile. And she had lived in the place so long, that, every one
belonging to her having passed away, no one really knew her history.
Yet, while her mind was gone as to the past, as to the practical present
she was quite herself, went to market and transacted her own affairs.
“‘Gradually the confidential maid of Madame Radowitz made friends with
the servants of the “weisse Frau”--for the gardens of the two houses
joined--and from servants’ gossip the Radowitz family learnt a good deal
about her, and from all around they heard of her as greatly respected,
but always the same, sad and sweet, always dressed in white, never
remembering anything.
“‘One day the “weisse Frau,” who had taken a great fancy to the maid of
Madame Radowitz, invited her to come to her at twelve o’clock the next
day: she said she expected some one; indeed, she pressed the maid to
come without fail. The maid told her mistress, who said certainly she
had better go; she should on no account wish so excellent a person as
the “weisse Frau” to be disappointed.
“‘When the maid went, she found the little salon of the “weisse Frau” in
gala decoration, the table laid and bright with flowers, and places set
for three. The Frau was not in her usual white dress, but in a curious
old costume of rich brocade, which was said to have been intended for
her wedding-dress. She still said she expected some one, but when asked
who it was, looked distressed and bewildered, and only said “Ich weiss
nicht!”
“‘As it drew near twelve o’clock she became greatly agitated--she said
_he_ was coming. At length she threw the windows wide open, and gazing
out into the street, looked back and said, “Er kommt! er kommt!” She had
a radiant expression no one remembered to have seen before; her eyes
sparkled, every feature became animated--and as the clock struck twelve,
she went out upon the landing, appeared to enfold some one invisible in
her arms, and then walking very slowly back into the room, exclaimed
“Hoffmann,” and sank down dead!
“‘In the supreme moment of life she had remembered the long-forgotten
name.’
* * * * *
“On Wednesday Lady Waterford took her books and drawing, and went to the
forge to spend the afternoon with ‘Frizzle’--a poor bedridden woman
there, to whom _thus_, not by a rapid visit, she brings enough sunshine
and pleasure once every week to last for the other six days. Often she
sings by the bedside, not only hymns, but a whole variety of things. I
drove Mrs. Fairholme to the Routing Lynn, and we came in for one of the
fiercest storms I ever knew; not rain or snow, but lumps of ice, an inch
and a half long, blowing straight upon us from the Cheviots. Lady
Waterford came in delighted. ‘I do enjoy a difficult walk. When it is
winter, and the ground is deep in snow and the wind blowing hard, I
steal out and take a walk and enjoy it. I try to steal out unobserved; I
do not like the servants to get into a state about me, but I am
generally betrayed afterwards by a wet petticoat or something.’”
* * * * *
“_Oct. 25._--Last night Lord Houghton talked much about Mrs. Harcourt’s
diaries, which he had edited (she was lady in waiting to Queen
Charlotte), but the royal family had cut out so much as to make them
not worth publishing. When the poor Princesses heard of another German
prince marrying, they used to say in a despairing tone, ‘Another chance
lost.’
“At Weymouth, Mrs. Harcourt described going to see the royal family in
the evening. ‘I ventured,’ she said, ‘to express my regret that the
Queen should have had so unfavourable a morning for her water
expedition,’ whereat Prince William somewhat coarsely replied, ‘I only
wish the accursed bitch would have spewed her soul up, and then we
should have had some peace in the house.’
“The Duke of York was the only one of his sons the King really cared
for, and he said that the Duke’s faults were the cause of his madness.
“This morning, before leaving, Lord Houghton talked of Howick, that he
thought it a very dull place, while Lady Waterford and I maintained that
it was a most pleasant, attractive family home. He said the Greys were
very self-important but not conceited: that he agreed with Charles
Buller, who said, ‘No, the Greys are certainly not conceited: they only
demand of you that you should concede the absolute truth of one single
proposition, which is, that it has pleased Providence in its inscrutable
wisdom to endow one family with every conceivable virtue and talent,
and, this once conceded, the Greys are really rather humble than
otherwise, because they feel they do not come up to their
opportunities.’
“He said, ‘It is very interesting to remember that all the beasts are
Saxon, but when they become meat they become Norman.’
* * * * *
_To_ MISS WRIGHT.
“_Raby Castle, Oct. 31, 1873._--My visit here has been very pleasant,
the Duchess cordial, and a delightful party. It includes Count Beust,
the Austrian Ambassador, the Duchess of Bedford and Lady Ela, Sir James
and Lady Colville, Mr. and Mrs. Leo Ellis, Mr. Doyle, Mr. Burke, Lady
Chesham and her daughter, Lord and Lady Boyne, Lord Napier and his son,
Henry Cowper (most amusing), Mr. Duncombe Shafto, and several others;
but my chief pleasure has been making friends with young Lord Grimston,
whom I think out and out one of the very nicest fellows I ever met.”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Raby Castle, Nov. 1._--The first morning I was here, as I was walking
on the terraced platform of the castle with Lady Chesham, she talked of
the silent Cavendishes, and said it was supposed to be the result of
their ancestor’s marriage with Rachel, Lady Russell’s daughter; that
after her father’s death she had always been silent and sad, and that
her descendants had been silent and sad ever since. ‘Lord Carlisle and
his brother were also silent. Once they travelled abroad together, and
at an inn in Germany slept in the same room, in which there was also a
third bed with the curtains drawn round it. Two days after, one brother
said to the other, “Did you see what was in that bed in our room the
other night?” and the other answered, “Yes.” This was all that passed,
but they had both seen a dead body in the bed.’
“The Duchess expects every one to devote themselves to _petits jeux_ in
the evening, and many of the guests do not like it. There is also a book
in which every one is expected to write something when they go away.
There is one column for complaints: you are intended to complain that
your happy visit has come to an end, or something of that kind. There is
another column of ‘Why you came’--to which the natural answer seems to
be ‘Because I was asked.’ Some one wrote--
‘To see their Graces
And to kill their grouses.’
[Illustration: RABY CASTLE.]
* * * * *
“I have, however, really enjoyed my visit very much indeed, and on
taking leave just now I wrote--
‘In the desert of life, so dismal and wide,
A charming oasis is sometimes descried,
Where none are afraid their true feelings to own,
And wit never takes a satirical tone;
Where new roots of affection are planted each hour,
By courtesy, kindness, and magical power;
Where fresh friendships are formed, and destined to last,
In a golden chain fettered and rivetted fast.
Such a garden is Raby:--those who gather its flowers,
In grateful remembrance will think of the hours
Which, enjoyed, do not vanish, but seem to display
In riplets of silver the wake of their way.’
“One evening I told a story, unfortunately; for if I ever afterwards
escaped to my room after five o’clock, there came a tap and a
servant--‘Their Graces want you to come down again’--always from their
insatiable love of stories.”
* * * * *
“_Nov._ 7, 1873, _Bretton_.--After three days with the dear cousins at
Ravensworth, I am glad to find myself again in this pleasant house,
where I have been rapturously welcomed by the children, especially by
little Hubert. I have found the Motleys here. He is very agreeable; and
the daughters, especially Mrs. Ives,[68] to whom her husband left £6000
a year after one month of married life, are very pleasant. Motley was
shut up for a long time in his room the other day, and when he came in
announced that he had just finished the preface (which was the winding
up) of his new book. All the other ladies began fulsome compliments, but
Miss Susie Motley, jumping up and throwing her arms round his neck,
exclaimed, ‘Oh, you dear foolish old thing, how could you go and spend
so much time over what you may be quite sure nobody will ever read?’
Lady Margaret has just said--
“‘Now, Mr. Hare, what do you do with your eyes(_i_’s)?’
“‘Dot them.’
“‘Then why don’t I dot mine? Now there is an opportunity for you to make
a pretty speech.’
“‘I don’t know how.’
“‘Why, how stupid you are! Because they are capital eyes (_i_’s). And
now, having provided thus much food for your mind, I will go and look
after your body by ordering the dinner.’
“I was very sorry to leave the happy cordial party at Ravensworth of
eleven young cousins, most easy to get on with certainly, though I had
never seen some of them before. But, directly I arrived, one of them
came forward and said, ‘Please remember, Augustus, that my name is only
Nellie, and my sisters are Har and Pem and Vicky, and my cousins are,’
&c. At Lamesley Church we had the oddest sermon, with such sentences
as--‘Our first father would insist upon eating sour fruit, and has set
all his descendants’ teeth on edge ever since.’”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS WRIGHT.
“_Highclere Castle, Nov. 12, 1873._--This is a beautiful park, with
every variety of scenery, hill, valley, woods, with an undergrowth of
rhododendron, a poetical lake! and is so immense--thirteen miles
round--that one never goes out of it, and rather feels the isolation of
the great house in the centre, which, though very handsome, is not equal
to the place. Lady Carnarvon is very lovely and winning, and boundlessly
interesting to listen to: one understands Mr. Delane saying that he
believed that there could be no successor to Lady Palmerston till he saw
Lady Carnarvon. She says that she has hitherto been too exclusive; that
henceforth she shall wish to fill her house more with people of every
shade--‘for Carnarvon’s sake.’ As I watch her, I am perpetually reminded
of Longfellow’s lines--
“‘Homeward serenely she walked, with God’s benediction upon her;
When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music.’
“The guests are Sir Stafford, Lady, and Miss Northcote, Mr. and Mrs.
Chandos Leigh, Mr. Herman Merivale, the Charles Russells, and Mr.
Forester and his son and daughter-in-law, all pleasant people, yet on
the whole not so well-fitting a party as I have usually fallen in with.
The little daughter of the house--Winifred--is the most delightful and
unspoilt of children.”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Highclere, Nov. 13._--Mr. Herman Merivale told us--
“A captain was crossing to America in his ship, with very few sailors
on board. One day one of them came up to him on the deck and said that
there was a strange man in his cabin--that he could not see the man’s
face, but that he was sitting with his back to the door at the table
writing. The captain said it was impossible there could be any one in
his cabin, and desired the sailor to go and look again. When he came up,
he said the man was gone, but on the table was the paper on which he had
written, with the ink still wet, the words--‘Steer due south.’ The
captain said that, as he was not pressed for time, he would act on the
mysterious warning. He steered due south, and met with a ship which had
been long disabled and whose crew were in the last extremity.
“The captain of the disabled ship said that one of his men was a very
strange character. He had himself picked him up from a deserted ship,
and since then he had fallen into a cataleptic trance, in which, when he
recovered, he declared that he had been in another ship, begging its
captain to come to their assistance. When the man who had been sent to
the cabin saw the cataleptic sailor, he recognised him at once as the
man he had seen writing.
“Mr. Merivale said that a case of the same kind had happened to himself.
“He was staying at Harrow, and very late at night was summoned to
London. Exactly as the clock struck twelve he passed the headmaster’s
door in a fly. Both he and the friend who was with him were at that
moment attracted by seeing a hackney-coach at the door--a most unusual
sight at that time of night, and a male figure, wrapped in black,
descend from it and glide into the house, without, apparently, ringing,
or any door being opened. He spoke of it to his friend, and they both
agreed that it was equally mysterious and inexplicable. The next day,
the circumstance so dwelt on Mr. Merivale’s mind, that he returned to
Harrow, and going to the house, asked if the headmaster, Dr. Butler, was
at home. ‘No,’ said the servant. Then he asked who had come at twelve
o’clock the night before. No one had come, no one had been heard of, no
carriage had been seen; but Dr. Butler’s father had died just at that
moment in a distant county.
“Sir Charles Russell told us--
“When the 34th Regiment was quartered at Gibraltar, it had the stupidest
and dullest set of officers that can possibly be imagined; they not only
knew nothing, but they preferred to know nothing; and especially were
they averse to learning anything of Spanish, which was certainly very
short-sighted of them, as it cut them off from so many social pleasures.
But nevertheless they all very much admired a beautiful young Spanish
señorita who was living at Gibraltar, and pretended that they were not
otherwise than in her good graces, which of course was simply bombast,
as none of them knew a word of Spanish and scarcely a word of French, so
that not one of them had ever spoken to her.
“One day, while the regiment was at Gibraltar, a young ensign came to
join, who had never been abroad before, and who knew even less of any
foreign language than his comrades. Nevertheless, in a short time he
had taken cue by them, and pretended more than all the others to be in
the good graces of the young lady, and was well laughed at accordingly.
“One evening at mess one of the officers mentioned that the señorita was
going to Cadiz. ‘No, she is not,’ said the young ensign. ‘Oh, you young
jackanapes,’ said his fellow-officers, ‘what can you know about it? You
know nothing about her.’--‘Yes,’ he said sharply, ‘I do. She is not
going to Cadiz; and what is more, I beg that her name may not be brought
forward in this way at mess any more: I am engaged to be married to
her.’
“There was a universal roar, and an outcry of ‘You don’t suppose we are
going to believe that?’ But the ensign said, ‘I give you my word of
honour as an officer and a gentleman that I _am_ engaged to be married
to her.’
“Then the Colonel, who was present, said, ‘Well, as he represents it in
this way, we are bound to believe him.’ And then, turning to the young
ensign, said, ‘Now my dear fellow, as we do accept what you say, I think
you need not leave us up in the clouds like this. Will you not tell us
how it came about? You cannot wonder that we should be a little
surprised, when we know that you do not speak a word of Spanish and only
two or three words of French, that you should be engaged to be married
to this young lady.’
“‘Well,’ said the ensign, ‘since you accept what I say, yes, I do not
wonder that you are a little surprised. I do not mind telling you all
about it. It is quite true I do not understand a word of Spanish,
* * * * *
and only three or four words of French, but that does not matter. After
the ball at the Convent the other day (the house of the Governor of
Gibraltar is called ‘the Convent’) we went out upon the balcony, and we
watched the moonlight shimmering on the waves of the sea, and I looked
up into her eyes, and I said, “Voulez vous?” and she said, “Quoi?”--and
I said, “Moi;” and she said, “Oui”--and it was quite enough.’
“In the churchyard here is an epitaph ‘To the memory of J. T. C., a man
of great uprightness and integrity, and, as far as is consistent with
human imperfection, an honest man.”[69]
* * * * *
“_Sonning, Nov. 17, 1873._--It is quite curious how intimately this
parish and its Rector (Hugh Pearson) are bound together. The Rectory is
less his house than that of all his parishioners, and it is perfectly
open to them at all times. The choir is most amusing, the ‘poor dear
chicks,’ as the Rector calls them, combing each other’s hair in the
vestry before coming into church. A number of young men are constant
intimates of the house, especially ‘Ken,’ Kenneth Mackenzie; ‘Spes,’
Hope; and ‘Francis,’ Lord Francis Harvey. There was once a bishopric
here, a fact which was disputed by Professor Stubbs at Oxford, who said
it was at Ramsbury, upon which the Vicar immediately left his card on
him as ‘Bishop of Sonning.’
“Speaking of Arthur Stanley’s absence of mind, H. P. has been
describing how one day driving from Monreale to Palermo with their
carpet-bags on the seat before them, Arthur suddenly complained of the
cold. ‘Well, you had better put something on,’ said H. P. ‘I will,’ said
Arthur. H. P. went on with his book, till, after some time, suddenly
looking up, he saw Arthur, who was also busily engaged in reading,
entirely clothed in white raiment. He had put on his night-shirt over
all his other clothes, without thinking what he was doing, and they were
just driving into the streets of Palermo!”
* * * * *
“_Ascot Wood, Jan. 5, 1874._--I came to London three weeks ago in a
thick fog, such as Charles Lamb would have said was meat, drink, and
clothing. One day I went with Lady Ashburton to visit Mr. Carlyle. It
was most interesting--the quaint simple old-fashioned brick house in
Cheyne Row; the faded furniture; the table where he toiled so long and
fruitlessly at the deification of Frederick the Great; the workbox and
other little occupatory articles of the long dead wife, always left
untouched; the living niece, jealous of all visitors, thinking that even
Lady Ashburton must have either testamentary or matrimonial intentions;
and the great man himself in a long grey garment, half coat, half
dressing-gown, which buttoned to the throat and fell in straight folds
to the feet or below them, like one of the figures in Noah’s Ark, and
with the addition, when he went out with us, of an extraordinary tall
broad-brimmed felt hat, which can only be procured at a single village
in Bavaria, and which gave him the air of an old magician.
“He talked of Holman Hunt’s picture of the Home at Nazareth, ‘the most
unnatural thing that ever was painted, and the most unnatural thing in
it the idea that the Virgin should be keeping her “preciosities” in the
carpenter’s shop.
“He talked of Landor, of the grandeur and unworldliness of his nature,
and of how it was a lasting disgrace to England that the vile calumnies
of an insolent slanderer had been suffered to blight him in the eyes of
so many, and to send him out an exile from England in his old age.
“He complained much of his health, fretting and fidgeting about himself,
and said he could form no worse wish for the devil than that he might be
able to give him his stomach to digest with through all eternity.
“We walked out with him in the street, one on each side. I saw the
cab-drivers pointing and laughing at the extraordinary figure, and
indeed it was no wonder.
“At Mrs. Thornton’s I met Miss Thackeray at dinner, and have seen her
since. She is charming, well worthy to be the authoress of her books.
She said till the money for ‘Old Kensington’ was spent, she should rest.
She spoke of the happiness of bringing up her little niece, of the
surroundings of young life which it gave her. She talked much of the
‘Memorials,’ and of the problem how far it was well to be contented with
a quiet life as God sent it, and how far one ought to _seek_ for work
for Him. When I said something of her books and their giving pleasure;
she said, ‘Now let us skip that last sentence and go back to what we
were saying before.’
“Colonel and Mrs. Henderson (of the Police Force) were at dinner. He
said his father had been executor to old Lord Bridport, who had a box
which no one was ever allowed to open, and of the contents of which even
Lady Bridport was ignorant. After Lord Bridport’s death, the widow sent
for Colonel Henderson to look into things, and then said, ‘I wish you
would open that box; one ought to know about it.’ Colonel Henderson did
not like doing it, but took the box into the library and sat down before
it, with candles by his side. Immediately he heard a movement on the
other side of the table, and, looking up, saw old Lord Bridport as
clearly as he had ever seen him in his life, scowling down upon him with
a furious expression. He went back at once to Lady Bridport and
positively refused to open the box, which was then destroyed unopened.
He said, ‘I shall never to my dying day forget the face of Lord Bridport
as I saw him after he was dead.’
“In Wilton Crescent I saw Mrs. Leycester, who was just come from
Cheshire. She said:--
“A brother of Sir Philip Egerton has lately been given a living in
Devonshire, and went to take possession of it. He had not been long in
his rectory before, coming one day into his study, he found an old lady
seated there in an arm-chair by the fire. Knowing no old lady could
really be there, and thinking the appearance must be the result of an
indigestion, he summoned all his courage and boldly sat down upon the
old lady, who disappeared. The next day he met the old lady in the
passage, rushed up against her, and she vanished. But he met her a third
time, and then, feeling that it could not always be indigestion, he
wrote to his sister in Cheshire, begging her to call upon the Misses
Athelstan, sisters of the clergyman who had held his living before, and
say what he had seen. When they heard it, the Misses Athelstan looked
inexpressibly distressed and said, ‘That was our mother: we hoped it was
only to us she would appear. When we were there, she appeared
constantly, but when we left, we hoped she would be at rest.’
“About ‘ghost-stories’ I always recollect what Dr. Johnson used to
say--‘The beginning and end of ghost-stories is this, all argument is
against them, all belief is for them.’
“I have had a charming visit here at Ascot to the Lefevres, the only
other guest being old Mr. Cole of South Kensington, the incarnation of
‘Father Christmas’ or of ‘Old King Cole.’ He talked of the facility of
getting money and the difficulty of keeping it. He said that when he
wanted money for a Music School, he asked Sir Titus Salt for a
subscription. Sir Titus asked him what he wanted him to give. ‘Whatever
you think will look best at the day of judgment,’ said Mr. Cole. Sir
Titus signed a cheque for £1000.
“Sir John Lefevre described a place in Essex belonging to a Mr. (now Sir
William) and Mrs. Stephenson. When they first went there, the
housekeeper said there was one room which it was never the custom to
use. For a long time it continued to be unoccupied, but one day, when
the house was very full and an unexpected arrival announced, Mrs. S.
said she should open and air it, and sent for the key. All the people
staying in the house, full of curiosity, went with her when she visited
the room for the first time. It was a large panelled room containing a
bed like a catafalque, with heavy stuff curtains drawn all round. They
drew aside the curtains, and there was the mark of a bloody hand upon
the pillow! The room was shut up again from that time forward.”
* * * * *
“_Holmhurst, Jan. 22._--George Sheffield is here. He says that the
Russian Minister’s wife at Washington called her dog ‘Moreover,’ because
of ‘Moreover the dog came and licked his sores.’”
* * * * *
“_Holmhurst, Jan. 24._--‘No,’ says Lea, ‘everything is not improving. I
always say that everything has been going to the bad since the pudding
lost its place.’
“‘Why, what can you mean?’
“‘Oh, in the old days, the good old days, the pudding always used to be
before the meat, and then people were not so extravagant at the
butcher’s. Why, old Mr. Taylor[70] used to say to me, “You know, marm,”
says he, “we used to tak’ a bit of the dough when the bread was rising,
and slip in an apple or two without peeling ’em, and bake ’em in the
oven, and that was our dinner you know, marm.”’
* * * * *
JOURNAL (The Green Book).
“_Jan. 25, 1874._--Somehow I have felt as if this volume was closed for
ever--closed away with the sweet presence which was so long the sunshine
of my life. Yet to-day, while I am alone, sitting once more in the
sacred chamber where I have watched her through so many days and nights,
I feel constrained to write once more.
“How all is changed to me since then: I can hardly feel as if the two
lives were related--hardly as if they _could_ belong to the same person.
“Wonderfully, mysteriously, time has healed--no, not healed, but
soothed, even this wound. At first I felt this must always be
impossible, life was _too_ blank, but imperceptibly, stealthily, other
interests asserted their power, and though the old life is always _the_
life to me, yet I feel all is not over.
“I have always talked of my Mother, and it has been a great comfort. At
first it almost shocked people that I should do it. Perhaps the very
fact of talking and writing about her myself, and her life being now so
much talked of by others, has dried up the agony of my own inner
desolation by force of habitude. Yet, oh, my darling! there is never a
day, seldom an hour, in which I do not think of her; and sometimes when
I am alone,
‘When to the sessions of sweet silent thought,
I summon up remembrance of things past,’
I take one of her sketch-books, one of her journals or mine, and with
them go back into our old life--thus she looked--thus she spoke--thus
she smiled.
“At first I was kept up by the sacred work of the ‘Memorials,’ and the
necessity of fighting against the violent family opposition to them.
This seemed a duty which rose out of her grave, the one duty for which
I was prepared to sacrifice everything else in the world. I was
determined to fulfil it at whatever cost to myself. And I have fulfilled
it--not so well perhaps as I might have done if Arthur and Mary Stanley
had not tried to trample and stamp all the spirit out of it. They
condemned the book violently and furiously before they read it, and,
after reading it, they never had the courage to rescind opinions
expressed so frequently and publicly. Still, the world says that it is
well, and it will still keep her lamp burning brightly, so that her
earthly work is not over yet, and she can still guide others heavenward
through the darkness. Besides, not only in the ‘Memorials,’ but in all
else, I have felt the truth of Joseph Mazzini’s advice--‘Get up and
work; do not set yourself apart. When the Evil One wanted to tempt
Jesus, he led Him into a solitude.’
“I was one winter in Spain with Miss Wright. Then not much more than my
first desolate year had passed, and I had still that crushed lacerated
feeling of utter misery; but I tried to be as bright as I could for my
companion’s sake. Last year I was in Italy, and though very ill, and
though I felt poignantly the first return to the old scenes, it was
better, and all old friends were most kind.
“The dear cousin of my mother’s life, Charlotte Leycester, has been here
each year for some months, and other guests come and go through the
summer, so that little Holmhurst still gives pleasure.
“At first I was very, very poor, and it was a struggle to have a home;
but latterly my books have brought in enough to keep the house, and a
great deal to give away besides, which has been most opportune, as
several members of the family have sorely needed helping. I have also a
little Hospice, where I receive those whom I hear of as in need of
thorough change, mental and physical, for a month, sets of
sunshine-seekers succeeding each other. My dear Lea is still left to me,
and is my greatest comfort, so associated with all that is gone.
“My books have made me almost well known after a fashion, and people are
very kind, for, with what Shakspeare calls ‘the excellent foppery of the
world,’ many who used to snub me now almost ‘make up to me,’ and all
kinds of so-called ‘great people’ invite me to their houses. Sometimes
this is very pleasant, and I always enjoy being liked. I do not think it
is likely to set me up; I have too strong a feeling of my own real
inferiority to the opinion formed of me. Intellectually, I am so ill
grounded that I really know nothing well or accurately; and if I am what
is called ‘generous,’ certainly that is no virtue, for it pleases myself
as well as others. I think it is still with me as George Sand says of
herself, ‘Je n’ai pas de bonheur dans la vie, mais j’ai beaucoup de
bonheurs.’
“To-morrow I am going abroad again. It is almost necessary for my books;
and though I feel bitterly leaving Lea and the little home, I like my
mother’s adopted son to earn a reputation; that is all I care for,
except that it is always a pleasure to give pleasure. There is a
sentence, too, of Carlyle’s which comes back to me--‘We are sufficiently
applauded and approved, and ought now, if possible, to go and do
something _deserving_ a little applause.’”
XVII
LITERARY WORK AT HOME AND ABROAD
“Ohne Hast, aber ohne Rast.”--GOETHE.
“Leisure and I have taken leave of one another. I propose to be
busy as long as I live, if my health is so long indulged to
me.”--JOHN WESLEY.
“To seek fame is even a solemn duty for men endowed with more than
ordinary powers of mind. First, as multiplying the ways and chances
by which a useful work comes into the hands of such as are prepared
to avail themselves of it; secondly, as securing for such a work
that submissiveness of heart, that docility, without which nothing
really good can be really acquired; and lastly, because the
individuality of the author, with all the associations connected
with his name and history, adds greatly to the effect of a
work.”--COLERIDGE _to_ SIR G. BEAUMONT.
“For ever I wrastle, for ever I am behind.”--GOWER, _Confessio
Amantis_.
“’Tis not in mortals to command success;
But we’ll do more, Sempronius--we’ll deserve it”
--ADDISON, _Cato_.
The success of “Walks in Rome,” and the great pleasure which I had
derived from the preparation of my “Days near Rome,” made me undertake,
in the spring of 1874, the more ambitious work of “Cities of Northern
and Central Italy,” in preparation for which I left England at the end
of January, accepting on the way an oft-repeated invitation from Mr. and
Mrs. de Wesselow to their beautiful home at Cannes.
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Villa La Cava, Cannes, Jan. 30, 1874._--What a view I look upon here
from my beautiful room!--a pure blue sky all around, fading into the
softest most delicate golden hues where it meets the waveless expanse of
sea, upon which the islands seem asleep in the sunshine; on one side the
old town of Cannes, with its pier and shipping and the white sails of
its boats; on the other, the endless villas, and Mougins, and the
mountains--all rising from a wealth of orange and cypress groves; and,
close at hand, masses of geraniums and roses and the ‘sunshine tree’
(golden mimosa) in full blossom,--and thus, they say, it has been all
winter.
“Paris was at its ugliest. I had a pleasant dinner at the Embassy, and I
went to see old Madame Dubois at the top of a house, in her room which
is at once sitting-room, bedroom, and kitchen. She was full of the
wretchedness of living in a country where your servant had no scruple in
telling you she was your equal, and that she was jealous of your being
richer than herself. She showed her household treasures, especially a
little silver owl, ‘qui est restée longtemps sans se marier, et puis a
fait un petit hibou.’
* * * * *
“I left in the evening for my four-and-twenty hours’ journey. The train
was crowded, every place full, but, in spite of my seven companions and
their twenty-eight handbags, which obliged me to sit bolt upright the
whole way, I rather enjoyed it. There is something so interesting in the
rapid transitions: the plains of Central France: the rolling hills of
Burgundy in the white moonlight: the great towns, Dijon and Lyons, deep
down below, and mapped out by their lamps: the dawn over the Rhone
valley: the change to blue sky melting into delicate amber: the first
stunted olives: the white roads leading, dust-surrounded, to the white
cities, Avignon and Tarascon and Arles: the desolate stone-laden Crau:
the still blue Mediterranean, and Marseilles with its shipping, and then
the granite phase of southern Provence and its growth of heath and
lavender and pines.
“On this, the eastern side, Cannes is a new world to me, but on Sunday,
with Marcus Hare and G., I went up to the other side, to the Villa S.
François and our beloved pine-wood, alive still with sacred memories,
where the dear form still might seem to wander with her sunshade and
camp-stool, and where we sat on the very stone she used to rest on in
‘the Shepherdesses’ Walk.’ G. is too matter of fact to enjoy this
country. When I exclaimed over the glorious beauty and variety of the
view of the Rocher de Bilheres, standing out as it does from the supreme
point of the forest promontory, with the purple shadows behind it in the
deep rift, she could only say, ‘I should be better satisfied if I could
ascertain exactly what it is mineralogically.’
“I went with Frank de Wesselow to Vallauris, the walk a perfect series
of pictures--the winding road with its glorious sea-views; then, at the
chapel, the opening upon all the Alpine range; then the deep hollow ways
overhung by old gnarled olives, and peopled by peasants with their mules
and baskets.
“Yesterday I had a visit from George Sutherland, whom I looked after in
his fever at Rome, full of his spiritualism, of his drawings made under
the influence of spirits, who ‘squeeze out just the amount of colour to
be used and no more,’ and of his conversations with his dead mother,
whom he described as ‘touching him constantly.’
“In the evening we talked of the De Wesselows’ faithful servant Mrs.
Manning, of her wonderful power of making people understand her, and how
her appreciation of foreigners was entirely in proportion to their doing
so. Frank was standing by her one day in the garden when their maid
Thérèse passed by. Mrs. Manning said quickly, ‘Teresa, acqua fresca
pully, and these things want lavering,’ and, without giving another
moment’s attention, went on with what she had been doing. Thérèse, in
her slow way, said ‘Yees,’ thinking that she talked English very well,
and understood perfectly that she was to give some water to the chickens
and that the things wanted washing.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Villa Heraud, Cimies, Feb. 6, 1874._--I am writing from a beautiful
country villa, where, in sweet Mary Harford,[71] I find the friend of my
childhood quite unchanged, though it is fifteen years since I have seen
her. In spite of being the mother of six daughters and two sons, she
looks still as young as the Mary Bunsen who was carried quite helpless
into Hurstmonceaux Place twenty-three years ago. It is a most united
family, and you would admire the ‘way in which the six daughters take
arms and sing a hymn behind their mother (who plays) after family
prayers.”
* * * * *
“_Parma, Feb. 12, 1874._--I had so many kind invitations at Nice, I
rather longed to remain there. On Sunday I went home after church with
Lady Jocelyn and her little grand-daughter. I had not seen her since the
loss of her children. Her sweet sad face quite haunts me. I said to her,
‘Do you often drive out.’--‘No,’ she said; ‘I must always walk, or else
the days would be _too_ long.’
“I had an interesting railway journey on Monday with Madame Franzoni,
who lives in the house at Taggia described in ‘Dr. Antonio.’ She was
Swiss. Her husband, of an old Swiss-Italian family, was disinherited on
becoming Protestant, and was obliged to become an engineer. His father,
still living, has been prevented by his priests from speaking to him for
five-and-twenty years, though devotedly fond of him. She took her two
little children and made them sing a hymn beneath the tree in which
their grandfather was sitting. Tears streamed down the old man’s cheeks,
but he would not look at them; he said it must be a lesson to his other
children. The mother offered her whole fortune if her son would consent
to hear one mass; she believed that one mass would reconvert him. Since
then the Protestant part of the family have been dreadfully poor, whilst
the rest are immensely rich. Madame Franzoni said that the priests of
Taggia were very kind to them privately, but would not recognise them in
public.
[Illustration: LAMPEDUSA FROM TAGGIA.][72]
[Illustration: STAIRCASE, PALAZZO DELL’ UNIVERSITA, GENOA][73]
“When we parted, I gave her my card. Some Americans in the carriage saw
it and almost flew into my arms. ‘Oh, the “Quiet Life”--too great
happiness,’ &c. Afterwards I had a warning to be careful what subjects
one touched upon with strangers, for I said something about the loss of
the _Ville de Havre_. The lady (Mrs. Colt) burst into tears, and her
daughter said, ‘Mother’s brother was the judge who was lost; he would
not leave his wife, and went down with her in his arms, saying, “Let us
die bravely!”’ Afterwards at Genoa I met a young lady (Miss Bulkeley)
who went down with her mother. The mother was lost. As the daughter
rose, something hurt her head; she put her hand to it and caught a
chain, and finding her head above water, called, ‘A woman! help!’ She
heard men say, ‘American sailors are saving you,’ but became unconscious
and knew nothing for long afterwards. She said it was quite a mistake to
say drowning was painless--the oppression on the lungs was agony.
[Illustration: CLOISTER OF S. MATTEO, GENOA.][74]
“I enjoyed Genoa and my work there, and made several pleasant Italian
acquaintances, the Genoese are so hospitable. The Marchese Spinola
showed me all the treasures and pictures of his old palace himself. I
suppose I must take this as a great compliment, for I was amused the
other day by an anecdote of the Marchesa Spinola, who made herself most
agreeable to an Englishman she met at the Baths of Monte Catini. On
taking leave, he politely expressed a hope that, as they were both going
to Rome in the winter, they might meet there. ‘Mais non, Monsieur,’ she
replied; ‘à Monte Catini je suis charmée de vous voir, mais à Rome c’est
toute autre chose.’ Yesterday I spent in correcting my account of
Piacenza--bitterly cold, children sliding all over the streets, which
were one mass of ice.... I had forgotten the intense interest of Parma
and its glorious pictures, especially what a grand master Pordenone
was.”
* * * * *
“_59 B. Mario de’ Fiori, Rome, Feb. 22._--Rome is fearfully modernised,
such quantities of new houses built, such quantities of old buildings
swept away--the old shell fountain in the Felice, the lion of the
Apostoli, the Vintner’s fountain at Palazzo Simonetti, the ruins of the
Ponte Salara, and ... all the shrines in the Coliseum, even the famous
cross on the wall. The last nearly caused a Revolution. On the Pincio a
Swiss cottage is put up, strangely out of place amongst the old statues,
and a clock which goes by water. Even the most ardent Protestants too
are a little shocked that the famous Quirinal Chapel, so redolent of
Church history, should be turned into a cloak-room for balls, and the
cloak-tickets kept in the holy water basins. The poverty and suffering
amongst the Romans is dreadful, the great influx of Torinese taking the
bread out of their mouths.
“You would be amused with the economy of my servants Ambrogio and Maria.
They think it most extravagant if I have both vegetables and a pudding,
and quite sinful to have soup the same day; and the first day, after I
had seen the kitchen fire blazing away all afternoon, and ‘Il Signorino
è servito’ was announced very magnificently, behold the dinner
was--three larks! But what a pleasure it is to hear again from
servants--‘Felicissima notte,’--that sweetest bidding of repose, as
Palgrave calls it.”
* * * * *
“_March 1._--I know, as usual, far too many people here for comfort,
nearly three hundred. But I have enjoyed constant drives with Lady
Castletown and her most sweet and charming daughter, Mrs. Lewis
Wingfield. The Miss Seymours also are here, and very agreeable, with
their very handsome sister, married to the Austrian Count von Lutzow.
The Duchesse S. Arpino and her mother and engaging little daughter make
their house as pleasant as ever. Mr. Adolphus Trollope has a pretty
little daughter who sings most enchantingly.[75] I also like Lady Paget,
the Minister’s wife, who is a clever artist in her own way.
“The spoliation of Rome continues every day. Its picturesque beauty is
_gone_. Nothing can exceed the tastelessness of all that is being
done--the Coliseum, Baths of Caracalla, and the temples are scraped
quite clean, and look like sham ruins built yesterday: all the pretty
trees are cut down: the outsides of the mediæval churches (Prassede,
Pudentiana, &c.) are washed yellow or painted over: the old fountains
are stripped of their ferns and polished: the Via Crucis and other
processions are forbidden: and the Government has even sent out the
‘pompieri’ to cut down all the ivy from the aqueducts. I have, however,
got back one thing--the Lion of the Apostoli! I went round to a number
of people living in that neighbourhood, and engaged them to go in the
morning to the Senators in the Capitol and demand its restoration: and a
message was sent that the lion should be restored at once. So the little
hideous beast goes back this week to his little vacant sofa, where he
has sat for more than six hundred years.
[Illustration: COLONNA CASTLE, PALESTRINA.][76]
“The cardinals have been dying off a good deal lately, and a curious
relic of old times was the lying in state of Cardinal Bernabo in the
Propaganda Fide--the chapel hung with black, the catafalque with cloth
of gold, a chain of old abbots and cardinals standing and kneeling round
with tapers, and all the students singing. Pius IX. is well, and
Antonelli has never been the least ill, except in the _Times_, in which
he has received the last sacraments.”
[Illustration: GENAZZANO.][77]
[Illustration: SUBIACO.][78]
“_Tivoli, March 22._--I have been greatly enjoying a little mountain
tour with Lady Castletown and Mrs. Lewis Wingfield. On Wednesday we
spent the day in the villas Aldobrandini and Mondragone at Frascati, and
the next morning had the most charming drive by Monte Porzio and Monte
Compatri, chiefly through the desolate chestnut forests, to Palestrina.
It was the fair of Genazzano, and the whole road was most animated, such
crowds of peasants in their gayest costumes and prettiest ornaments. At
beautiful Olevano we had just time to go to the little inn and visit my
friend of last year, Peppina Baldi. It was a tiring journey thence to
Subiaco after such a long day, and we only passed the worst precipices
by daylight, so it was quite dark when we reached Subiaco, where we
found rooms with difficulty, as, quite unwittingly, we had arrived on
the eve of the great festa of S. Benedetto. Most delighted we were,
however, of course, and most picturesque and beautiful was the early
pilgrimage, with bands of music and singing, up the stony mountain
paths. Lady Castletown travels with a second carriage for her maids, so
prices naturally rise at first sight of so grand a princess.... On the
way here we diverged to the farm of Horace in the Licenza valley, all
marvellously unaltered--the brook, the meadows, the vines, the
surrounding hills and villages, still just as he described them eighteen
hundred years ago. It is a wonderful country, one lives so entirely in
the past.”
I have seldom enjoyed Tivoli more than in this spring of 1874. It was
then that, sitting in the scene I describe, I wrote the paragraph of
“Days near Rome” which I insert here.
[Illustration: SACRO SPECO, SUBIACO.][79]
* * * * *
“Nothing can exceed the loveliness of the views from the road which
leads from Tivoli by the chapel of S. Antonio to the Madonna di
Quintiliolo. On the opposite height rises the town with its temples,
its old houses and churches clinging to the edge of the cliffs, which
are overhung with such a wealth of luxuriant vegetation as is almost
indescribable; and beyond, beneath the huge pile of building known as
the Villa of Maecenas, the thousand noisy cataracts of the Cascatelle
leap forth beneath the old masonry, and sparkle and dance and foam
through the green--and all this is only the foreground to vast distances
of dreamy campagna, seen through the gnarled hoary stems of grand old
olive-trees--rainbow-hued with every delicate tint of emerald and
amethyst, and melting into sapphire, where the solitary dome of St.
Peter’s rises, invincible by distance, over the level line of the
horizon.
[Illustration: S. MARIA DI COLLEMAGGIO, AQUILA.][80]
[Illustration: SOLMONA.][81]
“And the beauty is not confined to the views alone. Each turn of the
winding road is a picture; deep ravines of solemn dark-green olives
which waken into silver light as the wind shakes their leaves--old
convents and chapels buried in shady nooks on the
mountain-side--thickets of laurustinus, roses, genista, and
jessamine--banks of lilies and hyacinths, anemones and violets--grand
masses of grey rock, up which white-bearded goats are scrambling to
nibble the myrtle and rosemary, and knocking down showers of the red
tufa on their way;--and a road, with stone seats and parapets, twisting
along the edge of the hill through a constant diorama of loveliness, and
peopled by groups of peasants in their gay dresses returning from their
work, singing in parts wild canzonetti which echo amid the silent hills,
or by women washing at the wayside fountains, or returning with brazen
_conche_ poised upon their heads, like stately statues of
water-goddesses wakened into life.”
* * * * *
Great was the difficulty of securing any companion for the desolate
excursion to the Abruzzi, but at length I found a clever artist, Mr.
Donne, who agreed to go with me.
[Illustration: HERMITAGE OF PIETRO MURRONE.][82]
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
[Illustration: CASTLE OF AVEZZANO.][83]
[Illustration: GATE OF ARPINUM.][84]
“_Sora in the Marsica, April 2._--Mr. Donne and I left the train at
Terni, taking diligence to Rieti, the capital of the Sabina. Next day we
had a long dreary drive to Aquila, a dismal place, but full of curious
remains, surrounded by tremendous snow mountains. Thence we crossed a
fearful pass in ghastly barren mountains to Solmona, a wonderful
mediæval city seldom visited. On Sunday we clambered up the mountains
above the town to the hermitage of Pietro Murrone, afterwards
Cœlestine V., and then, as the snow was too deep to make it possible
to cross the mountain, returned by night to Aquila. On Tuesday our
journey of a whole day was through perfectly Lapland scenery, the road a
mere track in the deep snow, which covered hedges and fields alike.
Fortunately the weather was lovely, but it was a relief to come down
again to even partial civilisation at Avezzano, on the borders of what
was once the Lago Fucino, now dried up and spoilt by Prince Torlonia.
Here I had an introduction to Count and Countess Restà, to whom I paid
a most curious visit. On Wednesday we drew at S. Maria di Luco, a
picturesque church on the site of a temple above the lake, and in the
evening came on here, arriving at 2 A.M.--glorious moonlight and grand
scenery, but the diligence unspeakably wretched. We have just been
spending a charming day, partly at Arpino, the birthplace of Cicero,
where there are wonderful Pelasgic remains, and a gateway which is the
oldest architectural monument in Europe, and partly at Cicero’s island
home on the Liris, a lovely place, all primroses and violets as in
England, but with a background of snow mountains.”
[Illustration: TRIUMPHAL ARCH, AQUINO.][85]
[Illustration: PORTO S. LORENZO, AQUINO.][86]
“_Easter Sunday, 1874._--The Count and Countess de Lützow, the two Miss
Seymours, and Miss Ellis[87] met me at S. Germano, and we have been
spending to-day in the monastery of Monte Cassino, gloriously beautiful
always, with its palatial buildings on a mountain-top, and all around
billows of purple hill tipped with snow. An introduction from the Duke
of Sermoneta caused the gentle-looking Abbot to receive us, and then the
great bent figure of the great Tosti came forward, his deep-set eyes
excessively striking. After the service in the church they entertained
us to an excellent dinner, finishing with delicious Aleatico wine. They
were ‘_spogliati_,’ they said, but ‘_La Providenza_’ still watched over
them.”
* * * * *
“_April 7._--In the second-class carriage of the train on our way to
Velletri sat a venerable and beautiful old man, to whom we talked of
Aquino, the birthplace of St. Thomas Aquinas, where we spent yesterday.
Gradually we found out that he was the Abbot of Monte Vergine, and he
told us much that was interesting about that wonderful place--of the
intense love and veneration of the Neapolitan people for the sanctuary,
which is connected with the different events of their domestic life;
that no betrothal or marriage or birth was considered entirely
consecrated without receiving a benediction at the sanctuary; that
peasant women had it entered in their marriage contracts that they
should be allowed to make the pilgrimage from time to time, and after
the birth of each child; that because, on account of the suppression,
two miles of the road to the sanctuary still remained unfinished, the
peasants voluntarily undertook to finish it themselves, 30,000 persons
subscribing one soldo apiece; that when, at the same time, he, the
Abbot, was obliged to give up keeping a carriage, five Neapolitan
families insisted upon undertaking to keep one for him, one paying the
horses, another the coachman, &c. The Abbot gave us his benediction on
taking leave, and invited us to Monte Vergine.”[88]
* * * * *
“_April 14._--I met Mademoiselle von Raasloff at Mrs. Terry’s. She
narrated to me some facts which had been told to her by the well-known
Dr. Pereira.
“An acquaintance of his, a lady, was travelling with some friends in an
out-of-the-way part of Poland. Suddenly, late at night, their carriage
broke down and they were obliged to get out, and as they knew of no
shelter near, they were in great difficulties. At this juncture a
gentleman appeared, who said to the lady that if she would take the
trouble to walk a few steps farther, she would come to the gate of his
house; that he was unable to accompany her, but that if she would
mention his name she would be received, and would find all she required.
She thanked him and followed his directions. The servant to whom she
spoke at the house seemed very much surprised, but seeing her plight,
brought her in, left her in a library, and went to get some refreshment.
When she was alone, a door in the panelling opened and the unknown
master of the house came in and sat down by her. As he said nothing, she
felt rather awkward, and more so when the servant, coming in with a
tray, seemed to brush up close to him in a very odd way as he set it
down. When the servant left the room, the unknown said, ‘Ne vous étonnez
pas, Mademoiselle, c’est que je suis mort;’ and he proceeded to say that
he was most thankful she had come, and that he wished her to make him a
solemn promise; that the people who were now in possession of the
property were not the rightful heirs, but that he had left a will,
deposited with a certain lawyer in a certain place, the name of which he
made her write down. She listened as in a trance, but did as she was
bid. The servant, coming in again about this time, walked straight
_through_ the unknown. Presently the carriage, being mended, was
announced to be at the door, upon which the unknown walked with her to
the porch, bowed, and disappeared.
“When the lady got to Warsaw, she had an _attaque des nerfs_, was very
ill, and sent for Dr. Pereira. She told him all she had seen, and also
gave him the paper with the directions she had written down. Dr.
Pereira, finding that the person and place mentioned really existed,
inquired into the matter, and the result was that the will was found,
the wrongful possessors ejected, and the rightful owners set up in their
place.”
“One evening at the Palazzo Odescalchi, when everybody had been telling
stories, and nothing very interesting, Mademoiselle von Raasloff
suddenly astonished us by saying, ‘Now I will tell you something.’ Then
she said--
“There was a young lady in Denmark, whose family, from circumstances,
had lived very much before the Danish world, and with whom, in so small
a society as that of Copenhagen, almost every one was acquainted.
Consequently it was a subject of interest, almost of universal interest,
at Copenhagen, when it became known that this young lady, with the full
approval of her parents and joyful consent of every one concerned, had
become engaged to a young Danish officer of good family and position.
“‘Now in Danish society a betrothal is considered to be almost the same
thing as a marriage: new relationships date from that time, and if
either the affianced bride or bridegroom die, the family of the other
side mourn as for a son or brother, as if the marriage had actually
taken place.
“‘While this young lady of whom I have spoken was only engaged, her
betrothed husband was summoned to join his regiment in a war which was
going on; and very soon to the house of his betrothed came the terrible
news that he was dead, that he was killed in battle. And the way in
which the news came was this. A soldier of his regiment was wounded and
was taken prisoner; and as he was lying in his cot in the hospital, he
said to his companion who was in the next bed, “I saw the young
Colonel--I saw the young Colonel on his white horse, and he rode into
the ranks of the enemy and he never came back again.” And the man who
said that died, but the man to whom he said it recovered, and, in
process of time, he was ransomed, and came back to Copenhagen and told
his story with additions. “My comrade, who is dead, said that he saw the
young Colonel on his white horse, and that he saw him ride into the
ranks of the enemy and the soldiers of the enemy drag him from his horse
and kill him, so that he never came back again.” This was the form in
which the story reached the family of the affianced wife of the young
Colonel, and they mourned him most truly; for they loved him much, and
they put on all the outward signs of deepest grief. There was only one
person who would not put on the outward signs of mourning, and that was
his affianced bride herself. She said, and persisted in saying, that she
_could_ not believe that, where two persons had been as entirely united
as she and her betrothed had been, one could pass entirely out of life
without the other knowing it. That her lover was sick, in prison, in
trouble, she could believe, but that he was dead--_never_, without her
having an inner conviction of it; and she would not put on the outward
signs of mourning, which to her sense implied an impression of ill omen.
Her parents urged her greatly, not only because their own reality of
grief was very great, but because, according to the feeling of things in
Copenhagen, it cast a very great slur upon their daughter that she
should appear without the usual signs of grief. They urged her
ceaselessly, and the tension of mind in which she lived, and the
perpetual struggle with her own family, added to her own deep grief, had
a very serious effect upon her.
“‘It was while things were in this state that one day she dreamt--she
dreamt that she received a letter from her betrothed, and in her dream
she felt that it was of the most vital importance that she should see
the date of that letter; and she struggled and laboured to see it, but
she could not make it out; and she laboured on with the utmost intensity
of effort, but she could not decipher it; and it seemed to her the most
wearisome night she had ever spent, so incessant was her effort, but she
could not read it: still she would not give it up, and at last, just as
the dawn was breaking, she saw the date of the letter, and it was May
the 10th. The effort was so great that she woke; but the date remained
with her still--it was May the 10th.
“‘Now she knew that if such a letter had been really written on the 10th
of May, by the 1st of June she must receive that letter.
“‘The next morning, when her father came in to see her before she was
up, as he had always done since their great sorrow, he was surprised to
find her not only calm and serene, but almost radiant. She said, “You
have often blamed me for not wearing the outward signs of mourning for
my betrothed: grant me now only till the 1st of June, and _then_, if I
receive no letter from him, I will promise to resign myself to believe
the worst, and I will do as you desire.” Three weeks of terrible tension
ensued, and the 1st of June arrived. She said then that she felt as if
her whole future life hung upon the postman’s knock. It came--and there
was the letter! Her lover had been taken prisoner, communication with
him had been cut off--in fact, till then it was impossible she should
hear. Soon afterwards he was exchanged, came home, and they were
married.
“‘Now,’ said Mademoiselle von Raasloff, as she finished her narrative,
‘that is no story which I have heard. The young lady was my dear mother;
she is here to testify to it: the young officer was my dear father,
General von Raasloff; he is here to confirm it.’ And they were both
present.”
* * * * *
“_April 15._--There is a pretty young American lady at the
_table-d’hôte_--most amusing. Here are some snatches from her lips:--
“‘I wonder if the old masters who painted such absurd figures of saints
and angels _meant_ to be funny, or if they were only funny by mistake.’
“‘Pity is like eating mustard without beef, and you wouldn’t like that,
would you?’
“‘I was at a pension at Castellamare--Miss Baker’s. Avoid it. There
were places for fifty at dinner, and forty-nine of them were old maids.
No gentleman stayed--of course he couldn’t: they would have gobbled him
up alive.’
“‘I went to the Trinità to hear the nuns sing. The nun who opened the
door said, “You’re too late!”--“Well,” I said, “you declared I was too
early yesterday. When _am_ I to come?”--“Well, I don’t know,” she said;
“we’re always changing.”--“Well, you _are_ a civil old party, _you_
are,” I said--and the old tigress actually slammed the door in my face.’
“‘Somebody said to me about a nigger I was abusing that I shouldn’t,
because he was a man and a brother. “Well, sir, he may be your brother,”
I said, “but most certainly he is not mine.” I should think not indeed,
with a leg that comes down in the middle of his foot.’
“‘I shall be burnt, I hope, when I die. I feel like the old lady I heard
of the other day who knew she was getting immensely old and could not
live long, so paid down three thousand dollars to have a good big stove
made right off at once.’
“‘I hope when I’m dying my people won’t be able to go on pegging away at
their dinner just as if nothing was happening: I should not like that at
all.’”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
[Illustration: FARFA.][89]
[Illustration: GATE OF CASAMARI.][90]
“_Assisi, April 26._--I had a proposal from the Miss Seymours and Miss
Ellis that if I would wait at Rome till Saturday the 18th, they would
set off with me in search of the lost monastery of Farfa, which was, of
all places, the one I wanted most to see, and from which fear of
brigands had previously caused all my companions to fail at the last
moment. If you have read any old histories of Italy, you will remember
how all-important Farfa was in the Middle Ages, and will wonder that no
one, not even the best Roman antiquarians, knew anything about its
present state, or even where it is. We could only judge by old maps and
chronicles. However, the excursion completely answered, and, after
divers little adventures, which ‘Days near Rome’ will narrate, we not
only arrived at Farfa, but found the Father-General of the Benedictines
accidentally there to receive us. Greatly astonished he was at our
arrival, but said that one enterprising stranger had reached the place
three years before--I need hardly add, an English lady. Really Farfa is
one of the most radiant spots in Italy, and the sheets of wild-flowers,
and the songs of nightingales and cuckoos enhanced its charms. My
companions were so delighted that they consented, if I would stay till
Wednesday, to set off again on a long, wild, and very rough tourette to
the monasteries of the Hernican mountains. So on the 22nd we went by
rail to Frosinone, and thence drove to Casamari, going on by a grand
mountain road to sleep at Alatri. The next day we rode up a jagged rock
path for many hours to the Carthusian Trisulti, a huge monastery in a
mountain forest, amid Alpine flowers and close under the snows. Then we
saw the famous Grottoes of Collepardo--a sort of underground Staffa,
very grand indeed, and returned at night to Frosinone, and next day to
Rome.”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_May 4, Florence._--General von Raasloff is here, and says that a
friend of his going to China received endless commissions for things he
was to bring home, but that only one of the people who gave them sent
money for the things they wanted. On his return, this commission was the
only one he had fulfilled. His disappointed friends upbraided him, and
he said, ‘You see it was very unfortunate, but when we were nearing
China, I spread out all my different commissions on the deck that I
might examine them, and I put the money for each on the paper to which
it belonged: and--it was very unfortunate, but my attention was called
away for an instant, and behold a great gust of wind had come, and all
those commissions which were not weighted by money had been blown far
out to sea, and I never saw them again.’
“Mademoiselle von Raasloff told me that--
“Count Piper, an ancestor of the present Count Piper, was a very
determined gambler. Being once at one of his desolate country estates,
he was in perfect despair for some one to play with him, but he was
alone. At last, in a fit of desperation, he said, ‘If the devil himself
were to come to play with me, I should be grateful.’ Soon a tremendous
storm began to rage, during which a servant came in and said that a
gentleman overtaken by night was travelling past, and implored shelter.
Count Piper was quite enchanted, and a very gentlemanlike man was shown
in. Supper was served, and then Count Piper proposed a game of cards, in
which the stranger at once acquiesced. Count Piper won so enormously,
that he felt quite ashamed, and at last he proposed their retiring. As
they were leaving the room, the stranger said, ‘I am very much concerned
that I have not sufficient money with me to pay all my debt now;
however, I shall beg you to take my ring as a guarantee, which is really
of greater value than the money, and which has very peculiar properties,
one of which is that as long as you wear it, all you possess is safe
from fire.’ The Count took the ring, and escorting the stranger to his
room, wished him good-night. The next morning he sent to inquire after
him: he was not there, his bed had not been slept in, and he never was
heard of again. Count Piper wore the ring, but after some time, as it
was very heavy and old-fashioned, he took it off and put it away. The
next morning came the news that one of his finest farm-houses had been
burnt down. And so it always is in that family. The descendants of Count
Piper always have to wear the ring, and if ever they leave it off for a
single day, one of their houses on one of their great estates is burnt.”
* * * * *
“_Florence, May 10._--Ten days here in the radiant spring-tide have been
very delightful. I have seen a great deal of Mrs. Ross, Lady Duff
Gordon’s beautiful daughter, who is now writing the story of her
mother’s life. She has a noble head, which is almost more full of
expression than that of any one I know, and I am sure that her character
is noble too, with all the smallnesses of life, which make a thoroughly
anglicised character ignoble, washed out, and its higher qualities
remaining to be mingled with the Italian frankness and kindly simplicity
which _English_-English do not possess, and consequently cannot
understand. Her singing to a guitar is capital--chiefly of Italian
_stornelli_, rendered with all the _verve_ which a _contadina_ herself
could give them. It is no wonder that Italians adore her. Each summer
she and her husband spend at Castagnuolo with the Marchese Lotteria
della Stufa, the great friend of her father, who died in his arms. This
is ‘Il Marchese’ _par excellence_ with the Florentines, to whom he is
public property. When a child accidentally shot him with a pistol
through the crown of his hat, thousands of people thronged the street
before his house to inquire, and in all the villages round his native
valley of Signa the price of wax went up for a fortnight, so many
candles were burnt to the Madonna as thank-offerings for his escape. The
next day, as he was crossing one of the bridges, he met Giacomo, a
flyman he knew, driving a carriage full of very respectable old Scotch
ladies. Giacomo flung his reins on the box, and rushing up to the
Marchese, threw himself sobbing on his breast.
[Illustration: LA BADIA DI SETTIMO.][91]
“I have been out with Mrs. Ross to the Stufa villa of Castagnuolo, seven
miles off, near the Badia di’ Settimo, in a tiny _baroccino_, drawn by
Tocco, the smallest of spirited ponies, and with Picco, the weest
terrier ever seen, upon our knees. As we turned up from the highroad to
the villa on the hills through the rich luxuriant vineyards, the warmest
welcome met us from all the peasants, and Mrs. Ross received them with
‘Ah, caro Maso, e come va la moglie,’--‘Addio, caro Guido mio.’ In a
house in the grounds--a ‘_podere_’--the whole family of inmates thronged
round her with ‘Vi pigliero un consiglio, Signora,’ about a sick child.
We wandered up the woods, gathering lovely wild orchids, and then went
to the farm, where the creatures, like the people, seemed to regard Mrs.
Ross as one of themselves: the cows came and licked her, the sheep came
and rubbed against her, the pigeons perched, and even the wild boars
were gentleness itself. She was first able to make her way at
Castagnuolo by nursing day and night an old _contadino_ who died in her
arms. She described comically, though pathetically, the frantic grief
which ensued: how the son, Antonio, tried to drown himself, and was
pulled out of the water by his breeches: how the whole family insisted
upon being bled: how a married daughter, a niece, and a cousin came and
had strong convulsions; and how, when she ventured to leave them for a
little to go to her dinner, the _fattore_ rushed after her with--‘Ma
Signora, _tutte_ le donne son svenute;’[92] how eventually she locked up
each separately for the night with a basin of soup, having made them a
little speech, &c. Whenever any of the _contadini_ have burns, they are
cured by poultices of arum-leaves.
“All is simple, graceful goodness at Castagnuolo.”
* * * * *
“_Venice, May._--I feel that I am now learning much about masters I
never knew before. One is introduced to them at one place and continues
the acquaintance at another, till one becomes really intimate. Marco
Basaiti is the best of these new friends, with his sad shadowy figures
always painted against an afterglow. One learns how, as Savonarola says,
‘every painter paints himself. However varied his subjects, his works
bear the sign-manual of his thought.’[93]
“At Milan, on the Eve of S. Ambrogio, an American next me at the
_table-d’hôte_ said to his neighbour opposite, ‘I have been, Marm, to
see St. Ambrose; and I say, Marm, do you know that to-morrow they are
going to tootle the old gentleman all round the town?’”
[Illustration: AT MILAN.][94]
[Illustration: PARAY LE MONIAL.][95]
* * * * *
In returning from Italy this year I made the excursion to the curious
shrine of Paray le Monial which I have described in an article in
_Evening Hours_. All the time I had been abroad, as during my tour in
Spain, I had sent monthly articles to _Good Words_, for which I was paid
at the rate of five guineas a page--a sum, I believe, given besides only
to Dean Alford and Arthur Stanley. But those were the palmy days of the
magazine. I was paid much less afterwards, till it came down to a fifth
of that sum. I spent the rest of the summer in London. It was during
this year that I became a member of the Athenæum Club--an incalculable
advantage. Twelve years before, old Dr. Hawtrey, the Provost of Eton,
had said to me, “You ought to be a member of the Athenæum,” and I had
answered “Then I wish you would propose me.” But I had quite forgotten
about this, and had never known that the kind old man, long since dead,
had really done it; so the news that my name was just coming up for
ballot was a joyful surprise. I have since spent every London morning in
steady work at the Athenæum, less disturbed there than even at
Holmhurst. The difficulties which the club rules throw in the way of
receiving visitors are a great advantage to students, and my life at the
Athenæum has been as regular as clockwork. At breakfast I have always
occupied the same table,--behind the door leading to the kitchen, the
one which, I believe, was always formerly used by Wilberforce. In the
afternoons, when all the old gentlemen arrive, to poke up huge fires in
winter and close all the windows in summer, I have never returned to the
club.
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
_“London, June (in the Park)._--_Fine Lady._--‘How strange it is to see
all these smart carriages driving about and nobody in them.’
“_My simple self._--‘Nobody in them! why, they are quite full of
people.’
“_Fine Lady._--‘Ah, ye-es--_people_, but nobody all the same. _We_ never
drive in the Park now. It was only to show you this mob that I came. We
are obliged to retreat, though, before their advancing battalions. They
pursue us everywhere. There is no humiliation and suffering they won’t
undergo in the chase. They drove us out of the Row long ago, and this
year we took a row of chairs on Sunday afternoons on a little rising
ground between Albert Gate and Stanhope Gate;[96] but the enemy pursued
us, and as they always get the better of us, we shall be obliged to
yield that position too. There is never any safety from them but in
flight, for they are certainly our superiors in--numbers.’”
* * * * *
“_June 22._--Went to see Madame du Quaire,[97] whom I found in her low
French-looking room in Wilton Street, perfectly covered with pictures
and _oggetti_. She talked of spiritualism--how she had been to a meeting
at Mrs. Gregory’s--‘a truthful woman, who would not stand imposture if
she knew it.’ She ‘cottoned’ up the medium, ‘parcequ’il faut mieux
s’adresser à Dieu qu’à ses saints.’ They sat in the dark, which was
depressing. Soon after she felt a shock ‘like a torpedo,’ and something
like the leg of a chair came and scratched her head. A voice called her
and said, ‘I am John King, and I want you, Madame du Quaire; I have got
something for you.’ ‘Then,’ said Madame du Q., ‘he gave me a sort of
chain of sharks’ teeth; the kind of thing of which, when it was given to
some one at Honolulu, the recipient inquired, “C’est un collier?”--“Mais
pardon,” said the donor, “c’est une robe.”’
* * * * *
“_June 24._--I dined with Lord Ravensworth at Percy’s Cross, and he told
me--
“When I was a young man, I was staying at Balnagowan with Lady Mary
Ross. She had a son and daughter. The daughter was a very handsome,
charming girl. One day I was walking with her, and she told me that when
her brother was ill of the measles, at their other place, Bonnington,
where the Falls of the Clyde are, an old nurse who lived at the lodge
some way off used to come up and sit by him in the day, returning home
at night. One morning when she arrived, she was most dreadfully
depressed, and being questioned as to the cause, said, ‘I am na lang for
this warld; and not only me, but a greater than I is na lang for this
warld--and that is the head o’ this hoose.’ And she said that as she was
walking home, two lights came out of the larches and flitted before her:
one was a feeble light, close to the ground; the other a large bright
light higher up. They passed before her to the park gates and then
disappeared. ‘And,’ she said, ‘I know that the feeble light is myself,
and the greater light is the head o’ this hoose.’
“A few days afterwards the old woman took a cold and died, and within a
fortnight Sir C. Ross died too,[98] while the little boy recovered and
is alive still.”
* * * * *
Captain Fisher, who is engaged to be married to Victoria Liddell, told
me that--
* * * * *
‘When Mr. Macpherson of Glen Truim was dying, his wife had gone to rest
in a room looking out over the park, and sat near the window. Suddenly
she saw lights as of a carriage coming in at the distant lodge-gate, and
calling to one of the servants, said, ‘Do go down; some one is coming
who does not know of all this grief.’ But the servant remained near her
at the window, and as the carriage came near the house, they saw it was
a hearse drawn by four horses and covered with figures. As it stopped at
the porch door, the figures looked up at her, and their eyes glared with
light; then they scrambled down and seemed to disappear into the house.
Soon they reappeared and seemed to lift some heavy weight into the
hearse, which then drove off at full speed, causing all the stones and
gravel to fly up at the windows. Mrs. Macpherson and the butler had not
rallied from their horror and astonishment, when the nurse watching in
the next room came in to tell her that the Colonel was dead.
* * * * *
“I was surprised to hear that Mrs. Hungerford was in London, and asked
why she had left Ireland so unexpectedly. I was told she had had a great
fright--then I heard what it was.
“She was in her room in the evening in her beautiful house, which looks
out upon a lake, beyond which rise hills wooded with fir-trees.
Suddenly, on the opposite side of the lake, she saw a form which
seemed--with sweeping garments--to move forward upon the water. It was
gigantic. Mrs. Hungerford screamed, and her sister, Miss Cropper (who
afterwards married Mr. Jerome), and the nurse came to her from the inner
nursery. The three remained at the window for some time, but retreated
as the figure advanced, and at length--being then so tall that it
reached to the second floor--looked in at the window, and disclosed the
most awful face of a hideous old woman.
“It was a Banshee, and one of the family died immediately afterwards.”
* * * * *
Captain Fisher also told us this really extraordinary story connected
with his own family:--
* * * * *
“Fisher may sound a very plebeian name, but this family is of very
ancient lineage, and for many hundreds of years they have possessed a
very curious old place in Cumberland, which bears the weird name of
Croglin Grange. The great characteristic of the house is that never at
any period of its very long existence has it been more than one story
high, but it has a terrace from which large grounds sweep away towards
the church in the hollow, and a fine distant view.
“When, in lapse of years, the Fishers outgrew Croglin Grange in family
and fortune, they were wise enough not to destroy the long-standing
characteristic of the place by adding another story to the house, but
they went away to the south, to reside at Thorncombe near Guildford, and
they let Croglin Grange.
“They were extremely fortunate in their tenants, two brothers and a
sister. They heard their praises from all quarters. To their poorer
neighbours they were all that is most kind and beneficent, and their
neighbours of a higher class spoke of them as a most welcome addition to
the little society of the neighbourhood. On their part the tenants were
greatly delighted with their new residence. The arrangement of the
house, which would have been a trial to many, was not so to them. In
every respect Croglin Grange was exactly suited to them.
“The winter was spent most happily by the new inmates of Croglin Grange,
who shared in all the little social pleasures of the district, and made
themselves very popular. In the following summer, there was one day
which was dreadfully, annihilatingly hot. The brothers lay under the
trees with their books, for it was too hot for any active occupation.
The sister sat in the verandah and worked, or tried to work, for, in the
intense sultriness of that summer day, work was next to impossible. They
dined early, and after dinner they still sat out in the verandah,
enjoying the cool air which came with evening, and they watched the sun
set, and the moon rise over the belt of trees which separated the
grounds from the churchyard, seeing it mount the heavens till the whole
lawn was bathed in silver light, across which the long shadows from the
shrubbery fell as if embossed, so vivid and distinct were they.
“When they separated for the night, all retiring to their rooms on the
ground-floor (for, as I said, there was no upstairs in that house), the
sister felt that the heat was still so great that she could not sleep,
and having fastened her window, she did not close the shutters--in that
very quiet place it was not necessary--and, propped against the pillows,
she still watched the wonderful, the marvellous beauty of that summer
night. Gradually she became aware of two lights, two lights which
flickered in and out in the belt of trees which separated the lawn from
the churchyard, and as her gaze became fixed upon them, she saw them
emerge, fixed in a dark substance, a definite ghastly _something_, which
seemed every moment to become nearer, increasing in size and substance
as it approached. Every now and then it was lost for a moment in the
long shadows which stretched across the lawn from the trees, and then it
emerged larger than ever, and still coming on--on. As she watched it,
the most uncontrollable horror seized her. She longed to get away, but
the door was close to the window and the door was locked on the inside,
and while she was unlocking it, she must be for an instant nearer to
_it_. She longed to scream, but her voice seemed paralysed, her tongue
glued to the roof of her mouth.
“Suddenly, she never could explain why afterwards, the terrible object
seemed to turn to one side, seemed to be going round the house, not to
be coming to her at all, and immediately she jumped out of bed and
rushed to the door, but as she was unlocking it, she heard scratch,
scratch, scratch upon the window, and saw a hideous brown face with
flaming eyes glaring in at her. She rushed back to the bed, but the
creature continued to scratch, scratch, scratch upon the window. She
felt a sort of mental comfort in the knowledge that the window was
securely fastened on the inside. Suddenly the scratching sound ceased,
and a kind of pecking sound took its place. Then, in her agony, she
became aware that the creature was unpicking the lead! The noise
continued, and a diamond pane of glass fell into the room. Then a long
bony finger of the creature came in and turned the handle of the window,
and the window opened, and the creature came in; and it came across the
room, and her terror was so great that she could not scream, and it came
up to the bed, and it twisted its long, bony fingers into her hair, and
it dragged her head over the side of the bed, and--it bit her violently
in the throat.
“As it bit her, her voice was released, and she screamed with all her
might and main. Her brothers rushed out of their rooms, but the door was
locked on the inside. A moment was lost while they got a poker and broke
it open. Then the creature had already escaped through the window, and
the sister, bleeding violently from a wound in the throat, was lying
unconscious over the side of the bed. One brother pursued the creature,
which fled before him through the moonlight with gigantic strides, and
eventually seemed to disappear over the wall into the churchyard. Then
he rejoined his brother by the sister’s bedside. She was dreadfully hurt
and her wound was a very definite one, but she was of strong
disposition, not given either to romance or superstition, and when she
came to herself she said, ‘What has happened is most extraordinary and I
am very much hurt. It seems inexplicable, but of course there is an
explanation, and we must wait for it. It will turn out that a lunatic
has escaped from some asylum and found his way here.’ The wound healed
and she appeared to get well, but the doctor who was sent for to her
would not believe that she could bear so terrible a shock so easily, and
insisted that she must have change, mental and physical; so her
brothers took her to Switzerland.
“Being a sensible girl, when she went abroad, she threw herself at once
into the interests of the country she was in. She dried plants, she made
sketches, she went up mountains, and, as autumn came on, she was the
person who urged that they should return to Croglin Grange. ‘We have
taken it,’ she said, ‘for seven years, and we have only been there one;
and we shall always find it difficult to let a house which is only one
story high, so we had better return there; lunatics do not escape every
day.’ As she urged it, her brothers wished nothing better, and the
family returned to Cumberland. From there being no upstairs in the
house, it was impossible to make any great change in their arrangements.
The sister occupied the same room, but it is unnecessary to say she
always closed her shutters, which, however, as in many old houses,
always left one top pane of the window uncovered. The brothers moved,
and occupied a room together exactly opposite that of their sister, and
they always kept loaded pistols in their room.
“The winter passed most peacefully and happily. In the following March
the sister was suddenly awakened by a sound she remembered only too
well--scratch, scratch, scratch upon the window, and looking up, she
saw, climbed up to the topmost pane of the window, the same hideous
brown shrivelled face, with glaring eyes, looking in at her. This time
she screamed as loud as she could. Her brothers rushed out of their room
with pistols, and out of the front door. The creature was already
scudding away across the lawn. One of the brothers fired and hit it in
the leg, but still with the other leg it continued to make way,
scrambled over the wall into the churchyard, and seemed to disappear
into a vault which belonged to a family long extinct.
“The next day the brothers summoned all the tenants of Croglin Grange,
and in their presence the vault was opened. A horrible scene revealed
itself. The vault was full of coffins; they had been broken open, and
their contents, horribly mangled and distorted, were scattered over the
floor. One coffin alone remained intact. Of that the lid had been
lifted, but still lay loose upon the coffin. They raised it, and there,
brown, withered, shrivelled, mummified, but quite entire, was the same
hideous figure which had looked in at the windows of Croglin Grange,
with the marks of a recent pistol-shot in the leg; and they did--the
only thing that can lay a vampire--they burnt it.”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Highcliffe, June 30, 1874._--It is delightful to be here again. I came
on Friday with Everard Primrose,[99] a friend who always especially
interests me, in spite of the intense melancholy which always makes him
say that he longs for an early death.
“This place, so spiritually near the gates of heaven, is a great
rest--quite a halt in life--after London, which, though I thought it
filled with all great and beautiful things, packs in too much, so that
one loses breath mentally. Here all is still, and the touching past and
earnestly hopeful future lend a wonderful charm to the quiet life of the
present. ‘Les beaux jours sont là; on ne les voit pas, on les
sent.’[100]
“The dear lady of the castle is not looking well. I believe it is owing
to her conversion to Lady Jane Ellice’s teetotalism; but she says it is
not that. Lady Jane herself is a perpetual sunshine, which radiates on
all around her and is quite enchanting. Miss Lindsay is the only other
guest. In the evening Lady Jane sings and Miss Lindsay recites--most
wonderfully--out of Shakspeare, with great power and pathos.
“It has not been fine weather, but we have had delightful walks on the
sand, by the still sad-looking sea, with the Isle of Wight and its
Needles rising in the faint distance, or in the thick woods of
wind-blown ilex and arbutus. One day we went to ‘the Haven House,’ which
is a place that often comes back to my recollection--picturesquely,
gauntly standing on a tongue of land at the meeting of river and bay, at
the end of a weird pine-wood, where the gnarled roots of the trees all
writhe seawards out of the sand. Here groups of children were at play on
the little jetties of sea-weedy stones and timber, while a row of herons
were catching fish--solitarily--at great intervals, in the bay.
“Lady Mary Lambart came last night--a simple, self-composed girl, with a
pale face and golden hair. She lives exclusively with her aunt, Lady
Alicia Blackwood.
“Yesterday, in the ‘Lady Chapel’ of the great church at Christ-Church, I
suddenly came upon the tomb of Mary Morgan, who died in 1796. She was
companion to my great-aunt, the unhappy Countess of Strathmore, and this
monument was dedicated ‘to the most rare of all connections, a perfect
and disinterested friend, by the Countess of Strathmore, who, conscious
of the treasure, valued its possession and mourned its loss.... To her
heroic qualities, her cool deliberate courage, and her matchless
persevering friendship, the tears of blood shed by one who despises
weakness, the records of law and justice, and perhaps even the historic
page, will bear witness to an astonished and admiring posterity.’
[Illustration: THE GARDEN TERRACE, HIGHCLIFFE.][101]
[Illustration: THE HAVEN HOUSE.][102]
“On the whole, Christ-Church is dull inside: it is so vast, and chiefly
perpendicular. The old tombs are used as pedestals for modern monuments,
and the old gravestones, stripped of their brasses, have modern epitaphs
inserted between the ancient gothic inscriptions. Outside, the position
is beautiful, on a little height above the river, near which are some
old ruins, and which winds away to the sea through flat reedy
meadow-lands, still marked by sails of boats where its outline is lost
in distance.”
* * * * *
“_June 30._--Mrs. Hamilton Hamilton came last night. She was a daughter
of Sir G. Robinson. Her father’s aide-de-camp, Captain Campbell, a poor
man, wanted to marry her, and she was attached to him; but it was not
allowed, and they were separated. She was married to Mr. Hamilton
Hamilton, but Captain Campbell never ceased to think of her, and he was
ambitious for her sake, and became Sir Colin Campbell and Lord Clyde.
Afterwards, when she was free, it was thought he would marry her. He
sent her an Indian shawl, and he wrote to her, and he came to see her,
but he never proposed; and she waited and expected, and at last she
heard he had said, ‘No, it could not be; people would say it was
absurd.’ But it would not have been absurd at all, and she would have
liked it very much.
“One always feels here as if one did not half appreciate the perfection
of each day as it goes by. It needs time to recognise and realise the
warmth and colour which a noble mind, a true heart, and an ever
heaven-aspiring soul can throw into even the commonest things of life. I
often wonder how these walks, how these rooms with their old boisserie
would appear with another inhabitant; quite unimpressive perhaps--but
now they are simply illuminated. Beautiful pictures remain with one from
everything at Highcliffe, but most of all that of the noble figure,
seated in her high tapestried chair, painting at her little table by the
light of the green lamp, and behind her a great vase filled with
colossal branches of green chestnut, mingled with tall white lilies,
such as Gabriel bore before the Virgin. As Lady Jane sings, she is
roused to call for more songs, for ‘something pathetic, full of
passion--love cannot be passionate enough.’--‘What! another?’ says Lady
Jane. ‘Another, two nothers, three nothers: I cannot have enough.’
“‘In the perfect Christian, the principal virtues which produce an
upright life and beauty of form are fervent faith and the love of our
crucified Redeemer. As faith and love deepen, so external grace and
beauty increase, until they become able to convert the hearts of men....
The soul that is beloved of God becomes beautiful in proportion as it
receives more of the Divine grace.’ These words are from Savonarola’s
Sermons, and do they not apply to our Lady?
“Lady Caroline Charteris[103] came to luncheon--plain in features, but
in mind indescribably beautiful and interesting. She brought with her a
most touching letter she had received from Dr. Brown[104] after his
wife’s death. He spoke of the wells of salvation which men came to when
they were truly thirsty, otherwise most people either passed them
altogether, or stayed an instant, gazed into them admiringly, and still
passed on. With Lady Caroline came Mrs. David Ricardo in a beautiful
pink hat, like a Gainsborough in flesh and blood.”
* * * * *
“_July 1._--A delightful morning in the library, fitful sunlight
gleaming through the stained windows and upon the orange datura flowers
in the conservatory, Lady Waterford painting at her table, Lady Jane and
Miss Lindsay and Lady Mary Lambart[105] (a noble-looking girl like a
picture by Bronzino) working around. Lady Waterford talked of the odd
mistakes of words--how an old lady always said ‘facetious’ for
‘officious’--that when she came by the railway the porters had been so
very ‘facetious,’ &c. Miss Mary Boyle condoled with an old woman at the
Ashridge almshouses on the loss of her old husband. ‘Oh, yes, ma’am,
it’s a great loss; but still, ma’am, I’m quite happy, for I know that
he’s gone to Beelzebub’s bosom.’--‘I think you must mean
Abraham.’--‘Well, yes, ma’am, since you mention it, I think that _was_
the gentleman’s name.’
[Illustration: THE LIBRARY, HIGHCLIFFE.][106]
“In the afternoon we had a delightful walk to Hoborne, across a common
on which a very rare kind of ophrys grows. Lady Waterford talked of a
visit she had had at Ford from Mr. Wayte, the new Rector of Norham, who
told her that a few nights before, his curate, Mr. Simon, had been
obliged to go to fetch some papers out of the vestry at night. When he
opened the church door, the moonlight was streaming in at the west
window, and the middle of the nave was in bright light, but the side
aisles were dark. He walked briskly down the middle of the church to the
vestry, and, as he went, was aware that a figure dressed in white was
sitting motionless in the corner of one of the pews in the aisle. He did
not stay, but went into the vestry to get his papers, and, as he
returned, he saw that the figure was still in the same place. Much
agitated, he did not go up to it, but hurried home, and waited for
daylight, when he returned at once to the church. The figure was still
there, and did not move as he approached. When he uncovered its face, he
saw that it was a dead body. The body had been found in the Tweed the
day before, and the finders had not known what to do with it, so they
had wrapped it in a sheet, and set it up in the church.”
* * * * *
“_July 3._--We drove to Ashley Clinton--a charming place. Lady Waterford
talked of the origin of words--of weeds as applied to dress. Mrs.
Hamilton said how the Queen of the Sandwich Islands always spoke of
flowers as weeds. ‘What pretty weeds there are in the cottage gardens.’
[Illustration: THE FOUNTAIN, HIGHCLIFFE.][107]
“Lady Waterford spoke of the picture of Miss Jane Warburton near her
bedroom door; how she was appointed maid of honour to Queen Caroline at
a time when maids of honour were rather fast, and how, at dinner, when
the maids proposed toasts, and one gave the Archbishop of Canterbury,
another the Dean of St. Paul’s, or some other old man, she alone had the
courage to give the smartest and handsomest man of the day, the Duke of
Argyll.[108] She was so laughed at by her companions that it made her
cry, and at the drawing-room somebody said to the Duke of Argyll, ‘That
is a young lady who has been crying for you,’ and told him the story. He
was much touched, but unfortunately he was married. Afterwards, however,
when his Duchess died, he married Miss Warburton, and, though she was
very ugly, he thought her absolute perfection. In the midst of the most
interesting conversation he would break off to ‘listen to his Jane;’ and
he had the most absolute faith in her, till once he discovered that she
had deceived him in something about a marriage for one of her daughters
with an Earl of Dalkeith, which was not quite straightforward; and it
broke his heart, and he died.”
* * * * *
“_July 5._--I came up to London with Lady Waterford on Friday, and as
usual I find what Carlyle calls ‘the immeasurable, soul-confusing uproar
of a London life’ rather delightful than otherwise. To-day I have been
with Mary Lefevre to Marylebone, to hear Mr. Haweis[109] preach. He is
like a Dominican preacher in Italy, begins without a text, acts,
crouches, springs, walks about in the pulpit--which is fortunately large
enough, and every now and then spreads out vast black wings like a bat,
and looks as if he was about to descend upon his appalled congregation.
Part of his sermon was very solemn, but in part preacher and audience
alike giggled. ‘He was converted last Sunday week: he was converted
exactly at half-past four P.M., but since then they say that he has been
seen at a theatre, at a ball, and at a racecourse, and that therefore
his conversion is doubtful. Now you know my opinion is that none of
these things are wrong in themselves. The question is not what the
places are, but with what purpose and in what spirit people go to them.
Our Saviour would not have thought it wrong to go to any of these
places. John the Baptist certainly acted altogether on a lower level and
went out as an ascetic into the wilderness. But our Saviour was both
charitable and large-hearted. When _He_ was asked to a feast, he went.
He never sacrificed Himself unnecessarily, and so the ‘religious people’
of that day abused him for eating with publicans and sinners. It is just
what ‘religious people,’ the Pharisees of our own day, say now.... Oh,
let us leave these perpetual judgments of others.’
“I went afterwards to luncheon at Lady Castletown’s; she was not come in
from church, but I went up into the drawing-room. A good-looking very
smart young lady was sitting there, with her back to the window,
evidently waiting also. After a pause, I made some stupid remark to her
about heat or cold, &c. She looked at me, and said, ‘That is a very
commonplace remark. I’ll make a remark. If a woman does not marry, she
is nobody at all, nothing at all in the world; but if a man ever marries
at all, he is an absolute fool.’ I said, ‘I know who you are; no one but
Miss Rhoda Broughton would have said that.’ And it was she.
“Mr. Browning came and sat on the other side of her at luncheon. She
said something of novels without love: I said something of black dose as
a cure for love. Mr. Browning said that Aristophanes spoke of ‘the
black-dose-loving Egyptians.’ Miss Broughton said, ‘How do you know the
word means black dose?’--‘Because there is a similar passage in
Herodotus which throws light upon the subject, with details on which it
would not be delicate to dwell.’”
* * * * *
“_July 6._--Dined with Madame du Quaire, meeting Mr. and Mrs. Wigan and
Mr. and Mrs. Preston. Mrs. Wigan talked of children’s odd sayings: of
one who, being told that God could see everywhere, asked if He could see
the top of His own head; of another, at a school-feast, who being asked
to have another bun, said, ‘Oh no, want to go home.’--‘Nonsense! have
another bun.’--‘No, want to go home;’ upon which the giver of the feast
took him up, and the child exclaimed, ‘Oh don’t, don’t _bend_ me.’”
* * * * *
“_July 8._--A drawing-party at Lambeth. Madeleine Lefevre and I went
afterwards to show our drawings to Mrs. Tait, and had luncheon in the
large cool pleasant rooms. In the afternoon I went with the Lefevres to
the camp at Wimbledon. It is an immense enclosure, with streets of
tents, lines of flags. In front of the officers’ tents are masses of
flowers in pots sunk in a substratum of tan, as by law the turf may not
be broken. Lady Ducie’s tent, whither we went, was most luxurious. We
went on afterwards to Lady Leven’s garden, which was a beautiful sight,
with brilliant groups of people. At the end, children were watching the
manœuvres of some cats, who sat quiet with garlands of mice and birds
upon their heads.”
“_July 10._--Drew in the Tower of London, and dined at Lord Castletown’s
to meet Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey Pearse (she Mario’s daughter), Madame du
Quaire, and the truly extraordinary M. Vivier.
[Illustration: GATEWAY, LAMBETH PALACE.][110]
“He talked incessantly, but expected what Lady Castletown called ‘a
gallery,’ and perfect silence and attention. ‘Je suis intéressant, moi!
La petite de C. elle n’a rien: elle chante, elle fait les oiseaux, voilà
tout. Pour entendre les oiseaux, vous ferez mieux d’aller dans vos
squares: vous les entendrez, et vous payerez rien. Mais la petite de C.
elle est moralement malsaine: moi je ne le suis pas, et je
suis--intéressant.’
“He was so surprised at the number of servants: ‘And does all _that_
sleep in the house?’ he said.
[Illustration: THE BLOODY GATE, TOWER OF LONDON.][111]
“In the evening he sang ‘Nellie,’ and his ‘Drame’--of a blind Spanish
musician with a violin, watching windows for money, a perfect passion of
avarice and expectation.”
* * * * *
“_July 11._--Luncheon with Lady Morley, meeting Miss Flora Macdonald,
who has still a reminiscence of the great beauty which brought such a
surprise to the old Duchess of Gloucester when she asked Victor Emmanuel
what he admired most in England, and he answered so promptly, ‘Miss
Flora Macdonald.’ Lady Katherine Parker described--‘because, alas! it
was discovered that we date just a little farther back than the
Leicesters,’ having to sit near ----, the most airified man in London.
She was congratulated afterwards upon his having condescended to speak
to her, but said he wouldn’t, only his neighbour on the other side was
even more insignificant than herself, and to her he did not speak at
all. He said, apropos of a dinner at Dorchester House, ‘Pray who _are_
these Holfords?’--‘Oh,’ said Lady Katherine, ‘I believe they are people
who have got a little shake-down somewhere in Park Lane.’
“I was at the ‘shake-down’ in the evening--something quite beautiful.
The staircase is that of an old Genoese palace, and was one blaze of
colour, and the broad landings behind the alabaster balustrades were
filled with people, sitting or leaning over, as in old Venetian
pictures. The dress of the time entirely lends itself to these effects.
I sat in one of the arcades with Lady Sarah Lindsay and her daughters,
then with Lady Carnarvon. We watched the amusing contrasts of the people
coming upstairs--the shrinking of some, the _dégagée_ manner of others,
the dignity of a very few--in this, no one to be compared with Princess
Mary. The Prince and Princess of Wales were close by (he very merry,
talking with much action, like a foreigner), also the Prince and
Princess of Prussia. Lady Somers looked glorious in a black dress
thickly sprinkled with green beetles’ wings and a head-dress of the
same.
“With Lady Carnarvon I had a long talk, and could not help feeling how
truly one might apply to her Edgar Poe’s lines:--
“Thou would’st be loved, oh! then thy heart
From its present pathway part not:
Being everything that now thou art,
Be nothing that thou art not.
So, with the world, thy winning ways,
Thy grace, thy more than beauty,
Shall be the theme of endless praise,
And love, and simple duty.”
* * * * *
“_July 12._--Yesterday there was a great party at Hatfield. I drove with
the Woods to King’s Cross for the special train at 4 P.M., but was
separated from them at the station, and joined Lady Darnley and Raglan
Somerset. A tremendous storm was brewing over London, but we left it
behind at first. Quantities of carriages from the house were in waiting
at the Hatfield station. The street was lined with wreaths and flowers,
and a succession of triumphal arches made the steep hill look like a
long flowery bower. In the park, the grand old limes were in full
blossom in front of the stately brick house. On the terrace on the other
side the mass of guests was assembling. I went off with Lady Braybrooke
to the labyrinth, then with Lady Darnley and the E. de Bunsens over the
house. The storm now broke with tremendous lightning and loud peals of
thunder, and in the Golden Gallery it was almost dark. Just as it began,
the royal party drove up, the Prince and Princess of Wales, Prince and
Princess of Prussia, Prince Arthur, the Tecks, the Duchess of
Manchester, and a great quantity of suite--a very pretty procession,
vehemently cheered by the people. When the storm cleared, we went out
upon the terraces; the royal party went to the labyrinth. As it
returned, I was standing with the Leghs of Lyme at the head of the
steps, when Prince Arthur came up to me, was very cordial, and talked
for some time about Rome, &c. I asked him if the Queen drew still. ‘Oh,
yes,’ he said, ‘she is quite devoted to it: and I am very fond of it
too, but then _I_ have so little time.’
“Owing to the rain, the dinner for eight hundred had to be moved into
the Armoury. The royal guests and a few others dined in the Marble Hall;
the Princess of Prussia was forgotten as they were going in, and had to
be hunted for. We all dined at little tables; I was at one with Mrs.
Stuart Wortley, Mrs. W. Lowther, and Lord Sydney. Afterwards the
terraces and house were beautifully illuminated with coloured lights, in
which, through what looked like a sea of fire and blood, the cascades of
white roses frothed up. Every one walked out. The royalties seemed to
spring up everywhere; one was always running against them by mistake.
There was a pretty procession as they went away, and immediately
afterwards I returned with Miss Thackeray, her sister, and the Master of
Napier.
“An excursion of this kind from London is delightful. _C’est
l’entr’acte!_”
[Illustration: COMPIÈGNE.][112]
* * * * *
“_July 13._--Yesterday (Sunday) I had luncheon with Lady Castletown;
young Mr. Astley was there, and Miss Trollope. Lady Castletown talked
of Vivier, of the marvellous versatility of his genius, of his absolute
refusal to go any way but his own; that except for love he never sang a
single song under three thousand francs; that when he gave a concert at
Nice he asked ‘cent francs chaque,’ and the rooms were crowded; that at
Compiègne he did some things, but he only allowed three persons to be
present--the Emperor and two others. He excluded the Empress, because,
in his Spanish scene, she had dared, Spanish-wise, to throw a bracelet
into his hat, which so offended him that he told the Emperor he should
never let her see him again. The Emperor quite delighted in him, and
could not bear him to go away. He persuaded Vivier to go with him to
Vichy, and there some of the great men of the court called to him from a
window, as he was walking in the garden, and begged him to come to them.
He was furious, and complained to the Emperor. ‘Sire, ce n’est pas comme
cela qu’il faut appeler Vivier.’ On one occasion he stopped and threw up
his whole comedy in the middle before a large audience because Lord
Houghton sneezed. It was therefore necessary carefully to select his
audience, otherwise he might take offence and never return. He has
discovered powers in a French horn which no one had any idea of before,
and he can sit close by you and play it with a degree of delicacy which
perfectly transports you--the most sublime philosophy of music.
[Illustration: HOLLAND HOUSE.][114]
“We went afterwards to Holland House. I sat in the carriage at first
under the shadow of the grand old red pile, but Lady Holland sent Mr.
Hayward out to fetch me in, which he did with a bad grace.[113] Lady
Holland is a very little woman, simply dressed, with a white cap. She
has sparkling eyes, which give her face a wonderful animation; which is
almost beauty in itself, and which, in the setting of that house and its
historic memories, makes her quite a person to remember. Mrs. Locke was
there, and Lord Tankerville, whom I was very glad to see again.
Outside, on a comfortable bench, we sat some time with the old Duc de
Richelieu. Mrs. Wingfield and I wandered about in the gardens, which
were glorious!--such blazes of flowers between the trees, such splashing
fountains, such armies of scarlet lilies looking over the clipped yew
hedges; and the house itself so rich in colour and in shadow. Then there
is a glade--a grass walk of immense length, completely shut in by trees
and forest-like tangle, so that you might think yourself in the deep
recesses of Sherwood instead of close to London.
“Everard Primrose called to us out of a window, and we went up to him in
the old library. He was in a melancholy mood, and would not come down
with us; but Mrs. Wingfield went back to him alone, and, with that
wonderful sympathy which is natural to her, she soon tamed him, and he
came to us and was as pleasant as possible.
“The picture of Marie, Princess Lichtenstein, hung, pale and sad,
looking down on us from a corner, and seemed to say, ‘Hence I am now
banished; even my portrait is put away.’”
* * * * *
“_July 14._--Dined at Lady Carnarvon’s to meet Lord Stanhope. Only the
two mothers of the house, Lady Chesterfield and Lady Carnarvon--a
charming good-humoured old lady, and a Mr. Townshend were there. Lord
Carnarvon talked much of the interests of regular work and the
unutterable weariness of interruptions. Lord Stanhope was very agreeable
at dinner, but fell asleep afterwards. The younger Lady Carnarvon, with
her hair sprinkled with diamonds, looked unspeakably lovely.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS WRIGHT.
[Illustration: HOLMHURST, THE ROCK WALK.]
“_Holmhurst, July 19, 1874._--I know half my friends wonder how I can
like the change from the intellectual interests and luxurious life of
London to the society of the bumble-bees and butterflies in this little
hermitage; but I am sure the absolute quietude is very good for one, and
I rush into my work at once, and get through no end of it. I came away
from London, however, rather pining to stay for the party at Holland
House, because I thought it was a duty to Lea and Miss Leycester, and I
experienced the bathos, which so often comes when one is rather
conceited about a little piece of self-sacrifice, of finding they would
both much rather I had gone to the party, that they might have heard all
about it!
“Miss Leycester is very cheerful, and greatly enjoys her summer retreat
here--sitting out amid the scent of the lime-flowers: being wheeled
about in her chair amongst the baskets of geraniums: having tea upon the
terrace, &c. Another sweet old lady cousin, Miss Tatton, who cannot walk
at all, is just arriving for a fortnight, and the Hospice is quite full
of dear feeble beings.
“As to the little troubles about which you ask me, I can only reply in
the words of Delatouche to George Sand, ‘Patientez avec le temps et
l’expérience, et soyez tranquille: ces deux tristes conseilleurs
viendront assez vite.’
“I shall be very anxious to hear about your German travels.... To me, if
one is not in a fever about going on, the lingering in the wonderful old
towns by the way, so full of a past deeply written still on their
remains, is far more interesting than that part of the tour which all
the world takes, and the little glimpses of people and life which one
gets in them give one far more to think about afterwards. Würtzburg and
Ratisbon I forbid you to pass unseen: they used to be reached, toiled
after with such labour and fatigue; and now, in these railway days, they
are generally--_passed_.”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
_“July 29._--I have been in London again for two days. On Tuesday Sir
Howard Elphinstone, the Lefevres, and I went to Holland House, where
Lady Castletown and Mrs. Wingfield joined us. We drew in the Arcade, and
then Miss Coventry came out in her Spanish hat and called us in to Lady
Holland. She was in the west room, sitting in the wide window, and, like
a queen, she sat on, moving for nobody. She was, however, very kind, and
pleased with our drawings. She talked of the royal ball, and said that
the two little Princes were so delighted with Puss in Boots that they
pulled his tail incessantly, till at last Puss said, ‘Remember I have
got teeth and claws as well as a tail,’ and then they were frightened
and left off.
[Illustration: HOLLAND HOUSE (GENERAL VIEW).][115]
“Wednesday was Victoria Liddell’s wedding-day.[116] All Fulham turned
out, and Walham Green was a succession of triumphal arches, garlands,
and mottoes. I went with Victor Williamson, and they mistook us for the
bridegroom and best man. They told us to go up and wait near the altar,
and the Wedding March struck up, but stopped abruptly as we went into a
pew.”
* * * * *
“_July 30._--Yesterday I dined at Lord Castletown’s, and met, as usual,
an interesting party. Lord Castletown[117] talked of his youth at
Holland House, when he was brought up there as the ward of Lord Holland.
‘Lord H. was most indulgent, and was always finding amusements for me.
One day, two days before the end of the Eton holidays, he asked me to go
somewhere. “No, sir,” I said, “I cannot do that, because I have got my
holiday task to finish.”--“And what is your task?” said Lord Holland.
“Latin verses on St. Paul preaching at Athens, seventy lines.”--” Oh,
what a grand subject,” said Lord Holland; “leave it for me. I will do
your task for you, and do you go out and amuse yourself.” And he did it
all but four lines, and then some important business called him away,
and he gave them back to me, saying I must finish them as well as I
could. It was a most grand set of verses, and when I gave them up to
Keats, he would read them aloud before the whole school. In the middle
he said, “Who wrote these, sir?”--“I, sir.”--“You lie, sir,” said Keats.
At last he came to the last four lines. “You wrote these, sir,” he said.
I heard no more of it, but I never got back my copy of verses.
“‘Once I escaped from Eton, and Lord Holland caught me--found me in the
streets of London. He made me get into his carriage at once, and told
the man to drive to the White Horse Cellar, whence the coach started for
Eton. Unfortunately for me, there was one starting at once, and he made
me get in. I remonstrated, saying that I had not got my things. “They
shall be sent after you,” he said. “But I shall be flogged,
sir.”--“Serve you right, too; I hope you will be flogged,” he said. I
looked very piteous, and as I got into the coach he said, “Well,
good-bye, John; I hope you’ll be flogged,” and he shook hands with me,
and in my hand I found a five-pound note. He was always doing those kind
things.
“‘At Holland House I saw everybody most worth seeing in Europe. All that
was best flowed in to Lord Holland, and he was equally hospitable to
all. The Whigs, not only of England, but of all the world, came to him.’
“Lady Castletown told a story of a Russian Princess who had a very
hideous maid. One morning her maid came to her looking very much
agitated--perfectly _défaite_. The Princess asked her what was the
matter, when she said, ‘Oh, I have had the most extraordinary night. As
I was going to bed, I saw a man’s foot under the bed. I was going to
ring the bell when he stopped me by saying, “Oh, don’t ring; I have been
brought into this predicament by my hopeless passion for you. I felt
that there was no other chance of seeing you, so I ran this risk.”
Seeing that he was serious, and never having had a proposal before, I
could not but talk to him; and we talked all night, and now it is all
settled, and we are to be married.’--‘Well,’ said the Princess, ‘that is
very strange; and now I am going to court, so where are my
diamonds?’--‘Oh, of course where they always are,’ said the maid; but,
when she looked, they were gone: the lover had taken them. ‘Of course
that is what he came for,’ said the Princess; ‘do you think he would
have come for _you_?’ And the diamonds were never recovered.”
[Illustration: HOLLAND HOUSE (THE LILY GARDEN).][118]
* * * * *
“_August 8._--Came to Chevening. The house strikes one by its
overwhelming impression of sadness. The sunshine is all blotted out
since last year by the death of its beloved mistress last winter;[119]
but I am glad I came, as it gives pleasure, and I am glad I was asked so
soon, as it shows their liking to have me. Walking with Lady Mahon[120]
between the same beds of tall flowers amongst which I walked with Lady
Stanhope last year, she spoke of her very touchingly, how, though there
might be many pleasures and interests left in life, there was always the
feeling that there never could be what _had_ been--the warm interest in
others, the cheerful sunny nature which radiated on all it came in
contact with. The illness was very sudden, and little alarm felt till
just the end. Her last words to her poor broken-hearted husband were,
‘Do not fret, love; I shall soon be quite well now.’ Lady Mahon said
that Lord Stanhope’s heroic determination to bear up for all their sakes
enabled them to follow his example.”
* * * * *
“_August 10, Sunday._--This afternoon I drove with Lord Stanhope in the
long grassy glades of the park, the highest and prettiest of which gave
a name to the place--Chevening, ‘the Nook in the Hill.’ We drove
afterwards from one fine young Wellingtonia which he had planted to
another, examining them all, and came back by the Spottiswoodes’. It is
a fine old place, intended as an imitation of the Villa Doria at Rome,
and though in nowise like Villa Doria, it has a look of Italy in its
groves of ilexes and its cypresses. Lady Frederick Campbell[121] lived
here. Her first husband was the Lord Ferrers who was hanged, and some
evidence which she gave was instrumental in bringing about his
condemnation. Lord Ferrers cursed her, saying that her death would be
even more painful than his; and so in fact it was, for in 1807 she was
burnt in one of the towers of the house, from spontaneous combustion it
is said. Nothing was found of her but her thumb, she was so completely
consumed, and ever since it is said that the ghost of Lady Frederick
Campbell wanders in the grounds at night, brandishing her thumbless
hand, and looking for her lost thumb. The place lends itself to this
from its wonderful green glades lined with cedars and guarded by huge
grey stone vases.
“Coomb Bank was afterwards bought by the Claytons, who spent all they
had in the purchase and had nothing left for keeping it up, so
eventually they sold it to Mr. Spottiswoode, the King’s Printer, to whom
the monopoly of printing Bibles and Prayer-books has been the source of
a large fortune. Mr. Spottiswoode himself is a most remarkable man, who,
for hours before his daily walk to the City, is occupied with the
highest mathematical speculations, and returns to spend his evenings in
studies of the most abstract nature. It is said that the present
generation is more indebted to him than to any other person for its
improved powers of analysis. He has made no important discoveries yet,
but he probably will make them, if he lives long enough. His character
seems to be a wonderful combination of profound knowledge and power and
profound humility.”
* * * * *
“_August 11._--A semi-wet day, spent chiefly in the library, which is
attached to the house by a corridor full of portraits. In the afternoon,
though it poured, we had a long drive on the Chart. The Spottiswoodes
dined, and Mrs. Spottiswoode sang very old music.”
* * * * *
“_August 12._--Came to Cobham. It has a beautiful approach across the
broken ground of a very wild park with grand old trees. In the hollow is
the old house, which is immense, of red brick with projecting oriels and
towers. Lady Darnley[122] received me in the library; she has an
unintentionally haughty manner, but when you are accustomed to her, you
find that she is charming--
‘Si sta placido e cheto,
Ma serba dell’ altiero nel mansueto;’[123]
and soon it seemed as if one had known her all one’s life. The children
came dropping in--two grown-up daughters, two little girls, Lord
Clifton, and two fine frank younger boys--Ivo and Arthur. There are many
guests.”
* * * * *
“_August 13._--A most pleasant morning sitting with Lady Darnley under
the fine old trees drawing the house, and seeing the rooms and the
pictures, which are mostly dull--chiefly nymphs and satyrs with very few
clothes on--two very fine Titians being the redeeming part of the
gallery. The pictures are wisely devoted to the public; they are too
uncomfortable to live with, and the Chatham people adore them.
[Illustration: COBHAM HALL.]
“I find this house, where no one is too clever, but every one is
pleasant nevertheless, a great rest after Chevening, where I always felt
struggling up to an intellectual level which I have no right to and
which I cannot attain. Apropos, the last morning Lord Stanhope talked
much of the origin of words, and said ‘Beldam’ came from ‘Belle dame’
used satirically.”
“_August 15._--Returned to Holmhurst. Mr. Thomas, the landscape
gardener, travelled with me. He spoke of an obnoxious American coming
into a great hotel at Liverpool and boasting of how much finer American
hotels were--‘a hundred times the size,’ &c. The man he addressed
listened quietly and then said, ‘But you have not yet seen our great
hotel at Southampton, sir; it is a mile long, will accommodate 5000
people, and all the waiters wait on horseback.’--‘I guess that’s a lie,
sir,’ said the American. ‘Yes, it is,’ replied the Englishman, ‘but then
I thought you were telling lies.’”
* * * * *
“_Sept. 28._--A very pleasant visit of two days to the Shaw-Lefevres.
They are certainly one of the happiest and most united of families. We
made a delightful excursion of sixteen miles to Sutton Court, where they
lived formerly. It must be very seldom that, after a lapse of ten years,
a father and mother can return to such a place in old age with their
family of the original seven unbroken, only many others added. Sutton,
the beautiful old house of the Westons, inlaid with terra-cotta, is just
the place for a story, with the closed wing where the ivy forces its way
through the walls and wreaths round the frames of the old family
portraits, which, rent and forlorn, flap in the gusts of wind whenever a
distant door opens. Then there is the still-used Roman Catholic chapel,
with its priest and its country congregation.”
* * * * *
“_Powderham Castle, Oct. 4._--A week here has been most delightful. I
had not felt certain how much I might like it, how much my dear friend
of old days might be changed by lapse of time and new relations. I can
only say that, if he is changed, it is in being more entirely and
perfectly delightful than ever, more indescribably thoughtful for
others, more filled with plans for the good of every one, and withal so
simple, so free from cant, that all else seems unchristian and mundane
by comparison. Lady Agnes is the one person I have seen who is quite
entirely worthy of him, and it does seem as if a reward of such
perfectly beautiful lives was given even in this life, that they should
have been thrown together.
“I arrived about half-past five. Powderham has a low park, rising into
high ground as it approaches the castle, which has a gateway and
courtyard. Here Charlie was walking about amongst orange-trees in large
boxes like those at the Tuileries. The bedrooms are dilapidated and
falling into decay: Lord Devon will not restore them, nor will he set
any of his estates free by selling the rest, but he goes on planting
quantities of Wellingtonias in his park and making expensive fences
round them. In himself he is charming, with a perfect and entirely
courteous manner. Colonel and Mrs. Heygarth have been here, he still
lame with shot in the leg from the battle of the Alma, where he was
wounded again while lying on the ground, having been noticed because he
tried to save Lord Chewton, who was lying near him, and whom a Russian
soldier was about to murder.
“With Charlie and Lady Agnes I have been completely at home and
perfectly happy. One day we went to the sands, and walked along them to
Dawlish. But yesterday was quite charming; I had much wished to go to
Lady Morley at Whiteway, and after luncheon we set off--Charlie, Lady
Agnes, and I. When the narrow lanes grew too steep for the
pony-carriage, we left it under a hedge, and putting a saddle on Jack
the pony, rode and walked by turns up the hill and across the wild heath
of the open moor: Charlie rode pick-a-back behind Lady Agnes. In the
woods we met Morley, greatly surprised to see us arrive thus. The others
were out, but Morley showed all the curiosities of the house, which were
many in a small way. Just as we were setting off, Lady Morley and Lady
Katherine returned, and, after many pro’s and con’s, we stayed to a most
amusing dinner, and only set off again at 10 P.M. with lanthorns in
pitch darkness. Morley and Lady Katherine walked with us the first three
miles over the wild moor with _their_ lanthorn, and then we dived down
into the eerie lanes closely overhung with green and fringed with ferns,
and most lovely were the effects as the lanthorn revealed one gleam of
glistening foliage after another out of the darkness. When we reached
home at 11 P.M., we found the servants alarmed and a horseman sent out
to search for us; and no wonder.
“I was ill all night from having eaten junket at Whiteway. Charlie says
this Devonshire dainty is so called from the Neapolitan
_joncetta_--cream on rushes. In Devon they pretend it is a relic of the
Roman invasion!
“We have just been to church at Kenton. An immense funeral party (from
last week) walked in, two and two, with great importance and occupied
three pews. They sat through the whole service, as if too overwhelmed
by their late grief to rise, and the women held handkerchiefs to their
faces, and rocked, and shook the crape bows upon their bonnets, while
waiting for the expected ‘funeral discourse.’ The people here are
delightfully primitive. The other day, at a dinner Lord Devon gave, a
man of the place rose to propose his health, and comprised all that
needed to be said in--‘I don’t know what Lord Devon du, but all I du
know is that if more would du as Lord Devon du du, there wouldn’t be so
many as would du as they du du.’
“The wife of a neighbouring clergyman was very seriously ill of a
strange and mysterious complaint. It was observed that her worst attacks
always came on after her husband had administered the Sacrament to her.
Mr. O., who was attending her, studied her case very much, and came to
the conclusion that, if the peculiar symptoms she exhibited came from
unnatural causes, they could only be produced by a single and very rare
drug. Forthwith he set himself to find out if there was any place in the
neighbourhood where that drug was sold, and at last he did find it. He
asked at the place if they had sold any of it. ‘Oh, yes; to the parson
at ----; he bought some yesterday.’ As Mr. O. was going home he met the
clergyman himself. He stopped him and said, ‘I have just found out that
yesterday you bought some drugs at M.: now if Mrs. X. is worse
to-morrow, I shall know what has caused it.’ That afternoon the
clergyman went down to the shore to bathe, and he never returned. He was
known to be a splendid swimmer, and he was seen to swim far, far out to
sea.
“To-night Lady Agnes talked of her grandmother, who, at sixteen, was
sent down to speak to the housekeeper at Audley End. The woman, who was
raving mad, shut the door and said, ‘Now you must say your prayers at
once, for I have a commission from heaven to kill you.’--‘Oh, you cannot
dare to do that,’ said the girl without hesitation, taking up a white
napkin which lay upon the table and giving it to her with an air of the
utmost conviction, ‘for here is a reprieve.’ And the woman gave in at
once.”
* * * * *
“_Anthony, Plymouth, Oct. 7._--On Monday I went to Exeter to my Aunt
FitzGerald,[124] who was greatly pleased to see me. Her house is
charming, full of relics, and, as she says, certainly ‘shows that she is
_somebody_.’ Over the dining-room chimney-piece hangs a magnificent
Mignet of the Duchess of Portsmouth. There are interesting pictures of
Lord Edward FitzGerald, and beautiful china given by Frederick the Great
to the Duchess of York, and by her to Pamela. Most of the drawing-room
furniture is from Malmaison.
“Yesterday I came here to Anthony (the Pole-Carews). It is a strange
drive from Plymouth, through endless courts, dockyards, &c., and then
crossing an arm of the sea by a ferry, which was very rough when I came,
and worse at night, when the family crossed to a ball; but, as Mr. Carew
says, it is very well to have the sea between him and such a population
as that of Plymouth.
“This house is perfectly charming--the old hall and its pictures, the
oak staircase, the warm tapestried sitting-room--all, as it were,
typical of the broad christian kindness and warm-hearted cordiality of
its inmates. It is a house in which no ill is ever spoken, and where
scandal sits dumb; where, with the utmost merriment, there is the most
sincere religious feeling, and yet an entire freedom from cant and what
is called ‘religious talking.’ There is here a mutual spirit of
forbearance, and an absence of all egotism and self-seeking, which is
more instructive than a thousand sermons; and it almost seems as if it
were arranged that what might be the asperities of any one member of the
family should be softened and smoothed out by the qualities of another.
Mrs. Carew is the picture of a warm-hearted, most loving English mother,
who enters into and shares all the interests, all the amusements, of her
children; and between the father and his sons there is none of the
shadow which so often exists, but the truest confidence and
friendship.”[125]
* * * * *
“_Oct. 11._--It is only by a long stay that one learns all that the
Carews really are--the perfect charm of this most united and beautiful
family life. Just now their goodness has been especially drawn out by
the parting of Captain Ernest Rice and his wife in this house, he going
to India for three years. The Carews especially _wished_ it to be here,
that they might soften it to both, and wonderfully have they helped
them through--cheering, enlivening, nerving, where it was possible, but
never intruding comfort when the natural burst of grief must come.
“It has been very pleasant seeing the different guests come and go. The
Dean of St. Paul’s and Mrs. Church have been here. He is an excellent
person, but very nervous and twitchy.[126] She has a repose of goodness
which sets you at rest with her, and imparts a confidence in her at
once.
“Sir John and Lady Duckworth were here for two days. His father was
military governor of Portsmouth. One day his mother was crossing the
green at Mount Wyse when the sentry stopped her. ‘Do you know who you
are speaking to?’ she said. ‘No, I don’t,’ he replied, ‘but I know you
are not the governor’s cow, and that is the only thing which has any
business here.’
“Lord Eliot[127] was also here. I found great grace in his sight, and
was most pressingly invited to Port Eliot. I went on Saturday. He met me
at the station, and I was almost walked off my feet for four hours,
being shown every picture in the house, every plant in the garden, and
every walk in the woods. There is a limit in what ought to be shown, and
Lord Eliot has never found it out.
“Still Port Eliot is a beautiful place. The house and the grand old
church of St. German’s Priory--chiefly Norman--stand close together, on
shaven green lawns, radiant with masses of flowers and backed by
luxuriant woods, amid which walks open here and there upon glimpses of
rock and terraces near one of the salt fiords which are so common in
this country.
“Lord St. Germans,[128] who is paralysed, is a beautiful and venerable
old figure, with white hair and beard, wheeling himself about in a
chair. Lord Eliot returned with me to Devonport, and introduced me to
the frightful sights of that most hideous place.
“Some of the pictures at Port Eliot are beautiful, the most so that of
Lady Cornwallis--so simple and stately in its lines. It is engraved, but
without the figure of a child, probably not born at that time, but
introduced afterwards in the picture.
“On Friday I had a charming drive with Mrs. Carew to ‘the Hut,’ through
the narrowest lanes imaginable. An old clergyman near this, Mr. Wood,
was driving there, who told things in a most slow and solemn manner. He
said, ‘Mrs. Wood was dreadfully frightened as we were driving, and said
we should be upset. I said, “ My dear, it is imposs”----“ible,” I could
not say, for we were over.’
“Last night (Sunday) the family sang hymns beautifully in the hall. ‘No
horrid Gregorians,’ said Miss Julia, ‘for the old monks only sang those
by way of penance, so why should we sing them?’”
* * * * *
“_Stone Hall, Plymouth, Oct. 13._--Another pleasant family home! I came
on Monday to the George Edgcumbes. I had known Mrs. Edgcumbe well
before at Rome, but had never seen her ‘dear old man,’ her ‘bird,’ &c.,
as she calls her kind old husband.[129] They do not dislike having
married their three daughters at all. It is less _embarras_ in their old
age, and they enjoy having a constantly open house full of kindly
hospitalities to their neighbours. Young Alwyn Greville has been here
twice since I came, and I like him increasingly. It is a charming old
house, close to the town, but its tall trees and disordered garden give
it a quaint look, which one would be sorry to see rectified. There is a
view across the still reaches of the harbour, with masses of timber
floating close by and great ships lying far off, nearer the beautiful
woods of Mount Edgcumbe. Close by are many delightful walks amongst the
rocks, and varied views. We went to ‘the Winter Villa,’ a luxurious
sun-palace with a great conservatory, backed by natural rock. The late
Lord Mount Edgcumbe lived here for many years, quite helpless from
rheumatic gout. It was his mother[130] who was buried alive and lived
for many years afterwards. It was known that she had been put into her
coffin with a very valuable ring upon her finger, and the sexton went in
after the funeral, when the coffin was put into the vault, to get it
off. He opened the coffin, but the ring was hard to move, and he had to
rub the dead finger up and down. This brought Lady Mount Edgcumbe to
life, and she sat up. The sexton fled, leaving the doors of the vault
and church open. Lady Mount Edgcumbe walked home in her shroud, and
appeared in front of the windows. Those within thought it was a ghost.
Then she walked in at the front door. When she saw her husband, she
fainted away in his arms. This gave her family time to decide what
should be done, and they settled to persuade her it had been a terrible
delirium. When she recovered from her faint, she was in her own bed, and
she ever believed it had been a dream.
“On Monday we went in the Admiral’s steam-pinnace to Cotehele; Mrs.
Wilson, Mrs. Freemantle, and Charlie Williamson with us. I sat outside
the little cabin, and it was charming--gliding up the quiet river past
the richly wooded banks. Up steep woods we walked to Cotehele, an
unaltered old house, with gate-tower, courtyard, chapel, armour-hung
hall, and dark tapestried bedrooms. Within the entrance are ever-fresh
stains like blood, which you can mop up with blotting paper. Sir Richard
Edgcumbe went out, bidding the porter, on peril of his life, to let no
one in without a password. To prove his obedience, he came back himself
and demanded entrance. The porter, recognising his master’s voice, let
him in, upon which Sir Richard cleft open his skull with his battle-axe
as he entered. The so-called blood forms a dark pool, and looks as if it
had been spilt yesterday. Some say it is really a fungus which only
grows where blood has been shed, and that the same existed on the site
of the scaffold on Tower Hill.
“In the wood of Cotehele is a little chapel standing on a rock above the
river. It was built by one of the Edgcumbes in the Wars of the Roses,
who, closely pursued, vowed it if he escaped in safety. In desperation
he threw his cap and coat into the river from hence, and concealed
himself in a hollow tree: his enemies thought he was drowned.”
* * * * *
“_Rockwood, Oct. 16._--I came from Plymouth here to the John Boyles’.
Mr. Boyle is failing rapidly, tenderly cared for by his son Edmund and
his daughter Mrs. Quin. The house is delightful and most comfortable. We
have been a charming drive by Babbicombe and Watcombe. At St. Mary
Church we saw the two great churches--Roman Catholic and High Church. In
the churchyard of the latter Bishop Phillpotts and his wife are buried
under simple crosses of grey Cornish granite. Watcombe is a curiously
tumbled valley, full of grassy knolls interrupted by red rocks.”
* * * * *
“_Abbots Kerswell, Oct. 26._--I have been very glad to see this
place--my cousin Marcus Hare’s home. We have been several excursions--to
Berry Pomeroy, an old castle too much overgrown by woods, named from the
Cotentin family of Pommeraye: to Sharpham, a pretty place on the Dart
with lovely grounds: and to Darlington, a fine old place of the
Champerownes. Two more days at Powderham have given another most happy
sight of Charlie and Lady Agnes. Quite a large party were there--the
Dowager Lady Fortescue and her pleasant Irish sister Miss Gale; Lord
Fortescue with his three daughters and a pleasant and very good-looking
midshipman son, Seymour; Sir Edward, Lady, and Miss Hulse, and Miss A.
Grosvenor, &c.
“Lord Fortescue[131] talked much of Mr. Beresford Hope, his oddities and
his wisdom--how at Oxford he puzzled all the Dons and frightened them
very considerably by his questions from the Fathers and obscure
Churchmen: how some friend of his, seeing in one of Mr. Hope’s books the
family motto, ‘At Spes non fracta,’ wrote beneath, ‘So Hope is not
cracked.’
“‘In these days of Homeopathy and Romanism,’ said Lord Fortescue, ‘one
never knows where one is. I never knew what peace or comfort was till I
took to leaving out the prefix to the word “vert.” Neither party can be
offended by your speaking of “a vert to Homeopathy” or “a vert to
Romanism.”’
“He talked much of different public men--of the accuracy of Disraeli’s
name for Mr. Cardwell--an inferior imitation of Peel--‘Peel and water:’
of Lord Russell, the ‘abruptness and deadness’ of most of his remarks,
and yet how some of them had passed into a proverb; for instance, his
definition of a proverb, ‘One man’s wit and every man’s wisdom:’ of
Peel’s personal shyness and his awkward way of walking up the House, on
which occasions O’Connor used to say, ‘Oh, there goes Peel with his two
left legs.’”
* * * * *
“_Ford Castle, Oct. 29._--I came here yesterday after a weary journey
from Devonshire to Northumberland. Only Lady Sarah Lindsay, her two
daughters, and Alick Yorke are here. This morning we had most
interesting visitors. Two women were seen coming in under the gateway,
one in a red cloak, the other carrying a bundle. It was Her Majesty
Queen Esther Faa and the Princess Ellin of the Gipsies!
“When she had had her breakfast, the Queen came up into the library. She
has a grand and beautiful old face, and she was full of natural
refinement and eloquence. She said how she would not change places with
any one, ‘not even with the Queen upon the throne,’ for ‘God was so good
to her;’ that she ‘loved to wander,’ and that she wanted nothing since
she ‘always drove her own pair,’ meaning her legs.
“She spoke very simply of her accession--that she was the last of the
Faas; that she succeeded her uncle King William; that before him came
her great-uncle, of whom we ‘must have read in history, Jocky Faa;’ that
as for her subjects, she ‘couldna allude to them,’ for they were such a
set that she kept herself clear of them; that she had had fourteen
children, but they were none of them Faas. She spoke of her daughter as
‘the Princess that I have left downstairs,’ but all she said was quite
simple and without any assumption. She sang to us a sort of paraphrase
of Old Testament history. Lady Waterford asked her if there was anything
she would like to have. She said she cared for nothing but rings--all
her family liked them; that her daughter, Princess Ellin, had wished to
have the ring Lady Waterford gave her when she last came to Ford, but
that she had told her she ‘never meant to take off her petticoats till
she went to bed;’ that next to rings, she liked ‘a good nate pair of
shoes,’ for she ‘didna like to gang confused about the feet.’
“When she went away she blessed us. She said to Alick, ‘You _are_ a
bonnie lad, and one can see that you belong to the Board of Health.’ She
said to me that she loved Lady Waterford, so that, ‘if it wouldna be too
bould,’ she should ‘like to take her in her arms and kiss her and cuddle
her to her old bosom.’”[132]
* * * * *
“_Oct. 30._--It has been very pleasant having Alick Yorke here. He is
most amusing. His impersonations are wonderful, and his singing very
good. Owing to his being here, Lady Waterford has talked much of her
childhood at Wimpole,[133] the delights of visits to the dairy, and
receiving great hunches of brown bread and little cups of cream there,
and how, with her ‘mind’s nose,’ she still smelt the smell of a
particular little cupboard near her nursery, &c.
“Yesterday we walked to Crookham, as Lady Waterford wished to visit a
man dying there of consumption. Lady Sarah Lindsay went in the
donkey-chair. She talked of Stichill, the old Pringle place on the other
side of the Tweed. It is now inhabited by a coal-master named Baird, who
has amassed an immense fortune, but retains all the old simplicity of
his character. He bought a quantity of books, from the idea of their
being proper furniture for the house, but when there was a discussion as
to whether they should be bound in Russia or Morocco, said, ‘Na, but I
will just ha’ them bound i’ Glasgow, my ain native place.’ In the
evening Lady Waterford sang to us--her voice like a silver clarion and
most touching--‘Far away, far away,’ till with the melting words dying
into such indescribable sweetness, one’s whole soul seemed borne
upwards.”
* * * * *
“_Oct. 31._--Lady Waterford said, ‘Now I must tell you a story.
Somers[134] came to Highcliffe this year. I like having Somers for a
cousin, he is always so kind and pleasant, and tells me so many things
that are interesting. I felt it particularly this year, for he was
suffering so much from a piece of the railroad that had got into his eye
and he was in great pain, but he was just as pleasant as ever. “Oh, love
has sore eyes,” he said, but he _would_ talk. The next day he insisted
on going off to Lymington to see Lord Warwick,[135] who was there, and
who had been ill; and it was an immense drive, and when he came back, he
did not come down, and Pattinson said, “Lord Somers is come back, but he
is suffering so much pain from his eye that he will not be able to have
any dinner.” So I went up to sit with him. He was suffering great pain,
and I wanted him not to talk, but he said, “Oh, no; I have got a story
quite on my mind, and I really must tell it you.” And he said that when
he got to Lymington, he found Lord Warwick ill in bed, and he said, “I
am so glad to see you, for I want to tell you such an odd thing that has
happened to me. Last night I was in bed and the room was quite dark
(this old-fashioned room of the inn at Lymington which you now see).
Suddenly at the foot of the bed there appeared a great light, and in
the midst of the light the figure of Death just as it is seen in the
Dance of Death and other old pictures--a ghastly skeleton with a scythe
and a dart: and Death balanced the dart, and it flew past me, just above
my shoulder, close to my head, and it seemed to go into the wall; and
then the light went out and the figure vanished. I was as wide awake
then as I am now, for I pinched myself hard to see, and I lay awake for
a long time, but at last I fell asleep. When my servant came to call me
in the morning, he had a very scared expression of face, and he said, ‘A
dreadful thing has happened in the night, and the whole household of the
inn is in the greatest confusion and grief, for the landlady’s daughter,
who slept in the next room, and the head of whose bed is against the
wall against which your head now rests, has been found dead in her
bed.’”[136]
* * * * *
“_Nov. 1, Sunday._--Lady Waterford has talked much of how few people in
the world each person has to whom their deaths would make a real void;
that she had scarcely any one--General Stuart perhaps, and Lady Jane;
that others would be sorry at the time, but that it would to them make
no blank; that somehow it would be pleasant to leave more of a void, but
that even with brothers and sisters it was seldom so. I spoke of her own
sister and of the great grief her death had been. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘a
great grief, but still it is wonderful how little we had been
together--scarcely three years, putting all the weeks together, out of
the fourteen years we had been married. Of all my relations, Mama is
certainly the greatest loss to me, we had been so much together
latterly, and were so much to each other.’
“Lady Waterford talked much of her mother’s life in Paris as
ambassadress, and of her own birth there at the Embassy. ‘I went many
years after with Mama to Spa, and there was a very agreeable old
gentleman there, to whom we talked at the _table-d’hôte_. He found out
that we knew Paris and the people there, and then he talked, not knowing
who we were, of the different ambassadresses. “Celle que j’ai preféré de
toutes les ambassadrices,” he said, “c’était Lady Granville.” He saw
somehow that he had not said quite the right thing, and next day he
wanted to make the _amende_, and he talked of the Embassy again before
all the people, of this room and that room, and then he said, “Est ce
que c’était dans cette chambre, Miladi, que vous êtes accouchée de
Miladi Waterford!” He was a M. de Langy, and was a very interesting
person. His family belonged to the _petite noblesse_, and at the time of
the flight to Varennes, after the royal family was captured, theirs was
one of the houses to which they were brought to rest and refresh on the
way,--for it was the custom then, when there were so few inns. M. de
Langy’s mother was a staunch royalist, and when she knew that the King
and Queen were coming, she prepared a beautiful little supper,
everything as nice as she could, and waited upon them herself. When they
were going away, the Queen, who had found it all most comfortable, said,
“Où est donc la maîtresse de la maison? j’ai ête si bien ici, je
voudrais la remercier avant de partir.” Madame de Langy, who was
waiting, said simply, “J’étais la maîtresse de la maison avant que votre
majesté y est entrée.”’
“We went to church at Etal in the afternoon. Both there and at Ford, it
being All Saints’ Day, the sermons were wholly in exaltation of the
saints, church services, and salvation by works. Lady Waterford was
pained by it: coming back she spoke of a simple rule of doctrine:--
‘Just before God by faith,
Just before men by works:
Just by the works of faith,
Just by the faith which works.’
In the evening she talked much of her first visit to Italy, her only
visit to Rome. ‘Char. was just married then, and I was just come out: we
went _pour un passe-temps_. We travelled in our own carriage, and the
floods had carried away the bridges, and it was very difficult to get
on. It was the year of the cholera, and we had to pass quarantine. My
father knew a great many of the people in authority, and we hoped to get
leave to pass it in one of the larger towns. Mantua was decided upon,
but was eventually given up because of the unhealthiness, and we had to
pass ten days at Rovigo. We arrived at last at Bologna. The people were
greatly astonished at the inn when we asked if the Cardinal Legate was
at home: it was as if we had asked for the Pope: and they were more
astonished still the next day when he came to call upon us. We went to a
party at his palace. He was Cardinal Macchi. I shall never forget
that party or the very odd people we met--I see them now. The Cardinal
was in despair because the theatres were closed--“Je vous aurais preté
ma loge, et je vous aurais donné _des glaces_!” The next day Rossini
came to see us--“Je suis un volcan éteint,” he said. Afterwards we went
to Rome and stayed four months there. I liked the society part best--the
balls at the Borgheses’ and those at the Austrian Embassy: they were
great fun.’
[Illustration: THE SECRET STAIR, FORD.][137]
[Illustration: _Louisa, Marchioness of Waterford_]
“On Saturday we went to Norham--the Lindsays and I. Even coming from
Devonshire, the interest of this country strikes one excessively. It is
bare, it is even ugly, but it is strangely interesting. There is such
breadth and space in the long lines and sweeping distances, amidst which
an occasional peel-tower stands like a milestone of history, and there
is such a character in the strange, jagged, wind-tossed, storm-stricken
trees. But it became really beautiful when we descended into the lovely
valley of the Tweed with all its radiant autumnal tints, and sat under
the grand mass of ruin, with great flights of birds ever circling round
it and crying in the still air.”
* * * * *
“_Nov. 4._--Yesterday we went quite a round of visits, seeing different
phases of Border family life. We lunched at the Hirsel (Lord Home’s)--a
great Scotchy-looking house in a rather featureless park. There were two
tables and an immense party at luncheon--Mr. and Lady Gertrude Rolle,
Lord Romney, and others. I did not think it an interesting place, though
it contains a fine portrait of Sir Walter Scott by Raeburn; but Lady
Waterford delighted in the happy family life, and says whenever she sees
Lord Home she is reminded of the Frenchman who said, ‘Oh, mon Dieu!
pourquoi est ce qu’il n’est pas mon père?’
“We went next to Sir John Marjoribanks of Lees. He was just come in from
hunting, and his wife was fishing in the Tweed. We went to her there:
she was standing up at the end of a boat which a man was rowing, and
the whole picture was reflected in a river so smooth that it looked as
if they were floating on a mirror.
[Illustration: NORHAM-ON-TWEED.][138]
“Then we went to the Baillie Hamiltons at Lenels, another and prettier
place on the Tweed near Coldstream Bridge. The house contained much that
was interesting, especially two enormous Chelsea vases representing
‘Air’ and ‘Water.’ Mrs. Baillie Hamilton was a daughter of Lord
Polwarth--very pleasing, and her sister came in with the most perfect
manners of good-breeding, &c. Then we went to the Askews.
“Lady Waterford stopped to take our luncheon--prepared but not eaten--to
a poor man in a consumption. She beguiled the way by describing her
visit to Windsor, and the Queen showing her the Mausoleum.
“She talked also of the passion for jewels: that she could understand it
in the case of such persons as Madame Mère, who, when remonstrated with
on buying so many diamonds, said, ‘J’accumule, j’accumule,’ for it had
been very useful to her. Apropos of not despising dress, she gave me the
quotation from Pope’s Homer’s Odyssey[139]--
‘A dignity of dress adorns the great,
And kings draw lustre from the robe of state.’
“Last Monday, having a great deal of natural talent for singing,
reciting, &c., in the castle, Lady Waterford would not keep it to
herself, and asked all the village people to the school, and took her
guests there to sing, &c., to them. At the end, just before ‘God save
the Queen,’ she was surprised by Miss Lindsay’s ode:--
‘All hail to thee, sweet lady, all hail to thee this night,
Of all things bright and beautiful, most beautiful, most bright;
Thou art a welcome guest alike in cottage and in hall,
With a kindly word and look and smile for each one and for all.
May every blessing life can give be thine from day to day,
May health, and peace, and happiness for ever strew thy way;
May the light thou shedd’st on others be reflected on thy brow,
May a grateful people’s love and pride like a stream around thee flow,
And all our prayers unite in one upon this festive e’en,
That long thou may’st be spared to Ford, to reign its Border queen.’”
* * * * *
“_Nov. 7._--Lord and Lady Warwick have been here for some days. She is
so simple and genial, that the Italian word _simpatica_ is the only one
to describe her.[140]
“Yesterday, Lady Waterford, Miss Lindsay, and I had a delightful long
walk across the moor and through charming relics of forest. It was a
succession of pictures--long extents of moss backed by ferny hills,
downy uplands breaking into red rocks, lighted here and there by the
white stem of an old birch-tree, and overlooking the softest expanses of
faint blue distance. We found several curious fungi. Lady Waterford said
that at Balmoral the Duchess of Edinburgh shocked the royal household by
eating almost all she found. They thought she would be poisoned; but in
Russia they are accustomed to eat fungi, and they make little patties of
them which they eat in Lent when meat is forbidden--‘and they taste so
like meat that there is almost the pleasure of doing something which is
not quite right.’
“The objects of the walk were two. One was the fall of the Rowling Lynn
in a chaos of red and grey rocks overhung by old birch-trees, a spot
which seems photographed in Coleridge’s lines--
‘Beneath yon birch with silver bark
And boughs so pendulous and fair,
The brook falls scattered down the rock,
And all is mossy there.’
The other was the sacrificial stone covered with the mysterious rings
which have given rise to boundless discussion among Northumbrian
archæologists. When we reached home, we found the Bloomfields
arrived.[141] In the evening Lady Bloomfield told a curious story.
“‘I was very intimate at Vienna with the Princess Reuss, whose first
husband was Prince of Anhalt. She was a niece of Queen Teresa of
Bavaria. She told me that her aunt was at Aschaffenberg with the
intention of going next day to Munich. In the evening the
lady-in-waiting came in and asked the Queen if she was intending to give
an audience. The Queen said, “Certainly not,” and that “she could not
see any one.” The lady then said that there was a lady sitting in the
ante-chamber who would not go away. Queen Teresa then desired her
brother to go out and find out who it was. He came back much agitated,
and said it was _sehr unheimlich_ (very uncanny), for it was the Black
Lady, and that when he came up to her she disappeared; for the Bavarian
royal family have a Black Lady who appears to them before a death, just
as the White Lady appears to the Prussian royal family. The next day the
Queen left Aschaffenberg, but being a very kind-hearted woman, she sent
back her secretary to fetch some petitions which had been presented, but
which she had not attended to, and when the secretary came into her
room, he found the Black Lady standing by the table where the papers
were, but she vanished on his approach. That night, when the old
castellan of Aschaffenberg and his wife were in bed, the great bell of
the castle began to toll, and they remembered that it could toll by no
human agency, as they had the key of the bell-tower.
“At that moment Queen Teresa died at Munich. She arrived at three: at
five she was seized with cholera: at eleven she was dead.’”
[Illustration: THE KING’S ROOM, FORD.][142]
“_Nov. 8._--The two Miss Lindsays and I have been for a most wild
excursion into the Cheviot valleys to the Heathpool Lynn--a ravine full
of ancient alders and birch, and a mountain torrent tossing through grey
rocks. The carriage met us at a farmhouse--a most desolate place, cut
off by snow all through the winter months, and almost always cold and
bleak.”
* * * * *
“_Nov. 9._--Lady Waterford, Miss Lindsay, and I walked to distant
plantations to see some strange grass, which, from being surrounded by
water at times, had been matted together so that it formed a thick
trunk, and branched out at the top like a palm-tree, with the oddest
effect. Lady Waterford talked of an old woman she knew, whose husband
was very ill, dying in fact. One day when she went to see him, she found
his wife busy baking cakes, and she--the old woman--said that as he was
dying she was getting them ready for his funeral. Going again some days
later, Lady Waterford found the man still alive, and she could not
resist saying to the woman that she thought her cakes must be getting
rather stale. ‘Yes, that they are,’ said the wife; ‘some folks are _so_
inconsiderate.’
“When we returned to the castle, we found that old Mr. Fyler, the Vicar
of Cornhill, had arrived, and he was very amusing all evening. He talked
much of Sir Horace St. Paul (a neighbour here), who had become a
teetotaler, and had thrown away all the wine in his cellar. His mother
was a daughter of Lord Ward, who had challenged and run through with his
sword a brother officer, who, when he was engaged to his wife, had
snatched away a brooch he had given her and exhibited it at mess as her
present. It was the Lord Ward who was brother of Lady St. Paul, who was
made the prominent figure in the picture by Copley of the death of the
Earl of Chatham. It is a grand portrait in a fine picture, and Copley
gave the life-size sketch which he made for it to the Ward family.
“When Sir Horace St. Paul was at college, he found a man lying drunk in
the quadrangle and tried to make him get up. ‘You’re drunk,’ he said;
‘you don’t even know who I am.’--‘Yes, I know very well who you are,’
said the man; ‘you’re the fellow that wrote an epistle to Timothy and
never got an answer.’ I have heard this quoted as one of the naturally
clever retorts of drunken men.
“Lady Waterford told Lord Grey’s story of the death--in a court in
Edinburgh--of a naval captain who had been noted for his cruelties at
sea, but especially in the slave trade. Mental terror made his death-bed
most appalling. According to Scottish custom, the family opened the door
for the spirit to pass more easily, when, to their horror, the bloody
head of a black man suddenly rolled into the room.
“The dying man gave the most fearful scream, and his relations rushed to
his bedside. When they looked round, the head was gone, but there was
fresh blood upon the floor. To them it seemed inexplicable, but the fact
was that Professor Owen had been attending an anatomical séance at which
the body of a black man had been dissected, and there was something so
curious in the way in which the head had been attached to the body, that
he had obtained leave to carry it home in a cloth, that he might examine
it more carefully. It was a very slippery, wet day, and as he was
passing the open door of the dying man, the Professor had stumbled, and
the head, slipping out of the cloth, had rolled into the house; then, in
the moment when they were all occupied with the dying man, he had
pursued it and whipped it up into the cloth again, and hoped it had not
been observed.”[143]
* * * * *
“_Nov. 10._--Last night Mr. Fyler told his famous story of ‘the nun.’ It
is briefly this:--
“A son of Sir J. Stuart of Allanbank, on the Blackadder, where Lady
Boswell lives now, was in Rome, where he fell in love with a novice in
one of the convents. When his father heard of it, he was furious, and
summoned him home. Young Stuart told the nun he must leave Rome, and she
implored him to marry her first; but he would do nothing of the kind,
and, as he left, she flung herself under his carriage; the wheels went
over her, and she was killed. The first thing the faithless lover saw on
his return to Scotland was the nun, who met him in the bridal attire she
was to have worn, and she has often appeared since, and has become known
in the neighbourhood as ‘Pearlin Jean.’ On one occasion seven ministers
were called in to lay her, but with no effect.
“Mr. Fyler says that when people on the Border are not quite right in
their heads, they are said to ‘want twopence in the shilling.’ A poor
cooper at Cornhill was one of these, and one day he disappeared. The
greatest search was made for the missing man, for he was a Johnson, and
almost all the village at Cornhill are Johnsons--fishermen. So every one
went out to look, and though nothing was found, they came to the
conclusion that he had been drowned in the Tweed.
“That evening Mr. Fyler observed that his church windows had not been
opened as he desired, and going up to them and looking in, he saw a
white figure wrapped in a sheet walking up and down the aisle and
flapping its arms. He went back and said, ‘I’ve found the lost man. He
is in the church, and two of the strongest men in the place must go with
me and get him out.’ But if any one else had looked into the church,
they would have thought it was a ghost. As it was, one of the men who
came to get him out fainted dead away.”
* * * * *
“_Winton Castle, Nov. 14._--Dear Lady Ruthven is stone deaf, almost
blind, and her voice like waggon-wheels, but--in her eighty-sixth
year--she is as kind and good and as truly witty as ever.
“On Friday we went to Gosford--five in the carriage. It is a dull flat
park, redeemed by being so near the sea, and contains two great houses
close to each other, of which one--the modern one--has never been
inhabited, as sea-sand was mixed with its mortar. We found old Lady
Wemyss[144] sitting behind a screen, much like a lady-abbess in
appearance. I was most warmly received by two child-friends--little Lady
Eva Greville and her brother Sidney--a charming boy with dark eyes and
light flowing hair. Then Lady Warwick came in with Lady Jane Dundas,
and, with one hand-candle, showed us the pictures, just as Lady Elcho
did many years ago.
“Yesterday we went to Ormistoun, an attractive place, to see the
Dempsters, the uncle and aunt who brought up the authoress of
‘Vera’--charming old people. He talked much of former times in Scotland,
and said that much the most agreeable women in the country were
considered to be Lady Ruthven and Mrs. Stewart Mackenzie. He described
the attachment of one of Mrs. Stewart Mackenzie’s sisters--a certain
very untidy Frances Mackenzie--to Thorwaldsen, but they were not allowed
to marry. The last word Thorwaldsen spoke was ‘Francesca.’
“In the garden of Ormistoun is a yew six hundred years old, but with
every appearance of being still quite in its prime, growing hard, and
likely to do so for another six hundred years. John Knox is said to have
preached under it.
“I sat by Lady Ruthven at dinner. She talked of the quaintnesses of her
village people. The schoolmaster was very particular about
pronunciation. When his wife died, some one came in and said, ‘What a
very lamēntable,’ &c.--‘Oh, do say lamentable,’ interrupted the
schoolmaster. When the minister was marrying a couple he said, ‘Art thou
willing to take this woman,’ &c.?--‘Yes, I am _willing_,’ replied the
bridegroom, ‘but I had rather it had been her sister.’
“To-day Lady Ruthven walked with me to the kirk. She had neither her
‘speaking tubes’ nor her slate, so I could not answer her, but she told
me the whole story of Lady Belhaven’s death, how it was ‘all arranged as
was best for her, just a gentle passing away, almost unconscious, but
perfectly happy;’ yet how, though one glibly _said_, ‘God’s will be
done,’ it was _so_ hard to feel it. In returning, she talked of the
trees, how the forester wished her to cut one down where there were two
close together, but how she was ‘unwilling to separate friends who had
lived together so long.’
“One day Lady Ruthven had a letter asking for the character of her
footman, John Smith, who was leaving her--if he was ‘clever, honest,
sober, a Christian, a recipient of the Holy Communion,’ &c. She
answered, ‘If John Smith could answer to half your demands, I should
have married him long ago.’”
* * * * *
“_Raby Castle, Nov. 20._--A week here with a large party, which I began
to think delightful as soon as I could cure myself of the uncomfortable
sensation of being so much behind my kind, all the other people knowing
each other better, and being more in possession of their tongues and
faculties than myself. ‘Be insignificant, and you will make no enemies,’
is, however, a very good piece of advice I once received. Interesting
members of the circle have been the Fitzwilliams from Wentworth, and the
Quaker family of Pease, of whom the mother is one of the sweetest, most
charming people I ever saw, like a lovely picture by Gainsborough, and
with the expression of one of Perugino’s angels. But the great feature
of the visit has been the Butes, and I have been absorbed by them. I
never expected to make much acquaintance, but from the first Lord
Bute[145] annexed himself to me, perhaps because he thought I was shy,
and because of other people he felt very shy himself. He has great
sweetness and gentleness of manner, and a good-looking, refined face.
“Lady Bute[146] says the happiest time in her life was the winter they
spent in Majorca, because then she got away, not only from all the fine
people, but from all the people who wanted to know what they thought
must be the fine people; but that it was such a bore even there bearing
a name for which the natives _would_ raise their prices. Next winter
they mean to spend at Nazareth, where they will hire the Bishop’s house;
‘no one can get at us there.’ They are supposed to long very anxiously
for the birth of a son, for now--
‘That little something unpossess’d
Corrodes and poisons all the rest.’[147]
“I walked with Lord Bute each day. It was like reading ‘Lothair’ in the
original, and most interesting at first, but became somewhat monotonous,
as he talks incessantly--winding into his subject like a serpent, as
Johnson said of Burke--of altars, ritual, liturgical differences; and he
often almost loses himself, and certainly quite lost me, in sentences
about ‘the Unity of the Kosmos,’ &c.
“He spoke much of Antichrist--the mark 666, the question if it had been
Nero, or if Nero was only a type, and the real Antichrist still to come;
and of the other theory, that the reason why no ten thousand were sealed
of Dan was that Antichrist was to come from that tribe, the dying words
of Jacob tending to this belief.
“He talked much of fasting; that he had often fasted for twenty-four
hours, and that he preferred fasting as the practice existed ‘before
the folly of collations.’ I asked if it did not make him ill. He said
‘no,’ for if the hunger became too great he took a cigar, which allayed
it, and that he went out and ‘ate the air’ while taking plenty of
exercise; that poor people seldom became thin in Lent, because what they
did eat was bread and potatoes. I said I thought it must make him
dreadfully ill-tempered to be so hungry, and thus conduce rather to vice
than virtue. He said he did not think it made him vicious; but he agreed
with me that persons naturally inclined to be ill-tempered had better
fast _alone_.
“From what he said it was evident that he would like to give up all his
goods to the poor, and that the Island of Bute stands a chance of
becoming a vast monastery. He talked much of the Troitska in Russia,
where he had been; that the monks there were too lax, and that the
really desirable monastic life was that of those who lived in the cells
established some miles off by Philaret, which were subterranean, with a
stove, and no other furniture. When mass was celebrated in their chapel,
these anchorite monks could faintly discern, down a channel hollowed in
the rock, the glitter of the candles on the altar, and occasionally,
mingled with this, appeared a ray or two of bluish light, and this was
daylight. It was the only time they ever saw it.
“Amongst the young men here is a young Ashburnham, third son of Lord
Ashburnham, who reads Greek in his room for his amusement, and is a
lawyer, but says he has not yet been able to realise the hymn, ‘Brief
life is here our portion.’ He told me that the expression of minding
your _p_’s and _q_’s came from toupets and queues.”
* * * * *
“_Whitburn Hall, Nov. 24._--I returned here from Raby with my Williamson
cousins,[148] who are always so kind that they make one feel at Whitburn
‘où peut’on être mieux qu’au sein de sa famille?’ The place has much
interest of its own kind. There is something even fine in the vast black
cloud of Sunderland smoke, obliterating the horizon and giving such an
idea of limitless and mysterious space with the long lines of white
breakers foaming up through the gloom; while at night the ghastly shriek
of the fog-horn and the tolling of the bell, and the occasional boom of
a cannon through the storm, give such dramatic effect that one forgets
the waste inland landscape, the blackened hedges and wind-stricken
coalfields.”
* * * * *
“_Ravensworth, Nov. 29._--I was one night with poor Cousin Susan
(Davidson), much aged and altered. She lay chiefly on a sofa in her own
sitting-room, with her two favourite white dogs--the ‘boy and
girl’--Fritz and Lulu, by her side, and half the birds in the
neighbourhood pecking bread and potatoes outside the windows. It seemed
a dreary life to leave her to, but she does not feel it so; hers is one
of the cases in which only the body, and not the mind, seems to require
nourishment. Thursday, when I came away, was her rent-day, and she
wished me to go and see her tenants and speak to them at dinner, and
said to the agent, ‘I wish that all my tenants should see my cousin;’
but fortunately the train came at the right moment to save me from this
alarming encounter, which would have given a (probably) wrong
impression--at least to the tenants.
“Lord Ravensworth[149] welcomed me with such cordial kindness, and has
been so genial and good to me ever since, that I quite feel as if in him
I had found the ideal uncle I have always longed for, but never before
enjoyed. He is certainly the essence of an agreeable and accomplished
scholar, with a faultless memory and apt classical quotations for every
possible variety of subject. He told me, and made me write down, the
following curious story:--
“It is going back a long time ago--to the time of Marie Antoinette. It
will be remembered that the most faithful, the most entirely devoted of
all the gallant adherents of Marie Antoinette was the Comte de Fersen.
The Comte de Fersen was ready to lay down his life for the Queen, to go
through fire and water for her sake; and, on her side, if Marie
Antoinette had a corner in her heart for any one except the King, it was
for the Comte de Fersen.[150] When the royal family escaped to Varennes,
it was the Comte de Fersen who dressed up as coachman and drove the
carriage; and when the flight to Varennes failed, and when, one after
another, he had seen all his dearest friends perish upon the scaffold,
the Comte de Fersen felt as if the whole world was cut away from under
his feet, as if life had nothing whatever left to offer, and he sunk
into a state of apathy, mental and physical, from which nothing whatever
seemed to rouse him; there was nothing whatever left which could be of
any interest to _him_.
“The physicians who were called in said that the Comte de Fersen must
have absolute change; that he must travel for an unlimited time; that he
must leave France; at any rate, that he must never see again that Paris
which was so terrible to him, which was stained for ever with the blood
of the Queen and Madame Elizabeth. And he was quite willing; all places
were the same to him now that his life was left desolate: he did not
care where he went.
“He went to Italy, and one afternoon in November he drove up to what was
then, as it is still, the most desolate, weird, ghastly inn in
Italy--the wind-stricken, storm-beaten, lava-seated inn of Radicofani.
And he came there not to stay; he only wanted post-horses to go on as
fast as he could, for he was always restless to be moving--to go farther
on. But the landlord said, ‘No, it was too late at night; there was
going to be a storm; he could not let his horses cross the pass of
Radicofani till the next morning.’--‘But you are not aware,’ said the
traveller, ‘that I am the Comte de Fersen.’--‘I do not care in the least
who you are,’ said the landlord; ‘I make my rules, and my rules hold
good for one as well as for another.’--‘But you do not understand
probably that money is no object to me, and that time is a very great
object indeed. I am quite willing to pay whatever you demand, but I
must have the horses at once, for I must arrive at Rome on a particular
day.’--‘Well, you will not have the horses,’ said the landlord; ‘at
least to-morrow you may have them, but to-night you will not; and if you
are too fine a gentleman to come into my poor hotel, you may sleep in
the carriage, but to-night you will certainly not have the horses.’
“Then the Comte de Fersen made the best of what he saw was the
inevitable. He had the carriage put into the coach-house, and he himself
came into the hotel, and he found it, as many hundreds of travellers
have done since, not half so bad as he expected. It is a bare, dismal,
whitewashed barracky place, but the rooms are large and tolerably clean.
So he got some eggs or something that there was for supper, and he had a
fire made up in the best of the rooms, and he went to bed. But he took
two precautions; he drew a little round table that was there to the head
of the bed and he put two loaded pistols upon it; and, according to the
custom of that time, he made the courier sleep across the door on the
outside.
“He went to bed, and he fell asleep, and in the middle of the night he
awoke with the indescribable sensation that people have, that he was not
alone in the room, and he raised himself against the pillow and looked
out. From a small latticed window high in the opposite whitewashed wall
the moonlight was pouring into the room, and making a white silvery pool
in the middle of the rough boarded oak floor. In the middle of this pool
of light, dressed in a white cap and jacket and trousers, such as masons
wear, stood the figure of a man looking at him. The Comte de Fersen
stretched out his hand over the side of the bed to take one of his
pistols, and the man said, ‘Don’t fire: you could do no harm to me, you
could do a great deal of harm to yourself: I am come to tell you
something.’ And the Comte de Fersen looked at him: he did not come any
nearer; he remained just where he was, standing in the pool of white
moonlight, half way between the bed and the wall; and he said, ‘Say on:
tell me what you have come for.’ And the figure said, ‘I am _dead_, and
my body is underneath your bed. I was a mason of Radicofani, and, as a
mason, I wore the white dress in which you now see me. My wife wished to
marry somebody else; she wished to marry the landlord of this hotel, and
they beguiled me into the inn, and they made me drunk, and they murdered
me, and my body is buried beneath where your bed now stands. Now I died
with the word _vendetta_ upon my lips, and the longing, the thirst that
I have for revenge will not let me rest, and I never shall rest, I never
can have _any_ rest, till I have had my revenge. Now I know that you are
going to Rome; when you get to Rome, go to the Cardinal Commissary of
Police, and tell him what you have seen, and he will send men down here
to examine the place, and my body will be found, and I shall have my
revenge.’ And the Comte de Fersen said, ‘I will.’ But the spirit laughed
and said, ‘You don’t suppose that I’m going to believe _that_? You don’t
imagine that you are the only person I’ve come to like this? I have come
to dozens, and they have all said, “I will,” and afterwards what they
have seen has seemed like a hallucination, a dream, a chimæra, and
before they have reached Rome the impression has vanished altogether,
and nothing has been done. Give me your hand.’ The Comte de Fersen was a
little staggered at this; however, he was a brave man, and he stretched
out his hand over the foot of the bed, and he felt something or other
happen to one of his fingers; and he looked, and there was no figure,
only the moonlight streaming in through the little latticed window, and
the old cracked looking-glass on the wall and the old rickety furniture
just distinguishable in the half light; there was no mason there, but
the loud regular sound of the snoring of the courier was heard outside
the bedroom door. And the Comte de Fersen could not sleep; he watched
the white moonlight fade into dawn, and the pale dawn brighten into day,
and it seemed to him as if the objects in that room would be branded
into his brain, so familiar did they become--the old cracked
looking-glass, and the shabby washing-stand, and the rush-bottomed
chairs, and he also began to think that what had passed in the earlier
part of the night was a hallucination--a mere dream. Then he got up, and
he began to wash his hands; and on one of his fingers he found a very
curious old iron ring, which was certainly not there before--and then he
_knew_.
“And the Comte de Fersen went to Rome, and when he arrived at Rome he
went to the Swedish Minister that then was, a certain Count
Löwenjelm,[151] and the Count Löwenjelm was very much impressed with the
story, but a person who was much more impressed was the Minister’s
younger brother, the Count Carl Löwenjelm, for he had a very curious and
valuable collection of peasants’ jewelry, and when he saw the ring he
said, ‘That is a very remarkable ring, for it is a kind of ring which is
only made and worn in one place, and that place is in the mountains near
Radicofani.’
“And the two Counts Löwenjelm went with the Comte de Fersen to the
Cardinal Commissary of Police, and the Cardinal also was very much
struck, and he said, ‘It is a very extraordinary story, a very
extraordinary story indeed, and I am quite inclined to believe that it
means something. But, as you know, I am in a great position of trust
under Government, and I could not send a body of military down to
Radicofani upon the faith of what may prove to have been a dream. At any
rate (he said) I could not do it unless the Comte de Fersen proved his
sense of the importance of such an action by being willing to return to
Radicofani himself.’ And not only was the Comte de Fersen willing to
return, but the Count Carl Löwenjelm went with him. The landlord and
landlady were excessively agitated when they saw them return with the
soldiers who came from Rome. They moved the bed, and found that the
flags beneath had been recently upturned. They took up the flags, and
there--not sufficiently corrupted to be irrecognisable--was the body of
the mason, dressed in the white cap and jacket and trousers, as he had
appeared to the Comte de Fersen. Then the landlord and landlady, in true
Italian fashion, felt that Providence was against them, and they
confessed everything. They were taken to Rome, where they were tried
and condemned to death, and they were beheaded at the Bocca della
Verità.
“The Count Carl Löwenjelm was present at the execution of that man and
woman, and he was the person who told the Marquis de Lavalette, who told
Lord Ravensworth, who told me. The by-play of the story is also curious.
Those two Counts Löwenjelm were the natural sons of the Duke of
Sudomania, who was one of the aspirants for the crown of Sweden in the
political crisis which preceded the election of Bernadotte. He was, in
fact, elected, but he had many enemies, and on the night on which he
arrived to take possession of the throne he was poisoned. The Comte de
Fersen himself came to a tragical end in those days. He was very
unpopular in Stockholm, and during the public procession in which he
took part at the funeral of Charles Augustus (1810) he was murdered,
being (though it is terrible to say so of the gallant adherent of Marie
Antoinette) beaten to death with umbrellas. And that it was with no view
to robbery and from purely political feeling is proved by the fact that
though he was _en grande tenue_, nothing was taken away.”
* * * * *
“_Hutton, Yorkshire, Nov. 30._--I came here yesterday, arriving in the
dark. It was a great surprise, as I expected to find the place amid the
Middlesborough smoke, to see from the window on awaking a beautiful view
of high moorland fells beyond the terraced gardens. I laugh when I think
how the Duchess of Cleveland rejoiced in giving Mrs. Pease such a
pleasant change to Raby, to see this intensely luxurious house by
Waterhouse, filled with delightful collections of books, pictures, and
carved furniture, and its almost Arabian-Night-like conservatories.
“We have been through bitter wind to Guisborough Abbey--only a grand
church front standing lonely near a fine avenue of trees in the grounds
of Colonel Challoner.
“Mr. and Mrs. Pease are excellent. He is member for Darlington, son and
nephew of the famous Pease Brothers. She, formerly a Fox of Falmouth, is
one of the most charming people I ever saw, full of the sweetest and
simplest natural dignity. She lives in and for her children, and though
the mother of six girls and two boys, looks about six-and-twenty
herself.[152]
“There is a Mr. Stover here who is amusing. An uncle of his lives in the
haunted house at Biddick. One day when he came in from shooting, he hung
his hat on a pole-screen, and sat down by the fire to read his
newspaper. Presently, looking over his paper, he saw, to his amazement,
his hat on the top of the screen nodding at him. He thought he must be
dreaming, but watched, and it certainly nodded again. He got up and
walked round it, when it seemed still. Then he sat down again and
watched it, and it nodded again, and not only that, but the screen
itself seemed to be moving bodily towards him. He watched it, and it
certainly crossed part of the pattern of the carpet: of this there could
be no doubt. Then he could bear it no longer, and he rushed at the
screen and knocked it over. Underneath was his tame tortoise.”
* * * * *
“_Wentworth Wodehouse, Dec. 3._--This house has a very stately effect as
you approach it, with a truly majestic portico. On the first floor is an
immense hall like those in the great Roman houses, and on either side
diverge the reception rooms, hung with pictures. Amongst the portraits
are several of the great Lord Strafford, with his parents, his son, and
his two daughters--Anne and Arabella. Of these, the elder married the
Marquis of Rockingham, from whom the present owners are descended. The
picture by Vandyke of Lord Strafford and his secretary is glorious. The
rooms themselves want colour and effect. Sixty guests can stay in the
house, and a hundred and twenty can dine without any crowd, but the
place needs great parties of this kind, for smaller ones are lost in
these vast suites of too lofty rooms. Lord Fitzwilliam[153] is the very
type of a high-bred nobleman, and Lady Fitzwilliam[154] has a sweet and
gentle manner; but Lady F. is calm and placid, her two daughters calmer
and placider, and Lord F. calmest and placidest.
“To-day we were taken by Lord Fitzwilliam to the two churches. One by
Pearson is new and most magnificent; the other is old and very ugly, but
has interesting monuments. That of Lord Strafford is mural, with his
figure kneeling near the altar. The epitaph does not allude to the
manner of his death, but, after setting forth his virtues, simply says
‘he died May 8th, 1641.’ The ghost of Lord Strafford is still said to
walk down the oak staircase at Wentworth every Friday night, carrying
his head. An old gateway with several fragments of the house of his time
remain, and many of his books are preserved in the library. My bedroom
is hung with white worked with red by his daughter Lady Rockingham.”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 4._--Lady Fitzwilliam has been showing us the house. It contains
much of interest, especially in the pictures, and they are repeated so
often that one learns to know the family faces--Lord Strafford and his
three wives, his son and his two daughters by his second wife, and the
second Lord Strafford with his wife, who was the daughter of James, Earl
of Derby, and Charlotte de la Tremouille. His inscriptions in the Bibles
of her father and mother, which are here, and the many memorials he
raised to her, are so touching that it is quite a shock to find he
married again after her death; but in his will he always speaks of the
second as only his “wife,” the first as his “deare wife.” He restored
the old church in her memory, and enjoined upon his descendants always
to keep it up for her sake.
“Lady Albreda drove us about the park and to the ‘Mausoleum,’ a
commemorative monument raised to the Minister Lord Rockingham by his
son. It is copied from the Roman monument at S. Remy near Aries, and
contains, in a kind of Pantheon, a statue by Nollekens of Lord
Rockingham surrounded by his friends. The face is from a mask taken
after death, and the figure is full of power and expression, with a
deprecatory ‘Oh, pray don’t say such a thing as that.’”
“_Temple Newsam, Dec. 6._--This great house is four miles from Leeds, by
a road passing through a squalid suburb of grimy houses and muddy lanes,
with rotten palings and broken paving-stones, making blackened pools of
stagnant water; then black fields succeed, with withered hedges,
stag-headed trees, and here and there a mountain of coal refuse breaking
the dismal distances. It was almost dark as I drove up the steep park to
the house.
“In an immense gallery, hung with red and covered with pictures, like
the gallery at Chesney Wold in Bleak House, I found Mrs. Meynell Ingram
and Freddie Wood[155] sitting. It was like arriving at a bivouac in the
desert; the light from the fire and the lamps gleamed on a little
tea-table and a few chairs round it, all beyond was lost in the dark
immensity.... Soon other guests arrived--Judge Denman, come for the
assizes at Leeds, and his marshal, young Ottaway, the cricketer; Admiral
Duncombe, the High Sheriff; Mr. Glyn, Vicar of Beverley, the chaplain;
and Sir Frederick Grey and his wife ‘Barberina.’ Some of the pictures
are very fine--a portrait by Titian, several Vandykes, Reynolds’
‘Shepherd Boy,” and some fine Reynolds portraits of Lord and Lady
Irvine, the former possessors of this place--the Templar’s Stow of
‘Ivanhoe.’ They left it to their five daughters in turn. The eldest was
Lady Hertford, and, if she had two sons, it was to go to the second,
but she had only one; the second daughter was Lady Alexander Gordon, who
was childless; the third was Mrs. Meynell, mother-in-law of the present
possessor.”
* * * * *
“_Dec, 7._--Deep snow all to-day and a furious wind. But yesterday we
reached Leeds for the assize sermon from the Sheriff’s chaplain, Mr.
Glyn,[156] a really magnificent sermon on ‘What is thy life?’ The music
also was very fine, and the great church filled with people.
“This house, where Lord Darnley was born, and whence Lord Strafford
issued his summons to the Cavaliers to meet in defence of the King, is
very curious. In point of amusement, the Judge is the principal feature
of the present party, and how he does trample on his High Sheriff! He
coolly said _to_ him yesterday that he considered a High Sheriff as
‘dust under his feet;’ and he narrated _before_ him a story of one of
his brother judges, who, when his High Sheriff had left his hat in
court, not only would not let him go to fetch it, but would not wait
while his servants fetched it, and ordered him instantly to take him
back to his lodgings without his hat! In court, Judge Denman was annoyed
by some stone-breakers outside the window, and was told it would cost a
matter of _£_40 to have them stopped. ‘Stop the noise instantly,’ he
said; and the Mayor had to pay for it out of his own pocket. Yesterday,
when the snow was so deep, the High Sheriff timidly suggested that they
might be snowed up. ‘That is impossible,’ said the Judge; ‘whatever the
difficulties, Mr. High Sheriff, you are bound to see me conveyed to
Leeds by the opening of the court, if the whole of Leeds is summoned out
to cut a way for me.’
“Lord Strafford was here because he borrowed the house of Sir Arthur
Ingram as the largest to which to summon the Cavaliers. Sir Arthur was
rewarded by Charles II. for his devotion to the Stuarts by being made
Viscount Irvine.”
* * * * *
“_Ripley Castle, Dec. 12._--In this pleasant hospitable house I greatly
miss the gentle presence of the beloved Lady Ingilby, who was so long a
kind and warm-hearted friend; but it is pleasant to find her cordial
welcome still living in that of her son, Sir Henry, and her pretty
graceful daughter-in-law, who is a daughter of Lord Marjoribanks of
Ladykirk.
“I found here Count and Countess Bathyany, people I was very glad to
see. They retain their old castle in Hungary, where they are magnates of
the first rank, but for some years they have lived chiefly in England,
at Eaglehurst on the Solent, and receive there during the yachting
season. The Countess has remains of great beauty and is wonderfully
agreeable. As I sat by her at dinner, she talked much of Lady William
Russell,[157] and told me the story of Lord Moira’s appearance, which
she had heard from her own lips.
“Lady William was at Brighton, where her friend Lady Betty ---- was also
staying. One day when Lady Betty went to her, she found her excessively
upset and discomposed, and she said it was on account of a dream that
she had had of her uncle, who, as Lord Moira, had brought her up, and
who was then Governor of Malta. She said that she had seen a very long
hall, and at the end of the hall a couch with a number of female figures
in different attitudes of grief and despair bending over it, as if they
were holding up or attending to some sick person. On the couch she saw
no one, but immediately afterwards she seemed to meet her Uncle Moira
and embraced him, but said, with a start, ‘Uncle, how terribly cold you
are!’ He replied, ‘Bessie, did you not know that I am dead?’ She
recollected herself instantly and said, ‘Oh, Uncle, how does it look on
the other side?’--‘Quite different from what we have imagined, and far,
far more beautiful,’ he replied with a radiant smile, and she awoke. Her
dream occurred just when Lord Hastings[158] (formerly Lord Moira) died
on a couch in a hall at Malta; but she told the circumstances to Lady
Betty long before the news came.[159]
“Another story which Countess Bathyany told from personal knowledge was
that of Sir Samuel Romilly.
“Lord Grey[160] and his son-in-law, Sir Charles Wood, were walking on
the ramparts of Carlisle. The rampart is there still. It is very narrow,
and there is only one exit; so if you walk there, you must return as
you came. While they were walking, a man passed them, returned, passed
them again, and then disappeared in front of them over the parapet,
where there was really no means of exit. There was a red scarf round his
throat. ‘How very extraordinary! and how exactly like Sir Samuel
Romilly!’ they both exclaimed. At that moment Sir Samuel Romilly had cut
his throat in a distant part of England.
“We have tea in the evening in the oak room in the tower, where Miss
Ingilby has often had much to say that is interesting, especially this
story.[161]
“A regiment was lately passing through Derbyshire on its way to fresh
quarters in the North. The Colonel, as they stayed for the night in one
of the country towns, was invited to dine at a country-house in the
neighbourhood, and to bring any one he liked with him. Consequently he
took with him a young ensign for whom he had taken a great fancy. They
arrived, and it was a large party, but the lady of the house did not
appear till just as they were going in to dinner, and, when she
appeared, was so strangely _distraite_ and preoccupied that she scarcely
attended to anything that was said to her. At dinner, the Colonel
observed that his young companion scarcely ever took his eyes off the
lady of the house, staring at her in a way which seemed at once rude and
unaccountable. It made him observe the lady herself, and he saw that she
scarcely seemed to attend to anything said by her neighbours on either
side of her, but rather seemed, in a manner quite unaccountable, to be
listening to some one or something behind her. As soon as dinner was
over, the young ensign came to the Colonel and said, ‘Oh, do take me
away: I entreat you to take me away from this place.’ The Colonel said,
‘Indeed your conduct is so very extraordinary and unpleasant, that I
quite agree with you that the best thing we can do is to go away;’ and
he made the excuse of his young friend being ill, and ordered their
carriage. When they had driven some distance the Colonel asked the
ensign for an explanation of his conduct. He said that he could not help
it: during the whole of dinner he had seen a terrible black shadowy
figure standing behind the chair of the lady of the house, and it had
seemed to whisper to her, and she to listen to it. He had scarcely told
this, when a man on horseback rode rapidly past the carriage, and the
Colonel, recognising one of the servants of the house they had just
left, called out to know if anything was the matter. ‘Oh, don’t stop me,
sir,’ he shouted; ‘I am going for the doctor: my lady has just cut her
throat.’
“I may mention here a very odd adventure which the other day befell my
cousin Eliot Yorke. He had been dining with the Duke of Edinburgh at
Buckingham Palace, in company with Captain Fane, commander of H.M.S.
_Bellerophon_ on the Australian Station, who had been well known to the
Duke and Eliot when the former was in the South Pacific in command of
the _Galatea_. At a late hour Eliot and Captain Fane left the Palace to
go to their club. The night was cold and wet, and, at a crossing in
Pall-Mall, their attention was attracted by a miserable-looking little
boy, ragged and shoeless, who, even in the middle of the night, was
still plying his broom and imploring a trifle from the passers-by.
Eliot, according to his usual custom, stopped to talk to the boy before
relieving him. The child told him he was a stranger in London, that he
had walked there to seek his fortune from some place on the south-west
coast, that he was friendless, homeless, and penniless. The proprietor
of the crossing had lent it to him, with his broom, for that day only:
he had earned very little, but Eliot’s gift would secure him a lodging
for that night, and then--he supposed there was nothing for him but
starvation or the workhouse. ‘And have you really no friends or
relations in the world?’ said Eliot. ‘Well, sir, it’s the same as if I
had none; I’ve one brother, but I shall never see him again: I don’t
even know if he is alive.’--‘What is your brother’s name?’--‘He is---- a
signalman on board the _Bellerophon_, and he’s been away so long, he
must have forgotten me.’--‘It’s perfectly true,’ said Captain Fane;
‘that is the name of my signalman, and a very smart fellow he is, and I
see a strong likeness between him and the boy.’ The end of the story
was, that the two gentlemen secured a lodging for the boy, bought him
some clothes, and, through Captain Fane’s influence, he has been placed
on board one of the training vessels, the _Dreadnought_, for the
merchant service, to become a good sailor like his brother. But the
combination of coincidences is most striking and providential. The boy
only had the crossing for that one night. Captain Fane, almost the only
person in the world who could testify to the truth of the story, was
only in London for two nights; and he chanced to be walking with Eliot,
probably the only person who would have thought of stopping to talk to a
crossing-sweeper.”
* * * * *
“_Hickledon, Dec. 12._--I came here yesterday, cordially welcomed by
Lord and Lady Halifax, and was glad to find the John Greys here. In the
evening my dear Charlie and Lady Agnes came, but our meeting was sadly
clouded by the terrible news of poor George Grey’s[162] death at
Sandringham. Charlie had brought back many stories from Bedgebury. Mr.
Beresford Hope told him that:--
“His uncle Lord Decies, who had lived very much in Paris, met, somewhere
abroad, young Lionel Ashley, a brother of Lord Shaftesbury, then about
twenty-two, and living abroad, as he was, very much out at elbows. Lord
Decies remarked upon a very curious iron ring which he wore, with a
death’s-head and cross-bones upon it. ‘Oh,” said young Ashley, ‘about
that ring there is a very curious story. It was given to me by a famous
conjuring woman, Madame le Norman, to whom I went with two friends of
mine. She prophesied that we should all three die before we were
twenty-three. My two friends are already dead, and next year I shall be
twenty-three: but if you like I will give you the ring;’ and he gave it
to Lord Decies. When Lord Decies returned to Paris, Lionel Ashley came
there too, and he frequently dined with him. A short time before the
expiration of the year, at the end of which Ashley was again engaged to
dine with him, Lord Decies was sitting in his room, when the door
opened, and Lionel Ashley came in. As to what was said, Mr. Hope was not
quite clear, but the circumstances were so singular, that when he was
gone, Lord Decies rang the bell, and asked the servant who had let Mr.
Ashley into the house. ‘Mais, Milord, M. Ashley est mort hier,’ said the
servant.’[163]
“Another curious story was that--
“Lord Waterford (the third Marquis) was one day standing talking to the
landlord of the little inn in the village close to his place of
Curraghmore, when some one rushed up looking very much agitated, and
said that there had been a most dreadful murder in the neighbouring
hills. ‘Then it must be the little one,’ exclaimed the landlord. ‘What
can you possibly mean?’ said Lord Waterford, feeling that the landlord’s
knowing anything about it was at the least very suspicious. ‘Well, my
lord,’ he said, ‘I am afraid you will never believe me, but I must tell
you that last night I dreamt that two men came to my inn, a tall man and
a little, and in my dream I saw the tall man murder the little man with
a very curious knife, the like of which I never saw before. I told my
wife when I woke, but she only laughed at me. To my horror, in the
course of the morning, those very two men came to my inn, and I was so
possessed by my dream, that I refused them admittance; but coming back
some time after, I found that my wife had let them in when my back was
turned. I could not turn them out of my house when they were once in it,
but going in, some time after, with some refreshments, my horror was
increased by seeing on the table between them the very knife I had seen
in my dream. Then they paid for their refreshments and went away.’
“The dream of the landlord and the coincidences were considered so
extraordinary, that as the bridge at Carrick-on-Suir was the only bridge
in that part, and so in a sort of sense divided the country, a watch was
put there, and in course of time a man exactly answering to the
landlord’s description crossed the bridge and was arrested. In prison,
he confessed that he had been in the cod-fishery trade with his
companion, who had boasted to him of his great earnings. He forthwith
attached himself to him, travelled with him, and watched for the
opportunity of murdering him. His weapon was a knife used in the
cod-fishery, quite unknown in those parts.”[164]
* * * * *
“_Hickledon, Dec. 15._--I have been indescribably happy here with
Charlie Wood, and every hour spent with him makes one more entirely feel
that there is no one like him--_no one_.
‘He is indeed the glass
Wherein the noble youth may dress themselves.’
To be with him is like breathing a pure mountain air of which one cannot
imbibe enough, and which strengthens one for weary months of other
people. One cannot give greater praise to Lady Agnes than by saying that
she is quite worthy of him. Charlie’s relation to his parents is
perfect. They often cannot agree with his High Church opinions, but he
never obtrudes his views or annoys them, and while his whole life is
what it is, could they grudge or regret what is so much to him?”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 27._--I have been staying at Brighton with old Mrs. Aïdé, who
looks like Cinderella’s godmother or some other good old fairy. It
amused me exceedingly to see at Brighton an entirely new phase of
society--two pleasant old ladies, daughters of Horace Smith, being its
best and leading elements. Every one was full of the ‘Rink,’ where all
the young gentlemen and all the young ladies skate all morning on dry
land, come home to luncheon, and skate again all afternoon. No balls or
picnics can promote the same degree of intimacy which is thus
engendered, young men walking about (on wheels) all day long, holding up
and assisting their partners. I heard this curious story:--
“The Princess Dolgorouki had been a great heiress and was a person of
great wealth and importance. One day she was driving through a village
near S. Petersburg, when she heard the clear glorious voice of a young
girl ringing through the upper air from a high window of one of the poor
houses by the wayside. So exquisitely beautiful was the voice, that the
Princess stopped her carriage to listen to it. The voice rang on and on
for some time, and, when it ceased, the Princess sent into the house to
inquire who the singer had been. ‘Oh,’ they said, ‘it is one of your own
serfs: it is the girl Anita;’ and they brought the singer out, a sweet,
simple, modest-looking girl of sixteen, and at the bidding of the
Princess she sang again, quite simply, without any shyness, in the road
by the side of the carriage. The Princess was greatly captivated by her,
and finding that she was educated beyond most of those in her condition
of life, and being at that time in want of a reader in her palace at S.
Petersburg, she took her to live with her, and Anita occupied in her
house a sort of intermediate position, arranging the flowers, and
reading when she was wanted. Gradually the Princess became very fond of
her, and gave her masters, under whom she made such astonishing
progress, that she became quite a well-educated young lady, while her
glorious voice formed the great attraction to all parties at the
Dolgorouki Palace.
“The Princess Dolgorouki never foresaw, what actually happened, that
when her son returned from ‘the grand tour,’ which young men made then,
and found a very beautiful, interesting girl domesticated with his
mother, he would fall in love with her. When she saw that it was so, she
said to her son that she had a great regard for the girl and could not
have her affections tampered with, so that he had better go away again.
The young prince answered that he had no idea whatever of tampering with
the girl’s affections, that he loved her and believed that she loved
him, and that he meant to marry her.
“On hearing this the fury of the Princess knew no bounds. She tried to
reason with her son, and when she found him perfectly impracticable, she
expelled him from her house and got him sent to France. She also sent
for the parents of Anita, and told them that they must look out at once
for a suitable person for her to marry, for that she must be married
before Prince Dolgorouki returned. She said that she had no complaint to
make of the girl, and that she would help her to make a good marriage by
giving her a very handsome dowry; all that she required was that she
should be married at once. Before leaving, however, Prince Dolgorouki
had found means to be alone for a few minutes with Anita, and had said
to her, ‘I know my mother well, and I know that as soon as I am gone she
will try to insist upon your marriage. She will not consider you, and
will sacrifice you to the fulfilment of her own will. Have faith,
however, in me, hold out, and believe that, however impossible it may
seem, I shall be able at the last moment to save you.’
“The bridegroom whom Anita’s father found was a certain Alexis
Alexandrovitch, a farmer near their village and a person in a
considerably higher position than their own. He was rich, he was much
esteemed, he was greatly in love with Anita, but he was vulgar, he was
hideous, he was almost always drunk, and Anita hated him. He came to her
father’s house and proposed. She refused him, but he persisted in
persecuting her with his attentions, and her own family tried to force
her consent by ill-treatment, half-starved her, cut her off from all
communication with others and from all her usual employments, and shut
her up in a room at the top of the house.
“At last, when the girl’s position was becoming quite untenable and her
courage was beginning to give way, Prince Dolgorouki contrived to get a
note conveyed to her. He said, ‘I know all you are suffering; it is
impossible that you can go on like this. Pretend to accede to their
wishes. Accept Alexis Alexandrovitch, but believe that I will save you
at the last moment.’
“So Anita said to her father and mother that she gave in to their
wishes, that she would marry Alexis Alexandrovitch. And the wedding-day
was fixed and the wedding-feast was prepared. And the old Princess
Dolgorouki gave not only a very handsome dowry, but a very splendid set
of peasant’s jewellery to the bride. She did not intend to be present at
the ceremony herself, but she would send her major-domo to represent
her.
“The wedding-day arrived, and the bride went with her family to the
church, which was darkened, with candles burning everywhere. And Alexis
Alexandrovitch also arrived, rather more drunk than usual. The church
was thronged with people from end to end, for the place was within a
drive of S. Petersburg, and it was fine weather, and hundreds of persons
who remembered Anita and had admired her wonderful voice at the
Dolgorouki palace drove out to see her married. According to the custom
of the Greek Church, the register was brought to be signed before the
ceremony. He signed his name ‘Alexis Alexandrovitch,’ and she signed
her name ‘Anita.’ And the service began, and the crowd pressed thicker
and thicker round the altar, and there was a constant struggle to see.
And the service went on, and the crowd pressed more closely still, and
somehow in the press the person who stood next to Anita was not Alexis
Alexandrovitch, and the service went on, and Anita was married, and then
the crowd opened to let the bridal pair pass through, and Anita walked
rapidly down the church on the arm of her bridegroom, and it was not
Alexis Alexandrovitch, and it was Prince Dolgorouki. And a carriage and
four was waiting at the church door, and the bridal pair leapt into it
and were whirled rapidly away.
“The old Princess Dolgorouki sent at once to stop them at the frontier,
but the flight had been so well arranged, that she was too late. Then
she swore (having everything in her own power) that she would cut off
her son without a penny, and that she would never see him again. Happy
in each other’s love, however, the young Prince and Princess Dolgorouki
lived at Paris, where, though they were poor, Anita’s wonderful voice
could always keep them from want. There, their two children were born.
Four years elapsed, and they heard nothing from their Russian home. Then
the family lawyer in S. Petersburg wrote to say that the old Princess
Dolgorouki was dead. Whether she had repented of disinheriting her son
and had destroyed her will before her death, or whether she had put off
making her unjust will till it was too late, no one ever knew. The will
of disinheritance was never found, and her son was the heir of all his
mother’s vast estates.
“The young couple set out with their children for Russia to take
possession, but it was in the depth of winter, the Prince was very
delicate, and the change to the fierce cold of the north made him very
ill, and at some place on the frontier--Wilna, I think--he died. The
unhappy widow continued her journey with her children to S. Petersburg,
but when she arrived, the heir-at-law had taken possession of
everything. ‘But I am here; I am the Princess Dolgorouki,’ she said.
‘No,’ was the answer; ‘you have been residing for four years with Prince
Dolgorouki, but the person you married was Alexis Alexandrovitch, and
the register in which you both signed your names before your marriage
exists to prove it.’ A great lawsuit ensued, in which the young widow
lost almost all the money she had, and eventually she lost her lawsuit
too, and retired in great penury to Warsaw, where she maintained herself
and her children by singing and giving music lessons.
“But at Warsaw, as at Paris, her beauty and gentleness, and the patience
with which she bore her misfortunes, made her a general favourite.
Amongst those who became devoted to her was a young lawyer, who examined
into the evidence of the trial which had taken place, and then, going to
her, urged her to try again. She resisted, saying that the case was
hopelessly lost, and besides, that she was too poor to reopen it. The
lawyer said, ‘If you regain the vast Dolgorouki inheritance, you can pay
me something: it will be a drop in the ocean to you; but if the lawsuit
fails I shall expect no payment.’ So she let him try.
“Now the lawyer knew that there was no use in contending against the
register, but he also felt that as--according to his view--in the eyes
of God his client had been Princess Dolgorouki, there was no harm in
tampering with that register if it was possible. It was no use, however,
to alter it, as hundreds of witnesses existed who had seen the register
as it was, and who knew that it contained the name of Alexis
Alexandrovitch as the husband of Anita, for the trial had drawn
attention to it from all quarters. It was also most difficult to see the
register at all, because it was now most carefully guarded. But at last
there came a time when the young lawyer was not only able to see the
register, but when for three minutes he was left alone with it. And he
took advantage of those three minutes to do what?
“He scratched out the name, or part of the name of Alexis
Alexandrovitch, and he wrote the name of Alexis Alexandrovitch over
again.
“Then when people came and said, ‘But here is the register--here is the
name of Alexis Alexandrovitch,’ he said, ‘Yes, there is certainly the
name of Alexis Alexandrovitch, but if you examine, you will find that it
is written over something else which has been scratched out.’
“And the case was tried again, and the young widow was reinstated in the
Dolgorouki property, and she was the grandmother of the present Prince
Dolgorouki.”
* * * * *
“_Holmhurst, Dec. 28._--Lea says, ‘You may put ought to ought (0 to 0)
and ought to ought till it reaches to London, and it will all come to
nothing at last if you don’t put another figure to it’--apropos of Mr.
G. P. neglecting to do his duty.”
* * * * *
“_Battle Abbey, Jan. 26, 1875._--The news of dear Lady Carnarvon’s death
came yesterday as a shadow over everything. Surely never was there a
more open, lovable, unselfish, charming, and truly noble character. She
was the one person in England capable ‘tenir salon,’ to succeed--in a
far more charming way--to Lady Palmerston’s celebrity in that respect.
‘Sat vixit, bene qui vixit spatium brevis aevi:
Ignavi numerant tempore, laude boni.’
Apparently radiant with happiness, and shedding happiness on all around
her, she yet had often said latterly that she ‘did not feel that the
compensations made up for the anxieties of life,’ and that she longed to
be at rest.
“In the agreeable party at Battle it has been a great pleasure to find
the French Ambassador and the Comtesse de Jarnac. Lord Stanhope is here,
and has talked pleasantly as usual. Apropos of the custom of the living
always closing the eyes of the dead, he reminded us of the admirable
inscription over the door of the library at Murcia, ‘Here the dead
_open_ the eyes of the living.’
“He said how the Pineta at Ravenna was really a change in gender from
the original name Pinetum in the singular: first it had become the
plural of that; then Pineta itself had become a singular word.
“He described a dreary Sunday spent in Sabbatarian Glasgow, and how,
everything else being shut up and forbidden, he had betaken himself for
hours to examining the epitaphs in the churchyard, and at length found a
single verse which atoned for the badness of all the rest:--
‘Shed not for me the bitter tear,
Nor pour for me the vain regret,
For though the casket is not here,
The gem within it sparkles yet.’”
* * * * *
“_Jan. 27._--Count Nesselrode has come. He has been describing to the
Duchess how parents are always proposing to him for their beautiful
young girls of fifteen or sixteen. He says that he answers, ‘Est que à
mon âge je puis songer à me marier?’ and that they reply, ‘Avec le nom
que vous portez, M. le Comte, on est toujours jeune.’ ... ‘et ça me
donne le chair de poule.’
“On the Duchess asking Count Nesselrode after his sons, he said they
were at a tutor’s, ‘pour former le cœur et l’esprit.’
“There used to be a ghost at Battle Abbey. Old Lady Webster told Mr.
Hussey of Scotney Castle how she saw it soon after her marriage, an old
woman of most terrible aspect, who drew the curtains of her bed and
looked in. Immediately after, Sir Godfrey came into the room. ‘Who was
that old woman?’ she said. ‘There could have been no old woman.’ ‘Oh,
yes, there was, and you must have met her in the passage, for she has
only just gone out of the room.’ In her old age Lady Webster would
describe the pattern on the old woman’s dress, and say that she should
recognise it anywhere.”
[Illustration: THE PINETA, RAVENNA.][165]
* * * * *
“_Holmhurst, Feb. 1._--A long visit to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe in
Lady Jocelyn’s singular house at St. Leonards, which you enter from the
top story. Lord Stratford is a grand old man with high forehead and
flowing white hair. He can no longer walk, and sits in his
dressing-gown, but his artistic daughters make him very picturesque,
hanging his chair with a shade of purple which matches the lining and
cuffs of his dressing-gown, &c. He talked of many different people he
had seen, of Goethe, ‘who had a very high forehead’ (but ‘the highest
forehead known was that of the immortal Shakspeare, who had every great
quality that could exist phrenologically’), and then he spoke of
Mezzofanti, whom he had known personally in Italy, and who had told him
the story of his life. He had been a carpenter’s apprentice, and had one
day been at his work outside the open window of a school where a master
was teaching. Having a smattering of Greek, which he had taught himself,
he felt sure that he detected the master in giving a wrong explanation.
This worried him so much that he could not get it out of his head, and,
after the school and his own work were both over, he rang the bell and
begged to see the master. ‘I was at work, sir, and I heard you speaking,
and I think you gave such and such an explanation in Greek.’--‘Well, and
what do you know about Greek?’--‘Not much, sir; but, if you will forgive
my saying so, I am sure you will find, if you examine, that the
explanation was not the correct one.’ The master found that the young
carpenter was right, and it led to his obtaining friends and being
educated. Lord Stratford said that Mezzofanti spoke English perfectly to
him, and excellent modern Greek to his servant, and yet that, apart from
his wonderful versatility in languages, he seemed to be rather a dull
man than otherwise, utterly wanting in originality.
“Lord Stratford described going to dine one day with his agent, and
meeting there a lady whose name he did not catch, but whom he was told
to take down to dinner. In the course of dinner the conversation turned
upon some subject of mathematics, ‘And then,’ said Lord Stratford, ‘I
did what I have never done at any other time on a mathematical
question. I tried to explain it and make it easy for my companion, who
listened with polite attention. When I went upstairs I inquired her
name, and it was ... Mrs. Somerville! I knew her intimately afterwards,
and she told me something of her early life, which I regret should not
have appeared in her memoirs. Her childhood was passed in Burntisland,
whither her brother returned for his holidays, having some school-work
to do whilst at home. One day, when he was called out, she took up the
Euclid he had been studying. ‘Ah! what curious little designs! let me
see if I can understand what it is about.’ And she found that she could,
and devoured Euclid with avidity. Afterwards she got hold of her
brother’s Æschylus and taught herself Greek in order to read it.
“Lord Stratford talked much of the extraordinary change, not only in
politics, but in ‘the way of carrying on politics,’ since he was young.”
* * * * *
“_69 Onslow Square, Feb. 4._--Aunt Sophy[166] had a pleasant party
yesterday of Theodore Martins, Lady Barker, &c. Mrs. Theodore Martin’s
is a fine illuminative face, like that of Madame Goldschmidt. As Helen
Faucit she was celebrated as an actress and as having done her utmost to
elevate the stage; but I do not admire her reading of Shakspeare, in
which I think there is too much manner. He is evidently most excellent.
He talked perfectly simply, but only when asked, of his intercourse with
the Queen, with whom he must be on happy terms of mutual confidence.
* * * * *
“_Feb. 7, 1875._--Yesterday, when I was with Louisa, Lady Ashburton, at
Kent House, which is being beautifully arranged, Lady Bloomfield came in
and then Mr. Carlyle--weird and grim, with his long coat and tall
wizard-befitting hat. He talked in volumes, with fathomless depths of
adjectives, into which it was quite impossible to follow him, and in
which he himself often got out of his depth. A great deal was about
Garibaldi, who was the ‘most absolute incarnation of zero, but the
inexplicable perversity and wilfulness of the human race had taken him
up, poor creature, and set him on a pedestal.’ Then he went on about
‘the poor old Pope, so filled with all the most horrible and detestable
lies that ever were conceived or thought of.’ He was like the man who
asked his friends to dinner and said, ‘I am going to give you a piece of
the most delicious beef--the most exquisite beef that ever was eaten,’
and all the while it was only a piece of stale brown bread; but the host
said to his guests, ‘May God damn your souls for ever and ever, if you
don’t believe it’s beef,’ so they ate it and said nothing.
“Then he talked of the books of Mazzini, which were ‘well worth
reading,’ and of Saffi, ‘made professor of something at Oxford, where he
used to give lectures in a moth-eaten voice.’”
* * * * *
“_Feb. 11._--Sir Garnet and Lady Wolseley, Miss Thackeray, and others
dined. I was not prepared to like Sir Garnet much, a hero is usually so
dull, but he is charming, so frank and candid, and most natural as well
as good-looking. He has a very young face, though his hair is grey,
almost white. Lady Wolseley is remarkably pretty and attractive; Sir
Garnet was quite devoted to drawing, and had a great collection of
sketches, the work of his life. In the Crimea he drew everything, and it
was a most precious collection; but in returning it was all lost at sea.
The rest of his drawings he put into the Pantechnicon, where they were
every one of them burnt. Miss Thackeray has a sweet voice, which is
music in every tone.
“I have frequently seen lately, at the Lefevres’, old Lord Redesdale,
with whom we have some distant cousinship through my Mitford
great-grandmother. He is very kind, clever, old-fashioned, and always
wears a tail-coat. He took us into the far-away by telling us of having
heard his father, Speaker Mitford, describe having known a man in
Swaledale named Rievely, whose earliest recollection was of being
carried across the Swale by Henry Jenkyns (who lived to 160), who
recollected having gone as a boy, with a sheaf of arrows and his elder
brother on a pony, from Ellerton in Swaledale to Northallerton, to join
the army before the battle of Flodden. He would tell all about the
battle in a familiar way--‘the King was not there; but the Duke of
Suffolk was there,’ &c.
“Much of the conversation in certain houses is now about Moody and
Sankey, the American ‘revivalists,’ who are supposed to ‘produce great
effects.’ Moody preaches and Sankey sings. They are adored by some,
others (including most Americans) think them ‘mere religious
charlatans’--and altogether they offer a famous opportunity for all the
barking and biting which ‘truly religious people’ often delight in.”
* * * * *
“_Feb. 20._--Dined with the Rafe Leycesters in Cheyne Walk, where they
have a charming old manor-house with a stone gateway, flagged walk,
ancient bay-trees, a wide staircase, and panelled rooms. Mrs. Leycester
was picturesquely dressed like a picture by Millais. The company were
Mr. and Mrs. Haweis, Mr. and Mrs. Tom Taylor, and the Augustus
Tollemaches. It was an agreeable party, and a pleasant dinner in a room
redolent of violets.”
* * * * *
“_Feb. 21._--Dined with Lady Margaret Beaumont, who talked of dress and
the distinction of a gown by Worth, which ‘not only looked well, but
_walked_ well.’”
* * * * *
“_Thorncombe, Feb. 27._--This place is a dell in the undulating hills
about five miles from Guildford, very pretty and pleasant; and our new
cousin, Edward Fisher, to whom it belongs, is one of the kindest,
cheeriest, pleasantest fellows who ever entered a family.
“We have been to see Loseley, which belongs to my old college
acquaintance Molyneux--a grand old house, gabled and grey, with a great
hall, and richly carved chimney-pieces of white chalk, which looks like
marble. It has three ghosts, a green-coated hunter, a sallow lady, and a
warrior in plate-armour. The last appeared to the kitchen-maid as she
was drawing some beer in the cellar, and almost frightened her out of
her wits.”
* * * * *
“_London, March 7, Sunday._--Breakfast at Lord Houghton’s, who has
adopted Rogers’ custom of social breakfasts. It was a very amusing
party--Joaquin Miller[167] the American writer, Henry Cowper, Lord
Arthur Russell, &c. There was a young man there whom I did not notice
much at first, but I soon found that he was very remarkable, and then
that he was very charming indeed. It was Lord Rosebery. He has a most
sweet gravity almost always, but when his expression does light up, it
is more than an illumination--it is a conflagration, at which all around
him take light. Joaquin Miller would have been thought insufferably
vulgar if he had not been a notoriety: as it was, every one paid court
to him. However, I ought not to abuse him, as he suddenly turned round
to me and said, ‘Do you know, I’m glad to meet you, for you write books
that I can read.’ Quantities of good stories were told--one of a party
given by George IV. as Prince Regent to the Irish peer Lord Coleraine.
Smoking was allowed. After supper, when Lady Jersey drank, the Regent
kissed the spot upon the cup where her lips had rested: upon which the
Princess took a pipe from Lord Coleraine’s mouth, blew two or three
whiffs, and handed it back to him. The Prince was quite furious, but it
was a lesson.”
* * * * *
“_Holmhurst, March 14._--Went to see Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, who
talked incessantly and most agreeably for an hour. He said how surprised
he had been to read in the ‘Greville Memoirs’ of himself as
ill-tempered; he always thought he was ‘rather a good-tempered sort of
fellow.’ It was Madame de Lieven who said that, and she had always
hated him. She prevented him having an embassy once, but they made
peace afterwards through a compliment he paid her at Paris. He talked of
Madame de Lieven’s extraordinary influence, arising chiefly from our
inherent national passion for foreigners.
“I asked Lord Stratford which he thought the most interesting of the
many places in which he had lived. He said, ‘Oh, England is the most
interesting by far.’ He described his first going out to Constantinople,
before he had taken his degree, only going for four months, and staying
for four or five years in a position equal to a Minister. He took his
degree afterwards, and by literary merit, though there was a way then of
giving degrees to those who were employed in the public service, and
since then they had made him a doctor of both Universities. Now, in his
helplessness, he amused himself by writing Greek verses. Once, walking
about his room, he thought, ‘Well, I have often written Latin verses;
let me see if I can write Greek.’ And his Greek has all come back to
him.”
* * * * *
The enormous circulation of the “Memorials of a Quiet Life” in the two
years which had elapsed since its publication astonished those who were
opposed to it; and in America the sale had been even greater than in
England. Numbers of Americans had come to England entirely from the
desire to visit the different scenes of my mother’s quiet life, and had
gone in turn to Toft, Stoke, Alton, Hurstmonceaux, Holmhurst, and some
even to the distant grave of Lucy Hare at Abbots Kerswell. At Holmhurst
there were frequently many sets of visitors in a day--“pilgrims” we used
to call them,--and even if I was at home I could never bear to refuse
them admittance, while to my dear old Lea, who was in very poor health
at this time, they were a positive benefit, in rousing her from dwelling
upon sad recollections. It was in answer to a constantly expressed
desire that, in the autumn of 1874, I occupied myself with the third
volume of the Memorials, containing more of my mother’s thoughts upon
especial subjects, and photographs from family portraits and of the
places described in the first two volumes. The book was, as it were, a
gift to the public. It had a large circulation, but no remuneration
whatever was ever looked for or obtained. Soon after the publication of
the volume, a review appeared in the _Spectator_ (July 8, 1876),
speaking of “the veiled self-conceit” with which Mr. Hare had placed
himself “upon the voluminous records of his family as upon a pedestal;”
that Mrs. Hare was far from being honoured by “the capital” her adopted
son had made of her, though, “if his public likes and is willing to pay
for the contents of the family album, there is nothing more to be
said.... Here, however, let us be thankful, is, so far as anything can
be predicated safely on such a subject, the last of the ‘Memorials,’ and
that is so grateful a thought as to justify tolerance of what already
is.” It seemed a singular review to have been admitted by the
_Spectator_, which, four years before (December 11, 1872), had written
of the “Memorials” as containing “passage after passage worthy of
comment or quotation,” and as “an interesting record of spiritual
conflicts and spiritual joy, free from narrowness and fanaticism, and
marked throughout by the most guileless sincerity.” I suppose that
editors of reviews, when biassed by intense personal feeling, often
trust to the public having forgotten what has appeared before in their
pages.
Annually, I had tried to make my dearest mother’s home as useful as
possible to all those in whom she was most nearly interested, as well as
to keep up her charities, especially at Alton. It had also been a great
pleasure, with what my books produced, to fit up a cottage close to
Holmhurst as a Hospice for needy persons of a better class. These I have
always invited to come for a month at a time, their travelling expenses
being fully paid, and firing, linen, farm and garden produce, with an
outfit of grocery, being supplied to them. Many are the interesting and
pleasant persons whom I have thus become acquainted with, many the
touching cases of sorrow and suffering with which I have come in
contact. In the month of October the Deaconesses of St. Peter’s, Eaton
Square, for several years occupied the Hospice, and they generally
remained over All Saints’ Day, when they sang the Te Deum in the field
round the twisted tree where the dear mother used to sit--“the Te Deum
tree.”
In the spring of 1875 I was obliged to go to Italy again, to continue
collecting materials for my “Cities of Northern and Central Italy.”
* * * * *
_To_ MARY LEA GIDMAN.
“_Rimini, April 4, 1875._--I made my first long lonely expedition from
Turin, going for an hour by rail to the town of S. Ambrogio, and then
walking up through the forests to the top of the high mountain of S.
Michele, where there is a famous monastery in which the sovereigns of
the country--Dukes of Savoy--used to be buried many hundreds of years
ago. It is a wonderful place, quite on the highest peak, looking into
the great gorges of snow. As I was sketching, the old Abbot was led by
on his mule, and stopped to speak to me. I found he was a famous
missionary preacher--Carlo Caccia--and had been in England, where he
knew Lord Bute well, and was very glad to hear of him. So we made great
friends, and as he was going to Turin for Easter, we travelled back
together.
[Illustration: IL SAGRO DI S. MICHELE.][168]
“From Turin I went to Parma, where I had a great deal of work to finish.
The cold there was ferocious, but I made the great excursion I went
for--to Canossa, where the Emperor Henry IV. performed his famous
penance, though it is a most dreadfully fatiguing walk, either in snow
above the knees, or in the furrows of streams from the melted snow. At
Bologna I never saw anything like the snow--as high as the top of the
omnibus, and darkening the lower windows, with a way cut through it
down the middle of the street. I had the same room at the Hotel S. Marco
which you and the dear Mother had for those anxious days in 1870, and of
course I seemed to _see_ her there, and it was a very sad visit. The
Librarian told me that hundreds of people had been to look at the
portrait of Clotilda Tambroni since reading the ‘Memorials.’
[Illustration: CANOSSA.][169]
“We slept here once in 1857, but did not appreciate Rimini properly
then, I think, for it is a charming place, with a delightful seashore
and interesting old town; but the country is strange and wild, and
there is not a sign of vegetation on the hedges; so that when I remember
the buds on the deutzia opposite your window at Holmhurst, it seems most
dismal in Italy.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS WRIGHT.
[Illustration: URBINO.][170]
“_Citta di Castello, April 12, 1875._--It is very cold in Italy, but
glorious weather now--ceaseless sunshine and the pellucid skies of
Perugino. I have been many great excursions already; to the Sagro di S.
Michele, to desolate Canossa, and to S. Marino and the extraordinary S.
Leo near Rimini. Then from Forli I paid an interesting visit to Count
Saffi, one of the Roman triumvirate, whom I had known well at Oxford,
and who lives, with his wife (Miss Craufurd of Portincross) and many
children, in a farmhouse-like villa near the town. At Ancona, Charlie
Dalison came to meet me, a pleasant change after much silence and
solitude. We went together to Loreto, and next day a dreary journey to
Urbino, which is more curious than beautiful, though there is a noble
old palace of its Dukes. It was a thirteen hours’ drive thence through
hideous country to Gubbio, where the inns are wretched, but the town
full of interest. Charlie left me at Perugia, and I came on here into
the Piero della Francesca country, which is more instructive than
captivating.”
[Illustration: GUBBIO.][171]
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Forli, April 2._--In one of the old churches here is the tomb of
Barbara Ordelaffi, wife of the Lord of Forli, who was one of the most
intensely wicked women of her own or any other age. But her tomb is
indescribably lovely, her figure, that of quite a young girl, lying upon
its marble sarcophagus with a look of innocence and simplicity which can
scarcely be equalled.
“The tomb is in a side-chapel, separated by a heavy railing from the
church. Inside this railing, in an arm-chair, with his eyes constantly
fixed upon the marble figure, sat this morning a very old gentleman,
paralysed and unable to move, wrapped in a fur cloak. As I looked in at
the rails, he said, ‘And you also are come to see Barbara; how beautiful
she is, is not she?’ I acquiesced, and he said, ‘For sixty years I have
come constantly to see her. It is everything to me to be here. It is the
love and the story of my life. No one I have ever known is half so
beautiful as Barbara Ordelaffi. You have not looked at her yet long
enough, but gradually you will learn this. Every one must love Barbara.
I am carried here now; I cannot walk, but I cannot live without seeing
her. My servants bring me; they put me here; I can gaze at her figure,
then I am happy. At eleven o’clock my servants will come, and I shall be
taken home, but they will bring me again to see Barbara in the
afternoon.’
“I remained in the church. At eleven o’clock the servants came. They
took up the old gentleman and carried him up to the monument to bid it
farewell, and then out to his carriage; but in the afternoon, said the
Sacristan, they would come again, for he always spent most of the day
with Barbara Ordelaffi; when he was alone with the marble figure, he was
quite quiet and happy, and as they always locked him into the chapel, he
could never come to any harm.”
* * * * *
_To_ MARY LEA GIDMAN.
“_Florence, April 28._--On Monday I went to the excellent inn at Lucca,
and on Tuesday to the Bagni. Never was a place less altered--only one
new house, I think, and very pretty and rural it all looked. I went up
to the dear old Casa Bertini, and into the little garden looking down on
the valleys, quite as pretty as my recollection of it. Quintilia (our
maid) was enchanted to see me, but has grown into a very old woman,
though only sixty-three.
“I liked Lucca better than all the other places. It was the festival of
S. Zita when I was there, who was made a saint because she had been such
a good servant for forty years. I thought, if my dear Lea had lived in
those days, how she would have had a chance of being canonised.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS WRIGHT.
“_Florence, May 2, 1875._--No words can express the fatigue or
discomfort of my Tuscan tour. The food, in the mountain convents
especially, was disgusting--little but coarse bread with oil and garlic;
the inns were filthy and the beds damp; and the travelling, in carts or
on horseback, most fatiguing, often sixteen hours a day. And yet--and
yet how thrilling is the interest of Monte Oliveto, S. Gemignano,
Volterra, La Vernia, Camaldoli!”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
[Illustration: LA VERNIA.][172]
“_Castagnuolo, May 3._--I am writing from the old country palace of the
Marchese Lotteria Lotharingo della Stufa. It is reached by driving from
Florence through the low envineyarded country for five miles. Then, on
the left, under the hills, one sees what looks like a great old barrack,
grimy, mossy, and deserted. This is the villa. All outside is decay, but
when you enter, there are charming old halls and chambers, connected by
open arches, and filled with pictures, china, books, and beautiful old
carved furniture. A terrace, lined with immense vases of lilies and
tulips, opens on a garden with vine-shaded pergolas and huge
orange-trees in tubs; and beyond are the wooded hills.
[Illustration: CAMALDOLI.][173]
“The Marchese is charming, living in the hearts of his people, sharing
all their interests, working with them--taking off his coat and tucking
up his sleeves to join in the sheep-shearing, gathering the grapes in
the vintage, &c. But the presiding genius of the place is Mrs. Ross
(Janet Duff Gordon), who has redeemed lands, planted vineyards,
introduced new plans for pressing the grapes--whose whole heart and soul
are in the work here.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS WRIGHT.
“_Vicenza, May 20, 1875._--I have been to Genoa and Pegli, and to
Piacenza again for a tremendous excursion of sixty-eight miles,
eighteen riding on a white mule, to the grave of S. Columbano in the
high Apennines. After this, the Italian lakes were comparative rest. I
thought the Lago d’Iseo far the most beautiful of them all. To-day I
have been on a family pilgrimage to Valdagno, where my grandmother lived
so happily, and where my uncle Julius Hare was born. There is much also
here in Vicenza to remind me of a later past, for opposite the window of
this room are the trees in the Marchese Salvi’s garden, where my dearest
Mother took her last walks.”
[Illustration: BOBBIO.][174]
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Herrenalb, in the Black Forest, June 14._--A week at Venice was a
great refreshment. Then I crossed the S. Gothard to Lucerne and came on
here. The semi-mountain air of this lovely place is as refreshing to the
body as the pure high-minded Bunsen character is to the soul. A little
branch railway brought me from the main line to Gernsbach, a pretty
clean German village with picturesque gabled houses girding a lovely
river. Hence it is a charming drive of two hours through forest into the
highlands, where the wood-clad hills break occasionally into fine crags.
Herrenalb itself takes its name from the abbey on the little river Alb,
while a monastery for women on the same stream a few miles off gives its
name to ‘Frauenalb.’ The former is Protestant now, the latter is still
Catholic, but in the valley of Herrenalb are the immense buildings of
the abbey, its great granaries with wooden pillars, and the ruins of its
Norman church.
[Illustration: LOVERE, LAGO D’ISEO.][175]
[Illustration: _Frances Baroness Bunsen 1874_]
“Frances de Bunsen and one of her Sternberg nieces met me in the
valley, and we were soon joined by the dear old Frau von Bunsen in her
donkey-chair. At eighty-six her wonderful power of mind and charm of
intellect and conversation are quite unimpaired. She has still the rare
art, described by Boileau, ‘passer du grave au doux, du plaisant au
sévère.’ The whole family breakfast at seven, and for an hour before
that the dear Grandmother is in the little terraced garden, examining
and tending her flowers. The house is full of souvenirs: in the
Baroness’s own room is a large frame with photographs of all her
numerous descendants, sent by the Grand Duchess of Baden to greet her
first arrival in this her new country home.”
* * * * *
To this happy visit at Herrenalb, and to the long conversations I used
to have with my dear old friend, walking beside her donkey-chair in the
forest, I owe the power of having been able to write her Memoirs two
years afterwards. It was my last sight of this old friend of my
childhood. I returned from Herrenalb to England.
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_London, June 23, 1875._--Called on Mrs. Leslie in her glorious old
house in Stratford Place, which is beautiful because all the colour is
subdued, no new gilding or smartness. She herself sat in the window
embroidering, with the bright sunlight just glinting on her rippled hair
and sweet face, at once a picture and a poem.”
* * * * *
[Illustration: LAMBETH, INNER COURT.][176]
“_June 26._--A great party at Lambeth Palace, the lawn and its many
groups of people very charming. Going in to tea with Miss Elliot down a
narrow passage, I came suddenly upon Arthur Stanley. In that moment I am
sure we both tried hard to recollect what had so entirely separated us
for five years, but we could not, and shook hands. The Spanish Lady
Stanley seeing this, threw up her hands--‘Gratias a Deo! O gratias a
Deo! una reconciliatiōn!’
“In the evening there was an immense party at Lady Salisbury’s to meet
the Sultan of Zanzibar.[177] He had a cold, so sent to say he could not
have the windows opened; the consequence of which was, that with
thousands of wax-lights and crowds of people, the heat was awful,
positively his native climate. The Sultan has a good, sensible, clever,
amused face, but cannot speak a word of any language except Arabic, of
which Lady Salisbury said that she had learnt some sentences by the end
of the evening, from hearing them repeated so often through the
interpreter, and at last ventured to air her new acquirements herself.
When the Sultan went away, the suite followed two and two--a picturesque
procession. Lord Salisbury walked first, leading the Sultan, or rather
holding his right hand in his own left, which it seems is the right
thing to do. The Sultan was immensely struck by Lady Caithness, and no
wonder, for her crown of three gigantic rows of diamonds, and then huge
diamonds and emeralds, had the effect of a sunlit wave in the
Mediterranean.”
* * * * *
“_June 27, Sunday._--To Holland House. Lady Holland sat at the end
window, looking on the garden, with a group round her. I went out with
Lord Halifax, then with Everard Primrose, who appeared as usual from the
library, and a third time with Lord Stanhope, who took me afterwards in
his carriage to Airlie Lodge. There the garden was in great beauty, and
we met Lady Airlie sauntering through its green walks with the Duke of
Teck. We went to sit in a tent, where we found Mr. Doyle, Mr. Cheney,
and a young lady who greeted me with, ‘Now, Mr. Hare, may I ask if you
never _can_ remember me, or if you always intend to cut me on purpose?’
It was Miss Rhoda Broughton.
“Lady Airlie talked of the death of Madame Rossetti. Her husband[178]
felt so completely that all his living interests were buried with his
wife, that he laid his unpublished poems under her dead head, and they
were buried with her. But, after a year had passed, his feeling about
his wife was calmed, while the longing for his poems grew daily, and
people urged him that he was forcing a loss upon the world. And the
coffin of the poor lady was taken up and opened to get at the poems, and
behold her beautiful golden hair had grown and grown till the whole
coffin was filled with it--filled with it and rippling over.[179] Lady
Airlie had the account from an eye-witness. For one moment Madame
Rossetti was visible in all her radiant loveliness, as if she were
asleep, then she sank into dust. She was buried with her Testament under
her pillow on one side and her husband’s poems on the other.
“The Duke of Teck looked very handsome and was most pleasant and
amiable. He said that an old lady in Germany, an ancestress of his, had
the most glorious pearl necklace in the world, and when she died, she
desired that the pearl necklace might be buried with her. And the family
were very sorry to part with their aged relative, but they were still
more sorry to part with the family jewels; and in time their grief for
the old lady was assuaged, but their grief for the pearl necklace was
never assuaged at all, and at last there came a moment when they dug up
the coffin, and took the pearl necklace from the aged neck. But behold
the pearls were quite spoilt and had lost all their lustre and beauty.
Then pearl-doctors were summoned, men who were learned in such things,
and they said that the only thing which would restore the beauty of the
pearls would be if three beautiful young ladies would wear them
constantly, and let the pearls drink in all their youth and beauty. So
the eldest daughter of the house took them and wore them constantly, and
all the beauty and brilliancy of her loveliness flowed into the pearls,
which grew brighter and better every day. And as her beauty faded,
another daughter of the house took them, and so three beautiful young
ladies took them and wore them in three generations, till, when sixty
years were passed, the pearls were so beautiful and glorious, so filled
with youth and radiancy, that there is no such pearl necklace in the
whole world.”
* * * * *
“_June 28._--Luncheon with dear old Lady Grey. Then to Lady Wharncliffe,
who looked very lovely seated beneath a great blue-green vase filled
with lilies.
“The way young men now weary their friends to ask for invitations for
them is almost as contemptible as the conduct of the ladies who ask
others to invite their guests for them that they may ‘get into society.’
‘Que ne fait-on pour trouver un faux bonheur!’ says Fénélon; ‘quels
rebuts, quelles traverses n’endure t’on point pour un fantôme de gloire
mondaine! quelles peines pour de misérables plaisirs dont il ne reste
que des remords.’”
* * * * *
“_June 29._--With the Archbishop of Dublin, Miss Trench, and Lady
Charles Clinton to Strawberry Hill, the ‘little plaything house’ of
Horace Walpole. It had been so wet that one had almost to wade from the
station to the house, and the beautiful breakfast was sopping in a tent
on the mossy lawn, so little being left in the house that the Princess
of Wales had to drink her tea out of a tumbler in a corner. Still the
interior of the house was full of interest--the historic pictures,
especially those of the three beautiful Waldegrave sisters, and of
Maria, Duchess of Gloucester; and then in the gallery are, by Sant and
Bucknor, all the especial friends of the house--all the beautiful
persons who have stayed there.
“Lady Waldegrave[180] (assisted by art) looked twenty-five years younger
than she did twenty-five years ago. The Princess of Wales, in a pink
dress under black lace and a little hat to match, copied as a whole from
pictures of Anne Boleyn, looked lovely.
“In the evening I went to Lady Salisbury’s reception. At the latter was
the Sultan of Zanzibar. Suddenly, in the midst of the party, he said to
Lady Salisbury, ‘Now, please, it is my time to say my prayers: I should
like to go into your room, and to be alone for ten minutes.’ And he did,
and he does it four times a day, and never allows anything whatever to
interfere with it. The Archbishop of Dublin, when presented, said, ‘I am
glad to have the honour of being presented to a man who has made a
promise and _kept_ it.’ The Sultan answered, ‘It can only be your
goodness which makes you say that.’”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_How_ glad I am that we do not agree about Sunday. I think your view of
‘the Sabbath’ so entirely derogatory to all the dignity and beauty of
Christianity, and I cannot understand any one not becoming an infidel,
if they think God so _mean_ as to suppose that He would consider ‘His
day’ (though Sunday is only the Church’s day, all days are God’s days)
dishonoured by walking with one’s intimate friends in a garden, or
having tea in another garden with several persons, all infinitely better
and wiser than oneself. ‘I am amazed,’ says Professor Amiel, ‘at the
vast amount of Judaism, of formalism, that still exists, eighteen
centuries after the Redeemer’s declaration that the letter killeth....
Christian liberty has yet to be won.’”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_June 30._--A very pleasant party in the Duke of Argyll’s garden, in
spite of a wet afternoon; all the little golden-haired daughters of the
house very kind in entertaining the guests. I returned with Louisa, Lady
Ashburton, to her beautiful Kent House. The rooms, hung with yellow,
with black doors and picture-frames, are very effective. There are some
semi-ruined cartoons of Paul Veronese upon the staircase.
“In the evening I went to Lady Margaret Beaumont’s to meet the Queen of
the Netherlands, ‘La Reine Rouge,’ as she is often called from her
revolutionary tendencies. She sat at the end of the room, a pleasant
natural woman, with fuzzy hair done very wide in curls, and a quaint
little diamond crown as an ornament at the back. She was most agreeable
in conversation, and, as Prosper Merimée says in one of his letters to
Panizzi, ‘would have been quite perfection, if she had not wished to
appear a Frenchwoman, having had the misfortune to be born in
Würtemburg.’”
* * * * *
“_July 1._--Luncheon at Lord Stanhope’s to meet Miss Rhoda Broughton.
Lord Stanhope aired one of his pet hobbies--the virtues of the novel
‘Anastasius.’ Mrs. Hussey says that his father used to say of him, ‘My
son is often very prosy, but then he has been _vaccinated_;’ for the
fourth Earl Stanhope had a familiar of whom he always spoke as ‘Tesco,’
and Tesco had inveighed against vaccination to him, and had told him
that to be vaccinated had always the effect of making the recipient
prosy.
“Mrs. Hussey mentioned this at a dinner to Mr. John Abel Smith, who
exclaimed, ‘Oh, that accounts for what has always hitherto been a
mystery to me. I went with that Lord Stanhope to hear a man named
Belloni lecture on “the Tuscan Language,” and we sat behind him on the
platform. He was most terribly lengthy. Suddenly, Lord Stanhope caught
him by the coat, and, arresting the whole performance, said, “Pray, sir,
have you ever been vaccinated?”--“Certainly, my Lord,” said the
astonished lecturer. “Oh, that is quite enough; pray continue,” said
Lord Stanhope, and the lecture proceeded, and Lord Stanhope composed
himself to sleep.’”
* * * * *
“_July 2._--A large sketching party at Holland House. We sat for three
hours in the Lily Garden, with birds singing, fountains playing, and
flowers blooming, as if we had been a hundred miles from London. Our
sketches were all sent in afterwards to Lady Holland, who sent them out
in the order of merit--Mrs. Lowther’s first, mine second.
“I dined with the Ralph Duttons and sat by Lady Barker, who was full of
Moody and Sankey, to whom she has been often with the Duchess of
Sutherland, who insists upon going every day. She says the mixture of
religious fervour with the most intense toadyism of the Duchess was
horribly disgusting; that the very gift of fluency in the preachers
contaminated and spoilt their work. Sometimes they would use the most
excellent and powerful simile, and then spoil it by something quite
blasphemous. Speaking of the abounding grace of God, Moody compared Him
to a banker who scolded the man who only drew for a penny, when he might
draw for a pound and come again as often as he liked. So far the sermon
was admirable, and all understood it; but then he went on to call it the
‘Great I Am Bank,’ and to cut all sorts of jokes, whilst the audience
roared with laughter; that when a man presented his cheque, however
large--‘Here ye are, says I Am,’ &c.
“Went on to the ball at Dorchester House, which was beautiful; the
Prince and Princess of Wales and the Tecks were there. The great charm
of the house is in the immensely broad galleries, which are so effective
when filled with beautiful women, relieved, like Greek pictures, against
a gold background. Miss Violet Lindsay, in a long white dress
embroidered with gold and a wreath of gold oak-leaves, was quite
exquisitely lovely.”
[Illustration: DORCHESTER HOUSE.][181]
* * * * *
“_July 3._--Breakfast with Sir James Lacaita to meet Mr. Gladstone, Lord
Napier and Ettrick, and the Marchese Vitelleschi. The great topic was
Manning. About him and Roman Catholicism in general, Gladstone seems to
have lost all temperance, but told much that was curious. He described
the deathbed of Count Streletski and Manning’s attempts to get in.
Lacaita said that there was a lady still living to whom Manning had
been engaged--‘fatto l’impégno’--and that he had jilted her to marry one
of two heiress sisters: now, whenever she hears of any especial act of
his, she says, ‘As ever, fickle and false.’
“‘False,’ said Gladstone, ‘always, but never fickle.’
“Lacaita described the illness, the apparently hopeless illness, of
Panizzi, when he and Mr. Winter kept guard. The Padre Mela came and
tried to insist upon seeing the patient. He told the Padre it was quite
impossible, but, upon his insisting, he assured him that if Panizzi
rallied, he would at once mention the Padre’s wish. At that time it was
‘impossible, as Panizzi was quite unconscious.’ When the Padre heard
that Panizzi was insensible, he implored and besought an entrance ‘basta
anche un’istante,’ but was positively and sternly refused.
“The next day Panizzi rallied, upon which both Lacaita and Mr. Winter
thought it necessary to mention the strong wish of the Padre Mela to see
him. ‘Oh, il birbone!’ said Panizzi, ‘vuol dunque convertirmi,’ and he
was so excited, that in order to content him they were obliged to engage
a policeman to stand constantly at the door to keep the priests out.
“Gladstone said he knew that the Pope (Pius IX.) had determined against
declaring the doctrine of _personal_ infallibility, till Manning had
fallen at his feet, and so urged and implored him to do so, that at
length he had consented. He (Gladstone) upheld that there was no going
back from this, and that even in case of the Pope’s death, the condition
of the Roman Church was absolutely hopeless. Vitelleschi agreed so far,
that if a foreign Pope were chosen, for which an effort would be made,
there was no chance for the Church; but if an Italian were elected--for
instance, Patrizi or Bilio, who had especially opposed the doctrine of
personal infallibility--the sense of the doctrine would be so far
modified that it would practically fade into nothingness, and that every
advantage would be taken of the Council not being yet closed to make
every possible modification.
“Vitelleschi lamented the utter want of religious education in modern
Italy--that he had been in schools where, when asked who Jesus Christ
was, all the boys differed, one saying that he was a prophet, another
something else; that when the question was put to Parliament how
morality was to be taught without religion, the answer was, ‘Faremmo un
trattato morale.”
“Lord Napier every now and then insisted on attention, and delivered
himself of some ponderous paragraph, on which occasions Gladstone
persistently and defiantly ate strawberries.”
* * * * *
“_July 4._--Tea at the Duchess of Cleveland’s. Lord John Manners was
there. They were full of the dog Minos and his extraordinary tricks. In
invitation cards to parties, ‘To meet the dog Minos’ is now constantly
put in the corner. When told to take something to the most beautiful
woman in the room, however, he made a mistake, and took it to the Queen,
who flicked him with her pocket-handkerchief; and then he took it to the
Princess of Wales. Being left alone in the room with a plate on which
there were three sandwiches, he could not resist eating them, but found
three visiting cards and deposited them in their place!”
* * * * *
“_July 7._--A party at Holland House. The old cedars, the brilliant
flowers, and more brilliant groups of people, made a most beautiful
scene.”
* * * * *
“_July 8._--A party at Lady Airlie’s for the Queen of Holland--very
pleasant.”
* * * * *
“_July 9._--Luncheon at Mrs. Harvey of Ickwellbury’s. The whole family
were full of Nigger stories:--of a man who, being pursued by an Indian
for the sake of his scalp, and finding escape hopeless, pulled off his
wig and presented it with a bow, upon which the Indian fell down and
worshipped him as a god!--Of a negro who, on being told that the strait
path to heaven was full of thorns and difficulties, said, ‘Den dis ere
nigger take to the woods!’”
* * * * *
“_July 11._--To hear Mr. Stopford Brooke preach. It was most
interesting--upon the love of God. He began by saying that he would not
undertake to prove the existence of God, for ‘God is, and those who love
Him know it.’
“He said, ‘Think in everything which you are about to do, whether it
will be for the good of the human race; if not, if it is only good for
yourself, your family, your society, don’t do it: that is the love of
God.
“‘Fight against all power which in the name of religion seeks to narrow
it. Fight against all, whether of caste or family, which seeks to
elevate one power to the exclusion of another; for the perfection of the
_whole_ human nature, that is God’s will. This is the service we must
give to Him, which separates worship from selfishness, and makes it more
praise than prayer: thus, with our sails filled with the winds of God,
may we drive over the storms of the human race to the harbour of
unity.’”
* * * * *
“_July 12._--To luncheon at Lord Northampton’s, but, except Lady Marion
Alford, I do not much like the Comptons. Lady Alwyn, who is charming,
was very amusing about them. ‘Lord Alwyn pretends not to hear; that is
because he is displeased, for he thinks I am abusing the Comptons. He
cannot bear me to find fault with any of his ancestors, however remote
they may be, for he thinks that the Comptons are quite perfect, and
always have been. When I first married, I hoped to have made a
compromise, and I told Lord Alwyn that if he would give up to me his
great-grandfather, I would spare all the rest; but he wouldn’t.... After
all, the Comptons were quite ruined, and we owe everything to old Sir
John Spencer who lived at Crosby Hall in the City, and _he_ had so poor
an opinion of the Comptons, that he wouldn’t let the Lord Northampton of
that day marry his daughter on any account. But Lord Northampton dressed
up as the baker’s boy and carried his bride off on his head in a basket.
He met Sir J. Spencer on the stairs, who gave him a sixpence for his
punctuality, and afterwards, when he found out that his daughter was in
that basket, swore it was the only sixpence of his money Lord
Northampton should ever see. But the next year Queen Elizabeth asked him
to come and be ‘gossip’ with her to a newly-born baby, whom she hoped he
would adopt instead of his disinherited daughter, and he could not
refuse; and you may imagine whose that baby was.’
[Illustration: CROSBY HALL.][182]
“Five-o’clock tea at Ashburnham House. The pictures there are
beautiful, a Mantegna and several Ghirlandajos, and it is a charming old
house in itself. In the evening to a party at the Duchess of Cleveland’s
given to the blind Duke of Mecklenburg and his Duchess.”
* * * * *
“_Highcliffe, July 18._--The usual party are here.... Lady Jane Ellice
is full of a theory that she is an Israelite, that we are all members of
the lost tribes of Israel, that our royal family are the direct
descendants of Tepha, the beautiful daughter of Zedekiah, who was
brought to Ireland by Jeremiah, and married to its king.
“Mrs. Hamilton Hamilton has much that is interesting to tell of her old
embassy life in France. She was at S. Leu the day before the Duc de
Bourbon’s death. She would not go in, though urged to do so, because
‘that woman, Madame de Feuchères,’ was there, but heard how well the
Duke was, preparing for the chase, ‘never better in his life.’ The next
day, in returning to Paris, their carriage was passed and repassed by
quantities of royal servants riding to and fro. At last they asked why
it was. The Duc de Bourbon was dead, found hung up to the blind of the
window.
“A few days before, the Duke had declared his intention of altering his
will in favour of the Comte de Chambord. Previously Chantilly had been
settled upon the Duc d’Aumale. Madame de Feuchères had said long before
to Louis Philippe, ‘Leave it all to me.’
“Madame de Feuchères (once an orange-girl at Southampton) was left
enormously rich. She promised to settle all her property on the Duc
d’Aumale if the Duchess of Orleans would receive her. Mrs. Hamilton
Hamilton was seated at the end of the room between the Duchesse Decazes
and another great lady of the old régime. Suddenly the Duchess of
Orleans got up and crossed the whole room to receive some one at the
door. Generally she remained in her place, making only one step even for
a duchess. It was Madame de Feuchères who entered.
“At the Court of Charles X. it was the Dauphine who received. She was
very severe in her manner and had a very harsh voice: it was as if the
shadow of the Temple always rested upon her. The Duchesse de Berri was
of gentler manners, but less wise. When the family of Charles X. fled
after the revolution of four days, the deputation going to offer the
crown to Louis Philippe found he was out; they found only the Duchess of
Orleans. She was horrified at the very idea and refused point-blank,
saying that her husband would never do such a wrong to his
cousin--‘Grace à Dieu! mon mari ne sera pas usurpateur.’ Going through
the garden at Neuilly, however, the deputation met Madame Adelaïde, who
asked what their business was, and being told what the Duchess had
answered, said, ‘Oh, mais mon frère accepte, certainement il accepte;’
and her view was definitive. She never separated from her brother
afterwards, and he always deferred to her opinion; indeed, as Napoleon
used to say, she was ‘the only man of the family.’ The whole family paid
her great attention. She was enormously rich, and made the Prince de
Joinville her heir. Louis Philippe chose her epitaph in the vaults at
Dreux. It is from Gen. xii. 13: ‘Thou art my sister, and it has been
well with me for thy sake.’
“Mrs. Hamilton Hamilton was the first person Queen Marie Amelie sent for
after her accession. She went in the evening, and found the Queen
sitting at a table with Madame Adelaïde and one other lady, the wife of
the Swedish Minister. A place was given to her between the Queen and
Madame Adelaïde. The first words of the Queen seemed ominous--‘Nous
avons laissé notre bonheur à Neuilly, Madame Hamilton.’ But Madame
Adelaïde instantly took up the conversation, and talked of a bullet
which she had found in her mirror, saying that she should never have the
mirror mended, but should preserve it as ‘un souvenir historique.’
“Lady Waterford says how much brighter and happier people are for having
something young about them,--a young lady, a child, a young dog even.
She says, ‘I want to make a picture of Hope painting the future in the
brightest colours. It will be such a beautiful subject. A rainbow will
pour into the room and all its colours be reflected on her palette.’”
* * * * *
“_July 20._--Lady Waterford and the Ellices went to Broadlands, and
returned in the evening radiant, and full of the Conference, with which
they were delighted. I was very sorry indeed to be too ill to go, these
Broadland ‘Conferences’ being quite a type of the times.
“They had a delightful drive through the forest and halted at Lyndhurst,
visiting the ‘King’s House’ and seeing the stirrup which is said to have
belonged to William Rufus. It is of gigantic size, and was probably
really intended, when dogs were forbidden in the forest, as a sort of
standard of measurement, only dogs which could pass through that stirrup
being allowed.
[Illustration: THE GARDEN PORCH, HIGHCLIFFE.][183]
[Illustration: THE SUNDIAL WALK, HIGHCLIFFE.][184]
“At Broadlands, after luncheon, they went out on the lawn, where the
Conference was proceeding under some fine beech-trees. ‘It was like a
Claude,’ said Lady Waterford, the view being over the water, with a
temple on one side and a cypress cutting the sky.’ Mr. Cowper Temple
opened the afternoon meeting with a little speech; a Nonconformist
minister followed, and then the High Church Mr. Wilkinson gave an
address. The most remarkable thing he told was a story of a young lady
who went to a meeting and returned resolved to dedicate herself to God.
She wrote down her dedication, and then said, ‘It shall be from to-day.’
Then she considered that there was so much to be done, &c.--‘It shall be
in three years.’ Again she hesitated and altered what she had
written--‘I may not live: it shall be to-night.” But finally she thought
again how much there was she wanted to do first, and finally wrote--‘In
three weeks I will dedicate myself to God.’ In the morning the paper
was found with all the different erasures and alterations, but the young
lady was dead.... Several other speakers followed, and then Mr. Cowper
Temple knelt on the gravel and prayed: all was most simple and earnest.
“Here at Highcliffe we have sat in the library in the morning, the great
Brugmantia bursting into its bloom of scarlet bells in the conservatory
beyond, Lady Waterford painting at her table, the rest working beneath
the stained window.”
* * * * *
“_Heckfield Place, August 13._--This is a beautiful open country with
lovely woods and purple heaths studded with groups of fine old firs. The
grounds of Heckfield itself are delightful, and the house, of red brick,
stands upon a high bastioned terrace filled with brilliant flower-beds
and overlooking undulating green lawns and an artificial sheet of water.
“Lord Eversley and his daughter Emma received me with most cordial
kindness and a real family welcome, and it was pleasant to see so many
interesting pictures of our common ancestors,--on the staircase a
full-length of my great-grandmother Mrs. Hare, as a young girl tripping
along with her apron full of flowers. There are fine portraits of her
father and mother; and her sister, Helena Lefevre, is represented again
and again, from youth to age.
“Lord and Lady Selborne have been here. He has a stiff manner, but warms
into much pleasantness, and she is very genial: their daughter, Sophy,
is a union of both. I went with Lord Selborne and Miss Palmer to
Strathfieldsaye. The Duke (of Wellington), dressed like a poor
pensioner, received us in his uncomfortable room, where Lord Selborne,
who has a numismatical mania, was glad to stay for two hours examining
coins. Meanwhile the Duke, finding we were really interested, took Miss
Palmer and me upstairs, and showed us all his relics. It was touching to
see the old man, who for the greater part of his lifetime existed in
unloving awe of a father he had always feared and been little noticed
by, now, in the evening of life, treasuring up every reminiscence of him
and considering every memorial as sacred. In his close stuffy little
room were the last pheasants the great Duke had shot, the miniatures of
his mother and aunt and of himself and his brother as children, his
grandfather’s portrait, a good one of Marshal Saxe, and the picture of
the horse Copenhagen. Most of the bedrooms were completely covered with
prints pasted on the walls. It was the great Duke’s fancy. Some of them
are amusing, but the general effect is poor and bad, and the medley
curious, especially in some rooms where they were framed in crowds--Lord
Eldon, Melancthon, and views of the Alhambra together. In the hall hung
a fine beginning of a picture of the great Duke, painted by Goya at
Madrid. Before it was finished the army had moved on to Salamanca. The
Duke had then been made Captain-General of the forces, and upon the
Spanish commander saying in a huff, ‘I will not serve under a
foreigner,’ Goya rejoined, ‘And I will not finish his portrait.’ And he
never did.
“Strathfieldsaye is an unprepossessing house--as the Duke himself said,
‘like a great cottage.’
“Lord Eversley gave, as a curious instance of the awe in which the great
Duke kept his Duchess, that Mrs. Lefevre, going one day to visit her,
found her dissolved in tears. When she asked the reason, the Duchess
said, sobbing, ‘Look there,’ and from the window Mrs. Lefevre saw
workmen cutting down all the ivy which made the whole beauty of the
trees before the house; and when Mrs. Lefevre asked the Duchess why she
did not remonstrate, she showed her a written paper which the head man
had just brought in, having received it from the Duke--‘Field Marshal
the Duke of Wellington desires that the ivy may immediately be cut down
from every tree on his estate.’ They had begun with those nearest home;
the Duke had evidently forgotten to except those, but his order could
not be trifled with.
“One day the great Duke was much surprised by receiving a letter which
he read as follows:--‘Being in the neighbourhood, I venture to ask
permission to see some of your Grace’s best breeches. C. London.’ He
answered to the Bishop of London that he had great pleasure in assenting
to his request, though he must confess it had given him very
considerable surprise. London House was thrown into confusion. The note
was from Loudon, the great gardener, and ‘breeches’ should have been
read ‘beeches.’[185]
“We went on to Silchester, which is one of the three walled Roman towns
of England, Wroxeter and Risborough being the others. The walls, three
miles in circumference, are nearly perfect. In the centre is the forum,
an immense square, 315 feet by 276, surrounded by shops, amongst which
those of the oyster-monger, game-seller, butcher, and jeweller have been
identified. One house retains its curious apparatus for warming very
perfect.”
* * * * *
“_Heckfield, August 14._--Yesterday Colonel Townley came to dine,
celebrated for his ride of eight hundred miles without stopping. It was
of great importance that certain despatches from our Government should
reach Constantinople before the Austrian messenger could deliver his,
and Colonel Townley accomplished it. When within a few hours of
Constantinople, an old wound opened from his exertion, and he felt
almost dying; but just then he caught sight of the Austrian envoy coming
over the brow of a distant hill, and it nerved him, and he rode on and
arrived first. It gained him his colonelcy. He is a pleasant, handsome,
unaffected man.”
* * * * *
“_Deanery, Salisbury, August 15._--I came here yesterday morning to the
Venerable Dean Hamilton of eighty-two, and his wife of seventy-two. He
was a Cambridge friend of my uncle Julius Hare, and lived in the same
circle, of Thirlwall, Whewell, Sedgwick, and the Malcolms, &c. His mind
has all its old power, and he has much that is most interesting to tell
of all the people he has seen. He gave a curious account of breakfasts
at the house of Ugo Foscolo, where everything was served by the most
beautiful maidens in picturesque dresses. He described the eccentric Mr.
Peate, who lived in Trinity, but never came out of his rooms except to
dinner or supper, when he always appeared to the moment. When Dr. Parr
dined, Mr. Peate drew him out in Combination Room, but retired at the
usual hour; only on going away, he walked up to Dr. Parr and said, ‘I
will take leave of you, sir, in words which may possibly not be
unfamiliar to you,’ and made a long set complimentary speech in honour
of learning; it was all taken word for word from an essay Dr. Parr had
published many years before; Peate’s memory was so very extraordinary.
It was not, however, always very convenient, for if a neighbour at
dinner affirmed an opinion, Peate would sometimes say, ‘On such a day or
such a year you expressed such and such an opinion, which was exactly
the reverse of this,’ for he never forgot anything, even the very terms
of an expression.
“There is here in Salisbury the usual familiar society of a cathedral
close--the Canon in residence and the other inhabitants meeting and
going in and out of each others’ houses at all hours. With Canon Douglas
Gordon I have been to the Palace, where we found the Bishop in his
garden, which is quite lovely, the rich green and brilliant flowers
sweeping up into and mingling with the grey arcades and rich chapels of
the cathedral; and from all points the tall heaven-soaring spire is
sublime, especially in the purple shadows of evening, with birds
circling ceaselessly round it.
“The Palace has a grand dull room full of portraits of deceased bishops,
where we had tea. Bishop Moberly, who is still rather schoolmasterish,
has no end of daughters, all so excellent that it has been observed
that whenever a colonist sends home for a commendable wife, you may,
with the most perfect confidence, despatch a Miss Moberly.”
* * * * *
“_August 16._--To Breamore, the fine old Elizabethan house of Sir Edward
Hulse, almost gutted by fire some years ago. I was taken up to the
housetop to survey several surrounding counties, and sat the rest of the
afternoon with the family in the shade of the old red gables. Two very
handsome boys, Edward and Westrow, asked for a story.”
* * * * *
“_Stanmer Park, August 18._--I came here yesterday to Lord Chichester’s.
It is a moderate house in a dullish park, with fine trees and a bright
flower-garden. We pray a great deal, and Lord Chichester--who is
intensely good--makes little sermons at prayers.... Lord Pelham is very
amusing under a quiet manner. ‘I thought I heard your dulcet tones, my
love, so I am coming out to you,’ he is just saying, as he steps through
the open window to his wife upon the verandah.”
* * * * *
“_Oct. 4._--A most charming visit to Lady Mary Egerton at Mountfield
Court. Mr. Charles Newton[186] of the British Museum is here, who is
always charming, with ripple of pleasantest anecdote and kindly, genial
manners. He says:--
“General Skenk had a monkey and a parrot, which hated each other. One
day he imprudently went out, leaving them alone together in a room. When
he came back, the monkey was sitting in his arm-chair, bleeding
profusely, and looking very sheepish and ashamed of himself, while the
floor was covered with feathers. The parrot had disappeared, but while
General Skenk was looking for any further remains of it, out from under
a sofa walked a perfectly naked bird, and said, ‘What a hell of a time
we’ve had!’
“Mr. Newton was at a spiritual séance. An old man of the party was told
that the spirit manifested was his wife, upon which he said:--
“‘Is that you, ’Arriet?’
“‘Yes, it’s me.’
“‘Are you ’appy, ’Arriet?’
“‘Yes, very ‘appy.’
“‘’Appier than you were with me, ’Arriet?’
“‘Yes, much ‘appier.’
“‘Where are you, ‘’Arriet?’
“‘In ‘ell.’
“Mr. Newton says that the cry of the wood-pigeon is ‘Sow peas, do, do.’
There is a bird in Turkey of which the male seems to say a string of
words meaning ‘Have you seen my sheep?’ when the female replies, ‘No, I
have not seen them.’ They are said to be a shepherd and shepherdess who
lost all their sheep and died of a broken heart, when they were turned
into birds. But the interesting point is that the story is found in an
old Greek novel--‘Longus.’
“‘The origin of the Torlonia family,’ said Mr. Newton, ‘is very curious.
When Pius VII. wished to excommunicate Napoleon I., he could not find
any one who was bold enough to affix the _scomunica_ to the doors of the
Lateran. At length an old man who sold matches was found who ran the
risk and did it. On the return of the Pope in triumph, the old man was
offered any favour he liked, and he chose the monopoly of tobacco. From
that time every speculation that the Torlonias entered upon was sure to
answer.’
“The late Prince Torlonia, being at Naples, went into the room where the
public appointments were sold by auction. He left his umbrella there,
and went back to get it while the sale was going on. The bidders,
chiefly Neapolitan nobles, were aghast to see the great Torlonia
reappear, and at last, after some consultation, one of them came up to
him and said they would give him 60,000 francs if he would leave.
Instead of showing the intense astonishment he felt at this most
unexpected proposal, Torlonia only shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘È
póco,’ and they gave him 100,000.
“The only other guests at Mountfield are a Mr. Baker, a Gloucestershire
squire, and his wife. He is an excellent man, and was the first who
instituted a Reformatory. This he did first at his own expense, but the
Government bought it from him. He speaks with the most dreary voice. Mr.
Newton says it is ‘just the sort of utterance he should be grateful for
if he was making his last speech upon the scaffold.’”
* * * * *
“_Sonning, Dec. 30._--My ever-kind friend Lord Stanhope died on
Christmas Eve. It was only two years from the time of dear Lady
Stanhope’s death, on New Year’s Eve, 1873. She left a paper for her
husband--what she called her ‘Last Words’--imploring him, for her sake,
to go back to his literary interests, not to give up what had been his
work, to try to fill up the blank in his life.
“When Lord Stanhope was dying, he said touchingly to Lady Mohun, ‘You
know what my dearest Emily asked of me in her last words. I have tried
to do as she wished, and you, my dear, have been such a good and kind
daughter to me, _you have almost made me wish to live_.’
“I have been spending charming days with Hugh Pearson. He says, ‘What
will become of a country in which the upper classes are content to be
fed upon Farrar’s ‘Life of Christ’ and the middle classes upon Moody and
Sankey?’ He told me of Justice Knight Bruce’s capital lines--
‘The ladies praise our curate’s eyes;
I cannot see their light divine:
He always shuts them when he prays,
And, when he preaches, closes mine.’”
XVIII
LONDON WALKS AND SOCIETY
* * * * *
“It is an inexpressible pleasure to know a little of the world, and to
be of no character or significancy in it.”--STEELE.
“Arranging long-locked drawers and shelves
Of cabinets, shut up for years,
What a strange task we’ve set ourselves!
How still the lonely room appears!
How strange this mass of ancient treasures,
Mementos of past pains and pleasures.”
“Be wisely worldly, be not worldly wise.”--QUARLES.
“No, when the fight begins within himself,
A man’s worth something.”--BROWNING.
My three thick volumes of the “Cities of Northern and Central Italy”
appeared in the autumn of 1875, a very large edition (3000 copies) being
printed at once. They were immediately the object of a most violent
attack from Mr. Murray, who saw in them rivals to his well-known red
handbooks. A most virulent and abusive article appeared upon my work in
the _Athenæum_, accusing me, amongst other things, of having copied
from Murray’s Handbooks without acknowledgment, and quoting, as proof,
passages relating to Verona in both books, which have the same singular
mistake. It was certainly a curious accident which made me receive the
proof-sheets of Verona when away from home on a visit at Tunbridge
Wells, where the only book of reference accessible was Murray’s
“Handbook of Northern Italy,” which I found in the house, so that the
mistakes in my account of Verona _were_ actually copied from Murray’s
Handbook, to which I was indebted for nothing else whatever, as (though
much delighted with them when they first appeared) I had for years found
Murray’s Handbooks so inefficient, that I had never bought or made any
use of them, preferring the accurate and intelligent Handbooks of the
German _Gsel-fels_. Mr. Murray further took legal proceedings against
me, because in one of my volumes I had mentioned that the Italian Lakes
were included in his Swiss rather than his Italian Handbooks: this
having been altered in recent years, but having been the case in the
only volumes of his Handbooks I had ever possessed. On all occasions,
any little literary success I met with excited bitter animosity from Mr.
Murray.
Another curious attack was made upon me by the eccentric Mr. Freeman,
the historian of the Norman Conquest. He had published in the _Saturday
Review_ a series of short articles on the Italian cities, which I always
felt had never received the attention they deserved, their real interest
having been overlooked owing to the unpopularity of the dogmatic and
verbose style in which they were written. Therefore, really with the
idea of doing Mr. Freeman a good turn, I had rather gone out of my way
to introduce extracts from his articles where I could, that notice might
thus be attracted to them--an attention for which I had already been
thanked by other little-read authors, as, whatever may be the many
faults of my books, they have always had a large circulation. But in the
case of Mr. Freeman, knowing the singular character of the man, I begged
a common friend to write to his daughter and amanuensis to mention my
intention, and ask her, if her father had no objection to my quoting
from his articles, to send me a list of them (as they were unsigned), in
order that I might not confuse them with those of any other person. By
return of post I received, without comment, from Miss Freeman, a list of
her father’s articles, and I naturally considered this as equivalent to
his full permission to quote from them. I was therefore greatly
surprised, when Mr. Freeman’s articles appeared soon afterwards in a
small volume, to find it introduced with a preface, the whole object of
which was, in the most violent manner, to accuse me of theft. I
immediately published a full statement of the circumstances under which
I had quoted from Mr. Freeman in sixteen different newspapers. Mr.
Freeman answered in the _Times_ by repeating his accusation, and in the
_Guardian_ he added, “Though Mr. Hare’s conduct was barefaced and
wholesale robbery, I shall take no further notice of him till he has
stolen something else.”[187]
Mr. Freeman made himself many enemies, but he did not make me one; he
was too odd. His neighbour, the Dean of Wells, Johnson, could not bear
him. When there was an Archæological Meeting at Wells, it was thought
that peace might be made if the Dean could be persuaded to propose the
historian’s health at the dinner. The Dean was quite willing, but he
began his speech unfortunately with--“I rise with great pleasure to
propose the health of our eminent neighbour, Mr. Freeman the historian,
a man who--in his own personal characteristics--has so often depicted
for us the savage character of our first forefathers.”
But in spite of these little catastrophes attending its publication, I
am certain that “Cities of Northern and Central Italy,” which cost me
far more pains and labour, and which is more entirely original, than all
my earlier books put together, was by far the best of my writings, up to
that time.
Before the book was out, I was already devoted to a new work, suggested
by the great delight I had long found in London, and by the desire of
awakening others to an enjoyment of its little-known treasures. A set of
lectures delivered at Sir John Shaw-Lefevre’s house in Seymour Street,
and a series of articles in _Good Words_, laid the foundation for my
“Walks in London.” When employed in this work, as in all my others, I
felt all those portions of life to be the most interesting which were
spent in following out any one single purpose.
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Jan. 18, 1876._--I went to Cobham for three days last week. Deep snow
was on the ground, but the visit was delightful. I was delighted to find
Lady Pelham there, always so radiant and cordial, and so perfectly
simple. Of the other guests, the most interesting were Lord and Lady
Harris. There were also a great many Kentish men, hunting clergy, who
dressed in top-boots, &c., _during_ their visit, but departed in
ecclesiastical attire.”
* * * * *
“_Jan. 19._--Yesterday I went to Lady Taunton. She has a beautiful
portrait of her daughter by young Richmond--a sort of play upon every
possible tone of yellow--a yellow gown, a yellow background, a great
cushion worked with yellow sunflowers, yellow hair looped up with
pearls, only a great white living lily to throw it all back. It is a
most poetical picture.
“In the evening I went to a supper at the house of young F. P. to meet a
whole society of young actors, artists, &c. Eden was there, known in the
stage world as Herbert, a name he took to save the feelings of his
episcopal uncle, Lord Auckland. His is a fine and a charming face, but
rather sad.... There were about fourteen men present, very good singing,
and then supper, much kindness and cordiality, and not a word which all
their mothers and sisters might not have heard. It would not have been
so at college or in a mess-room: so much for maligned actors.”
* * * * *
“_Jan. 21._--To see Frederick Walker’s pictures. It is an interesting
collection, as being the written mind of one man. You see the same
picture over and over again, from its first sketch of an idea--merely a
floating idea--to its entire completion, and it is interesting to know
how slow a growth of thought was required to lead up to something,
which, after all, was not so very wonderful in the end. The pictures are
not beautiful, but the man who did them must have been charming, such a
simple lover of farmhouse life, apple-orchards, and old-fashioned
gardens, with a glory of flowers--all the right kinds of flowers
blooming together.
“It poured, so I sat some time with R. on one of the seats. He talked
long and openly of all the temptations of his life, and endlessly about
himself. I urged that the best way of ennobling his own nature must be
through others, that self-introspection would never do, and could only
lead to egotism and selfishness, but that in trying to help others he
would unconsciously help himself. I find it most difficult to say
anything of this kind without making illustrations out of my own life,
which I have certainly no right to think exemplary.
“As we were going away, a lady who had stared long and hard at us, and
whom I thought to be some waif turned up from my Roman lectures, came up
to me. ‘I think, sir, that you were standing close to my sister just
now, and she has lost her purse.’--‘I am very sorry your sister has lost
her purse; it is very unfortunate.’--‘Yes, but my sister has _lost_ her
purse, and you, _you_ were standing by her when she lost it.’--‘I think
after what you have said I had better give you my card.’--‘Oh, no, no,
no.’--’ Oh, yes, yes, yes: after what you have said I must _insist_ upon
giving you my card.’ What an odd experience, to be taken for a
pickpocket! R. thought the lady had really picked _my_ pocket, but she
had not.”
* * * * *
“_Jan. 22._--An anonymous letter of apology from the lady of the picked
pocket; only she said that if I had been as flurried as she was, and had
been placed in the same circumstances as she was, I should have acted
exactly as she did; in which I do not quite agree with her.”
* * * * *
“_Monk’s Orchard, Jan. 23._--This is a fine big house, be-pictured,
be-statued, with a terraced garden, a lake, and a great flat park. A Mr.
and Mrs. Rodd are here with their son Rennell, a pleasant-looking boy,
wonderfully precocious and clever, though, as every one listens to him,
he has--not unnaturally--a very good opinion of himself: still one feels
at once that he is the sort of boy who will be heard of again some day.
“Our host, Mr. Lewis Loyd, is in some ways one of the most absent men in
the world. One day, meeting a friend, he said, ‘Hallo! what a long time
it is since I’ve seen you! How’s your father?’--‘Oh, my father’s
dead.’--‘God bless me! I’m very sorry,’ &c. The next year he met the
same man again, and had forgotten all about it, so began with, ‘Hallo!
what a long time since I’ve seen you! How’s your father?’-‘Oh, _my
father’s dead still_!’
“We have been to church at Shirley--one of Scott’s new country churches.
In the churchyard is a cross to poor Sir John Anson, and beside it a
granite altar-tomb with an inscription saying that it is to Ruskin’s
father--‘a perfectly honest merchant,’ and that ‘his son, whom he loved
to the uttermost, and taught to speak the truth, says this.’
* * * * *
“_69 Onslow Square, Jan. 28._--A long visit to F. and S. It is quite a
new phase of life to me. They are perfect gentlemen, at least in heart,
and one cannot be with them long without seeing a kindly, chivalrous
nature, which comes to the surface in a thousand little nothings. Yet
they are what the world frowns upon--beginning to seek fortune on the
stage, neglected or rejected by unsympathetic relations, living from
hand to mouth, furnishing their rooms by pawning their rings and
watches, &c. S. in terrible illness, totally penniless, ignored by every
one, is taken in, nursed, doctored, and paid for by F., upon whom he has
no claim whatever. F., abused, snubbed, and without any natural charm in
himself, is henceforth loved, defended, regarded with the most loyal
devotion, by his more popular companion.
“I dined on the 26th with Lady E. Adeane. Mr. Percy Doyle was very
amusing. Talking of the anxiety of ministers in America to change their
posts, he said, ‘If my father had bequeathed to me Hell and Texas, I
should have lived in Hell and let Texas.’
“Yesterday I went to luncheon with the Vaughans at the Temple, and met
there Miss Rye, who has a home for homeless children at Clapham, and
takes them off by batches to America, to establish them there as
servants, &c. She produced from her pocket about a hundred
cartes-de-visite of the children, wild, unkempt, and wicked-looking, and
of the same children after they had been under cultivation. Certainly
the change was marvellous, but then she had employed a good photographer
for the redeemed children and a very bad one for the little ruffians.”
[Illustration: FOUNTAIN COURT, TEMPLE.][188]
* * * * *
“_Feb. 5._--Dined at Lady Sarah Lindsay’s. Sir Robert Phillimore was
there, whom I had not seen since I was a child. He is most agreeable
and has a noble nature. There was a young man there, a Bridgeman, just
entering the law, and I thought the picture quite beautiful which Sir
Robert drew without effort for his encouragement, of all that the
profession of the law might become and be made by any one who really
took to it,--of all the great aims to be fulfilled, of all the ways of
making it useful to others and ennobling to one’s own nature. I felt so
much all that I should have felt that sort of encouragement, drawn from
practical experience, would have been to myself.”
* * * * *
“_Feb. 8._--The opening of Parliament. I went to Lord Overstone’s. At a
quarter to two the procession passed beneath--the fine old carriages and
gorgeous footmen, one stream of gold and red, pouring through the black
crowd and leafless trees. We all counted the carriages
differently--eight, twelve, fifteen; and there were only six! All one
saw of royalty was the waving of a white cap-string, as the Queen,
sitting well back in the carriage, bowed to the people.”
* * * * *
“_Feb. 13._--Dined at the Dowager Lady Barrington’s--the great topic
being dinner past, present, and prospective. George, Lord Barrington,
said that he had dined at the Brazilian Minister’s, and he was sure the
cookery was good and also the wine, for he had eaten of every dish and
drunk fourteen kinds of wine, and had passed a perfectly good night and
been quite well the next morning. He also dined with Mr. Brand the
Speaker, and complimented Mrs. Brand upon the dinner. She told her cook.
He said, ‘We are three, Lord Granville’s, Mr. Russell Sturgis’s, and
myself; there are only three cooks in London.’ When Lord Harrington
afterwards saw Mrs. Brand, she told him the cook had asked who had
praised him, and ‘when he heard,’ continued Mrs. Brand, ‘he also gave
you his little meed of praise.’ ‘Ah, M. Barrington,’ he said, ‘c’est une
bonne fourchette.’ He had been at Kinmel, but said he had ‘dismissed Mr.
Hughes.’”
* * * * *
“_Feb. 14._--Dined at Lord Halifax’s to meet Lord and Lady Cardwell.
They are most pleasant, interesting, interested company, and it was
altogether one of the happiest dinners I remember. The conversation was
chiefly about the changes in spelling and their connection with changes
in English history and customs.
“Lord Cardwell was in the habit of using the Church prayers at family
prayers. One day his valet came to him and said, ‘I must leave your
lordship’s service at once.’--‘Why, what have you to complain
of?’--‘Nothing personally, but your lordship _will_ repeat every
morning--“We have done those things which we ought not to have done, and
have left undone those things which we ought to have done:”--now I
freely admit that I have often done things I ought not, but that I have
left undone things that I ought to have done, I utterly deny: and I will
not stay here to hear it said.’”
* * * * *
“_Feb. 19._--A charming walk with Charlie Wood to St. Paul’s, along the
Embankment and then a labyrinth of quaint City streets. He called it his
half-holiday, and I am sure it was so to me to mount into his pure
unworldly atmosphere even for two hours. He is really the only young man
I know who at once thinks no evil, believes no evil, and does no evil.”
* * * * *
“_Sunday, Feb. 20._--Luncheon with Mrs. Harvey of Ickwellbury, meeting
Colonel Taylor, the Whip of the House of Commons--a very amusing man. He
talked a great deal about Ireland. He said that when he congratulated
Whyte-Melville upon the engagement of his daughter to Lord Massereene,
he said, ‘Yes, I have every reason to be satisfied: first, my future
son-in-law is an Irishman, and then he speaks his native tongue in all
its purity.’
[Illustration: IN FRONT OF ST. PAUL’S.][189]
“He spoke of landing in former days at Kingstown, how the car-drivers
fought for you, and, having obtained you, possessed you, and made all
out of you that they could. Passing a mile-post with G. P. O. upon it,
the ‘fare’ asked its meaning. ‘Why, your honour,’ said the driver, ‘it’s
aizy to see that your honour has never been in ould Ireland before--why,
that’s just God preserve O’Connell, your honour, and it’s on ivery
mile-post all through the country.’ It was of course ‘General Post
Office.’
“Coming to a river, the ‘fare’ asked, ‘What do you call this
river?’--‘It’s not a river at all, your honour; it’s only a
strame.’--‘Well, but what do you call it?’--‘Oh, we don’t call it at
all, your honour; it just comes of itself.’”
* * * * *
“_Feb. 24._--Dined at Lord Strathmore’s, and went on with Hedworth and
Lizzie Williamson to Lady Bloomfield’s, where sixty-eight cousins
assembled to take leave of Lord and Lady Lytton on their departure for
India.”
* * * * *
If any one has ever the patience to read this memoir through, they will
have been struck by the way in which, for many years before the time I
am writing of, the persons with whom I lived were quite different from
those amongst whom my childhood was spent. Arthur Stanley had never got
over the publication of the “Memorials of a Quiet Life,” though he was
always at a loss to say what he objected to in it, and Mary Stanley I
never saw at all. From Lady Augusta alone I continued to receive
frequent and affectionate messages.
In 1874 Lady Augusta represented the Queen at the marriage of the Duke
of Edinburgh, and she never really recovered the effects of the cold
which she then endured in Russia. In the summer of 1875 she was
alarmingly ill in Paris, was brought home with difficulty, and from that
time there was little hope of her recovery. She expired early in March
1876. I had not seen her for long, but had always a most affectionate
recollection of her, and the last letter she was able to dictate was
addressed to me.
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Holmhurst, March 12._--I have been again up to London for dear Augusta
Stanley’s funeral on the 9th. It was a beautiful day. All the approaches
to Westminster were filled with people in mourning.
“It seemed most strange thus to go to the Deanery again--that the doors
closed for six years were opened wide by death, by the death of one who
had always remained my friend, and whom no efforts of others could
alienate. Red cloth showed that royalty was coming, and I went at once
to the library, where an immense crowd of cousins were assembled. As I
went down the little staircase with Kate Vaughan, four ladies in deep
mourning passed to the dining-room, carrying immense wreaths of lovely
white flowers: they were the Queen and three of her daughters. The Queen
seemed in a perfect anguish of grief. She remained for a short time
alone with the coffin, I believe knelt by it, and was then taken to the
gallery overhanging the Abbey.
“Soon the immense procession set out by the cloisters, and on entering
the church, turned so as to pass beneath the Queen and then up the nave
from the west end. The church was full of people: I felt as if I only
saw the wind lifting the long garlands of white flowers as the coffin
moved slowly on, and Arthur’s pathetic face of childlike bewilderment.
The music was lovely, but in that vast choir one longed for a village
service. It was not so in the second part, when we moved through one
long sob from the poor of Westminster who lined the way, to the little
chapel behind the tomb of Henry VII., where the service was
indescribably simple and touching.
“The procession of mourners went round the Abbey from the choir by a
longer way to the chapel on account of the people. As it passed the
corner of the transept, the strange little figure of Mr. Carlyle slipped
out. He had been very fond of Augusta, was full of feeling for Arthur,
and seemed quite unconscious of who and where he was. He ran along,
before the chief mourners, by the side of the coffin, and in the chapel
itself he stood at the head of the grave, making the strangest
ejaculations at intervals through the service.”
* * * * *
Arthur stood at the head of the grave with his hands on the heads of
Thomas Bruce’s two children. When the last flowers fell into the grave,
a single voice sang gloriously, “Write, saith the Spirit.” Then we moved
back again to the nave, and, standing at the end, in a voice of most
majestic pathos, quivering, yet audible through all that vast space,
Arthur himself gave the blessing. “The Queen was waiting for him upon
the threshold as he went into the house, and led him herself into his
desolate home.”
I insert some poor lines which I wrote “In Memoriam.”
“Lately together in a common grief
Our Royal mistress with her people wept,
And reverently were fairest garlands laid
Where our beloved one from her sufferings slept.
Seeing the sunshine through a mist of tears
Fall on the bier of her we loved so well,
Each, in the memory sweet of happy years,
Some kindly word or kindlier thought could tell.
And tenderly, with sorrow-trembling voice,
All sought their comfort in a meed of love,
Unworthy echoes from each saddened heart
Seeking their share in the great loss to prove.
For she so lately gathered into rest
Was one who smoothed this stony path of ours,
And beating down the thorns along the way,
Aye left it strewn and sweet with summer flowers.
In the true candour of a noble heart,
She never sought another’s fault to show,
But rather thought there must be in herself
Some secret failure which she did not know.
While if all praised and honoured, she herself
Meekly received it with a sweet surprise,
Seeking henceforth to be what now she deemed
Was but a phantasy in loving eyes.
When the fair sunshine of her happy home
Tuned her whole heart and all her life to praise,
She ever tried to cheer some gloomier lot,
From the abounding brightness of its ways.
And many a weary sufferer blest the hand
Which knew so well a healing balm to pour;
While hungry voices never were denied
By her, who kept, as steward, a poor man’s store.
Thus when, from all the labour of her love,
She passed so sadly to a bed of pain,
And when from tongue to tongue the story went,
That none would see the honoured face again:
It was a personal grief to thousand hearts
Outside the sphere in which her lot was cast,
And tens of thousands sought to have a share
In loving honour paid her at the last.
E’en death is powerless o’er a life like hers,
Its radiance lingers, though its sun has set;
Rich and unstinted was the seed she sowed,
The golden harvest is not gathered yet.”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_March 25._--A ‘Spelling Bee’ at Mrs. Dundas’s. I was plucked as I
entered the room over the word Camelopard.
“Dined at the Tower of London with Everard Primrose; only young Lord
Mayo there. At 11 P.M. the old ceremony of relieving guard took place. I
stood with Everard and a file of soldiers on a little raised terrace. A
figure with a lanthorn emerged from a dark hole.
“‘Who goes there?’ shouted the soldiers.
“‘The Queen.’
“‘What Queen?’
“‘Queen Victoria.’
“‘And whose keys are those?’
“‘Queen Victoria’s keys.’
“Upon which the figure, advancing into the broad moonlight, said ‘God
bless Queen Victoria!’ and all the soldiers shouted ‘Amen’ and
dispersed.”
* * * * *
“_March 28._--My lecture on ‘The Strand and the Inns of Court’ took
place in 41 Seymour Street. I felt at Tyburn till I began, and then got
on pretty well. There was a very large attendance. I was very much
alarmed at the whole party, but had an individual dread of Lord
Houghton, though I was soon relieved by seeing that he was fast asleep,
and remained so all the time.”
* * * * *
“_April 4._--My lecture on Aldersgate, &c. Dinner at the Miss Duff
Gordons, meeting the Tom Taylors.[190] He talks incessantly.”
* * * * *
“_April 6._--Dined with Lady Sarah Lindsay, where I was delighted at
last to meet Mrs. Greville.[191] She recited in the evening, sitting
down very quietly on the sofa with her feet on a stool. Her voice is
absorbing, and in her ‘Queen of the May’ each line seems to catch up a
fresh echo of pathos from the last.”
* * * * *
“_April 7._--Dined at Sir Stafford Northcote’s.[192] Mrs. Dudley Ryder
was there, who told me she had paralysis of the throat, yet sang
splendidly. Sir Stafford told a capital story in French in the evening,
something like that which I tell in Italian about the Duke of Torlonia.”
* * * * *
“_April 14._--Dined at the Shaw-Lefevres’. Dear Sir John talked much,
when we were alone, of the great mercies and blessings of his life--how
entirely he could now say with Horne Tooke, ‘I am both content and
thankful.’ He described his life--his frequent qualms at having
sacrificed a certain position at the bar to an uncertain post under
Government: then how the Governorship of Ceylon was offered to him, and
how he longed to take it, but did not, though it was of all things what
he would have liked, because an instant answer was demanded, and he
could not at once find any means of providing for the children he could
not take with him: how through all the year afterwards he was very
miserable and could apply to nothing, it was such a very severe
disappointment; and then how he was persuaded to stand for Cambridge,
and how, though he did not get in, the effort served its purpose in
diverting his thoughts. Eventually the place in the House of Lords was
offered, in which he worked for so many years.
[Illustration: CHAPEL AND GATEWAY, LINCOLN’S INN.][193]
“Sir John spoke most touchingly of his boy’s death. ‘We had another
little boy once, you did not know perhaps. It died. It was the dearest,
most engaging child. When it died it took the shine out of life.’ Then
he dwelt on the law of compensations, how the anxiety for his eldest
girl Rachel, so very ill, ‘brought in on a cushion, and suffering so
much, poor thing,’ diverted his thoughts from the great loss. In his old
age he said, ‘And now at eighty all is blessing--_all_ ... but it is
difficult to remember how old one is. The chief sign of age I feel is
the inability to apply regularly to work, the having no desire to begin
anything new.’ One could not but feel as if it was Sir Thomas More who
was speaking, so beautiful his spirit of blessed contentment, so perfect
the trust and repose of his gentle waiting for what the future might
bring.”
[Illustration: STAPLE INN, HOLBORN.][194]
* * * * *
“_Holmhurst, April 30._--Lea has been in saying, ‘It’s May Day
to-morrow, the day to turn the cows out to grass. The poor things must
have a bit of a treat then, you know; they always have done. But there’s
not the good clover now-a-days there used to be. Eh! what a fuss there
used to be, to be sure, putting the cows out in the clover; and we used
to watch that they did not eat too much, and to see that they did not
swell; if they did, they had to be pricked, or they’d have burst. And
then next day there was the making of the first May cheese.... Old John
Pearce at Lime used to take wonderful care of Mr. Taylor’s oxen, and
proud enough he used to be of them. “Well, you give them plenty to eat,
John,” I used to say. “Yes, that’s just about it, Miss Lea,” he said; “I
do put it into them right down spitefully, that I do.”’
“Here are some more of her sayings:--
“‘Here’s a pretty how-d’ye-do! It’s the master finding fault!--it’s one
day one thing and one another. Old bachelors and old maids are all
alike. They don’t know what they want, _they_ don’t; but _I_ know: the
old maids want husbands, and the old bachelors want wives, that’s what
they want.’
“‘It’s the mischief of the farming now-a-days that the farmers always
say ‘Go.’ ... My father used to say a farmer never ought to say ‘Go;’ if
he did, the work was sure to be neglected: a farmer should always say
‘Come, lads,’ and then the work would be done.’
“‘It’s hailing is it? then there’ll be frost, for
“Hail, hail,
Brings frost at its tail!”
as the saying is.’
“‘Why, girl, the moon’s waning. I would never kill a pig when the moon’s
on the wane. Why, it would not break out; it would shrivel up. No, you
must kill a pig with the new moon. I daresay folks laugh at me, but I
know what’s what.’
“‘How you do make him (a sick young man) laugh!
“‘Well, and there’s nothing does him so much good. He’d mope, mope,
mope, and that’s nothing. It makes him fat, like babies. Boys must
laugh, or they won’t get fat. Girls may cry: it always does them good:
it stretches their muscles and such like: but boys mustn’t cry; it’s bad
for them: that’s how the old saying goes.’
“‘How do you like them?
“‘Eh! how do I know? We must summer ’em and winter ’em afore we can
tell, must’na we, wench: aye, and a good many summers and winters it
must be too, and then they may deceive ye. I have’na lived more than
twenty years over half a century, but I’ve found that out.’
“I have’na heard the cuckoo this spring. I don’t know what’s come over
the things. Heathfield fair is over ever so long, and “The old woman
lets the cuckoo out of her basket at Heathfield fair,” that’s the old
saying.’”
* * * * *
“_May 6._--In London again, which is full of interest as ever, and now
especially beautiful from its trees just bursting into leaf with
indescribable wealth of lovely young green. It is certainly a most
delightful time. People think I ought to feel dreadfully depressed by a
most spiteful paragraph upon ‘Cities of Italy’ in the _Saturday_, and a
more spiteful review in the _Athenæum_, but I do not a bit: they are
most disagreeable doses to take, but I believe they are most wholesome
medicine for one’s morals and capital teachers of humility.”
* * * * *
“_May 7._--An amusing tea at the Duchess of Cleveland’s--young Lord
Stanhope and Mr. Bourke there. The Duchess talked of Pimlico, the bought
property of Lord Grosvenor, formerly called ‘The Five Fields.’ The Court
wished to buy it because it was so close to Buckingham Palace, but
thought the sum asked was too much. Lord Grosvenor gave £30,000 for it.
Lord Cowper had wished to buy it, and sent his agent for the purpose,
but he came back without having done so, and when Lord Cowper upbraided
him, said, ‘Really, my lord, I could not find it in my heart to give
£200 more for it than it was worth.’ Cubitt afterwards offered a
ground-rent of £60,000.”
* * * * *
“_May 8._--Dined with Mrs. Thellusson to meet Lady Waterford. Whistler
the artist was there. He has a milk-white tuft growing out of his black
hair, a peculiarity which he declares to be hereditary in his family, as
in that of the Caëtani.”
* * * * *
“_May 10._--I was ‘at home’ in the morning to a sketching-party in
Bunhill Fields Cemetery. It was very sunny there and very quiet, till
the Militia and a troop of attendant boys found us out. One of the
latter stole my umbrella, but I pursued him and captured it again as he
passed through the gate.
“A very pleasant gathering in the afternoon in the beautiful new room of
Lowther Lodge, where the great characteristics are the white Queen Anne
chimney-pieces, and the vast space of floors, not parquetted, but of
closely fitted oak boards. Dined at the Peases’ to meet Woolner the
sculptor, &c.”
[Illustration: JOHN BUNYAN’S TOMB, BUNHILL FIELDS.][195]
* * * * *
“_May 11._--A lovely day. My ‘Excursion’ to the Tower. Forty-six people
met me there. All the curious chambers and vaults were open to us in
turn. In the White Tower we saw the prisons of Little Ease. I had given
my little explanation and returned into the sunshine with the greater
number of the party, when Mrs. Maxwell Lyte, who had arrived late, went
in. Being told that the cell of Sir Thomas More was to be seen, and
seeing a railing by the flickering torchlight, she thought that marked
the place, and went underneath it, and stepped out into--nothing! With a
piercing shriek she fell into a black abyss by a precipice of fourteen
feet. Every one thought she was killed, but after a minute her voice
came out of the depths--‘I am not seriously hurt.’ It was a tremendous
relief.
[Illustration: TRAITOR’S GATE, TOWER OF LONDON.][196]
“We went on to the Queen’s Head Restaurant, Emily Lefevre and I running
before to order luncheon. When we arrived, we found volleys of smoke
issuing from the house and the kitchen-chimney on fire. However, we
waited, the party bore the smell, and eventually we had our luncheon.
Tom Brassey wanted to order wine, &c., but Emily stopped him with,
‘Remember, Mr. Brassey, we are limited to fourpence a head.’
“The Prince of Wales arrived (from India) at 7 P.M. I waited two hours
at the Spottiswoodes’ house in Grosvenor Place to see him, and saw
nothing but the flash of light on his bald head. It was a pleasant
party, but how seldom in London society does one hear anything one can
carry away. Most people are like those Mme. du Deffand describes--‘des
machines à ressort qui vont, viennent, parlent, vivent, sans penser,
sans réfléchir, sans sentir, chacun jouant son rôle par habitude.’”
* * * * *
“_May 12._--Trouble with Murray the publisher, who insists on believing
that because some points in my ‘Cities of Italy’ resemble his Handbooks,
they must be taken from them, which they most assuredly are not. I had
no Handbooks with me when I was writing, but where there is only one
thing to say about places, two people sometimes say it.”
* * * * *
“_May 13._--A delightful morning, drawing in the Savoy Churchyard.”
* * * * *
“_May 15._--Drawing-party in dirty, picturesque St. Bartholomew’s. For
the first time this year no one asked me to dinner, and I was most
profoundly bored.”
* * * * *
“_May 16._--Dined at Sir Charles Trevelyan’s. Old Lord Hatherley was
very interesting. He said much that was curious about the Milton houses
in the City, and how as a boy he used to go to study at the Williams
Library in Redcross Street: how Lady Hatherley had property in the City,
in an ancient conveyance of which there was a signature of Shakspeare. I
never saw people whose every word breathed more of old-fashioned
goodness than Lord and Lady Hatherley.”
[Illustration: THE SAVOY CHURCHYARD.][197]
* * * * *
“_May 17._--A sketching-party in the City. The going thither down the
river, with its varieties of huge barges with their sails, quite as
striking as many things abroad. In the great Church of St. Mary Overy
we drew the wonderful figures of the ‘Sisters’--sleeping deeply with
their rakes and prongs over their shoulders while waiting for the great
final harvest.”
[Illustration: RAHERE’S TOMB, ST. BARTHOLOMEW’S, SMITHFIELD.][198]
* * * * *
“_May 26._--Dined at Lord Ducie’s. Lord Henry Scott talked of his place
on the Solent, and his different rights to flotsam, jetsam, and lagam;
that it never arrived at the third: that the second had only brought
him two dead sailors to bury.”
[Illustration: THE SLEEPING SISTERS, ST. MARY OVERY.][199]
* * * * *
“_May 27._--Dined at Lord Egerton of Tatton’s, Old General Doyle was
very amusing with his stories of duels in which he had a personal share.
He also told of his visit to Ireland as a young man with the present
Lord Enniskillen as Lord Cole. At the first house they went to, his
friend escaped after dinner, but he had not time. The host locked the
door, and they began to drink at seven, and went on to eleven. At
eleven his host fell under the table, and he then picked his pocket of
the key and got out. The next day his host seriously consulted Lord Cole
as to whether it was not his duty to call him out, because he would not
stay for another drinking bout.
“He told the story of a man in France, condemned to death for the murder
of his father and mother, who, when asked if he could give any reason
why he should not undergo the extreme penalty of the law, clasped his
hands, and said, ‘Ayez pitié d’un pauvre orphelin.’”
* * * * *
“_May 31._--An evening party at Lord Houghton’s, an omnium-gatherum, but
very amusing. It recalled Carlyle’s speech, who, when some ecclesiastic
gloomily inquired in his presence ‘What would happen if Jesus Christ
returned to earth _now_?’ retorted--‘_Happen!_ why Dickie Milnes would
ask him to dinner, to be sure, and would ask Pontius Pilate to meet
him.’
“It took half-an-hour to get up the staircase. Miss Rhoda Broughton was
there, beautifully dressed, pressed upon by bishops and clergy: Salvini
and Irving were affectionately greeting: Lady Stanley of Alderley, under
a perfect stack of diamonds, was declaiming very loud in her unknown
tongue to an astonished and bewildered audience; and through all the
groups upstairs the young King of the Belgians was smiling and bowing a
retreat to his escape by a back-staircase.”
* * * * *
“_June 6._--Left London for Devonshire, struck more than usual with the
interest of the Great Western Railway, which has no exceptional beauty,
but most characteristic changes of scenery, even the botany along the
banks showing in its different plants the varied conformations of the
soil.
“First, close to London, the endless brick-kilns, and the last streets
stretching out into the blackened fields like fingers of a skeleton
hand. Then across the green meadows, all intersected by elms, branchless
and tufted like great brooms, the grey coronal of Windsor. Then the red
houses and pretentious prison of Reading and the glassy reaches of the
Thames, with its vigorous growth of sturdy water-plants at Pangbourne
and Maple Durham.
“Next we enter Berkshire, bare and featureless except near the river and
where the White Horse appears, a scraggy creature rudely scratched in
the turf above a soft hollow in the downs. Chippenham is a little town
in a wooded hollow, with a grey spire and stone bridge over the Avon.
Then one reaches a stony country. The houses are no longer of brick, but
all of stone. The Box tunnel is a result of the hills. The villas near
Bath, of grey stone, cling to the sides of the heights from whose
quarries they were taken. In the valley are Hampton church and ferry.
“Bath, an entirely stone city, has a consequent greyness of its own. The
streets have a desolate stateliness, and are still the abode of old
maids and card-playing dowagers as when described by Miss Austen; so
Bath-chairs are still the popular mode of conveyance to the frequent
tea-parties. Beechen Cliff is a fine feature. In the centre of the town
the Abbey tower shows the poverty of perpendicular architecture.
“By Kelsey Oaks we rush on to smoky Bristol, all energy and ugliness:
then a great strange rift in the hills shows where the Avon winds
beneath the rocks and hanging bridge of Clifton.
“Now there is a change to softer scenery at Clevedon, Woodspring Priory,
the odd hill of Weston. The houses grow warmer as well as the
country--no longer of grey, but of red sandstone: the Somersetshire
churches, proverbially fine, have pink-grey towers, their projections
gilded with lichen. Now we pass through apple-orchards, and the thorns,
snow-drifted with bloom, stand knee-deep in the long mowing grass. In
the flats rises Bridgewater, then Taunton with its beautiful and
picturesque towers standing out against the low grey hills; Exeter,
capped by the stumpy towers of its cathedral; and then the salt estuary
of the Teign laps the bank of the railway and we enter the woods of
Powderham.”
* * * * *
“_Powderham, June 9._--I found the door open last night and walked
straight into the hall. Charlie Wood and Lady Agnes were there at tea,
and people kept dropping in--a very pleasant party.... Lord Devon[200]
is the kindest of hosts, full of small courtesies; but he is a great
deal away, flying up to London after dinner and returning next day: they
say he performs the circumference of the globe every year, and chiefly
on his own lines of railway.
“Lord Devon’s only son, Lord Courtenay, is seldom here, but when he is,
amuses every one. One evening ‘Mademoiselle Bekker’ arrived late at
Powderham, coming in the hope to obtain a chairman for a meeting which
was going to be held at Exeter in favour of the Rights of Women. There
was a very distinguished party in the house--the Bishop of Winchester,
Lord Halifax, the American Minister (Motley), &c., and they each, while
refusing, made a speech in answer to hers, which was most eloquent.
Eventually Mademoiselle Bekker declared herself so indignant as to be
led to unsex herself: she was Lord Courtenay.”
* * * * *
“_June 12._--On Saturday we were called at daybreak, and went to Totness
by rail, and thence in waggonettes eighteen miles through deep bosky
lanes, and then over breezy uplands to the Moult, Lord Devon’s
enchanting little place near Salcombe. Here the blue-green transparent
sea glances through the thick foliage deep below the windings of the
road, and the quiet bay is encircled by rocky hills tufted with wood,
which in parts feathers down into the water. We rested at North Sands
Cottage, a lovely wee place of Lord Devon’s, and then walked through the
grounds of his larger place of the Moult. Aloes grow and flourish here
to an immense size. Beyond this a path--‘Lord Courtenay’s Walk’--runs
half-way up the steep precipices above the sea.
“It was an enchanting day, white wreaths of cloud drifting above in the
blue, deep below the sea gloriously transparent, with all its
weed-covered rocks visible through the waters, great white gulls
swooping around with their wild outcries, and the pathlet winding up and
down the cliff, bordered by cistus and thrift in masses of pink
luxuriance. On the steep descent to a cove, we were met by a welcome
luncheon, and ate it high above some rock caverns which are very curious
at that point.
“One of the principal farmers belonging to an agricultural club near
this lost his wife lately, and in his kind way Lord Devon alluded to her
at the annual club dinner,--speaking of her as an admirable, kind, and
industrious woman, and saying how he could feel with such a loss, having
had himself a bereavement which was ever present to him. But at last the
farmer interrupted him--‘I doan’t know what his Lordship be a talking
about; but I du know that she was an awful cranky, tiresome old woman,
and God Almighty’s very welcome to she.’
“Yesterday was Sunday. I went to the service at Powderham with Lord
Devon and Lady Mary Fortescue in a chapel opposite the white recumbent
marble figure of Lady Devon. The afternoon was spent in the ‘plantation
garden,’ where an Australian gum-tree was in full flower. In the evening
there were prayers--‘Compline,’ they called it--a very living, earnest
service in the chapel.... Truly I felt, as I took leave of Charlie, that
above the door of every house that is his home might be inscribed the
words of S. Bernard engraved over the threshold of many Cistercian
houses--‘Bonum est nos hic esse, quia homo vivit purius, cadit rarius,
surgit velocius, incedit cautius, quiescit securius, moritur felicius,
purgatur citius, praemiatur copiosius.’”
* * * * *
“_Abbots Kerswell, June 15._--Yesterday Sir Samuel and Lady Baker dined
here. He is most agreeable, and possesses _‘l’art de narrer’_ to
perfection. He told a ghost-story in the evening, without either names,
dates, or any definite material, and yet it was quite admirable, and
kept the company breathless for three-quarters of an hour.”
* * * * *
“_June 16._--Yesterday we paid a long visit to Sir Samuel Baker. He has
bought and made his place with the money he received from the Khedive
for his African discoveries.[201] The house is full of skeleton heads,
horns, &c. Many others were destroyed in the African depot by an insect
which forces out the bone as with a gimlet, but fortunately it will not
live in England.”
* * * * *
“_Charlton Hall, June 17._--I spent several hours in Bath on my way
here. It was an exquisite day, and everything was in great beauty. Bath
seems a town exclusively intended for the rich. Everything being built
of stone gives it a foreign character, and the height of the surrounding
hills causes you to see green down every street. I felt age in the way
in which everything looked so small in proportion to my recollection.
“At Chippenham a dogcart from Lord Suffolk’s was waiting for me, and we
rolled away down the dull lanes to Malmesbury. It was curious in one day
to revisit, as it were, six years out of my former life. At Bath I had
walked up the hill to where I could look down upon Lyncombe, and what
memories it awakened of miserable longings after a fuller, more
interesting life, which lasted through the whole of two years and a half
of wasted, monotonous, objectless time. Now in my full life, looking
down upon that richly wooded glen, it seemed quite beautiful; but in the
wretched bondage of those weary years, how hideous it all was!
[Illustration: CHARLTON HALL.]
“At Chippenham, as I passed the park at Harnish, I went back farther
still to three years and a half of private school imprisonment and the
pettiest of petty miseries. They do not matter much now certainly, but
one does grudge six years of youth denuded of all that makes life
pleasant and beautiful.
“Charlton is a magnificent old house of yellow-grey stone, Jacobean,
open on all sides, a perfect quadrangle. Inside, there was once a
courtyard, but a former Lord Suffolk closed it in. It remained for many
years a mere gravelled space: lately Lady Suffolk has had it paved, and
to a certain extent furnished. The rooms are handsome in stucco
ornaments, but not picturesque. The pictures are glorious. There is one
of the noblest known works of Leonardo da Vinci--‘La Vierge aux
Rochers,’ the figures all with the peculiar Leonardo type of face,
grouped in a rocky valley--strange, wild, and fantastic.[202] The
picture which to me is most charming is ‘Le Raboteur,’ attributed to
Annibale Carracci. The Virgin, a sweet-looking peasant woman, yet with
an expression of ‘pondering these things in her heart,’ is sitting
outside her cottage door with her work-basket by her side. The boy
Jesus, in a simple blue tunic, is standing at the end of the carpenter’s
table--‘subject to his parents’--doing some measuring for old Joseph,
who is at work there. It is a quiet village group such as one has often
seen, only elevated by expression.
“There is a glorious old gallery with a noble ceiling, full of portraits
and of old and interesting books. In the ‘rose parlour’ are more
pictures, and a ceiling the design of which is repeated in the
flower-garden. Many of the pictures belonged to James II. When he fled,
he sent them to be taken care of by Colonel Graham, who had married the
Earl of Berkshire’s daughter, and William III. afterwards allowed them
to remain.”
* * * * *
“_June 18._--Yesterday it rained at intervals all day. I drew the
gallery, and enjoyed talking to Lady Suffolk,[203] who sat by me, with a
charm of face and manner and mind which recalls Donne’s lines--
‘No spring or summer beauty hath such grace
As I have seen on one autumnal face.’
She lives so far more in the heavenly than the earthly horizons, that
one feels raised above earth whilst one is with her. She spoke of the
impossibility of believing in eternity of punishment, yet of the mass of
difficulties besetting all explanations. She talked of a woman in the
village in failing health and unhappy. Being asked if she was not
troubled in her mind, she confessed that she was, but said, ‘It is not
for want of light; I have had plenty of light.’ She said her father had
said to her, ‘Now if you go to hell, Hannah, it will not be for want of
light.’
“Some one had urged Lady Suffolk to go and hear Moody and Sankey,
because their sermons on heaven were such a refreshment and rest: she
had gone, and the sermon had all been about hell.
“Lady Victoria drove me to Malmesbury. The town cross is beautiful. The
Abbey is a gigantic remnant of a colossal whole; the existing church
being about two-thirds of the nave of the original abbey-church, entered
by a magnificent Norman door. By the altar is a tomb to King Athelstan,
erected some centuries after his death, and there is a gallery like
Prior Bolton’s in Smithfield.”
* * * * *
“_June 18._--I sleep at Charlton in the ‘king’s room,’ so called from
James II. It is hung with tapestry and old pictures. As we were going to
bed, Andover said, ‘You sleep in the haunted room.’ Consequently every
noise, which I had never observed before, troubled me through the night.
One ought never to be _told_ that a room is haunted.
“Conversation has been much about Mrs. Wagstaff, a homœopathic
clairvoyant, wife of an allopathic doctor at Leighton Buzzard. She comes
up to London if desired, and works wonderful cures. _In_ her trances her
conversation is most remarkable, but out of them she is a very ordinary
person. She never remembers when awake having seen any one (with her
eyes half-open) in a trance, but meets as a perfect stranger the person
she has just been talking to for half-an-hour.
“It was odd on Sunday having no service in church till six in the
evening, but certainly very pleasant. We walked in the park beforehand
to Sans Souci, a pretty wood in which a clear stream has its source,
throwing up the sand in the oddest way in a large round basin. Numbers
of trees were lying about, cut down, as Andover said, ‘to meet the
annual demand for the needy.’”
* * * * *
“_June 19._--The Andovers’ little girl is most amusing. At six, if she
catches a new word, she uses it without the slightest idea as to its
meaning. Her maid Sabina went to her to-day and said, ‘Now, Miss Howard,
I must put on your things, for you must go out.’--‘No, Sabina, you must
not,’ promptly said ‘Tiny-Wee.’--‘But I really must, Miss Howard,’ said
Sabina.--‘No, Sabina, you must not,’ persisted Tiny-Wee.--‘And why, Miss
Howard?’ said Sabina.--‘Because, Sabina, it is _co-eternal_,’ said
Tiny-Wee very solemnly; and Sabina was utterly quelled and gave way at
once. It is needless to say that Tiny had been to church and heard the
Athanasian Creed.
“Andover has been describing a clergyman who preached on the fatted
calf, and sought his words as well as his ideas as he proceeded
extempore, and said, ‘He came home, my brethren, he came home to his
father, to his dear father, and his father killed for him the fatted
calf, which he had been saving up for years, my brethren--saving up for
_years_ for some festive occasion.’
“He told of an American who never was in time for anything in his life,
was unpunctual for everything systematically. One day, in a very
out-of-the-way place, he fell into a cataleptic state, and was supposed
to be dead. According to the rapidity of American movement, instead of
bringing the undertaker to him, they took him to the undertaker, who
fitted him with a coffin and left him, only laying the coffin lid
loosely on the outside of it. In the middle of the night he awoke from
his trance, pushed off the lid, and finding himself in a place alone
surrounded by a quantity of coffins, he jumped up and pushed off the lid
of the coffin nearest to him. He found nothing. He tried another:
nothing. ‘Good God!’ he cried, ‘I’ve been late all my life, and now I’m
late for the resurrection!’”
* * * * *
“_June 20._--Yesterday we had a delightful drive to see Lady Cowley at
Draycot, a most charming place of happy medium size, in a park full of
fern and old oaks. Lord Mornington, who left it to the Cowleys, was
quite a distant cousin, and they expected nothing. He came to dine with
them occasionally at Paris, he mounted Lady Feodore for the Bois de
Boulogne, and one day they suddenly found themselves the heirs of
Draycot, perfectly fitted up with everything they could possibly wish
for. It was like a fairy story, and Lady Cowley has never attempted to
conceal her enchantment at it.
“To-day we went to a different place--Mr. Holford’s new house of
Westonbirt. It is an immense building in a flat, ugly situation. The
hall goes up the whole height of the house, with open galleries to the
bedrooms, so that every one sees who goes in and out of them. The
dining-room has a fine Jacobean chimney-piece and modern Corinthian
pillars. There is a great chimney-piece in another room, which was an
altar in a church at Rome. All is huge, and seemed very comfortless.
“It has been a most happy visit to the Suffolks, with whom one is
completely at home. As Lady Suffolk says, though they have often wished
to be rich, they have been much happier for being poor, for they have
all been obliged to do their part in the house and place, and all that
has to be carried on there, and so it is to them not only the scene of
their life, but of their work.”
* * * * *
“_June 22._--Yesterday I went to Oxford, and came in, without intending
it, for Commemoration. I will never go there again if I can help it. It
is like visiting a grave of happy past years.”
* * * * *
“_June 28._--Went to Holland House. The deep shade of its lofty avenue
is enchanting as one turns in from the baking street of Kensington. Lady
Holland sat in the inner room, with her sweet face encircled by the
prettiest of old-fashioned caps. Beau Atkinson was with her, with a
lovely little Skye dog in his arms, and Lady Lilford with her two fine
boys. After talking some time, we wandered into the gardens under the
old cedars. When we came in, old Mr. Cheney was leaning over Lady
Holland’s chair, chuckling to himself over the dogmatic self-assertion
of Mr. Hayward,[204] who was talking to her of books, the value of which
he considered to be quite decided by his opinion of them. Especially he
talked of Ticknor’s Memoirs, so remarkable because, though he was an
American of the most lowly origin, it is evident that when he came to
Europe he not only saw the best society of every country he visited, but
saw it intimately--which could only have been due to his own personal
charm.
“Dined at Lady Barrington’s. She said I must be presented, and George
Barrington said he should present me.
“L. was full of a dinner she had been at at Count Beust’s. The Prince
Imperial was there, who had always hitherto been regarded as only a
pleasant boy, but who electrified them on this occasion by a remarkable
flash of wit. It had been impossible to avoid asking the French
Ambassador, but Count Beust had taken especial pains to make it as
little offensive as possible. He took in the Princess of Wales to supper
and placed her at the same table with the Prince Imperial. The Comte and
Comtesse d’Harcourt were at another table with the Prince of Wales.
Suddenly an offensive pushing man, first secretary to the French
embassy, brought Mademoiselle d’Harcourt to the Prince Imperial’s table
and sat down. The Prince was very much annoyed. Looking up at a picture
of the Emperor of Austria, he asked if it resembled him--‘I do not
remember him, I was so very young when I saw him,’ and then in a louder
tone, ‘I wonder how the French Ambassador represents the Republic of
France on the walls of his rooms.’”
* * * * *
“_June 29._--Yesterday I went down into Kent for Miss Virginia Smith’s
wedding with young Francis Villiers,[205] toiling in a cab with Lady
Craven over the hot chalky hills. The breakfast was at Selsden Park, a
lovely place belonging to a child-heiress, Erroll Smith’s daughter.
“Dined with Lady Head, and we went on together to Baroness Burdett
Coutts’, where Irving read _Macbeth_ to an immense company, chiefly
bishops and archbishops and their belongings. The reading was stilted
and quite ineffective.”
* * * * *
“_June 30._--A most pleasant party at Lord Ducie’s--Mr. and Miss Froude,
Sir James Lacaita, Miss Grant the sculptress, Lord Aberdeen and Lady
Katherine, Lord Northbrook and Lady Emma Baring, Lord Camperdown, Mr.,
Mrs., and Miss Gladstone, Lord Vernon, George and Lady Constance
Shaw-Lefevre, &c.
“There was very agreeable conversation, chiefly about Macaulay’s
Life--of his wonderful memory and the great power it gave him. Gladstone
said the most astonishing thing about him was that he could remember not
only the things worth knowing, but the most extraordinary amount of
trash. He described another man he knew who, after once reading over the
advertisement sheet of the _Times_, could repeat it straight through.
“In the evening I was asked to tell a story, and did, feeling that if
Irving amused people for about three hundred nights of the year, it was
rather hard if I declined to amuse him on one of the remaining
sixty-five. He enjoyed it more than any one else, and lingering behind,
when all were gone but Mrs. Gladstone and one or two others, said, ‘Now
that we are such a very small party, do tell us another.’”
* * * * *
“_July 6._--Went by rail with Mr. Ralph Dutton and ‘Beauty Stephens’ to
Syon. It is a great house in a low-lying park, on the edge of which the
Thames is marked by its great lines of tall sedges and the barges going
up and down with music through the flat meadow-lands. On the parapet of
the house is the poor old lion from Northumberland House. The lime-trees
were in flower, scenting the whole air.
“Lady Percy received in the gallery, and about two thousand guests were
collected on the lawn. I took courage and went and talked to the
Japanese ambassadress, who was very smiling, but did not say much beyond
‘Me speak leetle English and no moosh French.’”
* * * * *
“_July 7._--Went by water with Mrs. Mostyn, Miss Monk, and Miss Milnes
to Fulham. The steamer was actually two hours and a half on the way.
There was an interest in recognising a whole gallery of De Wint’s
sketches in the tall bosky trees, the weirs, the great water-plants, and
still more on the causeway leading from Fulham Church to the palace. It
was a gloriously hot day, and very pleasant sitting under the old
gateway looking into the sunlit court, with full light on the rich
decorations of the brickwork and the massy creepers.
“Afterwards, I was at a beautiful and charming party at Holland House. A
number of grown-up royalties and a whole bevy of royal children sat
under the trees watching Punch and Judy. The Prince Imperial, with
charming natural manners, walked about and talked to every one he knew.
I was happy in finding Lady Andover and many other friends. Towards the
end, Lady Wynford said the Princess Amelie of Schleswig[206] desired
that I might be presented to her, as she had read my books, &c. She is
elderly, but enjoys life and dances at all the balls she is asked to,
especially at Pau, of which she talked with animation.”
[Illustration: COURTYARD, FULHAM PALACE.][207]
* * * * *
“_July 8._--At luncheon at Lady Alwyn Compton’s I met Lady Marion
Alford. There was much talk of the wills of old London citizens--how Mr.
Bancroft had desired in his that for a hundred years a loaf of bread and
a bottle of wine should be placed in his vault every year on the
anniversary of his death, because he was convinced that before that time
he should awake from his death-sleep and require it, and the hundred
years had only just expired;--of how Jeremy Bentham’s body, in
accordance with his will, was produced a year after his death at the
feast of a club he had founded, and how all the company fled from it.
“I was afterwards at a breakfast at Lord Bute’s. There were few people I
knew there, and the grass was very wet, so I sat under the verandah with
the Egertons. Presently an old lady was led out there, very old, and
evidently unable to walk, but with a dear beautiful face, dressed in
widow’s weeds. She seemed to know no one, so gradually--I do not know
how it came about--I gave her a rose, and sat down at her feet on the
mat and she talked of many beautiful things. She was evidently sitting
in the most peaceful waiting upon the very threshold of the heavenly
kingdom. When I was going away she said, ‘I should like to know whom I
have been talking to.’ I said, ‘My name is Augustus Hare.’ She said, ‘I
divined that when you gave me the flower.’ I have not a notion who she
was.[208]
“I dined at Sir John Lefevre’s, and was pained to see how weak and
failing he looks. The Rianos were there and Sir James Lacaita, and in
the evening Lady Ducie came in, radiant with goodness and beauty.”
* * * * *
“_July 11._--A very pleasant dinner at Lord Ebury’s. He overflows with
kindness. He said, ‘If this hot weather is trying for you and me, it is
very good for the corn: that hardens, while we melt.’”
* * * * *
“_July 13._--Luncheon with Sir C. Trevelyan, who showed me Macaulay’s
library, and then drove me to see the remnant of the house of Villiers,
Duke of Buckingham, in Villiers Street. Peter the Great lived there when
in London, and David Copperfield is made to lodge there by Dickens.
“Dined at Lord Cardwell’s, where I sat by George Otto Trevelyan, the
author of Lord Macaulay’s Life. At Lord Sherborne’s in the evening I
found Irving, with all the three hundred nights of his _Hamlet_ written
on his face. I was introduced to Dr. Ellicott, Bishop of Gloucester and
Bristol, a little dapper man in a violet coat.”
* * * * *
“_July 14._--Luncheon at Mrs. Lowe’s. She was most amusing about her
pets. ‘Mr. Lowe, you know, is always going out and bringing home a new
animal: he does like pets so. He went and he bought a dog, and then he
went and bought a parrot, and then he bought a cockatoo and a cat, and I
said, “Mr. Lowe, if you go and buy any more pets, I will go out of the
house, because I will _not_ bear it,” and then Mr. Lowe went and bought
Bow-wow, the little white dog, and it had not cut its teeth, and it was
so dreadfully ill, and we had to nurse it, and it gave us more trouble
than all the other pets put together; and I like Bow-wow the best of
them all, and Mrs. Scutt (that’s the housekeeper) is just the same.
“‘I said to Mr. Lowe, “If you will go downstairs with that cockatoo on
your shoulder, it will fly away out of the window, and you’ll lose him,”
but Mr. Lowe would do it, you know, he’s so obstinate; and it was just
as I said, and the cockatoo flew out of the staircase window, and Mr.
Lowe was in a fine way about him. There are a lot of boys watching for
him now, and he’ll come back some day, for every one knows Mr. Lowe’s
cockatoo: but he won’t come back yet. And finely he’s enjoying himself,
that bird is; he’s never had such a fine time in his life; he’s finished
all the cherries in Eldon Grove, and he’s just beginning upon the
gooseberries.
“‘When we drive down to Caterham, Bow-wow and Elfin, the two dogs, sit
upon the back-seat, and the cat sits in the middle. They look out of the
windows and amuse themselves wonderfully, and finely the people stare.
“‘When I first married Mr. Lowe we lived at Oxford. It was quite
delightful: we had all the interesting society of the University, and
Mr. Lowe was a tutor and taught all the clever young men. When we went
up to London, we hired a coach, and had six first-class men inside, all
Mr. Lowe’s pupils. Then Mr. Lowe’s eyes failed, and we threw it all up
and went to Australia, and were away six years; but it answered to us,
for I had some money left to me at that time, and Mr. Lowe had some
money left to him, and we invested it there in houses, and they pay us
60 per cent., and we made our fortunes.
“‘How sad the Duchess of ---- going away is! She cried so dreadfully when
she went, that I am sure it’s for ever. Don’t you think, if I had had a
dreadful quarrel with Mr. Lowe, and we had parted for ever, that I
should cry too? It is a very different thing when it is not for ever. I
go off to Wiesbaden for six weeks, and I wish Mr. Lowe good-bye, and I
say, “Well, good-bye, Mr. Lowe; in six weeks you’ll have me back
again,” and if we have quarrelled, it does not signify; but it would be
very different if it was for ever. Why, I should cry my eyes out.’
“One day, however, when Mrs. Lowe was inveighing against the absurdity
of the marriage service--of the bridegroom’s statement, ‘With all my
worldly goods I thee endow,’ even when he possessed nothing and it was
just the other way, and when she was saying, ‘Now when I married Mr.
Lowe, he had nothing whatever but his brains’--a deep voice from the end
of the room growled out, ‘Well, my love, I certainly did not endow you
with those.’
“‘Why contend against your natural advantages?’ said Mr. Lowe one day to
a deaf friend who was holding up an ear-trumpet to listen to a bore.
“In the afternoon I drove down with Lady Sherborne, Miss Dutton, and
Miss Elliot to see Lord Russell at Pembroke Lodge. It is a beautiful
place; not merely a bit of Richmond Park, but a bit of old forest
enclosed, with grand old oaks and fern. The Queen gives it to Lord
Russell, who, at eighty-four,[209] was seated in a Bath-chair in the
garden, on a sort of bowling-green, watching his grandsons play at
tennis. Though he no longer comprehends present events, he is said to be
perfectly clear about a far-away past, and will converse at any length
about Napoleon, the escape from Elba, &c. When I was presented to him,
by way of something to say, I spoke of having seen the historical mound
in his garden, and asked what it was that Henry VIII. watched for from
thence as a death-signal, ‘was it a rocket or a black flag?’
“‘It was a rocket.’
“‘Then that would imply that the execution was at night, for he would
hardly have seen a rocket by day.’
“‘No, it was not at night; it was very early in the morning. She was a
very much maligned woman was that Anne Boleyn.’
“We all sat by a fountain under the oak-trees, and then went into the
house to a sort of five-o’clock tea on a large scale.”
* * * * *
“_Holmhurst, July 15._--Returned to the dear little home, where I found
Charlotte Leycester sitting on the terrace surrounded by the dogs,
looking on the lovely view from our greenery. The intense freshness of
the air, the glory of the flowers, the deep blue sea beyond our upland
hayfields, and the tame doves cooing in the copper beech-tree, are
certainly a refreshing contrast to London, though I should never have
been able to leave it unless Duty had pulled at me.”
* * * * *
“_Highcliffe, July 24._--In this most unearthly Paradise all looks like
last year going on still--the huge stems of chestnut, and the white
lilies and bulrushes in the great vase relieved against the old boiserie
of the saloon; the wide window-porch open to the fountain and
orange-trees and sunlit terraces and sea; Lady Waterford coming in her
hat and long sweeping dress through the narrow wind-blown arbutus
avenue; old Mrs. Hamilton-Hamilton in her pleasant sitting-room, with
Miss Lindsay hovering about and waiting on her like a maid-of-honour;
the Ellices, so cordial and pleasant, so beaming with kindness and
goodness, their largeness of heart quite preventing their being able to
indulge in the sectarian part of their own religious ideas.... I have
felt, as I always do very shy at first, and then entirely at home.”
[Illustration: HOLMHURST.]
* * * * *
“_July 25._--We have all, I think, basked as much in the mental sunshine
of this beautiful life as in the external sunshine which illumines the
brilliant flowers and glancing sea.
“We walked on the shore this afternoon. ‘See what festival the sea has
been making, and what beautiful coloured weeds she has been scattering,’
said Lady Waterford. We found two little boots projecting from the sand,
and as we dug them out and found them _filled_ and stiff, we really
expected a drowned child to follow; but it was only sand that filled
them, and the little Payne child of Chewton Bunny had lost them when
bathing. As we sat on the shore while Lady Waterford looked for fossils,
a staith came down from the Bunny and flooded the little stream into a
river, cutting off our return. We, the male part, crossed much higher
up: Lady Waterford plunged in and walked: Lady Jane took off shoes and
stockings and waded.
“Lady Waterford has talked much of marriages--how even indifferent
marriages tone down into a degree of comfort which is better for most
women than desolation.”
* * * * *
“_July 26._--We walked in the evening to the Haven House. The old
pine-wood, with its roots writhing out of the sand, and its lovely
views, over still reaches of water to the great grey church, and the
herons fishing, are more picturesque than ever. Afterwards Lady Herbert
of Lea arrived with her beautiful daughter Gladys.[210] Lady Herbert is
suffering still from the bite of a scorpion when she was drawing in the
ruins of Karnac.”
[Illustration: Louisa, Marchioness of Waterford.
From a Photograph by W. J. Reed. Bournamouth.]
* * * * *
“_July 29._--In the afternoon I went with Lady Waterford to General
Maberly, who talked, as it seemed to me, very sensibly about the
exaggerations of teetotalism. He thought that every one should do as
they pleased, and that it was wrong of a great landowner to prevent the
existence of a public-house on his estate: that it was following the
teaching of the Baptist rather than that of our Saviour, for ‘was not
our Saviour a wine-bibber?’
“Lady Waterford has been speaking of sympathy for others; that there is
nothing more distressing than to see another person _mortified_.
“‘Mama could never bear to see any one mortified. Once at Paris, at a
ball they had, there was a poor lady, and not only her chignon, but the
whole edifice of hair she had, fell off in the dance. And Mama was so
sorry for her, and, when all the ladies tittered, as she was Madame
l’Ambassadrice and a person of some influence, I don’t think it was
wrong of her to apply the verse, and she said, “Let the woman among us
who has no false hair be the first to throw a stone at her.”’
* * * * *
“_July 30._--Hamilton Aïdé says he went to visit two or three times at a
lunatic asylum. The matron, a very nice person, said, ‘There is here a
very extraordinary example of a person who has become quite mad, and
only from vanity.’ He went to see her. It was a very old lady, with
great traces of beauty and dignity of manner, but she wore the most
extraordinary bonnet, very large, and from the fringe hung a pair of
scissors, a thimble, and a needle-book. He made a civil speech to her
about being glad to see her looking so well, or something of that kind.
In reply she only just looked up and said, ‘For further information
refer to the 25th chapter of the second Book of Kings,’ and took no more
notice whatever.”
* * * * *
“_July 31._--Lady Jane Ellice says that there are three shades of people
one likes--those whom one must see in heaven, for it would not be heaven
without them: those whom one hopes to see in heaven and to meet there:
and those whom one hopes will be _in_ heaven but that one will not see
them there. Her singing this evening of ‘Zurich’s Blue Waters,’ ‘Three
Blue Bottles,’ &c., has been perfectly charming.
“Lady Waterford has been telling of Ruskin ‘like a little wizened rat.’
‘He likes to be adored, but then Somers and I did adore him, and he
likes to lash his disciples with rods of iron. I do not mind that: it is
his jokes I cannot bear; they make me so sorry and miserable for him.’”
* * * * *
“_August 3._--Lady Waterford said that Lady Stuart, when a Frenchman
tried to talk to her in very bad English, told him she preferred talking
French. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘vous aimez mieux, Madame, écorcher les oreilles
des autres, qu’on vous écorche vos oreilles.’”
* * * * *
“_August 5._--I have left Highcliffe, and the gates of Paradise seem
closed for a year. There has been the usual perfect confidence about
everything through the whole party: the pleasant going backwards and
forwards to ‘Hamilton Place,’ and the waiting upon old Mrs. Hamilton of
her ‘equerry’ and her ‘maid-of-honour:’ the many friendly snubs and
contradictions which rail at all the smallnesses and ennoble all the
higher aims of life. After luncheon we all sat in the porch surrounded
by the great lilies and geraniums in flower and we had coffee there,
looking upon the Isle of Wight with the Needles looming through the
mist: then we parted.
“It was a long drive in pouring rain from Southampton to Sydney Lodge,
where I found a warm welcome from dear old Lady Hardwicke.[211] It is a
moderate house, with large gardens, into which bits of old forest are
interwoven. This morning we drove to Eliot Yorke’s house at Netley Fort,
an old tower of the monks, in front of which the _Mayflower_ set sail.
The situation is lovely, close to the sea, with a hilly garden in
miniature and a machicolated tower rising out of ivy walls like a scene
in a play. But the great charm is in Eliot himself, so handsome, with
such a pleasant smile and melodious voice. His Jewess wife, Agneta
Montagu, and Hinchinbroke were there. From the garden we went to the
Abbey, where I drew while Hinchinbroke amused himself by pretending to
make love to an old lady (‘Jemima Anne’) who was peering about in
spectacles amongst the arches. When we went back, boats were arriving
from Cowes at the little wharf--the Prince Imperial with the Duke and
Duchess of St. Albans and a crowd of others. The Prince has the most
pleasant, frank, simple manners, and makes himself agreeable to every
one. He was much amused with the quantities of Yorkes who seemed to crop
up from every house round, and said he ‘thought he must have landed by
mistake on the coast of Yorkshire.’ His arm was in a sling, and he
looked pale and fagged, for somehow, in playing at leap-frog with his
‘camarades,’ he had tumbled into a camp-fire, and, to save his face, had
instinctively put out his hands, and burnt the whole skin off one of
them. It must have been terrible agony, but he never complained.”
* * * * *
“_August 6._--The Yorkes are absolutely devoted to each other. There is
such family loyalty that every peccadillo is consecrated. I certainly do
not wonder at their love for Eliot; he has such a sweet though frank
manner, and is so genial and kind to every one.[212] L. has been talking
of the advantages of even an unhappy married life over a single one, as
exemplified by the poor Empress, who herself said, ‘C’est mieux d’être
mal à deux que d’être seule.’
“L. was at a party at Mrs. Brand’s, sitting by Lady Cork, when Lady
Francis Gordon came up to her. ‘Come, Lady Cork, can you spell in five
letters the three scourges of society?’ (drink, rink, ink). ‘No,’ said
Lady Cork instantly, ‘that I cannot do, but I can spell in two letters
the two blessings of society--U and I.’
“Mrs. Eliot Yorke is exceedingly pleasing and much beloved in her
husband’s family. Amongst the few Jews I have known, I have always found
the women infinitely superior to the men, and this is especially the
case with the Rothschilds. Some one once made an observation of this
kind to Rogers the poet. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘the men crucified Him, but
the women--wept.’”
* * * * *
“_August 12._--Last Monday I went to Cobham for a few days, arriving
just as the setting sun was illuminating the grand old red brick house
deeply set in its massy woods. A large party was assembled, its most
interesting element being Fanny, Lady Winchilsea, who is always
delightful. Archdeacon Cust told me a curious story of a Mr. Phipps, a
clergyman at Slough. He asked him if he was related to Lord Normanby’s
family, and he said they were related, but that they had never known one
another, and that the reason was a strange one. His father had been
residing at Caen, where they had become very intimate with a French
family called Beaurepaire. After his father left Caen, the great
Revolution occurred, and all the Beaurepaire family perished on the
scaffold except the youngest daughter, who, for some unknown reason, was
spared. Having no relation left alive, she was utterly desolate, and
felt that no one in the world cared for her but young Phipps, the son of
her former neighbour, who had evinced an attachment for her. So to the
Phipps family she somehow made her way; but they, disapproving the
attachment, were all excessively unkind to her, except one sister, who
received her, and went out with her to India, where her brother was then
supposed to be. But when they reached India, they found, with despair,
that Phipps had left and gone to Egypt. Thither, however, they pursued
him, and there Mademoiselle de Beaurepaire was married to him. Young
Phipps would never forgive the unkindness which had been shown to his
wife by his family, and the two branches of the Phipps family were never
afterwards friends.
“A schoolmaster near Cobham, named King, for some reason best known to
himself, has abolished the game of football--a most unpopular move. The
boys were furious, and one day, when the master entered the schoolroom,
he found ‘King is a donkey’ chalked up in large letters on a board. For
an instant he was perplexed; but it would never do to take no notice. He
left the inscription, but added the single word--‘driver.’ The boys
quite saw the joke, and the master’s prestige was restored.”
* * * * *
“_Ampthill Park, August 29, 1876._--I came here on Monday, stopping some
hours in London on the way, and finding out ancient treasures in the
purlieus of Soho and St. Giles’s, which, black and filthy as they are,
are still full of reminiscences.
“At St. Pancras Station I saw a very ancient lady in a yellow wig step
into a railway carriage by herself, and her footman guard the door till
the train started, and I felt sure it was the Dowager Duchess of
Cleveland. At Ampthill Station the Lowther carriage was waiting for both
of us, and we drove off together. She talked the whole way, but the
carriage rumbled so that I could hardly hear a word she said, except
that when I remarked ‘What a fine tree!’ as we entered the park, she
answered rather sharply ‘That _was_ a fine tree.’ She spoke too of the
Lowther boys--‘They are having their vacancies. I like that word
vacancies,’ she said.
[Illustration: CHURCHYARD OF ST. ANNE, SOHO.][213]
“It is a fine wild park, with most unexpected ups and downs and a great
deal of grand old timber, on a ridge rising high above the blue
Bedfordshire plain, in the midst of which a spire rising out of a little
drift of smoke indicates the town of Bedford. On one of the highest
points of the ridge a cross raised on steps marks the site of the royal
residence where Katherine of Arragon lived for most of her
semi-widowhood, and where Anne Boleyn shot stags in a green velvet
train. The later house, approached on the garden side by a narrow
downhill avenue half a mile long, is in the old French style, with posts
and chains, broad steps widening at the top, and a _perron_.... The
Duchess, at eighty-four, talked most pleasantly and interestingly all
evening. Lady Wensleydale, in her high cap and large chair, with her
sweet face and expression, sat by like an old picture. There is a
picture of her thus, by Pointer, surrounded by great white azaleas, but
it does not do her justice.
“Yesterday I drove with James, Mildred, and Cecil Lowther to Wrest. It
is a most stately place, one of the stateliest I have ever seen. The
gardens were all laid out by Le Nôtre, and the house was of that period.
Lord De Grey pulled down the house, and found it rested on no
foundations whatever, but on the bare ground. It was so thin, that when
the still-room maid complained that her room was rather dark, the
footman took out his penknife and cut her a square hole for a window in
the plaster wall. Capability Brown was employed to rearrange the
gardens, which were thought hideous at one time; but though he spoilt so
many other places, he had sense to admire the work of Le Notre so much
here, that he made no alterations, except throwing a number of round and
oblong tanks into one long canal, which, on the whole, is rather an
improvement. The modern house is magnificent, and like what Chantilly
must have been.
“On the vast flagged terrace in front of the windows we found Lady
Cowper[214] sitting in an old-fashioned black silk dress and tight
white bonnet. She has a most sweet face, and was very kind and charming
in her manner. I walked with her for a long time on the terrace, looking
down on the brilliant gardens, and beyond them upon equally brilliant
groups of people, for it was the annual meeting of the great
Bedfordshire tennis club, for which she always gives a breakfast. She
told the whole story of the place, and took me to see all the finest
points of view and the great collection of fine orange-trees brought
from Versailles. She greatly lamented the prudishness of her great-aunt
(Lady De Grey), through whom her grandmother had derived the place, who
thought most of the old French statues--which, according to the custom
of that day, were made of lead--to be insufficiently dressed, and so
sold them for the value of the metal, at the same time that she sold an
incomparable collection of old plate, for the same reason, for its
weight in silver. She showed one of the statues, backed by a yew hedge
some centuries old. ‘That poor lady, you see, was saved when all the
others were sent away, because she had got a few clothes on.’ Lord De
Grey had replaced some of the statues, and Lady Cowper herself had added
a most beautiful fountain from Carrara, with a very flat basin.
“Lady Cowper talked much of my mother and the ‘Memorials’ and of ‘my
sister Lady Jocelyn.’ She spoke of the extreme quietude of her own life.
‘A day like this (pointing out the crowd below) shows me that what this
place wants is--_people_, and I never have any. I think I must hire some
puppets to walk about and represent them.’ There are a number of
inscriptions in the grounds to different past-members of the family and
their friends. Lady Cowper said that Lady Palmerston, who was very
matter-of-fact, thought that of course they were buried there, and said,
‘How I do pity Anne, living alone at Wrest, surrounded by all those
graves of her family.’ Graves, however, there are, but of deceased dogs,
a regular burial-ground, with headstones like those in a churchyard,
surrounded by a wall of clipped yew.
“I was very glad to find Henry Cowper, who showed me the rooms, which
were full of people for the ‘breakfast,’ but I saw the two great Sir
Joshuas, which are magnificent, especially that of Lady Lucas and Lady
Grantham, as very young girls, with a bird.
“In the evening at Ampthill I told the story of Mary-Eleanor, Lady
Strathmore, to which Lady Wensleydale added her reminiscence of having
been told, at four years old, of Stoney Bowes having ‘nailed his wife’s
tongue to a table.’”
* * * * *
“_August 30._--Yesterday I drew with Miss Lowther at the ruins of
Houghton Hall, the old home of the Russells, where Philip Sidney wrote
verses under the trees. It is a very stately though not a large house,
and beautiful in colour, from the mixture of red brick and
yellow-lichened stone. A great avenue, now utterly ruined, leads away
from it direct to Bedford, which lies six miles away in the elm-lined
plain. It was deserted because Lord Tavistock, returning from hunting,
was thrown from his horse and killed on the spot in the presence of his
wife, who was waiting for him on the doorstep: the family could never
bear to live there again.[215]
“After luncheon, I walked with the old Duchess in the avenue. She
described being couched. ‘Did you take chloroform?’--‘Oh, certainly not:
no such thing: I should not have thought of it. Don’t _you_ know that
couching is a very dangerous operation? the very slightest movement
might be fatal to it. I did not know what might happen under chloroform,
but I knew that _I_ should never flinch if I had my senses, and I never
did: and in three weeks, though I was still bandaged up, I was out
walking.’
“‘What was worse than becoming blind in my case,’ said the Duchess, ‘was
breaking my knee-pan, for then, you know, one bone goes up and the other
goes down, and you never really have the use of your knee again.’
“‘And yet here you are walking, Duchess.’
“‘Yes, certainly _I_ am. Prescott Hewitt said I never should walk again,
and I said “Yes, I should,”--and he answered, “Ah! well, with you
perhaps it is different; you belong to a family that have got a will;”
and I walk, but I walk by the sheer force of _will_.’
“The Duchess said she remembered old Lady Penrhyn and her pugs, and
their being dressed like children, and keeping a footman, and having a
key of Grosvenor Square.
“In the evening I drove with Mr. Lowther to Haynes, till lately written
Hawnes, the fine old place of Lord John Thynne (Sub-Dean of
Westminster), which he inherited from his uncle, Lord Carteret. We met
the old man riding in his park, and so much taken up with a sick cow
that he almost ignored us. But when we had walked round by the charming
old-fashioned gardens, we found him waiting for us on the garden
doorstep, all courtesy and kindness. Several sons and daughters-in-law
dropped in to tea in a kind of passage-room, but Lord John took me to
see all the curiosities of the house himself, and warmed up over them
greatly. There is a most noble staircase and a very fine collection of
family portraits. In the drawing-room is that of Lady Ann Carteret in a
white satin dress, which she always wore, and is always remembered still
as ‘The White Lady.’ Her husband was Jack Spencer, of whom there is also
a fine picture. His grandmother, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, one day
said to him suddenly, ‘Jack, you must marry, and I will give you a list
of the ladies you may propose to.’--‘Very well, grannie,’ he said, and
he proposed to the first on the list. When he came back with his wife
from their wedding tour they went to pay their respects to the old lady.
‘Well, now,’ she said, ‘I am the root and you are only the branches, and
therefore you must always pay me a great deal of deference.’--‘That is
all very well,’ said Jack impertinently, ‘but I think the branches would
flourish a great deal better if the root was under ground.’
“There is a great collection of small treasures at Haynes--snuff-boxes
of royal persons, of Lord Chesterfield, &c., and one with a portrait of
a lady ancestress,--‘not a good woman, she had nothing but her
beauty,’--which takes off and puts on a mask. But the great relic of all
is, in its own old shagreen case, the famous Essex ring--a gem
beautifully set. With it is a most interesting letter from Weigall, the
famous jeweller, explaining a great number of reasons why it must be
_the_ ring. There is also the pedigree of the ring, which came through
the hands of a great number of females--heiresses.
“To-day the Duchess (Dowager of Cleveland) has been talking much of the
wicked Duchess of Gordon, her ancestress. She married all her daughters
to drunken Dukes. One of them had been intended to marry Lord Brome, but
his father, Lord Cornwallis, objected on account of the insanity in the
Gordon family. The Duchess sent for him. ‘I understand that you object
to my daughter marrying your son on account of the insanity in the
Gordon family: now I can solemnly assure you that there is not a single
drop of Gordon blood in her veins.’
“The Duchess of Cleveland went out walking this morning in beating rain
and bitter wind--blind, broken-kneed, and eighty-four as she is. ‘Well,
you _are_ a brave woman, Duchess,’ some one said as she came in. ‘You
need not take the trouble to tell me that: I know that I _am_ a brave
woman,’ she answered.
“Old Miss Thornton called--Lady Leven’s sister. She talked much of the
misuse of charitable funds in dinners to directors, payment of matrons,
ex-matrons, &c., and said, ‘There really ought to be a society formed
for the demolition of charitable institutions.’
“At dinner the Duchess vehemently inveighed against the deterioration
of the times. ‘Was there ever _anything_ so ridiculous and uncalled-for
as a school-feast?’--‘But it is such a pleasure to the
children.’--‘Pleasure to them! In my days people were not always
thinking how children were to be amused. Children were able to amuse
themselves in my day. It is not only with the lower classes: all classes
are the same--the same utterly demoralising system of indulgence
everywhere. Why are not the children kept at home to learn to wash and
sew and do their duty?’--‘But the school-feast is only one day in the
year.’--‘One day in the year! Fiddlesticks! don’t tell me. I tell you
it’s utterly demoralising. Why, if the feast is only one day, it
unhinges them for ten days before and ten days after.
“‘Formerly, too, people knew how to live like gentlemen and ladies. When
they built houses, they built houses fit to live in, not things in which
the walls were too thin to allow of the windows having any shutters....
Why, now people do not even know how to keep a great house. Look at ----,
do you think she knows it, with her alternate weeks for receiving
visitors. _That_ is not what ought to be; that is not hospitality. A
great house ought to be open always. The master and mistress never ought
to feel it a burthen, and if it was properly managed, they never would.
There should always be a foundation of guests in the house, a few
relations or intimate friends, who would be quite at home there, and who
would be civil and go out to walk or drive, or do whatever might be
necessary to amuse the others. There ought to be no _gêne_ of any kind,
and there ought to be plenty of _equipages_--that should be quite
indispensable.’
“The conversation fell upon Rogers the poet. ‘Mr. Rogers came here
once,’ said Lady Wensleydale, ‘and I did not like him; I thought him so
ill-bred. He came with the Duchess of Bedford of that time, who was the
most good-natured woman in the world, and when he went out into the park
and came in quite late for luncheon, she said he must have some, and
went into the dining-room herself to see that he had it properly, and
while he was eating cold beef, mixed him herself a kind of salad of oil
and vinegar, which she brought to him. He waited a moment, then took up
a piece of the beef in his fingers, rolled it in the sauce, and, walking
round the table, popped it into the Duchess’s mouth. She went into the
drawing-room afterwards and complained to his friend Luttrell about it,
“What can I have done that Mr. Rogers should treat me so?” Luttrell
said, “I have known Rogers for sixty years, and have never yet been able
to account for any one of his vagaries.”
“‘Rogers and Luttrell were great friends, though they always quarrelled.
When they walked out together, they never walked side by side, but
always one behind the other.
“‘Rogers met Lord Dudley at one of the foreign watering-places, and
began in his vain way, “What a terrible thing it is how one’s fame
pursues one, and that one can never get away from one’s own identity!
Now I sat by a lady the other night, and she began, ‘I feel sure you
must be Mr. Rogers.’”--“And _were_ you?” said Lord Dudley, looking up
into his face quite innocently. It was the greatest snub the poet ever
had.
“‘Rogers hated Monckton Milnes. He was too much of a rival. If Milnes
began to talk, Rogers would look at him sourly, and say, “Oh, _you_ want
to hold forth, do you?” and then, turning to the rest of the party, “I
am looking for my hat; Mr. Milnes is going to entertain the company.”’
* * * * *
“_Holmhurst, Sept. 1._--I had rather dreaded the _tête-à-tête_ journey
with the Duchess to-day, and truly it was a long one, for we had an hour
to wait at Ampthill Station, and then missed the express at Bletchley.
When we first got into the carriage the Duchess said, ‘Well, now, I am
going to be quiet and rest my eyes,’ which I thought was a hint that I
was to take my book; but very soon she got bored and said, ‘I can’t see,
and am obliged to go on asking the names of the stations for want of
being amused;’ so then I was obliged to talk to her all the rest of the
way.
“At Ampthill she told me how she was going to London to meet Admiral
Inglefield, who was going to help her to ‘pick a child out of the
gutter.’ ‘That child,’ she said, ‘will some day be Earl Powlett. Lord
Powlett took a wager that he would run away with the lady-love of one of
his brother-officers, and he did run away with her; but she made it a
condition that he should marry her before a Registrar, which he believed
was illegal, but it was not, and they were really married. Her only
child, a boy, was brought up in the gutter. His name is Hinton, and he
is presentable,[216] which his wife is not, for she is a figurante at
the opera; but she gets more than the other danseuses, because she has
the courage to stand unsupported upon a tight-rope, which the others
have not. Powlett offered his son £400 if he would go away from England
and never come back again, but he refused, so then he would only give
him £100. He lives by acting at small theatres, but sometimes he does
not live, but starves. He had four children, but one is dead. It is the
eldest I mean to take away and place with a clergyman and his wife, that
he may learn something of being a gentleman. I shall undertake him for
three years, then I shall see what he is likely to be fit for. If I live
so long, I can settle it; if not, I must leave the means for it. Facts
are stranger than fiction.’
“At the stations, the Duchess was perfectly furious at the bonnets she
saw. ‘If any respectable persons had gone to sleep twenty years ago and
woke up now, they would think it was Bedlam let loose.’ She said how
Count Streletski, who had travelled everywhere, said there was no
country in which people were satisfied with nature: if tall, they wished
to make themselves short; if short, tall: if they were light, they
wished to be dark, and _vice versâ_. She talked of the peculiarities of
vanity in different people--how the first Lady Westmoreland made the
coiffeur wait and touch her up when she was _in_ the carriage.
“The Duchess parted from me at Euston Station, with a cordial invitation
to Osterley.”
* * * * *
“_Sept. 27._--I have had a constant succession of visitors at my little
Holmhurst.
“A singular subject of interest has been Mr. Freeman’s virulent letters
against and about me. He seems insane on the subject of creating
imaginary injuries.[217] Certainly it is a little annoying to be called
a thief in the public papers, though it may be useful for one’s morals.
However, ‘Experience is the best teacher, only the school fees are
heavy.’”
* * * * *
“_Conington Castle, Sept. 29._--I came here yesterday to old Mr.
Heathcote’s. It is a low-lying place in the Fens, close to what was once
Whitlesea Mere, but is now drained, only patches of reeds and marshy
ground remaining here and there. The house is near the site of an old
castle, but its only claim to be called a castle itself arises from its
having been partly built out of the ruins of Fotheringhay, from which a
row of arches remain. To ordinary eyes the country is frightful, but Mr.
Heathcote, as an artist, sees much beauty--which really does exist--in
the long unbroken lines where the mere once was, and the faint blue
shadows in the soft distances. And he has preserved very interesting
memorials of all that the district has been, within his memory, in an
immense series of sketches of the mere in summer, and in winter, when
covered with people skating; and of the mere life--its fisheries, wild
birds, and its curious draining mills, now all of the past.
“We have been to draw at Peterborough, a wonderfully foreign-looking
town, more so, I think, than any other in England. I saw Bishop Jeune’s
grave: it almost looks old now, and it really is many years since we
lost him; yet, on looking back, the time seems nothing, so quickly does
life pass, and living become out-living.”
* * * * *
“_Sept. 30._--We have been to Hinchinbroke. Lord and Lady Sandwich were
alone. She was the Lady Blanche Egerton[218] of my long ago Chillingham
days. Lord Sandwich took me all over the pictures. The best is that of
Lady Castlemaine, afterwards Duchess of Cleveland, very young and
lovely, with all her hair down. There is also a fine full-length of
Charles II., and a curious picture of Charles II. of Spain by Herrera.
By Gainsborough there is a beautiful portrait of Miss Martha Ray. Mr.
Hackman, who saw her with Lord Sandwich, fell in love with her, and took
orders in order to be able to marry her. Afterwards, when he saw her in
Covent Garden receiving the attentions of somebody else, he shot her in
a fit of jealousy, and suffered for it at Tyburn. In the ‘Ship Room’ is
an interesting picture by Vanderwelt of the naval action in which the
first Lord Sandwich died. His ship was fired by a fireship and blown up,
and he was drowned. Ten days afterwards his body was recovered, and the
garter and medal found upon it are preserved in a glass case near the
picture.
“The rooms at Hinchinbroke are very pleasant and livable, but the oldest
parts of the house are burnt and the oak staircase is painted. Near the
foot of it, the skeletons of two prioresses (for the house was once a
monastery) were found in their stone coffins, and were buried again in
the same place! Lord Sandwich showed us the MSS. of the great Lord
Sandwich--journals and letters in many volumes; also many letters of
George III., showing his great interest in very minute public matters.
He has also a splendid collection of Elzevirs.
“When Lady Sandwich was going to visit a school the next day, Miss Mary
Boyle heard the mistress say, ‘Now, girls, to-morrow my Lady is coming,
and so, recollect, pocket-handkerchiefs must be the order of the day:
there must be no _sniffling_.’”
* * * * *
“_Conington, Oct. 1._--This is one of the clockwork houses, with a
monotonous routine of life suited to the flat featureless country.
To-day, after church, the male part of the family set off to walk a
certain six miles, which they always walk after church, and, when we
reached a certain bridge, the female part said, ‘Here we turn back; this
is the place where we turn every Sunday through the year: we always go
as far as this, and we never go any farther.’”
* * * * *
“_Sarsden House, Chipping Norton, Oct. 4._--I came here on Monday. At
Paddington Station I met Lady Darnley and Lady Kathleen Bligh, and a
procession of carriages in waiting showed that a large party was
expected by the same train. It came dropping in round the five-o’clock
tea-table--Lord and Lady Denbigh; Lord and Lady Aberdare and a daughter;
Mr. and Mrs. J. A. Symonds; two young Plunketts; George, Lady Constance,
and Madeleine Shaw-Lefevre; Lord Morton.... I like Lord Denbigh very
much, and feel sure that no Roman Catholic plotter would induce him to
do what he did not believe to be right, or say what he did not believe
to be true.
“On Tuesday afternoon I drove to Heythorp with Lady Darnley, Lady
Denbigh, and Lady Aberdare. A long unfinished avenue leads up to the
very stately house, which has been well restored by Albert Brassey.
“In the evening Lord Denbigh told us:--
“‘Dr. Playfair, physician at Florence, went to the garden of a villa to
see some friends of his. Sitting on a seat in the garden, he saw two
ladies he knew; between them was a third lady dressed in grey, of very
peculiar appearance. Walking round the seat, Dr. Playfair found it very
difficult to see her features. In a farther part of the garden he met
another man he knew. He stayed behind the seat and asked his friend to
walk round and see if he could make out who the odd-looking lady was.
When he came back he said, “Of course I could not make her out, because
when I came in front of her, her face was turned towards you.” Dr.
Playfair then walked up to the ladies, and as he did so, the central
figure disappeared. The others expressed surprise that Dr. Playfair,
having seen them, had not joined them sooner. He asked who the lady was
who had been sitting between them. They assured him that there had
never been any such person.
“‘The next morning, Dr. Playfair went early to see the old gardener of
the villa, and asked him if there was any tradition about the place. He
said, “Yes, there is a story of a lady dressed in grey, who appears once
in every twenty-five years, and the singular part is that she has no
face.” Dr. Playfair asked when she had appeared last. “Well, I remember
perfectly; it was twenty-five years ago, and the time is about coming
round for her to appear again.”’
“Lord Aberdare said that when Edward Lear was drawing in Albania, he was
in perfect despair over the troops of little ruffians who mobbed him and
would not go away. Suddenly his india-rubber tumbled down and bobbed
down some steps--bob-bob-bob. The boys all ran away as hard as they
could, screaming, ‘Thaitan! Thaitan!’ and never came back again.
“A delightful old Mrs. Stewart has arrived from Scotland. I sat by her
at dinner. She talked much of Mrs. Grote. She described an interview
Mrs. Grote had with Madame George Sand. She said to Madame Sand that it
was a pity she did not employ her great powers for the leavening and
mellowing of mankind, as Miss Austen had done. ‘Madame,’ said Madame
Sand, ‘je ne suis pas philosophe, je ne suis pas moraliste, et je suis
romancière.’”
* * * * *
“_Oct. 4._--While Madeleine has been drawing my portrait, Mrs. Stewart
has talked delightfully, contradicting the theory of De Tocqueville that
‘the charming art of conversation--to touch and set in motion a
thousand thoughts without dwelling tiresomely on any one--is amongst the
lost arts, and can only be sought for in History Hut.’[219] She
described her visit to Ober Ammergau. Her anxiety to go was intense, but
all the means seemed to fail. The Princess Mary of Hanover and the Grand
Duchess Elizabeth (to whom she had intended to annex herself) _walked_.
But, to be in waiting upon them, went Baron Klenck, her Hanoverian
son-in-law, and he came back greatly impressed, and said to his wife
when he came in, ‘If thy mother still wishes to go, in God’s name let
her set forth;’ and she went. She described the life at the village--the
simplicity, the cheapness; then, in the play, the awful agony of the
twenty minutes of the Crucifixion, the sublimity of the Ascension. ‘I
have seen hundreds of “ascensions” on the stage and elsewhere, but I
have never seen anything like that simple _re-presentation_.’
“At luncheon Mrs. Stewart described a sitting with Mrs. Guppy the
spiritualist. Count Bathyany, her daughter, and others were present.
They were asked what sort of manifestation they would have. They
declared they would be satisfied with nothing less than a ghost. There
was a round hole in the table with a lid upon it. Presently the lid
began to quiver, gradually it was thrown on one side, and a hand came up
violently agitating itself. ‘Mrs. Guppy said, “Dear spirit” (we are
always very affectionate you know), “would you like the glass?” and a
great tall fern-glass was put over the place: otherwise, I should have
touched that hand. Then, inside the glass (but we could not touch it,
you know) came up something wrapped in muslin: Mrs. Guppy said it was a
head. Afterwards we were asked to go down to supper: there was quite a
handsome collation. A young American who was with us was so disgusted
with what he had seen that he would touch nothing--would take neither
bread nor salt in that house. I was weak: I did not quite like to
refuse, and I ate a few strawberries. Of course, as far as the moral
protest went, I might as well have eaten a whole plateful. Bathyany made
a very good supper. He took a rose away with him for his Countess, for
at the end of our séance quantities of flowers appeared, we knew not
whence, quite fresh, dewy, beautiful flowers: they appeared on the table
close to Count Bathyany.
“‘The spirits are very indulgent. They think we are in better humour if
our spirits are kept up. After I have been sitting there for some time
they generally say, “Harriet is exhausted; let her have a glass of
wine.” Then sometimes they give us nicknames--beautiful nicknames; my
daughter they called “Mutability,” and me they named “Distrust.”’
“We have been a long drive to a charming old house, Chastleton,
belonging to Miss Whitmore Jones, who lives there alone, ‘le dernier
rejeton de sa famille.’ It is in a hollow with fine old trees around it,
manor-house, church, arched gateway, and dovecot on arches grouped close
together, all of a delicate pink-yellow-grey. Inside is a banqueting
hall with very fine old panelling and curious furniture, and upstairs a
long gallery and nobly panelled drawing-room.”
* * * * *
“_Sarsden, Oct. 5._--Last night Mrs. Stewart talked much of Hanover and
her life there. Her daughter was lady-in-waiting to the Queen. She
described how all the royal family might have their property back at
once, but the King would make no concession--‘God has given me my crown;
I will only give it back to Him.’
“Mrs. Stewart was with the Queen and Princess for five months at
Herrenhausen after the King left for Langensalza, when ‘like a knight,
he desired to be placed in the front of his army, where all his soldiers
could see him, and where he was not satisfied till he felt the bullets
all whizzing around him.’ The people in Hanover said he had run away.
When the Queen heard that, she and Princess Marie went down to the place
and walked about there, and, when the people pressed round her, said,
‘The King is gone with his army to fight for his people; but I am here
to stay with you--to stay with you till he comes back.’ But alas! she
did not know!
“All that time in Herrenhausen they were alone: only Mrs. Stewart and
her daughter went out occasionally to bring in the news; the others
never went out. At last the confinement became most irksome to the
Princesses. They entreated Mrs. Stewart to persuade mama to let them go
out. Mrs. Stewart urged it to the Queen, who said, ‘But the Princesses
have all that they need here; they ought to be satisfied.’--‘Pardon me,
your Majesty,’ said Mrs. Stewart; ‘the Princesses have not all they
need; it is necessary for young people to have some change.’ ‘So,’ said
Mrs. Stewart, ‘at last the Queen saw that it was well, and she
consented. She said, “We will not take one of our own carriages, that
would attract too much attention, but we will take Harty’s--that is, my
daughter’s--carriage, and we will drive in that;” for the Queen had
given Harty a little low carriage and a pony. So they set off--the
Queen, Princess Marie, and only the coachman besides. And when they had
gone some way up the hills, the pony fretted under the new traces and
broke them, and, before they knew where they were, it was away over the
hedges and fields, and they were left in the lane with the broken
carriage. Two Prussian officers rode up--for the Prussians were already
in Hanover--and seeing two ladies, beautiful ladies too (for the Queen
is still very handsome), in that forlorn state, they dismounted, and,
like gentlemen as they were, they came up hat in hand, and offered their
assistance. The Queen said, “Oh, thank you; you see what has happened to
us: our coachman has gone after the pony, which has run away, and no
doubt he will soon come back, so we will just wait his return.” But the
coachman did not come back, and the gentlemen were so polite, they would
not go away, so at last the Queen and Princess had to set out to return
home; and the officers walked with them, never having an idea who they
were, and never left them till they reached the gates of Herrenhausen.
So the Queen came in and said, “You see what has happened, my dear; you
see what a dreadful thing has befallen us: we will none of us ever try
going out again,” and we never did.
“‘We used to go and walk at night in those great gardens of
Herrenhausen, in which the Electress Sophia died. The Queen talked then,
God bless her, of all her sorrows. We often did not come in till the
morning, for the Queen could not sleep. But, even in our great sorrow
and misery, Nature would assert herself, and when we came in, we ate up
everything there was. Generally I had something in my room, and the
Queen had generally something in hers, though that was only bread and
strawberries, and it was not enough for us, for we were so very hungry.
“‘One night the Queen made an aide-de-camp take the key, and we went to
the mausoleum in the grounds. I shall never forget that awful walk,
Harty carrying a single lanthorn before us, or the stillness when we
reached the mausoleum, or the white light shining upon it and the
clanging of the door as it opened. And we all went in, and we knelt and
prayed by each of the coffins in turn. The Queen and Princess Marie
knelt in front, and my daughter and I knelt behind; and we prayed--oh!
so earnestly--out of the deep anguish of our sorrow-stricken hearts. And
then we went up to the upper floor where the statues are. And there lay
the beautiful Queen, the Princess of Solms, in her still loveliness, and
there lay the old King, the Duke of Cumberland, with the moonlight
shining on him, wrapped in his military cloak. And when the Queen saw
him, she, who had been so calm before, sobbed violently and hid herself
against me--for she knows that I also have suffered--and said in a voice
of pathos which I can never forget, “Oh, he was so cruel to me, so very,
very cruel to me.” And after that we walked or lingered on the
garden-seats till daylight broke.
“‘The Queen was always longing to go away to her own house at
Marienberg, and at last she went. She never came back; for, as soon as
she was gone, the Prussians, who had left her alone whilst she was
there, stepped in and took possession of everything.
“‘The Queen is a noble, loving woman, but she is more admirable as a
woman than a queen. I _have_ known her queenly, however. When Count von
Walchenstein, the Prussian commandant, arrived, he desired an interview
with her Majesty. He behaved very properly, but as he was going away--it
was partly from gaucherie, I suppose--he said, “I shall take care that
your Majesty is not interfered with in any way.” Then our Queen rose,
and in queenly simplicity she said, “I never expected it.” He looked so
abashed, but she never flinched; only, when he was gone out of the room,
she fainted dead away upon the floor.
“‘The mistake of our Queen has been with regard to the Crown Prince. She
has had too great motherly anxiety, and has never sent out her son, as
the Empress Eugenie did, to _learn_ his world by acting in it and by
suffering in it.”
“To-day Mrs. Stewart has been talking much of the pain of age, of the
distress of being now able to do so little for others, of being ‘just a
creature crawling between heaven and earth.’ She also spoke much of ‘the
comfort of experience,’ of scarcely anything being quite utterly
irrevocable; that ‘in most things, most crimes even, one can trail,
_trail_ oneself in the dust before God and man.’
“In the morning Mrs. Stewart sat for her portrait to Madeleine, in her
picturesque square head-dress. She was pleased at being asked to sit.
‘Il faut vieillir être heureuse,’ she said. She talked much whilst she
was sitting--much of Lady H.’s insolent and often unfeeling sayings. She
spoke of a doctor who had the same inclination, and said to her, ‘Ça ne
me repugne pas de dire les vérités cruelles.’ Talking of self-respect,
she quoted the maxim of Madame George Sand--
‘Charité envers les autres;
Sincérité envers Dieu;
Dignité envers soi-même.’
And added, ‘But who should one be well with if not with oneself, with
whom one has to live so very much.’
“This morning Lady Ducie’s pet housemaid gave warning, because, she
said, Lady Ducie was not so sympathetic to her as she was six weeks ago.
She said that as Lady Ducie was now not nearly so nice to her as she had
been, she should be obliged to marry a greengrocer who had proposed to
her.
“In the afternoon we drove to Daylesford--Warren Hastings’ so beloved
home. It is a very pretty place, picturesque modern cottages amid tufted
trees, and a very beautiful small modern church on a green. This church
was built by Mr. Grisewood, and supplants a so-called Saxon church,
restored after a thousand years of use by Warren Hastings. The
inscription commemorating his restoration still remains, and ends with
the text--‘For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday.’ The
tomb of Warren Hastings, a yellow urn on a pedestal, stands in the
churchyard just under the east window. He left the place to his wife’s
son by her first husband, Count Imhoff. Lady Ducie remembers Countess
Imhoff coming to visit her mother, always with a great deal of state,
and always dressed in white satin and swansdown, like one of Romney’s
pictures. Mr. Grisewood succeeded the Imhoffs, and, when his son became
a Roman Catholic, sold the place to Mr. Bias. We drove to the house,
which stands well--a comfortable yellow stone house in pretty grounds,
with a clear running stream. Its reminiscences and the power of calling
them up made Mrs. Stewart speak with great admiration of those who
‘could find the least bit of bone and create a mastodon.’
“In returning, Mrs. Stewart told the story of Miss Geneviève Ward, the
actress. In early life she was travelling with her mother, when they
fell in with a handsome young Russian, Count Constant Guerra. He
proposed to her, and as the mother urged it, thinking it a good match,
she married him then and there in her mother’s presence, without
witnesses, he solemnly promising to make her his wife publicly as soon
as he could. When he could, he refused to fulfil his promise; but the
mother was an energetic woman, and she appealed to the Czar, who forced
Guerra to keep his word. He said he would do what the Czar bade him, but
that his wife should suffer for it all her life. To his amazement, when
the day for the marriage arrived, the bride appeared with her mother,
led to the altar in a long crape veil as to a funeral. Her brothers
stood by her with loaded pistols, and at the door of the church was a
carriage into which she stepped as soon as the ceremony was over, and
he never saw her again. She is Madame Constant Guerra, and has acted as
‘Guerrabella.’
“When we came home, I told a story in Lady Ducie’s sitting-room. Then
Lord Denbigh told how--
“‘Sir John Acton (whose son was Lady Granville’s first husband) was a
great friend of Lord Nelson, who was at that time occupied in a vain and
hopeless search for the French fleet.[220] One day Sir John was in his
wife’s dressing-room while she was preparing for dinner. As her French
maid was dressing her, a letter was put into her hand, at which she gave
such a start that she ran a pin she was holding into Lady Acton. This
caused Lady Acton to inquire what ailed her. She said the letter was
from her brother, a French sailor, from whom she had not heard for a
long time, and about whom she had been anxious. Sir John Acton, with
great presence of mind, offered to read her the letter while she went on
doing her mistress’s hair. As soon as he had read it he went off to Lord
Nelson. The letter gave all the information so long sought in vain, and
the battle of the Nile was the result of the prick of a pin.’”
* * * * *
“_Prestbury, Oct. 6._--It poured so hard this morning that I put off
leaving Sarsden till late. Mrs. Stewart again talked much of the
Hanoverian Court, of the Guelph love of doubtful stories; how she saved
up any story she heard for the blind King. One day she was telling him
a story ‘about Margaret Bremer’s father’ as they were driving. Suddenly
the horses started, and the carriage was evidently going to be upset.
‘Why don’t you go on?’ said the King. ‘Because, sir, we are just going
to upset.’--‘That is the coachman’s affair,’ said the King; ‘do you go
on with your story.’
“With the Greatheeds, in whose cottage I am staying, I went a long
excursion yesterday up the Cotswold Hills, which have a noble view of
the great rich plain of Gloucestershire. Winchcombe, on the other side,
is a charming old town of quaint irregular houses. We passed through it
to Hailes Abbey, a small low ruin now, of cloisters in a rich meadow,
but once most important as containing the great relic of the Precious
Blood, which was brought thither by Edmund, son of the founder, Richard,
King of the Romans. Thirteen bishops said mass at different altars at
the consecration, and three of the Plantagenets--the founder, his wife,
and his son Edmund--are buried in the church. It is now a peaceful
solitude, with a few ancient thatched cottages standing round the wooded
pastures.
“In returning, we turned aside to Sudeley Castle, the old Seymour house,
where Katherine Parr is buried. It is a picturesque and grand old house,
partially restored, partly now a green courtyard surrounded by ruined
walls and arches. The Queen’s (modern) tomb has a touching sleeping
figure[221] guarded by two angels. As we were coming out of the chapel,
Mrs. Dent[222] pursued us--a picturesque figure in a Marie Antoinette
hat--and brought us in to tea. The Dents made their fortunes as glovers,
and, in their present magnificence, a parcel of their gloves, as from
the shop, is always left in a conspicuous place in the hall, to ‘keep
them humble.’”
* * * * *
“_Tettenhall Wood, Oct. 12._--Whilst with the Corbets at Cheltenham, I
visited Thirlstone, a curious house which belonged to Lord Northbrook.
It was afterwards bought by Sir J. Philipps, the bibliomaniac, and
contains the most enormous and extraordinary collection of books and
pictures imaginable; a few gems, but imbedded in masses of rubbish,
which the present possessor, Mrs. Fenwick, daughter of the collector, is
forbidden to sell or destroy.
“I have been working hard for Mrs. Moore at the Memoir of her husband
the Archdeacon (the object of my visit), and have read through all his
speeches, &c. I see, however, how impracticable it is to help in work of
this kind. Mrs. Moore implores me to cut out what should be omitted. I
select what seems to me utterly trivial and commonplace, and she is
annoyed, saying it comprises the only matters of real importance. She
implores me to correct her diction and grammar: I do so, and she weeps
because her pleasure is destroyed in a work which is no longer her own.”
* * * * *
“_Donington Rectory, Oct. 13._--This is a pleasant place in itself, and
any place would be pleasant within view of the beloved Wrekin.[223] On
arriving, I went on at once to Boscobel, and saw the oak which grew from
an acorn of the tree that sheltered Charles II., and in the ancient
half-timbered house, the hiding-place under the floor at the top of the
turret-stairs, where the Prince is said to have crouched for forty-eight
hours, with his trap-door concealed by cheeses. Well smothered he must
have been, if Staffordshire cheeses smelt then as they do now. There is
a good portrait of Charles, which he presented to the house after the
Restoration. I went on with Henry de Bunsen to White Ladies, now a low
ruin of red walls in a meadow, but entered still by a fine Norman
archway. Inside is a quiet burial-ground for Roman Catholics, amongst
whose lichen-tinted headstones is that of ‘Mistress Joan, who was called
friend by Charles II.’--being one of those who assisted in his escape.
Beyond, in Hubble Lane, is the ruin of the Pendrill house. The
Pendrills[224] were seven brothers, common labourers, but went up to
London and had a pension after the Restoration.
“We went on to Tong--a glorious church, quite a church of the dead, so
full of noble tombs of Stanleys and Vernons. Near it, in low-lying lands
with water, is Tong Castle, the old house of the Durants. The last Mr.
Durant brought in another lady to live with his wife, which she
resented, and she left him. There was a long divorce suit, which they
both attended every day in coaches and six. Owing to some legal quibble,
he gained his suit, though the facts against him were well known, and he
was so delighted at the triumph over his wife that he erected a monument
in honour of his victory on the hill above the castle. The sons all took
part with their mother, and when Mr. Durant was lying in his last
illness, they set barrels of gunpowder surreptitiously under the
monument, and had a match and train ready. They bribed a groom at the
house to ride post-haste with the news as soon as the breath was out of
their father’s body; and the news of his death first became known to
the county by the monument being blown into shivers. The Durants sold
Tong to Lord Bradford.”
* * * * *
“_Bretton, Yorkshire, Oct. 30._--I have been here for a very pleasant
week with a large party of what Lady Margaret (Beaumont) calls her
‘young men and maidens.’ ... There has been nothing especial to narrate,
though our hostess has entertained the whole party with her
never-failing charm of conversation and wit.
“One day I went with Henry Strutt,[225] whom I like much, to Wakefield,
to draw the old chapel on the bridge. What an awful place Wakefield
is--always an inky sky and an inky landscape, and the river literally so
inky that the Mayor went out in a boat, dipped his pen, and wrote a
letter with it to the Commissioners of Nuisances.”
* * * * *
“_Raby Castle, Nov. 1._--I came here on Monday, meeting the delicately
humorous Mr. Dicky Doyle at Darlington, yet with much fear that there
were few other guests; but I was relieved to find ‘Eleanor the Good,’
Duchess of Northumberland, seated at the five-o’clock tea-table, and
have had much pleasant talk with her. She spoke of her absorbing
attachment to Alnwick and the pain it was to leave it; that the things
which make the greatest blanks in life are not the greatest griefs, but
the losses which most affect daily life and habits.... Frederick Stanley
and Lady Constance[226] came in the evening, he very pleasant, and she
almost more full of laughs than any one I ever saw. Other guests are
Colonel and Mrs. Duncombe, young Gage, who will be Lord Gage,[227] and
just before dinner a good-looking youth came in, who turned out to be
Peddie Bennet.[228]
“Yesterday Lord and Lady Pollington came, and old Lord Strathnairn,
looking thinner and more of an old dandy than ever.”
* * * * *
“_Nov. 3._--Yesterday, while I was walking with the Pollingtons through
the beech-woods deep in rustling leaves, the castle bell announced the
advent of guests, and returning, we found the Warwicks and Brooke
arrived.”
* * * * *
“_Whitburn Hall, Nov. 7._--There is a great pleasure not only in the
affection, but in the _demonstration_ of affection which one receives
here. Dear old Lady Williamson, in her beautiful tender old age, wins
all hearts by the patience with which she bears her blindness, and the
sweetness with which she sometimes imagines she sees; and Lady
Barrington’s lovely and lovable old face brings sunshine to all around
it.... In the younger generation, all is hospitality and kindness.”
* * * * *
“_Brancepeth Castle, Nov. 8._--Yesterday I went with Augusta Harrington
to visit Edward[229] and Tunie Liddell in their new home at Jarrow. It
is startling to see how the spirit that animated the early martyrs has
induced them to exchange competence for penury, and to give up the elms
and flowers and pleasant sunny rooms of the Rectory at Wimpole. Now they
are amidst a teeming population of blackened, foul-mouthed, drunken
roughs, living in miserable rows of dismal houses, in a country where
every vestige of vegetation is killed by noxious chemical vapours, on
the edge of a slimy marsh, with a distance of inky sky, and furnaces
vomiting forth volumes of blackest smoke. All nature seems parched and
writhing under the pollution. Their days are perfectly full of work, and
they have scarcely ever an evening to themselves.... They said our visit
did them good, and I shall go again.
“Edward had been perplexed by an old woman, one of his parishioners,
always declaring herself to be at least ten years younger than he felt
certain she must be, yet he did not think she was of the kind who would
tell a lie. At last he found that she dated her age from her baptism.
‘The clergy were not so quick upon us then,’ she said, ‘as they are now;
so my father he just waited till we were all born to have us baptized,
and then had us all done together: there were eleven of us.’
“I reached this great castle in pitch darkness. It is a magnificent
place--a huge courtyard and enormous fabric girdled in by tremendous
towers of Henry III. The staircase is modern, but most of the rooms have
still the vaulted ceilings of Henry III.’s time, though the arms of the
Nevilles, with which they were once painted, are gone now. The beer and
wine cellars, with some cells called dungeons, are very curious. The
butler pointed out with pride the _black_ cobwebs which hung in festoons
and cover much of the wine, a great deal of which was in the huge
bottles called ‘cocks’ and ‘hens.’ The white cobwebs he had less opinion
of: they are less healthy.
“Pleasant Lady Haddington[230] and her daughter are here. Lady
Boyne[231] is a most pretty and winning hostess, and her children are
thoroughly well brought up, and take a pleasant easy part in everything.
In the evenings the whole party dance ‘Durham reels’ in the great hall.
“It was disappointing to have snow to-day, but there is much to interest
in the house and in the old church of St. Brandon close by, where some
grand figures of the Nevilles sleep before the altar. The very curious
pews and reading-desk of the time of Bishop Cosin were destroyed in a
mutilation of the church under the garb of ‘restoration’ sixteen years
ago.
“There are several curious pictures by Hogarth here, in which the Lord
Boyne of that day is introduced; but the most remarkable is one of Sir
Francis Dashwood as a monk of Medmenham worshipping a naked woman and
all the good things of life.”
* * * * *
“_Kirklands, Nov. 14._--On Friday I was again at Jarrow, and was warmly
welcomed by the Edward Liddells. Next morning I went with Edward to the
wonderful old church of the seventh century, where Bede’s chair still
stands under the Saxon arches. All around vegetation is blasted; dead
trees rear their naked boughs into the black sky, and grimy rushes
vainly endeavour to grow in the poisonous marshes. The very horror of
ugliness gives a weird and ghastly interest to the place. Edward finds
endless work, and enjoys the struggle he lives in. As Montalembert says,
‘Ce n’est pas la victoire qui fait le bonheur des nobles cœurs--c’est
le combat.’ His is literally a Christian warfare. If he has spare time,
he employs it in looking about the streets for drunken men. As he sees
them come reeling along, he offers to help them, and walks home with
them clinging to his arm. On the way he draws them out, and having thus
found out where they live, returns next day, armed with the silly things
they have let fall, to make them ashamed with. While I was making a
little sketch of the church, a wedding party came in, the bridegroom
being tipsy. Edward accused him of it, and he confessed at once, saying
that he had been in such a fright at the ceremony, he had been obliged
to take some spirits to keep his courage up. Edward said he wondered he
could care for that sort of courage, that was only Dutch courage, real
English courage was the only right sort; and as he supposed he wished
to make his wife happy, that was the sort of courage he must look for;
but being drunk on the day he married was a bad omen for her happiness.
And yet, in the midst of his little scolding, Edward was so charming to
them all that the whole wedding party were captivated, and an
acquaintance, if not a friendship, was founded. It all showed a power of
work in the real way to win souls. And--
‘He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.’[232]
“I came here by a bitterly cold journey of ten hours through the snow.
The train went off the line, and we were delayed so late that I had to
drive all the way from Kelso--a dark bitter drive. Har Elliot[233]
received me most warmly, with her little Admiral, and dear old George
Liddell. The place was built by old Mr. Richardson, the Writer to the
Signet, and now belongs to his daughter Joanna. On Sunday afternoon we
went to Ancrum, the burnt house of Sir William Scott, now being rebuilt
in the old Scotch style; its situation is lovely.”
* * * * *
“_Edinburgh, Nov. 19._--I have been four days at Winton with dear old
Lady Ruthven. She is now blind as well as deaf, and very helpless, but
she is still a loving centre of beautiful and unstinted beneficence.
She says, ‘It is a great trial, a very great trial, neither to see nor
hear, but it is astonishing the amount of time it gives one for good
thoughts. I just know fifty chapters of the Bible by heart, and when I
say them to myself in the night, it soothes and quiets me, however great
the pain and restlessness. It is often a little trial to me--the
unsatisfied longing I have to know just a little more, just _something_
of the beyond. If I could only find out if my husband and my sister knew
about me. There is a little poem I often think of--
‘The soul’s dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made.’[234]
Perhaps it will be so with me; but soon I shall know all, and meantime
God is very good. Since my last great illness I have not been able for
it, but till then I just always went on reading prayers to my servants,
that is, I could not really read, you know, but I just _said_ a chapter
out of my own remembrance, and then I prayed as I felt we needed.’
“Lady Ruthven can repeat whole cantos of Milton and other poets, and her
peculiar voice does not spoil them; rather, when one remembers her great
age and goodness, it adds an indescribable pathos. She likes to be read
to down her trumpet, which is not easy; and the person she hears best
thus is George the under-footman; but, as she says, she ‘has formidable
rivals in lamps.’
“One of her occupations is feeding her pheasants with bread and milk at
the castle door. ‘Ah! I see you are early accustoming them to bread
sauce,’ said Mr. Reeve of the _Edinburgh Review_, when he saw her thus
employed.
“One day we drove to Yester (Lord Tweeddale’s), only remarkable for its
pretty wooded approach. In leaving Lady Ruthven, one could not but feel
one left her for the last time, and _what_ for her the change--which at
ninety must be so near--will be, from blindness, deafness, helplessness,
after her entirely noble and holy life--to light, and hearing, and
power.”
* * * * *
“_Edinburgh, Nov. 20._--A visit to the Robert Shaw Stewarts has given me
a pleasant glimpse of Edinburgh society.
“Certainly Edinburgh is gloriously beautiful, but never was there a city
so richly endowed by Nature contaminated by such abject and ludicrous
public monuments!--the enormous monument of Walter Scott, a ludicrous
copy in stone of the Bishop’s throne at Exeter: the sort of lighthouse
which closes Princes Street (a monument to Lord Nelson, I was told): the
statue of the Duke of Wellington, who has lost his hat in a perfectly
futile struggle with his restive horse, which is standing on its
tail:--worst of all, the figure of the Prince Consort (in Charlotte
Square), being adorned by specimens of each class of society, the most
ridiculous of all being a peer and peeress in their robes.
“This morning I drew in the Grassmarket. The crowd was most tiresome
till it took the idea that I was Sir Noel Paton, the popular Edinburgh
artist. I tacitly encouraged the idea, when I found the result
was--‘Dinna ye see it’s Sir Noel Paton hissel drawing the cassel? then
let Sir Noel see, mon.’
“In the afternoon I went with Mrs. Stewart to the exhibition of
Raeburn’s pictures--nothing but Raeburns, though many vast rooms are
filled with them; and deeply interesting it is thus not only to follow
one great, too little appreciated, painter through life, but to be
introduced to the whole world of his illustrious contemporaries.
Raeburn’s pictures may be slight, and may have faults of colouring, and
even of drawing, but his men never fail to be gentlemen and his women
are always ladies--very pleasant people too generally, and people it is
delightful to live with. ‘A great portrait should be liker than the
original,’ wrote Coleridge. The noblest portrait here seemed to me to be
that of Alexander Adam, Rector of the High School, a serious and holy,
but engaging old man. Lady Mackenzie of Coul is a sweet, refined, and
beautiful woman. As a rule, the old men’s portraits are the best--their
shaggy eyebrows, their vigorous old age, the sharp shadows of their
chins, so vividly and carefully drawn, and all the _delicacies_ of
expression centred in the eyes. There were numbers of such old men’s
portraits, in which the dead grandfather must still often seem to share
the inner family life of many a quiet country-house. It shows the
extraordinary change in the value popular feeling places upon art when
one recollects that the works of Watts and Millais cost from £2000 to
£3000, while these pictures--far more pleasing, far more like those they
represent, and, though more sketchy, cleverer and more original--used to
cost only £10.”
* * * * *
“_Nov. 21._--We have been out to New Hailes, the old Dalrymple house,
now inhabited by Lord Shand. The characteristic of the house is its
library, which, however, is rather useless, as the bookcases are
seventeen feet high, and there is no ladder to reach the upper shelves
by.”
* * * * *
“_Nov. 22._--Excursion to Pinkie, the fine old house of the Hopes, near
Musselburgh--crenellated, machicolated, picturesque as possible. Charles
Edward slept there when triumphant from Prestonpans. There is a noble
gallery upstairs with a painted ceiling, and a secret passage and
staircase. Lady Hope was very kind.[235]
“In Edinburgh I have been, for the first time, received as a sort of
mild literary lion, and have found it very amusing. A quantity of people
came to call--professors, the bishop, and others.”
* * * * *
“_Ravensworth Castle, Nov. 26._--I have been much enjoying a visit here,
and the cordial affection which abounds in my dear Liddell cousins. Old
General Stanhope[236] is here, and told us--
“‘A gentleman was riding over the Yorkshire Wolds late in the gloaming,
when his horse started at something. With the perseverance of a good
rider, he forced the horse to return to the spot where he had started,
when he saw with horror that he had been frightened by a dead body,
evidently of a murdered man, lying by the side of the road. A dog was
sitting by the body, and as he rode up it ran away.
“‘Without losing his presence of mind for an instant, without thought of
lingering to hunt up police, &c., the rider set spurs to his horse and
pursued the dog. He pursued it a great distance, and eventually saw it
enter a low solitary public-house.
“‘He then put his horse into the wretched stable of the place and
entered the house. In the brick kitchen three men were drinking, one man
by himself, two men together; curled up by the fire was the dog.
“‘The rider called for beer or whisky and sat down. Meanwhile he
observed his companions. The two men talked together of quite
indifferent subjects; the solitary man said nothing. At last the
gentleman got up and gave the dog a great kick. It ran to the lonely
man, who said in a fury, “What do you mean, sir, by kicking my dog?”--“I
mean that I chose to do it,” he replied; “and furthermore, I mean that I
arrest you for murder, and I call upon _you_ (turning to the other two
men) to assist me in arresting this murderer.”
“‘And the man confessed.’
“General Stanhope also gave an interesting account of how old Lord
Braybrooke, going to a farm to see some cows, was struck by something in
one of the farming men. At last, suddenly slapping him on the shoulder,
he exclaimed, ‘Good God! you are De Bruhl!’ and it was a man who had
been well known in the world, son of the Bruhl of the famous Terrace at
Dresden, the friend of Augustus of Saxony, who had been ruined by the
Prince Regent, and had sunk lower and lower, till he came to be a farm
labourer, unrecognised and unnoticed for years.
“Talking of dreams, General Stanhope said--
“‘Lady Andover, who was the daughter of Lord Leicester, was with her
husband[237] at Holkham, and when one day all the other men were going
out shooting, she piteously implored him not to go, saying that she had
dreamt vividly that he would be shot if he went out. She was so terribly
eager about it, that he acceded to her wishes, and remained with her in
her painting-room, for she painted beautifully in oils, and was copying
a picture of the “Misers” which was at Holkham. But the afternoon was
excessively beautiful, and Lady Andover’s strong impression, which had
been so vivid in the morning, then seemed to wear off, till at last she
said, “Well, really, perhaps I have been selfish in keeping you from
what you like so much because of my own impressions; so now, if you care
about going out, don’t let me keep you in any longer.” And he said,
“Well, if _you_ don’t mind, I should certainly like to go,” and he went.
“‘He had not been gone long before Lady Andover’s impression returned
just as vividly as ever, and she rushed upstairs and put on her bonnet
and pursued him. But, as she crossed the park, she met her husband’s own
servant riding furiously without his coat. “Don’t tell me,” she said at
once; “I know what has happened,” and she went back, and locked herself
into her room. His servant was handing him a gun through a hedge, it
went off, and he was killed upon the spot.’
“‘The same Lady Andover had a dream of a minor kind which came curiously
true. She said to her sister that she had dreamt most vividly that she
was standing with her under the portico at Holkham; that they were both
dressed in deep mourning--thick black bombazine; and that they were
watching a great funeral leave the house, but that it was not going in
the natural direction of the churchyard, but the other way, up the
avenue.
“‘A month after, the two sisters were standing under the portico,
dressed in deep mourning for old Queen Charlotte, and the funeral of
Lady Albemarle, who had died in the house, was going away up the avenue.
Lady Andover said to her sister, “Don’t you remember?”’
“Apropos of second sight, General Stanhope said--
“‘Did you ever hear of a man they used to call Houghy White? When I was
young, I went with him down to Richmond on a water-party, which was
given by Sir George Warrender. Houghy was then engaged to be married to
a niece of Beau Brummel, as he was called, and when we returned from
Richmond, we went to spend the evening at her mother’s house, and there
Houghy told this story.
“‘He was aide-de-camp to the old Duke of Cambridge when he was in
Hanover, and was required by the Duke to go with him on a shooting-party
into the Hartz Mountains. He, and indeed two of the Duke’s other
aides-de-camp, were then, I am sorry to say, very much in love with the
wife of a fourth--a very beautiful young lady--and they were all much
occupied by thoughts of her. At the place in the Hartz to which they
went, there was not much accommodation, but there was one good room with
an alcove in it and four beds. The two German equerries slept in the
alcove, and the two English aides-de-camp in two beds outside it. In the
night White distinctly saw the lady they all so much admired come into
the room. She came up to both of the beds outside the alcove and looked
into them; then she passed into the alcove. He immediately heard the
equerry on the right cry out “Was haben sie gesehn?” and the other--the
husband--say, “Ach Gott! Ich habe meine Frau gesehn?”
“‘White was terribly impressed, and the next day entreated to excuse
himself from going out shooting with the Duke. The Duke insisted on
knowing his reason, upon which he told what he had seen, and expressed
his conviction that his friend was dead. The Duke was very much annoyed,
and said, “You are really, as a matter of fact, so much occupied with
this lady that you neglect your duties to me: I brought you here to
shoot with me, and now, on account of whimsical fancies, you refuse to
go: but I insist upon your going.” However, White continued to say, “I
must most humbly beg your Royal Highness to excuse me, but I cannot and
will not go out shooting to-day,” and at last he was left at home. That
evening, the mail came in while they were at dinner, and the letters
were handed to the Duke. He opened them, and beckoned White to him.
“You were quite right,” he said; “the lady died last night.”’
“Lizzie Williamson said:--
“‘I remember quite well how a very charming young surgeon came into this
neighbourhood, a Mr. Stirling; he was beloved by everybody, and though
he was as poor as a church-mouse, he had not an enemy in the world.
After his medical rounds, he was in the habit of riding home through a
lovely wooded lane which there is near Gibside, with trees on each side
and the river below. One day--one Friday--as he was riding home this
way, he was shot by some men concealed amongst the bushes. His body was
dragged into the wood and was searched and rifled; but he was very poor,
dear man; he had nothing but his watch, and the brutes took that: and
that is all I have to say about him.
“‘On the night before, the wife of Mr. Bowes’s agent, who was in the
habit of going every week to receive money at the lead-mines, some miles
distant from Gibside, awoke dreadfully agitated. She told her husband
that she had had a most terrible dream, and conjured him, as he loved
her, to stay at home that day, and not to go to the mines. She said she
did not know the place herself, but she saw a wooded lane above a river
and some men hiding in bushes, and she saw him come riding along, and
the men shoot at him from behind, and drag him into the bushes. He
laughed at her, and said of course he could not neglect his duty to his
master for such an idle fancy as that, and that he must go to the mines.
“‘She fell asleep again, and she dreamt the same thing, and she
urgently entreated and implored him not to go. He said, “I must; the men
will be expecting me; they are to meet me there, and I have really no
excuse to give.”
“‘She fell asleep the third time, and she dreamt the same thing, and
awoke with agonised entreaties that her husband would accede to her
wishes. Then he really began to be frightened himself, and at last he
said he would make a concession; he would go to the mines, but he would
not go by the wooded lane at all (for he was obliged to allow there was
such a place), but would both go and return by the high moorland way on
the other side the river.
“‘So the agent was saved and the poor young surgeon was murdered in his
place.
“‘The watch which had been taken was found afterwards in a pawnbroker’s
at Durham, and the men who pawned it were traced and taken: Cain and
Rain were their odd names. In the hand of the murdered man was found a
button of pink glass, imitation amethyst, which exactly matched those on
Cain’s waistcoat, with a bit of the stuff hanging to it, as if the dead
man’s hand had clenched it in a struggle. But Cain’s friends got hold of
the discovery, and sowed the wood with similar pink buttons, which were
found; so _that_ evidence went for nothing and Cain got off, but every
one believed that he and Rain did it.
“‘Years afterwards, Cain was ill and sent for Harry,[238] and confided a
secret to him under strict vows of secrecy, and no one knows what that
secret was.’”
* * * * *
“_Kinmel, Nov. 30._--I left Ravensworth early on Monday to go to Ridley
Hall. In a few minutes after arriving, White the butler came to say that
Cousin Susan would see me. She was in her little sitting-room, half
sitting up on her sofa before an immense fire. At above eighty, her face
and figure have still the look of youth which they had at thirty-five,
and that quite unaided by art, though not by dress. She has now quite
lost the use of her feet, and is cut off from all her usual employments,
her garden, her walks, her china, and, if it were not that she is so
long inured to solitary habits, her life would be indeed most desolate.
She talked all afternoon and evening, chiefly about Tyneside politics or
family reminiscences. She asked me whom _I_ thought she had better leave
her fortune to. I said, ‘After Mr. Bowes, to one of the Strathmore
boys.’ She would not take leave of me at night, pretending she should
see me next day, but I knew then that she did not mean to do it. She
said, as I went out, ‘You may think that you have given me _one_ happy
day.’
“I slept at Chester on Tuesday, and walked round the walls by moonlight,
most picturesque and desolate, with only the tramp of an occasional
wanderer making the night more silent by its echoes.
“Yesterday I came here. A beautiful ascent through woods leads from the
seaboard to this house, magnificent in the style of a Louis XIV. château
externally, with Morris paper and colour inside. There is a man party
here--Lord Colville, Sir Dudley Marjoribanks, Lord de Lisle, Hedworth
Williamson, Lord Delamere. Hedworth is most amusing, and Lord de Lisle
not without a quaint humour.”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 1._--To-day being a hunting day, most of the men breakfasted in
pink in the hall. We drove with the Harringtons to the old Shipley house
of Bodryddan,[239] where young Mrs. Conwy received us. The fine old
house has been altered by Nesfield--‘restored’ they call it--but, though
well done in its way, the quaint old peculiar character is gone. This
generation, too, has sent its predecessors into absolute oblivion. Only
the pictures keep the past alive at all, and they very little. There was
a lovely portrait of a little girl with a dog in Mrs. Conwy’s
sitting-room. ‘Who was it?’ I asked. ‘Oh, somebody, some sort of
great-aunt,’ she supposed, ‘the dog was rather nice.’ It was Amelia
Sloper,[240] Dean Shipley’s most cherished niece, the idol of that house
and of all that lived in it in a past generation. One could not help
remembering how that child’s little footsteps were once the sweetest
music that house ever knew, and now her very existence is forgotten
there, but her picture is preserved because ‘she had rather a nice
little dog.’”
* * * * *
“_Tatton Park, Dec. 2._--This is a very pleasant, roomy country-house in
an ugly park. The great feature is the conservatories, in one of which a
gravel walk winds between banks of rock and moss and groves of tree-fern
like a scene in Tasmania.
“Lady Egerton[241] shows to great advantage in her own house. On small
subjects her conversation is frivolous, but on deeper subjects she has
acute observation and a capital manner of hitting the right nail on the
head, and she certainly gives her opinion without respect of persons.
Yesterday, Wilbraham Egerton and Lady Mary[242] dined, the latter most
attractive. Lady Egerton was very amusing, especially about old Lady
Shaftesbury and her having ‘established a lying-in hospital for cats.’”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 4._--Yesterday we went to church at Rostherne. Going through the
park gates, Mrs. Mitford (Emily Egerton) told the story of Dick
Turpin--whose propensities were not known to his neighbours, and who
constantly dined with her grandfather--having been terrified at that
gate one night as he rode away, by thinking that he saw the ghost of one
of his victims, and that it was believed to be haunted ever since.
“Rostherne Church stands on a terrace above the mere, into which one of
its bells is said to have slipped down, and a mermaid is supposed to
come up and ring it whenever one of the family at Tatton is going to
die. It is the most poetical legend in Cheshire. Old Mrs. Egerton[243]
told it one day at dinner. A short time after, the butler rushed into
the drawing-room, and begged the gentlemen of the house to come and
interfere, for two of the under-servants were murdering one another.
Mrs. Egerton’s special footman had told the story of the mermaid in the
servants’ hall, and another servant denied it. The footman declared that
it was impossible it should not be true, for his mistress had said it,
and a desperate fight ensued.
“Miss Wilbraham[244] is here from Blyth--a most pleasant, easy, natural
person, who draws beautifully, and makes herself most agreeable.
“To-day we have been to luncheon at Arley. It is a noble house, raised
by the present Mr. Warburton[245] on the site of an old moated building,
which was, however, spoilt before his time. In front is a leaden statue
of a Moor, like those at Knowsley and Clement’s Inn. The blind Mr.
Warburton wrote the well-known hunting songs. He lived through his eyes,
but bears the loss of them with a noble cheerfulness. All around are
devoted to him, not only his own family, but tenants and workmen, and it
is a touching proof of this, that, when anything new is to be
constructed, the workmen always make a ‘blind plan’ of it, that he may
feel and know it--a bit of wood representing one kind of wall, a ridge
of sealing wax another: and so he is still the adviser and soul of it
all.
“Mr. Gladstone is an old friend of his, and, with silence as to
politics, was come to cheer and amuse him.
“Lady Egerton was most comical with Mr. Gladstone. ‘I told you you would
never rest,’ she said; ‘how could you be so stupid as to think it? A man
with brains cannot rest. Now how can you have come to do such a number
of foolish things? However, if I was you, I would quiet down: indeed I
do not despair of you yet.’ At luncheon Mr. Gladstone said she did a
good deal of work in a very short time, for she totally demolished the
Board of Education and the Church of England, and eventually established
the Pope as the head of Christianity throughout the world.
“Before luncheon, Mr. Warburton took me away to see some prints in the
library. We found there a Mr. Yates, a clergyman, and there was a most
animated and interesting conversation between him and Mr. Gladstone on
the logical difference between ‘Obedience’ and ‘Submission,’ which Mr.
Yates considered to be the same and I thought so too, but quite see from
Mr. Gladstone’s explanation that it is not so. He illustrated it by
Strossmeyer, who was quite willing to _submit_ to the doctrine of Papal
infallibility, but turned restive at _obedience_, which involved
subscription, and prevented any power of antagonistic action on his own
faith any more. They spoke much of obedience to the decrees of a judge
in Church matters. Mr. Gladstone said that while clergy were bound to
_submit_ to a judge’s decree, and while they had no right to inquire his
reasons (two judges often arriving at the same decision from perfectly
different reasons), he did not see why they might not state that the
views they maintained, according to their own conscience, were at
variance with the decision, though, as members of the Church of England,
they were bound to submit to it.
“Altogether, it was a very interesting visit, and I was glad Mr.
Gladstone said he wished it had not been such a short one. He and Mrs.
Gladstone were both most cordial.
“Here, at Tatton, is a number of pictures set into panels round the
staircase, full-lengths of Cheshire gentlemen, moved hither from Astbury
Hall, where the originals met to decide whether they should rise for
Prince Charlie, and finally elected not to risk their estates. In the
dining-room is a picture of a hand shaking out an empty purse by Rubens,
signed; it was sent to Charles V. when he had forgotten to pay the
painter for his work, to remind him. Lord Egerton has many charming
miniatures in his room, and--a gift to one of his ancestors--Queen
Elizabeth’s ‘horn-book,’ being the alphabet and the Lord’s Prayer set in
a frame of silver filagree and covered with talc (horn). He told us of
some one who, wishing effectually to protect his land from poachers, put
up--‘Aspleniums and Polypodiums always on these premises.’”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 6._--Yesterday we drove to Wythenshawe.[246] It is a most
engaging old house, very well restored, all the historical points
retained--the low narrow door inside the other, through which the
defenders forced the conquerors to pass as their condition of surrender
after their siege by the Commonwealth, when the family was heavily
fined: the ghost-room, where a soldier shot in the siege still appears:
the difference in the panelling of the oak drawing-room, where the
panels were smashed in by a cannon-ball. There is another ghost--a
ghastly face of a lady, who draws the curtains and looks in upon a
bride on the first night she sleeps in the house after her marriage: the
late Mrs. Tatton saw it.”[247]
* * * * *
“_Betton House, Dec. 9._--Wednesday morning was lovely. We drove to
Rostherne Manor, Lady Mary Egerton’s charming modern house, with a
lovely view over the wide shining mere to the Derbyshire hills; on the
right, the church tower on a wooded hill, and in the foreground the
terraced garden with an old leaden figure of Mercury.
“I came away to Hodnet, where the great new house perfectly swarmed with
Heber Percy cousins, and next morning I went with Ethel Hood to Stoke.
There is nothing but the ghost of our memories there now--even the
church pulled down, all that made the place touching or beautiful to us
swept away.”
* * * * *
“_Betton, Dec. 10._--It has been a great pleasure to go to church with
the Tayleurs at dear old Market Drayton, and to sit in the great green
baize room in the family gallery, with a large fire burning in an open
hearth--a pleasant contrast to the wretched open seats which are the
fashion now, though it might recall the exclamation of a Frenchman on
seeing a similar pew--‘Pardi! on sert Dieu bien à son aise ici.’ Yet
even at Drayton the respectable red-cloaked singers have given place to
bawling choristers.
“I always feel, in the neighbourhood of the winding Terne, as if I were
carried back into my child-life with my dear adopted grandparents, the
one happy part of my boyhood, so different from the many bitter days at
Hurstmonceaux.”
* * * * *
“_Sherborne Park, Dec. 12._--At Bourton-on-the-Water were many people
waiting. In the dark I recognised Lord and Lady Denbigh, and then a
young lady came up with her husband and spoke to me. ‘I cannot see in
the least who you are.’--‘Oh, then I shall leave you to guess, and you
will find out by-and-by.’ It was Sir Garnet and Lady Wolseley. With him
and Lord Powerscourt, and a fat old gentleman much muffled up, whom I
took for Sir Hastings Doyle, and who turned out to be Mr. Alfred
Denison, I travelled in a carriage to Sherborne. It is a very fine house
of Inigo Jones, of rich yellow stone, with short fluted columns between
the windows; but in effect it is overwhelmed by the church, which is
close upon it, and crushes it with its spire. The living rooms are
delightfully large, airy, and filled with books, flowers, and pictures.
“I had a pleasant dinner, seated by Mr. Denison, who told me much about
his curious collection of books on angling, of which he has some of the
early part of the fifteenth century, and about 500 editions of Izaak
Walton. He has even a Latin treatise on the Devil’s fishery for souls.
He was just come from Chatsworth, and had seen there a volume for which
£12,000 had been refused, the original of Claude’s ‘Liber Veritatis.’
“Lord Sherborne is both very fond and very proud of his wife, but her
music he pretends to detest, though her singing is quite lovely--not
much voice, but intense pathos and expression.
“This afternoon I have been with Miss Dutton and charming Miss Ruth
Bouverie to the old chase and the deer-park, in which there is a
beautiful deserted hunting-lodge by Inigo Jones. Lady Sherborne wanted
to make a garden in front of it, but was only allowed by her lord to
have grass instead of potatoes. We also went into the church adjoining
the house, which contains many family monuments. The most remarkable is
that of John Dutton, who was ‘possessed of large estate and of mind
æquall to his fortune;’ yet he lost a great part of his estates by
gambling, and staked Sherborne too, and would have lost it if he had not
been carried off to bed by his butler.
“Speaking of concealment of the whole truth, Miss Dutton related a story
her uncle, John Dutton, used to tell of the French governess sliding on
the ice, when one of the children said to her, ‘Mr. Lentil said,
Mademoiselle, that he hoped the boys would trip you up upon the ice, and
I really could not tell you what Mr. Davis said.’ Mr. Davis had said
_nothing_, but the intended impression was conveyed.
“I forget how, apropos of Bible ignorance, Miss Dutton told of an
American, who, entering a coffee-house at New York, saw a Jew there, and
seized him violently by the throat. ‘What, wh--at do you do that for!’
exclaimed the nigh strangled Jew.--‘Because you crucified my
Lord.’--‘But all that happened more than 1800 years ago.’--‘That does
not matter; I have only just heard of it.’”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 14._--Yesterday we went to Biberry, a beautiful old house of Lord
Sherborne’s. Mr. and Lady Augusta Noel joined the party in the evening,
she a Keppel,[248] the authoress of ‘Wandering Willie,’ and very
pleasant. Several neighbours came to dinner. The astronomical
conversation of Mr. Noel was very engaging. I deduced from it that the
flames in the sun were 96,000 miles long, and that we were all liable to
meet our end in three ways--_i.e._, by going fizz if a particle of the
sun (‘as big as this room’) broke off and struck the earth in any
direction: by being slowly consumed, the pools drying and the trees
shrivelling up: or by being gradually frozen under an ice-wave. The
earth has already perished once by the last-named contingency, and there
are geological features, especially at Lord Lansdowne’s place in
Ireland, which prove it.”
* * * * *
“_Osterley, Dec. 16._--I came here about tea-time to what Horace Walpole
calls ‘the Palace of Palaces.’ It is a magnificent house. Sir Thomas
Gresham was the original builder, and entertained Queen Elizabeth here.
Then it passed through various hands till it fell to the Childs, for
whom it was partially rebuilt and splendidly fitted up by the brothers
Adam. An immense flight of steps leads through an open portico to a
three-sided court, beneath which is the basement storey, and from which
open the hall and the principal rooms. There is a gallery like that at
Temple Newsam, but much longer and finer, and in this case it is broken
and partitioned by bookcases into pleasant corners--almost separate
rooms. The walls and ceilings are ornamented with paintings (let in) by
Zucchi and Angelica Kauffmann, but the great charm lies in the
marvellous variety, delicacy, and simplicity of the wood carvings, each
shutter and cornice a different design, but a single piece. In one room
are exquisite pink Gobelins, the chairs quite lovely; one of them
represents a little girl crying over the empty cage of her lost bird; on
its companion a little boy has caught the bird and is rushing to restore
it to her. There is a fine picture of Lady Westmoreland, Robert Child’s
daughter. When Lord Westmoreland, whom he considered a hopeless
ne’er-do-weel, asked for her hand, he had firmly refused it; but when
Lord Westmoreland some time after took him unawares with the question,
‘Now, if you were in love with a beautiful girl, and her father would
not consent to your marrying her, what would you do?’ answered, ‘Run
away with her, to be sure.’ Lord Westmoreland took him at his word, and
eloped with Miss Child in a coach-and-four from Berkeley Square; and
when, near Gretna Green, he saw that the horses of his father-in-law, in
hot pursuit, were gaining upon him, he stood up in the carriage and shot
the leader dead, and so gained his bride.
“The Duchess Caroline (of Cleveland) was often here with Lady Jersey,
and, when she sold her own place of Downham, determined to rent
Osterley. Since then, though only a tenant, she has cared for it far
more than its owner, Lord Jersey, and has done much to beautify and keep
it up. Only Miss Newton and Mr. Spencer Lyttelton[249] are here, the
latter with tremendous spirits, which carry him he knows not where. The
Duchess is very amusing. Ordering a very good fire to be made up in
church, she added drily to the servant, ‘Just such a fire as you make up
on a very hot day, you know.’ She mentioned a clever _mot_ of Count
Nesselrode. Speaking of Sir William Wallace’s marriage he said, ‘Il
avait une mauvaise habitude, et depuis il a épousé cette habitude.’”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 17._--The Duchess is a most interesting remnant of bygone times.
She is so easily put out by any one doing too much, that every one at
luncheon was afraid to get up and ring the bell for her, till she was
close to the bell herself, when a nervous young man jumped up and rang
it before she could reach it. ‘Sir, officiousness is not politeness,’
she said very slowly and forcibly.
“To young ladies she frequently says, ‘My dear, _never_ marry for love:
you will repent it if you do; I _did_:’ and yet she was fond of her Lord
William.
“Mr. Spencer Lyttelton rails at everything supernatural, so we spoke of
the story in his own family, and he told us the _facts_ of the Lyttelton
ghost, declaring that everything added to them about altering the clock,
&c., was absolutely fictitious.
“‘Thomas, Lord Lyttelton, my father’s first cousin, was at Peel House,
near Epsom, when a woman with whom he had lived seemed to appear to him.
He spoke of it to some friends--the Misses Amphlett--and said that the
spirit had said he should die in three days, and that he believed that
he should certainly do so. Nevertheless, on the following day--he went
up to London, and made one of his most brilliant speeches, for he was a
really great speaker--in the House of Lords. He was not well at the
time. On the third evening, his servant, after the custom of that time,
was in his room assisting him to undress. When the clock struck twelve,
Lord Lyttelton counted the strokes, and when it came to the last,
exclaimed, “I have cheated the ghost,” and fell down dead: he must have
had something the matter with his heart.’”
* * * * *
“_Hinchinbroke, Dec. 26._--Lord Sandwich is a charmingly courteous host,
and Lady Sandwich a warm, pleasant friend. The three sons, Hinchinbroke,
Victor, and Oliver, are all cheery, kindly, and amusing. ‘You see what a
set you’ve landed amongst,’ said Lord Sandwich; ‘it will take you some
time to know them.’ Agneta Montagu is here with her charming children;
Lady Honoria Cadogan; Miss Corry, a handsome, natural, lively
lady-in-waiting to the Duchess of Edinburgh; and the kind old Duchess
Caroline, with relays of walking-sticks, which she changes with her caps
for the different hours of the day.
“Yesterday I went with Miss Corry and Hinchinbroke to Huntingdon, a
picturesque old town on the sleepy Ouse. In the market-place, opposite
the principal church, is the old grammar-school where Oliver Cromwell
was educated. Mr. Dion Boucicault, of theatrical fame, is going to
restore it in memory of his son, killed hard by in the Abbots Repton
railway accident, and is going to destroy the one characteristic feature
of the place--the high gable front of twisted and moulded brick, which
recalls Holland and records the Flemish settlers in the Fen country.”
* * * * *
“_Christmas Day._--The damp, sleepy weather is far from an ideal
Christmas, but I have liked being here in spite of a miserable cold, and
being accepted as a sort of relation by this warm-hearted family.”[250]
* * * * *
“_Ascot Wood, Jan. 22, 1877._--I have been working quietly at home for
nearly three weeks--a halt in life as far as the outer world is
concerned; and how good these silences are, when, from the turmoil of
the living present, one can retire into the companionship of a dead
past--past associations, past interests, passed-away friends, who,
though dead, are living for ever in the innermost shrines of one’s
heart, of which the general world knows nothing, at which very few care
to knock; which, even to those who knock, are so seldom opened.
“I have almost a pang when one of these breaks comes to an end, and the
outside world rushes in. ‘On ne se détache jamais sans douleur.’[251]
But it was a great pleasure to come here again to the companionship of
this perfectly congenial cousinhood. Sir John Lefevre, as usual, is full
of interesting conversation--not general, but with the one person next
him, and that one is generally myself! He described a visit in Sussex at
Sir Peckam Micklethwait’s (‘a man with other and more wonderful
names’).[252] When the Princess Victoria was at Hastings with the
Duchess of Kent, their horses ran away. They were in the greatest peril,
when Mr. Micklethwait, who was a huge and powerful man, stood in the
way, and seized and grappled with the horses with his tremendous
strength, and they were saved. One of the first things the Queen did
when she came to the throne was to make him a baronet.
“Sir John said how few people there were now who remembered the origin
of the word ‘fly’ as applied to a carriage. In the last century people
almost always went out to parties in sedan-chairs--a great fatigue and
trouble to their bearers. Gradually the sedans had wheels, and were
drawn. Then it began to dawn upon people to substitute a horse for a
man. At that time the ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ was being acted and very
popular, and, in allusion to a line in it, the new carriages were called
‘Fly-by-Night.’ Then the sobriquet was abridged--‘by night’ was omitted,
but ‘fly’ remained. Sir John remembered, when flys were first invented,
meeting a man who said he had just ‘encountered’ a fly with a wasp
inside and a bee (B) outside. It was Lord Brougham’s carriage.
“We went this afternoon to Lady Julia Lockwood’s.[253] Her odd little
house is quite full of relics of her sister, the Duchess of
Inverness--the Queen’s ‘Aunt Buggin,’ wife of the Duke of Sussex.
“To-night, talking of my little diaries, Sir John said that he had a
name for them--‘Seniority’--adapted from Nassau Senior’s journals. When
Senior went about, however, people knew that what they said would be
taken down, so acted accordingly, and produced their sentiments and
opinions as they wished them to be permanently represented. The Khedive
was told what Mr. Senior would do before he was admitted to his
interview. ‘Oh, yes, I quite understand,’ said the Khedive; ‘Mr. Senior
is the trumpet, and I am to blow down it.’
“Sir John described how in the Upper House of Convocation the members
amused their leisure moments by suiting each of the bishops with texts.
That for the Archbishop of York[254] was, ‘And _she_ was a Greek;’ for
Bishop Wilberforce, ‘She brought him _butter_ in a lordly dish.’”
* * * * *
“_Jan. 24._--When I arrived at the Ascot station, a little lady was
there, with glistening silver hair, waiting to go up to the house. It
was Mrs. William Grey. She was here two days and very pleasant--a
bright, active, simple mind, which finds its vent in excitement for the
superior education of women.
“Yesterday we went to Windsor for the day. We went to the castle
library, where Natalli, the sub-librarian, showed us everything. It is
very interesting regarded merely as a building--not one room, but a
succession of rooms, irregularly added as space allowed and comfort
dictated, by a succession of sovereigns. Queen Elizabeth’s library (the
only part of the castle unaltered outside) has an old chimney-piece of
her time, into which the Prince Consort cleverly inserted a bust from
her figure by Cornelius Cure, and it once had a ceiling painted by
Verrio, which was destroyed by William IV., who put up a stucco ceiling
instead. Of Anne there is the charming little boudoir, where she was
sitting with the Duchess of Marlborough when a letter (a facsimile of
which is preserved there) was brought in from the Duke telling of the
victory of Blenheim. The later rooms are of George III. and William IV.
We saw Miles Coverdale’s Bible, all the early editions of Shakspeare,
Charles I.’s Prayer-book, Elizabeth’s Prayer-book, Sir Walter Scott’s
‘Lay of the Last Minstrel’ with his corrections and alterations; but
better far was the view from the end window, with the terrace and its
final tower standing out in burly shadow against the misty and flooded
country.”
* * * * *
“_Thorpe, Jan. 26._--We went to-day to St. Anne’s Hill. Lady Holland was
sitting in the innermost of the richly furnished bright warm little
rooms, but was bandaged up still from a frightful fall she had received
by mistaking a staircase for a passage in the dark. One always feels
one’s own talk on waggon-wheels with a person who has the conversational
reputation she has, and I was glad when Madame de Jarnac came in and
undertook to show us the house. Lady Holland followed, and took us to
her bedroom, which is charming, with a view towards Chobham. Then we
went to the gardens, with a temple to Friendship (_i.e._, to Lord
Holland’s friendship), and the summer-house in which the preliminaries
of the Peace of Amiens were signed. Other summer-houses are paved with
encaustic tiles from Chertsey Abbey.”
* * * * *
“_69 Onslow Square, Jan. 27._--Mr. Byng preached a capital sermon to-day
upon ‘religious hypochondriacs’--people who say, ‘You know I was always
so spoilt when I was a child, you must make allowance for my being a
little selfish now,’ &c.”
* * * * *
“_6 Bury Street, Feb. 13._--Last night I dined with the Haygarths, to
meet the Woods and Leslies. The Dowager Lady Spencer[255] was there, who
gave an amusing account of her Irish experiences, when her stepson was
Lord Lieutenant. One day he was hunting, and had just leapt a hedge into
a lane, when he was aware that a funeral was coming up. He thought it
might hurt the feelings of the mourners if he passed them hunting, so he
hid himself. But as the funeral came by the hounds appeared, and
instantly, setting the coffin down in the road, mourners, pall-bearers,
and all started in hot pursuit, and Lord Spencer found himself left
alone with the body.
“Lady Spencer talked of one Irish gentleman, a Master of Hounds, who,
being very much puzzled by the two Lady Spencers, and how to distinguish
them, settled the matter by calling them, like dogs, one ‘Countess,’ and
the other ‘Dowager.’ ‘The absurdity never struck me much,’ she said,
‘till the last day of all, when Charlotte’s eyes were so red with
crying, and he, coming in, exclaimed, “Dowager, Dowager, what can we do
to comfort Countess?”’
“I have just been with Lady Halifax and the Corrys to see the Duke of
Suffolk’s head at the church in the Minories--a most awful object.
“Mr. Bodley[256] told us last night that when he was staying at St.
John’s College, Oxford, he saw a ghost. He could swear to it. He was in
a room which was in the broad moonlight of a summer’s night, for it had
no shutters. Suddenly he heard a movement like that of a man under the
bed, and then something thrown on the floor like a stick. He jumped up,
but there was nothing. He then went to bed again, when out of the floor
in the moonlight rose the head and shoulders of a man. He saw it against
the chest of drawers. It hid two of the handles of the drawers, but not
more. Farther than that out of the ground it did not rise. He is quite
certain that he saw it, and quite certain that he was awake.”
* * * * *
“_Feb. 14._--Luncheon at Miss Davenport Bromley’s to meet Mr. Portal.
Lord Houghton and his son and daughter were there. Mr. Portal has a
scheme for educating the unfortunate Americans of gentle birth who have
fallen from wealth to poverty owing to the changes on the cessation of
the slave trade in South Carolina, and he has been eminently successful.
He described the South Carolina reverses of fortune as most
extraordinary. One of his friends died in his house who had once
possessed an estate worth £300,000; yet, when his will was opened, it
only contained these words--‘I leave to the old and tried friend of my
youth, the Rev. ---- Portal, my only son!’ He had nothing else whatever
to leave except £9 towards his funeral expenses. Mr. Portal described
how the ‘darkies’ had been ‘done’ since the change by those who had too
much of the theory of religion to have any power left for the practice
of it. Being at a place on the border, where some of the greatest
battles were, he asked some of the ‘darkies’ why, when they saw the
Northerners gaining the upper hand, they did not join them. A ‘darkie’
said, ‘Mossieu, did you ever see two dogs fighting for a bone?’--‘Yes,
very often.’--‘But, Mossieu, did you ever see the bone fight?’
“The conversation fell on Philadelphia, ‘the most conservative place in
America, with its narrow streets and narrow notions.’ Lord Houghton said
that his son Robin had been shocked by the non-observance of Sunday in
the native city of Moody and Sankey. Mr. Portal said that Moody and
Sankey were utterly unknown, entirely without influence in their own
country; that it could only be the most enormous amount of American
cheek which had enabled them to come over to England, ‘exactly as if it
was a heathen country, to bring the light of the Gospel to the English;’
that America had heard with amazement and _shock_ how they were run
after; that they owed their success partly to their cheek, and partly to
their music.
“Mr. Portal described his feeling of desolation when he first arrived in
England--‘not one soul he knew amongst all these millions;’ that the
next day a lady asked him to conduct her and her child to a pantomime.
He consented, without understanding that a pantomime meant Drury Lane
Theatre, and his horror was intense when he ‘found himself, a clergyman
of forty years’ standing,’ in such a place. This, however, was nothing
to what he felt ‘when a troop of half-naked women rushed in and began to
throw up their legs into the air;’ he ‘could have sunk into the ground
for shame.’ ‘Was not the mother of our Lord a woman? was not my mother a
woman? is not my wife a woman? are not my daughters women? and what are
these?’
“Mr. Knowles, the ex-editor of the _Contemporary Review_, who was at
luncheon, said that he had taken Alfred Tennyson to see a ballet with
just the same effect. When the ballet-girls trooped in wearing ‘une robe
qui ne commence qu’à peine, et qui finit tout de suite,’ Tennyson had
rushed at once out of the box, walked up and down in an agony over the
degradation of the nineteenth century, and nothing would induce him to
go in again. Mr. Knowles said, however, that a general improvement in
the stage had dated from a climax of impropriety in ‘Bedel and Bijou:’
it had since been much leavened by Irving. Lord Houghton described how
much of Irving’s success had been due to the entirely original view he
had taken of his characters; that in Hamlet he had taken ‘the domestic
view, not declaiming, but pondering, saying things meditatively with his
legs over a chair-back.’”
* * * * *
“_Feb. 24._--I have been seeing a great deal of Willie Milligan lately,
and cannot help thinking of the characteristics so distinctive of him
whom for twenty-six years I have never ceased to feel _honoured_ in
being allowed to call my intimate friend.
“He is a thorough-bred gentleman in all the highest senses of the term.
Always without riches, he has never complained of having less than was
sufficient for his wants, which are most modest. Without being
cultivated, he is very clever. He never talks religion, but his life is
thoroughly christian. He is the soul of honour, pure, truthful,
blameless, and without reproach; yet in conversation no one is more
witty, original, and amusing. He is celebrated as a peace-maker, and
never fails to show that chivalry is the truest wisdom. He has never
done a selfish act, and never omitted to do a kind one.”
* * * * *
“_Feb. 25._--A visit to Mrs. Lowe. She talked of the contemptible state
of politics now; that it was all only playing at the old game of brag;
that the object with every one seems to be who can tell most lies, and
who can get any one to believe his lies most easily. If she ‘was
minister it would be different; she would nail men down to a point--what
will you do and what will you not do? and have a direct answer; _then_
one would know how to act.’
“Mr. Lowe described his life in Australia. Money then scarcely existed
there: payments were made either in kind or in bills of exchange. He
said, ‘When we played whist, we played sheep, with bullocks on the
rubber; and when a man won much, he had to hire a field next morning to
put his winnings in.’”
* * * * *
“_Feb. 28._--A charming visit to old Lord John Thynne, who told me many
of his delightful reminiscences of Sydney Smith, Milman, and others.
“Then to Mrs. Duncan Stewart, who was sitting almost on the ground,
covered with an eider-down. She talked of our ‘Memorials’ and of Mrs.
Grote, who said, when she read of the dear mother’s marvellous trances,
‘My dear, she was thinking more than was good for her; so God in His
great mercy gave her chloroform.’ She spoke of the difficulties of a
like faith, of the effort of keeping it up when prayer was _not_
answered, believing in the power of prayer just the same. She told how,
when her child was dying--she knew it must die--the clergyman came (it
was at Wimbledon) and used to kneel by the table and pray that
resignation might be given to the mother to bear the parting, and
resignation to the child to die; and how she listened and prayed too;
and yet, at the end, she could not feel it. She did not, and--though she
knew it was impossible--she could not but break in with, ‘Yet, O Lord,
yet _restore_ her.’
“‘Do you know,’ said Mrs. Stewart, ‘that till I was thirty, I had never
seen death--never seen it even in a poor person; then I saw it in my own
child, and I may truly say that then Death entered into the world for me
as truly as it did for Eve, and it never left me afterwards--_never_. If
one of my children had an ache afterwards, I thought it was going to
die; if I awoke in the night and looked at my husband in his sleep, I
thought--“He will look like that when he is dead.”
“‘Do not think I murmur, but life _is_ very trying when one knows so
little of the beyond. The clergyman’s wife has just been, and she said,
“But you must believe; you must believe Scripture literally; you must
believe all it says to the letter.” But I cannot believe literally: one
can only use the faith one has, I have not the faith which moves
mountains. I have prayed that the mountains might move, with all the
faith that was in me--_all_; but the mountains did not move. No, I
cannot pray with the faith which is not granted me.
“‘I think that I believe all the promises of Scripture; yet when I think
of Death, I hesitate to wish to leave the certainty here for what
is--yes, must be--the uncertainty beyond. Yet lately, when I was so ill,
when I continued to go down and down into the very depths, I felt I had
got so far--so very far, it would be difficult to travel all that way
again--“Oh, let me go through the gates now.” And then the comforting
thought came that perhaps after all it might _not_ be the will of God
that I should travel the _same_ way again, and that when He leads me up
to the gates for the last time, it might be His will to lead me by some
other, by some quite different way.’”
* * * * *
“_March 4._--Breakfast with Lord Houghton--a pleasant male party--Dr.
Ralston, Henry James the American novelist, Sir Samuel Baker, and three
others. Harriet Martineau’s Memoirs had just arrived, and were a great
topic. Lord Houghton, who had known her well, said how often he had been
sent for to take leave of Miss Martineau when she had been supposed to
be dying, and had gone at great personal inconvenience; but she had
lived for thirty years after the first time. Her fatal illness (dropsy)
had set in before she went to America. Her friends tried strongly to
dissuade her from going, suggesting that she would be very ill received
in consequence of her opinions. ‘Why, Harriet,’ said Sydney Smith, ‘you
know, if you go, they will tar and feather you, and then they will turn
you loose in the woods, and the wild turkeys will come and say, “Why,
what strange bird are you?”’
“Of course, much of politics was talked, especially about the Turkish
atrocities. Sir S. Baker said that at the old Duchess of Cleveland’s he
had met Lord Winchester, now quite an old man. He said that he had
ridden from Constantinople to the Danube in 1832, and had passed thirty
impaled persons on the way. He himself (Sir Samuel) had seen the
impaling machine on the Nile--a stake tapered like a pencil, over which
a wheel was let down to a certain height, and when the man was impaled,
he was let down on the wheel and rested there; he often lived for three
or four days; if the machine was in the market-places of the country
towns, the relations of the victims gave them coffee. ‘It is not worse,’
said Lord Houghton, ‘than the stories we are told every Sunday: “he
destroyed them all, he left not one of them alive;” especially of the
cruelties of David, who made his enemies pass under the harrow, a
punishment much worse than impalement. How grateful David would have
been for a steam-roller! what a number of people he would have been able
to despatch at once!’
“At Mrs. Tennant’s I saw the three girls who have been so much admired,
and painted by Millais and so many others; their chief beauty consisting
in their picturesqueness as a group.”
* * * * *
“_March 5._--To Mr. Brandram’s recitation of the ‘Merchant of Venice’ at
Lord Overstone’s. He said the whole play by heart, giving different
character and expression to each person--an astonishing effort of
memory. Hearing a play in this way certainly fixes it in the mind much
more than reading it, though not so much as seeing it.”
* * * * *
“_March 8._--Luncheon at charming old Mrs. Thellusson’s, where I met
Madame Taglioni, the famous _danseuse_. She is now an old lady, with
pretty refined features, perfect grace of movement, and a most
attractive manner. She has begun in her old age to give lessons again
for the benefit of her family, though she is, at the same time,
presenting her princess grand-daughter--the Princess Marguerite
Trubetskoi, a simple natural girl. Madame Taglioni spoke of her dancing
as ‘un don de Dieu,’ just as she would of music or any other art. We
asked her if she would like to be young again. ‘Oh, yes, indeed,’ she
said; ‘how I _should_ dance!’ She said her father, a ballet-master, made
her practise nine hours a day; ‘however great a talent you may have, you
never can bring it to perfection without that amount of practice.’
“Lady Charlemont was there, and after luncheon we asked her to recite.
She made no difficulties, but said nothing; only, while we had almost
forgotten her, she had glided round the room to where there was a red
curtain for a background, and suddenly, but slowly, she began. It was
only a simple ballad of Tennyson--‘Oh, the Earl was fair to see’--but
she threw a power into it which was almost agony, and the pauses were
absolute depths of pathos. You felt the power of her unfaltering
vengeance, you _heard_ the raging of the storm ‘in turret and tree;’
and, when the moment of the murder came, you quivered in every nerve as
she stabbed the Earl ‘through and through.’ It was absolutely awful.
“Afterwards Mrs. Greville recited ‘Jeanne d’Arc.’ It is her best part.
She cannot look refined, but an inspired French paysanne she can look
and be thoroughly.
“Sir Baldwin Leighton made himself so pleasant, that when he asked me to
go to their box at the Lyceum in the evening, I promised to go, though I
never like seeing any, even the very best plays, twice. However, the
nearness of the box to the stage enabled me to see many details
unobserved before. Richard III. will always, I should think, be Irving’s
best part, for he looks the incarnation of the person. In Shakspeare,
Richard III. is most anxious to become king, and perfectly determined to
remain king when he has become so; but Irving carries out far more than
this. Irving’s Richard is perfectly determined that vice shall triumph
over virtue, and utterly enraptured when it does triumph, in a way which
is quite diabolical. The night before Bosworth Field is most striking
and beautiful. You are with the king in his tent. He draws the curtain
and looks out. On the distant wind-stricken heath the camp-fires are
alight, and the lights in the tents blaze out one by one, eclipsing the
stars overhead. Richard says little for a time; your whole mind is
allowed the repose of the beauty. The king, who has been through the
last acts trying (you feel him striving against his personal
disadvantages) to be kingly, is all-kingly on that night, in the
immediate face of the great future on which everything hangs. He gives
his orders--simply, briefly, royally. He lies down on the couch, folding
himself in the royal velvet robe, which, like Creusa’s cloak, is
associated with all his crimes. He falls asleep. Then, out of the almost
darkness, just visible as outlines but no more, rise the phantoms; and,
like a whiffling wind, the voice of Clarence floats across the stage. As
each spirit delivers its message in the same faint spiritual harmonious
monotone, the sleeping figure shudders and groans, moans more sadly.
[Illustration: LONDON BRIDGE FROM BILLINGSGATE.][257]
“Then there is a powerfully human touch in the way in which he, so
coldly royal as he lay down, turns human-like for sympathy in his great
horror and anguish to the first person he sees, the soldier who wakens
him.”
* * * * *
“_March 10._--Went with Victor Parnell down the river in search of the
old houses at Limehouse and Stepney. We found them, but the accounts in
the _Daily News_, which had led us to the excursion, were so exaggerated
that the houses were scarcely to be recognised. We came back by
Ratcliffe Highway. It all looked very clean, and thriving, and decent,
very different indeed from the descriptions in religious magazines.”
* * * * *
“_March 11._--Luncheon with Sir Robert and Lady Cunliffe, who showed me
a volume of portrait sketches by Downman, a little-known master of
George III.’s time, but a wonderfully charming artist.”
END OF VOL. IV.
_Printed by_ BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO
_Edinburgh and London_
ERRATA
_Page_ 60, _for_ “Marocetti” _read_ “Marochetti.”
“ 136, “ “Curramore” _read_ “Curraghmore.”
“ 232, “ “Keats” _read_ “Keate.”
“ 435, “ “vieillir être heureuse” _read_ “vieillir pour être
heureuse.”
“ 478, “ “Bedel and Bijou” _read_ “Babil and Bijou.”
“Story of my Life.”--End of Vol. IV.
THE STORY OF MY LIFE
VOL. V
[Illustration: Mary Lea Gidman.
from a miniature by Barber.]
THE STORY OF
MY LIFE
BY
AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE
AUTHOR OF “MEMORIALS OF A QUIET LIFE,”
“THE STORY OF TWO NOBLE LIVES,”
ETC. ETC.
VOLUME V
LONDON
GEORGE ALLEN, 156, CHARING CROSS ROAD
1900
[_All rights reserved_]
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
At the Ballantyne Press
CONTENTS
PAGE
WHILST WRITING THE BUNSEN MEMOIRS 1
ROYAL DUTIES AND INTERESTS 75
A HALT IN LIFE 241
HOME SORROWS 326
IN THE FURROWS OF LIFE 382
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VOL. V
MARY LEA GIDMAN. _From a miniature by Barber._
_Photogravure_ _Frontispiece_
PAGE
CHANTRY OF HENRY V., WESTMINSTER 12
LOWTHER LODGE 23
HOLMHURST, THE POULTRY-YARD 31
TITTENHANGER 51
SOPHIE, QUEEN OF SWEDEN AND NORWAY. _Photogravure_ _To face_ 80
THE ROSENBORG PALACE, COPENHAGEN 100
ROESKILDE 101
CASTLE OF ELSINORE 102
THE JUNCTION OF LAKE MALAR AND THE BALTIC, STOCKHOLM 103
RIDDARHOLMEN 104
THE CHURCH OF OLD UPSALA 105
GRIPSHOLM 107
BOLKESJÖ 111
THE CHURCH OF HITTERDAL 112
THRONDTJEM FIORD 114
THRONDTJEM CATHEDRAL 115
S. OLAF’S WELL, THRONDTJEM 116
IN THE ROMSDAL 117
GUSTAF, CROWN PRINCE OF SWEDEN AND NORWAY. _Photogravure_
_To face_ 138
CORNETO 142
CATHEDRAL OF CORNETO 143
PERUGIA 154
ASSISI 155
IN THE ENTRANCE-HALL, HOLMHURST 165
AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE. (_Full-page woodcut_) _To face_ 176
IN THE FIR-WOOD, HOLMHURST 189
LA SAINTE BAUME 192
THE JERUSALEM CHAMBER 197
THE LOLLARDS’ PRISON, LAMBETH 206
THE WAKEFIELD TOWER, TOWER OF LONDON 207
IN THE VERANDAH, HOLMHURST 235
VERANDAH STEPS, HOLMHURST 236
FROM S. GREGORIO, MESSINA 245
TAORMINA 246
ROMAN AMPHITHEATRE, SYRACUSE 248
FROM THE WALLS OF EPIPOLAE 249
ON THE RIVER CYANE 250
ACI CASTELLO 251
TEMPLE OF CONCORD, GIRGENTI 252
IN THE TEMPLE OF JUNO LUCINIA, GIRGENTI 254
IN THE TEMPLE OF HERCULES, GIRGENTI 255
TEMPLE OF CASTOR AND POLLUX, GIRGENTI 256
PALERMO, FROM S. MARIA DI GESU 259
SOLUNTO 261
CLOISTERS, MONREALE 263
GATE OF MOLA 267
TARANTO 268
CASTEL DEL MONTE 269
TOMB OF BOHEMUND, CANOSA 270
MRS. DUNCAN STEWART. (_Full-page woodcut_) _To face_ 288
NORWICH FROM MOUSEHOLD 331
LAKE OF AVERNUS, NEAR NAPLES 345
CAPRI 347
SCILLA 349
FROM THE CAMPO DELLA CARITÀ, VENICE 351
REV. CANON HUGH PEARSON. _Photogravure_ _To face_ 354
GATEWAY, KENSINGTON PALACE 361
SASSENPOORT, ZWOLLE 364
MILL NEAR AMSTERDAM 365
HURSTMONCEAUX CASTLE GATEWAY 379
ON THE TERRACE, HOLMHURST 388
IN THE KITCHEN, HOLMHURST 389
CATHEDRAL OF ST. ISAAC, ST. PETERSBURG 391
ST. SOPHIA OF NOVGOROD 393
KREMLIN, MOSCOW 394
THE NEW JERUSALEM 395
THE DNIEPER, KIEFF 396
THE HOLY CHAPEL OF KIEFF 397
CITADEL OF CRACOW 398
NOYON 409
SOISSONS 410
CHÂTEAU DE COUCY 411
SHRINE OF ST. ERASMUS, WESTMINSTER ABBEY 429
LE CROZANT 434
SOLIGNAC 435
ROCAMADOUR 436
CLOISTER OF CADOUIN 438
ARCADES OF MONTPAZIER 439
AT FONTEFROIDE 441
CONQUES 443
CROMER 450
GATEWAY OF BUCKHURST 456
XIX
WHILST WRITING THE BUNSEN MEMOIRS
* * * * *
“Here we have no communion; company enough, but no fellowship.
Meanwhile, the grand perennial Communion of Saints is ever open to
us. Let us enter in and worthily comport ourselves
there.”--CARLYLE.
“Ce n’est ni le génie, ni la gloire, ni l’amour, qui mesurent
l’élévation de l’âme; c’est la bonté.”--PÈRE LACORDAIRE.
It was soon after the death of my dear and honoured old friend, the
Baroness Bunsen, that her daughters, Frances and Emilia, wrote to
consult me about a Memoir of her beautiful and helpful life. I promised
all the help I could give, but did not understand, till several months
later, that they wished me to undertake the whole biography myself.
This, however, I rejoiced to do, being assured that beyond her own
children, no one had a warmer love and appreciation for the friend of my
whole life, and delighting to be raised, whilst dwelling amongst her
written words and thoughts, into the serene and lofty atmosphere of her
inner life.
The work which I had undertaken began at this time to bring me into
constant and intimate connection with all the branches of the Bunsen
family, especially with Lady Llanover, the sister of my dear old friend.
* * * * *
“_Llanover, March 18, 1877._--I left London on my birthday and went to
the Harfords at Blaise Castle. It was bright but bitter March weather,
and though the woods were full of flowers, there was no enjoyment of
them. I had much talk with sweet Mrs. Harford about old days and the
many passed-away things and people dear to us both. Sir George and Lady
Grey were staying at Blaise, to my great pleasure.
“Yesterday I came here by the ferry over the Severn. Lady Llanover’s old
ramshackle carriage met me at the Nantyderry Station, and brought me to
Llanover. I had received endless solemn warnings about what I was to say
and not to say here, what to do and not to do; but with a person of whom
one is not likely to see much in after life, one never feels any alarm.
Lady Llanover is very small and has been very pretty. We have a mutual
bond in our love for her sister, whose memory is enshrined in her inmost
heart with that of her mother, Mrs. Waddington, to whom she was quite
passionately devoted. Of the Bunsen family she talked from 4 till 10.30
P.M. ‘You see I have still the full use of my lungs,’ she said.
“At eight we had tea. There is no dinner, which I like, but every one
would not. After tea she gathered up all the lumps of sugar which
remained and emptied them with a great clatter into a box, which she
locked up. With £20,000 a year, the same economy pervades everything.
Her great idea is Wales--that she lives in Wales (which many doubt), and
that the people must be kept Welsh, and she has Welsh schools, Welsh
services, a Welsh harper, always talks Welsh to her servants, and wears
a Welsh costume at church.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS WRIGHT.
“_March 24, 1877._--I may tell you now, as it is no longer a secret,
that I have acceded to the wish of all her family in undertaking to
write the Life and edit the beautiful letters of my dear old friend the
Baroness de Bunsen. How perfectly great and noble her character was, and
the intense interest of all she wrote, few know better than myself, and,
beyond her own family, no one loved her more; so, when my ‘London’ is
done, I shall give myself gladly to this sacred task, and trust that it
may be, as _her_ writings cannot fail to be, a blessing to many.”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Holmhurst, April 6, 1877._--I look back on my visit to Llanover as
quite a bit apart in my life. It was important that I should please, as
much of the success of the memorials of her sister, which I have
undertaken to edit, must depend upon Lady Llanover’s favourable
co-operation. It was equally important that I should assert my own
absolute independence of will and action, and knock under in nothing. So
it was a difficult course to steer. The very warnings I had received
were enough to annihilate self-confidence. I was not to believe anything
Lady Llanover said about different members of her family, for she was
always guided by her own prejudices and sympathies. I was not to be
guided by her opinion on any subject, yet was never to contradict her. I
was not to make to her any one of the promises she was sure to attempt
to exact from me: above all, I was never to leave any letter or paper
about in my room, as there were always ‘tame panthers stealing about the
house,’ who would master the contents and make it known to their
mistress.
“I began by disregarding _all_ this advice, and taking Lady Llanover as
if I had never heard a word about her, and I am sure that it was the
best way. I listened to all she had to say, and received part of it to
profit by. I left all my papers about, and if the mistress of the house
learnt what was in them, I hope it was beneficial to her. I found her
difficult to deal with certainly, but chiefly because, with endless
power of talking and a vocabulary absolutely inexhaustible, it is next
to impossible to keep her in the straight conversational path along
which she ought to be travelling: she will linger to pick all the
flowers that grow in the lanes diverging along the wayside. Thus, though
on an average we talked for six hours a day, not more than one of those
hours could be utilised.
“There is a great deal to admire in Lady Llanover: her pertinacity in
what she _thinks_ right, whether she _is_ right or not: her insistence
on carrying out her sovereign will in all things; but chiefly her
touching devotion to the memory of the mother from whom she, the
youngest and favourite daughter, was scarcely ever separated. The
whitewashed ‘Upper House’ in the park is kept fresh and bright and
aired, as if the long-lost mother were constantly expected. In her
sitting-room a bright fire burns in winter, and fresh flowers are daily
placed on the little table by her old-fashioned sofa. The plants she
loved are tended and blooming in the little garden; the pictures and
books are unremoved from the walls; the peacocks she used to feed, or
their descendants, still spread their bright tails in the sun under her
windows.
“It is in the kitchen of the ‘Upper House’ that Lady Llanover’s Welsh
chaplain performs service on Sundays, for to the church she and her
people will not go, as the clergyman is--undesirable. Lady Llanover on
Sundays is even more Welsh than on week-days. She wears a regular man’s
tall hat and short petticoats like her people, and very becoming the
dress is to her, and very touching the earnestness of the whole
congregation in their national costume, joining so fervently--like one
person--in the services, especially in the singing, which is exquisitely
beautiful. I suppose it may be only from the novelty, but this earnest
service, these humble prayers on the worn benches in the brick-floored
kitchen, with the incidents of manual labour in the background, and
farmhouse scenes outside the windows, seemed more of a direct appeal to
God than any formal prayers I ever heard in a church--the building
called a church. I feel more and more that I shall probably end my
days--a Dissenter!
“We had more of the Welsh music in the evening. We went and sat in the
armchairs in the hall, and the household filed in above, and filled the
music-gallery, and sang most gloriously, especially the burial-hymn ‘It
is finished,’ which was sung in parts all the way from the house to the
churchyard at the funerals of Mrs. Waddington and Lord Llanover and his
son. At other times, the blind harper attached to the house came in and
harped to us, and four little boys sat in a circle on the floor and
sang.
“One afternoon we went to the churchyard overlooking the Usk. A great
pine-tree, the seed of which was brought from Rome by Mrs. Waddington,
overshadows the burial-place of the family, and, in accordance with a
line in some poet she liked, her grave is covered with the simple
camomile. By its side is the colossal altar-tomb of Lord Llanover. It is
generally supposed to be merely commemorative, but Lady Llanover herself
unlocked a door concealed beneath the carving, and we went in. There are
three coffins--of Lord Llanover, his eldest son, and his grandson
Stephàn, son of Mrs. Herbert of Llanarth, whom she, the Roman Catholic
mother, insisted should be brought here, the priests accompanying the
corpse to the churchyard gate, and there delivering it to the Welsh
people, who sang their beautiful hymns over it. There was a fourth place
in the tomb, which Lady Llanover, tearless in her desolation, showed me
as hers, which she must soon occupy. The poor Welsh women were busy
‘dressing the graves’ in the churchyard--the graves are always dressed
for Palm Sunday.
“At Llanover, in the weird house of dead associations, it was a relief
when pleasant, handsome young Arthur Herbert came the last day. Almost
the only other guest was Miss Geraldine Jewsbury, the intimate and
faithful friend of Mrs. Carlyle. I found it difficult to trace in the
ancient spinster the gifted brilliancy I had heard described, though of
her strong will there was abundant evidence.[258] During an illness of
Mrs. Carlyle there was a comic instance of this. Miss Jewsbury had
unlimited faith in black currant jelly for a cold. Now Mrs. Carlyle’s
throat was very bad, and Miss Jewsbury took some of her jelly to her.
‘But I will not take it; I will not take it, Geraldine,’ said Mrs.
Carlyle, with her strong inflexion on the ‘ine.’ So Miss Jewsbury sat by
the head of the bed and kept her black currant jelly well out of sight.
But a moment came when Mrs. Carlyle fell fast asleep, and--if the truth
must be told--opened her mouth very wide. It was Miss Jewsbury’s
opportunity, and she filled a spoon full of jelly, and popped it into
the open mouth. ‘Good God! Geraldine, what was that?’ exclaimed Mrs.
Carlyle, waking up. ‘_That_ was the black currant jelly.’--‘Good God,
Geraldine! I thought it was a leech gone the wrong way.’
“Since I returned, I have greatly enjoyed a fortnight’s halt in life at
home. When here, with charming rooms full of books and pictures,
inexhaustible employment within and without, and the dear Lea, the one
living relic of _our_ past, I wonder how I can ever go away.”
* * * * *
“_April 14._--The other day I dined at Lord Charlemont’s. Lady
Charlemont[259] is astonishing. I sat near her at dinner. First she
startled me by saying what a bore her neighbour on the other side was:
it was Lord Campbell. Then she said, ‘I am so happy. I have found some
one who breaks the first commandment.’--‘What! “Thou shalt have none
other gods but me?”’--‘Yes, and the man who breaks it is Dr. Schliemann;
he adds Jupiter and Venus and a lot of others, all on the same level.’
“Sir Julius Benedict was at dinner, a most amusing person. He described
how he was at Mentmore, and sat up very late in the hall reading, the
rest of the gentlemen having gone to the smoking-room, and Baron
Rothschild having gone to bed. He was surprised after some time to see
Baron Rothschild come down again and cross the entrance hall in
conversation with a strange gentleman. Soon after, when Sir Julius had
gone to his own room, a guest in the house knocked at the door and
apologised for disturbing him, but begged to know if he knew Sir James
Fergusson by sight. He said, ‘Yes, perfectly,’ and then he remembered
who the stranger was whom he had seen crossing the hall with the Baron:
it was Sir James Fergusson; he had not recognised him at the moment.
“The guest said, ‘You do not know what an awkward difficulty you have
relieved us from; a gentleman has arrived who seems to think he is
expected, and whom nobody knows, and he says he is Sir James Fergusson.’
And it was.
“Sir James had been called out from dinner by a servant from Mentmore,
who said that there had been no time to write, but that he had been
sent off to fetch him, for the Baroness was so alarmingly ill that there
was not a moment to be lost. Sir James rushed off in a cab to Euston
Square, and asked for a special train. It was Sunday, and there was none
to be had without great delay; but the station-master, hearing the
urgency of the case, and whom it was for, said that the express, just
starting, should be allowed to stop at the station for Mentmore. On
arriving there, Sir James was surprised to find no carriage, but
procured a trap from the inn, and drove as hard as he could. As they
reached the house, the servant got down and went round it, saying he was
going in the other way.
“The servant was quite mad, and the insanity first showed itself in this
odd form.
“Sir Julius also told us that--
“‘One day an American bishop called in his carriage at Hunt & Roskell’s.
He asked to see some bracelets, mentioning that he was returning to
America and wished to take a present to his wife. ‘Nothing very
expensive,’ he said; ‘he could not afford that, but something about £70
or £80.’ Eventually he agreed to take a bracelet that cost £100. He said
that he would pay for it with a £100 note which he had with him: it
happened to be the only money he had at the moment, but he would wait
while they sent it to the bank to ascertain that it was all right; he
should really prefer doing this. They sent it to the bank and received
answer that it was perfectly correct.
“‘Having paid for his bracelet, the bishop took it, and was just about
to step into his carriage, when a policeman tapped him on the shoulder
and said, ‘Hallo, Jim! you’re up to your old tricks again, are you?
You’ll just come along with me,’ and he brought him back into the shop.
Hunt & Roskell said there was some mistake, that the gentleman was an
American bishop, that he had just bought a £100 bracelet and paid for it
with an excellent £100 note. ‘Just let me look at the note, will you?’
said the policeman. He looked at it and said, ‘Yes, it’s just as I
thought; this note is one of a particularly clever batch of forgeries,
which are very difficult to detect, and the man is no more a bishop than
you are. We will go off to the police-station at once. I will take the
note and go on with the prisoner in the carriage, and you must send your
men in a cab to meet us and bear witness.’ So the policeman took the
bishop and the bracelet and the note, but when Hunt & Roskell’s men
reached the police-station, they had not yet arrived; and they have
never been heard of since!’”
* * * * *
“_April 15._--Dined with Mrs. Rogerson, daughter of my dear Mrs. Duncan
Stewart. Irving was there. I ventured to tell him how I thought his play
was spoilt by the changes he had recently made, and _why_, and he was
quite simple, as he always is, not the least offended, and in the end
agreed with me, and said he should alter the changes as I suggested, and
send me a box that I might come and see the improvement. He said how,
ever since he heard me tell a story at Lord Ducie’s, he had wished I
should do something in public. He ‘did not know if I wanted money, but
thought I could make any sum I liked.’ He ‘believed he could guarantee’
my making £8000 a year! He advised my doing what he had intended doing
himself when he had been ‘making a mere nothing of ten guineas a week,
and felt _that_ could not go on.’ He intended to have got Wilkie Collins
to write him a story, and to take a room at the Egyptian Hall, fit it up
in an old-fashioned way, sit down by the fire, and then take the
audience, as it were, at once into his room and confidence. ‘But in your
case,’ he said, ‘you need not apply to Wilkie Collins.’”
* * * * *
“_April 16._--Miss Northcote’s wedding in Westminster Abbey. I had a
capital place in a stall just behind Princess Louise and Princess Mary
of Teck. The church was crowded, and though it was a bitter wind
outside, it was quite glorious within, all the forest of arches tinted
with golden sunlight. Arthur gave the blessing _magnificently_, as he
always does. There were 350 people at the breakfast afterwards, which
was at Lord Beaconsfield’s house in Downing Street. There were endless
little tables. I sat at one with Lady Aberdare, Lady Middleton, and
young Lord Colchester. I was glad to see the dear little Lady Winifred
Herbert again, growing up fast, but with the same sweet innocent
expression, walking about with Jim Cranbourne, who is a charming boy.”
* * * * *
“_April 23._--Dined with Lady Charlemont. Old Mr. Planché was there, and
talked much about the favourable characteristics of the present Duke of
Wellington; how before his father died he said how grief for his death
would be aggravated by perpetual consciousness of his own name and
position. ‘Think what it will be when the Duke of Wellington is
announced and only _I_ come in!’ Poor Mr. Planché, celebrated as a wit
and story-teller in former times, is becoming painfully aware of having
outlived the patience of his auditors!
[Illustration: CHANTRY OF HENRY V.][260]
“Lady Charlemont said, ‘Whenever I make a _very_ naughty quotation from
‘Don Juan,’ I always preface it by saying, ‘As Dr. Watts touchingly
observes.’”
* * * * *
“_April 26._--Dined at Mrs. Stratford Dugdale’s. Lord Crewe was there,
with the most extraordinary and diabolic-looking red flower in his
button-hole. He always has one of these weird orchids, and delights to
surprise people with them.”
* * * * *
“_April 28._--A pleasant morning with Mrs. Hollond, Sir Hampton
Lorraine, and others at Grosvenor House. The rooms were quite lovely,
and the flowers more so--great blue-green bowls filled with cowslips;
great glasses of blue bells, with a few yellow jonquils intermixed.
“Luncheon afterwards at Mrs. Duncan Stewart’s. Mrs. Rogerson told the
story of a cat she had known who would lie on the rug with its head on
the side of a little dog called Flossy. People said, ‘How selfish the
cat is; she only lies there because it is warm.’ But Flossy died and the
cat was missing. It was found on Flossy’s grave, and lay there all
night. It was brought in and milk was given to it, but it refused to
eat, and as soon as it was left alone in the room where it was shut up,
it dashed straight through the window and went back to the grave again.
If they took hot milk out to it at the grave, it ate it, but away from
the grave it would eat nothing. It lay there day and night. At last they
built it a little pent-house over the grave, and it lay there, partially
sheltered, till, six weeks afterwards, it died.
“Mrs. Rogerson knew another story of a terrier and a cat, who were
deadly foes and always quarrelling. The cat had kittens, and the kittens
were all put out of the way and were buried. The cat was inconsolable
and went mewing about the house. The terrier could not make it out, and
followed her everywhere; he did not snap at her any more; on the
contrary, he seemed to do all he could to console her. At last he had an
inspiration. He found out where the kittens were buried, and scratched
and scratched till he got them up, and one by one he brought the dead
kittens and laid them down before the cat. It was a very small
consolation to poor pussy, but she and the terrier never quarrelled
again, and were the greatest friends as long as they lived.”
* * * * *
“_May 2._--A pleasant party at Lady Leslie’s beautiful house to meet the
Tecks. She looked more amenable than ever, yet the Princess all over.”
* * * * *
“_May 4._--Dined with Sir Dighton and Lady Probyn in the strange houses
built like the Tower of Babel by Mr. Hankey. Went to a quaint collection
of anybodies and nobodies at Lord Houghton’s afterwards. He spoke of the
‘unexpected places in which gold is found’ in literature.”
* * * * *
“_May 6._--To Lady Salisbury, whom I found in her bright sunny boudoir
looking on the Park. Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice and Mr. Ralli came in and
talked politics furiously. Lady Maude told me of Lord Sligo’s visit to
Paris immediately after the siege, and how he had driven about in the
same cab for some days, and then found he had been sitting all the time
on an explosive bomb which was under the seat. The cabman, when
remonstrated with, as the slightest jolt might have made it explode,
said he ‘had not left it at home, because he thought the children might
get playing with it.’”
* * * * *
“_May 11._--At dinner at Lady Jane Ellice’s I met Lady Waterford and
Lady Folkestone.[261] The latter sang most beautifully and pathetically.
She _felt_. ‘One cannot feel always,’ she said; ‘one cannot feel with an
audience who say, “How sweet.” Lady Waterford told of Sir Philip and
Lady Durham. Lady Durham died quite suddenly. She had been out in the
garden the day before, seeing the gardener and ordering some bouquets
she wanted. After her sudden death, Sir Philip found a paper in her
dressing-box. It said--‘Something so very odd has happened to me, that I
think I had better write it down. In the garden I saw a figure which
beckoned to me and beckoned to me, and I followed it. I followed it a
long way, and at last it reached the churchyard, and then it
disappeared.’”
* * * * *
“_May 12._--Dined at Mrs. Rogerson’s, where I took down the Countess
Bremer, who has always lived at the Hanoverian Court. She is that
‘Margaret Bremer’ who is celebrated for her answer to the blind King,
who loved to shock her by his improper stories. ‘What do you think of
that, Margaret?’ he asked, after telling her one of his worst. ‘I think
that your Majesty has a very clean way of telling a very dirty story,’
she replied.”
* * * * *
“_May 15._--Dined at Sir John Shaw-Lefevre’s. Having two round tables
made the party most pleasant. It included the beautiful and charming
Lady Granville, Lady Russell, Lady Aberdeen, and Wallace of the Russian
book.”
* * * * *
“_May 17._--A party at Lord Houghton’s; every one there, from Princess
Louise to Mrs. Anthony Trollope, a beautiful old lady with snow-white
hair turned back. These crowded parties remind me of Madame de Staëls
description--‘Une société aux coups de poing.’”
* * * * *
“_May 26._--I have been for three days at Cobham, where the woods
covered with bluebells were like expanses of Italian sky brought down
and laid on the earth. There was a large party in the house--Lady
Haddington and her bright Lady Ruth; Murray Finch Hatton and his wife,
as delicate as a drooping lily; Meysey Clive, a charming natural fellow,
and his Lady Catherine; Lord and Lady Pelham, &c. The life was most
easy; we drew, read, talked, and showed the house to Lord and Lady
Onslow, who arrived while touring in a four-in-hand.”
* * * * *
“_May 30._--On Saturday I was at a pleasant party at Lord Houghton’s,
meeting scarcely any one but authors, and a very odd collection--Black,
Yates, and James the novelists; Sir Francis Doyle and Swinburne the
poets; Mrs. Singleton the erotic poetess (Violet Fane), brilliant with
diamonds; Mallock, who has suddenly become a lion from having written a
clever squib called ‘The New Republic,’ and Mrs. Julia Ward Howe with
her daughter. I was introduced to Mrs. Howe, having asked Lord Houghton
who was the charming, simply-dressed woman with the sensible face, and
then found she was sister of my Roman friend Mrs. Terry. She wrote the
hymn, singing which the troops took Pittsburg. We asked her about it.
She said she could not help feeling the little annoyance so many felt on
similar occasions--that she should be only known as the authoress of one
thing, one little waif out of all her work, and that people should treat
her as if she had _only_ written that.”
* * * * *
“_June 3._--I have dined several times with Miss Wright to meet the
Charles Wilbrahams. She sings beautifully. He had much that was curious
to tell about the project of a French engineer for deepening the course
of the brook Kishon, so as to let in the Mediterranean. Kishon rises
near Tabor, and if the Mediterranean could once pass the watershed, it
would run down on the other side into the great hollow of the Dead Sea,
which is now so far below its own level. The engineer, of course, had
never thought of Ezekiel xlvii., in which the fishermen of Engedi, now
some 3000 feet above the level of the sea, are described as casting in
their nets.
“Mr. Wilbraham was amusing with some of his American experiences. He
told of two young girls who were stopped going through a turnpike gate.
‘What are your charges?’--‘Half a dollar for man and horse.’--‘Well,
then, just stand on one side, will you, for we are two girls and a
mare, so we’ve nothing to pay.’ He said he had asked an American at
Florence what he thought of the Venus de Medicis. ‘Wal, I guess I’m not
so partiklar overpowered by stone gals,’ was the reply.
“I constantly meet Froude the historian at Miss Wright’s, a somewhat
shy, sardonic, and silent man. His sphinx-like character, the very doubt
about him, makes him interesting: one never really knows what he would
be at.”[262]
* * * * *
“_June 4._--Dined at Lord Egerton of Tatton’s. Old Mrs. Mildmay told a
rather improper story there, which was received with shouts of
merriment. She was at a country-house where there was a very pleasant
man named Jones, and there was also a lady who had a maid called Jones:
the people in the house knew this, because there was a confusion about
letters. The lady’s husband went away for the day, and, as she was going
to walk to the station in the evening to meet him, the mistress of the
house asked Mr. Jones to walk with her. When the train came in, the
husband was not there, but just then a telegram was brought in. ‘Oh,’
said the lady, ‘Oh-o-o, I’m sure my husband is dead: I can’t open
it.’--‘Nonsense!’ said Mr. Jones; ‘if he is dead, he cannot have sent
you a telegram.’--‘Well, I can’t open it; I know it’s something
dreadful--I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.’ So at last, Mr. Jones opened it
for her and read it aloud, not seeing at once what it contained. It
was--‘I am all right, unavoidably detained. If you are at all nervous,
_get Jones to sleep with you!_’”
* * * * *
“_June 6._--Lady Manners and her daughters drove me down to Osterley.
The great wide park looked dark and dull under a leaden sky, the house
gloomy and ghostly as Bleak House. The old Duchess, stumping about with
her inlaid ebony stick, seemed part of the place. I dined at Sir Edward
Blackett’s, a beautiful house with Raffaellesque and pink tapestry
decorations, prepared for the Duke of Gloucester on his marriage with
the Waldegrave, but never lived in by him.”
* * * * *
“_June 7._--Dined with George Lefevre. Mr. Bright was there, said to be
the man who reviewed me so unmercifully in the _Athenæum_, and I was
very glad to see the kind of man he is. He talked incessantly, never
allowing a word to any one else; still after a time one found out he was
interesting. He talked most of Miss Martineau, then of Hawthorne with
great praise--‘the kindest, most generous of men and friends.’ Of his
son, Julian Hawthorne, he said that he had ‘written a book which it took
_very_ long to read.’”
* * * * *
“_June 13._--An excursion with the Lefevres to the Rye House, which I
knew so well in my boyhood. It was like spending an afternoon in
Holland, so very Dutch are those long expanses of rich meadow-lands,
those streams with their boats and tall water-plants. We sat in burning
sunshine to draw the old terra-cotta tower, and then had tea and eggs
and bacon in the garden of the little inn, which was covered with
scarlet geranium in full flower up to the attic windows.”
* * * * *
“_June 19._--The news of poor old Cousin Susan’s[263] death. It is the
glueing down of another much-read page of life, which can never be seen
again. I feel ashamed of not grieving more for one whom I have known so
well, but have always more feared than loved. The agent wrote desiring
me to come down at once, but, backed by Lady Barrington’s decision that
I had better keep out of the way till the will was decided, I excused
myself. Yet I am sorry not to be at the funeral, and the old house of
many associations, and the little Beltingham chapel with its view over
the gleaming Tyne, are very constantly in my mind. All the cousins are
quite sure that I am the heir, but I do not think that it is so. Cousin
Susan knew that I did not wish it, and I have always urged the claims of
the Strathmore boys.”
* * * * *
“_June 20._--I have received from Milligan the news of Cousin Susan’s
will. It is exactly the will I begged her to make--all to Mr. Bowes for
life, then to the Strathmores. These pleasant boys deserve their good
fortunes. I would only rather she had selected _one_ of them to have
more definitely preserved her memory.”
* * * * *
“_June 28._--After a party at Lowther Lodge, I went to Lady Marian
Alford, whom I found with a very ancient aunt, Lady Elizabeth Dickens.
Lady Marian showed me her drawings. There was one glorious sketch of a
Roman model, yet most unlike a model. ‘She is,’ said Lady Marian, ‘the
model who is so hated by the other models because of her stateliness.
“She walks down the Corso as if it belonged to her,” they say. She had
two beautiful children--a boy and a girl. Last time I went to Rome, I
saw her alone. “Where is your boy?” I asked.--“Oh, dead,” she
answered.--“And the girl?”--“Oh, dead, _dead_ too,” she replied,
pressing her hands to her forehead. And I pitied her, and I asked her
about it, and she said, “I will tell you how it was.” And she told me
how she was coming downstairs with her boy in her arms and the girl
behind her, and that just as she reached the house-door, a church-bell
began to toll. “E un giustiziáto!” said one of the neighbours. And then,
she could not tell how, it was somehow borne in upon her that her
boy--her son--might, if he grew up, also some day fall into sin, also
some day, perhaps, even be _giustiziáto_; and she turned round to the
Madonna on the wall, and prayed that, if it were to be so, if such agony
were possible for her, that she would take her son _then_, that she
would take him away _then_, from the evil to come. And her husband, who
heard her, said angrily, “Che sono queste stragonfiáte;” and he beat
her; but the Madonna had heard her, and that night her boy was taken
ill, and in twenty-four hours he was dead.
“‘And then she said, “That night I went again to the Madonna, and I
said, ‘You have taken my boy, and, oh! if I may ever have _arrossire_
for my girl, take the girl also, take her away in her innocence;’ _e la
Madonna mi ha fatto anche questa caritá_, and I, I am alone, but my
children are safe.”’
* * * * *
“_July 1._--To Holland House, most lovely in all the freshness of
new-mown hay, and the old elm avenue dewy from a shower. It was a
delight to see Mrs. Augustus Craven, altered from the lovely ‘Pauline de
la Ferronays,’ but still beautiful, and I had the happiness of finding
that she liked to talk to me about her loved and lost ones.
“A very interesting dinner at Miss Davenport Bromley’s. Signor
Francheschi described his life in Corsica, especially the weird women,
who come like the Fates, as hired mourners, to bewail the dead, yet
throw themselves so completely into their profession that they become
quite absorbed in grief, and torrents of tears flow down their cheeks.
“One night he had to travel. In a desolate road he saw two strange
ghastly horsemen approaching, with men walking on either side of their
horses and holding them. The moonlight glared upon their fixed and
horrid countenances. As they came near he heard the footmen talking to
them. ‘We must hasten; they are waiting for you; they are even now
lamenting you.’ Then he saw that the riders were dead. They were
murdered men found by the highway, and had been set on horseback to be
brought home. In Corsica it is the custom never to cease speaking to the
dead.”
* * * * *
“_July 7._--A capital party at Lowther Lodge to meet Princess Louise and
Lord Lorne. The garden was illuminated with magnesium light, and looked
both beautiful and--boundless!”
[Illustration: LOWTHER LODGE.][264]
* * * * *
“_July 15._--Luncheon at Lady Combermere’s, where Lord Houghton
described his experience of executions. He had been to numbers of those
in Newgate. Up to the time of George III. the sign-manual was necessary
for every execution, and it was an odd thing that George III., usually a
humane man, used to hang every one. He would sit at the council-board
and ask each of the ministers in turn whether a man was to suffer death.
They would bow their heads in assent. Lord Melbourne was especially
ready to do this when he was sitting at the council-board. One day,
however, there was a case of a man who had murdered his wife under most
brutal circumstances. The evidence was quite incontrovertible, and all
were surprised that Lord Melbourne, usually so ready, shrugged his
shoulders and seemed to have the greatest difficulty in making up his
mind to give an assent to the death-warrant. One of the ministers, in
going out, asked why it was. ‘Why, poor man, those women are so damned
provoking,’ said Lord Melbourne.
“Mr. Browning said he recollected seeing as many as twenty-one persons
sitting together on the condemned bench in Newgate Chapel, many only for
stealing a handkerchief. One day in chapel he was jostled by some one
pushing in past him, and turned round annoyed. ‘I beg your pardon, sir,
but I am going to _suffer_,’ said the man.”
* * * * *
“_July 12._--Monday was a most beautiful day for the party at Chiswick,
for its beautiful Italian gardens with glorious cedars. All London was
there, including the Prince of Wales, with his little boy George, and
the Tecks.”
* * * * *
“_July 29._--Since I wrote last the curious episode of Mrs. L. has
occurred.
“On the 14th I left my lodgings in the afternoon to go to the Athenæum,
when a tremendous cataract of rain came on, in which I took refuge in
the covered entry of Pall Mall Place. A number of other people took
refuge there also. Amongst them, I was attracted by the agonised face of
a woman crouching in a corner--a lady, for so she seemed by her face,
and in a certain degree by her dress; for though her gown looked as if
it had been dragged through every Slough of Despond in Europe, the rest
of her dress seemed to belong to the better class. As for her
expression, I cannot forget it, it was of such agonised, hopeless,
bewildered despair. I suppose I looked pityingly at her, for she turned
to me, and in sharp wolfish accents said, ‘I am not a beggar, I am not,
I am only starving to death, I am starving to _death_!’ I think I begged
her to tell me what had brought her to such a pass; at any rate she told
me--‘I am Mrs. L.’ To many this would not convey anything, but, from
having always been occupied with architecture, it conveyed something to
me, and I said, ‘What! the widow of L., the architect?’--‘Yes,’ she
said, and she described in the same sharp, broken, gasping accents how
she had been with her husband in Paris at the time of the siege, and how
he had wished to get her away and had arranged for her escape to
England, and how at the moment that he was parting with her and putting
a purse into her hand to pay the expenses of her journey, a shell burst
near them, and her jaw was blown off. ‘When I came to myself in the
hospital,’ she said, ‘I found that the shell which had blown off my jaw,
had blown my husband to pieces.’ She then described how she came to
England, and how the Soane Museum, which takes care of the widows of
architects, had given her a pension of £75 a year. ‘You wonder,’ she
continued, ‘that, having this pension, I should have reached the
condition I am in, but the fact is I have been a very wicked woman. When
our pension is granted, we take a vow never to lend money, which is
absolutely forbidden by the rules of the Museum; but a friend of mine
was in great want, and I trusted her and became security for her, and
she has absconded, and they have come upon me for the debt, and
yesterday morning early all my things were seized, and I could not apply
to the Museum, because then they would take away my pension, and I was
turned adrift in the streets with nothing at all in the world.’ And then
the poor woman corrected herself and said, ‘I have told a lie. I have
not quite nothing in the world. I have a silk gown. I had that on when I
was turned out, but I knew it would be worse for me to spend a night
homeless in the streets in a silk gown, and I went to a servant I knew,
and got her to take care of it for me, and to lend me the worst gown she
had.’
“‘Since yesterday morning,’ she said, ‘I have tasted nothing whatever.
You wonder I have not fainted. I have not done that because I am so
dreadfully ill; I am in a burning fever. Yesterday I walked up to
Hampstead, because there was a governess I knew there, and I thought she
would help me; but when I arrived, I found her gone to Scotland with her
family, and I walked all about Hampstead and Highgate, and the police
insulted me, they did not protect me, they insulted me worst of all; and
all through the day I have walked in the streets.’ I asked her, ‘Have
you no friend in the world?’--‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I have one person who is
a friend; at least there is one person who I think would help me if I
could get to her, because my mother was once very kind to her, and that
is Mrs. H. of the Mansfield Park School at Uxbridge, and to her, if I
could have even a cup of coffee to strengthen me, I should set out and
walk.’
“I got her to go and have some tea, which, as I foresaw, made her
violently sick; and then, when she was a little better, I sent her by
the train to Uxbridge. Immediately returning to the Athenæum, I wrote a
lady who lives close to Uxbridge, briefly telling her the story, that
Mrs. L. would probably arrive very ill, perhaps almost dying, and
begging her to go at once to Mansfield Park and look after her.
“This was on Saturday. On Sunday there is no postal delivery. On Monday
morning I received two letters. One was from Mrs. H., overwhelmingly
grateful for what I had been able to do for Mrs. L., saying that she had
received benefits from her mother which nothing could ever repay, and
that she had been only too thankful to receive and care for the
daughter. The other letter was from the lady to whom I had written,
saying that there was no such place as Mansfield Park, that there was no
such person as Mrs. L., and enclosing letters from the police and
post-office at Uxbridge certifying this. I explained this in my own mind
by remembering that, while telling me her story under the entry, Mrs. L.
had said, ‘There is a little affectation about the name of Mansfield
Park; it misleads people, for after all it is only a farmhouse.’
“On Monday evening the servant at my lodgings said that Mrs. L. herself
had called: I was gone out to dinner. The next morning before I was up
she came again, and waited till I was dressed.
“She was then quite calm and happy. She told how, when she got to
Uxbridge, after being dreadfully ill in the train, her heart failed
her--‘perhaps after all Mrs. H. would not receive her.’ However, she
described with tears the touching kindness of Mrs. H.--that she had
washed her, dressed her, put her in her own bed, tended her, and finally
given her a cheque for £20, which she showed me. Her brother also, a
travelling wine merchant in France, whom she had not seen for years, and
to whom she had written without a hope of finding him, had also
telegraphed that he was on his way to her assistance.
“She was overwhelmingly grateful to me.
“Then I asked her of her past. She said she had been the daughter of a
planter in Havannah, but her fine voice induced her, against the will of
her family, early to take to a public life. At the Exhibition of 1851
she (as Mademoiselle Mori) sang the anthem of which Jenny Lind sang one
verse. She afterwards became a sculptress, and studied under Gibson at
Rome (and she described his peculiar studio accurately). She was his
only female pupil, and had the charge of his studio. He taught her his
mode of colouring marble, and in her statue of ‘Waiting for the Spring,’
she used it in colouring the primroses and violets in a girl’s lap. The
Queen bought this statue in the Exhibition building of 1862 before the
Exhibition opened. Then she married Mr. L. and went to Paris.
“‘While I was in Paris,’ she said, ‘a very curious thing happened to me.
I gave birth to three boys at once. When such an event occurs in France,
the sovereigns are always god-parents, and the Emperor and Empress were
pleased to have the christening of my three boys in Notre Dame, where
they stood sponsors at the font.’--‘And are the boys all dead?’ I said.
‘Oh, dear no, they are all alive.’--‘Then where in the world are they?’
I said. ‘Oh, they live with the Empress: she would not part with them,
and my three boys are her little pages. Now they are gone with her into
Spain to see her mother.’
“She then described how the Empress often sent her money to go down to
Chislehurst to see her boys, and how the Prince Imperial often called to
see her, and called her ‘Grannie’ because of the boys, or left her a £10
note. ‘I should have gone at once to the Empress had she been in
England,’ said Mrs. L., ‘but I would have died rather than have begged
from any one: I would have died on a doorstep.’--‘Then what made you
confide in me?’ I asked. ‘Oh, surely you must see that,’ she replied.
‘Of course you must see that. It was the likeness. Of course people must
have told you of the great, the wonderful likeness before. I was quite
prepared for death, I had made up my mind to die, and then God in His
great mercy sent the likeness of my Emperor to me; and I knew then that
God did not mean me to die yet.’
“She wants to paint a picture in memory of what she calls my ‘saving
her.’[265]
“On the 18th, I had an interesting visit to Apsley House, for which the
Duke had sent me the following order:--‘Admit Mr. Hare to see Apsley
House on any day _on which the street outside is dry_.’ The street was
quite dry, and, moreover, I went in a cab and arrived perfectly spick
and span; but the servant laughed as he produced a pair of huge list
slippers to go on over my boots, before I was allowed to go into any of
the rooms. ‘His Grace left these himself, and desired you should wear
them when you came.’ Yet the floors of Apsley House are not even
polished.
“On the 19th I went to Lady Ducie’s, to see the Macdonald family act the
Pilgrim’s Progress. They go through the whole of the second part, George
Macdonald,[266] his wife, his twelve children, and two adopted children.
Christiana (the eldest daughter) was the only one who acted well.
Nevertheless, the whole effect was touching, and the audience cried most
sympathetically as Christiana embraced her children to go over the great
river.
“On the 21st there was a delightful party at Holland House to meet the
Prince of Wales, and on Wednesday I was thankful to come home.
“Never has little Holmhurst been pleasanter than this year, and I have
so enjoyed being alone, the repose of the intense quietude, the radiance
of the flowers, the delicious sea-breezes through windows open to the
ground, the tame doves flitting and cooing in the branches of the tall
lime-tree.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS WRIGHT.
“_August 6, 1877._--I came home on Wednesday week, and have been alone
ever since, and over head and ears in work. I have seen nobody except
last Tuesday, when, though I thought no one knew I was at home,
fourteen afternooners appeared. Miss Hamilton, who has taken a fancy to
do my portrait, has done it very cleverly against a window, with ivy
hanging down outside, only it is a sentimental suggestion of
‘He sat at the window all day long
And watched the falling leaves.’”
[Illustration: HOLMHURST, THE POULTRY-YARD.]
* * * * *
“_August 19._--I have had a pleasant visit of three days to Cobham, and
felt much inclined to accede to Lord and Lady Darnley’s wish at the end,
that I would consider my visit just begun, and stay another three days.
It is indeed a glorious old place externally, and the gardens and
immense variety of walks under grand old trees, are enchanting in hot
weather. I had many happy ‘sittings out’ and talks with Lady Darnley,
and could not sufficiently admire, though I always observe it, how her
perfectly serene nature enables her to carry out endless people-seeing,
boundless literary pursuit, and inexhaustible good works, without ever
fussing herself or any one else, leaving also time to enter into all the
minute difficulties of her friends in the varied gyrations of their
lives.... I was taken to see Cowling Castle, a romantic old place; just
on the edge of those marshes of the Thames which Dickens describes so
vividly. We also saw his house, close to Dover road.”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Walton Heath, Oct. 6._--After a delightful visit from Harry Lee at
Holmhurst, I have come here to Miss Davenport Bromley at a quaint
cottage, partly built out of a church, in a corner of the vast Walton
Heath, but full of artistic comfort and brightness within. We drove on
Thursday to Box Hill, which is most beautiful, the high steep chalky
ground covered with such a luxuriance of natural wood, box grown into
trees and the billows of pink and blue distance so wonderfully luxuriant
and wooded. The time of year is quite beautiful, and all the last
festival of nature in the clematis wreaths and the bryony with its red
berries dancing from tree to tree.
“We have been to see a quaint old house of the Heathcotes. There is a
great stone hall with a high gallery, from which a young lady threw
herself in her rage at her lover marrying some one else, and was killed
on the spot. Her picture hangs on the staircase wall, and her ghost
walks on the stairs, pretty, in white, something like a shepherdess. A
housemaid cut a great cross in the picture, ‘to let the ghost out,’ as
the old woman who showed the house said, and the hole has never been
mended. This country is full of little traditions. There is a green lane
close by, down which a headless lady walks, and a phantom coach drives
along the road: a countryman who met old M. de Berg on the common
declared that he had seen it--that it had driven over him.
“Yesterday we went to Gatton (Lord Monson’s), which formerly belonged to
Sir Mark Wood. It is a curious place: the ugly church fitted inside with
beautiful Flemish carving and glass, and the house having a hall of
coloured marbles, copied from the Corsini Chapel at Rome--minus the
upper story.
“I have much enjoyed learning to know Miss Bromley better. She is the
kindest of women, wonderfully clever and full of insight into every
minutest beauty of nature. Her devotion to animals, especially pugs, is
a passion. Another pleasure has been finding Mrs. Henry de Bunsen here.
She told me--
“‘There was, and there is still, living in Cadogan Place, a lady of
middle age, who is clever, charming, amiable, even handsome, but who has
the misfortune of having--a wooden leg. Daily, for many years, she was
accustomed to amble every morning on her wooden leg down Cadogan Place,
and to take the air in the Park. It was her principal enjoyment.
“‘One day she discovered that in these walks she was constantly followed
by a gentleman. When she turned, he turned: where she went, he went: it
was most disagreeable. She determined to put an end to it by staying at
home, and for some days she did not go out at all. But she missed her
walks in the Park very much, and after a time she thought her follower
must have forgotten all about her, and she went out as before. The same
gentleman was waiting, he followed her, and at length suddenly came up
to her in the Park and presented her with a letter. He said that, as a
stranger, he must apologise for speaking to her, but that he must
implore her to take the letter, and read it when she got home: it was of
great importance. She took the letter, and when she got home she read
it, and found that it contained a violent declaration of love and a
proposal of marriage. She was perfectly furious. She desired her lawyer
to enclose the letter to the writer, and say that she could not find
words to describe her sense of his ungentlemanly conduct, especially
cruel to one afflicted as she was with a wooden leg.
“‘Several years elapsed, and the lady was paying a visit to some friends
in the country, when the conversation frequently turned upon a friend of
the house who was described as one of the most charming, generous, and
beneficent of mankind. So delightful was the description, that the lady
was quite anxious to see the original, and was enchanted when she heard
that he was likely to come to the house. But when he arrived, she
recognised with consternation her admirer of the Park. He did not,
however, recur to their former meeting, and after a time, when she knew
him well, she grew to esteem him exceedingly, and at last, when he
renewed his proposal after an intimate acquaintance, she accepted him
and married him.
“‘He took her to his country-house, and for six weeks they were
entirely, uncloudedly happy. Then there came a day upon which he
announced that he was obliged to go up to London on business. His wife
could not go with him because the house in Cadogan Place was dismantled
for the summer. “I should regret this more,” he said, “but that where
two lives are so completely, so entirely united as ours are, there ought
to be the most absolute confidence on either side. Therefore, while I am
away, I shall leave you my keys. Open my desk, read all my letters and
journals, make yourself mistress of my whole life. Above all,” he said,
“there is one cupboard in my dressing-room which contains certain
memorials of my past peculiarly sacred to me, which I should like you to
make yourself acquainted with.” The wife heard with concern of her
husband’s intended absence, but she was considerably buoyed up under the
idea of the three days in which they were to be separated by the thought
of the very interesting time she would have. She saw her husband off
from the door, and as soon as she heard the wheels of his carriage die
away in the distance, she clattered away as fast as she could upon her
wooden leg to the dressing-room, and in a minute she was down on all
fours before the cupboard he had described.
“‘She unlocked the cupboard. It contained two shelves. On each shelf was
a long narrow parcel sewn up in canvas. She felt a tremor of horror as
she looked at them, she did not know why. She lifted down the first
parcel, and it had a label on the outside. She trembled so she could
scarcely read it. It was inscribed--“In memory of my dear wife Elizabeth
Anne, who died on the 24th of August 1864.” With quivering fingers she
sought for a pair of scissors and ripped open the canvas, and it
contained--a wooden leg!
“‘With indescribable horror she lifted down the other parcel, of the
same form and size. It also bore a label--“In memory of my dearest wife
Wilhelmine, who died on the 6th of March 1869,” and she opened it, and
it contained--another wooden leg!
“‘Instantly she rose from her knees. “It is evident,” she said, “that I
am married to a Blue Beard--a monster who _collects_ wooden legs. This
is not the time for sentiment, this is the time for action,” and she
swept her jewels and some miniatures that she had into a handbag and she
clattered away on her own wooden leg by the back shrubberies to the
highroad--and there she saw the butcher’s cart passing, and she hailed
it, and was driven by the butcher to the nearest station, where she just
caught the next train to London, intending to make good her escape that
night to France and to leave no trace behind her.
“‘But she had not consulted Bradshaw, and she found she had some hours
to wait in London before the tidal train started. Then she could not
resist employing them in going to reproach the people at whose house she
had met her husband, and she told them what she had found. To her
amazement they were not the least surprised. “Yes,” they said, “yes, we
thought he ought to have told you: we do not wonder you were astonished.
Yes, indeed, we knew dear Elizabeth Anne very well; she was indeed a
most delightful person, the most perfect of women and of wives, and when
she was taken away, the whole light seemed blotted out of Arthur’s life,
the change was so very terrible. We thought he would never rally his
spirits again; but then, after two years, he met dearest Wilhelmine, to
whom he was first attracted by her having the same affliction which was
characteristic of her predecessor. And Wilhelmine was perhaps even a
more charming person than Elizabeth Anne, and made her husband’s life
uncloudedly happy. But she too was, alas! early snatched away, and then
it was as if the whole world was cut from under Arthur’s feet, until at
last he met you, with the same peculiarity which was endeared to him by
two lost and loved ones, and we believe that with you he has been even
more entirely, more uncloudedly happy than he was either with Wilhelmine
or Elizabeth Anne.
“‘And the wife was so charmed by what she heard, that it gave quite a
new aspect to affairs. She went home by the next train. She was there
when her husband returned; and ever since they have lived perfectly
happily between his house in the country and hers in Cadogan Place.’
“Mrs. De Bunsen said that a cousin of hers was repeating this story when
dining at the Balfours’. Suddenly he saw that his host and hostess were
both telegraphing frantic signals to him, and by a great effort he
turned it off. The lady of the wooden leg and her husband were both
amongst the guests.”
* * * * *
“_Milford Cottage, Oct. 8._--I came here with Miss Bromley on Saturday
to visit Mrs. Greville and her most engaging mother, Mrs. Thellusson. It
is a red house, standing almost in the village street, but with a
French-looking garden behind, with clipped hedges and orange trees in
tubs. It was left to Mrs. Greville by her husband, an old gentleman whom
she married when the Thellussons were ruined, and he said, ‘You had
better marry me; there is nothing else that I can do for you.’ He always
treated her with the greatest generosity and kindness, but died very
suddenly, intending to leave his wife very rich. There was, however,
some mistake about the will, and she only inherited this cottage and
just enough to live upon. I found at Milford, Lady Elizabeth Bryan, a
Paget, who goes out visiting with four dogs, one of whom, Constance
Kent, is most beautiful, and she has adopted a little cousin and
presented her with six-and-thirty dolls. I went to see the adopted
daughter in bed; two little dogs were cuddled in her bosom, and seven
dolls lay at her feet with their heads out. Lately, the little girl has
displayed signs of vanity, paraded her small person before a mirror, and
exulted in fine clothes, and on these occasions she is always dressed in
‘Sukey,’ a little workhouse girl’s gown, to remind her that ‘in the
sight of God she is no better.’
“This afternoon I have been with Mrs. Greville to Mr. Tennyson at
Haselmere. It is a wild, high, brown heath, with ragged edges of birch,
and an almost limitless view of blue Sussex distances. Jammed into a
hollow is the house, a gothic house, built by Mr. Knowles, the editor of
the _Nineteenth Century_--‘that young bricklayer fellow that Alfred is
so fond of,’ as Mr. Carlyle calls him. Though the place is a bleak,
wind-stricken height, where the flowers in the garden can never sit
still, the house is pleasant inside and well and simply furnished, but
is without any library whatever. Tennyson is older looking than I
expected, so that his _unkempt_ appearance signifies less. He has an
abrupt, bearish manner, and seems thoroughly hard and _un_poetical: one
would think of him as a man in whom the direst prose of life was
absolutely ingrained. Mrs. Greville kissed his hand as he came in, which
he received without any protest. He asked if I would like to go out, and
we walked round the gardens. By way of breaking the silence I said, ‘How
fine your arbūtus is.’--‘Well, I would say arbūtus,’ he answered,
‘otherwise you are as bad as the gardeners, who say Clemātis.’ When
we returned to the house, Hallam Tennyson brought in his mother very
tenderly and put her on a sofa. She is a very sweet-looking woman, with
‘the glittering blue eyes’ which fascinated Carlyle, and a lady-abbess
look from her head-dress--a kind of veil. Mrs. Greville revealed that
she had broken her promise of not repeating an unpublished poem of
Tennyson’s by reciting it to Mr. Carlyle, who said, ‘But did Alfred give
you leave to say it?’ and Tennyson said, ‘You are the wickedest old
woman I ever met with: it is most _profligate_ conduct’--and he half
meant it too. Tennyson then insisted that I should tell him some
stories. I did not like it, but found it was no use to resist; I should
have to do it in the end. He asked for ‘a village tragedy,’ so I told
him the story of Caroline Crowhurst: he said he should write it in a
play or a poem. Then I told him the stories of Mademoiselle von Raasloff
and of Croglin Grange. He was atrociously bad audience, and constantly
interrupted with questions. He himself repeated a little story, which
Mr. Greene of the ‘English History’ had told him--of a man who felt that
his fiddle, to which he was devoted, was the source of temptation to him
by leading him to taverns where he got drunk. On the Mississippi river,
he said, he heard a voice saying to him that he must destroy the fiddle;
so he went down, kissed the fiddle, and then broke it to pieces. ‘_I_
put in that kiss,’ said Tennyson, ‘because I thought it sounded better.’
“On the whole, the wayward poet leaves a favourable impression. He could
scarcely be less egotistic with all the flattery he has, and I am glad
to have seen him so quietly. The maid who opened the door was Mrs.
Cameron’s beautiful model, and there were pictures of her by Mrs.
Cameron all about the house.
“For the poet’s bearish manners the Tennyson family are to blame, in
making him think himself a demigod. One day, on arriving at Mrs.
Greville’s, he said at once, ‘Give me a pipe; I want to smoke.’ She at
once went off by herself down the village to the shop, and returning
with two pipes, offered them to him with all becoming subservience. He
never looked at her or thanked her, but, as he took them, growled out,
‘Where are the matches? I suppose now you’ve forgotten the
matches!’--‘Oh dear! I never thought of those.’
“Mrs. Greville has a note of Tennyson’s framed. It is a very pretty
note; but it begins ‘Dear Madwoman.’”
* * * * *
“_Babworth, Oct. 14._--This house overflows with loveliness in the way
of amateur art, and the drawings of its mistress, Mrs. Bridgeman
Simpson, are most beautiful. She is the kindest and most good-natured of
hostesses.... Yesterday we went to Sandbeck, an ugly dull house in a
flat, and looking bare within from paucity of furniture. Lord
Scarborough, once a bold huntsman, is now patiently awaiting a second
stroke of paralysis in a wheel-chair. Lumley, a pleasant boy, just going
to join his regiment at Dublin, drove me after luncheon to Roche Abbey,
a very pretty ruin in a glen.”
* * * * *
“_Oct. 15._--Mrs. Simpson’s very charming Polish sister-in-law, Mrs.
Drummond Baring, recounted yesterday evening a curious story out of the
reminiscences of her childhood, of which her husband from knowledge
confirmed every fact. Her father, Count Potocka, lived in Martinique.
His wife had been married before, and her beautiful daughter, Minetta,
idolised by her second husband, had made a happy marriage with the
Marquis de San Luz, and resided at Port Royal about five miles from her
parents. The father was a great naturalist, and had the greatest
interest in introducing and naturalising all kinds of plants in the West
Indies. Amongst other plants, he was most anxious to introduce
strawberries. Every one said he would fail, and the neighbouring
gardeners especially said so much about it that it was a positive
annoyance to them when his plants all seemed to succeed, and he had a
large bed of strawberries in flower. His step-daughter, Minetta, came to
see them, and he always said to her that, when the strawberries were
ripe, she should have the first fruit.
“A ball was given at Port Royal by the Governor, and there her parents
saw Minetta, beautiful and radiant as ever; but she left the ball early,
for her child was not well. As she went away, she said to her
stepfather, ‘Remember my strawberries.’
“Her parents returned home in the early morning, and a day and a night
succeeded. Towards dawn on the second morning, when night was just
breaking into the first grey daylight, the mother felt an irresistible
restlessness, and getting up and going to the window, she looked out. A
figure in white was moving to and fro amongst the strawberries,
carefully examining each plant and looking under the leaves. She awoke
her husband, who said at once, ‘It is one of the gardeners, who are so
jealous that they have come to destroy my plants;’ and jumping up, he
put on his _gola_--a sort of dressing-gown wrapper worn in
Martinique--and, taking his gun, rushed out. On first going out, he saw
the figure in white moving before him, but as he came up to the
strawberry beds it seemed to have disappeared. He was surprised, and
turning round towards the house, saw his wife making agonised signs to
him to come back. Such was her livid aspect, that he threw down his gun
upon the ground and ran in to her. He found her in a dead faint upon the
floor. When she recovered, she said that she had watched him from the
window as he went out, and that, as he reached the strawberry beds, the
figure seemed to turn round, and she saw--like a person seen through a
veil and through the glass of a window, and, though perfectly distinct,
transparent--her daughter Minetta. Soon after describing this, she was
seized with violent convulsions. Her husband was greatly alarmed about
her, and was just sending off for the doctor, who lived at some
distance, when a rider on a little Porto Rico pony came clattering into
the court. They thought it was the doctor, but it was not; it was a
messenger from Port Royal to say that Minetta was dead. She had been
seized with a chill on returning from the ball, and it had turned to
fatal diphtheria. In her last hours, when her throat was so swelled and
hot, she had constantly said, ‘Oh, my throat is so hot! Oh, if I had
only some of those strawberries!’”
* * * * *
“_Thoresby, Oct. 17._--Lord Manvers sent for me after luncheon three
days ago, and we came with a horse fleet as the wind through the green
lanes of Clumber, and across part of the (Sherwood) forest, to this
immense modern palace by Salvin. All around is forest. No one was at
home when I arrived, so I went out for a walk, and was joined by Lord
Manvers on returning.... Lady Manvers is quite delightful, and so are
her son and daughter, so I have been very glad of two days alone with
the family; and the forest is enchanting from its varieties of gnarled
oak, silver birch, endlessly contorted fir, and gigantic beeches, with
ever-varying lights on the golden and crimson fern in its first
beautiful decay. Now guests have arrived, including Mr. Frederick
Tayler, the artist,[267] whose blottesque treatment of the green in the
forest with only gamboge, indigo, and sepia is very interesting to see.
He was very funny about the late Lord Manvers, who was a wit, and who,
when Lord Ossington was rather boastful about his lake, said--‘Come,
come now, Ossington, don’t speak of a lake; just wipe it up and say no
more about it.’
“In the afternoon we drove through ‘the Catwhins’ to Clumber--a dull
ugly low-lying house. There is much fine china, but it is a dreary
place.”
* * * * *
“_Glamis Castle, Oct. 26._--I had a delightful visit to the salt of the
earth at Hutton,[268] where Mr. and Mrs. Pease were entertaining a large
party, chiefly of semi-Quaker relations, including Miss Fox of Falmouth,
who is most interesting and agreeable. Mrs. Pease is as delightful as
she is beautiful, and the place is an oasis of good works of every kind.
Thence I came here, meeting Mr. Waldegrave Leslie and Lady Rothes at the
station. As we drove up to the haunted castle at night, its many turrets
looked most eerie and weird against the moonlit sky, and its windows
blazed with red light. The abundance of young life inside takes off the
solemn effect--the number of charming children, the handsome cordial
boys, the winning gracious mistress; only Lord Strathmore himself has an
ever sad look. The Bishop of Brechin, who was a great friend of the
house, felt this strange sadness so deeply that he went to Lord
Strathmore, and, after imploring him in the most touching manner to
forgive the intrusion into his private affairs, said how, having heard
of the strange secret which oppressed him, he could not help entreating
him to make use of his services as an ecclesiastic, if he could in any
way, by any means, be of use to him. Lord Strathmore was deeply moved,
though he said that he thanked him, but that in his most unfortunate
position _no one_ could ever help him. He has built a wing to the
castle, in which all the children and all the servants sleep. The
servants will not sleep in the house, and the children are not allowed
to do so.
“I found a large party here, and was agreeably surprised to see Lady
Wynford come down to dinner. Then Lady Holmesdale appeared, with her
piteous little white-mouse aspect; Mr. and the charming Mrs.
Streatfeild, Lady Strathmore’s sister; Miss Erica Robertson, and Lord
and Lady Rosehill.
“There is much of interest in the life here--the huge clock telling the
hours; the gathering in early morning for prayers by the chaplain in the
chapel, through a painted panel of which some think that the secret
chamber is concealed, though others maintain that it is entered through
Lord Strathmore’s study, and occupies the space above ‘the crypt’--an
armour-hung hall where we all meet for dinner, at which the old Lion of
Lyon--gold, for holding a whole bottle of claret, which the old lords
used to toss off at a draught--is produced. There are lions everywhere.
Huge gilt lions stand on either side in front of the drawing-room
fireplace, lions are nut-crackers, a lion sits on the letter-box, the
very door-scraper is guarded by two lions.
“The boys are charming, so very nice that one cannot believe any curse
can affect them. Claudie (Glamis) is very handsome, and looks strikingly
so in his Scotch dress. Frank is ill now, but most engaging.
“To-day, as I was drawing, Mr. Waldegrave Leslie gave a curious account
of his life at Lady Rothes’ castle--that they themselves inhabit the
ghost-room, and that the ghost comes frequently, and not only groans,
but _howls_; they often hear it. When Lady Rothes’ brother died, the
episcopal service was read over him in the house by a clergyman, and the
ghost then howled so horribly that the service was quite inaudible, and
eventually had to be stopped. He said they did not mind the ghost, but
that Lady Rothes’ Dandie Dinmont dog was distracted with terror when it
came, and crept upon the bed quivering convulsively all over.
“Lady Rosehill has been meeting Mr. (Dicky) Doyle, the genial fairy
lover, who told her that one day when a man was walking down Pall Mall
with a most tremendous swagger, somebody walked up to him and said,
‘Sir, will you have the kindness to tell me, _are_ you anybody in
particular?’”
* * * * *
“_Oct. 29._--Yesterday was Sunday, and we had three services in the
chapel, which is painted all over with figures of saints by the same man
who executed the bad paintings of the Scottish kings at Holyrood. The
sermons from Mr. Beck, the chaplain, head of ‘the Holy Cross’ in
Scotland, were most curious: the first--apropos of All Saints--being a
mere catalogue of saints, S. Etheldreda, S. Kenneth, S. Ninian, &c.,
and their virtues; and describing All Saints’ festival as ‘the Mart of
Holiness’: the second--apropos of All Souls--speaking of prayers for the
dead as a duty inculcated by the Church in all ages, and taking the
words of Judas Maccabeus as a text.”
* * * * *
“_Gorhambury, Nov. 20._--It was dark when I reached the St. Albans
Station yesterday. Lord Verulam’s carriage was in waiting for guests: I
got into it with three others. ‘Lord Beaconsfield was with us in the
train,’ said the young lady of the party, ‘and I am sure he is going to
Gorhambury, and oh! I _am_ so glad he has taken a fly.’ We drove up to
the great porticoed house in the dark, and a small winding staircase
took us to a great lofty hall, furnished as a sitting-room. Here we
found Lady Verulam, two of her daughters, Lady Catherine Weyland, &c.
Other guests appeared at dinner--the sallow basilisk face of Lord
Beaconsfield: his most amusing secretary, Montagu Corry: Lord Exeter,
with long black hair: Lady Exeter, tall, very graceful and
refined-looking, but with the coldest manner in the world: a young Lord
Mount-Charles: Scudamore Stanhope, remarkably pleasant: Charlie
Duncombe, very pleasant too: Lady Mary Cecil: Dowager Lady Craven,
always most agreeable.
“Lord Verulam is permanently lame and on two crutches, but most
agreeable and kindly. This morning I sat to draw the ruin of Lord
Bacon’s house (Lady Craven saved it when it was going to be pulled
down). The place is full of relics of him, his observatory in the park:
the ‘Kissing Oak,’ beneath which Queen Elizabeth embraced him: the
‘Queen’s Ride,’ used when she came to visit him: curious painted
terra-cotta busts of his father and mother and of himself as a child, in
the library: and in the dining-room a large portrait of his brother,
which he (the brother) painted himself, the most prominent feature being
his legs, of which he was evidently exceedingly proud.
“In the afternoon I drove with Lady Exeter, Lady Catherine Weyland, and
Lady Jane Grimston to St. Albans, and went over the abbey with Mr.
Chapel, the delightfully enthusiastic clerk of the works, who repeatedly
exclaimed, ‘It is the pride of my life, sir; it is the pride of my
life.’ He has most beautifully put together, from the fragments found,
the two great shrines of the place, of St. Alban and St. Amphipolis
(Arthur Stanley doubts the existence of the latter saint, and thinks the
name was only that of a cloak), not adding or inventing a single bit;
and the whole interior of the abbey has been hitherto done in the same
way, being perhaps the one church in England really restored, not
remodelled. In returning we stopped at St. Michael’s to see the tomb of
Lord Bacon, represented as he sat in his chair--‘sic sedebat.’”
* * * * *
“_Nov. 21._--At dinner last night and all day Lord Beaconsfield seemed
absorbed, scarcely noticed any one, barely answered his hostess when
spoken to. Montagu Corry[269] said that his chief declared that the
greatest pleasure in life was writing a book, because ‘in that way alone
man could become a creator:’ that his habit was to make marionettes,
and then to live with them for some months before he put them into
action. Lately he had made some marionettes; now he was living with
them, and their society occupied him entirely.
“To-day Lord Verulam showed me many of the relics of the house--the
decision of his ancestor, Judge Crook, releasing Hampden: a deed of
free-warren from Henry II. confirming to one of his ancestors another
deed of his grandfather Henry I.: the portrait of Edward Grimston
(1460), the oldest known authentic portrait in England, representing a
man who fought at Towton, but afterwards made peace with Edward IV.,
lived in retirement, and is mentioned in the Paston Letters.
“Lord Verulam told me of his discovery that Lord Lovat was seventy-three
at the time of his execution, not eighty, as is generally affirmed. The
supposed date of his birth and the date of his learning to fence tend to
confirm this, and his _smiling_ when he looked upon his coffin-plate on
the scaffold and the line he quoted from Horace.”
* * * * *
“_Nov. 25._--On Friday I drove with Lord Verulam in his victoria to
Wrothampstead. The old house there is one of the long many-gabled
houses, vine-covered, with windows and chimneys of moulded brick,
standing, backed by fine trees, in a brilliant garden. Inside it is
gloriously panelled, and has a staircase approached by balustraded gates
with a tapestried room at the top of it. It belongs to a Mr. Lawes, who
for a long time was supposed to be wasting all his time and most of his
money in chemistry, but at length by his chemistry he discovered a cheap
way of making a valuable manure, and ‘Lawes’s manure’ has made him a
millionaire.
“Yesterday we went to Tittenhanger, already familiar to me from Lady
Waterford’s descriptions. It is a charming old house, utterly
Cromwellian, most attractive and engaging, depending for its effect upon
its high overhanging roofs, and the simple, admirable brick ornaments of
its windows. The rooms are full of beautiful pictures and china, but
Lady Caledon was not there, and it is always a loss not to see the owner
_with_ a place.
“It was on hearing some one mention this house that Sydney Smith made
the impromptu--
‘Oh, pray, where is Tittenhanger?
Is it anywhere by Bangor?
Or, if it is not in Wales,
Can it, perhaps, be near Versailles?
Tell me, in the name of grace,
Is there really such a place?’
“Lady Lilian Paulet was very absurd at dinner with her story of an
American who said that, going down Piccadilly, he met a mad dog, so, as
he could not avoid him, he thrust his hand down its throat and pulled
out its inside; after which the dog ran on still, but it could no longer
say ‘bow-wow,’ it could only say ‘wow-bow.’
“It was amusing _seeing_ Lord Beaconsfield at Gorhambury: _hear_ him I
never did, except when he feebly bleated out some brief and ghastly
utterance. His is an extraordinary life. He told Lord Houghton that the
whole secret of his success was his power of never dwelling upon a
failure; he ‘had failed often, _constantly_ at first, yet had never
dwelt on it, but always gone on to something else.’”
[Illustration: TITTENHANGER.][270]
* * * * *
“_Burghley, Nov. 29._--I have been glad to come to the place which is
often called ‘the finest house in England’--a dictum in which I by no
means agree. The guests are a row of elderly baronets of only hunting
and Midland-county fame. An exception is Sir John Hay, a thorough old
_gentleman_ (an Admiral) and very agreeable. I took a Miss Fowke in to
dinner, and complained to her of the number of old baronets. ‘Yes,’ she
said, ‘they are old and they are numerous, and the central one is my
father.’
“The house is immense, but has little internal beauty. There is a series
of stately rooms, dull and oppressive, with fine tapestry and china, and
a multitude of pictures with very fine names, almost all misnamed--a
copy of the well-known Bronzino of the Medici boy being called Edward
VI.; a copy of the well-known Correggio in the National Gallery being
marked as an original by Angelica Kauffman, &c.[271] In a small closet
is a number of jewelled trinkets, including Queen Elizabeth’s watch and
thimble, and there hangs the gem of the picture collection--‘The Saviour
Blessing the Elements,’ a very expressive but most unpleasing work of
Carlo Dolci. It is the halo of the great Lord Burghley which gives the
place all its interest. He lies on his back in a scarlet robe under a
canopy in St. Martin’s Church at the entrance of the town, and close by
is a cenotaph to his father and mother, who are buried at St.
Margaret’s, Westminster. All the five churches of Stamford have merit,
and the town is interesting and picturesque.
“Lord Exeter, with his lank black hair and his wrinkled yellow
jack-boots high above the knee, looks like a soldier of Cromwell. In the
evening he and the whole family dance incessantly to the music of a
barrel-organ, which they take it in turn to wind.[272]
“The great idol of family adoration is ‘Telemachus’--the memory of
Telemachus, or rather a whole dynasty of Telemachi, for they are now
arrived at Telemachus X. The bull Telemachus I. gained more than £1000
at small county cattle-shows. His head is stuffed in the hall; his
statue in silver stands in the dining-room (where there are also silver
statues of Telemachus II. and III.), and his portrait hangs on the
wall.”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 6._--On Tuesday, at King’s Cross, I met Elizabeth Biddulph, Marie
Adeane, Alethea Grenfell, and the Dalyells, and we came down together, a
merry party, to Hertford, whither the Robert Smiths sent to fetch us to
their picturesque new house of Goldings. Alethea is full of the story of
Jagherds (near Corsham)--that ‘in the difficulty of finding a house
there suitable for the clergyman, an old manor-house was suggested,
which seemed to meet all requisites. The Bishop (Ellicott) himself went
to see it, and was quite delighted with it, and the clergyman went to
reside there. But his servants would not stay, his governesses would not
stay; all said they were worried out of their lives by the figure of a
lady in blue, which appeared all over the house and on all possible
occasions; and at last the clergyman himself gave in and went away. With
the next clergyman the same thing happened, and he appealed to the
Bishop. The Bishop said he never could tell why he suggested it, but in
his answer he said, “If the apparition comes again, I should advise you
to throw as much sympathy as you can into your manner, and ask what you
can do for it.” Soon after he heard from the clergyman that this had
quite succeeded. The blue lady had appeared again, and the clergyman
immediately, with an appearance of the utmost sympathy in his
countenance, said, “Madam, is there nothing in the world I can do for
you?”--upon which a seraphic smile came over the face of the spirit, and
it vanished away and never appeared again.’
“Lately the Bishop had a letter from an old clergyman at Wisconsin in
America, who wrote to him that an aged parishioner of his had sent for
him on his deathbed, saying that he could not die happy without
recounting the facts of a crime which he had witnessed in his boyhood.
He had been taken by a gang of highwaymen who held their headquarters at
Jagherds Court in Wiltshire, and while there was witness to many deeds
of violence committed by them. Amongst others, they carried off a young
lady, and in the row and quarrels which ensued, the young lady was
murdered at Jagherds Court.
“The old clergyman, not knowing what to do with this confession, thought
the best way was to write it to the Bishop of the diocese in which
Jagherds was situated, and he wrote it to the Bishop of Gloucester, who
verified the whole, finding his correspondent a veritable clergyman, &c.
The Bishop of Gloucester told the story last week at Lord Ducie’s.”
* * * * *
“_Holmhurst, Dec. 16._--I have been intensely busy. The life of Madame
de Bunsen _unfolds_ itself in her letters more than any life I have ever
heard of. I long for the time to come when I may begin to unite, my
links, but at present I have only been making extracts--such extracts!
Her power of expression is astonishing. I discover so much that I fancy
I have felt myself, and never been able to put into words. I see in the
vast piles of MS. the means of building a very perfect memorial to her.”
* * * * *
“_Ampthill, Christmas Day, 1877._--I came here yesterday from
Holmhurst.... It was a great pleasure to find charming old Sir Francis
Doyle here with his son and daughter. Sir Francis talks incessantly and
most agreeably, and makes the mornings as interesting as the evenings.
‘C’étaient des matinées excellentes, pour lesquelles je me sentirais
encore du gout,’ as Talleyrand used to say. Sir Francis has just been
saying, apropos of how little one knows the true characters of those one
meets:--
“‘H. told me a curious thing one day. He went to dine with a cabinet
minister (I suppress the name), and there came down a lady, the
governess, cherished by the family--“a perfect treasure.” He recognised
her at once as a lady he had known very well, very intimately indeed.
She sank after that, sank into the lowest depth of that class of life.
“I used to help her with money,” he said, “as long as I could, but at
last she sank too low even for that, quite out of my sphere of
possibilities altogether, and here I found her reinstated. As I was
questioning what I ought to do, she passed near me and said only, ‘I
have sown my wild oats.’ I never told of her: I had nothing to do with
placing her where she was.”’
“With the same intention Sir Francis told a curious story of ‘Two
Shoes,’ a boy at Eton:--
“‘Two Shoes took a box to a boy-friend of his who was in another house
and said, “A number of curious things are happening in my house, and
this box contains things of value to me; I wish you would let it stay
here for a little.” The boy said, “Yes, you may leave your box, provided
only that it contains no money: I will not be responsible for anything
with money in it.” Two Shoes said there was no money in the box, and it
was left. Afterwards, when the box was moved, a great rattle as of
sovereigns was heard inside, and as the tutor of the house whence it had
been taken declared himself robbed at the same time, the boy in whose
charge the box was left thought it necessary to declare what had
happened. The sixty sovereigns lost by the tutor were found in the box.
Two Shoes was expelled.... H. went down into ---- shire lately, and there
he found Two Shoes confidential solicitor to half the county.’
“Apropos of the secret crimes of so-called ‘religious people,’ Sir
Francis said--
“‘I am quite sure that Abigail murdered her husband; that one is quite
left to understand. He could not have died of the shock of having
escaped David. Oh, no; she was a religious woman, so she waited till six
o’clock on the Sabbath evening, and then she poisoned him.’
“His stories of old times and people are endless. He said--
“‘I always keep a reminiscence of poor Lady Davy to laugh at. It was one
of those great days at Stafford House, one of their very great gala
days, and Lady Davy was in the hall in the greatest anxiety about her
carriage; and she, little woman, walked up to one of those very
magnificent flunkeys, six feet high at least and in resplendent livery,
and besought him to look after her carriage. I never saw any one _so_
civil as that man was. “I have called your Ladyship’s carriage three
times,” he said, “and it has not answered, but if your Ladyship wishes,
I will try again.”
“‘I saw the second act of that little drama. I went through the door,
beyond the awning, just when the footman was stalking haughtily and
carelessly among the link-boys and saying disdainfully, “Just give old
Davy another call.”’
“At dinner the conversation turned on Lord and Lady Lytton. She was a
Miss Doyle, a distant cousin of Sir Francis, and shortened his father’s
life by her vagaries and furies. After his father’s death Sir Francis
left her alone for many years; then it was represented to him that she
had no other relations, and that it was his duty to look after her
interests, and he consented to see her, and, at her request, to ask Sir
E. Bulwer to give her another hundred a year. This Sir Edward said he
was most willing to do, but that she must first give a written
retractation of some of the horrible accusations she had brought against
him. When Lady Bulwer heard that this retractation was demanded of her,
she turned upon Sir Francis with the utmost fury, and abused him with
every vile epithet she could think of. She afterwards wrote to him, and
directed to ‘Sir Francis Hastings Doyle, Receiver of her Majesty’s
Customs (however infamous), Thames Street, London.’ ‘But,’ said Sir
Francis, ‘I also had my day. I was asked as to her character. I
answered, “From _your_ point of view I believe her character to be quite
immaculate, for I consider her to be so perfectly filled with envy,
hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness, as to have no possible room
left for the exercise of any tenderer passion.”’ Lady Bulwer appeared on
the hustings against her husband. His son told Sir Edward, ‘Do you know
my Lady is here?’--‘What, Henry’s wife!’--‘No, _yours_.’ She said, ‘He
ought to have gone to the colonies long ago, and at the Queen’s
expense.’”
* * * * *
“_Ampthill, Dec. 26._--This morning Sir Francis was attracted by the
portrait of old Lady Carlisle hanging by the drawing-room door, and he
said, ‘That portrait always reminds me of something Lady Carlisle said
once. I was speaking to her of the death of one of her sisters, and she
said, “We were all very sorry, very sorry indeed; but she (pointing to
another sister), she _cared_.”’
“For my benefit Sir Francis narrated the story of the thirty-nine
Yaconines.
“In Japan, there was one Daimio who was in rivalry with another, and who
was superseded by him, and of course his honour could not stand that, so
he committed ‘the happy despatch.’ His followers ought to have avenged
him, it was Japanese etiquette that they should, but they did not; they,
lamented and howled, but they did nothing, and the chief of them in his
agony lay down in the gutter and remained there fasting for several
days. Then one day the head-follower of the successful Daimio, passing
by, saw him in the gutter, and spurned him with his foot and said, ‘You
beast, you coward, you brute! do you intend to lie there and let your
master go unavenged?’ but the man still lay crouched and grovelling and
took no notice.
“But a time came when the followers of the successful Daimio were
dispersed, and then the thirty-eight servants of the dead man arose and
went to him, and kneeling around him said with courtesy, ‘We do not wish
to cut your throat, do not compel us; take the happy despatch;’ but the
Daimio would not take their advice, he could not bring his mind to it;
so then the Yakonines performed their duty, and they cut his throat.
When they had done that, the thirty-eight Yakonines summoned all the
people together to attend them, for they were about to perform their
final duty, their ‘happy despatch’ to the manes of their master, and the
thirty-eight performed it, amid the acclamations of the people over
their fidelity even to death. But when, afterwards, men came to count
the corpses, behold there were thirty-nine: the enemy who had spurned
the Yakonine as he lay in the gutter repented when he saw that he had
accused him falsely, and had silently joined the procession of death:
there were thirty-nine Yakonines who died.”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 27._--Last night a French play was acted, ‘Madame Choufleuri
reçoit chez elle.’ Mr. Lowther, who was merely an old French gentleman
spectator, created for himself a part which was a whole dumb dramatic
performance in itself.
“I had a charming drive to-day with Lady Ashburton to Woburn, the rest
having preceded us. There is a long winding double avenue in the park.
The stables are so enormous that we mistook them for the house, and were
surprised when we turned the other way. However, the door of the real
house was most dilapidated and unducal. Long passages, surrounding an
open court, and filled with portraits, led to a large sitting-room,
where we found most of our own party and the guests of the house. The
Duchess was kind and cordial. We all went to luncheon in the Canaletti
room, enlivened by endless views of Venice, which, regardless of their
artistic merits, are most pleasing to the eye through their delicate
green-grey tints. Afterwards we went through the rooms, full of
portraits, one of Lucy Harington in a ruff, very fine. In one corner is
a set of interesting Tudor portraits, including a large one of Jane
Seymour; hideous I thought, though Froude, when he saw it, said he did
not wonder Henry VIII. cut Anne Boleyn’s head off to marry so bewitching
a creature. A great portrait of the famous Lord Essex in a white dress
has a mean feeble face and stubby red beard. The Duke[273] offered to
take us to the church. Lady Ashburton, Lady Howard of Glossop, and I
drove there with him. We passed ‘the Abbot’s Oak,’ where the last abbot
was hung. Froude says he went up to London and was swallowed up by his
fate. The Duke asked what this meant. It did mean that he was hung,
drawn, and quartered, ‘but Froude was very angry at the question;
historians never like being asked for details.’ The banks of a stone
quarry are planted with cedars and evergreens, and the drive to the
church is very pretty. The church was built by Clutton, who was turned
loose into a field and told to produce what he could. He _did_ produce a
very poor mongrel building, neither gothic nor romanesque. The Duke
said, ‘Would you like to see what is going to be done with me when I am
dead?’ and he showed us the hole in the floor where he was to be let
through ‘to the sound of solemn music,’ and then took us down into the
vaults beneath to see the trestles on which his coffin was to repose! I
long tried in vain to get Lady Ashburton to leave the endless letters,
some of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, who stayed with her
grand-daughter and complained that the house was so dreadfully out of
repair that the rain came into her bedroom, but another year that was to
be remedied. We were deep in a ‘Boethius de Consolatione,’ printed in
Tavistock Abbey, when the Duchess came in. ‘Would you like to see my
golden image?’ So we went by a long open cloister, with wooden pillars
rose-entwined, to see where the statue of the Duchess stands on a hill,
all gilt like the figure of the Prince Consort, so that one really could
_see_ nothing except that it was a standing figure, and I could _say_
nothing except that it was very well placed. Then we were taken through
the sculpture-gallery, in which the great feature is a glorious
sarcophagus, with a relief of the body of Hector being weighed against
gold, Priam and Hecuba standing by with tears upon their cheeks.”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 28._--The hours at Ampthill were especially pleasant from five to
seven, when one was allowed to sit with Lady Wensleydale, who, in the
beautiful halo of her evergreen old age, is all that is most winning and
delightful--with full memory of her ‘wealthy past’ and gratitude for
present peace, hemmed in by loving care of children and grandchildren.”
* * * * *
“_Ascot Wood, Dec. 29._--Sir John Lefevre has been talking of an old
acquaintance of his named Balm, who was very extravagant. Some one said
to him once, ‘_Balm, Balm_, if you are not _sage_, you’ll spend a _mint_
in time (_thyme_), and then you’ll _rue_.’
“He described a dinner-party at which he was present with ten others,
including Sydney Smith, who made them all laugh so much that they were
obliged to _stand up_. It was the only time he ever saw it--‘Laughter
holding both its sides.’”
* * * * *
“_Jan. 6, 1878._--At Ascot Station I met Mark Napier, who resigned his
first-class ticket and the companionship of Plato’s ‘Republic,’ his
usual reading in the train, to travel with me. His conversation is
always full of thought and interest. I went to Cobham in the evening,
and liked my visit, as I always do, meeting many people, including Mrs.
Russell Barrington, who dresses like a figure by Burne Jones, and is
even ambitious of becoming a Botticelli.”
* * * * *
“_Crewe Hall, Jan. 6._--The number of hats in the hall told me on
arriving here that there was a large party in the house, but I find no
remarkable elements except Lord Houghton and Mr. Nugee, a clergyman
still in appearance, but one who has gone out of the Church at the High
end, and has a sort of monastery for training ecclesiastics somewhere in
London. He preached to-day in the chapel, standing on the steps of the
altar, a discourse like that of a French preacher, most dramatic, most
powerful, most convincing--yet, oh! how difficult it is to carry away
anything even from the sermons one likes best.
“Lord Crewe welcomed me very cordially, and made himself so pleasant
that I thought his eccentricities had been exaggerated, till suddenly,
at dinner, he began a long half-whispered conversation with himself,
talking, answering, _acting_, and nothing afterwards seemed able to
rouse him back to ordinary life. During the fire which destroyed the
interior of Crewe some years ago, Lord Crewe bore all with perfect
equanimity, and said not a word till the fire-engines came and were at
work. Then he turned to his sister, Lady Houghton, who was present, and
said, ‘I think I had better send for my goloshes.’[274]
“It is a very fine house, with noble alabaster chimney-pieces inlaid
with precious marbles, but since the fire all has been too much overlaid
with decoration, and in many respects indifferent decoration. The Sir
Joshuas are glorious and numerous.
“This afternoon Lord Houghton told an interesting story which he heard
from Mrs. Robert Gladstone:--
“‘She went to stay in Scotland with the Maxwells of Glenlee. Arriving
early in the afternoon, she went to her room to rest. It was a lovely
day. Mrs. Maxwell lay upon the sofa at the foot of her bed. Soon it
seemed to her as if the part of the room opposite to her was filled with
mist. She thought it came from the fireplace, but there was no fire and
no smoke. She looked to see if it came from the window; all without was
bright clear sunshine. She felt herself _frisonner_. Gradually the mist
seemed to assume form, till it became a grey figure watching the clock.
She could not take her eyes from it, and she was so terrified that she
could not scream. At length, with terror and cold, her senses seemed
going. She became unconscious. When she came to herself the figure was
gone. Her husband came in soon after, and she told him. He took her down
to five-o’clock tea. Then some one said, “You are in the haunted room,”
and she told what had happened. They changed her room, but the next
morning she went away.
“Soon afterwards Mrs. Stamford Raffles went to stay at Glenlee. It was
then winter. She awoke in the night, and by the bright firelight burning
in her room saw the same effect of mist, collecting gradually and
forming a leaning figure looking at the clock. The same intense cold was
experienced, followed by the same unconsciousness, after a vain
endeavour to awaken her husband, for her limbs seemed paralysed.
“‘The Maxwells soon afterwards became so annoyed that they gave up
Glenlee.’
“Lord Houghton also told the story of General Upton:--
“‘Whilst at Lisbon he saw a military friend of his in England pass
across the end of the room. On reaching England he went to see his
friend’s family, found them in deep mourning, and learnt that his
friend was dead. “Oh, yes,” he said, “I know that; he died on such a
day, for I saw him.” Upon this the family became greatly agitated, and
vehemently denied that he had died till several days later. “_Nothing_
will convince me,” said General Upton, “but that he died on that
particular day.” Upon this the widow flung herself on her knees before
him and implored him for God’s sake not to bring utter ruin upon her by
saying this to any one else. “Very well,” he said; “I do not want to
injure you, but the best way will be to tell me the whole truth.” Then
she confessed. It was one of those cases in which the time for a pension
was not quite due for a few days, and she concealed the death till those
days were past.’
“Lady Egerton, who is here, told of young De Ritchie, whose wife died in
Fiji. He obtained leave of absence immediately, and wishing to break the
shock of his wife’s sudden death to her friends, merely telegraphed that
they were coming home at once, for Ranee was very ill. On the day they
were expected to arrive, the grandparents said to the little boy left in
their charge that they were going to meet his papa and mama, who were
coming home. The child looked very grave and said, ‘Papa, yes; Mama, no:
poor Mama sleep in Fiji;’ and nothing would make it say any more. Dr. De
Ritchie (the grandfather) was so impressed with this, that he was hardly
surprised when, on going to Southampton, he met his son alone.
“Sir Watkin Wynne described a curious event on his property. A poor
woman earnestly implored that a certain tree near her cottage might be
cut down, for she had dreamt that her husband would be killed by it. She
besought it so earnestly that the tree was ordered to be cut down. In
falling, the rope attached to the tree caught the poor man, and crushed
him against the wall, and he was killed.”
* * * * *
“_London, Jan. 22._--A very pleasant dinner at Lady Ashburton’s. Miss
Hosmer[275] was there, very full of her strange discovery of being able
to turn limestone into marble, and then to colour it to any tint she
wishes--a discovery perhaps not unknown to the ancient Romans.”
* * * * *
“_Jan. 26._--Dined with old Lady Lyndhurst,[276] who has all the clever
vivacity acquired by her early life in France. Speaking of bullying at
public schools, she said, ‘I discovered that my Lord had been a bully
when he was a boy, and I can assure you I thumped him well at eighty for
what he had done at fourteen.’”
* * * * *
“_Battle Abbey, March 10, 1878._--I came here yesterday, finding Lady
Marian Alford, and to-day Lord Houghton came. Speaking of Mrs. L. E----
‘s poverty, the Duchess said, ‘It is so sad; really often she has
actually not bread to eat.’--‘Yes,’ said Lord Houghton, ‘but then she
has so many kind friends who give her _cake_.’
“Lady Marian described the railway adventure of a friend of hers. Two
ladies got into a carriage at King’s Cross, one old and the other young.
Into the same carriage got a gentleman and sat down between them. As
soon as the train started, he looked round at one and then at the other.
Then he took from his pocket six razors and laid them upon the seat
opposite to him. Then he looked round at each of them again. Then he
took from his pocket an orange and laid it down in front of the razors.
Then he began to cut up the orange, using one razor for each pig. He
looked round at each of his victims again. Then he walked across the
carriage and sat down opposite the old lady, who instantly wound her boa
three times round her throat. He said, ‘Do you like orange?’ She said,
‘Very much indeed,’ and he took up a pig on the point of one of the
razors and popped it into her mouth. He then said, ‘Will you have
another?’ She said, ‘Yes, presently, but wait a few minutes: I like to
have time to _savourer_ my orange.’--‘How many minutes?’ he demanded.
She answered, ‘Five.’--‘Very well,’ he said, and he took out his watch
and counted the minutes, and then he took up another pig on the end of
another razor and popped it into her mouth. Each time she prolonged the
minutes, and the gallant old lady actually kept the madman at bay till
an hour had elapsed and the train stopped at Peterborough, and she and
the other lady were able to escape.
“Lord Houghton’s vanity is amusingly natural. Something was said of one
of Theodore Hook’s criticisms. ‘You know even _I_ never said anything as
good as that,’ said Lord Houghton, and quite seriously. Yet how truly
kind Lord Houghton is, and how amusing, and he does most truly, as
Johnson said of Garth, ‘communicate himself through a very wide set of
acquaintance.’ In his _histoires de société_ he is unrivalled.”
* * * * *
“_March 12._--Yesterday Lord Houghton and I sat very long after
breakfast with the Duke, who talked of his diplomatic life. He was
appointed from St. Petersburg to Paris, and the revolution which
enthroned Louis Philippe occurring just then, he hurried his journey.
When he reached Frankfort, Chad, who was minister there, assured him
that he would not be allowed to enter France, but, provided with a
courier passport, he pushed on, and crossed the frontier without
difficulty. At Paris the barricades were still up. The town was in the
hands of the Orleanists (they bore the name then). On the evening of his
arrival the Duke was introduced to Lafayette, ‘quite a grand seigneur in
manner.’ Lafayette asked him if he did not know Lord and Lady Holland,
and on his answering in the affirmative, begged that he would write to
assure Lord Holland that he meant to save the lives of the late
ministers, because he was accused of intending to have them executed.
“The Duke talked much of the wonderful gallantry of the Emperor
Nicholas--how when the rebel troops were drawn out opposite his own in
the square at St. Petersburg, he stalked out fearless between them,
though the Governor of St. Petersburg was shot dead at his feet. The
rebel troops were only waiting to fire till they saw a rocket, the
signal from Prince Troubetskoi, whose courage failed him at the last.
Troubetskoi was sent to Siberia, whither his wife insisted upon
following. He was sentenced for life, so was legally dead, and she
might, had she preferred it, have married any one else.
“We drove to Normanhurst in the afternoon. Mrs. Brassey showed her
Japanese and Pacific curiosities; the house is full of them, like a
bazaar. We returned through a very lovely bit of Ashburnham.”
* * * * *
“_April 3._--I came to London on the 19th, and dined that day with Lady
Margaret Beaumont, hearing there of the dear kind old Lord Ravensworth
being found dead that day on the floor of the Windsor rooms at
Ravensworth, when his daughter Nellie sent for him because he did not
come in to luncheon.”
* * * * *
“On Monday, March 25, as I was breakfasting at the Athenæum, I glanced
into the paper, and the first thing which met my eyes was the news of
the total loss of the _Eurydice_, with dear good Marcus Hare and more
than three hundred men. It was a terrible shock, and seemed to carry
away a whole mass of one’s life in recollections from childhood.... It
is many days ago now, and the dreadful fact has seemed ever since to be
hammering itself into one’s brain with ceaselessly increasing horror.
How small now seem the failings in Marcus’s unselfish and loving
character, how great the many virtues. It is difficult also to realise
that there is now scarcely any one left who really cares for the old
traditions of the Hare family, the old portraits, the old memorials,
which were always so much to him, and which I hoped, through him, would
be handed down to another generation.”
* * * * *
“_April 14._--On the day on which the _Eurydice_ was lost, Sir J. Cowell
and Sir John McNeill were standing together in a window of Windsor
Castle which overlooks a wide extent of country. Suddenly Sir J. McNeill
seemed to be dreaming and speaking aloud. ‘What a terrible storm,’ he
said. ‘Oh, do you see that ship? It will be lost: oh, how horrible! Good
God, it’s gone!’ It was at that moment that the _Eurydice_ went
down.[277]
“I have little to tell of London beyond the ordinary experiences, except
perhaps having been more than ever shocked by the slanderous malignity
of so-called ‘religious people,’ as I have been charmed by the
chivalrous disinterestedness of many who do not aspire to that
denomination. One often finds Archbishop Whately’s saying too true--‘The
God of Calvinists is the devil, with God written on their foreheads.’ Of
the many dinner-parties I have attended, I cannot recollect anything
except that some one--I cannot remember who--spoke of D’Israeli as ‘that
old Jew gentleman who is sitting on the top of chaos.’
“Last Sunday I went to luncheon at Mrs. Cavendish Bentinck’s. I arrived
at two, having been requested to be punctual. No hostess was there, and
the many guests sat round the room like patients in a dentist’s
anteroom, or, as a young Italian present said, when I made his
acquaintance--‘like lumps of ice.’ Lady Waterford came in and Mr.
Bentinck, and we went in to luncheon. There was a table for about
forty, who sat where they liked. Mrs. Bentinck came in when all were
seated, greeting nobody in particular. The lady next me, a perfect
stranger, suddenly said, ‘I want you to tell me what I must do to get
good. I do not feel good at all, and I want to be better: what must I
do?’
“‘That depends on your peculiar form of badness,’ I replied.
“‘Well, I live where I have a church on each side of me, and a church on
the top of the hill under which my house is situated. But they do me no
good. Now I wonder if that is owing to the inefficiency of the churches,
or to the depravity of my own heart?’
“‘Probably half to one and half to the other,’ I said.
“I asked afterwards who the lady was, but neither her hostess nor any
one else had an idea.
* * * * *
“Yesterday I dined with the Pole-Carews. Mrs. Carew told me that Dr.
Benson, Bishop of Truro,[278] told her:--
“‘At my table were two young men, one of them a Mr. Akroyd. He began to
talk of a place he knew in one of the Midland counties, and how a
particular adventure always befell him at a certain gate there.
“‘Yes,’ said the other young man, ‘your horse always shies and turns
down a particular lane.’
“‘Yes,’ exclaimed Mr. Akroyd, ‘but how do you know anything about it?’
“‘Oh, because I know the place very well, and the same thing always
happens to me.’
“‘And then I come to a gateway,’ said Mr. Akroyd.
“‘Yes, exactly so,” said the other young man.
“‘And then on one occasion I drove through it and came to a house.’
“‘Ah! well, _there_ I do not follow you,’ said the other young man.
“‘It was very long ago,’ continued Mr. Akroyd, ‘and I was a boy with my
father. When we drove down that lane it was very late, quite dark, and
we lost our way. When we reached the gateway, we saw within a great
house standing on one side of a courtyard, brilliantly lighted up. There
was evidently a banquet inside, and through the large windows we saw
figures moving to and fro, but all were in mediaeval dress: we thought
it was a masquerade.
“‘We drove up to the house to inquire our way, and the owner came out to
speak to us. He was in a mediaeval dress. He said he was entertaining
his friends, and he entreated us, as chance had brought us there that
night, to come in and partake of his hospitality. We pleaded that we
were obliged to go on, and that to stay was impossible. He was
excessively civil, and said that if we must really go on, we must allow
him to send a footman to guide us back into the right road. My father
gave the footman half-a-crown. When we had gone some distance I said,
“Father, did you see what happened to that half-crown?”--“Yes, my boy, I
_did_,” said my father. It had fallen _through_ the footman’s hand on to
the snow.’
“‘The gateway really exists in the lane. There is no house, but there
was one once, inhabited by very wicked people who were guilty of
horrible blasphemies--a brother and sister, who danced upon the altar in
the chapel, &c.’”
* * * * *
“_Seaton, Devon, May 7._--I came here on Friday to visit Lady Ashburton,
but found that erratic hostess gone off to Torquay, so had two days here
alone with Mrs. Drummond’s two pleasant, lively boys. This is an
enchanting little paradise, looking down over the sea from a cliff.
Delightful walks ramble along the edge through miniature groves of
tamarisk and ilex. On one side rises the bluff chalk promontory and high
down of Bere Head; on the other, one looks across a bay to the cliffs
near Lyme Regis, and Portland is seen in the blue haze.”
* * * * *
“_May 7._--Drove with Lady Ashburton and her daughter to Shute, a
beautiful old house of the Poles, now a farmhouse, with a gateway like a
college gate at the entrance of the park. We sat to draw in the
courtyard, full of colour and beauty, and afterwards had a delicious tea
in the farmhouse kitchen. In returning, we went to an old ruined house
which was the original homestead of the great Courtenay family.”
* * * * *
“_May 8._--We were off at 7 A.M. into Somersetshire by train. We got out
at Yeovil, in a lovely country of orchards in full bloom, and drove
first to Brympton, the lovely old house of the Ponsonby Fanes. They
inherited it from Lady Georgiana Fane, who is represented in the church,
having had her own head added to the body of an ancestress who was
headless. The place is perfectly delightful--such a broad staircase
winding endlessly away, and quaint but fresh and airy rooms opening upon
a terrace with balustrades and a staircase, and close by the most
picturesque of churches.
“We went on to Montacute, Mrs. Phelips’s--a most grand old house of
yellow-grey stone, partly of Edward VI.’s time.”
XX
ROYAL DUTIES AND INTERESTS
“Montre ce qui est en toi! C’est le moment, c’est l’heure, on
retombe dans le néant! Tu as la parole! à ton tour! fournis la
mesure, dis ton mot! revèle ta nullité, ou ta capacité. Sors de
l’ombre! Il ne s’agit plus de promettre, il faut tenir. Le temps
d’apprentissage est terminé!”--HENRI FREDERIC AMIEL.
“Stop thine ears to whatsoever men think of thee; accept it for
nothing, but regard only the judgment of God.”--PICO DELLA
MIRANDOLA.
“Let me never hear the word ‘trouble.’ Only tell me how the thing
is to be done, to be done rightly, and I will do it if I
can.”--QUEEN VICTORIA OF ENGLAND.[279]
“Look at the duty nearest hand, and what’s more, _do_ it.”--JANE
WELSH CARLYLE.
Being at Lowther Lodge on the 21st of May, I was sent for by the Crown
Princess of Germany, who was most kind and gracious. “I have read all
your books. I always buy them as soon as ever they come out, and I have
so much wished to see you.” She told me that she had been to
Hurstmonceaux to visit my mother’s grave, and that she had one of her
strong presentiments as to the place coming back into our family,
adding, “And I do so hope it will.” She talked of the dear Madame de
Bunsen with the greatest affection, and then of the many branches of the
Bunsen family. When my little audience of about ten minutes was over,
she said with great sweetness, “I am afraid I am keeping you much too
long from all your other friends.” She pressed me to come to stay with
her at Potsdam. I said that I was going to Berlin to visit the Bunsens.
She said, “Oh, but you must come to _me_; I can show quite as many
things, and I can certainly show you a great many more people than the
Bunsens can.” I said that I feared my visit to Berlin would be during
her approaching absence in Switzerland. She said, “Well, you can go to
the Bunsens in the summer when I am away, and then in the winter you can
come again to see me: Berlin is not so very far off.”
As spring advanced my Life of the Baroness Bunsen was so far completed
as to be ready for the inspection of her children. I therefore decided
to take it to them in Germany. Feeling how impossible it would be to
meet all the various wishes and tastes of such a hydra-headed family, I
determined only to feel bound by the wishes of the two unmarried
daughters, Frances and Emilia, and any one of their brothers whom they
might choose. They selected George.
I turned first towards the Rhineland to visit the Dowager Princess of
Wied, and profit by her recollections of one who had ever been one of
the most valued of her friends.
On the last day of May I reached Cologne, and found there a succession
of telegrams from the Princess of Wied desiring me to come to her. She
did not exactly say that she expected me to stay beyond the day, so I
did not like to take my luggage, and was sorry, when I found my room
ready and that I was expected for a long visit, that I had sent it on.
Early on June 1, I went to Bonn. The place struck me much from its being
so embowered in green and flowers. In a villa thus surrounded I found
the well-known authoress Fräulein von Weling,[280] whom I surprised in
bargaining for ready-plucked chickens at her door. She is a very
interesting person, received me with that cordial simplicity which is so
charming in Germans, and in a minute had put on her bonnet to go with
me to the cemetery by a quiet walk through nursery-gardens. The
churchyard itself is half hidden in pinks and roses. In the centre
stands an old chapel of extreme beauty, transferred stone for stone by
the King of Prussia from a solitary position in the fields. Buried in
flowers is the grave where the dear friends of my childhood rest side by
side. Close by is that of their brother-like friend, the noble old
Brandis, his invalid wife, and his son Johannes. Farther off, but still
near, are the graves of the old Arndt, Niebuhr and his Gretchen,
Schumann, and the widow and son of Schiller. Then we went to Bunsen’s
house, with the three-windowed room where he died, the garden with its
view over the Rhine to the Sieben Gebirge, and the pavilion where he
gave his last birthday feast.
It is a long ascent of an hour and a half from Neuwied through orchards
and meadows radiant with wild-flowers to Segenhaus, standing on the
crest of the mountain, which is literally “the House of Blessing” to all
around it. The beautiful spacious rooms, full of books and pictures,
look down over a steep declivity upon an immense view of the Rhineland.
The Princess came in immediately with a most warm welcome--a noble,
beautiful woman in a black dress, something like that one sees in
pictures of Spanish Queens-Dowager, with snow-white hair drawn back
under a long black veil. After a life of love, having lost all those who
gave its greatest charm, she still finds much happiness in making
herself the mother of her people, and the centre of good to the
Rhineland from her high forest-home. After a few minutes spent in
explaining the towns in the vast map-like view below us, she said,
“There is a lady here who is anxious to make your acquaintance, and who
was delighted to hear that you were coming: it is the Queen of Sweden.”
At that moment the doors were thrown open, and the Queen entered--of
middle age, with a beautiful expression, and possessing, with the utmost
regal dignity, the most perfect simplicity and even cordiality of
manner. She desired me to sit by the Princess upon a divan facing her.
She said that I must consider her at once as a friend; that, in a life
of great troubles, the “Memorials” had been her greatest comfort; that
she never went anywhere without them; that my mother had been for
several years the intimate friend to whom she always had recourse, and
in whose written thoughts she could always find something which
answered to her own feeling and the difficulty of the moment. She asked
after “Mary Lea,” and how old she was now. She also talked much and
naturally of my Bunsen work, and entirely entered into all the
difficulties of meeting the views of so large a family of varying
dispositions.
The Princess took me away to see her own room with her family portraits
and photographs. She spoke of her daughter, the Princess of
Roumania,[281] “in her terrible position between Russia and Turkey.”
Then she said, “I want to prepare you for something. At my daughter’s
court there is a blind Roumanian noble who has an only daughter. She is
deaf and dumb. I could not bear that they should never communicate, so I
have taken her home with me, and I am teaching her to speak by making
her hold her hand _on my throat_ as I speak very slowly; and she is
already learning, and, though it takes almost all my time, I am already
rewarded by her making sounds which are intelligible to me.” When we
went back into the other room, the young lady was there, a most strange
being, making sounds inarticulate, but intelligible to the Princess.
When she saw that the Princess was going to speak, she rushed
across the room and held her hand on her throat, which had an almost
terrible effect, like garrotting.
[Illustration: Sophie.
Queen of Sweden and Norway.]
After tea the Queen ordered her donkey, which was brought round by a
handsome Swedish chasseur. We went out into the forest. The Queen rode:
the Princess led the donkey: I walked by the side, and only the chasseur
followed. We actually went on thus for three hours, through beautiful
forest glades with exquisite sylvan views, the whole reminding me of
descriptions in Auerbach’s “Auf der Höhe.” The Queen never ceased
talking or asking. She wished to know the whole story of my mother’s
trances at Pau, of Madame de Trafford, of Prince Joseph Bonaparte--“a
sort of cousin of my husband’s.” She talked much and most touchingly of
her own life and its anxieties. “What I feel most,” she said, “is the
impossibility of ever being alone. I have much happiness, much to be
thankful for, but I feel that what one has really to look forward to
must come after death, and I do not wish to live.” With her truly “la
grandeur est un poids qui lasse,” as Massillon said. When alone with her
sister at the Segenhaus in the quiet forest-life, she finds most
happiness, and they live in a higher world, mentally as well as
physically. As we went down a steep bank the donkey stumbled, and the
Queen cried out. “Pardon me that I have seemed to be afraid,” she said;
“I have been so very ill, that my nerves are quite shattered;” and in
fact a severe illness, long supposed to be mortal, had at this time
obliged her for several years to leave Sweden in the winter, to be under
a great doctor at Heidelberg. She asked me to come to Norway to visit
her. “You must also know my husband,” she said, “and my four sons, my
four blessings of God.” She repeatedly expressed her wish that I should
be at Rome in the winter with the Prince Royal. “I am sending him out to
learn his world.” She asked most warmly after Lea, and sent a message to
her--“I know her so well.” She also desired I would give her tender
sympathy to Hilda Hare,[282] “For can I not feel for her? my second boy
is at sea.” She gave a charming description of her first tour through
Norway to her coronation. “I sat in my carriole by myself, and a peasant
sat upon the little portmanteau behind which held my things, and told me
all about the places and people.” We walked on and on through the vast
woods, with lovely glimpses of country through the open glades, and
masses of huge foxgloves where the wood was cut down, and one really
forgot the queen, the almost _tête-à-tête_ of three hours with a queen,
in the noble great-souled woman, whose high ideal of life and all that
it should be seemed for the time to ennoble all the world to one.
At the top of a high declivity the Princess unlocked a small gate.
Within, in a little circular grove of lime-trees, were two marble
crosses over the grave of the Prince of Wied and his martyr-like son
Otto.[283] “And here,” said the Princess very simply, “is my grave
also.” The plan of these green mausoleums has been adopted by the
present family, and two more are planted to be ready for two
generations.
Behind the palace of the Princess is the great white château of
Monrepos, where her son lives with his wife, who is Princess Royal of
the Netherlands. Above the lower range of windows is a line of huge
stags’ heads, trophies of the chase of some former prince in the
forest. The House of Wied are “_ehenwürdig_,” and so may always marry
royalty.
I said something about never having seen the kitchen-garden of a German
house, so when we came home the Princess took me to hers. The Queen then
walked with us. The Princess prunes and grafts her own roses, &c., but
she seems to have no perception whatever of any beauty in wild-flowers.
We went in, and I was shown to a room, whence I came down to that in
which the court ladies were assembled. It was rather formidable, but the
Countess Ebba von Rosen, dame du palais of the Queen, talked pleasantly
in English. Doors were thrown open, and the Queen and Princess entered
and we went in to supper. The Queen made me sit by her: the four court
ladies sat opposite: the Princess, on the other side of the Queen, made
tea. Thick slices of bread and butter, like those of English
school-feasts, and mutton-chops were handed round. When we went into the
other room, I wrote down some names of books as desired, and then at
9.30 took leave. The Princess most cordially invited me to return, and
the Queen again pressed me to visit her in her own country. The vision
of the Queen’s serene noble face as she took leave has ever since
remained with me, and I parted from both the royal sisters with a
stronger feeling of affectionate regard than I have ever felt towards
any one else upon so short an acquaintance.”
* * * * *
JOURNAL _and_ LETTERS _to_ MISS LEYCESTER _and_ MISS WRIGHT.
“_June 2._--I slept at Neuwied, and then crossing the Rhine in the
morning mist, passed a few hours at Boppart, where the colouring of the
river and old houses and the peculiar grey hills was most lovely.
Charles de Bunsen met me at the station of Mosbach, and took me to his
villa, much like one in Italy, with the same rich intermingled
vegetation of fruit and flowers growing around it.”
* * * * *
“_June 4._--Yesterday, a very sultry day, we went to Wiesbaden. The
heavy trees in the gardens looked dripping even more with heat than with
rain, and there is a splendid dulness in the great rooms, formerly the
gambling-house, and in the park beyond, with the many chairs under the
trees on which people sit to listen to the band; but the fountain is
pretty.
“Mrs. de Bunsen[284] was very amusing in her account of the crowded
musical festival at Baireuth. When they complained that there were not
enough carriages there, a native replied, ‘Pardon me! of carriages there
are quite enough, but of people there are too many.’
“In and out, whilst I have been here, has come the next neighbour--‘the
Herr Major.’ He is quite a character, and devotes his whole life to his
garden. From Holland he--a poor man--ordered some fruit-trees for a very
large sum, but they have been a total failure and have borne nothing.
The other day Charles, driving with him, passed these trees, and knowing
they were a sore subject, turned his head the other way and pretended
not to see them. ‘Oh, thank you, dear friend; I appreciate what you are
doing,’ said the Herr Major, enthusiastically clasping his hand. When
the boys of Mosbach stole his fruit, he put up an electric wire on the
wall which caused a bell to ring in his bedroom whenever any one got
over it. A few nights ago the bell rang violently; the Herr Major took
his stick and rushed down the garden in his night-shirt: it was only his
own bulldog, which had jumped over the wall to pay a visit to a friend
in Mosbach. Another time, when his fruit was stolen, the Herr Major
issued a placard offering a reward of a hundred marks to any one who
would deliver up the thief. The placard was read by two men sitting
outside a beer-house, who were the men who had stolen the fruit. They
immediately agreed upon their course of action; one man delivered the
other up to justice, and he was sentenced to pay ten marks or to three
days’ imprisonment; the other claimed the hundred marks, of which they
had ninety to divide and to spend in drinking for whole days together to
the health of the Herr Major.”
* * * * *
“_June 15._--I have had a charming week at Herrenalb, whither Charles
and Theodore de Bunsen accompanied me. It was a real pleasure to be
again with the dear Frances and Emilia de Bunsen, who are so like
sisters to me, and the kind pleasant Sternbergs. We were occupied almost
entirely with my book, the sisters taking it in turn to talk over all
the different parts, but there were also delightful intervals of forest
rambles, and sittings out under the old apple-trees with Emilia.
Reinhold von Ungern Sternberg came for the Sunday with Herr von Klüden,
the ‘_Bräutigam_’ of his sister Dora. The place is just what my sweetest
mother would most have enjoyed for a summer residence--no grand scenery,
but very high forest-clad hills all round the rich green meadows, with
the crystal Alb tossing through them. The village of quaint black and
white houses clusters round the old-fashioned inn and the water-cure
establishment in the buildings of the suppressed monastery, of which a
beautiful ruin of red sandstone--‘The Paradise’--still stands in the
churchyard. In all directions are well-kept walks and drives, and
comfortable seats at every picturesque point. The people are most
friendly and primitive, all the men taking off their hats, and all
greeting strangers with a friendly ‘Morgen’ or ‘Tag.’
“A terrible sensation has been created by the attack on the Emperor, and
still more by the first false report of his death. Men and women were
alike in tears, and the national disgrace is intensely felt. I hope, if
the Emperor is better, that I may see the Crown Princess again at
Berlin.
“I spent four hours at Heidelberg, and revisited all our old haunts, the
gardens most lovely in their luxuriance of green. Thence I had intended
to go to Weimar to visit the Grand Duchess, but at Eisenach received a
telegram from her lady-in-waiting, the Countess Kalkreuth, to put off my
visit, as they were gone off to Berlin, the Empress Augusta being sister
of the Duke of Weimar. A wet morning at the Wartburg and an afternoon at
Erfurth brought me to Jena. There my cousin Alexander Paul met me at the
station, a pleasant, fat, frank Prussian officer, with a face very like
that of the first Napoleon.[285]
“There is much charm in this old town of Jena and its simple population,
increased by the five hundred students of the university. The houses of
Schiller, Alex. v. Humboldt, &c., have inscriptions in honour of those
who lived there: the streets wind picturesquely around the old Schloss
and its gardens, and the trumpet still sounds every quarter of an hour
from the tall grey tower of the noble old church. From my own window in
Alexander’s house in the Cahl’sche Allée, I see on one side a robber
castle, on the other a wonderful old church of the time of the ‘Heilige
Bonifacius.’
“On Thursday afternoon we went to Dornberg, where three castles crown
the cliff above the village with a narrow terrace running in front of
them along the edge of the precipice. One castle is occasionally
inhabited by the Grand Duke; another, very old and picturesque, was
given by Carl August to Goethe, and having been inhabited by him in the
last years of his life, still contains much furniture of his time: the
third was the palace of--the Sleeping Beauty in the Wood.
“Yesterday we went a fatiguing excursion to Schwartzberg, the palace of
the Prince of Rudolstadt, by which we saw the finest parts of
Thuringia. A railway took us to Schwarza, where, in a ball on the top of
the church steeple, is a dart thrown by a Cossack as the Russian army
passed through Germany. Thence we took an omnibus to the little
Chrysopraz Hotel at Blankenberg, where, after beer and brown bread and
butter under the trees, we walked up the Schwarzthal to Oppelei, where a
Swiss cottage has been built by the Prince to indemnify a forester,
whose daughter he had made his mistress! Hence, by a steep path, we
ascended the Treppstein, whence there is a lovely view over the hollow
in the forest-clad mountains, in the midst of which the great castle of
the Prince of Rudolstadt rises above the little town. The Prince is not
unpopular, though his life has an Eastern license. On the day when he
succeeded to his tiny sovereignty he happened to be at Berlin. ‘Bonjour,
souverain,’ said the Emperor when he met him, and, when he took off his
hat--‘Pray put on your crown.’
“We dined at the charming little inn, where thousands of wild stags
often assemble under the windows in the evenings, when the place is
comparatively empty, but take flight into the woods before the summer
guests. In returning, we were much amused with the old ‘Herr Apotheke’
of Rudolstadt, who had come out with a tin case to gather simples, and
who insisted upon stopping to drink a tankard of beer wherever one was
to be had.
“To-day we have been in a different direction, by rail to Roda, a
charming little Thuringian town, and thence by carriage to the Fröhliche
Wiederkunft, the old moated castle built by Friedrich Johann, father of
Friedrich der Weise, on the spot where he met his family on his return
from a long captivity abroad. The old Princess Therèse of
Saxe-Altenbourg now lives there, she and her sisters--the Queen of
Hanover, the Grand Duchess of Oldenbourg, and the Grand Duchess
Constantine of Russia--having been daughters of the old Duke Josef, by
whom the castle was restored. The news of the King of Hanover’s death
had just arrived. ‘How many tears,’ said the old man who showed the
castle, ‘did the old Duke my master shed in that chair over the King’s
misfortunes.’ The story of the founder is most quaintly told in
paintings on panels round one of the rooms, and there are pictures and
memorials of Luther and of Friedrich Johann and his wife Sibylla over
and over again.”
* * * * *
“_June 23._--A vision of many great towns is all that I carry away from
the varied journey which has brought me to Hildesheim--the old cities of
Wittenberg and Eisleben, with their glorious works of Lucas Cranach and
varied memorials of Luther and Melancthon: Magdeburg, great and noisy,
with its dull, restored cathedral: Halberstadt, also restored, but
glorious in spite of its injuries, and with intensely picturesque
streets of old houses: the romantic beauty of imperial Goslar: stately
Quedlinburg, where German princesses constantly reigned as abbesses:
beautiful Thale, at the entrance of the Harz, with its exquisite
combination of wood and rock and water: Brunswick and its many
market-places, full of old houses: dull Hanover, with the great deserted
gardens of Herrenhausen.
“Aunt Marcia (Frau Paul von Benningsen[286]) and my cousins Jane and
Clementine met me here at the station.”
* * * * *
“_Berlin, June 27._--My visit at Hildesheim had much of quiet interest.
The town is wonderfully picturesque, and I was glad to make acquaintance
with my cousins, who are perfectly _grandes dames_ and highly educated
young ladies, though they cook and do almost all the housework
themselves. I drew in the early mornings, and went to dinner each day
with them at 12.30.
“The Hildesheim churches are magnificent, but spoilt, ruined, by
so-called restoration--the old pavements torn up, the old ornaments
removed and replaced by tawdry and vulgar imitation of Munich
wall-painting.
“On Monday George de Bunsen met me with his carriage at the Berlin
station, and brought me through the Thier-Garten, like a bit of wild
forest, to the charming airy Villa Bunsen, standing in its own garden on
the extreme outskirts of the town. Here I have a most luxurious room,
filled with royal portraits, and every possible luxury. We dined _al
fresco_ on the broad terrace amid the flowers. On the next evening there
was a party of about fifty people--tea, and the garden and terrace
lighted up, a very pretty effect; the ladies in bright dresses, the men
with uniforms and orders, moving and sitting amongst the shrubs and
flowers, amid which endless little supper-tables were laid at a late
hour. Many were the historic names of those to whom I was
introduced--Falk of the Falk laws, Mommsen the historian, Austin the
poet, Mohl, and many ministers and generals. I found also Arthur
Balfour, and many waifs and strays of old acquaintance. The ‘Congress’
is going on, but excites little or no general interest, and is scarcely
mentioned here, German affairs being far too important.
“Berlin interests me extremely, though without preparation it can be of
small interest. It is almost entirely modern. In the sixteenth century
it must have been a tiny electoral town, the houses encircling the old
Schloss by the Spree in the time of the Great Elector, whose statue, a
grand though rococo work, stands close by on the bridge. Friedrich I.,
who got a kingdom by bribery, added the enormous castle, which,
ludicrous as it then was in a kingdom of five millions, is now
satisfactory in a kingdom of twenty millions. Close by, Frederick the
Great built two domes, merely as features in the distant view of an
otherwise featureless city, and to these his son added buildings which
turned them into churches. Under Friedrich Wilhelm III. and IV. the
great classical revival took place and endless fine buildings arose. The
library is one of the few buildings which date from Frederick the Great.
The architects were an endless time disputing over the designs, and at
last he said, ‘Damn you all, don’t waste any more time; this commode
opposite me is of a very good design, copy that,’ and accordingly the
design of the commode was copied.
“The Museum was begun when the country was poor and had no money to
spend. After the French war, when the country became rich, the design
expanded and became magnificent. Of the sculptures, four works deserve
especial attention--the ‘Adorante,’ the exquisite bronze boy who, in the
early morning, stretches out his arms in adoration: the noble vivid bust
of Julius Caesar in basalt, with agate eyes, so speaking though
voiceless, so never to be forgotten, of which Rauch had three copies in
different parts of his house that it might never be long absent from his
mind: the bust of Sappho, with banded hair, recognised as the poetess
from a Hermes; and the Augustus statue, more noble than that of Livia’s
villa, because taken in earlier youth, when his one feeling was that he
was born to command, and when no furrow of disappointment or care was
yet traced on his brow.
“The collection of casts is most interesting, as showing the important
statues of each subject, Venus, Minerva, Mercury, &c., side by side for
instruction or contrast.
“The pictures are a grand collection, spoilt by over-cleaning.
Especially worthy of remembrance are an Adoring Madonna by Filippino
Lippi, with God the Father above in glory; two noble portraits by
Giorgione; one by Lorenzo Lotto (possibly of Sansovino); some
marvellously graphic pictures, eloquently expressed in well-considered
touches, by Franz Hals; and a noble Holbein of ‘Kaufmann Georg Gigge aus
Basel.’
“Last night we went late to the Zoological Garden. The most interesting
thing was a solemn congregation of ibises listening in a row, each bird
with one foot in the air, and its head attentively on one side, to an
ibis preacher, who never ceased a continuous discourse to them, standing
on a stone. The elephant is said to be five hundred years old; what a
solemn silent witness! Apropos of the future of beasts, George de Bunsen
talked much of the absence of all allusion to _any_ future in the Old
Testament--that it grew up, partly in the Talmud, partly in the
Apocryphal writers, in what Luther beautifully calls ‘the great empty
leaf between the Old and New Testaments.’
“Montbijou, the curious little one-storied palace of Sophia Charlotte,
wife of Friedrich I., is now a museum for relics of the House of
Brandenbourg. The chairs, sledges, and table of Friedrich I. are very
curious; the wheel-chairs of his unhappy second wife: the wax figures of
his grand-daughters as babies; and their portraits as grown
women--queens and duchesses. Here also are three masks from the dead
face of the lovely Queen Louisa, that taken immediately after death most
exquisitely beautiful.”
* * * * *
“_June 30._--The day after I last wrote, I went with the Bunsens and Mr.
Waddington, the French Minister[287] (come for the Congress of Berlin)
to Charlottenbourg. The palace there is charming--the large gardens, the
groves of orange-trees in tubs, the great lawns sweeping away into
woods, and above all the mausoleum in one of the thick groves, with the
tombs of Queen Louisa and her husband. Hither the old Emperor and all
the royal family come still once a year, on the anniversary of her
death, to look upon the beautiful form of his young mother, snatched
away in the very zenith of beauty and popularity, not living to see the
re-establishment of the kingdom in whose cause she sacrificed her life.
Exquisitely, perfectly beautiful is the intense repose of her lovely
countenance, in what I must ever feel to be the most beautiful and
impressive statue in the world. The statue of the King is very fine too,
but in her angelic presence he is forgotten. And such was the feeling
for _her_, that though he did not marry again for many years after he
had lost her in his youth, his people at first would not believe it, and
then never forgave it. Mr. Waddington felt nothing in the presence of
this sublime statue. ‘Yes, it is very clever, it is a very clever figure
indeed,’ he said. Never was any remark more completely out of tune,
making it difficult for one to believe in the great power of the man.
“The next day I went to Potsdam--quite a place by itself in the world,
with its endless great ultra-German palaces and stiff gardens, arid and
dusty, though surrounded by many waters. Without Carlyle’s ‘Frederick
the Great,’ they would be mere dead walls enclosing a number of costly
objects; illuminated by the book, each room, each garden walk, thrills
with human interest. In the Residenz Schloss are the rooms in which
Frederick the Great passed his winters, with massive silver furniture
and priceless ornaments, amid which the portrait of Wilhelmina in her
childhood is a touching feature. In the Garrison Kirche is the tomb of
the great king. The terrace at Sans Souci, in this dried-up land, is
quite lovely with its fountains and orange-trees. Close behind is the
famous windmill.
“When I returned to the station, I was surprised to find the Bunsens’
servant, sent on with my evening clothes, that I might accept an
invitation (by telegram) to dine with the Crown Princess. I had only
eight minutes before the royal train came up, and it was an awful
scramble to wash and dress in a room the servant had taken at the
station. However, when the royal train set off, I was in it. The
palace-station of Wildpark was a pretty sight, red cloth laid down
everywhere, and sixteen royal carriages waiting for the immense
multitude of guests--quantities of ladies in evening dress (all black
for the King of Hanover) and veils, splendid-looking officers, an
Armenian archbishop and bishop in quaint black hoods and splendid
diamond crosses. I went in a carriage with the Greek minister, and we
whirled away through the green avenues to the great Neue Palais, with
the sun striking warm on the old red and grey front. Count Eulenborg,
Master of the Household, stood on the steps to receive us, and we passed
into an immense hall, like a huge grotto, decorated with shells and
fountains, where several of the court ladies were.
“At the end of the hall were some folding-doors closely watched by two
aides-de-camp, till the rapping of a silver stick was heard from a
distant pavement, when the doors were flung open, and Count Eulenborg
came out, preceding the Prince and Princess. She immediately went up to
Mrs. Grant (General Grant’s wife) and several other ladies, and then
began to go the round of the guests. I had more than my fair share of
her kindly presence. ‘Oh, Mr. Hare, I am so glad to see you again so
soon. How little I expected it, and how sad the causes which have
brought it about!’ And she went on to speak of how, at our last meeting,
the Duchess of Argyll had been sitting with her at tea, and how three
days after she died. ‘And for me it was only the opening act of a
tragedy,’ she said. She talked of the shock which the news of the attack
upon the Emperor was to her, coming to her in the picture-gallery at
Panshanger, and of her hurried journey to him. The Crown Prince came up
then, and led her away to dinner. Mrs. Grant was on his other side
(General Grant, a very vulgar officious man, was also there). I had been
directed to a place near the Archbishop and Bishop of Armenia, but as
they only spoke Armenian, I was glad that a very handsome, agreeable
aide-de-camp eventually took his place between me and them. The dinner
was excellent, in a huge long marble hall, with windows opening to the
ground on the terrace above the flower-garden. Occasionally I met a
bright kindly smile as the Princess looked to see how I was getting on.
There were about fifty guests, servants waiting noiselessly, not a
footfall heard.
“After dinner we all went out on the terraces, and there the Crown
Princess had the goodness to come again to me. She talked of all I had
seen at Berlin, and of Sweden and Queen Sophie. She talked also of Queen
Louisa, her husband’s grandmother, preferring her statue at Potsdam even
to that at Charlottenburg, and wished to have sent an aide-de-camp with
me to see it. She was so good as to desire that I should return to
Potsdam, and when I showed her that I could not, said, ‘Oh, but you will
now find your way again to Berlin to see me.’ The scene on the terraces
was very pretty, looking upon the bright flowers beneath in the subdued
light of a fine evening in this transparent atmosphere, the whole air
scented with lime-flowers.
“At a quarter to nine all the carriages came again to take us away:
Count Eulenborg announced them. In the ante-chamber I found the Crown
Princess again. I kissed her hand, and she shook mine with many kind
words, and sent affectionate messages to the Queen of Sweden.
“How we whirled away through the green avenues to Potsdam, where all the
people turned out to see the cavalcade! I travelled back to Berlin with
the young and very handsome Prince Friedrich of Hohenzollern (brother of
the Prince of Roumania and the Comtesse de Flandres), who was saved in
the annihilation of his regiment of guards in the second battle of Metz
by being sent back with the standard.”
* * * * *
“_July 5._--I spent Sunday at beautiful old Lübeck, full of colour and
rich architecture, rising spire upon spire above the limpid river. In
the streets and market-place are the quaintest towers, turrets,
tourelles, but all end in spires. A great fat constable went about on
Sunday morning, keeping everybody from following any avocation whatever
during church-time: when the services were over, they might do what they
liked.
“Then came the long weary journey across West Holstein--peat flats
varied by marshy swamps--and a night at Schleswig, a white, colourless
old town moored as if upon a raft in the marshes, where the Princess of
Wales’ grandmother and other royal potentates lie in exposed coffins
upon the floor of the ugly rugged old cathedral, which has a belfry like
a dovecot. Everywhere roses grew in the streets on the house-walls. The
children were hurrying along, _carrying_ the shoes they were to wear in
school.
[Illustration: THE ROSENBORG PALACE, COPENHAGEN.][288]
“Peat and marsh again for many hours, the interminable straight lines of
landscape only broken by the mounds, probably sepulchral, which are so
common here. A straight line with humps at intervals would do for a view
almost anywhere in Jutland, Fuhnen, or Seeland. After hours upon hours
of this engaging scenery, we crossed the Middelfardt at Fredericia into
Fuhnen, which we traversed by rail, and embarked again on the Great Belt
at Nyborg. Then came four hours’ more rail in Seeland, and, at 10.30
P.M., long lines of light glistening on streets of water showed that we
had reached Copenhagen. Here I met the two daughters of Sir Henry
Holland (Caroline and Gertrude), with whom I had arranged to go on to
Norway, and their niece, Miss Chenda Buxton. As they had already been
waiting for me several days, I felt obliged to give up a visit to Baron
Troll (the stepson of Madame de Bülow) and the château of Gaüno, but I
had three full days for Copenhagen, and greatly enjoyed them, the air
being that of the high mountains in Switzerland with a mixture of
sea--the most bracing place I ever was in. There is a ‘Dragon Tower,’
which is quite ideally Danish; and the old palace of the Danish kings,
Rosenborg, surrounded by a moat, is fairy-like in the beauty of its old
age, in the midst of a stately and brilliant old garden, and filled with
historical memorials, which carry you back into marvellous depths of
Danish history, in which the Christians and Friedrichs, always
alternating with each other, are most bewildering. The museums also are
full of interest, especially the Thorwaldsen collection, with casts of
all the works of the great sculptor, and many most grand originals,
especially interesting to me, as being described in Madame de Bunsen’s
letters from Rome in their first conception and progress.
[Illustration: ROESKILDE.]
“One day we went out to Roeskilde, to the great church near a fiord
where the kings are buried. Some of the older sovereigns have grand
tombs, but those of later date than the grandfather of our Charles I.
lie in their black and silver coffins unburied upon the floor of the
church, with very odd effect.”
* * * * *
“_Stockholm, Grand Hotel Rydberg, July 13._--On the evening of the 5th
we crossed to Helsingfors in Sweden by a very rough passage of ten
minutes, and had a wild evening walk in the storm, looking upon the
opposite Danish coast, and Helsingborg with the great traditional castle
of Hamlet, whose father was really a pirate-chief in Jutland.
[Illustration: CASTLE OF ELSINORE.]
“A journey of twenty-four hours brought us to Stockholm. We only
lingered on the way to see the very fine Cathedral of Lund, the Oxford
of Sweden. The scenery is not beautiful, but pretty--an exaggerated
Surrey, low hills and endless fir-woods, with tiny glistening lakes.
[Illustration: THE JUNCTION OF LAKE MALAR AND THE BALTIC, STOCKHOLM.]
“Stockholm has deeply interested us, and there is an odd feeling in
being at a place and knowing that it is for once and once only in a
lifetime. It is a modern city of ugly streets, but in a situation quite
exquisite, on a number of little rocky islets between Lake Malar and
the Baltic, surrounding, on the central islet, the huge palace, which is
very stately and imposing from its size, and the old church of
Riddarholmen, where Gustavus Adolphus and many other kings and queens
are buried under the banner-hung arches. Next to the palace, the
stateliest building is certainly this hotel, where our windows overlook
all that is most characteristic in the place, the bridge which crosses
the junction of the Baltic and Lake Malar, the mighty palace dominating
the central island, the great white seagulls poised upon the blue
waters, and the steam-gondolas, filled with people, darting to and from
one island to another. These are the chief means of communication, and
we make great use of them, the passages costing twelve öere, or one
penny.
[Illustration: RIDDARHOLMEN.]
“We shall not go to see the midnight sun at Hammerfest; it would be very
fatiguing, and indeed there can be little to see which we have not here;
for we have only about two hours’ night in Stockholm, and by 2 A.M. it
is light enough to read the smallest print. This has a very odd effect
at first, but one soon gets used to it.
[Illustration: THE CHURCH OF OLD UPSALA.]
“Alas! we have been here a week, and, except one day, it has rained
almost incessantly. One pities the poor Swedes in losing their short
summer, for there are only about three months without snow, and every
day is precious. The streets are sopping, but we have managed several
excursions in the covered gondolas to quiet damp old palaces on the
banks of lonely fiords. On our one fine day we went to Upsala by rail,
and saw the cathedral where Gustavus Wasa lies aloft on a great tomb
between his two pretty little wives, and we drove on to Old Upsala,
where Odin, Thor, and Freya reigned as human beings and were buried as
gods. In the tomb of Thor--a grassy mound--the Government still gives
the mead of ancient times to foreign visitors. It is a very delightful
place, like a dip in the Sussex downs, the quaint church, of immemorial
antiquity, probably once a pagan temple, nestling behind the mounds of
the heroes.
“Yesterday we heard a hundred Upsala students, the best singers in the
world, sing the best national music in the Caterina Church. The King was
there, a noble royal figure. He is _the_ sovereign of the age, artist,
poet, equally at home in all modern languages and several ancient ones,
profoundly versed in all his duties and nobly performing them. The Crown
Prince was with him, a fine young fellow, spoilt in appearance by his
mother’s Nassau mouth, and the Prince Imperial, who is here with his
cousins on a visit. The Queen is still away. I had many introductions
here, but as the Court is at the country palace of Drottningholm, have
not thought it worth while to present them; generally, however, Swedes
are quite charming, especially in their manner to strangers.
“Cheating or imposition in hotels or elsewhere is utterly unknown; the
only fear is lest you should not be charged enough. We asked what we
should do with our luggage if we went to Dalecarlia--‘Oh, you can leave
it anywhere under a bush, no one would touch a thing,’ and I am sure
that it is so.
“The Hollands are delightful companions, full of interest in everything,
glad to draw, reading up all the history, learning Swedish, holding
historical and retrospective examinations once a week. We do a great
deal of ‘lessons’ together. Certainly that one’s travels should ‘leave a
good taste’ behind entirely depends upon one’s companions. And we are
never even reduced to the state which I find alluded to in a French
guide-book--‘Dans une voiture découverte, quand il y a une personne de
mauvaise humeur, les autres admirent le paysage.’ Mr. and Mrs. Eric
Magnusson are in this hotel, and we see a good deal of them. He is an
Icelander, but now a Professor at Cambridge, and sent here by the
University to investigate and inspect the Runic inscriptions.”
[Illustration: GRIPSHOLM.]
* * * * *
“_July 15._--Yesterday we steamed down Lake Malar to Gripsholm, a very
quaint castle with domed red towers, full of ancient pictures, and with
the wonderful old room and bed where Queen Catherine Jagellonica
(delightful name!), whose tomb we saw at Upsala, gave birth to her son
Sigismund, afterwards King of Poland.”
* * * * *
“_Throndtjem, July 28._--Surely this old cradle of Northern Christianity
is one of the most beautiful places in the world. No one had ever told
us about it, and we came here only because it was the Throndtjem of
sagas and ballads, and expecting a wonderful and beautiful cathedral;
but it is really a dream of loveliness, so exquisite in the soft silvery
morning lights on the fiords and purple mountain ranges, and the nearer
hills covered with bilberries and breaking into steep cliffs, that one
remains in a state of transport, which is at a climax when all is
engraven upon an opal sunset sky, and when ships and buildings meet
their double in the still transparent water. Each old wide street of
curious wooden houses displays a new vista of sea, of rocky
promontories, of woods dipping into the water, and at the end of the
chief street is the grey massive cathedral of St. Olaf, where Northern
art and poetry have exhausted their loveliest and most poetic fancies
around the grave of the national hero. Here alone in Scandinavia I have
gone back perpetually to the old days of my life, and felt how happy the
mother would have been here, so much--almost everything--being within
her own walk; and I seem to see our trio spending a quiet month at this
homelike hotel (where the landlord and landlady--highly educated people
of good family--receive their guests like friends in a country-house),
and sallying forth to draw in all the sheltered coves and wooded rocks
by the side of fiord or river. The air too is most bracing, an arctic
feeling combined with the brightest sunshine.
“My companions and I get on perfectly, and I am filled with admiration
of Miss Holland’s strong, decided nature, and her perfect knowledge of
all she wishes and intends, combined with great good-nature. Both
sisters take boundless interest in all they see, and the journeys seem
shortened by alternate lessons in history, Norsk, &c., and games of
different kinds, even charades, one side of the carriage acting against
the other!
“But I must go back to Kristiania, which was steaming in intensity of
heat when we reached it, the wet of Stockholm having cleared in Norway
into cloudless sunshine which had hatched all the mosquitoes. There is
no beauty in the mean little town, which was built by Christian IV.
(brother of our Anne of Denmark), and has a good central church of his
time. We went by rail to Kongsberg, a primitive place with a nice little
hotel kept by a Dane, where, however (and at many other places), we were
annoyed by the ludicrously consequential advent of General Grant and Co.
Here we hired a carriage and carriole for a five days’ excursion in
Tellemarken. What a drive!--by silent lakes or through deep, beautiful,
ever-varying woods of noble pine-trees, rising from thickets of juniper,
bilberries, and cranberries. The loveliest mountain flowers grow in
these woods--huge larkspurs of rank luxuriant foliage and flowers of
faint dead blue, pinks, stagmoss--wreathing around the grey rocks, and
delicate lovely soldanellas drooping in the still recesses. But what a
road, or rather what a want of one!--hills of glassy rock, up which our
horses scrambled like cats, abysses where they gathered up their legs
and flung themselves down headlong with the carriages on the top of
them, till at the bottom we were all buried in dust, and picked
ourselves up, gasping and gulping, and wondering we were alive, to begin
the same pantomime over again.
“Our midday halt was at Bolkesjö, where the forest opens to green lawns,
hill-set, with a charming view down their smooth declivities upon a
many-bayed lake with mountain distances. Here, in a group of old brown
farm-buildings, covered with rude picturesque painting and sculpture, is
a farmhouse inhabited by its primitive owners through many generations.
The little rooms and their furniture are painted and carved with mottoes
and texts, and portraits with autographs of royal visitors hang on the
walls. The entrance to the cellar was under the bed. ‘Ajö, ajö,’
exclaimed Miss Buxton, in our newly acquired Norsk, as the old landlady
descended into it to get us some ale.
“We arrived at the little châlet of Tinoset on the wrong day for the
steamer down its lake, and had to engage a private boat. The little lake
was lashed by the wind into furious purple billows, and the voyage was
most wretched. A horrid male creature from Middlesborough, whom we
surnamed the ‘Bumble Bee,’ accompanied us. I was brutal enough to make
him over to Miss Holland, by saying, ‘This lady will be deeply
interested to hear all you have to say,’ and to her he buzzed on
perpetually. He told us that the people of Middlesborough were
astonished--and no wonder--at his building in the midst of that hideous
red manufacturing place a black and white timber house in imitation of
one at Coventry, and designing to be carved on its barge-board the
charming inscription--
‘Ye beastes who passe admire ye goode
Which thys manne didde whereer he coulde.’
[Illustration: BOLKESJÖ.]
“From our landing-place at Strand we had several hours’ drive along an
unprotected precipice to the Rjukan-foss, the 560 feet high fall of a
mountain torrent into a black rift in the hills. It is a boiling,
roaring abyss of waters, with drifts of spray which are visible for
miles before the fall can be seen itself, but the whole is scarcely
worth the trouble of getting there, though a little mountain inn, with a
well-earned dinner of trout and ale, and a quiet hour amongst the great
grey larkspurs, furnish pleasant recollections.
[Illustration: THE CHURCH OF HITTERDAL.]
“As we returned to Kongsberg, we stopped to see Hitterdal, the
date-forgotten old wooden church so familiar from picture-books. Here we
were told by our landlady that she would not give us any dinner--‘Nei,
nei, nothing would induce her; perhaps the woman at the house with the
flag would give us some.’ So, hungry and faint, Miss Holland and I
sallied out as _avant-couriers_ to the house with the flag. All was
silent and deserted except for a dog, who received us furiously. Having
pacified him, and finding the front door locked, we made good our
entrance at the back, examined the kitchen, pried into all the
cupboards, lifted the lids of all the saucepans, and not till we had
searched everything for food ineffectually, were met by the lady of the
house, a pleasant young lady, speaking English perfectly, who informed
us, with no small surprise at our conduct, that we had been committing a
raid upon her private residence. Afterwards we found a lonely farmhouse,
where also there had once been a flag, where they gave us a very good
dinner. Two young girls, whom we had first met at the Rjukan-foss, dined
with us, and made us acquainted with their parents. The father, an old
man who smoked an enormously long pipe, turned out to be the Bishop of
Christiansand.
“On the 25th we started from Kristiania for Throndtjem, the whole
journey of three hundred and sixty miles very comfortable and only
costing thirty francs. There is no great beauty in the scenery, but
pleasant variety--rail to Eidswold, with bilberries and strawberries in
birch baskets for sale at the railway-stations: a vibrating steamer on
the long dull Miosen lake: railway again, with some of the carriages
open at the sides: a night at Koppang, a large station, where several
people, strangers to each other, are expected to share the same room. On
the second day the scenery improves; the railway sometimes runs along,
sometimes over the river, till the gorge of mountains opens beyond
Storen into a rich open country, with turfy mounds which reminded us of
the graves of the hero-gods of Upsala, till, beyond the deep cleft in
which the river Nid runs between lines of old painted wooden warehouses,
rises the burial-place of St. Olaf, the centre of Northern Christianity,
the shrine of Northern faith, the stumpy-towered cathedral of
Throndtjem.
“The most northern railway station and the most northern cathedral in
Europe.”
[Illustration: THRONDTJEM FIORD.]
* * * * *
“_August 8._--To the last the unspeakable beauty of Throndtjem grew upon
us. It is not at first sight of its wide streets of low timber houses,
or even of its fiord with purple mountain background, or of its glorious
cathedral in the wide-spreading churchyard, which is the town-garden as
well as the centre of all its sympathies, that you learn to admire it,
but after many sunsets have turned the fiord into rippling gold, and
sent an amethystine glow over the mountains, and after many rambles
along the shores to rocky points and bosky hillocks.
[Illustration: THRONDTJEM CATHEDRAL.]
[Illustration: S. OLAF’S WELL.]
“After much indecision, we determined to return from Throndtjem by road,
and engaged two carriages at Storen, with a pleasant boy named Johann as
a driver. At every ‘station’ we changed horses, which were sent back by
a boy who perched on the luggage behind, and we marked our distances by
calling our single carriole horses after the kings of England. Thus,
setting off from Storen with William the Conqueror, we drove into the
Romsdal with Edward VI., but (after a drive with Lady Jane Grey) setting
off again with Bloody Mary, our kings of England failed us long before
our driving was over, and we used up the kings of Rome also. It was a
very wild interesting life, and there was a great charm in going on and
on into the unknown, meeting no one, dining on trout and pancakes at a
station at midday, sleeping in odd, primitive, but always clean rooms,
and setting off again at 5.30 or 6 A.M. There are bears and wolves in
the forest, but we never saw any. Their skins, shot during the winter,
are hanging up in almost all our sleeping-places. The prices are
extraordinarily low, and the homely, cordial people kissed our hands
all round on receiving the smallest gratuity, twopence halfpenny being
a source of ecstatic bliss. But the journeys were tremendous, as we were
sometimes called at four, and did not get in till twelve at night.
[Illustration: IN THE ROMSDAL.]
There was for a long time nothing especially fine in the scenery, except
one gorge of old weird pine-trees in a rift of purple mountain, and the
high moorland above Jerkinn, where the great ranges of white Sneehatten
rise above the yellow grey of the Dovre Fyeld, hoary with reindeer moss.
From Dombaas, we turned aside down the Romsdal, which soon became
beautiful, as the road wound above a chrysopraz river, broken by many
rocky islets, and swirling into many waterfalls, but always equally
radiant, equally transparent, till its colour is washed out by the
melting snows in a ghastly narrow valley which we called the ‘Valley of
Death.’
“The little inn at Aak is very delightful, with a large garden on the
hillside, and the views indescribably glorious--of the tremendous peaks
of pink granite, or fields of pathless snow embossed against a sky
delicately blue above, but melting into clearest opal.... There was much
in the place, as at Throndtjem, which recalled my former life, and I
seemed to go back into a lost past, to read a page long pasted down and
put away. In both places _we_ should have stayed for weeks; in both, I
could see our trio sallying out every morning with campstools and books,
making friends with the natives, or in the quiet of home life, with its
home occupations in the little inn.
“And now, after many more stations, we have passed through Lilliehammer,
and are again on the Miosen lake, speeding through the closing days of
our tour.”
* * * * *
“_Orkeröd near Moss, on the Kristiania Fiord, August 9._--On reaching
Kristiania last night, I found a most gracious telegram from the Queen,
through Countess Rosen, desiring that I would spend my last days in
Norway with her. So I came this morning by the early steamer. Most
beautiful were the long changing reaches of the fiord, with the rocks
covered with foliage, already waving towards autumn, the rich russet and
golden tints of the trees repeating themselves in the water. At Moss (to
the intense astonishment of a very vulgar American family on board, who
had given themselves indescribable airs to me) a royal carriage with two
chasseurs in cocked hats and plumes was in waiting, and the King’s
chamberlain was standing on the pier to receive me. We drove swiftly up
a rocky forest road to the large villa which a merchant of Kristiania
has lent to the Queen for the benefit to her health from the pine air.
Another merchant close by has lent his to the King, as the immense
personnel of the court could not possibly live in one house. As we drove
up through the garden, a tall figure in a wide-awake hat emerged from
one of the windows upon the terrace. ‘Sa Majesté le Roi!’ said the
chamberlain; so I jumped out of the carriage, and he came forward at
once with ‘Is it Mr. Hare? The Queen has spoken of you so much, that you
are not like a stranger. The Queen will be delighted to see you, and so
am I. We were so glad to hear that you would come to see us in our quiet
country life. You will find nearly the whole family, only my second son,
Oscar, has left us to-day. I am especially glad that you will see the
Prince Royal, my eldest son, Gustaf. You will have a very little room
with us, for we are so full, but you will have a good bed, and that is
the essential. Come now and take a walk with me in the garden.’ So we
walked and he talked, chiefly about Rome. Then he took me to the Prince
Royal, who was sitting under the trees with the Countess Rosen, two
maids of honour, and Baron Holtermann, the marshal of the palace. There
we sat some time and talked till the Queen emerged from the house. I
went towards her, and met her amongst the flower-beds. She looks
wonderfully well, far better than at Segenhaus. Nothing could be more
cordial or kind than her reception of me. We walked on the terrace for
some time, and she talked of the great event since we parted, the attack
on the Emperor, and of the Crown Princess.
“Then we went to sit under the trees and we talked of Throndtjem. The
Queen described her first journey thither to her coronation. The King
had been making a tour round by the North Cape, and she went to meet
him. She went in a succession of carrioles by Lilliehammer and then by
the Romsdal. At all the little stations people met her with flowers.
‘Art thou the mother of the land?’ they said, ‘art thou the mother of
the land? Thou lookest nice, but thou must do more than _look_ nice;
that is not the essential.’ She said that even at Throndtjem the
peasants touchingly and familiarly always called her ‘Du.’ ‘Art thou the
mother of these tall boys?’ they said, and they would pray aloud that
she might be blessed--in her husband, in her children, and in her home.
One old woman asked the Countess Rosen to beg the Queen to go upon the
roof of the house--‘then we shall all see her.’ The Queen also described
her last journey back from Segenhaus. Her two horses, her dog, and her
donkey travelled with her.
“Soon the beautiful donkey of our Segenhaus walk was brought round, with
its crimson trappings, and the Queen mounted, and went off through the
forest to the King’s house. I went in a kind of large open car with the
Countess Rosen, the maids of honour, and the chamberlain. We reached the
King’s villa before the Queen, and all drew up in two lines in the porch
to receive her. There were also a great number of the people of Moss to
see her arrive, as it is known she always does so at this hour. The King
gave his arm to the Queen, and we all went to luncheon in a garden
pavilion. Here the two youngest Princes came in,--Carl, a very handsome
boy of seventeen, and Eugène, of twelve. The King called me to come up
to a tiny round table at the end of the room on a daïs, where he and the
Queen were alone, and made me sit with them on their divan. He said, ‘I
shall now leave out your Mr. and only call you Hare, and upon that we
will all drink healths;’ and he made me clink my glass with his and the
Queen’s. The King talked much of the Prince Royal and his education, of
all the languages he thought he ought to learn, and (perfectly without
ostentation) of his own very great facility for
learning--‘catching’--languages, and of the great advantage it had been
to him through life. I had had no food since six o’clock in the morning
and was almost fainting with hunger, so, in spite of the honour of
sitting with the King and Queen, I greatly envied the court at their
good luncheon below, as their Majesties (and consequently I) had only
coffee cups for their soup, and a tiny slice of bread and cheese apiece.
“Then the Queen mounted her donkey again, the King lifting her up, while
the young Princes, climbing the pillars of the verandah behind their
mother, made a pleasant family group. The cap of the Queen’s chasseur
fell off, and the King picked it up for him and playfully pushed it
tight down upon his head. Then the King and Princes started to walk, and
I for a long drive with the Countess Rosen and some of the court. And
now I am resting and the Queen has sent me a number of English
newspapers to read. A propos of the picture of Lord Beaconsfield
receiving the Garter in the _Illustrated_, the King said, ‘Now, let us
talk a little politics. I like and admire most things English, but I
will not conceal from you that I do not admire Lord Beaconsfield. I did
not think his conduct about Cyprus was quite straightforward.’”
* * * * *
“_August 10._--At four o’clock yesterday the whole court met in the
drawing-room, so many gentlemen turning up from hidden corners, that it
made twenty-four persons in all. The Prince Imperial recognised me
immediately when he came in, and was exceedingly cordial and friendly. I
was really glad to see him again. He is as nice as he can be, but as to
appearance, his photographs flatter him, as he has such a bad complexion
and his legs are too short. He is, however, quite delightfully frank and
winning. He kissed the Queen’s hand very prettily and gracefully as she
came in, looking very well with large bunches of natural double geranium
upon the white lace of her dress and in her hair. He took the Queen, the
King took Countess Rosen, and we all followed to dinner. I was desired
to sit by the Prince Royal. His peculiar features are redeemed by a good
expression when animated. He talks no English and atrocious French, and
was difficult to get on with at first. Prince Carl, the third son, is
very handsome, and seems to have a charming disposition. After dinner
the princes were to go out fishing, and the head fisherman sent to say
that there would be no room for little Prince Eugène, as there were so
many of the Prince Imperial’s suite to be taken. Prince Carl came to the
Queen and begged that Eugène might not be told, he would be so
disappointed, and that he might stay at home in his place; and the Queen
said, ‘Charles is always like that; he never can be persuaded to think
of himself.’ I tried to talk of Rome to the Prince Royal, but whenever a
maid of honour on the other side claimed his attention, was glad to
subside into conversation with an old chamberlain. The King drank
healths at dinner, the Prince Imperial’s, mine, Count Murat’s. The
Prince Royal asked me to clink glasses with him. ‘Do you like that
custom?’ he said. A Swedish noble, appointed to wait on the Prince
Imperial, stood up when the King drank his health. Then I saw the other
side of the King--in very cold stern rebuke. ‘In good society gentlemen
do not stand up when their healths are drunk,’ and that in the severest
tones. The Queen looked surprised, and a momentary chill fell upon the
whole party. I am sure that the Swede, who was a very bumptious young
man, had done or said something before which had displeased the King.
“When the princes were gone to their fishing, the Queen made me come and
sit by her. She returned at once to the subject of the Prince Royal and
her great anxiety that I should be much with him abroad. ‘He must
_learn_ his world,’ she said, ‘he knows so little of it. He is
thoroughly good, but what he wants is enthusiasm, he wants to be incited
to knowledge, to learning his future out of the past, and oh! you can
help him so much, and if you will, I shall always be so grateful to you:
but remember, and I know it will always help you to be kind to my boy
if you do remember, what my boy’s future must in all probability be. Oh,
Mr. Hare, do when there is a chance, sow some little seeds of good in my
son’s young heart, and remember that what you do is not only done for
the Prince Royal, not even for his mother, who entirely trusts you, but
for the thousands upon thousands of people whom he may one day be called
upon to influence. Whatever happens, if you will only interest yourself
for my boy, you will believe in his mother’s gratitude.’
“The Queen continued to talk long in this manner with the utmost
animation, till the Countess Rosen, suddenly seeing some sign of illness
unobserved by us, ran round and said, ‘Dear Majesty, you must not now
speak any more,’ and led her away with a charming mixture of motherly
affection and playful deference.
“When Countess Rosen returned, she said, ‘The King desired that as soon
as the Queen had ceased speaking to you, you should go to him: he
especially wishes to talk to you alone.’ I found the King under a tree
in the garden, reading a book (the ‘Odes of Horace,’ I think), and,
fearing to disturb him, I pretended to occupy myself with the flowers,
but he perceived me at once, closed the book, and coming to me, took my
arm, and walked up and down on the terrace. ‘The Queen has been speaking
to you of our son,’ he said; ‘I know what the Queen has been saying, and
I wish to continue her conversation. He is a good boy, but he has not
been tried; he has no idea what the world is like, nor of the many
temptations which lie in wait for a young man, above all for a prince.
Now the Queen and I are quite agreed that it is our wish that you
should be as much to our son as possible, and I wished to see you alone
that you might believe that all that his mother wishes, his father
wishes also.’ The King then talked in detail of the Prince’s probable
life in Rome, of the places and people he must see. ‘Please understand
at once that my son must go to the Quirinal,’ he said. He went on to
talk more earnestly of England, of the difficulties of all the lines to
be drawn, and of all the individual persons whom it might be well for
the Prince to see, and also some to be avoided. He wished the Prince to
have a quiet month in England, to accustom himself to language and
people, before going to London: he thought of Torquay; I suggested St.
Leonards. He talked of Lady Waterford, whom he remembered many years
ago, and admired almost more than any woman living, and wished that she
might be persuaded to give an invitation to his son.
“Speaking of the course of study which would be best for the Prince led
the King to talk of the great pleasure a thorough knowledge of Latin had
been to himself, both for its own sake and as making all other languages
easy to him.
“The King talked much of the anxieties at Berlin, and of the cloud over
the royal life there. ‘Oh, how thankful I ought to be, how thankful I
continually _am_, for our quiet corner, for a reign which is one of
love. I never felt this more than in the Queen’s lonely carriole journey
to her coronation at Throndtjem, and it was renewed lately in our son’s
journey to Tellemarken. And though our people care for us, they do not
flatter us. When the Queen was in the little village churches, near the
different small stations where she passed her Sundays, the simple
village curates of those mountain districts did not hesitate to preach
to their Queen of all that she ought to do, of all that her life ought
to be for herself and others, and oh! we are so grateful to them.’
“While we were talking, the court ladies were playing at croquet on the
lawn. The King afterwards joined them, and I took a short walk with
Baron Holtermann, marshal of the palace, and then went in and sat down
to read in the drawing-room. Presently the King put in his head from the
Queen’s room--‘Yes, he is here,’ he said, and then he called me to come
in to the Queen. They then both of them took my hands and spoke to me in
a most touching manner about the Prince Royal. The Queen also spoke of
the uncertainty of her life, and of renewed meetings in distant Norway,
and of her hope of seeing me in another world. She gave me her portrait.
I could not but feel it a very solemn moment and very affecting. They
took me out on the balcony of the room for one quiet moment. ‘Remember
_how_ we trust you,’ they said. And we looked down upon the fountain
playing and the burnt grass and brilliant flowers in the moonlight and
then we went back to the public rooms.
“The Prince Imperial and the Swedish princes now returned from fishing,
singing at the pitch of their voices through the woods, and we all went
upstairs to supper. Their Majesties and the whole court had--Swedish
fashion--each a great bowl of sour milk, with a great hunch of bread and
two preserved peaches in a glass. The Prince Royal, by whom I again
sat, fortunately asked for sweet milk, so I was able to do so also. Then
the King and princes went to the other house, and I took a sad farewell
of the beloved Queen. If ever there was a woman who united the truest,
widest spirit of Christianity with every earthly grace, it is Queen
Sophie of Nassau.
“The Queen’s dresser was turned out of a room for me--a good room, but
with neither soap nor bath, no chance or understanding of hot water, and
the looking-glass quite unavailable! Swedes are accustomed to none of
these things as necessaries in houses where they visit.
“At 8 A.M. Baron Holtermann fetched me to walk through the woods to the
King’s house to breakfast, after which I walked with the King to the
pier at the end of the garden. There the younger princes kissed their
father, and the Prince Imperial (who was going away at the same time and
whom the King would accompany to Kristiania) took leave of the court. It
was an intensely hot day, the town of Moss and the shore of the fiord
seeming to steam with hot mist and the flowers all drooping. A little
steam-pinnace took us all to the luxurious steamer, where there was
boundless space for sitting or walking or whatever we liked. The voyage
was very long--five hours. I sat reading ‘Ticknor’s Memoirs,’ and the
King and Prince Imperial came occasionally to talk to me. I found in the
book an account of the Prince’s grandmother, Comtesse de Téba, in her
prime, which interested the King very much. He said, ‘The Prince
Imperial keeps me in a perpetual state of mental tension: he does ask
me _such_ questions. I am always wondering what he will say next. He is
almost _too_ intelligent a young man. He has just asked me to tell him
how long a steamer takes to get up steam. I have seen hundreds of
steamers getting up steam, but I never thought before how long it took.
However, I have had to think now, and it takes five quarters of an hour.
Oh, the Prince Imperial is very good mental exercise.’
“Half-way down the fiord, the Prince Imperial insisted upon it that he
must bathe. At first the King said it was impossible, that the moment of
his arrival at Kristiania was fixed, that the people were waiting to see
him, that the steamer could not be delayed--in fact, that it was out of
the question. But while the King was discoursing, the Prince Imperial
stripped off every article of clothing he had on, and after rushing up
and down the deck perfectly naked, jumped into the sea over the poop and
swam like a fish. The King then was obliged to stop the steamer, as he
could not leave the Prince Imperial in the middle of the fiord, and he
told an aide-de-camp to undress and go to pick out the Prince. The
Prince lay on the breast of the waves laughing at the King till the
aide-de-camp reached him, and then he dived, disappeared for some time,
and came up on the other side of the vessel. The Prince Royal then
undressed and went in too, and two aides-de-camp, and they all swam and
pursued each other like mermen. When at last the Prince was persuaded to
re-embark, he sang and shouted in most uproarious spirits. Then came
luncheon. The King proposed the Prince’s health--‘Mon cher hôte et mon
cher neveu’--and then he proposed mine, saying, ‘I drink to your
meeting with the Prince Royal at Rome, and you _will_ be kind to my
boy?’
“We entered Kristiania in triumph--all the towers, houses, and masts of
the vessels in the harbour decorated with flags, cannon firing, and
crowds of people on the quays. At the station were crowds too, waiting
for the royal carriages as they drove up. There was quite a procession
of them. I went in the second carriage with Count Murat. At the station
I had just time to present the Miss Hollands, then I took leave of the
king.”
* * * * *
“_August 17._--The Prince Imperial travelled with us from Kristiania. It
was an ovation to him the whole way--crowds at all the stations, and
shouts of ‘Hoch, Hoch!’ instead of ‘Hurrah.’
“We parted company with the Prince at Helsingor, whence we went to
Fredensborg, a dull château and pretty garden, and then to
Frederiksborg, really magnificent, one of Christian IV.’s grandest
buildings, on three islands in a lake.
“We have since seen Bremen with the grand calm face of the gigantic
Roland-Säule raised above the busy market, and Münster with its old
cathedral and Congress-hall, and now we are at Tournai, where there is a
noble cathedral, contrasting in its serious thoughtfulness of design
with the frippery and sameness of Cologne. And to-day, being in the
octave of St. Roch, Tournai is hung with flags for a really beautiful
procession--crosses, banners, images, reliquaries carried aloft by
troops of young girls in white and blue and little boys in mediaeval
dresses. Some of the tiny children in golden oak-chaplets, and with
great golden oak-bouquets or golden lilies, are quite beautiful.
“And to-day, too, we pass out of the peculiar existence of the last two
months into ordinary working life again. Great is the thankfulness I
feel for all, especially for my kind and pleasant companions.”
* * * * *
I spent the late summer of 1878 very quietly at home, busied in
completing the Life of the Baroness Bunsen. Many guests came and went,
amongst them Miss Wright, whose constant kindness and affection had been
so much to me for many years. Whilst with me she was very ailing, but it
was only supposed to be rheumatism, and doctors, who examined her
carelessly, sent her from Holmhurst to Buxton, which was fatal to her,
for her real disorder was heart-complaint. I never shall forget the
bitter anguish of the shock, gently and tenderly broken as it was by
Mary Lefevre, when I read that I should never see again the loving
devoted friend of so many years, who alone was always ready to help me
in any difficulty, always glad to fight a battle for me, and whose
humble nature so terribly overrated me, making me, however, long to
struggle up in reality to that higher shelf on which I saw she had
mentally placed me. Hers was one of--
“The many lives, made beautiful and sweet
By self-devotion and by self-restraint,
Whose pleasure is to run without complaint
On unknown errands of the Paraclete.”[289]
Wonderfully, though simply and unconsciously, did she fulfil the ideal
of a holy life which is given us in the 15th Psalm. But it was not till
she was gone, till her outpouring of gentle tenderness was silenced for
ever, that one realised all she had been, and that her loss left a void
for life which could never be filled up. Constantly have I gone back
with useless self-reproach--would that I had done more to make her
happy! would that I had always been more grateful in reciprocating so
much kindness!--and most constantly have I been reminded--
“How each small fretting fretfulness
Was but love’s over-anxiousness,
Which had not been had love been less.”
Years have passed away as I write, but I can scarcely bear to speak of
her, even to write of her, even now. “How holy are the holy dead! How
willingly we take _all_ the blame to ourselves which in life we were so
willing to divide.”[290] “Nevermore” is one’s echo of regret, but “too
late” is that of repentance.
Dear Lady Williamson passed away from us in the same autumn, deeply
loved too, but in her blindness and deafness one felt that her life--her
entirely noble and beautiful life--was lived out, which one could not
feel dear “Aunt Sophy’s” to be. She seemed to die, her life unfulfilled.
Throughout the autumn I had heard frequently from the Queen of Sweden
and Norway, through the medium of her principal lady in waiting, the
Countess Ebba von Rosen. The entire confidence and noble friendship
expressed in these letters made it impossible for me to hesitate, when,
after the Prince Royal had spent some time in Paris, it became the
strong wish of her Majesty that I should join him at Rome. It was in
entire concert with the King and Queen that I drew up the scheme of a
series of peripatetic lectures for the Prince, in which, by describing
historic events on the places with which they were connected, I hoped to
fix those events and their lessons in his recollection. Their Majesties
also agreed to the plan of my inviting others to join the excursions of
the Prince. It was, however, with great misgiving that I left England,
feeling that I gave up my pleasant home and congenial occupations in
England for the constant companionship of a young man who had not, in
our short previous acquaintance, made a very favourable impression upon
me, and who might--should he take that line--resent my exertions in his
behalf, and look upon me rather as a spy for his parents than as a
friend to himself. When I once reached Rome, however, these fears were
soon set at rest, and during the whole nine months which I passed in
constant intimacy with the Prince, I never once had to reproach him with
want of consideration for myself personally, but, on the contrary,
always received from him marks of the utmost esteem and affection.
On the evening of November 16 I left Holmhurst, having worked at the
index of my Bunsen Memoirs till within ten minutes of my departure. Upon
the passage of the Mont Cenis I came in for terrible snowdrifts.
Suddenly, after passing the tunnel, the walls of snow increased on each
side of the train so as almost to block out the light, and, with a dull
thud, the train came to a standstill near the wretched village of Oulx.
An avalanche had fallen upon the luggage train which was pioneering our
way, and three poor men were engulfed in it. The cold was terrific, and
the suffering was increased in my case, because, having usually been
much tried by the overheating of foreign trains, I had brought no
carriage-rug or other wraps with me. After some time a way was cut
through the snow walls to a miserable tavern, where sixteen ladies
decided to sleep or cower in one wretched room and twelve gentlemen in
another, but I gladly made my way back to the carriage before the
passage was blocked again. It was then two in the afternoon, and wearily
the day wore on into night, and still more wearily passed the night
hours, with snow always falling thickly. I had a little brandy in the
carriage, but no food. The suffering from cold was anguish. There were
several invalid ladies in the train, for whom I felt greatly, knowing
what this catastrophe would have been in times past before I was alone.
Before morning two more avalanches had fallen behind us and the return
to France was cut off. The telegraph wires were all broken, and the
guard assured us that it was possible we might be detained days, or even
weeks. At midday, cold and hunger made me try the hovel once more, but
the filth and smells again drove me back to the carriage. At 4 P.M.,
however, on the second day, a welcome shouting announced that our
deliverance was at hand. No trains arriving at Turin, our position was
suspected, and the town-firemen were sent out _en masse_ to cut a way
for us. At 6 P.M. we were released from our twenty-eight hours’
imprisonment, but the way was so dangerous, that we did not reach Turin
till long after midnight.
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_26 Piazza di Spagna; Rome, Nov. 25, 1878._--You will imagine how
touching--I shall never grow used to it--was the slow approach by rail
round the walls of Rome, crossing all the little lanes _we_ knew so well
in our drives, and seeing, one after another, S. Paolo, the Caius
Cestius, the Porta S. Sebastiano, S. Giovanni in Olio, Porta Maggiore,
the Minerva Medica, and then the vast space once occupied by the
beautiful Villa Negroni, but now parcelled out for straight streets and
stuccoed houses.
“Yet, considering it is four years since I was here last, the changes
are not great yet: the same old man with peaked hat and long beard and
the same pretty girls stand waiting as models: the same old stonecutter
is grinding away under the Tempietto, and Francesco threw open Miss
Garden’s door and announced (simply) ‘Il Signorino,’ as if I had been
there the day before.
“On Sunday, Umberto and Margherita of Savoy made a triumphal entry into
Rome, and I went to the Palazzo della Consulta to see them arrive at the
Quirinal. It was an exquisitely beautiful evening--not a breath of air
stirring the many flags: the obelisk and statues and the grand fountain
of Pius VII. were in deep shadow, but the sun was glinting through the
old ilexes in the Colonna Gardens and illuminated S. Peter’s and the
town in the hollow. There was an immense crowd of every class, from
ex-guardia nobile to peasants in the costumes of Sora and Aquino, and
through them all the vast procession of sixty carriages moved to the
palace, with flags flying, and flowers falling, and cannon thundering,
and the one little bell of the royal chapel tinkling away as hard as it
could, because the other churches would make no sign. ‘I Sovrani,’ as
all the people called them, looked very proud and happy, and Queen
Margherita marvellously graceful, and pleased to see the millions of
marguerites, which people were wearing in honour of her. The little
Principe de Napoli is quite hideous, but they say well brought up under
an English governess, and King Umberto in every way seems to wish to
reform his dissolute father’s court, as well as to screen his memory,
having taken the whole of his enormous debts upon himself, besides
paying off Victor Emmanuel’s eight ‘domestic establishments’ out of his
private purse. The King and Queen came out upon the balcony of the
Quirinal, and were triumphantly received. (Next after the royal
carriages had come a fourgon with the bouquets presented at the
station.) Last night there was a torchlight procession, tens of
thousands bearing torches, with music, banners, and gigantic
marguerites, who passed through the Piazza di Spagna on their way to the
Quirinal. _Still_, taxes are rather increasing them otherwise; the
misery of the formerly prosperous Romans is extreme, and many think a
revolution imminent.
“Monsignor Prosperi is dead. I wonder if you remember about that most
extraordinary person, who was supposed to have the evil eye. The Romans
believe that all the many misfortunes of this year, and the attacks on
royalty, &c., are because it fell to his turn to _cantare la missa_ at
S. Maria Maggiore on the first day of the year. No end of shipwrecks and
railway accidents are attributed to him, and so the poor man’s death is
a subject of general rejoicing. It is recollected that after the last
visit he ever paid, the servant of the house fell down on the stairs,
and cut his eye open with the Monsignore’s visiting-card which he held
in his hand.”
* * * * *
On arriving in Rome, I had found a tolerable little apartment for myself
in 29 Piazza di Spagna, and the Prince Royal established in the charming
sunny first floor of the Palazzo Rocca-Giovine in the Forum of Trajan.
Thither I used daily, often twice a day, to go to the Prince. From the
first he welcomed me very cordially, and I could see that he was really
glad of my coming, still I was uncertain whether there would ever be
more than an interchange of courtesy and duty between us. I never hoped
to be able to give him the real affection I afterwards so sincerely
felt. Somewhat to my consternation, I was desired by the King to fix my
first lecture for the Prince for one of the very first days after my
arrival, in order that Baron Holtermann, marshal of the palace, who was
returning to Stockholm, might take back a full account of “how it went”
to their Majesties. The Queen added her special request that I would say
nothing except in English, in order to force the Prince-Royal to learn
that language.
As being the central feature and axis of ancient Rome, I chose the
Capitoline for my first lecture. General and Mrs. Stuart and Lady Agnes
Douglas met me there at the top of the steps, and waited for the Prince,
who arrived on foot with Baron Holtermann and two other Swedish
gentlemen. I doubt at first whether they understood a word I said in
English, and the being obliged constantly to translate into French or
bad German did not add to the liveliness of the lecture. Our procession
passed from point to point in the most funereal manner. The Prince made
no observation whatever, Romulus, the Tarpeian Rock, Marcus Aurelius
passing equally unnoticed; only when we came to Palazzo Caffarelli he
said, “Oh, that was where Mim Bunsen was born:” it had touched a
chord of human interest.
[Illustration: Gustaf, Crown Prince of
Sweden-Norway.]
I wonder what sort of account of this lecture Baron Holtermann can have
taken to the Swedish court; but we did better next time, when, on the
Palatine, the Prince’s spirits quite rose over all the murders of the
emperors and empresses. In the latter part of the winter, the lectures,
which took place three times a week, were quite an enjoyment, he was so
merry, so kind and pleasant to every one, so glad to know everything.
Very soon, after consultation with M. de Printzsköld, the Queen’s
chamberlain, who had accompanied the Prince to Rome, I proposed going
twice a week to read English with the Prince in the late afternoon,
which was gladly accepted, and on those occasions we read “Mademoiselle
Mori” alternately, and translated “Tolla” into English. It was in the
little conversations which inevitably interspersed themselves with these
readings that I first learnt to know my Prince really well. The readings
themselves he found it very difficult to attend to, and the exercises he
prepared for me were much against the grain, so we did not make much
progress till I obtained an order from the Queen that the equerries
should do the same exercises as the Prince, which roused his ambition,
and he went ahead at once, and always did much better than his
companions. I think it is Adam Smith who says that “the great secret of
education is to direct vanity to proper objects.” After our lessons, I
always dined with the Prince, sitting on his right hand. Afterwards the
Prince and his Swedish gentlemen smoked, and as soon as it was possible
to do it, I took my leave, except on evenings when I went out into the
world with the Prince. But for the most part the Prince’s evenings were
spent at home, the Italian court showing him no attention, and scarcely
any of the Roman princes inviting him, except during the Carnival. Old
Lady Morton was throughout exceedingly kind and helpful where the Prince
was concerned, and gave several parties for him. At these, the Prince’s
distant cousins, Princess Gabrielli, Countess Primoli, and Countess
Campello, the round fat elderly daughters of Lucien Bonaparte, were
always present.[291] They were pleasant sensible women, especially
Countess Primoli (Princess Charlotte Bonaparte). Having all married
beneath their rank, they always made a point of going in and out of a
room in the order of their age, which had often a funny effect.
Of all the people who welcomed me back to Rome, the most cordial were
the blind Duke and the Duchess of Sermoneta, whom I was delighted to
find established for the winter in the upper floor of the old Caëtani
Palace. Since her marriage, the Duchess had contrived to conciliate the
whole Caëtani family, not only to herself, but to each other. She had
also ransacked the unknown corners of the palace, and had found endless
old hangings, old portraits, &c., things almost valueless in themselves,
but which gave the bare walls a look of historic antiquity. I often took
the Prince to the evening receptions of the Duchess, at which, as at all
the princely Roman houses, some tea and very sour lemonade were
considered quite sufficient as refreshments. Without the Prince, I often
dined with the Sermonetas at their homely early excellent Italian
dinner, and an oasis in commonplace life was meeting there the Abbot
Marcaldi of La Cava, the Abbot Pescitelli of Farfa, and a most beautiful
old Don Pietro Tailetti, canon of St. Peter’s--like a mediaeval picture.
They had all wished to see me, from their pleasure in the chapter on the
Benedictine rule in “Days near Rome.”
* * * * *
_To_ MARY LEA GIDMAN.
[Illustration: CORNETO.][292]
[Illustration: CATHEDRAL OF CORNETO.][293]
“_Dec. 11, 1878._--I always see the Prince now with increased
satisfaction and an increasing certainty that he likes having me with
him. I also feel that I _am_ able to be to him all that the Queen of
Sweden wished, of which at first I was uncertain. In our walks he asks
so many questions about what he sees, that I have to work hard in the
evenings before to prepare myself to answer properly, for I find that I
have forgotten much of the detail of my Roman history, &c.... Last week
we went for the whole day to Corneto, eating an excellent breakfast
provided by the Prince’s cook in the train. Professor Helbig, who had
preceded us, met us at the station with a little omnibus. With this we
went up into the high hills above old Tarquinii, and then descended with
torches into the great sepulchres, where the dead of two thousand years
ago are seen (in terra-cotta figures as large as life) sitting round at
imaginary banquets, while the walls are covered with paintings of their
deeds in life--hunting, fishing, dancing, &c., as fresh in colour as
when they were painted. Then we went to visit a Countess Bruschi, who
had a great collection of jewels and other beautiful things found in the
tombs. This lady was the only person to whom we revealed who the Prince
Royal was; but whilst we were at dinner the secret transpired, for there
came from the Bruschi palace a bouquet of the most magnificent roses,
like a sheaf, carried by two footmen, and another bouquet of camellias,
arranged in a huge citron; and then the governor of the town arrived to
make a little speech, to which the Prince gave a suitable answer, which
I had to translate into Italian; and then all the people found out, and
came to look at the Prince.”
* * * * *
On Christmas Day I received a telegram from the Queen of Sweden
expressing her good wishes, and thanks for the kindness shown to her
son. From a letter received about the same time from Countess Rosen I
extract:--
* * * * *
“_Stockholm, Dec. 18, 1878._--H.M. the Queen charges me to convey to you
her thanks for your letters, which are very welcome. The Queen says you
manage to tell just what interests her most about the doings of the
Crown Prince. Both the Queen and the King thank you heartily for all
your kind interest in the Crown Prince, and they perceive already that
you have succeeded in gaining a good and useful influence over him, and
that you have kindled up his interest for all that now surrounds him.
The Queen is charmed if you write often, but she is afraid that it takes
up too much of your time, which is much taxed already through all that
you do for the Prince....
“The Queen begs you to write with perfect frankness, even when
everything is not quite as one would wish it to be. Be sure that what
you say will never be misunderstood.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Dec. 5, 1878._--I think my last letter may have expressed some of the
depression I certainly felt as to the uncertainty of my position with
the Prince Royal, and I know with how much pleasure you will hear that
these clouds have completely cleared away. I have increasing, indeed I
have now _perfect_ satisfaction in my position with the Prince, and in
the internal conviction that I can and may be to him all that the Queen
has wished. The great secret is, I suppose, that I am becoming really
very fond of him. He not only daily unfolds new gifts and graces for
every one, but he is hourly pleasanter and more charming in all his
relations to me, and I have now the certainty that I am most welcome to
him; but indeed he has always treated me with entire confidence, though
you will easily understand that had he possessed the slightest shadow of
small-mindedness, he must have looked upon me with a sort of suspicion,
from the intimacy with which his parents have honoured me, and my
constant letters--which he knows _must_ be about himself--to the Queen.
“To-day my lecture for him was on the Aventine. At S. Sabina I sent in
notice of their visitor to the Abbot and the Father-General of the
Dominicans, and in his honour the two ladies of our party, Countess
Barnekow and Lady Agnes Douglas, were allowed to penetrate the inmost
recesses of the convent, and to visit the cell of S. Dominic, with his
exquisitely beautiful picture, and the cell of S. Pius V. As we came out
of the church, the Abbot presented the Prince with a large basket of
oranges and apples, and some leaves from the sacred tree of S. Dominic,
and the Father-General with photographs of the convent pictures and
view. Afterwards we visited the lovely Priorato garden, still full of
flowers, and S. Prisca, and the wild, beautiful Vigna dei Gesuiti.”
* * * * *
It was one of the wise and kind thoughts of the Queen at this time to
make it appear to the Prince that an eagerly coveted permission to go to
Bucharest and Athens upon leaving Rome was granted in consequence of my
petition in his favour. And indeed it was granted--as a Christmas
gift--in consequence of my letters to the Queen as to the progress he
was making, &c. I often wonder whether my letters to the court of Sweden
of this winter have been preserved: I wrote such volumes, often
illustrating them with sketches, &c.--“Memoires _pour servir_ pour la
vie du Prince Royal.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Dec. 19, 1878._--Ere this you will probably have received Madame de
Bunsen’s Life ‘from the author.’ There is much in it which will interest
you, some things you will not like. So it is with everything and
everybody. But I am quite satisfied that it is the most truthful
portrait _I_ could have painted, and I trust it may worthily commemorate
my dear old friend.
“The news of Princess Alice’s death, announced in a sermon on Sunday,
was quite a shock, as I had not heard of her being ill; and she was so
kind to me when here, and so interested and amused in correcting ‘Walks
in Rome.’
“My dear Prince is very well and happy and enjoying everything. I see
him daily, generally for half each day, but have very little new to say
about it. I have found a passage about Charles I., by Cowley I think,
which expresses just what I hope may be said of him some day: ‘Never was
there a more gracious Prince or a more proper gentleman. In every
pleasure he was temperate, in conversation mild and grave, in friendship
constant, to his servants liberal, to his Queen faithful and loving, in
battle brave, in sorrow and captivity resolved, in death most Christian
and forgiving.’
“The Queen writes through the Countess Rosen that she is delighted that
I am going with the Prince to Florence, and that it was quite the
Prince’s own idea; but she fears I shall find him rather a dull
companion there, as he has very little taste for picture-galleries.”
* * * * *
“_Jan. 6, 1879._--I was very glad to part with 1878--a year of many
sorrows--dear Miss Wright’s death the greatest. On the last evening I
went to Mrs. Terry’s, where Miss Trollope sang exquisitely ‘Should auld
acquaintance be forgot’ in the last minutes of the year.
“My last lecture for the Prince was upon the last days of S. Paul, going
to the pyramid of Caius Cestius, the last surviving witness of his life,
to the desolate Tre Fontane, and then to the huge basilica which sprung
from his martyrdom. At the Tre Fontane the Prince found a beautiful
piece of old marble railing and a fine fragment of pietra-dura pavement,
used to wall in a flower-bed; bought them, and he and I lugged them back
to the carriage between us. He is now very happy, and (though there
_are_ black days) enjoys everything very much. We have increased our
little party by the handsome widowed ‘Anne, Countess of Dunraven,’ and
the charming Countess Schulenberg, a North Prussian.
“The Prince and I dined with Lady Morton the other day, meeting Prince
and Princess Altieri, Prince and Princess Sulmona, Countess Apponyi, &c.
I was very glad that he should meet this completely ‘black’ party, as he
has had few opportunities of meeting that phase of politics. On Thursday
the Duchess Sermoneta gives another party for him, to which she has
taken the fancy to ask all the ‘learned’ people in Rome. My poor Prince
will not make much of them, but will be amused with many, especially
with Donna Ursilia Lovatelli, who likes to converse in Sanscrit, and who
had to be told that she must not bring with her more aides-de-camp than
the Prince (four); as her ‘court,’ as she calls it, which likes to
follow her, sometimes numbers sixty persons. Madame Minghetti will also
bring _her_ court, which is far more Bohemian, amusing, and agreeable.
“But daily I feel more the force of something which I think was said by
Charles V. of France: ‘On doit nourrir les princes des vertus, afin
qu’ils surmontent en mœurs ceux qu’ils doivent surmonter en
honneurs.’”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 29._--I am glad to hear of my book, which I have not seen, though
it reached Stockholm long ago. It is a pleasure to have an outburst of
approval from the Bunsens. Of reviews I think little, knowing how they
scarcely ever have anything to do with the merits or demerits of a work,
but only with the wish of an editor to advantage or injure an author:
besides, the newspapers all copy one another, only changing the words.
“We have had burning sun and intense scirocco here, which of course
means a great deal of rain, and there have been torrents each day, but
lovely effects between, such masses of cloud rolling over St. Peter’s,
with brilliant light falling through upon the many-domed town, and
tremendous conflagrations at sunset. I spent Christmas Eve at the
Palazzo Colonna, where the Duchess Marino had an immense Christmas-tree
for her servants and friends, and a merry party of children. A prettier
sight than the tree was the little Duchess herself, in a white silk
dress, with a long lace veil looped upon her head and enveloping her
figure, ceaselessly carrying presents to servants, poor women, &c. She
is really charming, with simple, sincere, cordial manners, and her
husband is most pleasant, the very best type of an Italian gentleman.
Donna Olympia Colonna was at the tree--very bridal-looking, bright, and
pretty.
“With the Prince I have ever more entire satisfaction. I constantly see
more of him, and have daily increasing affection for him. Of course the
position is not perfect, but I expect this in everything, and am quite
sure of his absolute confidence to a degree which I never expected. I
am happy in feeling that Rome _is_ doing for him all that the Queen
hoped, but which I did not, and that he will return to her indescribably
improved in every way. I suppose people who have children of their own
are familiar with it, but I could not have conceived before the interest
of watching the gradual unfolding and expansion of a character to which
one utterly devotes oneself; and with him all was new, it was entirely
fallow ground to work upon.
“One day we went to Frascati by rail, taking with us Count and Countess
Barnekow and Count and Countess Lievenhaupt, Swedes, and Lady Agnes
Douglas. While Lady Agnes did the honours of some of the villas, M. de
Printzsköld and I got an excellent though thoroughly Roman dinner ready
at the little inn, and afterwards the ladies had donkeys, the Prince a
horse, and we others walked up to Tuseulum. Here the Prince was very
happy picking up mosaics in the long grass, and eventually insisted on
excavating, and lugging back to Rome in his arms, a great mass, as big
as that in the verandah at Holmhurst. We came down by the great desolate
villa of Mondragone, and returned to Rome in the evening laden with fern
and butcher’s-broom, which, with its bright scarlet berries, is the
Roman apology for holly.
“The Prince _hates_ the churches, and generally has to be bribed to bear
them with equanimity by the promise of a little marble-hunt in some
vineyard afterwards, when it is amusing to see the whole party fall to
grubbing simultaneously among the artichokes. It has been hard work
refusing the endless people who want to go with us, but besides Lady
Dunraven we have only admitted pretty little Miss Trollope, the
historian’s daughter. I like Princess Teano very much, and am charmed
with her anxiety to make the very most of all she sees, and Lord
Hylton’s boy, George Jolliffe, is delightful, brimming with enthusiasm
and intelligence.”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Feb. 20, 1879._--Each day, as I have known the Prince Royal better, I
have liked him more. He has no sense of beauty and no care for it, and
he has naturally very few of my tastes, but he has the most transparent,
truthful, simple, loyal character I have ever known, and he has ever
been unspeakably kind and affectionate to me. We have been wonderfully
thrown together, even all the little circumstances intended by others to
divide us having acted the other way, and made us cling to each other
with truest friendship.
“All the earlier part of the winter I continued my lectures for him, in
which we visited almost every remarkable object in Rome. Our party was
much increased latterly, one of its most interesting elements being the
Prussian Countess Schulenberg, with whom I formed a great friendship. I
wish now that I had written down the many conversations of interest I
had with her; she left suddenly in January to take care of a sick cousin
in Germany.
“One of the last evenings of the year was spent in the Palazzo Colonna
with the sweet little Duchess of Marino. She is a great addition and
enlivenment to the dull egotistical Roman society, and is brimming with
good intentions and high aspirations, many of which she is really able
to carry out. Greatly, for instance, did she astonish modern Rome, with
its vulgar attempts at exclusiveness, by opening her rooms for a grand
party in the noble old Roman style, in which princes and sculptors met
on equal terms, and artists were as cordially received as if they were
ambassadors.
“Amongst the acquaintance who came to me with the New Year were the
Dutch Minister and Madame de Westenberg, his American wife, from whom I
have received much cordiality. Other people with whom I have been
intimate are the admirable Swedish Count and Countess Barnekow, the
latter especially charming, and full of life and intelligence. The Count
has been taking the post of consul here this year, but they have been
welcomed in all societies. There is something quite charming in their
relation to their children--little girls--and their influence over them.
Of these, the second, Elisabet, was compelled at six years old to have
her finger amputated. The mother prepared her for it, and told her how
terribly it would add to her distress if she did not bear the operation
bravely. The child said she could bear it if only they did not tell her
it was nothing: she knew it was dreadful, but if no one attempted to
deceive her she could bear a dreadful thing. She sat on the surgeon’s
knee while the finger was being taken off; she never uttered a sound,
and when the operation was over, she kissed him to show she bore no
malice!
[Illustration: PERUGIA.][294]
“On the 16th of January I went, away with my Prince for a tour in
Tuscany. I very soon found that for me the trial of the tour would be
his hatred of fresh air. He never would have the carriage window
opened, even on the hottest day and with steaming hot-water pans.
Otherwise all was luxury, kindness, and comfort. We arrived at Perugia
on the most glorious evening I ever remember: violet mists were rolling
through the valleys, the snow mountains were rosy in the sunset. It was
such a scene as can only be enjoyed in Italy, and in Italy can only be
found in Umbria, perhaps only at Perugia. But the Prince was much more
interested in an illuminated church where there was a function in honour
of S. Mauro. Next day we drove to Assisi, where he was far more
delighted at buying a little old silver box in a sidestreet than with
all the old churches and monasteries. He travelled under the name of the
Comte de Tullgarn, and at Perugia no one found out who he was, which
made him very happy. At Florence, however, he was unfortunately
discovered, and we found great preparations--two smart carriages waiting
at the station, twenty-six candles and three lamps burning in our rooms,
with prices in proportion, and a serenade of music outside the windows.
[Illustration: ASSISI.][295]
“Therefore, as soon as we arrived, I began to look up Florentine
acquaintance, and called on the charming Marchesa Elisabetta Torrigiani,
who lives with her four sons, three of them married, in the greatest
harmony, in the fine old Torrigiani palace. We dined with them, and were
greatly delighted with the three beautiful daughters-in-law, especially
the Marchesa Cristina, wife of Don Filippo, a member of the
once-sovereign house of Malaspina. The Marchese Pietro placed his
carriage at our disposal. The family of Corsini were also most civil to
us, and their head, the Marchesa Lajatico, gave a great ball in honour
of the Prince. Other parties were given to us by the Marchesa Cavoni,
Baron de Talleyrand, Sir Digby and Lady Murray, and the Fenzis. One
evening we spent with the C. de Bunsens, who asked many interesting
people, including Sir James Lacaita, Villari the historian, and the old
Duc de Dino, to meet us. One beautiful day we drove out to Castagnuolo,
where we were entertained in the ancient hill-set villa by the Marchese
della Stufa and Mrs. Ross, and the Prince fed all the rare birds, and
visited the farm and the wine-making.
“On leaving Florence, the Prince and I had a really happy day together
at Pisa. M. de Printzsköld was then sickening with Arno fever, and when
we were at Siena was unable to go out with us: with the others we drove
to the mediaeval castle of Belcaro, whose owner, the Marchese Camajori,
had long been slightly known to me, and wandered much about the old
streets and into the shops of the antiquaries.”
* * * * *
We returned to Rome on the 25th. My regular lectures were over then, but
as the Prince missed our little parties, I had some for him to the
villas and galleries. At this time, as often afterwards, those who
surrounded the Prince gave me the opportunity of testing the truth of
Lord Chesterfield’s observation, that “courts are the best key to
characters; there every passion is busy, every character analysed,” as
well as the dictum of La Bruyère, that at court “les joies sont visibles
mais fausses, et les chagrins cachés mais réels.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Rome, Feb. 3, 1879._--I feel as if it must be dull reading letters
only about the Prince, but as I have not even the possibility of seeing
much of any one else, what else can I say? I am obliged to give up
everything to his lessons, his invitations, and to trying to help him to
make the most of all he sees. He enjoyed Pisa, where I saw the
Limosins,[296] and we drove through the forest of San Rossore to the
Gombo, where the Prince and I sat long in the warm afternoon upon the
little pier above the sea waves, which the dear Mother enjoyed so much
there in 1857. I often wonder if she knows what I am doing now, but I
feel sure she would be glad and satisfied that so much time should be
given up to one who must one day influence tens of thousands. I have
many struggles now and much to contend with in the _position_, but with
the Prince himself have nothing but satisfaction. I tumbled downstairs
on Saturday night, and was so much hurt as to be all yesterday without
seeing him: so to-day at eleven the donna announced--‘Un signorino.’ I
was sitting for my picture and was afraid of moving, so waited for the
visitor to come round from behind my chair, when behold the Prince, who
had escaped from his gentlemen, seized a little carriage in the street,
and come off to me. I mention this as an example of the ever-pleasant
terms I am on with him, and which make it impossible not to be fond of
him.
“I am glad you like the Bunsen Memoirs on the whole. I knew you would
not agree with details. She always wondered, as I have always done,
_how_ those who really love their Saviour, and wish to follow His
precepts, can reconcile themselves to setting up the great idol of
Sabbatarianism, _the_ sin against which He was most eager and earnest in
warning His disciples, and against which more of His teaching was
directed than any other single offence. She also thought, as I have
always done, that, next to churches (often misused), theatres (also
often misused) were instruments which could be made most widely useful
in leavening great numbers of people at once; and therefore she
considered that an immaculate company and a play of high principles
ought always to be encouraged.”
* * * * *
“_Feb. 13._--I have had a series of lectures for the Prince in the
Vatican galleries and St. Peter’s, and at the latter, by kindness of
Monsignor Théodoli, had all the chapels of the crypt illuminated, and
the precious plate and vestments (Charlemagne’s robes, &c.) exhibited.
We climbed up to the cross, but the ladies of our little party succumbed
on the different roofs, except Lady Dunraven, who went with us to the
ball.
“On the 4th I was with the Prince at a ball at the Palazzo Caffarelli,
the German embassy, which is much done up since Bunsen’s days and
exceedingly magnificent. The great hall was entirely surrounded with
palm-trees, under one of which I stood, with the Swedish Countess
Barnekow, to watch the procession come in and the state quadrille--which
Queen Marguerite danced with M. de Keudel, and my Prince with Mme. de
Keudel--alone on the long sides of the room, with a perfect tourbillon
of ambassadors and ambassadresses at the narrow ends. A much prettier
ball was that at Palazzo Caëtani. This the Prince had to open with the
Queen, so we had to be there by eleven, but _because_ the King and Queen
were to be there, all the great nobles stayed away, so for once Palazzo
Caëtani did not shine. The Queen looked lovely, but, ever since the
attack on the King, has been more nervous than ever, perpetually picking
at her gloves, twisting her fan, and shaking out the folds of her dress.
Her beautiful hair was full of marguerites in diamonds. The King looked
glaring and demoniacal, yet really is going on very well, and does all
he can to sweep away the abuses and immoralities of his father’s court,
unpopular as it makes him with his father’s sycophants. Yesterday I was
with the Prince at a great ball at Prince Altieri’s--the blackest of the
‘black’ houses--where I had the great pleasure of seeing again my
sister’s dear friend the Duchess Sora, who has lived in a sort of exile
hitherto, ever since the Sardinian occupation of Rome.
“Yesterday morning I went with the Prince to the antiquity market in the
Campo de’ Fiore. We left the carriage in the courtyard of the
Cancelleria, and made a raid upon the old bookstalls, till our arms
were quite full, and then we deposited our burthens and made another.
The Prince is getting on wonderfully with his English, and will talk
fluently by the time he reaches London. I see him ceaselessly. He has
been twice to my lodgings to-day, and I have been out with him besides.
He dances till 4 A.M. every night now (it is Carnival), but is never
tired, and up at eight.”
* * * * *
“_Feb. 24._--My present work is likely to end for a time on Thursday,
when my dear Prince goes to Naples and Sorrento. On looking back, I have
unmixed satisfaction that I came. He leaves Rome quite a different
person from the Prince I found here--much strengthened, and I am sure
much improved in character, as well as speaking and reading English and
French (which he did not know before), and being able to take a lively
animated part in a society in which he was previously a cypher. Of
course, I personally have been able to do very little more than
introduce him and constantly throw him with those who have influenced
him, and I have been most ably seconded and helped in everything I
wished for him by Lady Morton, the Sermonetas, Princess Teano, and--in
her own way--by Lady Paget. To me he has been unfailingly pleasant. I
have never had a difficulty with him.
“We have been together several times in the Vatican, with Monsignor
Pericoli, at the sale of Pius IX.’s things--quantities of things, from
valuable pictures and sculptures to empty jam-pots; but touching in many
ways, especially the boxes of the well-worn Papal slippers. All is
obliged to be sold, as the produce is divided into three parts--one to
the family, one to the cardinals-in-waiting, and the third to the
Church. The Prince bought some valuable amethysts, and I have the Papal
despatch-box engraved with his arms, a picture which hung in his room,
and a pair of the Papal slippers.
“For the last ten days we have been in all the dirt and squalor of the
silly, filthy Carnival, which is more _mesquin_ and contemptible than
ever; but the Prince is only twenty, and it has amused him. I have only
been obliged to go with him to the Corso one day, when we went to
one-o’clock luncheon with the Dutch Minister, and were astonished to
find every shutter closed, chandeliers and candles lighted, ladies in
white satin and diamonds, gentlemen in evening dress; in fact, midnight
at midday! so that the Prince and I felt rather shy. However, Mrs. Bruce
cheered us by appearing in a bonnet.”
* * * * *
I saw much at this time of Madame Minghetti, the wife of the senator,
still wonderfully beautiful and captivating, though a grandmother. Her
rooms were draped with every possible nuance of colour which can
harmonise together, great palm-trees and bananas shaded the sofas and
arm-chairs, and the heavy curtains only let in witching rays of half
light upon a gorgeous gloom. Here, in her receptions in the early Sunday
afternoon, she would sit upon the floor and sing, break off in the
middle of a line to receive or embrace some one, and, in an instant, be
again in her place, singing as before and taking up the line which was
left unfinished.
Another new friend was the pretty lively Princess of Salm Reifferscheid,
whom, with her husband, I invited to accompany us to Tivoli, when the
Prince gave me a carriage and told me to ask whom I liked. At Tivoli our
party had a charming day, riding on eleven donkeys, penetrating into the
depths of the cascades, having luncheon in front of the temple, and
sitting in the sun opposite the cascatelle. At sunset we were at the
Villa d’Este, and went down into the hollow to look up at the grand old
villa, golden through the dark cypresses.
I saw, however, comparatively little of those who usually make the
pleasure of my Roman winter, and devoted myself to the Prince. There is
no use--none--in trying to be, or to do, two things at once.
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“Here is a story which I have heard lately:--
“Lady Vernon[297] dreamt. She dreamt that she saw the butler, with a
knife in one hand and a candle in the other, crossing the entrance hall,
and she woke with a great start. After a little she composed herself to
sleep again, and she dreamt--she dreamt that she saw the butler, with a
knife in one hand and a candle in the other, on the middle of the
staircase, and she woke with a great shock. She got up; she thought she
could not be quite well, and she took a little sal-volatile. At last she
fell asleep again, and she dreamt--she dreamt that she saw the butler,
with a knife in one hand and a candle in the other, standing at her
bedroom door; and she awoke in a great terror, and she jumped out of
bed, and she said: ‘I’ll have an end of this, I’ll have an end of these
foolish imaginations,’ and she rushed to the door, and she threw the
door wide open. And there at the door _stood_ the butler, with a knife
in one hand and a candle in the other. And when he suddenly saw Lady
Vernon in her white night-dress, with her hair streaming down her back,
_he_ was so dreadfully frightened that he dropped the candle on the
ground and rushed off down the staircase, and off to the stables where
there was a horse ready saddled and bridled, on which he meant to have
ridden away when he had murdered Lady Vernon; and he rode away without
ever having murdered her at all, and he was never, never, _never_ heard
of again.”
* * * * *
On the 3rd of March, a well-known partnership of upwards of sixty years
was closed at Rome by the death, in his little apartment at 55 Via
Sistina, of William Howitt the author leaving his sweet old Mary[298]
alone with her unmarried daughter Margaret. Though never very
remarkable, the many books of William and Mary Howitt were always
excellent, and the writers were deeply respected. I attended Mr.
Howitt’s funeral on the 5th, walking with Mrs. Terry, Baron Hoffmann,
and Prince George of Solms, immediately after the daughter and
son-in-law. The ceremony was a very touching one, and the coffin buried
in wreaths of camellias, lilies, and violets. As William Howitt was a
Quaker, the service was different from ours, but hymns were beautifully
sung over his coffin in the chapel and at the grave, where the American
clergyman, Dr. Nevin, gave a really touching and beautiful address, as
the daughter was pouring basket after basket of flowers into the open
grave.
I dined with the Prince on the day before that fixed for his departure
to Naples. When our last moment together came, he took me into his room
and parted from me there, with many most affectionate words, and gave
me the Order of St. Olaf, which the King of Sweden and Norway had
conferred upon me, begging me to wear it for his sake.[299] I left him
with the truest affection, and with, I think, unbounded confidence and
regard on both sides.
* * * * *
_From the_ COUNTESS ROSEN.
“_February 23._--As the Prince’s stay in Rome is now drawing to its
close, their Majesties charge me once more to express to you their most
heartfelt thanks for all your kindness to the Prince, all the good and
useful influence you have had over him, and all your arrangements to
combine the useful with the amusing in order to kindle his interest.
Their Majesties have always been so happy to know that you were at his
side and smoothed all his difficulties. In his own letters the Prince
shows that he has learnt to love and appreciate you, and is thankful for
all you have done for him.”
[Illustration: IN THE ENTRANCE HALL, HOLMHURST.]
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Feb. 28, 1879._--You ask if I was alarmed over my lectures with the
Prince, and found them difficult. No, not very. From the first I thought
of what Johnson told Sir J. Reynolds, and I tried to do the same. He
told him that he had ‘early laid it down as a fixed rule to do his best
on every occasion, and in every company: to impart whatever he knew in
the most forcible language he could put it in, and that by constant
practice and by never suffering any careless expressions to escape him,
or attempting to deliver his thoughts without arranging them in the
clearest manner, it had become habitual to him.’ So you see that I have
been fortifying myself by wise advice! And I am sure that it is the
_way_ in which things are said that fixes them in the mind.”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“Fabj. Altini, the sculptor, says Thorwaldsen declared clay to be the
life of art, plaster its death, and marble its resurrection.
“Mrs. F. Walker told me how she went out one evening at Freshwater to
meet her brother-in-law and niece as they were returning from an
excursion along the cliffs. On her way she saw a lady in deep mourning,
with a little boy, emerge apparently from a side path to the one on
which she was, and walk on before her. She noticed the lady’s peculiarly
light step. Mother and son stopped at a little railed-in enclosure at
the top of the hill, and gazed over the railings; then they went on
again in front of her. At length, beyond them, Mrs. Walker saw Mr.
Palmes and his daughter coming to meet her. Between her and them she saw
the lady and boy suddenly disappear--apparently go down some side path
leading to the sands; but, when she came to the place, there was _no_
path, the cliff was perfectly precipitous. Miss Palmes equally saw the
lady and boy coming towards her, and was greatly agitated by their
sudden disappearance.
“Afterwards they found that the same sight was constantly seen there. It
was the little boy’s grave into which the two had gazed. He had fallen
over the cliff just there and been killed, and was buried by his
mother’s wish inside that little circular railing.”
* * * * *
The Prince was in Rome for one night on his way from Naples to Munich, I
went to him in the early morning, and was with him till 2 P.M., when he
left, spending the time in driving about with him, chiefly to the
antiquity shops, in which he always had the greatest delight. The very
day after he left I fell in with other royalties, of whom at first I
seemed likely to see a great deal. I was at the Princess Giustiniani
Bandini’s, when the Hereditary Grand Duke and Duchess of Saxe-Weimar
were announced--a very simple homely pair. The lady-in-waiting, hearing
my name, most cleverly recollected all about me, and I was presented,
and very cordially and kindly received. A few days after, Princess Teano
asked me to meet them at dinner. Only the Keudells of the German Embassy
and the Minghettis dined besides the family, but an immense party came
in the evening. The Hereditary Grand Duke is a weak-looking little man
with a very receding forehead. The Grand Duchess (who was his cousin) is
a fine big woman--“bel pezzo di carne”--with intense enjoyment and
good-humour in everything. “How can anybody be ill, how is it possible
that anybody can be unhappy in Rome!” Both talked English perfectly.
They arranged then that I should show them the Palatine. But a few days
afterwards I heard from the Duchess Sermoneta that the Grand Duchess
had said to her that, owing to the furious jealousy of the German
archaeologists, she was unable to go with me.
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_March 17, 1879._--At Mrs. Terry’s I have met again her sister, Mrs.
Julia Ward-Howe, the American poetess. When she wanted me to talk to her
and I did not, she said, ‘In your case, Mr. Hare, I must pervert a text
of Scripture--“to do good and to _communicate_ forget not.”’
“I have seen much, almost daily, of Lord Hylton’s young son, George
Jolliffe, for whom I have an affection ever increased by his confidence
in me, which makes me feel more of responsibility as an instrument of
possible good in his case than I have ever done in any other. He is a
delightful companion in Rome, so full of interest and enthusiasm in all
we see.... We went together yesterday to the Palazzo Massimo alle
Colonne, where the old blackened portico was hung with bright tapestry,
and the whole staircase and rooms strewn with box, because it was the
day on which S. Filippo Neri raised the Massimo child from the dead.
Most surprising were the masses of people--cobblers and contadini
elbowing cardinals up the long staircase, washerwomen on their knees
crowding princesses round the altar. Prince Massimo, in full evening
dress, received in the anteroom of the chapel, and the Princess
(daughter of the Duchesse de Berri) invited every one she knew to have
ices and coffee.
“I went afterwards to Miss Howitt, who talked cheerfully about her
father. ‘Rome might possibly not be the place to live in, but it
certainly was the place to die and be buried in.’ She spoke of the
extraordinary shots made at her father’s life by the English
newspapers--how one of them described her mother’s daily walk on the
Pincio by the side of a Bath-chair which ‘contained an ancient man,’
&c., the fact being that her mother never walked, that her father always
walked, and moreover that there was no Bath-chair in Rome.
“Last night I was at the British Embassy till 1 A.M. I conquered shyness
sufficiently to go and talk to the Grand Duchess, though she sat in a
row of princesses. The younger Marchesa Lajatico was there--most
graceful and charming.”
* * * * *
“_March 20._--A young American drove me to the meet at Centocelle. It
was a lovely day of soft scirocco, fleecy clouds floating over the pale
pink mountain distances and the Campagna bursting into its first green,
across which the long chains of aqueduct arches threw their deep
shadows. Crowds of people and carriages were out, but we followed
Princess Teano, who knew all the ups and downs of the ground, and drove
with young Lady Clarendon so cleverly, that we were in at the death in
the great ruins of Sette Basse.”
* * * * *
“_March 21._--Tea with Countess Primoli (Princess Charlotte Bonaparte)
in her little boudoir at the end of a long suite of quaint old-fashioned
rooms. She talked very pleasantly, but with too constant reference to
the Empress and Prince Imperial as ‘my family.’ I went afterwards to see
the Favarts at Ville Lante. It is a beautiful place, and the noble face
of Madame Favart is worthy of its setting. Consolo was there and played
marvellously on the violin, every nerve seeming to vibrate, every hair
to leap in unison with his chords.”
* * * * *
“_March 23._--Once more I am on the eve of leaving Rome, more sorry to
part with my little winter rooms than I ever expected to be; even my
ugly squinting donna, ‘Irene,’ having proved very good and faithful. The
time here has been full of interests, independent of royal ones--one of
them, the going out to India of Frank Marion Crawford, the son of my
dear friend Mrs. Terry. He would probably have done no work in Europe,
though he has evinced an ambitious perseverance by voluntarily pursuing
the study of Sanscrit--‘because it was so difficult,’ and this has
enabled him to accept a vacant professorship in the University at
Bombay.”[300]
* * * * *
“_Florence, March 27._--I left Rome on Tuesday--a lovely morning, and I
looked my last at the glorious view from the Medici Terrace with a heavy
heart.
“Now I am in the old Palazzo Mozzi at Florence, as the guest of the
Sermonetas. On the side towards the Via dei Bardi the palace rises up
gaunt and grim like a fortress, but at the back it looks into a
beautiful garden, with terraces climbing up the steep hillside to the
old city wall. The rooms are large and dreadfully cold, but the Duchess
has made them very picturesque with old hangings and furniture. The Duke
talks incessantly and cleverly. I asked him why his Duchess signed
‘Harriet Caëtani,’ not ‘Sermoneta,’ and he explained how all the
splendour of the family arose from the fact that they were Caëtani; that
many of the greatest of the old families, such as the Frangipani, had no
titles at all: that even the Orsini had no title of place, and that it
was only modern families, like the Braschi, who cared to air a title.
The oldest title in Italy was that of Marchese, which came in with the
French: Duke came with the Imperialists; but the title of Prince, for
which he had the utmost contempt, was merely the result of Papal
nepotism: Borghese was the first Prince created.
“The Duke declared that the word ‘antimonial’ was really ‘antimonacal.’
The alchemists who lived in the old convents used to throw out of the
windows the water which they had used in their search after the
philosopher’s stone: pigs drank the poisoned water and died: monks
(monaci) ate the pigs and died also: hence the expression.
“The Duke is very adverse to open windows: ‘If I want the air I can go
out into the piazza,’ he says. To his relations, for the most part, he
greatly objects--‘Questi sono i flagelli di questo mondo.’ A monk or
nun, he says, is ‘Un insétto chi puo vivere senza aria a senza acqua.’
“We have been at a large party at the Palazzo Torrigiani, and it has
been a great pleasure to see again the many members of the large,
pleasant, amiable Florentine society.”
* * * * *
Having undertaken to devote myself exclusively to the Prince Royal had
made me give up all my usual employments during this Roman winter of
1878-79. The chief event in my life disconnected with the Prince was my
being asked to open the session of the British and American
Archaeological Society. This I long refused, urging that many others
were more worthy and competent, but it was insisted upon, and, to my
great surprise, I found myself speaking to a crowded meeting words which
I had written down before, but which I never found any need of referring
to. Here they are (for I have preserved them nowhere else) from the
notes I made:--
* * * * *
“The Secretary of this Society conferred upon me a most unexpected
honour when he asked me to open this meeting. I could have wished that
he had selected some one more worthy of that honour, for not only am I
unaccustomed to public speaking, but I may truly say that I never made a
speech in my life. I will therefore hope that my many deficiencies--my
more than many deficiencies, may be either overlooked or pardoned.
“But, though the Secretary could have found many persons in Rome better
able to address you, with more power of doing justice to their subject
than myself, he could not have found one to whom Rome was dearer, about
whose heart all its sympathies were more tenderly and closely entwined.
Long and intimate family association, perhaps the very fact of having a
birthplace in the once beautiful Villa Strozzi, have added to that sense
which comes to so many, of looking upon Rome as a second home--a home as
familiar almost, quite as tenderly beloved, as the home in far-away
England. How truly Chateaubriand has said that those who have nothing
left in life should turn their footsteps to Rome: there the very stones
can waken into speech; there the very dust beneath our feet can kindle
into memories of a past ever fresh and ever sacred. To those who come
here first as strangers, the decay, the stagnation, the ruin of
everything may be oppressive; they may see only the bareness of the
stuccoed streets, they may grumble at the rough pavements, they may be
wearied with the petty discomforts and difficulties of daily and
practical life:--but no matter! If they only stay here long enough, the
love of Rome will insidiously creep upon them; they will feel it
difficult to tear themselves away from it; and, when they have left it,
it will ever come back to them--in silent hours, in visions of the
night--grand ruins lying in silent slumbrous solitude; desolate
vineyards flower-carpeted; beautiful villas, where the ancient ilex
avenues are peopled with marble statues, relics of a mythical past
which in Rome seems almost as real as the present; and above all, the
recollection of a mighty purple dome embossed upon a sky whose sunset
glory recalls the splendours of the New Jerusalem--first a sapphire,
then a chalcedony, then an emerald, then a chrysopraz, last an amethyst.
“In regard to how many Roman scenes do we echo such thoughts as Clough
has expressed in his beautiful lines to the Alban Mount:--
‘Alba, thou findest me still, and, Alba, thou findest me ever,
Now from the Capitol steps, now over Titus’s arch,
Here where the large grassy spaces stretch from the Lateran portal,
Towering o’er aqueduct lines lost in perspective between,
Or from a Vatican window, or bridge, or the high Coliseum,
Clear by the garlanded line cut of the Flavian ring.
Beautiful can I not call thee, and yet thou hast power to o’ermaster,
Power of mere beauty; in dreams, Alba, thou hauntest me still.’
“What Madame Swetchine says of life, that you find in it exactly what
you put into it, is also true of Rome, and those who come to it with
least mental preparation are those least fitted to enjoy it. That
preparation, however, is not so easy as it used to be. In the old days,
the happy old days of vetturíno travelling, there were so many quiet
hours, when the country was not too beautiful, and the towns not too
interesting, when Gibbon, and Merivale, and Milman were the pleasantest
of travelling companions, and when books of art and poetry served to
illustrate and illuminate the graver studies which were making Italy
not only a beautiful panorama, but a country filled with forms which
were daily growing into more familiar acquaintance. Perugia and Spoleto,
Terni and Civita Castellana, led fitly up then to the greater interests
of Rome, as courtiers to a king. But in the journeys of the present, the
hurried traveller has not these opportunities of preparation, and must
rest upon his home-knowledge, and such reading as he can find time for
in Rome itself. To such travellers--to those, I mean, who wish to take
away from Rome something more than a mere surface impression--I would
give one piece of advice gathered from long experience: Never see too
much; most of all, never see too much at once; never try to ‘do’ Rome.
Better far to leave half the ruins and nine-tenths of the churches
unseen, and to see well the rest, to see them not once, but again and
often again, to watch them, to learn them, to live with them, to love
them, till they become a part of your life and your life’s
recollections.
“Thus, too, in the galleries. What can be carried away by those who
wander over all the Vatican at once but a hopeless chaos of marble
limbs, at best a nightmare of Venuses and Mercurys and Jupiters and
Junos? But if the traveller would benefit by the Vatican, let him make
friends with a few of the statues, and pay them visits, and grow into
greater intimacy:--then will the purity of their outlines, the majestic
serenity of their godlike grace, have power over him, raising his spirit
to a perception of creations of beauty of which he had no idea before,
and enabling him to discern the traces of that noblest gift of God which
men call ‘genius’ in the humblest works of those who, while they have
found the true and right path which leads to the great end, are still
very far off.
“I would urge those who are sight-seeing at Rome to read twice about
that which they see, before they see it, to prepare themselves for the
sight, and after they have seen it, to fix the sight in their
recollection. I would also urge all archaeologists to believe that it is
not in one class of Roman interests alone that much is to be learnt;
that those who devote themselves exclusively to the relics of the kings
and the Republic, to the walls, or to the vexed questions concerning the
Porta Capena, and who see no interest in the reminiscences of the Middle
Ages, and the memorials of the saints and of the popes, take only half
the blessing of Rome, and the half which has the least of human sympathy
in it. They are blind of one eye, because they see with the other: they
are like the foolish Athenians, who have lately pulled down the noble
Venetian towers on the Acropolis because they were not Greek.
“Besides this, one should recollect that important relics of Pagan Rome
are to be found elsewhere--at Nismes and Treves beyond the Alps, and at
many places in Northern Italy; but the memorials of Christian Rome, and
of its early bishops and martyrs, are to be found only in Rome and its
neighbourhood.
[Illustration: AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE
1879]
“Those who wish to fix the scenes and events of Roman history securely
in their minds will do best to take them in groups. Suppose, for
instance, that people wish to study the story of St. Laurence. Let them
first visit the beautiful little chapel in the Vatican, where the whole
story of the saint’s life is portrayed in the lovely frescoes of
Angelico da Fiesole. Let them stand on the green sward by the Navicella,
where he distributed the treasures of the church in front of the house
of St. Ciriaca. Let them walk through the crypto-porticus of the
Palatine, up which he was dragged to his trial. Let them lean against
the still existing bar of the basilica, where he knelt to receive his
sentence. Let them visit S. Lorenzo in Fonte, where he was imprisoned,
and baptized his fellow-prisoners in the fountain which gives the church
its name. Let them go hence to S. Lorenzo Pane e Perna, built upon the
scene of his terrific martyrdom, which is there portrayed in fresco. Let
them see his traditional chains, and the supposed gridiron of his
suffering at S. Lorenzo in Lucina; and, lastly, at the great basilica of
S. Lorenzo fuori le Mura let them admire the mighty church which for
1200 years has marked the site of that little chapel which Constantine
built near the lowly catacomb grave in which the martyr was laid by his
deacon Hippolytus.
“Let us turn to a very different character. Let us turn to Rienzi. How
vivid will his story seem to those who go first to the old tower of the
Crescenzi near the Bocca della Verità, which belonged to his ancestors,
and then to the street behind S. Tommaso where he was born--the son of a
publican and a washerwoman, for to such humble offices were the
Crescenzi then reduced. They will find Rienzi again at the little church
of S. Angelo in Pescheria, whither he summoned the citizens at midnight
to hold a meeting for the re-establishment of ‘the Good Estate,’ and in
which he kept the Vigil of the Holy Ghost--and at the Portico of
Octavia, on whose ancient walls he painted his famous picture
allegorical of the sufferings of the Romans under the oppression of the
great patrician families, thus flaunting defiance in the eyes of the
Savelli, who could look down upon the picture from the windows of their
palace above the Theatre of Marcellus. At S. Giorgio in Velabro the
pediment still remains under the old terra-cotta cornice where an
inscription proclaimed that the reign of the Good Estate was begun. We
must follow Rienzi thence, bareheaded, but in full armour, to the
Capitol, and to the Lateran, where he took his mystic bath in the great
vase of green basalt in which Constantine is falsely said to have been
baptized. We must think of his flight, after his short-lived glories
were over, by the light of the burning palace, down the steps of the
Capitol, and of his wife looking out of the window to witness his murder
at the foot of the great basaltic lioness, which looks scarcely older
now than on the night on which it was sprinkled with his blood. Lastly,
we may remember that his body was hung, a target for the stones of those
by whom he was so lately adored, in the little piazza of S. Marcello in
the Corso, and that, in strange contradiction, it was eventually burnt
by the Jews in the desolate mausoleum of Augustus, surrounded by Roman
emperors, in a fire of dried thistles, till not a fibre of it remained.
“Let us take one more character from a much later time. Let us take
Beatrice Cenci. In the depths of the Ghetto, ghastly and grim, still
stands the old palace of Francesco Cenci, whose colossal rooms and dark
passages were the scene of her long misery. Hard by is the little
church which one of that wretched family built in the hope of expiating
its crimes. As we walk through the wearisome Tor di Nona on our way to
S. Peter’s, we may think of the old tower which gave the street its
name, in which the beautiful young girl is said to have undergone for
forty hours the torture of the ‘vigilia,’ followed by the still more
terrific agony called ‘tortura capillorum.’ At Sta. Maria Maggiore we
may look upon the stern face of Clement VIII., the cruel judge who knew
no mercy, and who, in answer to all pleadings in their behalf, bade that
the whole Cenci family should be dragged by wild horses through the
streets of Rome. The ancient Santa Croce palace still stands, in which
the Marchesa Santa Croce was murdered by her two sons on the night in
which a last effort was being made for the pardon of Beatrice--an event
which sealed her fate. In the Corte Savelli we may think of her terrible
execution. Before the high altar of S. Pietro in Montorio she reposes
from her long agony. And finally, we must go to the Palazzo Barberini,
where, in the picture which Guido Reni is said to have painted in her
prison, we may gaze upon the pale composure of her transcendent
loveliness.
“It is by thus entwining one sight with another, till they become the
continuous links of a story, that they are best fixed in the mind. They
should also be read about, not merely in guide-books, but in the works
of those who, from long residence in Italy and the deep love which they
bear to it, have become impressed with the true Italian spirit. Amongst
such books none are more delightful than the many volumes of
Gregorovius, from his ‘History of the City of Rome’ to his enchanting
‘Lateinische Sommer,’ and his graphic little sketches of the
burial-places of the Popes. I have often been laughed at for constantly
recommending and quoting novels in speaking of Rome and its interests;
yet in few graver works are such glimpses of Rome, of Roman scenery,
Roman character, Roman manners to be obtained as in Hawthorne’s ‘Marble
Faun,’ which English publishers so foolishly call ‘Transformation;’ in
‘Mademoiselle Mori;’ in the ‘Improvisatore’ of Hans Christian Andersen;
in the ‘Daniella’ of George Sand; and, will my audience be unutterably
shocked if I add, in the Pagan-spirited ‘Ariadne’ of Ouida. The writers
of these books have really known Rome and loved it, and yet several of
them have only spent one or two winters here. The same knowledge, the
same inspiration, is open to all of us, and the reason why English and
American visitors so seldom carry away from Rome more than they bring to
it is because they have never seen it at all; because the life in a
hotel, with its English and French dinners, its English or
French-speaking waiters, its newspapers and reading-rooms, is not a
Roman life; because the shop-keepers in the Via Condotti, their
washerwomen, or their masters of music and languages, are the only
Italians these visitors have come in contact with; because their sights
are doled out to them by conceited couriers or ignorant ciceroni;
because they have no ideas of the peasants and their costumes beyond the
models of the Via Felice and the Trinità de’ Monti.
“And all this might be so different! Can one look at the amethystine
mountains which girdle in the Campagna around Rome without wishing to
penetrate their recesses? In the mountain towns which hang like eagles’
nests to their rocks there are not only costumes, but every one wears a
costume: there the true Italian life may be seen. By the railway which
leads to Naples it is very easy now to reach many of these beautiful
places and to have glimpses of a true Italy. The grand temples of Cori,
the rock-perched Norba, and mysterious beautiful flower-peopled Ninfa
may now be visited in one day from the station of Velletri, returning to
Rome in the evening. At Sora near Arpino, the gloriously situated home
of Cicero and of Marius, and at San Germano, close to Monte Cassino and
to Aquino with its beautiful Roman arches of triumph, there are now very
tolerable hotels; and oh! believe me, there is no enjoyment more intense
than that of spring days on these lonely mountain heights carpeted with
sweet basil and thyme, or in these old desolate cities where the women
come up from the fountains with great brazen _conche_ poised upon their
black locks, like animated caryatides.
“But I would also urge those who cannot make these excursions to do at
least something which will give them an individual interest, a personal
property in Rome itself. Let them collect marbles or plants, or even
photographs, or let them make sketches, choosing perhaps some special
line of interest, either the ancient Roman remains, or the memorials of
the saints, or the mediaeval tombs, thus appropriating and having their
own little personal share in the great field of archaeology. I remember
that two English ladies,[301] long valued members of the society here,
made a perfect collection of drawings of all the mediaeval towers in
Rome, whether campanile of the churches, or old brick fortresses of the
Anicii and Frangipani. I have known another lady, a much honoured
American resident in this place,[302] who spent much of her time in
making a perfect collection of drawings and photographs of all Italian
subjects connected with Dante. And, depend upon it, that the very fact
that these persons thus created for themselves a private centre around
which all other interests should circle, gave them a wider grasp and an
easier remembrance for all that came across them.
“Archaeology is generally regarded as a dead and dry study, though it
need not be so. But its animating power is history, and to bring it into
life it must be combined with history, not in its narrowest, but in its
widest sense. To a life-long student of classical details, it may be a
matter of vital importance whether a stone on the Palatine is of the
time of the kings or the Republic; but to the casual visitor to Rome, to
the ladies who form so great a portion of my present audience, this can
scarcely be a question of thrilling excitement. To the unlearned, I
believe it to be of more interest to reflect upon the gladiatorial
combats and the Christian martyrdoms in the Coliseum than to discuss the
exact manner in which its sheltering velarium was sustained.
“Let our Roman archaeology, then, be unlimited as to ages, let it grasp
as much as it can of the myriad human sympathies which Rome has to
offer or awaken; for thus, and only thus, can it do a great work, in
arousing highest thoughts and aims, as it opens the ancient
treasure-house and teaches the vast experience of more than two thousand
years. Then, as John Addington Symonds says:--
‘Then from the very soil of ancient Rome
You shall grow wise, and walking, live again
The lives of buried peoples, and become
A child by right of that eternal home,
Cradle and grave of empires, on whose walls,
The sun himself subdued to reverence falls.’
“Let archaeology help the beauties of Rome in leaving their noblest
impress--in arousing feelings which are worthy of the greatest of Pagan
heroes, of the sweetest of Latin poets, of the most inspired of
sculptors and painters, as well as of Paul of Tarsus, who passed into
Rome under the arch of Drusus, upon whom the shadow of the pyramid of
Caius Cestius fell as he passed out of Rome to his martyrdom, in that
procession of which it is the sole surviving witness, and who here in
Rome is sleeping now, with thousand other saints, till, as St. Ambrose
reminds us, he shall awaken _here_, in Rome, at the great resurrection.
“Rome, as Winckelmann says, is the high-art school which is open to all
the world. It can supply every mental requirement, if people will only
apply at the right corner of the fountain. This is what an
archaeological society ought to help us to find: this is what I trust
the British and American Archaeological Society may help us to find.”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_April 29, 1879, London._--I have heard again the curious story of Sir
T. Watson from Mrs. T., to whom he told it himself, so will write it
down.
“Sir Thomas Watson, better known as Dr. Watson, was a well-known
physician. During the last years of his life he was in failing health,
and only saw patients at his own house, but till then he went about in
England wherever he was sent for. One day he was summoned to attend an
urgent case at Oxenholme in Cumberland. There was only one carriage in
the train which went through to Oxenholme, and in a compartment of that
carriage he took his seat. He tipped the guard, and said he should be
glad to be alone if he could.
“The train at Euston was already in motion, when a young lady came
running down the platform, with a porter laden with her hand-bags and
cloaks. The man just contrived to open the carriage door, push the young
lady in, throw in her things after her, and the train was off. The young
lady, a very pretty, pleasing young lady, took the seat opposite Dr.
Watson. Being a polite, gallant old gentleman, very soon Dr. Watson
began to make himself agreeable: ‘What beautiful effects of cloud there
were. How picturesque Harrow church steeple looked through the morning
haze,’ &c. &c., and the young lady responded pleasantly. At last, as
their acquaintance advanced, Dr. Watson said, ‘And are you travelling
far?’ ‘Oh yes,’ said the young lady, ‘very far, I am going to Oxenholme
in Cumberland.’ ‘How singular,’ said Dr. Watson, ‘for that is just where
I am going myself. I wonder if you happen to know Lady D. who lives
near Oxenholme.’ ‘Yes,’ said the young lady, ‘I know Lady D. very well.’
‘And Mrs. P. and her daughters?’ said Dr. W. ‘Oh yes, I know them too.’
‘And Mr. Y.?’ There was a moment’s pause, and then the young lady very
naïvely and ingenuously said, ‘Yes, I do know Mr. Y. very well; and
perhaps I had better tell you something. I am going to be _married_ to
him to-morrow. My own parents are in India, and I am going to be married
from his father’s house. Since I have been engaged to him, I have made
the acquaintance of many of his friends and neighbours, and that is how
I know so many people near Oxenholme, though I have never been there
before.’
“Dr. Watson was charmed with the simple candour of the young lady. They
went on talking, and they became quite friends. The train arrived at
Rugby, and they both got out and had their bun in the refreshment-room.
They were in the carriage again, and the train was already moving, when,
in great excitement, the young lady called out: ‘Oh stop, stop the
train, don’t you see how he’s urging me to get out. There! that young
man in the brown ulster, that’s the young man I’m going to be married
to.’ Of course it was impossible to get out, and the young lady was
greatly distressed, and though Dr. Watson assured her most positively
that there was no one standing where she described, she would not and
could not believe him.
“Then Dr. Watson said, ‘Now, my dear young lady, you’re very young and
I’m very old. I am a doctor. I am very well known, and from what you
have been seeing I am quite sure, as a physician, that you are not at
all well. Now, I have my medicine chest with me, and you had better let
me give you a little dose.’ And he did give her a little dose.
“The train arrived at Stafford, and exactly the same thing occurred.
‘There, there! don’t you see him! _that_ young man with the light beard,
in the brown ulster, don’t you see how he’s urging me to get out.’ And
again Dr. Watson assured her there was no one there, and said, ‘I think
you had better let me give you another little dose;’ and he gave her
another little dose.
“But Dr. Watson naturally felt that he could not go on giving her a dose
at every station all the way to Oxenholme, so he decided within himself
that if the same thing happened at Crewe, the young lady’s state
indicated one of two things: either that there was some intentional
vision from Providence, with which he ought not to interfere; or that
the young lady was certainly not in a state of health or brain which
should allow of her being married next day. So he determined to act
accordingly.
“And at Crewe just the same thing happened. ‘There, there! don’t you see
him! he’s urging me more than ever to get out,’ cried the young lady.
‘Very well,’ said Dr. Watson, ‘we will get out and go after him,’ and,
with the young lady, he pursued the imaginary figure, and of course did
not find him. But Dr. Watson had often been at Crewe station before, and
he went to the hotel, which opens on the platform, and said to the
matron, ‘Here is this young lady, who is not at all well, and should
have a very quiet room; unfortunately I am not able to remain now to
look after her, but I will leave her in your care, and to-morrow I shall
be returning this way and will come to see how she is.’ And he slipped a
five-pound note into the woman’s hand to guarantee expenses.
“Dr. Watson returned to the railway carriage. There was another young
lady there, sitting in the place which the first young lady had
occupied--a passenger who had arrived by one of the many lines which
converge at Crewe. With the new young lady he did not make acquaintance,
he moved his things to the other side of the carriage and devoted
himself to his book.
“Three stations farther on came the shock of a frightful accident. There
was a collision. The train was telescoped, and many passengers were
terribly hurt. The heavy case of instruments, which was in the rack
above the place where Dr. Watson had first been sitting, was thrown
violently to the other side of the carriage, hit the young lady upon the
forehead and killed her on the spot.
“It was long before the line could be sufficiently cleared for the train
to pass which was sent to pick up the surviving passengers. Many hours
late, in the middle of the night, Dr. Watson arrived at Oxenholme.
There, waiting upon the platform, stood the young man with the light
beard, in the brown ulster, exactly as he had been described. He had
heard that the only young lady in the through carriage from London had
been killed, and was only waiting for the worst to be confirmed. And
Dr. Watson was the person who went up to him and said: ‘Unfortunately it
is too true that a young lady has been killed, but it is not your young
lady. Your young lady is safe in the station hotel at Crewe.’”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Holmhurst, May 3._--I have had a visit from the people who formerly
lived here, so surprised at the changes--at the continuation of the walk
in the firwood, &c., but most at the number of pictures and books
everywhere inside the house, a clothing of walls which they evidently
thought most unsuitable in a dining-room and passages, and most of all
were they rather shocked at finding an ancient Madonna and Child of the
Luca della Robbia school over the kitchen fireplace, though in an
Italian house you might almost expect one there.
“I have nothing else interesting to tell you, so I will send you some
scraps from my notebook. Lord Brownlow, at a public meeting, heard a
schoolmaster say--‘Education is that which enables you to despise the
opinions of others, and conduces to situations of considerable
emolument.’ Miss Cobbe told me--‘Conscience is that which supplies you
with an excellent motive for doing that which you desire to do, and
which, when it is done, leaves you filled with self-satisfaction.’
“Mrs. L. (who has plantations in South America) has been telling me of a
nigger preacher there who said in the pulpit, ‘I am so blind I cannot
see; I’ve left my specs at home,’ and all the congregation thought he
was giving out the line of a hymn, and sung it lustily.”
[Illustration: IN THE FIR-WOOD, HOLMHURST.]
[Illustration: DINING-ROOM FIREPLACE, HOLMHURST.]
* * * * *
“_May 13, 1879, 34 Jermyn Street, London._--This morning I went with
Mrs. Duncan Stewart and a very large party to Whistler’s studio--a huge
place in Chelsea. We were invited to see his pictures, but there was
only one there--‘The Loves of the Lobsters.’ It was supposed to
represent Niagara, but looked as if the artist had upset the inkstand
and left Providence to work out its own results. In the midst of the
black chaos were two lobsters curvetting opposite each other and looking
as if they were done with red sealing-wax. ‘I wonder you did not paint
the lobsters making love before they were boiled,’ aptly observed a
lady visitor. ‘Oh, I never thought of that,’ said Whistler! It was a
joke, I suppose. The little man, with his plume of white hair (‘the
Whistler tuft,’ he calls it) waving on his forehead, frisked about the
room looking most strange and uncanny, and rather diverted himself over
our disappointment in coming so far and finding nothing to see. People
admire like sheep his pictures in the Grosvenor Gallery, following each
other’s lead because it is the fashion.”
* * * * *
“_May 14, Sunday._--An immense luncheon at Mrs. Cavendish Bentinck’s. I
sat near Mr. Herbert, the artist of the great fresco in the House of
Lords. He described things over which he became almost inspired--how in
the Bodleian he found an old MS. about the Magdalen which made him
determine to go off at once to St. Maximin in Provence (near La Sainte
Baume, the mountain hermitage where she died) to see her skull: that
when he reached St. Maximin, he found that the skull was in a glass case
upon the altar, where he could not really examine it, and he was told
that it was never allowed even to kings and emperors: that he
represented with such fervour his object in making the pilgrimage, that
at last the priests of the church consented to his sending twelve miles
for a _vitrier_ and having the case removed: then he was allowed to
place a single candle behind, and in that moment, as he described it,
with glowing face and voice trembling with emotion--‘I saw the outline
of her profile; the Magdalen herself, that dear friend of our Blessed
Lord, was revealed to me.’
“Miss Leslie, who was sitting near, asked how it was known that the
Magdalen came to St. Maximin. ‘How can you help knowing it,’ said Mr.
Herbert, ‘when it is all written in the Acts of the Apostles!!’”
[Illustration: LA SAINTE BAUME.][303]
* * * * *
“_May 15._--Dined with Lord and Lady Aberdeen--a very large party,
seventy-four pots of flowers upon the table. The dinner was very fine,
but rather uninteresting--the after-dinner better.
* * * * *
“_May 16._--I received the sad news that poor Sir Alexander Taylor was
on his death-bed in Lady Dashwood’s house at Hampstead, and went to him.
He knew me and was pleased to see me, but immediately relapsed into
unconsciousness. It was sad to stand by the utter wreck of one whom I
had known so well.”
* * * * *
“_May 17._--News of poor Sir Alexander’s death. Even at such a solemn
time one could not help smiling at his characteristic _last
words_--‘Present my duty to the Princess Amalie’ (of
Schleswig-Holstein).[304]
“At luncheon at Lady Florentia Hughes’s I met George Russell, who told
me a story which Lord and Lady Portsmouth had just brought back from
Devonshire.
“‘On the railway which runs from Exeter to Barnstaple is a small station
called Lapford. A farmer who lives in a farmhouse near that station
awoke his wife one night, saying that he had had a very vivid dream
which troubled him--that a very valuable cow of his had fallen into a
pit and could not get out again. The wife laughed, and he went to sleep
and dreamt the same thing. Then he wanted to go and look after the cow.
But the wife urged the piercing cold of the winter night, and he went to
sleep instead, and dreamt the same thing a third time. Then he insisted
upon getting up, and, resisting his wife’s entreaties, he went out to
look after the cow. It was with a sense of bathos that he found the cow
quite well and grazing quietly, and he was thinking how his wife would
laugh at him when he got home, and wondering what he should say to her,
when he was aware of a light in the next field. Crawling very quietly to
the hedge, he saw, through the leafless branches of the hawthorns, a man
with a lanthorn and a spade, apparently digging a pit. As he was
watching, he stumbled in the ditch and the branches crackled. The man,
hearing a noise, started, threw down the spade, and ran off with the
lanthorn.
“‘The farmer then made his way round into the next field and came up to
the place where the man had been digging. It was a long narrow pit like
an open grave. At first he could make nothing of it, then by the side of
the pit he found a large open knife. He took that and the spade, and
began to set out homewards, but, with an indescribable shrinking from
the more desolate _feeling_ of the fields, he went round by the lane. He
had not gone far before he heard footsteps coming towards him. It was
two o’clock in the morning, and his nerves being quite unstrung, he
shrank from meeting whoever it was, and climbed up into the hedge to
conceal himself. To his astonishment, he saw pass below him in the
moonlit road one of the maids of his own farmhouse. He allowed her to
pass, and then sprang out and seized her. She was most dreadfully
frightened. He demanded to know what she was there for. She tried to
make some excuse. “Oh,” he said, “there can be no possible excuse; I
insist upon knowing the truth.” She then said, “You know I was engaged
to be married, and that I had a dreadful quarrel with the man I was
engaged to, and it was broken off. Well, yesterday he let me know that
if I would meet him in the middle of the night, he had got something to
show me which would make up for all the past.”--“Would you like to know
what he had to show you? It was your grave he had to show you,” said the
farmer, and he led her to the edge of the pit and showed it to her.
“‘The farmer’s dream had saved the woman’s life.’”
* * * * *
“_May 19._--The Prince (of Sweden and Norway) has arrived with his suite
at Claridge’s. He received me most cordially and affectionately. We made
many plans for sight-seeing and people-seeing, but in England I have no
responsibility; Count Piper, the Swedish Minister, has it all.
“I dined at charming Lady Wynford’s, sitting near Lord Delamere, who was
very full of a definition he had heard of the word ‘deputation.’ ‘A noun
of multitude, which signifies many, but not much.’ It was attributed to
Gladstone, who said, ‘I only wish I _had_ made it.’ Lord Eustace Cecil
produced a definition of ‘Independent Member’ as ‘a Member on whom
nobody can depend.’
“There was an immense gathering at Lady Salisbury’s afterwards; my
Prince there and much liked. There, for the first time, I saw the
Empress Augusta of Germany.”
* * * * *
“_May 22._--A party at Lady Denbigh’s to meet Princess Frederika of
Hanover, a very sweet-looking and royal woman of simple and dignified
manners.”
* * * * *
“_May 24._--Lady Salisbury’s party at the Foreign Office, the staircase,
with its interlacing arches and masses of flowering shrubs, like the
essence of a thousand Paul Veroneses. My Prince was there in a white
uniform.”
* * * * *
“_May 27._--At dinner at Sir John Lefevre’s I met Mr. Bright. He has a
grand old lion-like head in an aureole of white hair, and his
countenance never seems to wake from its deep repose, except for some
burst of enthusiasm on a subject really worth while. He spoke of
Americans, ‘who say an infinity of foolish things, but always do wise
ones.’ Mr. Bryce of ‘The Holy Roman Empire’ was there, a bearded man
with bright eyes, who talked well. Afterwards there was a party at Lady
Beauchamp’s to meet Prince and Princess Christian. How like all the
princesses are to one another.”
* * * * *
“_May 29._--A dinner at Lord Carysfort’s and ball at Lady Salisbury’s. I
presented so many relations to the Prince that he said that which
astonished him more than anything else in England was ‘the multitude of
Mr. Hare’s cousins.’”
* * * * *
“_May 30._--With the Prince to Westminster Abbey, after which Arthur met
us in the Jerusalem Chamber and took us into the Deanery. In the evening
with the Prince to Lady Margaret Beaumont’s.”
* * * * *
“_June 6._--With the Prince Royal to the Academy.”
* * * * *
“_June 7._--To the National Gallery with the Prince.”
[Illustration: THE JERUSALEM CHAMBER.][305]
* * * * *
“_June 8._--Luncheon with the Prince. We drove afterwards to see Lady
Russell. Pembroke Lodge looked enchanting with its bright green of old
oaks and its carpet of bluebells--a most perfect refuge for the latter
years of an aged statesman. Lady Russell was waiting for us at the
entrance, with Lady Agatha and Rollo. On the lawn we found many other
members of the family, with Mr. Bouverie and Mr. Froude the historian. I
presented them all, and we walked in the grounds. At tea Lord Bute came
in from a neighbouring villa--always most pleasant and cordial to me.”
* * * * *
“_June 11._--Dined with old Lady Harrington, and left as early as I
could to go to Mrs. Schuster’s, where Sarah Bernhardt was to act. She
appeared first in the great scene of the ‘Phédre’--her face bloodless,
her arms rigid, her voice monotonous and broken. Gradually, under the
influence of her love, she became animated, but the animation began at
the tips of her fingers, till it burst all over her in a flood of
irrepressible passion.
“She did not seem to see her audience or to think of them. For the time
being she was _only_ her part, and, when it was over, she sank down
utterly exhausted, almost unconscious.
“She appeared again in a small part, in which she was a great lady
turned sculptress. The part was nothing; she had little more to say than
‘Let me see more of your profile; turn a little more the other way;’ yet
the great simplicity of her perfect acting made it deeply interesting,
and, in the quarter of an hour in which the scene lasted, she had done
in the clay a real medallion which was a striking likeness.”[306]
* * * * *
“_June 12._--Dined with Madame du Quaire--her table like a glorious Van
Huysum picture from the fruit and flower piece in the centre. The
hostess is famous for the warmth and steadfastness of her friendships.
Mrs. Stewart says--‘Fanny du Quaire is the only person I know who would
do _anything_ for her friends. If it were necessary for my peace that I
should have poison, I should send for Fanny du Quaire, and she would
give it me without flinching.’”
* * * * *
“_June 13._--Dined at Sir Charles Trevelyan’s. I took down a lady whose
name seemed to be ‘Mrs. Beckett.’ I did not interest her, and she talked
exclusively to Lord O’Hagan, who was on the other side of her. Towards
the close of dinner she said to me, ‘We have been a very long time at
dinner.’--‘To me it has seemed quite endless,’ I said.--‘Well,’ she
exclaimed, ‘I do not wonder that you were chosen to speak truth to
Princes.’
“I asked her how she knew anything about that, and she said, ‘I have
lived a long time in a court atmosphere myself. I was for twelve years
with the late Queen of Holland.’--‘Oh,’ I said, ‘_now_ I know who you
are; you are Mrs. Lecky!’ and it was the well-known author’s wife.”[307]
* * * * *
“_June 14._--Luncheon with Lady Darnley, and a long quiet talk with her
afterwards, then a visit to young Lord Lansdowne in his cool, pleasant
rooms looking upon the garden.
“Dined with Count Piper, the Swedish Minister,[308] to meet the Prince
Royal. I sat by Madame de Bülow, who is always pleasant. The only other
lady unconnected with the Embassy was Mademoiselle Christine Nilsson,
who sang most beautifully afterwards till Jenny Lind arrived. Then the
rivalry of the two queens of song became most curious, Nilsson planting
herself at the end of the pianoforte with her arms akimbo, and crying
satirical bravas during Jenny’s songs, and Jenny avenging herself by
never allowing Nilsson to return to the pianoforte at all. The party was
a very late one, and supper was served, when the Prince offered Jenny
his arm to take her down. She accepted it, though with great diffidence;
which so exasperated Nilsson, that with ‘Je m’en vais donc,’ utterly
refusing to be pacified, she swept out of the room and out of the house,
though how she got away I do not know.”
* * * * *
“_June 15._--A quiet luncheon with Lady Reay. Afterwards to Mrs. Duncan
Stewart, who told me:--
“‘A great friend of mine was living lately in Brittany, and, while
there, made acquaintance with a lady and her daughter who were staying
in the same place--the mother a commonplace woman, the daughter a
pleasant interesting girl.
“‘A short time after, the mother and daughter came to England, and my
friend, who was in very delicate health at the time, invited them to
visit her. The mother was prevented coming at first, but sent her
daughter and said that she would follow.
“‘One day my friend was sitting in her boudoir, of which the door was
ajar, very little open. The girl had gone to her own room, which was
immediately above the boudoir, saying that she had letters to write.
“‘Suddenly my friend was aware that _something_ was coming in at the
door, not pushing it wider open, but gliding through the opening which
already existed, and, to her horror, she saw, perfectly naked,
propelling herself serpent-like upon her belly, with her hair rising
like a crest over her head, and her eyes, without any speculation in
them, staring wide open, the figure of a young girl, whom she recognised
as her guest.
“‘With snake-like motion the girl glided in and out of the furniture,
under the chairs, sofas, &c., but touching nothing, and with her eyes
constantly fixed upon my friend, with an expression which was rather
that of fear than anything else. At length she glided out of the room as
she came in.
“‘As soon as my friend could recover herself a little, she pursued the
girl to her room and quietly opened the door. To her horror, all the
articles of crockery in the room, jug, basin, &c., were dispersed about
the floor at regular intervals and in a regular pattern, and through
them all, in and out, without touching them, the girl was gliding,
snake-like, with her head erect, and her vacant eyes staring.
“‘My friend fled to her room and began to think what she should do; but
such was her horror that she thinks she fainted; at any rate the power
of action seemed to fail her. When she could move, she thought it her
duty to go up to the girl’s room again, and perhaps was almost more
horrified than before to find the room in perfect order and the girl
seated dressed at the table, writing. She sent for the girl’s mother,
who was terribly distressed. She allowed that her daughter had had these
utterly inexplicable attacks before, but long ago, and she had hoped
that she was cured of them.’
“Mrs. Stewart told this story to Mr. Fergusson the great naturalist, who
only said, ‘I am not the least surprised: there is nothing extraordinary
in it. There have been many other instances of the serpent element
coming out in people.’”
* * * * *
“_June 16._--Met the Prince early at Paddington, whence we had a saloon
carriage to Oxford, with Sir Watkin Wynne as director to watch over us.
We went a whole round of colleges and to the Bodleian, where Mr. Coxe
exhibited his treasures. Then the Prince wished to see the boats, so we
walked down to the river. Just before us I saw an undergraduate in
boating costume and ran after him.
“‘Can you take us on board the University barge?’
“‘No-o-o-o, I think not.’
“‘But my companion is the Prince Royal of Sweden and Norway.’
“Upon which the boy very soon found that he could take a Prince
anywhere, and proud he probably was afterwards to narrate to whom he had
been acting cicerone. In the barge, a number of undergraduates were
looking at the Prince’s portrait in the _Graphic_. He looked at it too,
over their shoulders, but they did not recognise him.
“It was a fatiguing day, and I felt greatly the utter apathy and want of
interest in all the Swedes, who scarcely noticed anything, admired
nothing, and remembered nothing.”
* * * * *
“_June 18._--Again to Oxford with the Prince. This time the town was in
gala costume, and we drove through a street hung with flags, and through
crowds of people waiting to see the Prince, to the Vice-Chancellor’s
Lodge at Pembroke. Here the Prince dressed, and I went on at once with
his gentlemen to the Theatre, where places were reserved for us just
under the Vice-Chancellor’s throne. My Swedish companions were amused
with the undergraduates’ expression of their likes and dislikes, till
the great moment came and the great doors were thrown open, and, amid a
flood of sunlight, the procession streamed in headed by all the gold
maces. Immediately after the Vice-Chancellor came my Prince, looking
tall and handsome in his white uniform with the crimson robe over it,
and perfectly royal. _I_ knew that he felt nervous, but he could not
have been half as nervous as I was. He played his part, however,
perfectly. He received his degree standing by the Vice-Chancellor’s
side, and the whole body of undergraduates sang a little impromptu song,
to the effect of ‘He’s a charming Swedish boy.’
“We adjourned from the Theatre to the green court of All Souls, where,
in the sunlit quadrangle, I brought up, one after another, all the
principal persons to be presented to the Prince--Lord and Lady Dufferin,
Rachel and Sir Arthur Gordon, Lord Selborne, the Dean of Christ Church
and Mrs. Liddell, &c. There was a luncheon for 300 in the All-Souls
library, and afterwards we drove with Mrs. Evans, the Vice-Chancellor’s
wife, to the Masonic fête in the lovely Wadham garden, and then paid
official visits, before leaving, to the Vice-Chancellor and Dean.
“In the evening I was with the Prince at Mrs. E. Guiness’s ball, on
which £6000 are said to have been wasted. It was a perfect fairy-land,
ice pillars up to the ceiling, an avenue of palms, a veil of stephanotis
from the staircase, and you pushed your way through a brake of papyrus
to the cloak-room.”
* * * * *
“_June 19._--We dined with the Aberdeens. I went before the Prince, and
was with Aberdeen to receive him at the door, and then presented a
quantity of people--Lord and Lady Carnarvon, Lord and Lady Brownlow,
Lady Balfour, Dowager Lady Aberdeen, &c. The London Scottish Volunteers
played soft music during dinner. Soon afterwards the Prince went away to
the Scandinavian ball, rather disappointing many people who came to see
him in the evening.”
* * * * *
“_June 20._--Oh, what a shock it has been that, while the balls last
night were going on, telegrams announced the death of the dear young
Prince Imperial! I am sure I cried for him like a nearest relation;
there was something so very cordial and attaching in him, and there is
something so unspeakably terrible in his death. The Prince was
overwhelmed, and could not dine at Lowther Lodge, where there was a
large party expressly to meet him, but he was quite right.”
* * * * *
“_June 21._--We can think of nothing else but the Prince Imperial and
the awful grief at Chislehurst. Immediately on hearing the telegram,
Lord Dorchester wrote to M. Pietri a letter of condolence. M. Pietri was
away in Corsica, and the Empress opened his letter. It begged Pietri to
offer deep sympathy to the Empress in her overwhelming affliction. She
felt her son was dead, and when Lord Sydney and Mr. Borthwick arrived,
they found her in tears; but when she heard the awful truth that her
darling had been deserted and assegaied, she gave terrible shrieks and
fainted away.
“Most of the day she was unconscious. Those who went to Chislehurst
describe the scene as too heart-rending. The old servants could not
rest, and walked in the garden in groups, wringing their hands and
crying ‘O mon pauvre petit Prince! O mon pauvre cher petit Prince!’
“In the morning I went with the Prince to Lambeth,--all of us very sad
and tearful. I had mentioned a rather later hour to the Archbishop, so
that he was not ready to receive us, and Lord and Lady Charles Clinton,
who were there, were dreadfully shy. When the Archbishop came, he showed
us his library treasures, and climbed up the high Lollards’ Tower to
take the Prince to the prison of the early Reformers; but I felt how
fearfully dull the Archbishop must think all the Swedes, who made no
observation whatever upon anything they saw.”
* * * * *
“_June 23._--With the Prince to the Rose and Crown Coffee-House. Lord
and Lady Aberdeen and Lady Cairns met us there. It is a beautifully
managed institution, and fresh and clean to a degree. All the workmen
crowded in for dinner before we left, but I would not let Aberdeen let
them know who was there till the last moment, when the news gave great
satisfaction; but they behaved beautifully--no crowding or staring: the
Prince wrote his name in their book.
[Illustration: THE LOLLARDS’ PRISON, LAMBETH.][309]
“Luncheon afterwards with Lord and Lady Garvagh, meeting only Madame
Rouzaud (Christine Nilsson).”
* * * * *
“_June 25._--Dinner at Lord Sandwich’s--a particularly good party. I sat
by Lady Elcho, whose mind seems to be in perpetual moonlight, very
calming and refreshing.”
[Illustration: THE WAKEFIELD TOWER, TOWER OF LONDON.][310]
“_June 26._--To the Tower of London with the Prince, who was very
good-humoured and absurd. It is a long fatiguing sight. Our being at
Trinity Square was curious in its results, as persons were just then
visiting it (the site of the block at which More, Fisher, Laud,
Strafford fell) with a view to its destruction, and the fact, afterwards
adduced before the House of Lords, that the Prince Royal of Sweden and
Norway was at that very moment being taken to see it as one of the great
historical sites of London, proved its salvation.
“How wearisome it is to steer the Prince through people’s little
intrigues. They have to-day involved a letter of six sheets to the Queen
of Sweden. Yesterday I was free, as he went with the ‘Four-in-Hand
Club,’--an odd arrangement for _me_ to have to make for him.”
* * * * *
“_June 27._--Went with the Prince by appointment to Hertford House,
where Sir R. Wallace received us. His riches are untold and
indescribable. He showed them very pleasantly, and had much that was
interesting to tell about them.”
* * * * *
“_July 3._--To Syon with the Lockers and Leslies. So few people came at
first, owing to the wet, that we were most cordially welcomed by the
Duke and Lady Percy. Soon it cleared and half London began to pour in;
but the long wide galleries never seem crowded. I reached the
conservatories with Mary and Lily Hughes, and the gardener showed us
some bamboos which, he said, grew twelve inches a day!”
* * * * *
“_July 4._--Oh, the constant variety of the tangle of London life! This
morning was occupied by a special farewell service in Henry VII.’s
chapel at Westminster for Arthur Gordon and Victor Williamson going out
to Fiji. Arthur Stanley preached, standing behind the altar over Edward
VI.’s grave, a most pagan little sermon about Alexander and Priam and
the sacred fire of Troy as a comfort to wandering souls! We all received
the Sacrament together, and then took leave of the travellers in the
Chapter-House.”
* * * * *
“_July 5._--A reprieve from duties to the Prince, who has gone to
Windsor and Aldershot. I had the great happiness of seeing Lady
Castletown and Mrs. Lewis Wingfield again after four years. It is
delightful to see any one who ‘knows how’ to enjoy themselves: every one
wishes it, but scarcely any one has an idea how it is to be done.
“At dinner at Sir Rutherford Alcock’s I heard the startling news of the
death of Frances, Lady Waldegrave.[311] To me she was only a lay figure,
receiving at her drawing-room door, but I remember her thus ever since I
was a boy at Oxford, when she was living at Nuneham. In spite of her
faults, she had many and warm friends: Lord Houghton sobbed like a child
on receiving the news in the midst of a large party. News which affected
me more personally was the death of dear young Charlie Ossulston[312]
from cholera in India.... I heard it at the Speaker’s party, which was
most beautiful, with windows wide open to the river in the glory of full
moonlight, with which the many lamp-reflections were vainly contending,
gold against silver, upon the wavelets.”
* * * * *
“_Sunday, July 6._--To Bedford Chapel to hear Mr. Stopford Brooke preach
on the world as an arena and men as gladiators. ‘But who are the
witnesses on the encircling seats?’ These he described, from dwellers
in the present life to a crowd, such as that painted ‘by artists of
illimitable ideas but limited powers,’ of the glorious army of apostles,
confessors, and martyrs, who all diverge from Christ as a centre.”
* * * * *
“_July 10._--A charming party at Syon, where I walked about with dear
old Lady Barrington. A very pleasant dinner at Lord Brownlow’s, where
was a whole succession of beautiful ladies--the lovely hostess herself,
Lady Pembroke, Lady Lothian, Lady de Vesci, Lady Wharncliffe, Mrs.
Reginald Talbot, &c. These high-bred beauties are indeed a contrast to
those known as the ‘professional beauties.’ Most exquisite singing in
the evening, then a party at the Duchess of Cleveland’s to meet the Duke
and Duchess of Edinburgh.”
* * * * *
“_July 11._--Dined at Sir Dudley Marjoribanks’--Brook House a beautiful
interior with marvellous china. There was such a procession of Earls and
Countesses, that it fell to my share to take Mrs. Gladstone in to
dinner. Disraeli had said to her, ‘Now _do_ take care of Mr. Gladstone;
you know he is _so_ precious.’”
* * * * *
“_July 12._--The dear Prince Imperial’s funeral. I was very sorry not to
go, but my Prince evidently thought I could not, having known him so
well and yet having no recognised place.
“Our whole hearts are with the Empress. How many instances there have
been of her perfectly noble character since she has been in England.
None are more striking than that which regarded M. Guizot. He had hated
the Imperial government, he had reviled the Emperor: there was no ill
which he did not wish him. But his youngest son, Guillaume, got into
serious money troubles, and eventually he borrowed a large sum--£4000 it
is said--from the Emperor. It was concealed from his father. Long, very
long afterwards, when the Emperor was dead, M. Guizot found it out. It
was agony to him. It was most difficult to him to pay the money, but he
determined to do it at any sacrifice, and he wrote to tell the Empress
so. The Empress answered by telegraph--‘L’Impératrice donne, mais elle
ne prête pas.’”
* * * * *
“_July 15._--Lady Ashburton had asked the Hereditary Grand Duke of Baden
to dinner as well as my Prince, so I went to help her by acting Master
of the Ceremonies and receiving the royalties in the hall of Kent House.
While I was waiting, watching at the window, a fair young man arrived
unattended and ran upstairs. I took no notice of _him_. Then I received
the Prince Royal properly, escorted him as far as Lady Ashburton’s
curtsies, and came back to wait for the young Grand Duke. At last Lady
Ashburton sent down to tell me he was _there_, had been there the whole
time: he was the young man who ran upstairs.
“I had much talk with him afterwards--a tall, simple, pleasing-mannered
youth, much more responsive than my Prince, and good-looking, though
very German in appearance. There were glees at dinner, sung in the
anteroom, and a large party and concert in the evening.”
* * * * *
“_July 16._--A beautiful party at Holland House. There was quite a mass
of royalty on the lawn--the Prince and Princess of Wales and their
little girls (in pink trimmed with red), the Edinburghs, the Connaughts,
the Tecks, with their little girl and two nice boys in sailor’s dress,
the Duchess of Mecklenbourg, the Prince of Baden, and my Prince. The
royal children were all in raptures over some performing dogs, which
really were very funny, as a handsome Spitz looked so ecstatically
delighted to ride about on the lawn on a barrel pushed by a number of
other dogs.
“Dined at Lord Muncaster’s, where I sat by Lady Cairns and Mrs. Cross,
both worth listening to. The Muncasters, by M. Henri’s aid, have given
quite an old Flemish interior to a handsome commonplace house in Carlton
Gardens.
“A concert afterwards at Lady Brownlow’s--all the three beautiful
sisters were there, and most lovely in their different phases.”
* * * * *
“_July 18._--Luncheon with young Lady Morley and dinner with her
mother-in-law, then to a concert at Stafford House. The Duchess (of
Sutherland) talked much and affectionately of my sister, whom so few
remember now. The Spanish Students were ranged with their instruments on
the broad landing of the staircase, and the whole scene was like that
of the play of ‘Hamlet.’ The Prince of Wales walked about and talked,
winning good opinions by the attention with which he always seems to
listen to whoever is speaking to him.”
* * * * *
“_July 19._--Went down with the special train to Hatfield, and drove up
from the station to the house with old Lady Ailesbury. An immense party
of Dukes and Duchesses, &c., were already collected to welcome the
royalties, Lady Salisbury receiving them in a large rough straw
garden-bonnet. The Hereditary Grand Duke of Baden arrived early, and I
was sent off with him to see the old Elizabethan buildings, the stables,
&c. He is extremely pleasing, responsive, and conversable, and his
admiration of the place was most intense and natural. I walked about
with different friends till the royal party drove up in six carriages.
They were all going to stay at Hatfield till Monday, fifty people,
besides servants. I came back at eight.”
* * * * *
“_July 21._--Met the Prince Royal at Waterloo Station, where a great
many people were collected to see him off. Lady Marian Alford joined us,
and we floated into Hampshire in a royal saloon carriage. I went to my
Prince in the little private compartment, and had a long talk with him,
in which all the growing mists of the London season seemed to be swept
away at once, and our intimate trust and affection for each other
restored upon its old footing.
“Carriages from Lady Waterford met us at Holmsley, and we had a
pleasant but rather cold drive through the forest. In the gothic porch
of Highcliffe, Lady Waterford was waiting with Mr. and Lady Jane Ellice,
and Miss Lindsay. Alwyn Greville came in the evening, and a few people
to dinner. The ladies sang, Miss Lindsay recited, and the Prince also
sang a little.”
* * * * *
“_July 22._--A misty day, but still, and Highcliffe delightful.
“The King had said so much to the Prince about Lady Waterford, that he
is at his very best here, and he has had well-worth-while conversation
with Lady Marian. We drove with Colonel Thursby’s four-in-hand to Herne
Park, and in the afternoon looked for fossils on the cliffs, where M. de
Printzsköld sank up to his knees in a bog of black mud. In the evening
there was a little ball, opened by the dear Lady herself with the
Prince.... The Prince was enchanted with everything, and said he would
rather sit by either of ‘the three ladies’ at Highcliffe[313] than by
the most beautiful young lady in England.”
* * * * *
“_July 23._--The Prince was so anxious that I should go with him to
Devonshire that I consented to leave Highcliffe with him after
breakfast. We had a pleasant journey through the rich Somersetshire
orchards, and during a wait at Templecombe, a ramble with the Prince to
the church. We have met the Swedish equerries again, and life is not
always quite as easy as it has been without them: however, though we
have our ups and downs, we have also our downs and ups, and ‘si gravis,
brevis,’ is a proverb one can always remember.”
* * * * *
“_July 24._--Torbay is bluer than I ever saw the Bay of Naples, and the
sun shines on the red rocks of Paignton and the white sails flitting
over the limpid water. My windows look into the grounds of Rockend--the
steep field, the little wood, the very windows of the house connected
with many of the miseries of my childhood.[314] I have wandered on the
terraces--to the rock walk; the seat where I used to see Uncle Julius
and Aunt Esther sitting in the first year of their marriage; ‘Cummany’s
Corner,’ where ladies-finger and coronilla grow still; the tower where
Aunt Lucy used to meditate and pray. Almost all the friends--and enemies
too--of my childhood have passed away now, and it is in places like this
which recall them so vividly, that I feel the longing Webster describes
in the ‘Duchess of Melfi’:--
“‘O that it were possible we might
But hold some two days’ conference with the dead!
From them I should learn something I am sure
I never shall learn here.’”
“_July 26._--I took leave of the Prince in his bedroom before he was
dressed. Our real separation must come soon; and though in many ways I
shall feel wonderfully set free when my responsibility is over, my heart
always yearns toward him.”
* * * * *
“_Lyme Hall, August 6._--After two days at Thornycroft in familiar
scenes, I have come to Lyme to receive the Prince Royal. Only Mr. and
Mrs. Davenport are here, with their pretty daughter, engaged to marry
Tom Legh.”
* * * * *
“_August 7._--The Prince arrived from Manchester. I went to receive him
at Disley Station and to present Mr. Legh, who had never seen him
before. James II.’s rooms were prepared for him.”
* * * * *
“_August 8._--I sat out much of the day with Mrs. Legh, while the Prince
played at lawn-tennis, and in the afternoon I drove with Mrs. Legh and
Mrs. Davenport along the hills and moor, while he rode with the others.
He is much delighted with the great Lyme dogs, and is to have one of
them; to his great disappointment the wild cattle have almost ceased to
exist. He will only be interested in facts, never in vision or its
emotions, and it is no use to tell him that--
“‘Man’s books are but man’s alphabet,
Beyond and on his lessons lie--
The lessons of the violet,
The large gold letters of the sky:
The love of beauty, blossomed soil,
The large content, the tranquil toil.’”[315]
* * * * *
“_August 9._--Left Lyme with the Prince and the Davenports in a saloon
carriage to Crewe. I sat alone with the Prince most of the time in the
inner compartment. We parted at Crewe intending to meet again in three
days’ time.”
* * * * *
“_Betton House, August 10._--With the dear old Tayleurs. To church at
Mucklestone, and afterwards to Mr. Hinchcliffe’s charming vicarage
garden. From the church tower Margaret of Anjou watched the battle of
Blore Heath, and in the village the same family (with the same name)
still officiate as blacksmiths, one of whose members shoed the Queen’s
horse backwards to be ready for her escape if it was needed, and thus
saved her.”
* * * * *
“_August 11._--To Buntingsdale, beautiful as in childish
remembrance,[316] with the real scent of the lime-trees, which has often
come back to me in dreams.”
* * * * *
“_Glamis Castle, August 13._--I arrived at Glamis at 9 P.M., and found
an immense party in the house--Sir James and Lady Ramsay, Lord and (the
very charming) Lady Sydney Inverurie, Lord and Lady Northesk, and many
others. Lord Strathmore has made great preparations, and the Prince
would have had the most royal reception here which he has met with
anywhere; but, to the great inconvenience of every one, he has put off
leaving Hopetoun, where he is, being ill with toothache.
“I have been sitting out much with Lady Sydney Inverurie, who went for
her wedding tour to--Japan! She is most amusing about her children and
the agony they keep her in as to how to answer their questions. One had
just asked her ‘Who cut God’s hair?’ and upon her describing the events
of Eden, asked why Adam and Eve did not climb over the walls and get out
the other way, because the angel could not come after them, as God had
commanded him to _stay_ at the gate.”
* * * * *
“_August 15._--I have greatly enjoyed this visit at Glamis, and am glad
to feel the cousinly tie drawn closer to the Lyon boys individually as
well as collectively. Miss Macdonald was very amusing in her stories.
“A Bishop (Wilberforce of course) remonstrated with a country curate in
his diocese for driving tandem. The curate said, ‘Well, my Lord, I
cannot see that there is more harm in my driving my horses before each
other than in my driving them side by side.’ ‘Oh, yes,’ said the Bishop,
‘there really is a fitness in things; for example, if I put my hands so
(folding them together), no one can reproach me, but if I put them _so_
(cutting a snooks), they might reproach me very much indeed.’
“In the winter the Duchess of Leinster had a large Christmas party for
her servants, and took particular pains to make it agreeable for them.
Afterwards she asked her old housekeeper how she had enjoyed it. ‘Oh,
your Grace, I should have enjoyed it very much indeed, if something most
dreadful had not happened, which has made me perfectly
miserable.’--‘What can it have been?’ said the Duchess. ‘Oh, it was
something so dreadful, I really cannot tell your Grace: I was so
dreadfully insulted by the butler, I really cannot repeat his
words.’--‘Oh, but you really must,’ said the Duchess. ‘Well, your Grace,
if I really must, I must tell your Grace that I was coming out from
supper, and I had only had the wing of a pheasant and a little bit of
jelly, and I met the butler, and he said to me “Is your programme
_full_?” Now your Grace will allow that _that_ was so insulting that
pleasure was not to be thought of afterwards.’
“Miss Erica Robertson said:--
“‘Bishop Wilberforce was going, in a visitation tour, to stay at a very
humble clergyman’s house. The maid was instructed that, if he spoke to
her, she was never to answer him without saying “My Lord.” When the
Bishop had written his letters, he asked who would take them to the
post. “The Lord, my boy,” said the terrified maid.’”
* * * * *
“_August 24._--I left Glamis on Monday, and went by Dalmally to Oban
through the Brender Pass--beautiful exceedingly, the mountains so varied
and encircling such varied waters.
“On Thursday, at dawn, I saw all the mountains meeting their shadows in
the still waters of Oban Bay, and determined to go to Staffa. It was a
crowded, rolling, smelly steamer, and I was very miserable, but rather
better than worse when the fresh air in the Atlantic made up for the
additional rolling. At twelve we reached Iona--different from what I
expected, the island larger and the ruins smaller, and without the
romantic effect of those on Holy Island. Still, of course, the interest
is intense of the cradle of Scottish Christianity, the Throndtjem of
Scotland. I found some pleasant boys, sons of a Glasgow merchant,
sketching, and made great friends with them. An agony of Atlantic swell
brought us to Staffa, but oh! how grand it is!--the grandest cathedral
of nature, black with age and roofed with golden vegetation, rising out
of the blue sea and lashed by the white foam. I drew a little on the
basaltic columns opposite Fingal’s Cave, whilst the mass of the
passengers were landing and scrambling about the cavern, and then my boy
friends and I climbed the long staircases to the top, where the breezy
downs are enamelled with flowers, and the view is most sublime--of the
Atlantic, the islands in their fantastic shapes, the distant ghost of
shadowy mountains in Skye, and the turbulent waves beneath. I never saw
any single place which makes such an impression of natural sublimity.
“How the interests and emotions of life are mingled! In the train, on
leaving Glamis, I heard of the death of my dear uncle-like cousin Lord
Bloomfield, and while I was drawing Dunolly Sir John Lefevre was passing
away! Though the delicate thread which bound his life to earth was so
indescribably frail, it _had_ lasted so long, that it is difficult to
realise that his loving sympathy and the holy example of his beautiful,
humble, and self-forgetful life are removed from us. He was the best man
I have ever known and the truest friend. His sweet courtesies were
unbounded. His advice was always worth taking, for it was always
unselfish, always carefully considered, and it always came from the
heart. While I honoured him like a father, he was so genial that I could
also love him as an intimate friend.”
* * * * *
“_Ascot, August 25, 1879._--I am thankful to have come here to the
Lefevres’ to-day, so filled with crushing sorrow to all my dear cousins,
though no one can help being comforted in the beautiful recollections of
the beloved father--of his boundless love to all, and his painless
passage, full of thankfulness and love to the last, to the full fruition
of that love in the unseen.
“I walked with his children to the church, where his coffin already
lay[317] in the chancel covered with garlands. Lord Eversley and Emma
Lefevre were there, and many others. The grave was in a sheltered corner
of the churchyard, a sunny peaceful spot, and there, with aching hearts,
we laid him.”
* * * * *
“_Ledbury Court,[318] Sept. 13._--This is just the sort of place which
is pleasantest--great comfort and no pretension, rather under than over
a very good income. The house, many-gabled and quaint, is _in_ the old
street of the town, but you drive into a large paved court with a
porter’s lodge and pavilion, and clipped bay-trees in tubs like those of
an old hotel in the Faubourg St. Germain. Behind, pleasant modern rooms
and an oak library open upon lawns with brilliant flowers, beyond which
a deer-park extends up wavy hills to a high terrace with a noble view
over the western counties.
“On Wednesday we went to the musical festival at Hereford. The cathedral
is entirely ruined by restoration--a disgusting polychrome roof, and a
piteous glazed-tile floor replacing the ancient pavement consecrated by
five centuries. After the Oratorio we went to luncheon with the Bishop,
Dr. Attley, and at the palace I met many old friends.
“Yesterday we went to Eastnor. Lord and Lady Somers were away, but we
saw the gardens, which would be beautiful if they were not spoilt by too
many pines and araucarias, and the house, a hideous castle of Otranto,
so unworthily occupying a noble situation. It contains a few fine
pictures, but the rooms are frightful.”
* * * * *
“_Holme Lacy, Sept. 14._--My visit at Ledbury was a very happy one,
Libbet so cheerful and pleasant, Charlie Adeane so engaging and
affectionate, dear Lady Hardwicke so delightful, and Alick Yorke so
amusing.
“I came here last night, met at the station by Sir Henry Stanhope. It
has been a magnificent place, but was injured as much as possible by the
late possessor with the assistance of the ignorant architect who built
Lord Dudley’s house in Park Lane, who tried hard to turn it from a
French château into a Grecian villa. Some of the ceilings, however, are
quite glorious, and there are many fine portraits.... Lady Scudamore
Stanhope, ‘the most popular woman in the county,’ was Sir Adam Hay’s
eldest daughter Dora.”[319]
* * * * *
“_Cheltenham, Sept. 15, 1879._--I do not know when, if ever, I have seen
anything so beautiful as the park at Holme Lacy. All Sunday afternoon I
wandered with Sir Henry Stanhope in its glorious glades, with fern nine
feet high, grand old oaks, white-stemmed beeches, and deep blue depths
of mossy dingle. The garden too is quite a poem--such a harmony of
colour backed by great yew hedges and grand old pine-trees. Seven
hundred people on an average come to see it on the days it is shown, and
no wonder.... We went to service at an old church full of tombs of the
family, and afterwards to the rectory close by, where there is a
wonderful old pear-tree, of which the branches always take root again
when they fall off, and cover an immense extent, sometimes producing as
much as 2000 gallons of perry.
“In coming hither I stayed to see Gloucester--scarcely worth while, all
is so modernised. Yet the cathedral tower and crypt are beautiful, and
the Norman nave fine. I saw there the tomb of an ancestor, Sir
Onesiphorus Paul, of whom I knew nothing before, but it appears from his
epitaph that he was ‘the first to put into practice the humane designs
of Howard as to prison discipline.’”
* * * * *
“_Cheltenham, Sept. 16._--Mrs. Orlando Kenyon is staying here with the
Corbetts. She was a Cotton, and is a very charming person. She described
going with her cousin Miss Cotton (now Dowager Marchioness of Downshire)
to Peover for a ball. Just as they were setting off news arrived of the
death of her cousin’s grandfather, old Mr. Fulke Greville. However, as
the visit was settled, it was decided that it should take place, only
that Miss Cotton should not go to the ball and her cousin should. They
slept together at Peover. In the night Miss Cotton woke Mrs. Kenyon and
said, ‘I have had such an extraordinary dream. I have seen my mother
moving backwards and forwards between the doors at the end of the room,
not walking, but apparently moving in the air--floating with a quantity
of gossamer drapery round her; and when I close my eyes, I seem to see
her still.’ In the morning the cousins returned to Combermere.
“Just before dinner a servant called Mr. Cotton (Mrs. Kenyon’s father)
and said Lord Combermere wanted to speak to him. ‘Oh,’ said Miss Cotton,
springing forward, ‘then I am sure some news has come by the post,’ and
she tried to insist upon following her uncle, but he would not allow
her. Mr. Cotton came back greatly agitated, but insisted on their all
going in to dinner. It was a most wretched meal. Afterwards he told the
son and daughter that their mother had died (just after her father’s
funeral) very suddenly, just when she had appeared at Peover.
“We went yesterday to Southam, the beautiful old house of the De la
Beres. After the De la Beres became extinct, it was bought by Lord
Ellenborough, and it contains a mixture of relics of the two
families--charming old furniture and pictures, including a grand Holbein
of Edward VI. One of the De la Beres saved the life of the Black Prince
at Crecy, and a Prince of Wales’s helmet and feathers over a
chimney-piece commemorate the fact. Three Miss Sergisons of Cuckfield
Park inhabit the house now--kindly, pleasant old ladies.”
* * * * *
“_Llanover, Sept. 20._--From Cheltenham I went to the Vaughans at
Llandaff. It is a hideous drive from Cardiff, but at length you ascend a
little hill which is crowned by a knot of buildings--deanery, canonry, a
few houses, a cross, and the picturesque ruins of the old palace, while
the lofty steeples of the really beautiful cathedral shoot up from the
depths below. It is, in fact, far more picturesque than many more
important places, and the graveyard around the cathedral, and many
picturesque corners inside, make it very attractive.
“Kate took me to Castle Coch--a restored castle of Lord Bute,
beautifully situated. We went to the Palace and saw Mrs. Oliphant, the
charming old wife of the Bishop of Llandaff. Bishop Perry and his very
amusing wife took us with them to dine at Dufferin with a brother of
Lord Aberdare, whom we found there.
“Yesterday I went for an hour to Caerphilly on the way here to Llanover,
where I arrived at 7 P.M. The Hereditary Grand Duke of Baden had already
arrived and gone up to his room. I first saw him when the party was
assembled for dinner--Lord and Lady Raglan, Miss Johnes, Mr. Ram, Mr.
and Mrs. Sandford, and Mr. and Mrs. Herbert of Llanarth, with two sons,
daughter, and daughter-in-law. The Duke received me most cordially and
pleasantly.
“After a very long dinner we all went into the hall, when, from the
curtains at the end, all the servants tripped in, each footman leading a
maid by each hand, in most picturesque Welsh costumes, made obeisance
to the Prince, went backwards, and then danced the most complicated and
picturesque of reels, with ever-varying figures. Lady Llanover’s own
maid was the great performer, and nothing could exceed her consummate
grace and dignity. Then a board was brought in and placed in the centre
of the floor and three candles upon it, around and between which the
footmen and the harper’s boys performed the wonderful candle-dance with
the greatest agility.
“Lady Llanover’s excess of courtesies and overwhelming deference were
rather oppressive to us all, and evidently frightened the poor boyish
Prince dreadfully last night; but this morning she did not come down,
and we have got on splendidly, and he delighted in being talked to like
other people, and was as natural and nice as he could be. He is
certainly a most bewitching Prince, so full of animation and fun, so
right-minded and so courteous and simple.
“In three carriages we went to Llanarth to luncheon. I went with the
royal carriage, which, with its smart scarlet postillions, certainly
went slow enough; for the dear old lady, to do the Prince more honour,
had engaged for the occasion not only the two horses used for the
weddings at Abergavenny, but also the two used at funerals, and the
steeds of death outweighed those of mirth, and kept us down to a
funereal pace.
“Llanarth is a sunny, well-kept place. Its great relic is the portrait
of Pope’s Arabella Fermor, whose sister was a direct ancestress of the
present possessors. After luncheon, we all ranged on the steps and were
photographed, and then went on to Raglan, where Lord and Lady Raglan
(she a very charming person) did the honours of the really beautiful
ruin. To my surprise, I heard the Duke beginning to compare it to
Hurstmonceaux, not knowing my connection with the latter. I drove back
with him, and told him many stories, and we made pleasant friendly
acquaintance. He ran after me when we came in, and kept me to talk to
him quietly, and spoke very nicely and kindly of his mother’s liking for
my books. He has one of the most open, frank countenances I have ever
looked upon.”
* * * * *
“_Llanover, Sept. 21._--This morning the Herberts went to mass at
Llanarth, and we (English Church) had a queer service in the
drawing-room, with a congregation of eight, and a clergyman in a
surplice, &c. He gave a capital little sermon, but illustrated his text,
‘Pray without ceasing,’ by the story of the Welsh Prince for whom all
the birds sang when they were asked. He was taken captive, and the birds
immediately became silent. Then his captors commanded them to sing, but
still all the birds in Wales held silence. Then they asked the captive
Prince to desire them to sing, and he, kneeling down, prayed that God
would open the mouths of the birds, upon which they all sang lustily.
This was to prove that prayer was worth while even in the smallest
things of life!
“The poor Prince has been victimised to-day to see all the relics of
Mrs. Delany, the fetish of this house, and was afterwards taken to the
lake to see two coracles, the boats of ancient Wales, in which Ivor and
Arthur Herbert besported themselves.”
* * * * *
“_Holmhurst, Sept. 27._--On Monday, all Llanover was in motion for the
Prince’s departure, more scarlet cloth than ever all over the place, the
Welsh harpers harping at the door, the Welsh housemaids, in high hats
and bright scarlet and blue petticoats, waiting with bouquets in the
park, and every guest in the house compelled to go to the station to see
the Prince off. Highly comical was the scene on the platform--the yards
of red cloth hurriedly thrown down by two footmen wherever the poor
boyish Prince, in his brown frieze suit and wideawake hat, seemed likely
to tread. I wished to have travelled to Windsor by Gloucester, which is
two and a half hours’ less journey; but no, that was impossible: the
Queen of England sometimes has her own way; the Queen of South Wales
_always_.
“Mrs. Herbert of Llanarth was sent to travel with the Prince to Malvern,
Mr. Ram to Worcester, I to Oxford. However, one could hardly see too
much of him, he is such a nice Prince--kind, courteous, clever,
intelligent, simple, and sincere. Captain Sommer, the gentleman in
waiting, is also a most superior person.
“I reached Ronald Gower in the evening. He met me at the Windsor
station, and took me to his really charming little house, which is full
of lovely things. It is an odd _ménage_, with the artistic valet, Robert
Stubbs, supreme. It was a great pleasure to take up with Ronald the
links of a much-relaxed, never-forgotten friendship, and to find him far
nicer than I had remembered him.
“We spent Tuesday at Cliveden, a pouring day, but it did not matter. The
Duchess of Westminster[320] is Ronald’s favourite sister, and was very
pleasant and cordial to his friend. She is gloriously handsome, though
so large. We talked for four hours without ceasing, and she took us into
every corner of the beautiful house full of charming pictures, and then
put on an ulster and hood and walked with us through the torrents of
rain to the conservatories. One felt that she was a person to whom one
could say anything without being misunderstood, and who would become an
increasingly true friend. Her daughter, Lady Beatrice Cavendish, was
there, and the handsome young husband, Compton Cavendish, Lord Chesham’s
son, came in to luncheon and tea. All saw us off at 5 P.M. in the little
cart with Piggy the pony.
“On Wednesday morning we went into the castle to see Lady Ponsonby, who
lives in the old prison over Edward III.’s gateway--most curious, and
fitted up in admirable taste, despairing to Mr. Ayrton.”
* * * * *
“_Osterley Park, Nov. 13._--I came here yesterday, most kindly welcomed
by the good old Duchess of Cleveland, who is delightful. The greatness
of her charm certainly lies in the absence of charm: no one ever had
less of it. But what bright intelligence, what acute perceptions, what
genuine kindness, what active beneficence! I found Julia, Lady Jersey,
here, and Mr. Brandling, and a Mr. and Mrs. Bramston, relations of the
Cleveland family. After dinner, the Duchess made me sit exclusively by
her, saying kindly that she could not waste any of my short visit. She
talked in a very interesting way of the great Duke of Wellington, and
then of the present Duke. She said that when she asked the latter if
the great Duke had never shown him any kindness, he said, ‘No, he never
even so much as patted me on the shoulder when I was a boy, but it was
because he hated my mother.’
“After luncheon to-day I walked with Brandling and Colonel Bramston to
Boston Hall, the fine old house of the Clitherows.
“As Lady Caroline Paulet, the Duchess of Cleveland used to be very proud
of her little foot. She wore an anklet, and would often sit upon a
table, and let it fall down over her foot to show it. It was inscribed,
‘La légèreté de Camille et la vitesse d’Atalante.’ One day Lady Isabella
St. John, who was equally proud of her little foot, said, ‘I wish you
would let me try if I can get your anklet over my foot, Lady Caroline.’
And she put it on, and, to Lady Caroline’s great disgust, _kicked it
off_, to show how easily her foot would go through it.
“In those long-ago days--one cannot imagine it now--she used to be very
_décolletée_, and the Duchess Elizabeth (Miss Russell), who did not like
her, once flung a napkin at her across the table, saying, ‘Caroline,
here is something to cover your nakedness with.’
“How many and amusing are the anecdotes remembered of that Duchess
Elizabeth, who went on receiving a pension from the Duke of Bedford, as
his cast-off mistress, after she was married to the Duke of Cleveland.
She had been a washerwoman. She left Newton House, where she lived as a
widow, to her nephew Mr. Russell, whose grandson married a Lushington.
She gave £70,000 to her niece Laura when she married Lord Mulgrave, and
the marriage very nearly went off because the Normanbys stuck out for
£100,000. ‘Laura is not my only niece, remember that,’ she said, and
then they became frightened. She used to call Lord Harry Vane ‘My
‘Arry.’ One day, with Mr. Francis Grey, the conversation turned upon
Venus. ‘I do not like her,’ she said; ‘she had a bad figure, and by no
means a good character.’ Her companion laughed and said, ‘She mistakes
her for a living person,’ and so she did.”
* * * * *
“_Nov. 14._--Life is very pleasant in this fine old house, and its long
sunny gallery full of books and pictures is a delightful resort on
winter mornings. We breakfast at ten, during which Mr. Spencer
Lyttelton, who is frequently here, does his best to shock people for the
day, but is certainly very clever and amusing. I never saw any one who
called a spade a spade as he does, but I believe he likes every one to
think him worse than he is. This morning I walked with Brandling in the
long shrubberies, the great trees casting perfectly blue shadows upon
the park white with hoar-frost and the lake thinly coated with ice.
“In the afternoon we went to Ham House--a most curious visit. No
half-inhabited château of a ruined family in Normandy was ever half so
dilapidated as this home of the enormously rich Tollemaches. Like a
French château too is the entrance through a gateway to a desolate yard
with old trees and a sundial, and a donkey feeding. All the members of
the family whom I knew were absent, but I sent in my card to Mr.
Algernon Tollemache, who received us. As the door at the head of the
entrance-stair opened, its handle went through a priceless Sir Joshua
of Louisa, Countess of Dysart: it always does go through it. We were
taken through a half-ruined hall and a bedroom to an inner room in which
Mr. Algernon Tollemache (unable to move from illness) was sitting. It
presented the most unusual contrasts imaginable--a velvet bed in a
recess backed by the most exquisite embroidery on Chinese silk; an
uncarpeted floor of rough boards; a glorious Lely portrait of the
Duchess of Lauderdale; a deal board by way of washing-stand, with a
coarse white jug and basin upon it; a splendid mirror framed in massive
silver on a hideous rough deal scullery table without a cover; and all
Mr. Tollemache’s most extraordinarily huge boots and shoes ranged round
the room by way of ornament.
“The vast house is like a caravansary; in one apartment lives young Lord
Dysart, the real owner; in another his Roman Catholic mother, Lady
Huntingtower, and her two Protestant daughters; in a third, his
great-aunt, Lady Laura Grattan; in a fourth, his uncle, Mr. Frederick
Tollemache, who manages the property; in a fifth, Mr. and Mrs. Algernon
Tollemache, who made a great fortune in Australia.
“We were sent over the house. All was of the same character--a glorious
staircase with splendid carving in deep relief; the dismal chapel in
which the different members of the family, amongst them Lady
Ailesbury[321] and Lady Sudeley,[322] have been married, with the
prayer-book of Charles I., in a most wonderful cover of metallic
embroidery; marvellous old rooms with lovely delicate silk hangings of
exquisitely beautiful tints, though mouldering in rags; old Persian
carpets of priceless designs worn to shreds; priceless Japanese screens
perishing; beautiful pictures dropping to pieces for want of varnish;
silver grates, tongs, and bellows; magnificent silver tables; black
chandeliers which look like ebony and are solid silver; a library full
of Caxtons, the finest collection in the world except two; a china
closet with piles of old Chelsea, undusted and untouched for years; a
lovely little room full of miniatures, of which the most beautiful of
all was brought down for us to examine closer. ‘Do you see that mark?’
said Mr. Tollemache. ‘Thirty years ago a spot appeared there upon the
miniature, so I opened the case and wetted my finger and rubbed it: I
did not know paint came off(!). Wasn’t it fortunate I did not wipe my
wet hand down over the whole picture: it would _all_ have come
off!’[323]
“And the inhabitants of this palace, which looks like that of the
Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, have wealth which is inexhaustible, though
they have scarcely any servants, no carriage, only bread and cheese for
luncheon, and never repair or restore anything.
“All the family have had their peculiarities. The late Lord Huntingtower
was at one time separated from his wife, and when he was persuaded that
he ought in common justice to allow her to return to Ham, he assented,
but he draped the gates and portico with black cloth for her reception,
and he put a band of black cloth round the left leg of every animal on
the estate, the cows in the field, the horses in the stable, even the
dogs and the cats. _His_ grandfather, Lord Huntingtower, was more
extraordinary still. When he bought a very nice estate with a house near
Buckminster, he bought all the contents of the house at the same time.
There was a very good collection of pictures, but ‘What do I want with
pictures? All that rubbish shall be burnt,’ he said. ‘But, my lord, they
are very _good_ pictures.’ ‘Well, bring them all down here and make a
very great fire, and I will see them burnt.’ And he did.
“There is a ghost at Ham. The old butler there had a little girl, and
the Ladies Tollemache kindly asked her to come on a visit: she was then
six years old. In the small hours of the morning, when dawn was making
things clear, the child, waking up, saw a little old woman scratching
with her fingers against the wall close to the fireplace. She was not at
all frightened at first, but sat up to look at her. The noise she made
in doing this caused the old woman to look round, and she came to the
foot of the bed, and grasping the rail with her hands, stared at the
child long and fixedly. So horrible was her stare, that the child was
terrified, and screamed and hid her face under the clothes. People who
were in the passage ran in, and the child told what she had seen. The
wall was examined where she had seen the figure scratching, and
concealed in it were found papers which proved that in that room
Elizabeth, Countess of Dysart, had murdered her husband to marry the
Duke of Lauderdale.”[324]
[Illustration: IN THE VERANDAH, HOLMHURST.]
* * * * *
“_Holmhurst, Nov. 24._--Here I am at home again, and we are very busy
increasing the walks round the tiny property with the money which dear
Aunt Sophy left. They will present quite a miniature variety of scenery
now--the ilex walk recalling Italy, and the fir-wood the Black Forest,
but the thick wood at the bottom, and its tiny glens and brook and
bridges, could only be in England. In this wood we are trying to coax a
thousand interesting flowers to ‘grow wild,’ and puzzle the botanists of
the twentieth century.
[Illustration: VERANDAH STEPS, HOLMHURST.]
“I spent the last three days of my absence with Hugh Pearson in his
canonry at Windsor, a delightful old house overlooking the steep ascent
of the hill, where different members of the royal family are constantly
dropping in to visit the dearest man in the world, as the princesses of
George III.’s time did to visit Mrs. Delany--and no wonder!
“Willie Stephens[325] and I had much interesting talk with the beloved
H. Pearson; after being with other people, there is an ease in talking
to him which is like exchanging a frock-coat for a shooting-coat.
“On Friday poor Prince Alemayu of Abyssinia (King Theodore’s son) was
buried in Windsor Castle. After he came from Abyssinia the Queen adopted
him, and he had no one else to look to, for his mother died of
consumption on her way to England, and his only other near relation, his
uncle, the present King, would certainly have cut his head off at once
if he had returned to Abyssinia. He was at Rugby at Jex Blake’s house,
and then at a private tutor’s to prepare him for the army, but he always
passed his holidays in the castle with Lady Biddulph, and was like a
younger brother to Victor Biddulph, her son. Every one liked him. Lately
he had been at a tutor’s near Leeds, where he became ill of inflammation
of the lungs, probably rapid consumption. Lady Biddulph did not believe
in the danger, but Mrs. Jex Blake went to him, and her account of his
last hours was most touching. He said to her, ‘No doubts: no doubts at
all,’ and then he died.
“On Thursday he was brought to Windsor, and we went to look at his
coffin in the little mortuary chapel, draped with black and white, in
front of Princess Charlotte’s monument.
“The funeral was at twelve on Friday. The chapel was full. Most
exquisitely beautiful was the singing--the gradual swell of ‘I am the
Resurrection and the Life’ as the procession formed at the west door and
moved slowly up the nave into the choir. The coffin was piled with
flowers upon a violet and white pall. Lady Biddulph and her children
knelt on one side. Prince Christian, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (as
guardian of the Prince), and Mr. Lowe were amongst the mourners. The
Dead March was played most grandly as the procession moved out again to
the little graveyard by the west door, where the snow had fallen thick
upon the flowers by which the newly-made grave was surrounded.
“I have heard a very eerie story from Lady Waterford:--There is a place
in Scotland called Longmacfergus. Mr. and Mrs. Spottiswoode lived there,
who were the father and mother of Lady John Scott, and they vouched for
the story. The villagers of Longmacfergus are in the habit of going to
do their marketing at the little town of Dunse, and though their nearest
way home would be by crossing the burn at a point called ‘the Foul
Ford,’ they always choose another and longer way by preference, for the
Foul Ford is always looked upon as haunted. There was a farmer who lived
in Longmacfergus, and who was highly respected, and very well-to-do. One
night his wife was expecting him back from the market at Dunse, and he
did not appear. Late and long she waited and he did not come, but at
last, after midnight, when she was very seriously alarmed, he knocked
violently at the door and she let him in. She was horrified to see his
wild and agonised expression, and the awful change which had taken place
in his whole aspect since they parted. He told her that he had come home
by the Foul Ford, and that he must rue the day and the way, for he must
die before morning. He begged her to send for the minister, for he must
see him at once. She was terrified at his state, and implored him rather
to send for the doctor, but he said, ‘No, the minister--the minister was
the only person who could do him any good.’ However, being a wise woman,
she sent for both minister and doctor. When the doctor came, he said he
could do nothing for the man, the case was past his cure, but the
minister spent several hours with the farmer. Before morning he died,
and what he said that night to the minister never was told till many
years after.
“Naturally the circumstances of the farmer’s, death made the inhabitants
of Longmacfergus regard the Foul Ford with greater terror than before,
and for a few years no one attempted to use it. At last, however, there
came a day when the son of the dead farmer was persuaded to linger
longer than usual drinking at Dunse, and after being twitted by his
comrades for cowardice in not returning the shortest way, he determined
to risk it, and set out with a brave heart. That night _his_ wife sat
watching in vain for his return, and she watched in vain till morning,
for he never came back. In the morning the neighbours went to search for
him, and he was found lying dead on the bank above the Foul Ford,
and--it is a foolish fact perhaps, but it has always been narrated as a
fact incidental to the story, that--though there were no marks of
violence upon his person, and though his coat was on, his waistcoat was
off and lying by the side of his body upon the grass; his watch and his
money were left intact in his pockets.
“After his funeral the minister said to the assembled mourners and
parishioners, that now that the second death had occurred of the son, he
thought that he should be justified in revealing the substance of the
strange confession which the father had made on the night he died. He
said that he had crossed the wooden bridge of the Foul Ford, and was
coming up the brae on the other side, when he met a procession of
horsemen dressed in black, riding two and two upon black horses. As they
came up, he saw amongst them, to his horror, every one he had known
amongst his neighbours of Longmacfergus, and who were already dead. But
the man who rode last--the last man who had died--was leading a
riderless horse. As he came up, he dismounted by the farmer’s side, and
said that the horse was for him. The farmer refused to mount, and all
his former neighbours tried to force him on to the horse. They had a
deadly struggle, in which at last the farmer seemed to get the better,
for the horseman rode away, leading the riderless horse, but he said,
‘Never mind, you will want it before morning.’ And before morning he was
dead.”
* * * * *
It was with a feeling of strangeness that, in the autumn of 1879, I felt
that my royal duties were over. I did not see the Prince of Sweden again
after his return from Scotland.
I have heard since at intervals from the Prince (whose career I always
follow with deepest interest), and from the beloved Queen, by the hand
of Countess Rosen; but their letters have referred rather to the past
than to the present or future: my part in the Prince’s life is probably
over.
XXI
A HALT IN LIFE
“When I recall my youth, what I was then,
What I am now, ye beloved ones all;
It seems as though these were the living men,
And we the coloured shadows on the wall.”
--MONCKTON MILNES.
“Pain and joy, deception and fulfilled hopes, are just the rain and
the sunshine that must meet the traveller on his way. Button or
wrap your cloak around you from the first, but do not think for a
single moment that one or the other have anything to do with the
_end_ of your journey.”--JOSEPH MAZZINI.
“Quand la vie cesse d’être une promesse, elle ne cesse pas d’être
une tâche; et même son vrai nom est épreuve.”--AMIEL.
“Non aver tema, disse il mio Signore,
Fatti sicur, chè noi siamo a buon punto:
Non stringer, ma rallarga ogni vigore.”
--DANTE, “_Purgatorio_,” Canto ix.
In May 1878, my publishers, Messrs. Daldy and Isbister, had astounded
the literary world by becoming bankrupt. They had been personally
pleasant to deal with; I had never doubted their solvency; and I was on
terms of friendly intercourse with Mr. Isbister. In April 1878 he wrote
to me saying that he knew I applied the interest of money derived from
my books to charitable purposes, and that he would much rather bestow
the large interest he was prepared to give for such purpose than any
other, and he asked me to lend him £1500. I had not the sum at the time
he asked for it, but, about a week later, being advised to sell out that
sum from some American securities, I lent it to him. Then, within a
month, the firm declared itself bankrupt, owing me in all nearly £3000,
and the £1500 and much more was apparently lost for ever.[326] In
accepting contracts for my different books, I had always fully
understood, and been given to understand, that I never parted with the
copyright. I believe that most publishers would have informed an
ignorant author that the very unusual forms of agreement they prepared
involved the copyright, but I was allowed to suppose that I retained it
in my own hands. I first discovered my mistake after their bankruptcy,
when, besides owing me nearly £3000, Messrs. Daldy and Isbister demanded
a bonus of £1500 (which I refused, offering £850 in vain) for giving me
the permission to go on circulating my own books through another
publisher.
As it was impossible to come to terms, my unfortunate books lapsed. In
the autumn of 1879 Messrs. Daldy and Isbister offered to submit to an
arbitrator the question of the amount to be paid to my so-great debtors
for the liberty of continuing to publish my books. Three eminent
publishing firms chose an arbitrator, but when he sent in his estimate
they would not agree to it.
These circumstances made such a discouragement for any real work, that
for two years I did nothing of a literary character beyond collecting
the reminiscences contained in these volumes. The first year was chiefly
occupied by my duties towards the Crown Prince of Sweden and Norway. In
the second year I had a comparative holiday. It is therefore that I call
it “A Halt in Life.”
* * * * *
In November 1879 an event occurred which would at one time have affected
me very deeply--the death of the Mary Stanley who for many years ruled
my adopted family by the force of her strong will, and who, after my
dearest Mother was taken away from me, remorselessly used that power to
expel me from the hearts and homes of those over whom she had any
influence, in her fury at the publication of the “Memorials of a Quiet
Life.” Yet, when her restless spirit was quieted by Death, I could only
remember the kind “Cousin Mary” of my childhood, when my greatest
delight was to go to her room at Norwich, and so many of my little
pleasures came from her.
“Where thou hast touched, O wondrous Death!
Where thou hast come between,
Lo, there for ever perisheth
The common and the mean.
No little flaw or trivial speck
Doth any more appear,
And cannot, from this time, to fleck
Love’s perfect image clear.”[327]
Hard to those in her own class, and with them ever occupied in asserting
and insisting upon her own little imaginary dignities, Mary Stanley did
more unselfish work for the poor than almost any one, and hundreds of
whom nothing is known in the society in which she lived miss and mourn
her. Probably only the poor knew the best, the really beautiful side of
Mary Stanley’s life, which was _most_ beautiful.
I often wish, as regards her, I could have profited more by words of
Mrs. Kemble which I read too late to apply them--“Do you not know that
to misunderstand and be misunderstood is one of the inevitable
conclusions, and I think one of the especial purposes, of our existence?
The principal use of the affection of human beings for each other is to
supply the want of perfect comprehension, which is impossible. All the
faith and love which we possess are barely sufficient to bridge over the
abyss of individualism which separates one human being from another; and
they would not, or could not, exist, if we really understood each
other.”
[Illustration: FROM S. GREGORIO, MESSINA.][328]
In December I went abroad to join the two Miss Hollands--my Norwegian
companions--at Ancona, and go on with them to Sicily, a journey through
deep snow and agonising cold. After I met the Hollands and their friend
Miss Lily Howard, we went rapidly south, with Sir George Baker, his wife
and daughter, semi-annexed to our party, and at Reggio we found
summer--palms, bananas, blue skies and sunshine.
[Illustration: TAORMINA.][329]
Our wretched journey made the first morning at Messina quite enchanting,
as we climbed the heights, looking down upon the straits and to the
purple peaks of Italy, their tips glistening with snow. Nespoli,
daturas, and camellias grew as trees in full bloom; the gardens were a
mass of salvias, trumpet-flower, and roses; heliotrope in full blossom
hung over the high walls, and quantities of scarlet geraniums grew wild
upon the beach.
More lovely still was Taormina, hanging like an eagle’s nest on the
ledge of the mountain, and looking down into the blue sea, which breaks
into emerald near the snowy line of breakers. On one side is Etna, quite
gigantic, with pathless fields of snow even upon the lower heights; on
the other are the grand ruins of the Theatre, from which, above the
broken arches and pillars, the queen of fire and snow looms unspeakably
sublime. Our pleasant primitive inn was in a quiet street, where all the
daily incidents were lovely--the goats coming in the early morning to be
milked: the peasants riding in upon their asses: the convent bells
jangling: the women returning from the fountain with vases of old Greek
forms upon their heads, burnished yellow, green, or red: the singing at
Ave Maria and Benediction. We spent several days at Taormina, drawing
quietly in the mornings amongst the rocky beds of pinks, and snapdragon,
and silene: reading aloud in the evenings--Thucydides, Gregorovius, and
then a novel for relaxation: the four ladies and their maid
occasionally singing in parts as in Norway.
[Illustration: ROMAN AMPHITHEATRE, SYRACUSE.][330]
We were sorry to go on to Syracuse, for though many had told us of its
intense interest and curiosity, no one had spoken of its extreme
loveliness. Of its five towns, only the island-town of Ortygia remains.
Acradina, Neapolis, Tycho, and Epipolae are desolate hillsides covered
with pink-grey limestone, overgrown with wild figs, olives, prickly
pears, and ten thousand lovely flowers; and from their sunny slopes you
look to the blue mountains of Hybla and the rose-coloured rocks of
Megara. Here and there, in the most exquisite situations, are Roman, and
still more beautiful Greek ruins, which seem to have grown into the
scenery and become part of it, gilded by lichen, fringed with flowers.
[Illustration: FROM THE WALLS OF EPIPOLAE.][331]
[Illustration: ON THE RIVER CYANE.][332]
Each morning at Syracuse we engaged little carriages (costing one
shilling the hour) for the day, and took with us a well-filled luncheon
basket for ourselves and our charming young drivers, and we wandered,
and studied, and drew for hours. We spent a whole day on the grand
heights of Epipolae, looking on one side across a luxuriant plain to
snowy Etna, and on the other across the vast ruined city to the blue
sea, with Ortygia gleaming upon it like a jewel. Another whole day was
given to ascending the rivers Anapus and Pisma to the mystic blue
fountain of Cyane: the most romantic of boating excursions, the boatmen
every now and then being obliged to jump into the water and push the
boat over the shallows or through the thick water-plants: the papyrus
with its exquisite feathery crests almost meeting overhead, or grouped
into the most glorious masses on the islets in midstream: enchanting
little views opening every now and then to palms and cypresses and blue
rifts in the roseate rocks of Megara; now a foreground of oleanders,
then of splendid castor-oil plants. In returning, we walked up a hill to
the Temple of Jupiter Olympus, through a perfect blaze of dwarf blue
iris, the loveliest flowers I ever saw.
[Illustration: ACI CASTELLO.][333]
We spent the four first days of the New Year at Catania, a dull town,
though backed by the glorious snow-fields of Etna, and we made thence
two excursions--to Aci Castello, a beautiful old castle on lava rocks,
and to Aci Reale, with the spring into which Acis, the lover of Galatea,
is supposed to have been changed.
[Illustration: TEMPLE OF CONCORD, GIRGENTI.][334]
At Girgenti we found an excellent hotel, with rooms opening to
delightful balconies, overhanging--at a great height--one of the
noblest views in the world, billow upon billow of purple hill, crested
with hoary olives, and with masses of oranges and caroubas in all the
sheltered nooks, a vast expanse of glistening sea, and a range of Greek
temples in desolate loveliness. The landlord, Don Gaetano de Angelis,
was a stately old Sicilian, who treated us far more like honoured guests
than customers, and fed us so luxuriously and magnificently that we
wondered how it was possible he could repay himself. He had lately
married for the second time, a pretty merry child-wife in huge gold
earrings, who paid us frequent visits, and was delighted with us and
our drawings, and to sit for her portrait. They quite enjoyed the
preparation of the luncheon basket, with which we always set off at 9
A.M., not returning till the sunset had turned the sea rose-colour and
set the mountains aflame. Each day we picnicked amongst the asphodels
and lilies in the shadow of one of the Greek temples, and were glad to
find a shelter from the burning sun, which blazed in a sky that only
turned from turquoise to opal. Some of the temples are nearly perfect,
some mere masses of ruin, or one or two pillars with a beautiful bit of
yellow architrave set in the most exquisite landscape--delicate pink
mountain distances, and foregrounds of grand old olive-trees or almonds
flushing into richest bloom, above a ground enamelled with flowers of
every hue. We all agreed in thinking Girgenti more beautiful than any
other place, and its people even more charming than the scenery, so full
of kindly simplicity, from the Syndic to Pasqualuccio, the little
goatherd, with coins in his earrings after the old Greek fashion, who
gives each of his goats a _colazione_ of acanthus leaves, set out like
plates on a dinner-table, on the fallen columns in the Temple of Juno.
[Illustration: IN THE TEMPLE OF JUNO LACINIA.]
[Illustration: IN THE TEMPLE OF HERCULES.][335]
[Illustration: TEMPLE OF CASTOR AND POLLUX, GIRGENTI.][336]
The second day after our arrival, as we were returning home up the hill
in the still warm evening light, we turned aside to the old deserted
convent of S. Niccola. A merry crowd of gentlemen and ladies and little
boys and girls were shouting and singing on the terrace, and dancing the
tarantella to the music of three peasants on a bagpipe, tambourine, and
triangle. Like a Bacchanalian rout of old times they came rushing down
to meet us, twenty-six in number, chained together with garlands, and
the girls all wreathed with wild scarlet geranium. They escorted us all
over the garden, gathering flowers and fruits for us, the crowd of
little children gambolling and dancing in front. Then they begged us to
go back with them to the terrace, and began dancing again, and were
delighted when Miss Howard and Miss G. Holland danced with them.
Afterwards, standing on the terrace, our three ladies sang one of their
beautiful part songs, tumultuously applauded with _prosit_ and _evviva_.
The result was showers of visiting-cards from all the notables in
Girgenti, especially from a family who rejoice in the singular name of
the _Indelicati_. Then came invitations to a party and ball at Casa
Gibilaro, the sons of the house, Cesare and Salvatore, coming to escort
us up the steep street. Italian ladies sang, and so did our party, and
all danced, and we taught the Girgentines Sir Roger de Coverley, which
greatly enchanted them. The family of twenty-six--grandmother, uncles,
aunts, cousins, were all there, living in the happiest union and
affection, no daughter of the house ever marrying out of the place, and
all meeting constantly. Carmela and Pasqualina Gibilaro were so
enchanted with our two younger ladies, that they scarcely ever let go of
their hands, and expressed their delight over them in the most naïve
manner, and I became great friends with Salvatore and Antonio. One day,
Salvatore and Pasqualina dined with us, and we afterwards went again to
their house, where there was another dance, at which all the professors
of the university (on delightful terms of merriment with their pupils)
assisted, the Professor of Theology frisking about in the tarantella,
and the Professor of Philosophy leading the cotillon. We wished this
time to leave early, but our hosts insisted on our waiting till the
arrival of ices, an unwonted luxury with them, but ordered in our
honour. We had dined before, and since coming to the dance had been
obliged to eat quantities of _pasticcie_, so were aghast when we found
that we were each expected to eat an ice larger than an ordinary
tea-cake. We managed as well as we could, but it was dreadful. I
deposited more than half mine under a table. Miss Holland thought she
was getting on pretty well with hers, when a Contessa Indelicato, on the
opposite side of the room, seeing her flagging, filled a large spoon
with her own ice, and rushing across, popped it into her mouth. With
great promptitude Miss Howard instantly popped a spoonful of _her_ ice
into the mouth of a Contessina Indelicato! Great were the lamentations
and embraces from this amiable family when we left Girgenti, dear little
Antonio Gibilaro going with us to the station.
I spent the last morning at Girgenti in drawing the sea glistening
through the pink almond-trees, and the rocky road with its troops of
goats and donkeys, and in the afternoon of January 11 we went on to
Palermo.
Under the later Bourbon kings Sicily was perfectly safe and brigandage
utterly unknown, for the principal officials in each village and parish
were made responsible for its security; but the annihilation of the
rural police under the Sardinian Government taking place at the same
time with the abolition of capital punishment, had introduced
brigandage; and though it had become rare since the formation of
railroads, it was not considered safe for us to go far from Palermo
without an escort, and we were obliged to give up Segeste. When we were
at Palermo, murders for _vendetta_ were of constant occurrence, and only
cost three hundred francs, as the punishment was so slight,--generally
two years’ imprisonment without labour, and with a life of much greater
comfort than the culprit could have enjoyed at home. Besides, the
murderers are scarcely ever given up, as the _vendetta_ would then fall
upon those who betrayed them. Some of our party went to visit
Calatafimi, the brigand who carried off a gentleman from Cefalu, and,
when he got only half the ransom required, laboriously snipped with
scissors till his head came off, in a cave on Monte Pellegrino. He was
found very merry, in most comfortable quarters, with quantities of
fruit, newspapers, &c. When he was tired of being there, his family
would bribe the gaoler, and he would get out.
[Illustration: PALERMO, FROM S. MARIA DI GESU.]
The glorious weather we enjoyed in the south of the island turned to
torrents of rain at Palermo, but it is said that there are only
forty-two days in the year without rain there. On the rare occasions
when it clears, Palermo is most lovely, backed by such grand mountains,
the nearer ones rugged purple rocks, over which the snow-peaks peep out.
The cathedral also is very beautiful, with a great courtyard in front of
it planted with palm-trees and geraniums; but there are none of the
glorious flowers of Girgenti; the climate is a constant damp chill, like
that of Pau and Pisa, and I shall always associate the place with the
ceaseless melancholy roar of the sea, the drip and splash of the rain,
which fell day and night, and the monotony of the mouldy deserted walks.
In the Lazaretto cemetery--a lovely little spot hedged with Barbary
aloes--it was touching to see the tomb of my almost unknown father. He
also hated the place and was deeply depressed there.
Our one really fine day was delightful. We drove along the shore to
Bagaria, where all the old nobility have their country palaces, enormous
and stately in form, with huge courts and immense armorial shields over
their gates, but the windows generally half choked up or glassless, the
courts overgrown with weeds, and the roofs tumbling in. Sad indeed
would be the shock to an English girl who married a Sicilian prince for
his title and his “palace,” upon her arrival at one of these old
barracks, where she would be lucky if she could find one weathertight
chamber.
[Illustration: SOLUNTO.]
Beyond Bagaria, Capo Zafferano strides into the sea--a grand mountain,
covered with cactus almost to the top; and here, high on the rocks, are
the ruins of Solunto, a Carthaginian city--broad streets edged by
diminutive houses and temples in the style of Pompeii. We picnicked at
Solunto in the cactus shade, and drew all day the glorious view across
the bay to the purple crags and fantastic forms of Monte Griffone.
Another day we went to Monreale, the grand semi-Saracenic cathedral,
covered with mosaics, on the heights behind Palermo. It reminds me of a
story the late Lord Clanwilliam used to tell, which I will insert
here:--
* * * * *
“A Knight of Malta, who, by the rules of his Order, was both a soldier
and a priest, was once travelling in Sicily. Being at Palermo, he
strolled up to Monreale; it was a lovely evening, and in the great
cathedral, where the shade was so welcome after the heat of the way, the
effect was exquisitely beautiful, as the sunset streamed through the
long windows upon the mosaic walls. Being an artist, the knight took out
his sketch-book and began to draw, first one lovely arch and then
another, till the waning light warned him that night was approaching.
Then he made his way to the western door, but it was closed. He turned
to the side doors, to the sacristy; they were closed also. It was
evident that he was locked into the cathedral, and though he shouted and
kicked at the door, he could make no one hear. Spending the night alone
in a church had no terrors for him: it was only on account of the
discomfort that he objected to it; so he found his way to a confessional
far up the church, and made himself as comfortable there as he could
with all the cushions he could collect.
[Illustration: CLOISTERS, MONREALE.][337]
“Most wondrously beautiful is the cathedral of Monreale when the moon
casts its magic halo over the ancient mosaics, and so it was on this
night, when the artist-soldier-priest sat entranced with its unspeakable
loveliness. The whole building was bathed in softest light, each avenue
of arches at once a poem and a picture, when the clock struck twelve.
Then from the west door a figure seemed to be approaching, a cowled
figure in monastic robes, and the stranger felt with satisfaction that
he had been missed and that one of the monks of the adjoining monastery
was come to seek him. But, as he watched the figure, he observed its
peculiar movement, rather floating than walking up the nave, enveloped
in its sweeping draperies, and as it passed he heard a low musical voice
like a wiffling wind which said, ‘Is there no good Christian who will
say a mass for my poor soul?’ and the figure passed on swiftly, on
behind the altar, and did not return.
“Through an hour the Knight of Malta sat watching and expecting, and
then, as the clock struck one, the figure again floated up the nave, and
again the same sad low voice murmured, ‘Is there no good Christian will
say a mass for my poor soul?’ Then the Knight came out of the
confessional and pursued the vanishing figure, pursued it to a
particular spot behind the altar, where it disappeared altogether.
“When the clock struck two, the figure appeared again, and when it again
uttered the words, ‘Will no good Christian say a mass for my poor soul?’
the priest-soldier answered, ‘I will; but you must serve the mass,’ for
there can be no mass without a server. The holy vessels were upon the
altar, and the soldier-priest began the mass. Then the monk threw back
his cowl and displayed a skull, but he served the mass, which the priest
courageously went through to the end: then he fell down unconscious in
front of the altar.
“In the morning, when the monks came into the church, the stranger was
found still unconscious upon the altar steps. He was taken into the
convent, and, when he came to himself, he told what had happened. Great
search was made in the archives of the monastery, though nothing was
found to account for it. But long after, when some repairs were being
made in the cathedral, the body of a monk in his robe and cowl was
found walled up, evidently for some crime, near the altar, just at the
spot where the Knight had seen him vanish.”[338]
* * * * *
A railway took us from Palermo to Caldane, almost on the opposite coast,
and there we were transferred to a wretched tumble-down diligence, which
went swinging and jolting over the deep pools in the rocky road. Though
there were no regular brigands on this road, the peasants, who were too
idle to work, constantly formed themselves into great bands and attacked
the diligences; so the Sardinian Government, too feeble to attempt
managing the people themselves, sent a guard to defend us from them. Two
soldiers with guns sat on the luggage, and loaded pistols peeped
ominously from under the cloaks of the Sicilians within, one of whom was
an _impiégato per la caccia dei briganti_. However, late at night we
reached Caltanisetta, a great poverty-stricken city, with white houses,
white rocks, and no vegetation, high in the sulphur district.
[Illustration: GATE OF MOLA.][339]
[Illustration: TARANTO.][340]
On going to the station the next morning, we heard that the railway near
Messina was washed away, and that the last train had narrowly escaped a
Tay Bridge disaster by the breaking of the high bridge at Ali. So we
telegraphed to Taormina to send a carriage to meet us at Giardini, the
place nearest the scene of the disaster. We did not reach Giardini till
it was pitch-dark; the sea was raging close to the railway, and the rain
had been falling all day in torrents. It was such a night as one
scarcely ever sees, so tempestuous, so utterly black! There was no
carriage for us, and no one to meet us; the telegraph had been swept
away in the storm. Blankly and grimly did the officials see the large
party deposited at the desolate station surrounded by waters, and great
was the consternation of my four female companions when they found that
it was just going to be closed and abandoned. We got a man to wade
through the marsh to Giardini to try to get a carriage to come to us:
the carriage tried, but an intercepting torrent was so swollen, it was
impossible for it to cross without being swept out to sea. The man came
back along the railway parapet, and told us that we must give up all
hope of getting away. The officials refused to send any one with us; no
one would face the furies of the night; nor could they lend us a
lanthorn; they wanted it themselves. Happily I had made friends with a
young man of Taormina--_capo della musica_--who happened to be at the
station. He had a lanthorn, and kindly waited for us, till at last my
companions consented to kilt up their dresses and venture out into the
blackness. It was four miles by the road, about a mile and half by the
precipices; we chose the latter. But the path through the precipices,
which we had toiled up before in burning sunshine, was now a roaring
torrent. However, there was nothing for it but to plunge in absolute
blackness from stone to stone of the steep ascent, holding on to the
broom and asphodels. At the most dangerous points the _capo della
musica_, who made the little joke of “Io _solo_ sono sole,” kindly
waited with his lanthorn till each of the party of eight was safely
round the corner. Fortunately the rain almost ceased during the ascent,
and at last, by scrambling, jumping, or grovelling, we found ourselves
in the street of Taormina. The people of the inn were gone to bed, but
soon the great event of a large party with ladies arriving on such a
terrific night caused many windows to open in the friendly primitive
street, and heads and candles to appear: the hotel was roused, and we
were warmly welcomed.
[Illustration: CASTEL DEL MONTE.][341]
[Illustration: TOMB OF BOHEMUND, CANOSA.][342]
For three days we remained in a state of siege with the elements howling
around in our rock-fortress of Taormina, sometimes seeing Etna reveal
itself above the black storm-clouds. Then we crossed to Reggio, and went
on by night to Taranto, where we spent the morning in drawing the
curious island-town, and took the train again to Trani. Hence we made
an excursion--three hours in a carriage and one on foot--to Castel del
Monte, the favourite castle of the great Frederick II., long since a
ruin, but not roofless, and presenting a more perfect picture of
mediaeval splendour in its suites of marble halls than any castle I ever
visited. Yet it must always have been a most desolate place and the most
uninteresting of royal residences. Trani itself is full of interest, and
has a beautiful cathedral. Accounts we had read of “the all-glorious
cathedral of Andria” beguiled us to toil next to that old episcopal
city, which we found a complete delusion, and went on to Barletta,
visiting thence the battlefield of Cannae and the curious old town of
Canosa, where Ariosto’s hero Bohemund is buried. Then we proceeded to
Foggia, where we saw the remains of Frederick II.’s palace, and thence
we made another excursion to his favourite town of Lucera, full of
Saracenic remains. The next day we saw Beneventum, another glorious
cathedral, mosque, and a grand Roman gateway, and arrived at Naples on
the 12th of February. My last days with my companions were spent at
beautiful Amalfi, and after a few lovely days at Naples and Rome, I
followed them to England.
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Elton Hall, Peterborough, April 1, 1880._--I have been two days here
at Lord Carysfort’s.... The house is a jumble of architecture of every
style and age, from Henry VII. to the present, and, without ever being
very picturesque, is thoroughly satisfactory and comfortable, with a
delightful library and a number of fine portraits. The park overlooks
long lines of flat, amid which rises Fotheringhay Church. An old
watermill is called ‘Pereo Mill,’ because when Mary Queen of Scots
arrived and saw all the waters out, as they so often are to this day,
she thought all was over with her and exclaimed, ‘Pereo,’--I perish. We
have driven to Fotheringhay, and seen again the mound and the one
remaining stone of the castle. The church is like a lanthorn, so full of
windows, and very fine, though perpendicular. By the altar are tombs
with stately inscriptions on the wall over them to Richard and Cicely
Plantagenet, father and mother of Edward IV., and to his grandfather
Edward Plantagenet, who was killed in the battle of Agincourt. We went
on to Oundle, a charming old town with a noble church. Here, in the
street, is the house of Lord and Lady Lyveden, with a large garden on
the other side. The two Lady Lyvedens were there. The old one, Lord
Castletown’s sister, was once the beautiful little girl of Sir T.
Lawrence’s masterpiece; the younger, a plain, simple, sensible woman,
well fitted for a poor peer’s wife, is perfectly adored in the town of
Oundle.
“Sir Frederick Peel is here with his young wife, who is charming, so
very pretty, with quantities to say on all subjects.”
* * * * *
“_St. James’s Place, May 8._--To Mrs. Stewart’s. Lord Houghton was
there, very cheery and kind. I was struck the other day by hearing some
one say, ‘Lord Houghton is not only a friend in poverty, he is a friend
in _disgrace_.’ Can there be higher praise? He was very amusing apropos
of my employing Henningham and Holles to leave my cards, and said that
Miss Martineau at first absolutely refused to conform to the ways of the
world in paying visits, it was ‘such a waste of time;’ but it was
suggested to her that she should send out ‘an inferior authoress’ with
her trumpet in a hackney-coach to represent her and do her work, and
that if the authoress only let the trumpet appear out of the
coach-window, she would do just as well as herself.
“Dined at Lord Sherborne’s, meeting, amongst others, Lady Powerscourt,
surely one of the sweetest of God’s creatures.”
* * * * *
“_May 13._--Having heard of George Paul’s death, I went to see
Auntie.[343] It was strange to find the familiar figure of my childhood,
who had been inexplicably separated from me for twelve years, and with
her to see again many of the silent objects connected with Esmeralda and
those sealed chapters of life. We spoke only on indifferent subjects,
but I cannot think poor Auntie can have felt indifferent, though she
refused to show me the slightest affection, or evince the least pleasure
at seeing me.”
* * * * *
“_May 15._--I paid £50 into Auntie’s account at Coutts’s, and shall
continue to do so at this date annually. More I think she would reject,
but she will allow this to pass, and I am thankful even in the smallest
degree to contribute to her comfort.”
* * * * *
“_May 19._--A luncheon party at Lady Ducie’s. Mrs. Stewart was there.
Some one said Sir William Harcourt’s late election failure would be as
good as a dose of physic to him--‘No,’ she answered, ‘it will be no good
at all; it has been a dose of castor-oil administered to a marble
statue.’”
* * * * *
“_May 25._--Luncheon at Lady Sherborne’s. Dear old Mrs. Stewart was
there in great force, and recited Swinburne’s really grand lines apropos
of the Prince Imperial’s proposed monument, exhorting the illustrious
dead to veil their faces and leave Westminster Abbey on the arrival of
his statue.
“Lady Airlie was at luncheon. She spoke of the almost necessity for a
cloud over the most beautiful lives. She said how one might observe that
in almost all the finest summer days the sun was clouded over for some
hours.”
* * * * *
“_May 26._--Dined at the Thorntons’. Lord Houghton was there. He said
how he had discussed with George Sand the question how far it was well
to know authors whose works you admired. She had urged him never to know
them, that they all put their best into their books; whatever you find
afterwards can only be inferior material. Carlyle, Lord Houghton
allowed, was just like his books; in his case you could know the man and
not be disappointed: it is the same mixture of grim humour, irony, and
pathos, of which his books are composed, which enables the man
personally to produce such an indescribable impression. Carlyle always
hated having his picture taken, but was persuaded to sit to Millais.
When he went there, to the beautiful house full of priceless
art-treasures, he asked what brought them there. ‘My art,’ answered
Millais proudly. ‘Then there are more fools in the world than I
imagined,’ said Carlyle.”
* * * * *
“_May 30._--Sat a long time with Lady Airlie, who talked of the power
of prayer and the number of people who really believed in it. She said
she prayed for everything, but always left it to God to decide for her,
making a complete act of submission, but adding, ‘I should _like_ this
or that best.’ The mystic Mr. Laurence Oliphant came in and talked for a
long time. Being asked as to his past and future, he said he could only
act ‘under direction,’ _i.e._, of spirits. He said the separation from
the spiritual world was entirely dependent upon the constitution of the
individual. No wonder that the hallucinations of this brilliant and
fascinating visionary wreck the comfort as well as the practical
usefulness at once of his own life and the lives of those dearest to
him.
“A few days ago Ronald Gower came and took me to Frank Miles’s studio--a
new-old house in Tite Street, Chelsea. Frank Miles is a charming
handsome young Bohemian, who has a delightful garden in the country
filled with every lily that ever was heard of. He paints all the
‘professional beauties,’ who hover round him and his studio like moths,
but his pictures have no great power.”[344]
* * * * *
“_May 31._--I was at Stafford House in the evening, the hall brilliantly
lighted, a deafening band on the staircase, and all the
Campbell-Percy-Gower connection looking on.”
* * * * *
“_June 1._--I dined with the Boynes, and went afterwards to Lady Sudeley
and Mrs. Cavendish Bentinck. At these great parties I find my difficulty
in recognising people an immense disadvantage. Then, with those who do
not care for contemporary history or art, there are so few topics of
conversation, for almost every one in London is occupied ‘de rien faire,
ou de faire des riens.’”[345]
* * * * *
“_June 4._--A party, where I heard Mrs. Caulfield sing and Genevieve
Ward recite--first only some fables of La Fontaine, to which she gave a
marvellous infinity of expression, and then a ballad. She is a simple
and very striking-looking woman.”
* * * * *
“_June 9._--Dined with the Haygarths. Mr. Bouverie was there, and very
entertaining with stories of the old Duke of Wellington, of whom he
justly said that his character had greatly risen through the publication
of his letters, while other characters had been lowered. ‘They will
knock down a great many statues,’ the Duke had said in speaking of them
to Mr. Bouverie in his lifetime.
“Apropos of the Duke’s love of military discipline, Mr. Bouverie
mentioned how, when he was at Walmer, all the officers of the
neighbouring garrison called except Lord Douro, who thought it would be
absurd, as he was seeing his father every day. Consequently, the Duke
asked all the officers to dinner except his own son, and at dinner said
to the Colonel, ‘By-the-bye, who is your Major? for he has not called on
me.’
“Another example of the Duke’s character as a martinet was that Lord
Douro once met him in plain clothes. The Duke took no notice of him
whatever. Lord Douro, knowing how angry his father must be, rushed in,
changed his clothes for uniform, and met his father again. ‘Hallo,
Douro! how are you? it is a long time since I have seen you,’ said the
Duke; but he had seen him quite well a quarter of an hour before.”
* * * * *
“_June 10._--Dined with the Miss Duff Gordons, meeting Tosti the singer
and tall young Carlo Orsi from one of the old _castelli_ in the Tuscan
valley of Signa. He was very naïve about his coming to London, and his
asking himself when he woke, ‘And can it be thou, Carlo, who art here?’
Mrs. Caulfield (_née_ Crampton[346]) and Tosti sang exquisitely in the
evening.”
* * * * *
“_June 14._--With Mrs. Stewart to Alma Tadema’s studio--a small house on
the north of the Regent’s Park. Inside it is a labyrinth of small rooms
with gilt walls and ceilings, and doors hung with quaint draperies. A
vague light fell through alabaster windows upon Madame Tadema in a cloth
of gold dress backed by violet draperies. The Dutch artist, her husband,
thinks her red hair glorious, and introduces her in all his pictures. In
his studio is a strange picture of ‘The Triumph of Death’ by Breughel
the Devil. I was glad to meet again Madame Riaño--Doña Emilia de
Guyangos--gliding through the half-dark rooms after the ubiquitous wife
of Tom Hughes.”
* * * * *
“_June 15._--Luncheon with Lady Dorothy Nevill in her charming house in
Charles Street, which has all the attractions of an old manor. Lady
Dorothy is very pretty still, like a piece of Dresden china. She and
Lord Houghton were very amusing over Mr. Wolff,[347] who married her
aunt, Lady Georgiana. Nothing could persuade him to cleanliness. Once
they tried to insist upon his washing his hands, and took him to a jug,
basin, and clean towel for the purpose, but he would only dip the ends
of his fingers in the jug and dry them on his pocket-handkerchief. If he
went to stay anywhere, he would never take any luggage. He was, however,
persuaded for three days to take three clean shirts, but he arrived with
them all _on_, and peeled gradually.
“Mr. Wolff went to stay with George Anthony Denison, who was frightfully
bored with him. He stayed a week. As he was in the carriage going off
from the door, Mr. Denison said to him, ‘Well, good-bye, my dear fellow;
I’m sorry you’re going.’--‘Are you sorry I’m going?’ said a gruff voice
from the carriage; ‘then I’ll stay another week.’”
* * * * *
“_June 16._--A huge party at Devonshire House--the staircase most
beautiful.”
* * * * *
“_June 17._--To Lady Airlie to meet Miss Farrer and Emmeline Erskine--a
long talk quietly about spirituality and the Quietists. Miss Farrer told
me first-hand a story I have often heard before:--
“Her brother knew well a shopkeeper in Plymouth, who felt one day, he
could not tell why, that he must go to Bodmin. To get there, it was
necessary that he should cross a ferry. It was late at night, and he
expected to have great difficulty in getting across, but, to his
amazement, he found the boat ready for him. The ferryman said, ‘I am
ready, because you called me an hour ago.’
“When the shopkeeper reached Bodmin, the town was full of crowds and
confusion; the assizes were going on. He made his way to the court. A
man was being tried for murder, and likely to be condemned. He protested
his innocence in vain, and in an agony was just saying, ‘I was in
Plymouth at the time, if I could only prove it.’ The shopkeeper was just
in time to hear him, and exclaim, ‘I can prove it, my Lord; I remember
the prisoner perfectly: he came into my shop at the very time in
question.’ And it saved the man’s life.
“Emmeline told of Mr. Richmond’s little children, who, playing in a long
almost dark gallery, saw their dead mother standing at the end, and went
to their father and told him, ‘Mama is come back.’ An open cistern was
found at the spot where they had seen her.”
* * * * *
“_June 18._--Dined with the Owen Grants. At ninety-three old Lord
Kilmorey is dying. He took his immense drives as usual till a few days
ago. Then, returning from one of them, he sent for George Higginson and
Owen Grant, and said, ‘Now I am going to die; I think it is time, and I
wish you to stay with me to the end.’ They sent for the doctor, who
persistently declared that Lord Kilmorey had nothing whatever the matter
with him. They remonstrated as to the pain it would give to many.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘yes, my sister Georgiana, perhaps she will feel it; I
will wait till I have seen her.’ And he waited till he had seen old Lady
Georgiana, talked to her very affectionately, took leave of her, and
since then has eaten nothing.”
* * * * *
“_June 20._--Lord Kilmorey died to-day.”
* * * * *
“_June 24._--With the Mark Woods to Charlton, the fine old house of Sir
Thomas Maryon Wilson, near Greenwich. It was built by James I. for his
son Prince Henry, and is in wonderful keeping with its surroundings of
broad terraces, old pine-trees, &c. In the richly polished chimney-piece
of one of the rooms, a lady while dressing is said to have seen a murder
reflected while it was being committed in the park, and her evidence to
have found the man guilty.”
* * * * *
“_June 26._--In the evening I was at the Speaker’s party. His beautiful
rooms were additionally illuminated by the glare from a great fire on
the opposite bank of the river. The bridge, and the chain of omnibuses
and cabs, with their roofs crowded with the black figures of spectators,
and the background of flames, gave the whole scene the aspect of the
Devil’s funeral with appropriate fireworks. In a great hooded car,
nodding against the flame, the Devil’s widow seemed to follow. We
watched from the windows for nearly two hours--inside, bright uniforms,
low dresses, glistening diamonds: outside, flames and a black shimmering
river. At last the fire-engines got the victory, a roof fell in, the
glare began to fade, the bereaved demons returned from the ceremony, and
the illuminations were extinguished. No human life was lost, only the
two great bloodhounds which were the guards of the timber-yard, and
which for years have gained the prize in every dog-show.”
* * * * *
“_June 29._--Lady Lucy Grant had a pleasant party in her pretty garden.
Old Madame Mohl was there, a wreck, but a curious reminiscence of the
past. In the little garden-studio Miss Grant’s reredos for Edinburgh
Cathedral was lighted up. In the main features it is fine, but the women
are all exactly the same height as the men, and all the figures stand in
a line, with an equal amount of individuality, too little occupied with
each other.”
* * * * *
“_July 7._--Dinner at Lord Ducie’s. I was delighted to sit once more by
Madame de Riaño[348] and enjoy the flow of her ever-fresh originality.”
* * * * *
“_July 8._--The Duchess of Norfolk’s ball. The house had not been opened
to a great party for forty years, but the noble suite of rooms, with
their old ceilings and pictures, is well adapted for it.”
* * * * *
“_July 9._--Lord Denbigh has sent me what he calls ‘a bundle of
wonders.’ It contains one curious history related by Henry Malet in
August 1869.
“‘In the winter of 1854-55, at the end of December, I was in Paris, and
among other people of whom I saw a good deal was Palgrave Simpson, the
dramatic author. There was something about him I liked, and a certain
originality in the tone of his mind interested me. One evening, after a
bachelors’ dinner at Charlie Webster’s rooms, the conversation turned on
clairvoyance. Palgrave Simpson expressed himself a believer in many of
the clairvoyant phenomena which were then astonishing people in Paris,
but nearly all the rest of us, except myself, laughed in his face, and
told him that he must be insane to credit such nonsense. He and I walked
home together, and I believe that I told him I should be glad of an
opportunity of investigating some of the stories which had impressed
him.
“‘Within a few days I received a sudden order to return at once to
London and hold myself in readiness to embark for the Crimea with a
large detachment of my regiment.
“‘Our departure was delayed from day to day, but about the end of March
it was fixed for the first week in April. When the day was finally
settled, I prevailed on my mother, who was in despair at the idea of my
going on active service, to leave London with my brother and go to
Frankfort, as I concluded that the actual blow of the separation would
be lessened by this means.
“‘I am not quite positive as to the date of our sailing, but it was two
or three days after my mother arrived at Frankfort.
“‘We were to parade in Wellington Barracks at 5 A.M., and, after
midnight on the last night, I looked in at the Guards Club, and found
there a note enclosing an antique ring. The note was from Palgrave
Simpson and said, “Do not laugh at me, but while you are in the Crimea
wear the enclosed ring. It was given to me by the last representative of
an old Hungarian family on her death-bed. In her family it was an
heirloom, and considered as a most precious talisman to preserve the
wearer from any external harm.”
“‘I slipped the ring on my finger, I must own, without attaching any
great importance to the matter, and turned in, after writing Palgrave
Simpson a note to thank him for his kindness.
“‘The next morning I sailed at 10 A.M. from Portsmouth. We touched at
Gibraltar, but it was not till our arrival at Malta that I heard from my
family. Then I found a letter from my mother dated from Frankfort on the
very day of our sailing from England. It said, “I have been quite
broken-hearted about you, and could find no comfort anywhere; but now
all is changed, for a most extraordinary reason. This morning, as I lay
in bed in broad daylight, and after my maid had brought my hot water,
just as I was about to get up, a most beautiful young lady, very fair,
and dressed in grey silk, drew aside the curtain of my bed and leant
over me and said, ‘Do not be unhappy about your son: no harm shall
happen to him.’ I am quite certain I have had a vision, yet it seemed as
if I were awake: certainly I was so the moment before this happened. The
whole thing is as distinct as possible, and as unlike an effect of
imagination. Of course I cannot account for it, but it has made me quite
happy, and I _know_ you will come back safe.”
“‘On receipt of this letter I bethought me of the ring, and begged my
mother in reply to describe minutely the appearance of the mysterious
visitor. My mother said it was a young woman about twenty-seven years of
age, rather pale, with very straight features, large grey eyes, and an
abundance of brown hair worn in rather an old-fashioned manner: the
sleeves of the grey silk dress were what we call “bishop sleeves.”
“‘I sent copies of my mother’s letters to Palgrave Simpson, and he
answered me that the description was in the _minutest_ particular the
counterpart of the lady who on her death-bed had given him the ring some
sixteen or seventeen years before.
“‘It is to be observed that no communication whatever passed between me
and my mother between the receipt of the ring and my arrival at Malta,
and I will swear that I told no one the story.
“‘On my return from the Crimea I restored the ring to its owner, but he
sent it back to me, begging me to keep it. Last year he wrote to me that
he was threatened by a certain danger, and he wished to have back the
talisman. I at once returned it to him, and it is now in his hands.’”
* * * * *
“_July 10._--Dining at Louisa, Lady Ashburton’s, I sat near George N.
Curzon, eldest son of Lord Scarsdale, the sort of fellow I take to at
once, and we made great friends in one evening, unfolding ourselves in a
way which makes me sure we shall meet again.”
* * * * *
“_July 11._--Dined at Lord Foley’s. George Russell was there. He said he
had said something about Lord Salisbury’s carriage to the Duchess
Dowager of Cleveland. ‘I did not know Lord Salisbury had a carriage,’
said the old lady. ‘Surely, my dear Duchess?’--‘No; I have even heard it
said that the present Marquis of Salisbury goes about in a vehicle
called a brougham!’
“Sir Robert and Lady Sheffield were going down to visit some friends
near West Drayton, where a carriage was to meet them. Arriving in the
dark, they found a carriage waiting and jumped into it. After driving
some way, they entered a park and drove up to the door of a great house.
They were shown up to a long gallery, where a little old lady was
arranging some books. ‘Ah! some companion,’ they thought, and for a time
they took no notice of her. At last they said, ‘Is Lady ---- not coming
down soon?’--‘I am not cognisant of the movements of my Lady ----,’ said
the old lady very sharply, rapping her ebony stick violently on the
floor; ‘but you are under a misapprehension. This is Osterley Park, and
I--am the Duchess of Cleveland.’ And then subsiding into her most
gracious manner,--‘And now, whilst my carriage is getting ready to take
you on to Lady ----, I hope you will allow me to have the pleasure of
giving you some tea.’”
* * * * *
“_July 14._--Dinner at Lady Charlemont’s. Mr. Synge, who declared at
once his belief in ghostly apparitions, told a pretty story of a
clergyman in Somersetshire who had ridden to the bank and drawn out all
the money for his poor-club, which he was taking back with him, when he
became aware of another horseman riding by his side, who did not speak,
and who, at a certain point of the road beyond a hollow, disappeared. In
that hollow highwaymen, who knew the clergyman was coming with the
money, were waiting to attack him; but they refrained, ‘for there are
two of them,’ they said. It was his guardian angel.
“Mr. Synge told us that his grandfather was the magistrate to whom the
man came who said that he ought to warn Mr. Percival because he had
twice dreamt of a man in a white plush coat with purple glass buttons
who was going to murder him. But his grandfather restrained the man from
saying anything on so slight a foundation as a dream. After the murder
of Mr. Percival, the man went up to London, and in the prisoner in
Newgate recognised at once the man he had seen, and found him wearing
the white plush coat with the purple glass buttons.
“Lady Charlemont talked much of the Lord Chancellor Thurlow. He asked
for the Bishopric of Durham for his brother. George IV. replied that he
thought Lord Thurlow should have known that that Bishopric, being a
principality, could only be given to persons of the very highest rank
and connections. ‘It is therefore, your Majesty,’ said Lord Thurlow,
‘that I have asked for it for the brother of the Lord High Chancellor of
England.’
“A clergyman desirous of a living went to the Bishop of London and asked
him for an introduction to the Lord Chancellor Thurlow. The Bishop said,
‘I should be willing to give it, but an introduction from me would
defeat the very end you have in view.’ However, the clergyman persisted
in his request, and the introduction was given.
“The Lord Chancellor received him with fury. ‘So that damned scoundrel
the Bishop of London has given you an introduction: as it is he who has
introduced you, you will certainly not get the living.’--‘Well, so the
Bishop said, my lord,’ replied the clergyman. ‘Did the Bishop say so?’
thundered Lord Thurlow: ‘then he’s a damned liar, and I’ll prove him so:
you _shall_ have the living,’ and the man got it.
“At Arundel the guests were astonished by the butler coming in one day
abruptly and saying to the Duke, ‘May it please your Grace, Lord Thurlow
has laid an egg.’ It was one of the owls which existed at Arundel till
the time of the present owner. Lord Thurlow’s daughter, going round
their cages in the wall, had stopped opposite one of them, and, looking
at the blinking bird, said, ‘Why, he’s just like papa.’ The bird was
ever after called Lord Thurlow.”
* * * * *
“_July 16._--At Mrs. Ralph Dutton’s I took Mrs. Procter in to
dinner--Barry Cornwall’s widow, always full of interest and excellence,
and of many unknown kindnesses. She talked of her early days, of the
charm of Monckton Milnes when young--his brightness and vigour: of the
decadence of society now, when at least a thousand persons were invited
to Grosvenor House whom our grandmothers would not consent to be in the
same room with; but that society now required high seasoning, and
royalty the strongest pepper of all: that in former days no guest would
have continued in a house where he was received on entering by a wet
sponge from ----: that the abbreviation of P. B.’s in use for
‘professional beauties’ was a sign of the depth to which we have fallen.
“Mrs. Stewart told me a characteristic story of Mrs. Procter’s wit. ‘The
Lionel Tennysons--dear good excellent people--asked that woman Sarah
Bernhardt, the actress, to luncheon, asked her to go all the way to them
in Kensington, and invited some good, quiet, simple folk to meet her,
just trusting in his prestige as the laureate’s son. I need hardly say
that, though they waited luncheon for Sarah Bernhardt till four o’clock,
she never came. She knew the company she was to meet, and she did not
think it worth while. They told Mrs. Procter of it. ‘Why,’ she said, ‘if
people will invite monkeys, they must provide them with _nuts_.’
“‘Dear Mrs. Procter is so satirical,’ says Mrs. Stewart, ‘that when I go
to her and find other people in the room, I always stay till the last,
that she may have no one to discuss me with.’
“When Mrs. Procter dies, her last daughter will probably go into a
convent. She has had three daughters; two have become Roman Catholics,
and one is already in a convent. ‘I have another daughter, but you will
never see her,’ is the only way in which the mother alludes to this.”
* * * * *
“_July 17._--Sat by Matthew Arnold at breakfast. Speaking of the odd
effect misspelt words often produced, he quoted a begging letter he had
just received from a lady who said she had a decided claim upon charity,
being ‘the sole support of an aged Ant’ (_sic_).
[Illustration: MRS. DUNCAN STEWART]
“Called on Mrs. Stewart. She said that the evening before she had asked
Mr. Froude what she should reply to Mr. Tennyson if he asked her what
she thought of his last wretched poems. ‘Oh, say, “Blessed sir, would I
presume?”’ returned Mr. Froude.
“Two days ago I went to Lady Airlie’s, where a large party was collected
to hear Mr. Browning read. I never heard any one, even a child of ten,
read so atrociously. It was two of his own poems--‘Good News to Ghent’
and ‘Ivan Ivanowitch,’ the latter always most horrible and unsuitable
for reading aloud, but in this case rendered utterly unintelligible by
the melodramatic vocal contortions of the reader.”
* * * * *
“_July 23._--By invitation of Mrs. Stephen Winkworth to see Lewis
Campbell’s translation of the ‘Agamemnon’ acted. Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin
took the parts of both Clytemnestra and Cassandra, and was very grand in
both, especially the latter. She has an infinity of action, but it is
all graceful and very Greek. The chorus loses much, because each of the
old men is made to say his speech separately, whereas in the original
Greek they evidently all talked together.”
* * * * *
“_July 24, Milford._--I have ended a very happy season by leaving London
immediately after the marriage of Evelyn Bromley Davenport with Tom Legh
of Lyme. Here, at Mrs. Greville’s, I find Lady Archibald Campbell, a
pale, beautiful young woman, strangely occupied with spiritualism, and
Mr. Watts, one of the principal writers in the _Athenæum_, and the man
who, living with Swinburne, has, by his personal influence, cured him of
the habit of drinking.”
* * * * *
“_July 25._--A hot Sunday afternoon, spent chiefly in sitting on the
terrace, where great orange-trees are set in tubs as in a French garden,
and in listening to the discursive conversation of Mr. Watts and Lady
Archie about Swinburne and Rossetti.
“I am very sorry, now that it is too late, that, in my last visit here,
when asked to choose which I would be taken to see, I did not say George
Eliot instead of Tennyson. Mrs. Greville went to see her with an aching
heart after Lewes’s death, and ‘found them all in the drawing-room
playing battledore and shuttlecock, nothing changed but the man.’
“Mrs. Greville’s mother, sweet Mrs. Thellusson, was one of the claimants
for the great Thellusson fortune--an unsuccessful claimant. She is
lovely still in her old age. Mrs. Greville has a picture of a young man
in a dress of the beginning of this century. She described his return
lately from India. ‘He came to Milford, and paid me endless attentions
and made me endless presents; I really thought he wished to marry me,
until he proposed to--my mother!’”[349]
* * * * *
“_Ammerdown Park, August 2._--I have been several days with Lady
Waterford--always charming, always so full of holy teaching, that she
recalls the closing lines of St. Patrick’s Hymn--
‘Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.’
Yet this visit leaves nothing especially to remember except a story of
Lord Waterford pursuing a robber who had broken into his house, finding
him in a public-house some four miles off, and convicting him amongst a
number of other men by insisting upon feeling all their hearts; the man
whose heart was still beating quickly was the one who had just done
running.
“On Saturday I came to Wells, the lovely old city of orchards and clear
running brooks, whence Lord Hylton fetched me to Ammerdown. Sir Augustus
Paget and all his family are here, the daughter a lovely, bright,
natural girl,[350] and the sons, Victor and Ralph, most charming,
kind-hearted, winning fellows. We have been to Mells--an overgrown park
with pretty natural features, which was the favourite manor of the Abbot
of Glastonbury. At the dissolution, Mr. Horner was sent to take up the
parchments of the abbatial lands to Windsor, and for better security
took them in a pasty. On the way he put in his thumb and pulled out for
himself the title-deeds of Mells, the best plum of all, which has ever
since remained in the family of ‘Little Jack Horner.’”
* * * * *
“_Ryde, Oct. 10._--I have spent a quiet, peaceful summer: so little from
the outer world seems to ruffle me now, and the storms of four terrible
years have been succeeded by six years of calm. It has been a constant
pleasure to visit the dear Mrs. Grove, now confined to the upper floor
of her house. Charlotte Leycester has been long at Holmhurst, and other
guests have come and gone, relics from my dearest Mother’s life, and
waifs and strays from my own, by many of whom I am sadly overrated; the
moral of which is, I suppose, that one should try really to clamber up
to that high shelf on which one is placed in imagination. Of original
work I have done little enough, except one article on ‘Lucca’ for _Good
Words_.
“One of my chief occupations has been editing the life of the nun Amalie
von Lassaux, translated from the German by Fräulein von Weling. As
‘Sister Augustine,’ her story possesses that interest which is always
attached to a struggle in the cause of truth amid many persecutions and
torments, rather mental than physical.
“I was away twice for a few days--first with young Mrs. Hamilton Seymour
at Aylesford, a charming little old town on the sluggish Medway, with
‘The Friars’ close by, where pleasant Lady Aylesford lives in a
beautiful old house, with oak staircase, gateway, water-gate, clipped
yew-trees and terraces. Then I was two days at Hampton Court with witty
old Lady Lyndhurst, and greatly delighted in the glories of the old
palace and its gardens. And now I am with dear old George Liddell,[351]
enjoying this otherwise dull watering-place through his genial
hospitality.”
* * * * *
“_Melchet, Hants, Oct. 23._--From Ryde I went to Amesbury to stay with
Sir Edmund and Lady Antrobus, who are some of the kindest and most
hospitable people in London, and have a fine house in Piccadilly. Their
house in Wiltshire is very fine too, though it has never been finished.
Gay’s Duchess of Queensberry lived there, and in the grounds are a cave
and summer-house where the poet wrote verses to her. But the great
interest of Amesbury lies in its being the scene of Guinevere’s penance,
and it recalls Tennyson’s poem in the swirling mists which arise with
morning and evening. Each morning we drew at Stonehenge amongst the
hoary and mighty stones standing out against the ethereal lights and
shadows of the plain.
“Next, I went to Rushmore, to which the Lane Fox’s have succeeded, with
the name of Pitt Rivers and £36,000 a year, since the death of the 6th
Lord Rivers. It is a dull country-house on Cranbourne Chase--swooping
moors sprinkled with thorn-trees or thick woods of hazel. I was taken to
see Shaftesbury; Cranbourne, the fine old house of the Salisburys; and
Wardour, with noble cedars too closely overhanging the ruins of its
castle. Lord Arundel lives in the Park at Wardour, in an immense house
which he is too poor to keep in repair. He has another place somewhere
near the sea, where his grandfather went to reside, to the great
discomfiture of a gang of smugglers, who had previously had sole
possession, and who tried to frighten him away by ghostly sights and
sounds, but in vain. One night Lord Arundel was sitting in his room,
having locked the door, when some one knocked. He demanded who was
there, when a voice said, ‘Open and you will see:’ He opened it, and
found a very rough-looking man with a keg of spirits under his arm. The
man said, ‘Well, my Lord, we’ve done our best to frighten you, but you
won’t be frightened, so I’ve, come to make a clean breast of it, and
I’ve brought you a little offering. I only hope you won’t be hard on
us.’ ‘Oh, dear no, I won’t be hard on you,’ said Lord Arundel; and Lady
Marian Alford, to whom he told the story at Rome when she was four years
old, vividly remembers his vigorous assertion, ‘And the smuggler gave me
the very best Hollands I ever had in my life.’
“From Rushmore, after a visit to the old Shipley home at Twyford, I came
here to Lady Ashburton. Melchet is a magnificent house in a beautiful
country, and is filled with art-treasures of every kind. Lady Marian is
here, always pleasant with her ripple of conversation and anecdote. She
has been very amusing about her mother’s parrot, which used to hop about
upon the lawn. One day it was carried off by an eagle. Old John Tooch,
one of the dynasty of John Toochs who worked in the garden, was mowing
the lawn, and as the parrot, in the eagle’s gripe, was sailing over his
head, he heard a voice in the air call out, ‘We’re ridin’ noo, John
Tooch, we’re ridin’ noo;’ at which strange sound the eagle was so
dreadfully frightened that he let the parrot fall, so that John Tooch
took it home to its cage again.”
* * * * *
“_Melchet, Oct. 28._--Yesterday we went to Longford--Lord Radnor’s--a
great castellated house in a dull park, with no view, but very fine
pictures.
“In the morning the (Melchet) footman woke me with the news that the
house had been broken into. The robbers had entered through the
drawing-room window, perambulated the lower apartments, drunk up all the
wine in the dining-room, and found all the valuables too big to carry
off!”
* * * * *
“_Oct. 29._--A charming visit to Broadlands, Lord Mount-Temple’s--the
people so full of genial goodness, the house most comfortable and
gardens lovely. Lady Mount-Temple--in whom, as Miss Tollemache, Ruskin
saw such statuesque severity with womanly sweetness joined--a marvellous
union of beauty, goodness, and intelligence. The grounds, with fountain,
river, well-grouped trees, and a Palladian summer-house, are like a
beautiful Claude-Lorraine picture. The same landscape--of a river,
winding amongst cedar-shadowed lawns--forms the predella to Rossetti’s
picture of ‘The Blessed Damozel.’”
* * * * *
“_Holmhurst, Nov. 13._--Mr. and Mrs. Paterson have been here for the
day. He told me two stories:--
“A lady was awoke in the night with the disagreeable sense of not being
alone in the room, and soon felt a thud upon her bed. There was no doubt
that some one was moving to and fro in the room, and that hands were
constantly moving over her bed. She was so dreadfully frightened that at
last she fainted. When she came to herself, it was broad daylight, and
she found that the butler had walked in his sleep and had laid the table
for fourteen upon her bed.
“A lunatic, who had escaped for some time from his asylum, was
eventually captured. When he came in and saw the keeper who was
accustomed to take care of him, he said, ‘Well, I’ve been very much
occupied since I went away: I’ve been occupied in being
married.’--‘Well, and whom have you married?’ said the keeper. ‘Oh, I’ve
married the Devil’s daughter.’--‘Well, I hope it’s a happy union?’--‘Oh,
very, thank you,’ said the lunatic; ‘only I don’t much like the old
people.’”
* * * * *
“_Holmhurst, Nov. 24._--Last week I was for two days at Cambridge as the
guest of Jock Wallop, the best and kindest of hosts, under whose popular
auspices I saw the present undergraduate life to perfection. There is a
most charming set of fellows there now, all delighted to be young, and
not aiming at juvenile senility, as was the fashion in my day at
Oxford.”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 16._--Several Midland county visits afford nothing to recollect.
Certainly country-house visits are a lottery. One old lady said, ‘My
dear, I _am_ so glad to see you. It is so delightful to see any one _at
all_ pleasant. In London one can have any agreeable company one likes,
but you know God Almighty fills one’s house in the country.’
“I have, however, been to George Curzon at Oxford. He is most
delightful, and sure to become distinguished. At the meeting of the
Conservative ‘Canning Club’ I heard a most capital paper on Ireland by
young Edward Arnold. Afterwards I was three days at Sherborne, meeting,
amongst other less interesting elements, the ever-charming Dowager Lady
Craven. Lady Sherborne sang in a way which would move the heart of a
basilisk. The country around Sherborne was the scene of innumerable
battles in Saxon times, commemorated in the names of the fields and
farms, which are supposed to owe their fertility to the carnage with
which they had been covered. This supposition makes the peasants eager
for the use of bone-dust, which they believe to be imported from the
plains of Waterloo. If a field, after having been thus manured, still
yields no crop, they say ‘Waterloo bean’t no use here!’”
* * * * *
I spent the Christmas of 1880 again with the kind Lowthers at Ampthill,
meeting, as before, Louisa, Lady Ashburton, and going, as before, to
spend a day at Woburn. In January 1881 I was at Bretton with the
Beaumonts, meeting Julia, Lady Jersey, and a large party.
We went to see Nostell, a very grand but little known house of the
Winns, full of splendid things, glorious tapestries, china, Chippendale
furniture, but, most remarkable of all, a doll’s house of the last
century, with miniature fairy furniture, exquisitely carved and painted,
a doll trousseau with point lace, and a Liliputian service of plate.
We also went a long drive to Stainborough (Wentworth Castle), through a
country which may be pretty in summer clearness, but which is hideously
black in winter. The house is a great Italian palace, half Queen Anne,
half older, with little temples in the grounds, the building of one of
which is described by Evelyn. Inside there are fine tapestries, and many
pictures of the Stuarts, ascribed to Vandyck, but probably copies. Lady
Harriet Wentworth, who showed us everything herself, gave us the
characteristic of her life when she said “I do so hate the _thraldom_ of
civilisation.” Her stately rooms have no charm for her, and, though they
are so immense, she declares she cannot breathe in them, and she lives
entirely and has all her meals in the conservatory, with a damp, warm,
marshy climate, from which she does not scruple to emerge through the
bitter winds of the Yorkshire wolds (for the conservatory does not join
the house) with nothing extra on. From Bretton I went to Tortworth--Lord
Ducie’s--in Gloucestershire.
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Jan. 11, 1881._--There is a large party here (at Tortworth), but one
forgets all its other elements in dear Mrs. Duncan Stewart. ‘L’esprit
pétille sur son visage.’ Never was there a more marvellous coruscation
of wit and wisdom; and she not merely evades ever saying an ill-natured
thing of any one, but, where there is positively _nothing_ of good to be
said, has some apt line of old poetry or some proverb to bring forward
urging mercy--‘Mercy, so much grander than justice.’
“Last night she wanted to introduce me to Mrs. Grey, an American lady
who is staying here. ‘I cannot do it better,’ she said, ‘than in the
words of Alfred d’Orsay when he brought up Landseer to me, saying,
“Here, Mrs. Stewart, is Landseer, who can do everything better than he
can paint,”--so here, Mrs. Grey, is Mr. Hare, who can do everything
better than he can write.’
“To-day, at luncheon, Mrs. Stewart talked much of Paris, and of her
intercourse with a French physician there. Dr. ---- spoke to her of the
happy despatch, and unhesitatingly allowed that when he saw a patient
condemned to hopeless suffering, he practised it. ‘But of course you
insist on the acquiescence both of the patients and of their families,’
said Mrs. Stewart. ‘_Never_,’ shouted Dr. ----. ‘I should be a mean sneak
indeed if I waited for _that_.’
“She talked much of George Sand and of her journey to Italy, from which
three books resulted, _her’s_, ‘Elle et Lui:’ _his_, ‘Lui et Elle,’ and
‘Lettres d’un Voyageur.’
“She said his was most horrible.
“Afterwards Lord ---- was in a box at the opera in Paris with a number of
other young men. There was a knock at the door, and George Sand came in.
‘Il y a place pour moi?’--‘Certainly,’ they said. By-and-by one of them
inquired, ‘Et Musset?’--‘Oh, il voyage en Italie,’ she replied.
Presently the door opened, and a man came in--haggard, dishevelled, worn
to a degree. It was Musset. He shook hands with one and other of the
young men. ‘Et pas un mot pour moi?’ said George Sand. ‘Non,’ he
exclaimed. ‘Je vous haïs, je vous deteste! c’est que vous avez tué le
bonheur de ma vie.’
“Mrs. Stewart talked of the great want of appreciation of Byron--of his
wonderful satire, evinced by the lines in the ‘Age of Bronze’ on Marie
Louise and Wellington: of his philosophy, for which she cited the lines
on Don Quixote: of his marvellous condensation and combination, for
which she repeated those on the burning of Moscow.
“She also talked of Trollope’s novels, and said how Trollope had told
her of the circumstances which led to the death of Mrs. Proudie. He had
gone up to write at the round table in the library at the Athenaeum, and
spread his things all over it. It was early in the morning, and there is
seldom any one there at that time. On this occasion, however, two
country clergymen were sitting on either side of the fire reading one of
his own books: after a time they began to talk about them. ‘It is a
great pity Trollope does not get some fresh characters,’ said one.
‘Yes,’ said the other, ‘one gets so tired of meeting the same people
again and again, especially of Mrs. Proudie.’ Then Trollope got up, and
planting himself on the rug between them with his back to the fire,
said, ‘Gentlemen, I do not think it would be honest to listen to you
talking about my books any more, without telling you that I am the
victim; but I will add that I quite agree with what you have been
saying, and that I will give you my word of honour that Mrs. Proudie
shall die in the very next book I write.’”
* * * * *
“_Jan. 12._--Dr. Asa Grey, who is here, a Professor of Harvard
University, is one of the most famous botanists living; but he is also a
very charming person. Lowell describes how his
‘indefatigable hours
Have been as gaily innocent
And fragrant as his flowers.’[352]
“Mrs. Stewart talked of Madame Jerome Bonaparte, _née_ Paterson--her
beauty, her cleverness, her father to whom she always wrote of her
_succès de société_, looking down upon him; but he could always avenge
himself; he could always write to her, ‘My dear Betsy.’ ‘She would tell
him how she had been received at this court and at that, and then would
come his answer with “My dear Betsy.” Oh, it was a terrible revenge.’
“She talked of the society of her youth, when it was real society, for
people were never in a hurry. ‘One of the marked figures then was Lady
Cork,[353] who, after eighty, always dressed in white, with a little
white pulled bonnet and a gold-headed stick. Another, whom you are none
of you old enough to remember, was Lady Morgan, a little old lady, who
used to rouge up to the eyes. M. Fonblanque--he was the editor of the
_Examiner_--used to say, “She is just a spark of hell-fire, and is soon
going back to her native element.”
“‘I wonder,’ said Mrs. Stewart, ‘what has become of an early picture
which I remember of Leighton’s. A lady went to all the great artists in
London to get them to paint a dream of hers, and they refused, and
Leighton, who was quite a young man, undertook it. She dreamt that she
had died, and that she had gone up--up to Christ, and that He had turned
her back, and she said, “Why, Lord?” and He replied, “Because your work
on earth is not yet done.”
“‘Leighton painted the Saviour in a glory of yellow light, and the woman
being turned back by Him.’
“This reminiscence led to one of a different kind from Mr. Ashley
Ponsonby.
“‘Creswick the actor was once at a dinner where Irving absorbed all the
conversation and allowed no one else to speak. At last he could stand it
no longer, and turning round to his next neighbour, said, “I had such an
extraordinary dream last night.” Of course, the whole party were
attention at once.’
“‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I dreamt that I was dead, and that I went up to the
gates of heaven and knocked at them. ‘Who are you?’ said St. Peter. ‘I
am Mr. Creswick.’--‘What, Creswick the Academician?’--‘No, Creswick the
actor.’--‘Oh, then I can’t let you in here; we don’t admit any actors
here,’ said St. Peter, and he turned me away. Dreadfully crestfallen, I
went and sat down under a juniper-tree, and watched other people
arriving at the gates. Many of my friends came and were let in. Then I
took heart and went and knocked again, and when St. Peter said again
that I must go away, for he could not admit any actors, I said, ‘But
really that is not the case, for you have let in Mr. Irving.’--‘That is
true,’ said St. Peter, ‘but--he _was no actor_.’”
“‘Take care,’ said Mrs. Stewart, ‘or you will become that most dreadful
of all things, a self-observant valetudinarian. I was once in the house
with a lady, who, after talking of nothing else for an hour, said, “I
won’t speak of my own health, for, when I was young, a dear old wise and
judicious woman said to me, ‘When anybody asks you how you are, always
say you are very well, for nobody cares.’”
“‘Many people fall into sin,’ said Mrs. Stewart, ‘merely because they
are tired of the monotony of innocence.’
“‘He was very fallible,’ she said, ‘and yet capable of becoming that
greatest of all things--a good man.’
“‘I think it was a bishop who said, “Most people now go to seek their
ancestors at the Jardin des Plantes; for my part, I am content with the
Garden of Eden.”’
“‘Mr. Pigott is a finished critic, but with the innocence of a child
picking daisies.’
“‘It was one of the cases in which the highest and the lowest motives
combine, and oh! in life there are so many of those cases.’”
* * * * *
“_January 12._--Mrs. Stewart has been talking of the cases in which a
lie is justifiable. Of herself she said, ‘There was once a case in which
I thought I ought to tell a lie, but I was not sure. I went to Dr. and
Mrs. Bickersteth, and I asked them. They would only answer, “We cannot
advise you to tell a lie;” they would not advise it, but they did not
forbid it. So when a husband came to question me about his wife, I
equivocated. I said, “She was certainly not seduced by that man.” He
said to me very sternly and fiercely, “That is no answer; is my wife
innocent? I will believe you if you say she is.” And I said, “She is.”
I said it hesitatingly, for I knew it was false, and _he_ knew it was
false; he knew that I had lied to him, and he did not believe me in his
heart; but he was glad to believe me outwardly, and he was grateful to
me, and that husband and wife lived together till death. I believe that
was one of the cases in which it is right to tell a lie. You will say
that it might lead me to tell many others, but I don’t think it has.
Stopford Brooke once said that strict merciless truth was the most
selfish thing he knew.”
“Mrs. Stewart also told us--
“Dudley Smith, as a very young man, went out to China, and was employed
in the opium trade. He then married and had several children. When he
was thirty-three his conscience began to work, and he felt the abuses of
opium. He left the trade and became a wharfinger, in which profession he
made some money, though it was not nearly so lucrative as the occupation
he had given up, in which he had made £12,000.
“When he was thirty-five, though he had then a wife and several
children, Dudley Smith brought the £12,000 to his man of business,
saying that it burnt a hole in his pocket, and desiring him to so invest
it as to realise £500 a year for a mission to the Chinese, from whom it
was taken. This story is delightful to me. It reminds me of a saying of
old Mr. Planchet’s, which meant, though I cannot remember the exact
words--
‘Of heroes and heroines I am sick grown;
The only real ones are those that are unknown.’
We have been to luncheon at Berkeley Castle to-day. Lady Fitzhardinge,
fat to a degree, is charming, and has the most wonderful knowledge of
all the delicate _finesses_ of form and colour, and the application of
them to furniture. Her rooms are quite beautiful, everything composing
the most harmonious picture, down to a string of blue beads suspended
from a yellow vase. Lord Fitzhardinge came in to luncheon with Lord
Worcester, Lord Guildford, and another man--four statues! Not one of
them spoke a word, I believe because not one of them had a word to say,
except about racehorses, about which we none of us could say anything.
The castle relics are most interesting--Sir Francis Drake’s furniture,
Queen Elizabeth’s plate, bequeathed to her cousin Lord Hunsdon, and the
last prayer of Edward VI., written out by his sister herself, in the
tiniest of little jewel-embossed volumes.”
* * * * *
“_Jan. 15._--Mrs. Stewart has been talking much of her great delight in
the works of Ampère, and of the intense devotion, the passionate love of
the younger Ampère for Madame Recamier. She was guilty of a _trahison_
to him, though. When he was at Weimar, he wrote to her a private letter,
telling her particulars about all the people there, which he had better
not have told, but he wrote them in strict confidence. She made that
letter public. ‘My dear Mr. Hare,’ said Mrs. Stewart, ‘I have never read
any letter more exquisitely, more tenderly pathetic than that which
Ampère wrote her when he heard this--a letter struggling between his old
respect and admiration and the feeling that his idol had fallen, that he
could not but reproach her.
“When Lowell (the American poet and minister) was describing his wife’s
terrible illness, he said, ‘My dear Mrs. Stewart, I would have given Job
ten and won.’
“After Lady Fitzhardinge came, Mrs. Stewart talked much of her
acquaintance with Brother Ignatius. She was at the place of her
son-in-law, Mr. Rogerson, in Scotland. One day out walking, Mrs.
Rogerson met a young man, of wonderful beauty, dressed as a monk, with
bare feet and sandals. He asked her whether they were near any inn, and
said, ‘The fact is, I have with me two sisters, Sister Gertrude and
another, and a brother--Brother Augustine. And the brother is very ill,
possibly ill to death, and we cannot go any farther.’ So Mrs. Rogerson
made them come to her house, and showed them infinite kindness, ‘giving
them at once water for their feet and all Scripture hospitality.’
Brother Augustine was very ill, very ill indeed, and they all remained
at Mrs. Rogerson’s house three weeks, during which Mrs. Stewart became
very intimate with them, especially with Brother Ignatius and Sister
Gertrude. They used to go out for the day together, ‘and then, in some
desolate strath, Brother Ignatius would sing, sing hymns like an
archangel, and then he would kneel on the grass and pray.’
“Many years afterwards, Mrs. Stewart heard that Brother Ignatius was
going to preach in London--‘some very bad part of London,’ and she went.
The room was packed and crowded, but she was in the first row. He
preached, a beautiful young monk, leaning against a pillar. ‘There were
at least a hundred of his attitudes worth painting,’ but there was
nothing in his words. At last a little girl thought he looked faint, and
brought him a smelling-bottle, which she presented to him kneeling. ‘He
smelled at it, and then seeing me, an old woman, near him, he sent it on
to me, and I smelled at it too. Afterwards I stayed to see him, and we
talked together in a small room, talked till midnight. Then he gave me
his blessing, gave it me very solemnly, and afterwards I said, ‘And God
bless you too, my dear young man.’
“In the evening Mrs. Stewart spoke much of the Sobieski Stuarts--their
gallant appearance when young, and their change into ‘the mildew of
age.’
“Apropos of the last words of St. Evremond, ‘Je vais savoir le grand
peut-être,’ Mrs. Stewart mentioned Mrs. Grote having said to her at
their last meeting, ‘I trust, dear, that you are living, as I am, in
_respectful hope_.’
“This led to much talk of Mrs. Grote, who had died (Dec. 29, 1878) when
I was away at Rome with the Prince Royal, and Mrs. Stewart described
how, when she returned from Hanover after the fall of the royal family,
and was quite full of events there, she went down at once to visit the
Grotes in the country. ‘My dear,’ said Mrs. Grote, ‘I cannot enter into
your feelings about all your princesses and duchesses, but as regards
your king, I can enter into them fully: he has lived “as it is
written.”’ Mrs. Stewart wrote this to the King, who knows Shakspeare to
his finger-ends, and he said it did him more good than anything else
anybody wrote or said to him. As long as he lived, he and Mrs. Grote
exchanged stories and messages afterwards, through Mrs. Stewart.
“Lady William Russell said with much truth of Mr. and Mrs. Grote, ‘He is
ladylike, and she is such a perfect gentleman.’
“When Lady Catherine Clive was painting her town-hall at Hereford, she
was very anxious to find new, not conventional, attributes for some of
her allegorical figures; she especially wished for something instead of
the scales of ‘Justice.’ Mrs. Stewart wrote this to Mrs. Grote: ‘Tell
your friend,’ she answered, ‘not to try to struggle against
conventionalities. Tell her to be content with the scales: she will come
to find the cross conventional next.’
“When Lady Eastlake undertook to write Mrs. Grote’s life after her
death, she asked Mrs. Stewart for all her ‘jottings’ of Mrs. Grote’s
conversations, but she made no use of them. She was so anxious that
every one should find the book too short, that she really omitted almost
everything characteristic. She wrote her regrets afterwards to Mrs.
Stewart, who answered, ‘You are suffering, my dear, from a granted
prayer,’--for, in fact, the book was so short and dry that it passed
almost unnoticed.
“Mrs. Stewart spoke again of how far a lie might be made right by
circumstances--giving a wrong direction to a man who was in pursuit of
another to kill him, &c., and, when some one objected, dwelt upon its
being far greater to be noble for others than holy for one’s self. Some
one said that in this case all should follow the inner voice, which
would tell them truly what their real duty was. She replied, ‘Yes,
having formed your character by the Master without, you may then act in
a crisis by the voice within, which will never be false to your life’s
teachings.... But perhaps,’ she added, ‘I should say, like Dr. Johnson,
“I have been speaking in crass ignorance, according to the failings of
my fallible human nature”’ (and she repeated some lovely lines on Mary
Magdalen, from Moore’s ‘Rhymes of the Road’);[354] ‘and yet, may we all,
whilst acting like fallible human beings as we are, trust respectfully
in God’s mercy,--though speaking of no glorious future as reserved for
us, lest He should say, “What hast thou done to deserve that?”’
“The letters written to the _Morning Post_ from Hanover during the last
days of the monarchy, and signed H. S., were by Mrs. Stewart: those in
the _Times_, bearing the same signature, were by another lady.
“After being for a time with Mrs. Stewart and hearing her talk, I feel
how great the decay of conversation is since my childhood, when there
were many people who knew how to _converse_, not merely to _utter_.
Scarcely any one now ever says what they really think, and there is an
unwholesome striving after aestheticism, Louis Quatorze, blue china,
&c., which another age, if it remembers it, will think most
ridiculous.”
* * * * *
“_London, Jan. 24._--To Miss Bromley, who had been on Saturday to take
leave of Carlyle, to whom she has been the most faithful of friends for
many years. He has been sinking for some time, full of power, pathos,
and patience. He woke out of what was supposed to be a death stupor to
recognise her, and pressed her hand to his lips.”
* * * * *
“_Feb. 26._--Went by appointment to see the Queen of Sweden, who is at
Claridge’s Hotel for two nights. She was most kind and gracious, and
said that she was glad to thank me in person for all that I had been to
the Crown Prince. She talked of her illness and its anxieties; but there
were many other people waiting for an audience, and there was no time
for any real conversation.”
* * * * *
“_March 1._--Met Lady Lyveden at dinner at General Higginson’s. She
described Mrs. Grote saying one day, ‘I have to go out this morning, my
dear; it’s not my usual time, and in fact it’s very inconvenient to me,
but then you know, my dear, it’s _an affliction job_.’
“Mrs. Grote, to the last, was very proud of her appearance. Her hands
and feet she was especially proud of. One day Lady Lyveden asked her to
come in the evening to meet some pleasant people in her neighbouring
house in Savile Row. She would not do it. ‘I shall not come, my dear,’
she said, ‘because I never go out; but besides that, I _could_ not come,
for, if I did, I should have to put my well-formed figure into one of
your abominably low arm-chairs.’[355]
“There was a charm about her primitive household. There was not one of
her servants who spoke of her otherwise than ‘the Missis.’
“After dinner, she would leave ‘the historian,’ as she called him, in
his study, and come up to the drawing-room, where she would talk to her
guests and be most entertaining. At nine o’clock, tea would be brought
up--such a tea as one never sees now, with tablecloth, muffins, cakes,
&c. Then she would say to the servant, ‘Bring up the historian’--and the
historian was ‘brought up.’ He was vastly civil, of the old school, and
wore a great deal of frill. He would take his place opposite the table,
and immediately taking a large clean pocket-handkerchief from his
pocket, spread it very deliberately over his knees, after which a dog
jumped up and sat upon it. Then he would say, as to a perfect stranger,
‘And now, Mrs. Grote, will you kindly favour us with a sonata?’ and Mrs.
Grote, who was an admirable musician, would play a very long sonata
indeed; after which he would say, ‘Thank you, Mrs. Grote. I am sure Lady
Lyveden joins with me in being very much obliged to you for your
beautiful sonata.’[356]
“Lady Eastlake’s written portrait misses all the wit, all the acted
comedy of Mrs. Grote’s real life. She made, however, a capital pencil
sketch (which Lady Lyveden has) of Mrs. Grote, who was greatly pleased
with it.”
* * * * *
“_March 9._--Met Princess Mary at luncheon at Lady Harrington’s, who
only presented me by ‘Here is Augustus.’ The Princess was good enough to
talk to me for a long time afterwards.”
* * * * *
“_March 22._--Dined at Lady Airlie’s, sitting by Lady Herbert of Lea,
who talked much of her long residence in Sicily, with which she was
connected through her mother. She went about a great deal amongst the
poor at Palermo, generally accompanied by a Sister of Charity, and on
one occasion nursed a sick brigand. Soon afterwards, her children, going
to the Bay of Mondello to pick up shells, were seized by brigands, but
as soon as they found whose children they were, they sent them back to
her safe. Another day, Lady Herbert was returning from a village,
whither she had been on some office of charity, to Palermo, as it was
almost dark. There were high walls on either side of the way. Suddenly
the Sister of Charity who was with her began to go so fast that she
could not keep up with her. ‘Non posso, Sorella mia, non posso cammináre
più,’ she said. ‘But look behind you,’ said the Sister. She looked, and
saw three brigands following them. It would have been impossible to get
away, so she waited till they came up and said, ‘Che vuole?’ They begged
her to excuse them: they were sent by their chief to protect her as far
as the walls of Palermo: _they_ knew her, but others might not, and
they were ordered to ascertain that she came to no harm.
“A Hungarian Count and Countess were at dinner. He talked of fashion
very amusingly. He said he had learnt much from his herdsman, a very
clever man (‘he was hung afterwards, poor man, but he was very clever’),
who chose the animal to bear the bell, which was accustomed to go in the
centre of the herd. He asked why this was, and the herdsman answered,
‘Because the one who goes first naturally runs first into all dangers,
and when he has done it once or twice, the herd begin to find it out,
and they cease to follow him; and the one who goes last is constantly
left behind, and the herd begin to find it out, and they cease to follow
_him_; but the one that is in the middle, and chooses the safest place,
that is the one they know to be wise, and so, in any time of danger,
they will assuredly follow him. The Count spoke of the mania for
husband-murder which prevailed at Marseilles till it became quite a
fashion. Six women were tried at the same assizes for murdering their
husbands. In some of these cases there seemed something of reason or
excuse, but at last there came a lady whose husband had been all that
was most charming and delightful, and where the crime seemed
incomprehensible. The judge pressed her as to her motive, and at first
she said, ‘Ces dames me l’ont mis dans l’esprit,’ and, when urged
further, ‘Mais, cela se fait à Marseilles!’
“The London world has been full of the ‘Reminiscences of Carlyle,’
published with furious haste by Froude a fortnight after his death. They
have dwarfed their subject from a giant into a pigmy. His journal and
letters speak well of no one except his own family, and assail with the
utmost vituperation all who differed from him. For his wife there is a
long wail of affection, which would be touching if the devotion had not
begun after her death. ‘Never marry a genius,’ she said to Lady
Ashburton; ‘I have done it, and suffered from it; but then, after my
death I shall have an apotheosis’--and she has had it. Much of Carlyle’s
virulence arose from the state of his health: he used to say, ‘I can
wish the devil nothing worse than that he may have to digest with my
stomach to all eternity; there will be no need of fire and brimstone
then.’”
* * * * *
“_March 28._--Dined at Lady Lyveden’s. Sat by Lady S., who was very
pleasant. She talked of Tennyson, who had been to stay with her. He
desired his sons to let her know that he should like to be asked to read
some of his poems in the evening. Nevertheless, when she asked him, he
made a piece of work about it, and said to the other guests, ‘I do it,
but I only do it because Lady S. absolutely insists upon it.’ He read
badly and with too much emotion: over ‘Maud’ he sobbed passionately.
“Afterwards, at Lady Ridley’s party, Lord Houghton talked to me about
Carlyle--of how his grimness, which was unrelieved in the
‘Reminiscences,’ was relieved in the _man_ by much kindly humour. He
said that he and Lady Houghton were almost the only people spoken well
of in the book. Mr. Spedding used to say that Carlyle always needed that
kind of indulgence which most of us need in a fit of violent
toothache.”
* * * * *
“_April 3._--Dined with old Lady Combermere, who declared that only two
people ever had any excuse for living in the country, and they were Adam
and Eve!”
* * * * *
“_April 8._--An amusing luncheon at Lady Sebright’s, with an immense
party of actors, actresses, painters, literati, and ‘great ladies.’ It
seemed a reversion of the old order of things when the actresses had
said they ‘must inquire a little into the characters of the great
ladies’ they were asked to meet!”
* * * * *
“_Holmhurst, April 9._--Lea says, ‘It’s seven weeks from Guttit to
Aaster, and seven weeks from Aaster to Whissuntide.... You needna’ to
tak’ any trouble about the clocks, for when Lady Day comes it ‘ull mak’
’em all right, for there’s just twelve hours of sunshine on Lady Day.’
“‘After New Year’s day every day is just a cock’s ted longer than the
last: a cock’s ted, you know, is just the time a cock stops between its
crowings.’
“‘When we were any ways contrairy, my father used to say, “Yes, it’s
always too wet or too fine: it’s always too hot or too cold: that’s the
way of the world.’”
* * * * *
“_London, May 12._--To Mrs. Duncan Stewart, whom I found, after her
severe illness, sitting in a picturesque wrapper reading old _Figaros_.
‘So much in them, you know, so much more than in any other newspaper.’
They called up reminiscences of Lady Blessington, whom she thinks Lady
Airlie like, though without her perfect beauty: then of the trial of ...
for forgery, she being a grand-daughter of Stephanie Lafitte, ‘whom I
remember, not in her wedding-dress, but in one of her trousseau dresses,
for it was velvet. All French girls--and I was a French girl then--are
brought up to observe and think a great deal about dress, and it is
terrible, quite horrible to them, that an unmarried girl should have a
velvet dress: thus the remembrance clings to me.’
“Mrs. Stewart had been most alarmingly ill, but said she had rallied
from the moment Alfred Denison paid her a visit. She had said to him
that she had a presentiment she should not recover, and he had answered
her that he had never been ill without such a presentiment, and that it
had never come true.
“Yesterday I went to the Hollands to meet Princess Louise, and to tell
her some stories which she had graciously wished to hear. I knew that I
was to do this, but it was sufficiently formidable notwithstanding. The
Princess felt that it must be so, and was very sympathetic, and as nice
as she could be, talking first of my books, and saying that my Italian
volumes were never out of her hands when she was in Italy, &c. I had
been allowed to choose the rest of the audience, and the Childers,
Northcotes, Goschens, Lady Taunton, and Mrs. Dundas were there.”
* * * * *
“_May 18._--Luncheon with Catherine Vaughan at the Temple. She was very
full of a story of Sir F. Gore Ouseley. He took a house near London, and
a young man went to stay with him, an atheist and a reprobate. The next
morning this man came down an altered person, saying that he had heard a
supernatural voice in the night, which had so horrified him that it
would change his whole life--the voice had blasphemed in the most awful
language. That day was November 22. The young man went away, and he
really did change his life.
“The following year, on November 22, Sir F. Gore Ouseley suddenly opened
his door at night, and saw at the end of the passage a brilliant light,
and in the light the figure of an old man in a dressing-gown--luminous,
and all the rays of light issuing from his figure. Suddenly the light
went out: there was nothing more to be seen.
“Some time after, Sir F. Gore Ouseley went to visit the owner of the
house he had rented, who lived at a distance. Whilst waiting for him, he
was attracted by the picture of an old gentleman over the chimney-piece,
and recognised the very man he had seen. When the master of the house
came in, he said, ‘Pray excuse me, but whom does that portrait
represent?’--‘Oh,’ answered the owner, ‘that is no one you are likely to
have heard of: it is a grandfather of mine, who was a very bad man
indeed: so bad, that, in fact, we never mention him.’ Afterwards, Sir
Frederick found that he had strangled his wife in the very passage where
he appeared, and had then committed suicide.
“Mr. Austen, Rector of Whitby, was present when Catherine told this. He
said that Professor Owen had gone to stay at a house in Essex, where the
hostess apologised for putting him into the haunted room. The next
morning he was asked if he had heard anything. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I have
heard something, but I should like to say nothing about it till I have
slept in that room again.’ The second morning he said that each night he
had heard loud cries of a child proceeding from the hearthstone, and
begged that a mason might be sent for and the stone removed. This was
done, and the skull of a child was found beneath the stone. They buried
it in the garden, and the cries have never been heard since.”
* * * * *
“_Holyrood Palace, May 27._--On the evening of the 14th, at Cleveland
House, first Lady Aberdeen, and then Aberdeen, asked me to come hither
with them as equerry, during their residence for the Lord High
Commissionership. I stayed in London for Miss Beaumont’s wedding with
Coplestone Bampfylde, and joined them on Friday, arriving at 9 P.M.,
when ninety guests were at dinner in the brilliantly lighted picture
gallery, in which all the kings of Scotland were, painted to order by
the same hand and from the same model. After dining by myself in a small
room, I joined the party in the reception-rooms, where I entered at once
upon my duties, which, for the most part, seem to be to talk right and
left to every one I see. Each evening the Synods of the different
districts dine, some eighty or a hundred clergymen, and I have generally
found from my clerical neighbours that they regard it as their carnival,
looked forward to throughout the whole year, and giving them much to
talk of when they return home. Sometimes military, legal, or other
classes are mixed with them. In the afternoons we have generally gone
in state to visit institutions of one kind or other, the most
interesting being the really beautiful Infirmary, built entirely by the
people of Scotland, and the marvellous printing establishment of Messrs.
Nelson. When we were at the latter, most hands were busy over the
revised New Testament, in which there are 7000 alterations from the
older edition, 2000 of them being important.”
* * * * *
“_Holyrood Palace, May 28._--It is an interesting life here, but a very
fatiguing one--the hours and hours of standing, as for real royalty; the
etiquette of always addressing Aberdeen as ‘Your Grace,’ and getting up
when he comes into a room; the whirlpool of invitations to be sent, in
which one is always being swallowed up.
“I have had little enough of individual conversation, except with Ally
Gordon, the very pleasant aide-de-camp, and with Dr. Russell the
chaplain, who has talked much of Carlyle. He said to a friend who
visited him a short time before his death, ‘We are both old men now, and
I daresay you find, as I do, that it is well to rest upon the simple
answer to the first question in our Shorter Catechism--‘What is your
object in life?’--‘To glorify my Maker and to enjoy Him for ever.’
“On Sunday we were at St. Giles’s in the morning, and in the afternoon
had a long service and sermon in the picture-gallery. These Scotch
services are most wearisome, and the long prayers, _informing_ the
Almighty upon subjects on which He is all-wise and we are utterly
ignorant, are most revolting.
“One especially feels the length of these prayers in standing, in great
heat, in the General Assembly, where we occupy places near the throne,
which is raised in a gallery: the Moderator and ex-Moderator sit at a
table beneath, and the five hundred members occupy the body of the
house. The Moderator, Dr. Smith, is a most beautiful and benign old man,
full of simple and true Christianity, who looks, with his courtly
manners, as if he never could wear anything _but_ his court dress.
To-day we and about a hundred other guests breakfasted with him at his
hotel.
“The Holyrood which struck such ‘dismay and terror’ into the hearts of
the French emigrant princes is to me most captivating. I am often
reminded of Hogg’s admirably descriptive lines:--
‘When Mary turned her wond’ring eyes
On rocks that seemed to prop the skies;
On palace, park, and battled pile;
On lake and river, sea and isle;
O’er woods and meadows bathed in dew,
To distant mountains wild and blue;
She thought the isle that gave her birth
The sweetest, wildest land on earth.’
“On Sunday afternoon I went up Arthur’s Seat with Ally Gordon and the
ladies-in-waiting--Lady Margaret Hely Hutchinson and Lady Mary
Ashburnham. Most exquisite was the view over the sunlit slopes of
Edinburgh in its purple haze. Besides this, I shall have many
recollections of the delightful gardens of Holyrood in this still hot
weather, the apple-trees bursting into bloom, the hoary chapel with its
gothic arches and windows, the Salisbury Crags, deeply purple above,
and fading into mist below.”
* * * * *
“_May 29._--All has gone well and smoothly, and there is great interest
in the Holyrood life--the moving diorama of people, with the varying
lights and shades of character which they display, the old-world aspect
of all that has to be done, with the pages in their crimson and white
liveries, the chaplain and purse-bearer in their court dresses, and the
mounted guard. It has all been made especially pleasant by being on such
thoroughly friendly terms with the ladies-in-waiting and with one of the
aides-de-camp, Ally Gordon: the extreme goodness of the other, who has
been vehemently ‘converted,’ being a sort of barrier to intimacy.
“Old Miss Louisa Hope has been amongst the people who have come to
Holyrood. She talked much of her friendship with Lord Brougham, with
whom she corresponded constantly for many years. She had many religious
conversations with him, and he often used to dwell with her, as in his
public lectures, on the sublimity of that description of God, ‘eternal,
immortal, invisible,’ which has been spoilt in the revised translation
by changing the word ‘immortal’ into ‘incorruptible.’ After he had been
betrayed into especially bad language in her presence, she wrote a
strong remonstrance to him. He said nothing definite in answer, but
thenceforth always addressed her as ‘Dearest Miss Hope.’ When she heard
that he was not likely to live, Miss Hope wrote to him, saying that she
trusted that, if he was able to write himself, he would give her some
sign of his assurance as to a future life; but that, if he were not
able to write himself, he would not notice her request. Lord Brougham
wrote, ‘I trust entirely in the _graciousness_ of Him who died for me,’
and she was satisfied.
“Yesterday we drove out to Winton to Lady Ruthven. It was a lovely day,
the sea deep blue, and the trees, especially the sycamores, in their
richest foliage. We found the house just set in order after its
devastation during the fire which consumed the dining-room three weeks
ago, when everything was thrown out of the windows. Dear old Lady
Ruthven herself sat all the time on a chair on the lawn watching the
flames. She asked if every one was out of the castle, and being assured
that it was so, said, ‘Is Peppy (her dog) safe?’--‘Yes, my lady.’--‘Is
my blue vase safe?’--‘Yes, my lady.’--‘Then I am quite satisfied.’ And
she bade every person on the property go to church the next day to
return thanks for her preservation. She received me with the greatest
affection, and bade me kiss her.[357]
“At the great dinner at Holyrood in the evening I took in a Mrs. Murray,
who talked pleasantly about the old phase of Edinburgh society which she
remembered. ‘There were three subjects--wine, law, and contradiction:
wine is extinct now as a topic, but the other two, and especially the
last, are as much to the fore as ever.’ She said that she had studied
law herself, because it was the subject on which her husband was most
interested, and she liked him to be able to discuss all his occupations
with her.
“Another day I took in Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin, the marvellous amateur
actress. She described her home life and the reading aloud to her boys.
She read Landor, Alison, Scott. Only Byron’s ‘Childe Harold’ was a
failure. They got through the first two cantos, then the youngest boy
said, ‘Did the Childe never cheer up?’ and she was obliged to allow that
he did not: so the book was closed.
“Yesterday I talked much with Mrs. Fraser--Professor Fraser’s wife. She
described her visit to Hurstmonceaux--a week spent at the Rectory after
her wedding tour, and going down twice to Lime, and my dear Mother
sitting by the open window looking on the sunny lawn and flowers and the
sparkling water.
“To-day, at St. Giles’s, Professor Flint preached a magnificent sermon
on ‘I am the True Witness,’ describing how the doctrine which Christ
preached was that of the kingdom; ‘that of the Church He left to
others.’ His whole teaching was that inculcated by Diderot--‘Elargissez
Dieu, montrez-lui à l’enfant, non dans le temple, mais partout et
toujours.’”[358]
* * * * *
“_May 30._--Our stay is nearly at an end, and I am very sorry.... It is
impossible to live with the two charming old sisters (Lady Aberdeen and
Lady Ashburnham), so one in every thought and act, without being
impressed by their extreme simplicity and goodness; and Scottish ideas
of clanship are more captivated by the fact of ‘His Grace’ being
followed everywhere by his mother and aunt, and their going hand in
hand with him in every good work, than they could be by the most
brilliant court. Yesterday the preaching and praying were tremendous.
Now we are just off to a luncheon, then to visit the castle in state,
then a soldiers’ home, a sculptor’s studio, an artist’s studio, a dinner
of a hundred, and the Assembly again in state at 10 P.M. I cannot say
how kind every one is to me at Edinburgh.”
* * * * *
“_London, July 10._--With Lady Paget to hear Spurgeon preach at his
great Tabernacle near the Elephant and Castle. The vast congregation,
the united sound of the thousands of voices in the hymn, the earnestness
and zest of everything, were very striking: but far more so the strange,
common, coarse preacher. The text was from Rev. xxii. 17, ‘Let him that
heareth say Come.’ He described a sinner as like Leviathan, in whom
there must be some weak spot betwixt its thousand scales, between which
the dart of the exhorters could penetrate before death intervened and
set the ‘wax-tablet’ of his character for ever. He spoke of the
different ways of saying ‘Come,’ and acted them: that a ‘plain English,
not half Dutch-Latin-Hebrew way of speaking,’ should be employed: that
‘prayer was as necessary as that a servant should tell her master who
had called: that no servant was equal to answering for herself without
referring to her master.’
“The rough similes just suited the congregation, and also the jokes, at
which the people laughed aloud, but not irreverently. ‘A friend of mine
was preaching in the street the other day, and one of those fellows
passed by who has felt the hand touched by a bishop’s lawn sleeve upon
his blessed pate (not that I think there is any good in that; I do not
know if you do), and asked him by what authority he was preaching, and
my friend answered, ‘By the authority of Jesus Christ, who said, “Let
him that heareth say Come.”’ ‘Popes were represented sometimes with a
dove whispering the words which they should speak into their ears--they
were represented with a dove; I hope it was not really a raven.’”
* * * * *
I was suddenly called away in the middle of the season by the alarming
illness of my dearest old nurse, and for several weeks was at Holmhurst
with her, in the mysterious solitude of the shadow of death, in which so
many of my earlier years were passed, and then I had the intense
thankfulness of seeing life return into the dear old face connected with
so much that no one else remembers.
XXII
HOME SORROWS
“Faire le bien, connaître le vrai, voilà ce qui distingue un homme
d’un autre; le reste n’est rien. La durée de la vie est si courte,
ses vraies besoins sont si étroits, que quand on s’en va, il
importe si peu d’avoir été quelqu’un ou personne. Il ne faut à la
fin qu’un mauvais morceau de toile et quatre planches de
sapin.”--DIDEROT.
“Happy are they to whom the solemn angel comes unannounced and
quietly, and who are mercifully spared a long baptism of
suffering.”--WHITTIER.
“There is a melancholy in sunbright fields
Deeper to me than gloom: I am ne’er so sad
As when I sit amid bright scenes alone.”
--GEORGE DARLEY, “_Sylvia_.”
It was on the 11th of July, after I had returned to London, that I was
drawing in the cloisters of Westminster with Alethea Grenfell, when Miss
Johnes (the charming correspondent of Bishop Thirlwall) passed by, and
told me that Arthur Stanley was ill. I thought little of it at the time,
as he was so often sick, and I had lately seen him looking better and
happier than he had done since his sister Mary’s death. On Thursday 14th
there was a great dinner-party at the Deanery. Catherine Vaughan dined,
and as, at the last moment, Arthur was not well enough to appear, she
went in to sit with him after dinner, and finding him very dispirited
and unwell, gave up her intention of going to Llandaff next day, and
moved to the Deanery instead. That day erysipelas came on, and she was
prevented seeing him till 3 A.M. on the morning of Monday the 18th, when
the doctors called her, saying that an alarming change had come on.
Canon Farrar was then summoned, and administered the Sacrament, but when
he came to the blessing, Arthur motioned him to silence, and gave the
words of the longer Benediction himself, with the same solemnity with
which he spoke them at Augusta’s funeral. Then also Arthur spoke some
farewell words--of grateful affection for the Queen, of trustful
exhortation for his successor in the Deanery, of thankful appreciation
of the fidelity of his housekeeper, Mrs. Waters, and the services of his
butler and Charlotte the housemaid. Those who surrounded him then
thought that he was sinking, but he rallied, and in the morning all the
symptoms were favourable.
At 10 A.M. on Monday, I broke through the cordon which surrounded the
Deanery, and made my way up to Catherine, who was glad to have me with
her. The large rooms were silent and hushed, though many persons,
chiefly Bruces and Baillies, were moving in and out. It was the dead
heat of July, not a leaf stirring. In the afternoon, Arthur was so much
better that I went away, and even kept an engagement to dine out. But
next morning came the shock of his death--Arthur--the “Cousin Arthur” of
my childhood. He had become worse at 9.30 P.M. The Archbishop read
prayers in the room; they all knelt around; he never spoke more; and
before midnight it was over.
Catherine and I both took leave of the Deanery for ever the next
morning, but I went back to Westminster for the sad services of Sunday
and Monday. The funeral sermons were much more affecting than the
funeral itself; _that_ was far less touching than Augusta’s, for _he_
was not there to be felt with and for; and yet the number and the
unusual variety of true mourners made it a very remarkable sight.
To me it was a reopening of many beloved memories, and then a sealing
them away for ever. On the day after his death his sister and Hugh
Pearson, his dearest friend, wrote to me, asking me to undertake his
biography, to which I gladly assented, feeling sure that I could do it
well, and that no one could possibly know his life as well as myself.
But Sir George Grove, one of his literary executors, did not permit my
undertaking it.
The following weeks at Holmhurst were occupied on an article which I
wrote upon Arthur in _Macmillan_[359] (Sept. 1881), or rather in hunting
up material for it amongst the few papers I myself possessed, as the
literary executors allowed me access to nothing else. Yet, in doing it,
I could feel that, though somewhat estranged from him in late years,
there was no other who knew _all_ his life, its surroundings, motives,
and interests as I did. I went afterwards to Catherine, but first paid a
short visit in Suffolk to the ever-kind and pleasant Mrs. Paterson and
her husband at their charming Rectory of Brome. I extract from my
journal.
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Brome Rectory, Sept. 15, 1881._--On Tuesday I came here ... into
thickly wooded Suffolk, which thoroughly needs its shelter of trees from
its exposure to the north-east winds, for they say there is not a hill
between it and the Ural Mountains. I only just missed meeting two Mr.
Tyrrells, who have been building a church, not uncalled for, they said,
as an expiatory offering, for one of their ancestors murdered William
Rufus, and another the Princes in the Tower. We saw Eye, with its fine
church and pretty black and white grammar-school. The magnates of this
neighbourhood are Sir Edward and Lady Caroline Kerrison, who possess two
places, of which Brome Hall has delightful old gardens, while Oakley
contains the trunk of the tree under which St. Edward was said to have
been shot by the Danes, and in which, when it was cut down, an
arrow-head was found imbedded. Sir E. Kerrison has just demolished a
fine old wooden bridge, the successor of that under which the king
concealed himself, and where he was discovered to a newly married couple
by the light gleaming on his spurs. They betrayed him to the Danes, who
shot him. Dying, he cursed all persons who should cross that fatal
bridge over the Waveney on their way to or from a marriage, and on such
occasions the country people will always go two miles round to avoid it.
Close by is a spot where the discovery of flint weapons in a
pre-historic stratum has compelled an entire re-arrangement of geology,
as proving the existence of the world some millions of years before it
was supposed to have been created.
“Yesterday I went to Norwich, and how many memories were awakened by the
first sight of its beautiful spire! The river, the gateways, the ferry,
the cathedral were the same: only the beautiful palace was turned into a
common fifth-rate house. All who met there have now passed away except
Catherine Vaughan and Lea; but one seemed to see them all--the venerable
white head of my uncle the Bishop in his stall; Sedgwick emerging from
his house; Aunt Kitty in the broad garden-walk; my dearest Mother in the
Abbey Room; Sarah Burgess[360] in her still existing little room down
the steps; Arthur and Mary, Owen and Charlie--all gone!”
[Illustration: NORWICH FROM MOUSEHOLD.][361]
* * * * *
“_Sept. 25._--We went from Brome to see Roydon. Mr. G. E. Frere is
squire there, an eccentric man of old family, who has planted the
churchyard with flowers appropriate to each of the graves near them. One
is covered with wormwood: it is that of two old sisters in the parish,
horribly ill-tempered, who both became bedridden, but each was provided
with a stick that she might whack her companion as she lay in the bed
near her. We met Mr. H., an ugly man, intensely. proud of his worthless
pictures. Warren, the son of ‘Ten Thousand a Year,’ the clergyman who
preached such a capital sermon on the single word ‘but,’ dined with him,
and when Mr. H. pointed out what he calls a Murillo, said, ‘Really a
Gorillo--a family portrait, I suppose!’ We also went to see Wingfield,
an interesting old fortified manor of the De la Poles, and their
magnificent tombs in the church. One of them married Chaucer’s
grand-daughter and was murdered at Calais in the time of Henry VI.;
another married the sister of Edward IV.
“On leaving Brome, I made a tourette into Norfolk--to dilapidated
Walsingham, once the most celebrated shrine in England: to Lynn, with a
custom-house worthy of Flanders: to Castle Rising, a Norman tower almost
hidden in its green ballium: to Wymondham, with a splendid semi-ruined
church, perpendicular outside, but Norman within: and to the glorious
ruins of Castle Acre. The Coke of Elizabeth’s time bought so much land
in Norfolk, that the Queen ordered him to be told that he must not buy
any more, he would own too much for a subject. He petitioned, however,
that he might just buy three acres more, which would complete his
estate. The Queen said, ‘Yes, he might certainly do that;’ and he bought
Castle Acre, West Acre, and South Acre, three huge properties, only the
nucleus of which has descended to Lord Leicester.
* * * * *
“On the 20th I came to Llandaff.... We have been to see the ruins of a
deserted manor-house which belonged to Sir George Aubrey. It was
abandoned on account of a family tragedy. Sir George’s only son, a
little boy, one day refused to eat his pudding. ‘You must,’ said the
father. The child said he really could not, and implored with strange
anguish to be excused, but the father insisted. Three hours after the
child died in frightful agonies. That day the cook, by mistake, had put
arsenic into the pudding instead of sugar.
“Yesterday Lord and Lady Romilly[362] fetched me to their pretty little
house of Porthkerry, overhanging the Bristol Channel, and to-day we have
driven through pouring rain to visit Fon Mon (pronounced Fun-Mun), a
very curious old house of the thirteenth century.”
* * * * *
“_Penrhos, Anglesea, Oct. 9._--From Llandaff I went to Tenby, an
indescribably delightful place, with its varied coast, its wonderful
caves, its rich festoons of clematis hanging over the cliffs, and its
sapphire and chrysoprase seas. A girdle of old castles and abbeys
surrounds the place, affording an endless variety of excursions. I saw
something at Tenby of many members of the kindly respectable family of
Allen, and the Dean of the same name welcomed me to St. Davids, which is
truly marvellous in charm and interest--the cathedral, richly,
exquisitely beautiful; the ruined palace and college; and the village,
with its fine old cross, isolated in the solitude of a hollow in the
vast swooping hills, sixteen miles from a railway, almost from any other
inhabited place. It is said that if you take a sod from the churchyard
and stand upon it on the shore of the neighbouring sea, you look across
the mist of waters into all the glories of fairyland; and truly this
seems almost the case without the assistance of the churchyard sod, all
is so wondrously, uniquely, weirdly beautiful.
“On my way to this Stanley home of many memories, I went to visit the
Williams’s of Parcian, in central Anglesea, where the very savageness of
the country gives it an interest, and the desolate coves of its
sea-shore, in one of which, with the beautiful name of Moelvra, the
_Royal Charter_ was lost.
“Mr. (William) Stanley[363] is very kind, and has a great deal of shrewd
cleverness of its own sort; but a great deal has been written about the
charms and moral advantages of the life of a country gentleman who never
leaves his own place; nothing of its still more evident disadvantages.
Surely no life has so strong a tendency to generate self-importance,
exclusive possession, tenaciousness of authority, jealousy of
interference, hatred of independence in others.”
* * * * *
“_Kinmel, Oct. 14._--A kind invitation from Lord and Lady Penrhyn took
me from Penrhos to Penrhyn Castle, which is a very stately building
outside, though the huge stone corridors and richly decorated Norman
rooms are very unsuited for home comfort. A regiment of young ladies,
Miss Pennants--daughters, step-daughters, and step-grand-daughters of
Lady Penrhyn[364] appeared at every meal. The lady of the castle herself
is one of the most natural and unworldly women in the world; and Lord
Penrhyn[365] was most agreeable with his personal reminiscences. He
described the coronation of George IV., where he stood close to Queen
Caroline as she entered the carriage to drive away, and he said the
expression of her countenance was the most diabolical thing he ever
looked upon. Lord Penrhyn rode after Lord Anglesea, the Waterloo hero,
when he was followed by a hooting mob through St. James’s Park. Lord
Anglesea backed his horse between the trees, set his teeth, and hissed
back at the yelling people. Then he said, ‘If every man of you were a
hundred men, and each of them had a hundred hands, and a bayonet in each
hand, I should still do my--_duty!_’ Then the people cheered him.
“Lord and Lady Penrhyn took me to Pennisinant, Ogwen Bank, and the slate
quarries. The two first cannot be much altered since my mother’s
descriptions of them in her childhood, except by the growth of trees,
and are very lovely, with mossy rocks breaking the cascatelle of the
Ogwen, and old sycamores--now glorious in colour--on the grassy knolls,
relieved against a wild background of purple mountains. At Ogwen Bank,
the representation of our Lady Penrhyn’s pugs remains over the
chimney-piece.
“The life at Penrhyn Castle was most easy and agreeable, with the
freedom which only exists in very great houses, the plenty of time to
oneself, and yet interesting society. The same may be said of Kinmel,
which is like a great château in France.
“And here it has been a real pleasure to meet my sweet cousin Lizzie,
Lady Loch,[366] and her charming husband, Sir Henry, Governor of the
Isle of Man: she is really one of the best people I ever saw, as well as
one of the pleasantest.”
* * * * *
“_London, Nov. 1._--Dined with Lady Lyndhurst in Eaton Square. She
talked of her early life. ‘I lived in Paris with my father, and I saw
nobody. I never expected to marry; why should I? I had no fortune and no
attractions. The first time I saw my Lord was when he came to Paris with
his first wife. He came to see my father, and we went out driving with
him. He and my father sat forward, and another young lady and I sat
back, and most terribly afraid I was of him, and not a word did I
speak--a shy, awkward girl sitting bolt upright.
“‘When my Lord was a widower, he came to Paris again. I was
seven-and-twenty then, and was keeping my father’s house. Lord Lyndhurst
came to breakfast with my father, and I gave them their coffee and
whatever they wanted, and then sat there reading my _Galignani_, and not
thinking a bit about them. Suddenly Lord Lyndhurst asked me if I knew of
any very sunny apartment to let. “Oh, yes,” I said; “there is a friend
of mine who wants to let just what you wish for, and, if you will wait a
minute, I will run and get the keys, and can show it you.” So I got the
keys, and he went with me, and the apartment was a capital one and
suited him very well; and then, to my surprise, he asked me if I should
be at home in the afternoon, and I thought, “What on earth can the old
man want to come again for?”--and I answered him that I did not know.
And, in fact, I forgot all about it, and went out driving to the Bois;
and when I came in, the servant said Lord Lyndhurst had been. It gave me
a sort of shock, and I went to my room, and said to myself, “What on
earth can this mean?” But the next day before I was up--_before I was
up_, if you please--I had a note from Lord Lyndhurst asking when I
should be at home; and he came at that hour, and he came twice a day for
three months, and it became quite awkward, every one talked of it--Paris
is so small a world. However, at the end of that time he proposed.
Afterwards I said, “Now do tell me what the dickens made you want to
marry me--a woman without family, without fortune, and most decidedly
without beauty?” and he said he did not know. After he had engaged me to
marry him, he had to go back to England to his law-courts, and my father
told me that I had better begin to get my things ready and buy my
trousseau; but I said, “No, I should most certainly do nothing of the
kind, for I did not believe for an instant that my Lord would ever come
back again.”
“‘But he did come back, and we were married, and I had twenty-six years
of the most perfect happiness ever allotted to woman. My Lord had the
most perfect temper in the world, and in all the years we were together,
we never had even a difference of opinion. He never came in to
breakfast, and he never took luncheon, so he never appeared in our rooms
till dinner-time, but I trotted in and out of his library, and the
oftener I went in, the better he was pleased.
“‘I had seen nothing of the world before I was married, but I saw plenty
of it afterwards: indeed, a few years after, he was made Lord
Chancellor, and that was the top of everything. The world was the one
drawback to my happiness, for through almost the whole time of my
married life I had to go out. My Lord’s eldest daughter was married
three years after I married my Lord, and four years after, Soph, his
second girl, was married; and then very soon there was my own girl to
take out. Oh, how I hated it, but I never let my Lord know what I felt.
We dined with him, and afterwards there was his whist, or people came to
see him, and at ten o’clock he went to bed; then I went to my daily task
of dressing to take the girls out, and sometimes I fairly cried as I was
dressing.
“‘I was always up so late at night that I breakfasted in my own room,
but there was always breakfast downstairs for the girls and Auntie--for
my Lord’s elder sister, Miss Copley, always lived with us. Auntie was no
trouble in the house, and I was very fond of her, for she perfectly
adored my Lord. When I married, people wondered at my wishing to have my
sister-in-law to live with me, but I said, “Bless you, have I not been
brought up in France, where whole families live together, and have to
accommodate themselves to each other? and it would be hard indeed if I
could not get on with poor old Auntie, when she is so fond of my Lord.”
“‘It was at the marriage of my daughter to Sir Charles Du Cane that my
Lord said he had nothing left to live for, his work was done. He
comforted me by telling me that he was so very old--and so he was,--and
that if he lived he must become helpless, and so perhaps would be
unhappy, and then perhaps even his mind might go. He said, “You will
take care of Auntie?” and I said, “Of course I will,” and Auntie was
always with me afterwards, and I loved her dearly, and she died in this
very room at ninety-three. She was always well and cheerful, but one day
she asked for her cup of tea as usual, and afterwards she--fell
asleep,--she was so very old.
“‘My dear Lord was very old too when he died, but to me he was always
like a young man, he was so bright and cheerful and so kind--always the
pleasantest of companions. However, I could believe it was time that he
should go, because _he_ told me so.
“‘That is the story of my life, Mr. Hare, and now I am only waiting,
hoping that some day,--perhaps some day not very far off,--I may see my
dear Lord again.’”
* * * * *
“_Athenæum Club, Dec. 13._--Sir G. Dasent, sitting at the next table at
breakfast this morning, said, ‘I see you always sit in the historical
corner.’--‘Do I? how?’--“Why, it is the place where Sam Wilberforce
always sat (behind the door leading to the kitchen), and so did Theodore
Hook. It was from that corner that, when he had finished two bottles of
port, he used to be heard calling out “Waiter, lemonade: bring more
_lemonade_.” And they all knew what it meant: he hadn’t the face to ask
for another bottle of port.’”
* * * * *
“_Heckfield Place, Dec. 30._--I have had a pleasant visit here, meeting
Sir Erskine May, a most winning and agreeable person. He revived for me
the old story of Mrs. Blomfield, who forgot her Royal Academy ticket for
the ‘private view,’ and, when they tried to prevent her coming in, said,
‘Oh, but you must let me pass: I am the Bishop of London’s lady.’--‘No,
Ma’am, I could not let you in,’ said the doorkeeper, ‘if you were the
Bishop of London’s _wife_.’
“We went with Lord Eversley to see Bramshill, one of the places intended
for Prince Henry, a most noble and beautiful old house.”
* * * * *
“_Jan. 13, 1882._--With Ronald Gower and Hugh Pearson over the three
great houses of London in the same morning. Grosvenor House is the
pleasantest to live in, but Stafford House the most magnificent. When
the Queen was being received there by the late Duchess, she said, with
her happy power of expression, ‘I come, my dear, from my house to your
palace.’
“Hugh Pearson talked of Archbishop Longley’s singular tact in saying the
right thing. Some one asked him what tact was. He said, ‘It will be
difficult for me to describe what it is, but I will give you an instance
of what it is _not_. This morning I received a letter from a clergyman
beginning--“In consideration of your Grace’s many infirmities and
failing powers.” Now the beginning of that letter was not tact.’”
* * * * *
“_Jan. 14._--To Lady Lyndhurst, whom I found in her room ill, and in
great grief for the death of General Macdonald, her oldest friend, ‘who
was the pleasantest, frankest, and handsomest of young men when I first
came to England, and whom everybody has liked ever since. He was so well
known, that when Mrs. Norton directed a letter to him “Jem at his Club,”
the postman made no difficulties at all, but took it straight to him at
White’s. There have been several pleasant notices of him in the papers
since his death, but they have all committed the fatal blunder of
calling him “Jim,” the thing of all others he would have disliked--he
was always Jem with an _e_.’”
* * * * *
“_Athenæum, Feb. 3._--Sir G. Dasent sat by me at breakfast. He described
how he had almost bought the famous Vercelli MS. for £150, when ‘a
stupid old canon interfered, and thought it ought not to be taken out of
the place. It was taken to Italy from England by a Cardinal S. Andrea,
who was tutor to Henry II., and who collected everything relating to St.
Andrew, because of his name, and the MS. begins with the legend of St.
Andrew. It ought some day to be restored to England by an interchange,
England sending over some Italian MSS.; and now that it has been
removed to the National Collection, this has been facilitated.’
“Sir G. Dasent talked of St. Olaf again. ‘He is what I call a good
wearing saint, for he has lasted nine hundred years. It was just when
St. Olaf was “coming up” that Earl Godwin and his sons were banished for
a time. Two of them, Harold and Tosti, became Vikings, and in a great
battle they vowed that, if they were victorious, they would give half
their spoil to the shrine of St. Olaf, and a huge silver statue which
they actually gave existed at Throndjem till 1500, and, if it existed
still, would be one of the most important relics in archaeology. The old
kings of Norway used to dig up the saint from time to time and to cut
his nails. When Harold Hardrager was going to England, he declared he
must see St. Olaf again--“I must see my brother,” he said: and he also
cut the saint’s nails. But then he thought that from that time it would
be better that no one should see his brother any more--it would not be
for the good of the Church; so he took the keys of the shrine and threw
them into the fiord; but at the same time he said that it would be a
good thing for men who came after to know what a king was like, and he
caused St. Olaf’s measure to be engraved upon the wall of the church at
Throndjem--his measure of six feet.’”
* * * * *
“_Feb. 21._--I sat at dinner by Mrs. Duncan Stewart, who talked with her
usual power. ‘When I was young, I lived with my guardian and his wife at
Havre de Grâce, and thence I married Mr. Duncan Stewart, who was a
Baltic merchant, a prosperous and well-to-do man then, though he was
ruined afterwards. We lived in Liverpool; but my husband loved hunting
and fishing, and at certain times of the year he was “away after the
grouse,” as every Scotchman is. I stayed with my children then, but I
too had my time of the year for going away, and I always went to London,
where I became very intimate with Lady Blessington and all that set--a
very bad set, it must be allowed.
“‘One day when I was sitting alone in my house in Liverpool, and my
husband was away with the grouse, a note of introduction was brought in
for me from Mrs. Milner Gibson, whom I had known in London, with the
cards of Mr. and Mrs. Disraeli. He was a young man then, all curly and
smart, and his wife, though so much older than himself, was a very
handsome, imperial-looking woman. I told them that I should be delighted
to show them everything in Liverpool, as Mrs. Milner Gibson asked me.
“‘When I went to see them next day at the hotel, I asked Mrs. Disraeli
how she had slept, and she said, “Not at all, for the noise was so
great.” Then I said, “Why not move to my house, for my house is very
quiet, and I am alone, and there is plenty of room?” And they came, and
a most delightful ten days I had. We shut out Liverpool and its people,
and we talked, and we became great friends, and when we parted it was
with very affectionate regard on both sides; and afterwards they wrote
to me every week, and when I went to London, my place was always laid at
their table, and if I did not appear at their dinner, they always asked
me why I had not come to them.
“‘After she died, we drifted apart, he and I, and though I saw him
sometimes, it was never in the old intimate way. The last time I saw him
though, we had a really good talk together. It was not till we were
parting that I said to him, “I hope you are quite well,” and I shall
never forget the hollow voice in which he said to me, “_Nobody_ is quite
well.” After that I never saw him again, but I had a message from him
through William Spottiswoode. “Tell Mrs. Stewart always to come to talk
to me when she can: it always does me good to see her.”’
“Mrs. Duncan Stewart described Lady Beaconsfield as originally a
factory-girl. Mr. Lewis first saw her going to her factory, beautiful,
and with bare feet. He educated her and married her, died, and left her
very rich, and then she married Disraeli. When asked _why_ she married
her second husband, she would say, as if it was a feather in her cap,
‘My dear, he made love to me whilst my first husband was alive, and
therefore I know that he really loved me.’
“It was at ‘Greenmeadow,’ a house four miles from Llandaff, that
Disraeli served his apprenticeship as secretary to Mr. Lewis, living in
the house with him and Mrs. Lewis in the position of a dependant. When
the house overflowed with visitors from London, as was often the case,
he was sent out to sleep at ‘The Holly Bush,’ a little public-house in
the village. Both Greenmeadow and the Holly Bush exist still.”
* * * * *
On the 11th of March I again left England for Italy. I could not endure
leaving Holmhurst and my dear old nurse, but it seemed necessary to go
to finish collecting materials for my book on Southern Italy, as there
were still so many places which I had not seen. At Rome I paid an
interesting visit to the blind Duke of Sermoneta, still full of mental
vigour, and of indignation at “la stupidézza del Vaticano e l’infámia
del Quirinale.” Miss Garden had been to see him, and defended the policy
of the Quirinal, saying Italy was a young country, would come round, &c.
He retorted, “If you say that from politeness, as I think you do, you
are wrong; but if you really think so, you must be an idiot.” This was
my last visit to the kind old Duke, for he died in the following autumn.
[Illustration: LAKE OF AVERNUS, NEAR NAPLES.][367]
[Illustration: CAPRI.][368]
At Naples, returning at night from the hotels in the lower town to those
on the ridge of the hill, a gentleman engaged me in conversation and
strolled along by my side. Suddenly, in the most desolate part of the
road, he blew a whistle, and another man leapt out of the bushes, and
both rushing upon me demanded “L’orológio e la bórsa.” I declared that I
had neither watch nor purse. They insisted on my turning out all my
pockets, which contained only three francs in paper and sixteen soldi in
copper. Then they demanded my ring. I refused, and said it was no use
for them to try to get it; it had not been off my finger for more than
thirty years: it would not come off. They struggled to get it off, but
could not. Then they whispered together. I said, “I see what you mean to
do: you mean to cut off my finger and then drop me into the sea (which
there--opposite the Boschetto--is deep water); but remember, I shall be
missed and looked for.”--“No, we took good care to ascertain that
first,” said my first acquaintance; “you said you had only been two days
in Naples (and so I had): people who have been only two days in Naples
are never missed.”--“But I do know Naples well--bisogna esaminarmi sopra
Napoli,” I protested. “Dunque chi fu la Principessa Altamonti?”--“Fu
figlia del Conte Cini di Roma, sorella della Duchessa Cirella.”--“E chi
è il Principe S. Teodoro.”--“Fu Duca di S. Arpino, se maritava con una
signora Inglese, Lady Burghersh, chi sta adesso Lady Walsingham.” After
this they decided to let me go! But the strangest part of all was that
the first brigand said, “After this scene you will not be able to walk
home, and a carriage from the _guardia_ costs sixty centesimi; therefore
that sum I shall give you back,” and they counted twelve soldi from the
sum they had taken. It is this fact which makes me speak of the men who
attacked me at Naples as brigands, not as robbers.
I spent a few days delightfully in beautiful Capri, but most miserable
were my after travels in the desolate wind-stricken plains or
malaria-teeming swamps of wretched Calabria, of which I had formed a
lofty estimate from Lear’s almost wholly imaginary drawings. Each place
I had to visit seemed uglier and more poverty-stricken than the last,
but perhaps came to a climax at Cotrone, where the windowless prison-van
(being the only vehicle in the town) was sent to meet us, arriving by
the night-train at the distant desolate station, and where the stairs of
the hotel were crowded with beggars, who had nowhere else to sleep,
lying in heaps, and swarming with vermin.
I see that I wrote to Miss Leycester--“Calabria was indescribably
horrible, its poisonous swamps and arid plains too hideous for words:
nothing whatever but dry bread to eat: the so-called inns the filthiest
of hovels: the people ruffians: the remains of the Greek cities a few
stones apiece.” I pushed on to Reggio and Scilla. But soon I became so
ill that I fled to Venice, where I was fit for nothing but to float in
a gondola on the breast of ocean till I grew better.
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
[Illustration: SCILLA.][369]
“_Venice, April 25, 1882._--It was by a happy accident that I found
myself here on St. Mark’s Day. Madame von Usedom[370] called for me in
her gondola, and we went together to S. Marco at 10 A.M. Most glorious
it looked, glints of sunlight falling here and there on the golden
walls and waving peacock-hued pavement, and violet shadows resting on
all the inner recesses of arcades and cupolas, through which the grand
mosaic forms of the saints were dimly visible. Crowds of people were
present, yet in that vast space many thousands can move with ease. It is
only a few days since the Patriarch, newly elected and a cardinal,
entered Venice in triumph, followed by three hundred gondolas, standing
at the prow of his barge, in his new scarlet robes, blessing the people.
He is a young man, but is greatly beloved,[371] and every eye followed
him as the grand procession swept chaunting round the church, and he was
almost borne along by his huge golden robes, held up by the white-mitred
attendant bishops of Chioggia and Torcello.
“I returned afterwards with the Usedoms to luncheon, and Madame von
Usedom talked, as usual, of the great change which is sweeping over
religious belief, but of how, in most thinking minds, the great
essentials remained untouched. She had told Tholuck that she was
troubled about her belief in the Trinity. He replied that in being so
she confounded Religion with Theology: that the doctrine of the Trinity
was a purely theological question, and not the least necessary to
religion.
“In the afternoon the Comtesse de Lützow took me to see Besarel, a very
remarkable self-taught genius, and a very good simple man and sculptor
in wood and marble: and then we floated peacefully for hours through the
labyrinthine streets of this wonderful water-city. In the evening, as I
was sitting with the Lützows and Lady Augusta Cadogan at one of the
tables in the piazza in front of Florian’s caffè, a table near was
occupied by a party in which the conspicuous figures were a lady, not
old, but with snow-white hair, and a very beautiful young woman, sipping
_graniti_ and listening to the music: they were Queen Mary and Princess
Mary of Hanover.
[Illustration: FROM THE CAMPO DELLA CARITÀ.][372]
“And all this late evening, as I am sitting up writing, a monotonous
song is wafted through the windows from the boats on the canal--
‘One sombre sweet Venetian slumbrous tune,’
as J. A. Symonds calls it.”
* * * * *
I returned to England by way of Nüremberg, which seemed to me strangely
smaller and less interesting than when I saw it as a boy, and was more
thankful than ever before to find myself again, on the 10th of May, at
Holmhurst, where my dear old Lea’s most sweet and beautiful old face
welcomed me with a brighter smile than ever, and where I spent a happy
month alone with her, going back into our “wealthy past,” and living
again in memory many happy scenes in our long-ago.
At Venice a great sorrow had come to me--another blank in the narrowing
circle of my beloved ones. It was the sort of sorrow from which “all at
once one awakes and finds a whole wing of one’s palace has fallen,” as
Emerson says. Dearest Hugh Pearson was dead. He was altogether the most
perfectly good man I have ever known, and, strange to say, at the same
time the most perfectly charming. He was, from his earliest youth, as
free from self-consciousness as he was from selfishness, but rippled
over with geniality, cordiality, warmth of interest, affection to all
around him. He was really, not nominally, the father of his parish, and
I believe there was scarcely one of his parishioners who was not fonder
of him than of most of their own nearest relations. To the children of
his village he was simply adorable, and his manner to them, his fun, his
sympathy, his solicitude, the prettiest and most enchanting thing
imaginable. “He was like James amongst the Apostles, who wrote nothing
at all, and said nothing we know, and yet was one of the chosen three
who were with the Master that day when His glory was revealed, and that
night when His soul was exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. Trust came
to him; he never sought it. He was at home in the human heart, but he
never seemed to probe it.”[373]
I suppose dear Hugh Pearson was very ugly, but one loved him so much,
one thought there was no face like his. Though he was so very much older
than I was, there was no one with whom I was more intimate, and nothing
I would not have confided to him. His goodness, his religion, were
equally attractive and charming to all. One never felt with him as if
God had been rather unfortunate in His good intentions. His christian
spirit christianised everything it came in contact with. His memory is a
possession, and I may exclaim like the Duke of Ormonde, “I would not
exchange my dead friend for any living friend in Christendom.” In the
later years of his life, he had yielded to urgent request in accepting a
canonry at Windsor, where I had delighted to visit him; but his heart
was always in his country vicarage of Sonning on the Thames, and with
his dear people there. He had refused the Queen’s persistent offer that
he should succeed Arthur Stanley at Westminster, saying that he wished
to die as he had lived--“a private person.”
The end came suddenly. On Easter Sunday (April 9) he told his people
that it was his fortieth Easter Sunday amongst them, but he was taken
ill whilst he was preaching, and two days after mortification came on.
On Wednesday, the last evening of his life, when it was known that there
was no hope of saving it, he desired that all his people--his true
children--might be admitted to see him once more, and for three hours
multitudes of his parishioners, men, women, and children, passed weeping
through his room. He was able to speak separately to many of them, to
give them all his blessing, and with a message of peace--the last
effort of his great loving heart--upon his lips, he passed into the
perfect life.
[Illustration: Rev. Hugh Pearson.
From a Photograph.]
He has left the most undimmed memory it is possible for man to leave. To
none of those who knew him is it possible that there can be even a
breath upon the mirror of his perfectly beautiful and lovable life. To
no one could the words of Dante be applied with greater truth:--
“E se’l mondo sapesse il cor ch’ egli ebbe,
Assai lo loda e più lo loderebbe.”
“O ye holy and humble men of heart, praise Him and magnify Him for
ever.”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_London, June 4, 1882._--In the last week I have spent three pleasant
days with the Husseys at Scotney, a lovely place, where an old tower of
Richard the Second’s time and a ruined house by Inigo Jones stand in a
wooded hollow, surrounded by a moat so clear that its reflections are
even brighter than the reality. On the hill above is a handsome modern
house with a glorious garden of azaleas and herbaceous flowers formed
out of an old quarry. Here at this season ‘tout fourmille de vie,’ as
Buffon would say. In the Roman Catholic persecution a priest was long
imprisoned in the dungeon of the old tower, but escaped by persuading
his gaolers that robbers had broken into the stables and were carrying
off the horses, and by swimming across the moat whilst they were gone to
the rescue.
“The whole country-side is full of traditions of smuggling days.
Goudhurst church, which crowns a steep hill-set village on the horizon
of hills opposite Scotney, was fortified by smugglers, who held out
there for three days against the military sent against them in George
the Third’s time. They were forced to capitulate at last and a number of
them were executed, one of them, no one knows why, being afterwards
buried under the hearthstone in one of Mr. Hussey’s cottages. This siege
of Goudhurst church is described in James’s novel. One of the best
remembered instances of successful smuggling was when a great funeral
was announced as arriving from the Continent. A gentleman, who had died
in France, and who had lived far on the other side of London, was being
taken home to be buried with his ancestors. A hearse with four horses
met the coffin at Dover. Relays of horses were ordered, and they were
changed at Ashford, at Lamberhurst, and several other places. But the
funeral never went beyond London, for the coffin was full of lace, which
was soon dispersed over the city.
“To the same wild times belongs the story of the outlawed Darrell, a
former owner of Scotney. News came that he had died abroad, and his body
was brought home to be buried at his native place. Great was the
concourse of neighbours and acquaintance at his funeral, but amongst the
mourners was a tall figure wrapped in a cloak, who, as the body was
lowered, said, ‘That is not me!’ to the mourner who stood nearest to the
grave, and immediately disappeared.
“A few years ago, Mr. Hussey mentioned the tradition that Darrell had
attended his own funeral to the old sexton, and asked if he could throw
any light upon it. He said, ‘Yes, forty years ago, when your uncle was
buried, the coffin next to which he was placed was that of Mr. Darrell,
which was falling to pieces, and so I looked into it, and was surprised
to see no remains whatever of a body, but only fragments of stone.’
“On the first day of my visit an old Lady Smith Mariott dined, bringing
with her a magic crystal ball, in which she was very anxious that we
should ‘see something,’ and was greatly disappointed when we did not.
The ball was given to her by the old Lord Stanhope,[374] a firm
believer, and many strange things had been seen in it--figures, and
sometimes figures in armour. Mr. Hussey heard of a curious
sixteenth-century MS. on magic balls in the British Museum, and went to
look at it, and it was strange to find it say that ‘men in armour
frequently appeared, especially on Sundays.’
“In the evening the conversation turned on witchcraft, and on Mr.
Maitland, author of the ‘Church in the Catacombs,’ chaplain of
Archbishop Howley, who undertook to prove the absurdity of belief in
witchcraft, but, on examination, found such incontrovertible evidence of
its reality, that he abandoned the subject. Talk of strange relics led
to mention of the heart of a French king preserved at Nuneham in a
silver casket. Dr. Buckland, whilst looking at it, exclaimed, ‘I have
eaten many strange things, but have never eaten the heart of a king
before,’ and, before any one could hinder him, he had gobbled it up, and
the precious relic was lost for ever. Dr. Buckland used to say that he
had eaten his way straight through the whole animal creation, and that
the worst thing was a mole--that was utterly horrible.[375]
“Speaking of Lady Waterford, led Mr. Hussey to recall some of the wild
escapades which he remembered in Lord Waterford’s youth. At one time,
when he was living in Dublin with his uncle the Primate, coming home
late at night, he had a great quarrel with his carman about the fare,
and left the man swearing outside the door. Coming into the hall, he
found his uncle’s gown and trencher lying on the side-table, and putting
them hastily on, and going out with a stick and gruff voice, said, ‘What
do you mean by coming here and trying to cheat my nephew? I’ll teach you
not to do such things for the future,’ and he thrashed him soundly. The
man went away, saying that he had been thrashed by the Archbishop of
Armagh in person.”
* * * * *
“_London, June 22._--Tea with Mrs. Duncan Stewart, who, talking of her
youth, recounted how Washington Irving had taken her eleven nights
consecutively to see Talma act, and of the acting of Madame Rachel;
how, in the ‘Cinna’ of Corneille, she sat quietly in a chair whilst all
the people were raging round her, and of the wonderful power with which
she hissed out--
‘Je recevrois de lui la place de Livie,
Comme un moyen plus sur d’attenter à sa vie.’
“Mr. and Mrs. Kendal were there, a pleasant handsome pair; and Madame
Modjeska came in, and taking a live chameleon, which was clinging to the
breast of Miss Thompson, her pet, posed with it perched on her finger,
though it looked the very incarnation of devildom.”
* * * * *
“_June 23._--Drew with Windsor and the Husseys at Ham House. Lady
Huntingtower had said to us the other day, ‘You have heard about the
poor Duke of Richmond?’ We thought it was the live Duke, and inquired
anxiously after him, but she said, ‘No, it is the portrait at Ham: we
can see nothing but the Duke’s legs now.’ And thus at Ham we saw it--the
utter ruin of a glorious Vandyke. They had sent for a common upholsterer
from Richmond to varnish it, and he had covered it with something which
had annihilated it altogether.
“An American being urged to go to see the Park at mid-day as a typical
London scene, returned saying, ‘I was disappointed, the attendance was
so slim.’”
* * * * *
“_July 5, 1882._--Dined with Miss Courtenay. Kinglake of the Crimea sat
close to me--old now and very feeble, but apparently greatly beloved by
those who know him well. Mr. Burton was on the other side, receiving
congratulations on his purchases at the Hamilton sale. We had all been
reading and generally enchanted with Mrs. Kemble’s ‘Later
Reminiscences,’ and Mr. Reeve of the _Edinburgh Review_ was delighted to
have much to say of his personal remembrance of her, much that certainly
was not favourable. She says little of the separation from her husband
(Mr. Butler) in her book, but Mr. Reeve remembered her intensely
overbearing manner to him. Once when he was travelling with them in
Belgium, Mr. Butler, with great difficulty, procured a very beautiful
bouquet for her for the evening. He gave it to her. ‘I have been all
over the town, my dear, to get this bouquet for you,’ he said. She
sniffed at it, said contemptuously, ‘There are no gardenias in this
bouquet,’ and threw it to the back of the fire.
“‘One day,’ said Mr. Reeve, ‘I was talking to Mr. Butler at a party,
when she came up with “Pearce, I want to go.”--“In a minute, my dear.”
In another moment she came again with “Pearce, I want to go
directly.”--“Very well, my dear,” and he prepared to order the carriage.
I said, “It is cruel of you to take him away just now; we were having a
very deep conversation,” and I shall never forget the contemptuous tone
in which she said, “Deep, with--Pearce!”
“‘Mrs. Kemble always disliked those who were afraid of her, but she
hated those who were not.
“‘She loved scenic effect, and so did her sister Adelaide, who was her
superior in many ways. When their father took his leave of the stage,
all the audience wept; but Fanny and Adelaide, who had the stage-box,
leant forward as much as possible over the side and wept copiously with
their pocket-handkerchiefs.
[Illustration: GATEWAY, KENSINGTON PALACE.][376]
“‘No one could do the Semiramide now, but Adelaide was sublime in it.
She was very grand in the Norma, but in the Semiramide no one ever came
up to her. Passion she understood, but in softer and quieter parts she
was a failure.’”
* * * * *
“_July 10._--Luncheon in Sir Francis Seymour’s apartments at Kensington
Palace to meet Don Carlos. He is an immense man, almost gigantic, and
very handsome, and had a magnificent boar-hound with him--a very prince
amongst dogs. He asked if I spoke Spanish. I said that I had spoken it
in Spain, but was afraid of venturing upon it in London. So then he
proposed Italian, in which it was easy to get on with him.”
* * * * *
“_Chevening, July 15._--Yesterday I came here to a house where I have
much memory of past kindness, and where I find the young Lord and Lady
Stanhope eminently desirous of carrying it on. Lochiel and his Lady
Margaret are here; she a daughter of the Duke of Buccleuch, and most
unusually natural and pleasant.”
* * * * *
“_July 16._--After luncheon, we had a pleasant walk to Knockholt
Beeches--Lady Northcote, the two Stanhope brothers, Mr. Banks Stanhope,
Lady Margaret, and I. Afterwards, sitting on the stone platform in front
of the house, Sir Stafford Northcote told us--
“‘The great A. B. was tremendously jostled the other day in going down
to the House. A. B. didn’t like it. “Do you know who I am?” he said; “I
am a Member of Parliament and I am Mr. A. B.”--“I don’t know about
that,” said one of the roughs, “but I know that you’re a damned
fool.”--“You’re drunk,” said A. B.; “you don’t know what you’re
saying.”--“Well, perhaps I am rather drunk to-night,” said the man, “but
I shall be sober to-morrow morning; but you’re a damned fool to-night,
and you’ll be a damned fool to-morrow morning.”’
* * * * *
“_July 18._--Dined with Lady Ossington, the most charming, kindest, and
richest of old ladies, to meet the Duchess of Sermoneta. Lady Enfield
was there, with white hair turned back high on her head, like a Sir
Joshua in real life. Mr. Newton was very amusing with his riddles:--
‘My first Gladstone loves,
My second Gladstone hates:
My whole, pronounced slow, is what Gladstone wishes:
My whole, pronounced quick, is where Gladstone ought to be.’
Answer, _Reformatory_.
“On the Greeks sending marble for a bust of Gladstone, he related the
lines:--
‘When Woolner’s hand, in classic mood, carving the Premier’s pate is,
Hellas, to show her gratitude, sends him the marble gratis.
Oh, could this nation, but in stone, repay the gift genteelly,
This country would send back her own Glad-stone to Hell-as freely.’”
[Illustration: SASSENPOORT, ZWOLLE.][377]
In the beginning of September, my friend Harry Lee came to Holmhurst as
usual for his autumn holidays, and, with the wish of giving him change
and pleasure, I took him with me for a fortnight to Holland. We saw the
whole of that little country, and enjoyed several of the places very
much, especially the so-thoroughly Dutch Dort; quiet Alkmaar, with its
charming old weigh-house; and Zwolle, with its fine old gateway. But the
tour is not one which leaves much interest behind it. There is such a
disadvantage in not being able to understand what people say, and all
the Dutch we had anything to do with were so unaccommodating, so
excessively grasping and avaricious. Besides, all my luggage, registered
through to Brussels, disappeared and could not be traced, so that I had
the odd experience of traversing a whole country with nothing more than
a comb and a tooth-brush. Two months afterwards the luggage arrived
quite safe at Holmhurst, covered with labels, quite intact, having made
a long tour by itself quite in a different direction from the one we
took, and without any explanation or any expense.[378]
[Illustration: MILL NEAR AMSTERDAM.][379]
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Babworth Hall, Notts, Oct. 7, 1882._--I have been spending four
pleasant days with kind Mrs. Bridgeman Simpson, to meet old Lady
Westminster,[380] who is the most winning, courteous, and charming of
old ladies, finding something pleasant to say to every one, putting
every one at their ease, and possessing that real dignity of simplicity
which is so indescribably charming. On Wednesday I went with her to
Clumber, where we saw the new and very ugly hall, with Italian artists
putting down a mosaic pavement.
“Yesterday we went by appointment to Welbeck, arriving by the darksome
tunnel, more than two miles long, upon which the late Duke spent
£60,000, and £60,000 more apiece upon banking up (and spoiling) his
sheet of water with brick walls and building a gigantic riding-school.
The house itself stands well, considering the ugliness of the park, and
is rather handsome. We were shown through a long suite of rooms
containing a good many treasures, the most interesting being a glorious
old chest of metal, in which the Bentincks, who came over with William
III., brought over their jewels. In the last room we found Lady
Bolsover, the Duke’s stepmother.
“The house, vast as it is, has no staircase worth speaking of. The late
Duke lived almost entirely in a small suite of rooms in the old part of
the house. He inherited the peculiarity of his mother, who would see no
one, and he always hid himself. If he gave permission to any one to
visit Welbeck, he always added, ‘But Mr. So-and-so will be good enough
not to _see_ me’ (if they chanced to meet). He drove out, but in a black
coach like a hearse, drawn by four black horses, and with all the blinds
down; and he walked out, but at night, with a woman, who was never to
speak to him, and always to walk exactly forty yards in front, carrying
a lanthorn. When he went to London, it was in a closed brougham, which
was put on a railway truck, and which deposited him at his own house at
Cavendish Square, his servants all being ordered out of the way: no one
ever saw him go or arrive. When he needed a doctor, the doctor only came
to the door, and asked questions through it of the valet, who was
allowed to feel his pulse.
“The Duke’s mania for a hidden life made him build immense suites of
rooms underground, only approachable by a common flight of steps leading
to a long tunnel, down which the dinner is conveyed from the far-distant
kitchen on a tramway. From a great library one enters a billiard-room
capable of holding half-a-dozen billiard-tables. A third large room
leads to an enormous ball-room, which can contain 2000 people. The
approach to this from above is by means of a gigantic hydraulic drop, in
which a carriage can be placed, or twenty persons can be
accommodated--the guests being thus let down to the ball-room itself. A
staircase through the ceiling of one of the rooms, which is drawn up by
a windlass, leads hence to the old riding-school, which is lighted by
1000 jets of gas. Hence a tunnel, 200 yards long, leads to a
quadrangular piece of ground, unbuilt upon, but excavated in preparation
for a large range of bachelor’s rooms, smoking rooms, and nurseries, to
cover four acres of ground. Another tunnel, three-quarters of a mile
long, leads thence to the stables, cow-houses, and dairies, like a large
village. At the Duke’s death there were ninety-four horses in the
stables, only trained for exercise or feeding. Beyond the stables is a
large riding-school, in which there are 8000 jets of gas, an exercising
ground under glass, with a gallop on straw and sawdust for a quarter of
a mile. Close by is an enormous garden, of which six acres are used for
strawberry beds, every alternate row being glazed for forcing the
plants. Alongside of this is a glazed wall a quarter of a mile long. The
garden is about thirty acres in extent, and requires fifty-three men. In
the late Duke’s time there were forty-five grooms and helpers in the
stables. The cow-houses are palaces, with a covered strawyard attached,
and are surrounded by hydraulic screens, which are let down or raised
according to the wind. There were eighty keepers and underkeepers.
“All is vast, splendid, and utterly comfortless: one could imagine no
more awful and ghastly fate than waking up one day and finding oneself
Duke of Portland and master of Welbeck.
“Coming home through the tunnel, Mr. Watson told me the curious story of
the Misses Offley of Norton Hall. These ladies (descended from King
Offa) saw in a vision their only brother, who was with a tutor in
Edinburgh, upon the ridge of the house. Dreadfully alarmed, and
perfectly certain of what they had seen, they went to a neighbour, a
Mr. Shore, and told him they were sure that their brother was dead.
Utterly failing to reassure them, in order to comfort them, Mr. Shore
undertook to ride to Edinburgh (it was before the time of railways), and
find out the truth. As he was crossing the boundary of Yorkshire, he met
the funeral of the young man, who was being brought back to be buried at
his own home. However, he went on to Edinburgh to see the tutor, and
then discovered that, in his illness, young Offley had been persuaded to
make a will entirely in favour of the tutor and his wife. Mr. Shore at
once said that he would give the tutor £20,000 if he would give up all
his claims under this will, but the tutor refused. The next day Mr.
Shore went back and offered £10,000, and it was taken. The property was
then worth £10,000 a year, but is now worth £20,000 a year.
“Staying here with Lady Westminster is her friend Mrs. Hallyburton
(_née_ Owen, and first married to a Mr. Williams), who is the widow of
Judge Hallyburton--‘Sam Slick.’”
* * * * *
Alas! whilst I was enjoying this Babworth visit, the greatest sorrow
which still remained possible for me was preparing, and a few days later
it fell. It would be difficult for any one who had not shared our life
to understand how much my dearest old nurse, Mary Lea, was to me, or the
many causes which, with each succeeding year, had drawn closer and
closer the tender tie, as of mother and son, which existed between us.
And since 1870 she had been more than ever dear to me--the one precious
link with _our_ past which no other knew: the only person to whom I
could talk on all subjects with entire certainty of understanding and
sympathy. Each year, too, had made her more beautiful in her old age,
and there were none who visited Holmhurst and failed to carry away an
attractive remembrance of the lovely old woman, with her pretty
old-fashioned dress and snowy cap, set in the homely surroundings of her
sitting-room, full of pictures and curiosities, or in the poultry-yard,
which was her pride and joy, brimming over with quaint proverbs, wise
sayings, and interesting memories.
My dear Lea had not forgotten any of the places she had seen, or any of
the varied circumstances of her life; and these scenes and events formed
a mental picture-gallery in the circle of her inner consciousness, where
she could amuse herself for ever. Life was never monotonous to her;
there was so much that was beautiful, so much that was good, so much
that was even grand to recollect; and then the surroundings of the
present were full of simple pleasures; her room furnished with treasured
memorials of the long-ago; her farmyard, with its manifold life,
recalling her girlhood in a Shropshire farmhouse; her many kindly
thoughts and deeds towards her neighbours at the hospice or in the
village, one or other of whom loved to come in and chat for an hour
daily with the beautiful old woman who had so much of mild wisdom in her
discourse; her many visitors of the higher class to see the house, in
whose coming she recognised and welcomed a kind of homage to her beloved
mistress, and to whom consequently she would often pour out the most
precious of her recollections; the garden and fields, which brought
fresh interest with each succeeding season; but most especially her
master, her nursling, the child of her heart, whose every employment, or
friendship, or amusement, or duty, or work, or honour, was more to her
than anything else in the world.
In this year especially I had been much with her, and the elder and
younger relation seemed almost obliterated in the intimacy of our
friendship and communion. Daily I used to take a little walk with my
sweet old nurse upon my arm, and the upper path leading to the little
pool above the field will always be connected with her, walking thus,
and recalling a thousand memories out of the rich past, which was common
to us, and to us alone. Here I walked with her the day before I went to
Babworth, and am thankful that I did not give up doing so because a
young man was staying with me. She seemed even more calmly happy than
usual that day. Autumn tints and tones were pervading everything, but
when I spoke of our seeing the plants again in their full beauty in
spring, she said sweetly, “Those who _live_ till the spring will see
them, dear sir.” There are some lines of Lewis Morris which recall what
my dear nurse was at this time:--
“There is a sweetness in autumnal days,
Which many a lip doth praise:
When the earth, tired a little and grown mute
Of song, and having borne its fruit,
Rests for a little space ere winter come.
* * * * *
And even as the hair grows grey
And the eyes dim,
And the lithe form which toiled the live-long day,
The stalwart limb,
Begins to stiffen and grow slow,
A higher joy they know:
To spend the season of the waning year,
Ere comes the deadly chill,
* * * * *
In a pervading peace.”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Oct. 11, 1882._--Yesterday two terrible telegrams met me when I went
to my breakfast at the Athenæum, telling me that my dearest Lea was
dangerously ill, and bidding me return at once. In half-an-hour I was in
the train, Ronald Gower travelling with me to Hastings, and an
agonising journey it was. I found the carriage at St. Leonards, having
been waiting five hours, with a perfectly hopeless account.
“Yet I found my dearest old nurse better than I had hoped, able to be
glad to see me, even, though very suffering, to tell me little things
which had occurred during my week’s absence. But at night she grew much
worse, and hour after hour I had the anguish of watching, with Harriet
and Mrs. Peters, over terrible suffering, which we were unable to
alleviate. God sends one no discipline so terrible as this. Happy indeed
are those who have only to suffer themselves, not to witness the
suffering of their dear ones.
“To-day she is weaker. Yesterday she spoke of ‘when I am better.’ To-day
she speaks of ‘when I am gone.’
“I sit all day in her room, watching the beloved beautiful old face,
fanning her, repeating words of encouragement and comfort to her; and
she always has a smile for me.
“Outside the window the beautiful laburnum tree which she loves is
shaking off its leaves and preparing for winter, and oh! when its golden
blossoms come again, this dearest friend of my whole life will be away!”
* * * * *
“_Thursday, Oct. 12._--Last night she slept quietly, and her two nurses
by her. I went in and out continually, and she scarcely moved. In the
morning she was better, and able to sit in the arm-chair near her bed.
It was the day on which we always used to try to leave for Rome, and she
spoke of it, and this drew her into many pleasant recollections, such
as the dear Mother had on her last day here; of the anemones in the
Villa Doria at Rome, and the especial corners in which the best were to
be found; of the daisies in the Parco S. Gregorio, and of many happy
hours spent in other favourite places. She also asked after all the
different members of the family, and sent messages to some of them. In
the afternoon she was so well that, by her wish, I went down to Hastings
to see Ronald Gower, and when I came back, she liked to hear about it.
“But to-night (9 P.M.) she is weaker and the pain and wheezing have
increased. I have just read to her, as usual, a litany for the
night-watches and several other prayers. She said the ‘Amen’ to each
most fervently, and repeated the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ after me. Afterwards I
spoke of the comfort prayers and hymns were to the Mother in her
illness: ‘Yes, her’s _were_ prayers,’ she said.
“Then she said, ‘I did not think I should be taken away from you so soon
as this.’ I said, ‘Perhaps, dear Pettie, it may still be God’s will that
you may be raised up to us again, and this is what we must wish and try
for.’--‘Yes,’ she answered, ‘and I _do_ try for it--too much perhaps,
more than is right perhaps; and yet I am quite resigned either to go or
stay: the Lord’s will, that is the best.’
“Then she said, ‘Open that top drawer and take out a box. There are some
things in it I wish you to have, things connected with your family which
you will value, and my large silver brooch; I wish you to keep that. And
I would like you to keep the little bits of chaney that were my
mother’s--the lions, and the little cups and saucers that are in your
Mother’s room; she liked to see them, and you will: I do not wish them
ever to leave this house.’
“‘Dearest Pettie,’ I said, ‘if it should be God’s will that you should
not be given back to us, would you wish to be laid by Mother at
Hurstmonceaux, or should you be taken to your own mother’s grave at
Cheswardine? Whatever you wish shall be done.’ ‘If you please,’ she
murmured, ‘Hurstmonceaux would be best. I have been always with you. All
my own are passed away. You are more to me than any one else. I should
wish to be laid near your dear Mother, and then you would be laid there
too.’--‘Yes, dear, we should all be together,’ I said.
“Then she said, ‘You have been _everything_ to me all your life: quite
like my own child: _all_ that a child of my own could have been.’
“She always smiles sweetly to see me near her; but she is weaker, and
everything is difficult. As Aurora Leigh says--
‘The poor lip
Just motions for a smile, and lets it go.’”
* * * * *
“_Oct. 14._--Two terrible nights have we passed in trying to alleviate
my dearest Lea’s great sufferings, but last night especially it was
anguish to hear her moans and to be able to do _so_ little: but I flit
in and out, and whether it is day or night, am seldom many minutes away
from her, and I think _that_ is a comfort.”
* * * * *
“_Oct. 15._--Last night was better, but all to-day she has been terribly
ill. It is such a struggle to breathe through her worn-out frame. I sit
constantly by her side, and chafe her hands and bathe her forehead, and
can be quite cheerful for her sake; and she smiles to see me always
there whenever she wakes. ‘Oh, how good you are to me,’ she said to-day.
‘I cannot be good enough to you, my own dearest Pettie, to you who have
always been so very good to me.’
“But I feel, though no one tells me so, that I am sitting in the shadow
of Death.”
* * * * *
“_Monday, Oct. 16._--The doctor says she is sinking. She suffers less
to-day, but is overwhelmed by the pressure on the lungs. I sit
there--feed her--watch her, and smile.... I can do it for her sake.
There will be time enough for grief when she cannot be grieved by it.
“She is all thankfulness,--only afraid of wearing us all out. ‘Thank
Thee, O Lord, for my good victuals,’ she said, after taking her glassful
of milk.
“Last night, waking from her sleep, she said, ‘Oh, I thought I was away
and so very happy, and now I am come back to all this.’”
* * * * *
“_Tuesday afternoon, Oct. 17._--She is still here--still suffering. Oh,
my poor darling! what anguish it is to see her, and how thankful I shall
be to God now when He will set her free. One can bear to part with one’s
beloved ones, but their suffering tears one to pieces. How truly Heine
says, ‘Der Tod ist nichts; aber das Sterben ist eine schändliche
Erfindung.’”
* * * * *
“_Wednesday, Oct. 19._--Yesterday morning there was agonising pain for
three hours and then a respite. At 12 A.M. Hubert Beaumont walked in,
having come off at once on hearing a hopeless account. He was much
broken down at seeing his old friend so ill, but full of kindness and
help for me and all of us.... All afternoon she was worse. Two doctors
came.... At night she was terribly worse. Oh, it was so hard to see her
suffer,--so very, very hard. Soon after midnight I gave dose after dose
of laudanum, and when she was still, lay down--sank down, utterly
worn-out. At 3 A.M. I heard Harriet’s voice, ‘Aunt is gone.’ All was
still then--the agony lived through, the fight fought. As I rushed into
the room, the colour was fading out of my darling Pettie’s cheeks, but
her face and hands were still warm. A wonderful look of rest was
stealing over the beloved features. I knelt down and said the bidding
prayer. Truly we ‘gave thanks’ that our dearest one was at rest. Yet I
felt--oh, so stunned, so helpless! Dear Hubert was a great comfort.
“All day we have sobbed at intervals. Many touching notes have come in;
but I have felt dead in body and mind.”
* * * * *
“_Oct. 20._--My dearest Lea is laid in her coffin. It has been a day of
bitter anguish. All have tried to console, but
‘Console if you will, I can bear it,
’Tis a well-meant alms of breath:
But not all the preaching since Adam
Can make Death other than Death.’”[381]
* * * * *
“_Oct. 21._--Hubert has been summoned away by his parents,--very
miserable to go, poor boy. There has been a terrible storm all day,
which has seemed more congenial than the lovely sunshine yesterday.
“In the evening Mrs. Peters had put lights in the room, and I went to
look at my dearest Pettie in her coffin. The ‘afterglow’ had come on.
All her old beauty had come back to her. There was not a wrinkle on her
lovely dignified old face. Her snow-white hair just showed at the edge
of her pretty little crimped cap: all was peace and repose. It comforted
me to see her, and we surrounded her coffin with large branches of
Michaelmas daisies, enlivened by sprays of fuchsia, and the autumn
lilies which she loved.”
* * * * *
“_Oct. 23._--In the morning I went into her room to see my dearest
Pettie for the last time. Lady Darnley had sent a box of lovely flowers,
and I laid them round her. The marvellous beauty of her countenance
continued: it was the most sublime majesty of Death:--
‘That perfect presence of His face,
Which we, for want of words, call Death.’[382]
“John[383] came in to see her too, but can think of nothing but his own
future. That does not seem to occur to me--not yet: I can think of
nothing but her wealthy past, so rich, so overflowing in deeds of love,
in endearing ways which drew all hearts to her, in noble, simple trust
and faith, in heart-whole devotion and self-abnegation for the Mother
and me.
[Illustration: HURSTMONCEAUX CASTLE GATEWAY.]
“At eleven I set off alone, in a little carriage, by the familiar lanes.
It was the loveliest of autumnal days, and all was in its richest, most
touching beauty: the Ashburnham woods; the long Boreham hill, with the
group of weird pine-trees called ‘The Crooked Aunts;’ Sybil Filiol’s
paved walk winding by the roadside; Windmill Hill; Lime Cross; Lime;
Flower’s Green and the Mother’s little school; Hurstmonceaux Place; and
then the ascent to the church through the deep hollow way overhung by
old oaks.
“Soon after 2 P.M. the little procession appeared over the brow of the
hill, the bearers, in white smock-frocks, walking by the carriages. The
coffin was laden with flowers, wreaths sent by different friends, and a
long garland of Michaelmas daisies and laurustinus falling over the
side. I followed the coffin alone first, then all the servants from
Holmhurst and many poor women from Lime Cross.
“The first part of the service was in the chancel amidst all the old
family monuments. The grave was by my Mother’s side, in the same little
garden enclosure. It was strange to feel that the next funeral there
must be my own, and to look down upon her coffin on which my own will
rest some day.
“After the others were gone I walked in the old deer-park. I felt as if
I was a spirit haunting the place. All was peace and loveliness, but how
great the change from the time when I was there so constantly! ‘On
dépose fleur à fleur la couronne de la vie.’[384] All the familiar
figures of my childhood are swept away--all the uncles and aunts,
brothers and sister; all the old neighbours; nearly all the old friends;
the dear Mother; Marcus Hare; Arthur and Mary Stanley; and now my own
dear Lea: all the old homes too are broken up, pulled down, or
deserted; only I and the ruins of the castle seem left.
‘So live I in spirit,
Lonely, my hidden life, by none to be known of,
Never a sound nor cloud-picture but brings to my fancy
Matter for thought without end and keen-edged emotion.’”[385]
* * * * *
“_Holmhurst, Nov. 14._--The winds are howling round and I sit alone in
my home. The silence is sometimes awful, for I never hear the human
voice now, for my only attendant, the faithful Anne, who waits upon me,
is stone-deaf, so that all communication with her is in writing.
“It may seem odd, but my dear Lea’s removal really makes a greater blank
in my life than even the Mother left behind. My Mother had so long taken
the child’s place to be loved and taken care of: Lea, to her last hour,
took as much care of _me_ as in the first year of my life. I have the
piteous feeling that there is none now to whom I _signify_: it can
really ‘matter’ to no one whether I live or die. My friends are very
kind, and would be sorry to lose me, but in this rapid world-current a
few days would see them well out of their grief. And my dearest Lea, who
cared--who would have cared while life lasted, rests now under a white
marble cross like my Mother’s, inscribed--
MARY LEA GIDMAN,
June 2, 1800: Oct. 19, 1882.
Through fifty-four years
Devoted, honoured, and beloved
In the Hare family.”
XXIII
IN THE FURROWS OF LIFE
“Days--when gone--
Gone! they ne’er go; when past they haunt us still.”
--EDWARD YOUNG.
“What used to be joy is joy no longer: but what is pain is easier
because they have not to bear it.”--GEORGE ELIOT.
“To live for the shorter or longer remainder of my days with the simple
bravery, veracity, and piety of her that is gone, that would be a right
learning from her death, and a right honouring of her memory.”--CARLYLE.
“Dieu donne la robe selon le froid.”--PASCAL.
JOURNAL.
“_Dec. 1882._--With what a numbed feeling of desolate sadness do I look
back upon the last chapter. My home existence is so intensely changed by
the blank which the dear old friend of my whole life has left. It was
long before I could bear to go into her changed rooms, and I still wake
nightly with the sad inward outcry, ‘Can it be--can it be? Is every one
gone who shared _our_ home life? Is there no one left who is associated
with all our wealthy past?’ ‘Entbehren sollst du--sollst entbehren.’ And
when my friends urge me to marry, I feel the utter desolateness of
attempting to make new ties with any one who knows nothing and cares
nothing of those with whom all my earlier life was bound up. I have
happily still a great power of enjoyment when anything pleasant comes to
me, but oh! how seldom it happens. Griefs and worries--griefs and
worries come round with wheel-like recurrence. I often think of Aubrey
de Vere’s lines:--
‘When I was young, I said to Sorrow,
“Come, and I will play with thee.”
He is near me now all day;
And at night returns to say,
“I will come again to-morrow,
I will come and stay with thee.”
“Archbishop Tait, long a kind friend, is dead. I hear that at his
funeral, in the beautiful churchyard at Addington, a little robin
perched on an adjoining tombstone and poured forth a flood of song,
apparently unconscious of all present. ‘How our father would have liked
to have seen it,’ said one of the daughters.”
* * * * *
“_Jan. 12, 1883._--Tea with Dowager Lady Donoughmore,[386] who was very
pleasant. She described walking in Ireland with a stingy old gentleman.
A beggar came up to them, and he said, ‘I have not got a penny to give
you.’ The beggar retorted, ‘You’ve got an awful ugly face: I hope you
may die soon, but I pity the worms that will have to eat you.’
“Lady Donoughmore, however, said that she had boundless experience of
the natural poetry in the Irish peasantry. On receiving a shilling, an
old woman said to her, ‘May ivery hair of yer honour’s head become a
torch to guide yer sowle to heaven.’”
* * * * *
“_June 19._--Dined with Lady Airlie, only meeting Mrs. Duncan Stewart
and Lady De Clifford. Mrs. Stewart talked much of Mr. Carlyle.
“‘Mr. Hannay knew Carlyle very well, and often went to see him, but it
was in his poorer days. One day when Mr. Hannay went to the house, he
saw two gold sovereigns lying exposed in a little vase on the
chimney-piece. He asked Carlyle what they were for. Carlyle looked--for
him--embarrassed, but gave no definite answer. “Well, now, my dear
fellow,” said Mr. Hannay, “neither you nor I are quite in a position to
play ducks and drakes with sovereigns: what _are_ these for?”--“Well,”
said Carlyle, “the fact is, Leigh Hunt likes better to find them there
than that I should give them to him.”
“‘I was sitting once by Mr. Bourton,’ said Mrs. Stewart, ‘and he was
talking of Leigh Hunt. He said, “He is the only person, I believe, who,
if he saw something yellow in the distance, and was told it was a
buttercup, would be disappointed if he found it was only a guinea.”’
“Lady Airlie said she had known Leigh Hunt very well when she was a
child. He had taken her into the garden, and talked to her, and asked
her what she thought heaven would be like, and then he said, ‘I will
tell you what I think it will be like: I think it will be like a most
beautiful arbour all hung with creepers and flowers, and that one will
be able to sit in it all day, and read a most interesting novel.’
“Of her early acquaintance with Washington Irving, Mrs. Stewart said,
‘It was at Havre. My guardian was consul there. People used to say,
“Where is Harriet gone?” and he answered, “Oh, she is down at the end of
the terrace, busy making Washington Irving believe he is God Almighty,
and he is busy believing it.”’
“Mrs. Stewart told of Miss Ruth Paget, one of many sisters, who went
down at night to the kitchen to let out her little dog for a minute, and
found her brother Marco, who was a midshipman in the Mediterranean,
sitting on the kitchen-table, swinging his legs, but pouring with wet.
She said, ‘Good heavens, Marco, how did you come here?’ He looked at
her, and only said, ‘Do not tell any one you have seen me.” She looked
round for an instant to see if any one was coming, and when she turned,
he was gone.
“Ghastly pale, she went upstairs. Her sisters said, ‘You look as if you
had seen a ghost,’ and they tried to insist on her telling them what had
happened to her. She put them off by complaining of headache and
faintness; but she was terribly anxious.
“Three months afterwards she heard her brother was coming home, then
that he had arrived at Portsmouth, then he came. The first time she was
alone with him she said, ‘I must tell you something,’ and she told him
how he had appeared to her, and then she said, ‘I wrote it down at the
time, and here is the paper, with the date and the hour.’
“He looked shocked at first, and then said, that at that very moment,
being absent from his ship without leave, his boat had been upset, and
he had been as nearly drowned as possible--in fact, when he was taken
out of the water, life was supposed to be extinct. His first fear on
recovering was that his absence without leave would be detected by his
accident and become his ruin, and his first words were, ‘Do not tell any
one you have seen me.’”
* * * * *
“_June 21._--At Madame du Quaire’s I met Oscar Wilde and Mrs. Stewart.
He talked in a way intended to be very startling, but she startled him
by saying quietly, ‘You poor dear foolish boy! how can you talk such
nonsense?’ Mrs. M. L. had recently met this ‘type of an aesthetic age’
at a country house, and described his going out shooting in a black
velvet dress with salmon-coloured stockings, and falling down when the
gun went off, yet captivating all the ladies by his pleasant talk. One
day he came down looking very pale. ‘I am afraid you are ill, Mr.
Wilde,’ said one of the party. ‘No, not ill, only tired,’ he answered.
‘The fact is, I picked a primrose in the wood yesterday, and it was so
ill, I have been sitting up with it all night.’ Oscar Wilde’s oddities
would attract notice anywhere, but of course they do so ten times more
in the _plein midi_ of London society, where the smallest faults of
manner, most of all of assumption, are detected and exposed at once.”
* * * * *
“_July 2, 1883._--I have just heard again the ghost story so often told
by Mrs. Thompson Hankey:
“Two beautiful but penniless sisters were taken out in London by an
aunt. A young gentleman from the north, of very good family and fortune,
fell in love with one of them, and proposed to her, but she was with
difficulty persuaded to accept him, and afterwards could never be
induced to fix a date for their marriage. The young man, who was very
much in love, urged and urged, but, on one excuse or another, he was
always put off. Whilst things were in this unsettled state, the young
lady was invited to a ball. Her lover implored her not to go to it, and
when she insisted, he made her promise not to dance any round dances,
saying that if she did, he should believe she had ceased to care for
him.
“The young lady went to the ball, and, as usual, all the young men
gathered round her, trying to persuade her to dance. She refused any but
square dances. At last, however, as a delightful valse was being played,
and she was standing looking longingly on, she suddenly felt herself
seized round the waist, and hurried into the dance. Not till she reached
the end of the room, very angry, did she succeed in seeing with whom she
had been forced to dance: it was with her own betrothed. Furious, she
said she should never forgive him. But, as she spoke, he disappeared.
She begged several young men to look for him, but he could not be found
anywhere, and, to her astonishment, every one denied altogether having
seen him. On reaching home, she found a telegram telling her of his
death, and when the hours were compared, he was found to have died at
the very moment when he had seized her for the dance.
“Mrs Thompson Hankey knew all the persons concerned.
[Illustration: ON THE TERRACE, HOLMHURST.]
“Catherine Vaughan has just been taken to see an old woman in Scotland,
whose daughter was married last year. She asked if she was getting on
well. ‘Aye, she’s gettin’ on varra weel, varra weel indeed. She’s got a
pig, and she’s got a cock, and she’s got a son: it’s true that she hates
her mon, but one must aye have ae thing.’”
[Illustration: IN THE KITCHEN, HOLMHURST.]
“Charlotte Leycester is to be left in possession of my little Holmhurst
whilst I am away, and has such complete enjoyment of it, that I shall
have no sense of wasting my home by a long absence, as would otherwise
be the case.”
During the summer of 1883, I left England to join my oft-times
travelling companions, the Miss Hollands, for a tour in Russia. I did
not greatly enjoy this tour, partly because I felt so terribly knowing
almost nothing of the language of the country, not being able to read
even the names of the streets. I also suffered from not having had time
to teach myself anything of the country before I went there: for, after
I came home, and tried to instruct my mind by every book I could get
hold of about Russia, I found my travels had been much more interesting
than, from the very intensity of my ignorance, I believed them to be at
the time.
At Kieff I left my companions, and found my way home alone by Warsaw and
by Cracow, with its curious monuments and odious Jew population. After
the great discomforts of Russia, a very few days in Germany seemed very
charming, and I was especially glad to see beautiful old Breslau, and
afterwards Wilhelmshohe near Cassel, in a perfect conflagration of
splendid autumnal tints, truly realising Hood’s lines--
“How bravely Autumn paints upon the sky
The gorgeous fame of Summer which is fled.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_St. Petersburg, August 22, 1883._--A rest in the interesting group of
North-German cities, Dantzic, Marienburg, Königsberg, prepared us for
the thirty-six hours’ journey through monotonous fir-woods and
cornfields, unvaried through 1000 miles, till two great purple domes
rose on the horizon--St. Alexander Newski and the Cathedral of St.
Isaac.
[Illustration: CATHEDRAL OF ST. ISAAC, ST. PETERSBURG.][387]
“It was difficult to believe we were in Europe on emerging from the
station and seeing the endless droskies--sledges on wheels--drawn up,
with their extraordinary-looking drivers, in long blue dressing-gowns
(wadded like feather-beds, so as to make the wearer look like a huge
pillow), with a girdle, and low cap. Then the gigantic streets, each
about as broad as St. James’s Square, and the huge squares, in which the
palaces, however vast, are so disproportioned to the immensity of space,
that their architectural features are lost. Then the utter desolation,
one carriage and two or three foot-passengers in the apparently
boundless vistas. Altogether, St. Petersburg is quite the ugliest place
I ever saw, even the Neva, huge as it is, so black and grim, and the
smoke of the steamers giving the worst aspects of London. But yesterday
evening we had a delightful drive of four hours on the islands in the
Neva, which answer here to the Park, and are exquisitely varied--lovely
winding alleys, bosquets of flowering trees, green meadows, little
lakes, rushing brooks, every variety of cottage and villa and garden and
bridge, at least twenty miles of them. Coming back, we stopped at the
fortress-church to see the royal tombs--stately marble sarcophagi in
groups; first Peter the Great and his family, then two groups of
intermediate sovereigns, then the present family, surrounded (inside the
church) by a grove of palms and laden with flowers. Close by is Peter
the Great’s cottage, and the tiny early church in which he worshipped,
and, at the former, the famous ‘icon’ which he carried in his wars,
before which crowds of people were incessantly prostrating and kissing
the pavement.”
* * * * *
“_Sept. 4._--We returned last night from Finland, of which I am glad to
have visited a specimen, though there is not much to see, except gloomy
little lakes, flat country, hundreds of miles of monotonous forests of
young firs and birch, and little wooden villages. All is very much like
an inferior Sweden, and the people understand Swedish, and have the
Swedish characteristics of honesty and civility, which, at so short a
distance off, make them an extraordinary contrast to the Russians. Our
journey was amusingly varied by endless changes of rail, steamer, walk,
char-a-banc, as the country allowed. At Imatra, our destination, a lake
tumbles into a river by curious rapids.”
[Illustration: ST. SOPHIA OF NOVGOROD.][388][Illustration: KREMLIN,
MOSCOW.][389]
[Illustration: THE NEW JERUSALEM.][390]
* * * * *
“_Moscow, Sept. 9._--We left St. Petersburg on Monday, and went to
Novgorod the Great, one of the oldest cities in Russia, once enormous,
but now dwindled to a large village, with a decaying kremlin and a
wonderful cathedral like a mosque, a blaze of beautiful ancient colour
within, quite splendid in its gold and silver decorations, and the
shrines of sixteen famous saints (the Greek saints are most puzzling)
who are buried there, and whose mummified hands, left outside their
cerecloths, are exposed to the kisses of the faithful. A journey of
nineteen hours’ rail brought us here on Thursday morning. The first
impression of Moscow is disappointing--commonplace omnibuses at the
station, ugly vulgar streets like the back-streets of Brighton, and, as
the town is above twenty miles round and nine miles across, they seem
endless. But you enter the Chinese town, in which we are now living, by
gates in the strangest walls imaginable, and the street has all the
crowd and clamour of Naples. Another series of very tall battlemented
red walls and lofty gates announces the Kremlin. This is more striking
than I expected--the three mosque-like cathedrals (there are five
cathedrals and three hundred churches in Moscow), and the splendid view
from the high terrace in front of them, which recalls that from the
Pincio at Rome, only the Moskva is a very broad river, and every church
has the strangest of towers--like bulbs, pine-apples, melons, fir-cones,
gilt or blue or brightest green, covered with network, with stars,
discs, moons, hung with chains like veils, every device that the wildest
dream or maddest imagination can invent, and yet in this clear
atmosphere of intense burning heat and with the arid low hills or burnt
plains which surround the town, it all looks right. Inside, the
cathedrals put all the churches in Italy and Spain to shame by their
splendour, but one is sorry not to know more of their history. I can
speak enough Russian now to get on humbly; but the alphabet beats me
still: it is not only that there are so many letters, but that the old
familiar forms of written letters mean something new.”
[Illustration: THE DNIEPER, KIEFF.][391]
[Illustration: THE HOLY CHAPEL OF KIEFF.][392]
* * * * *
“_Kieff, ‘The Holy City,’ Sept. 21._--We made excursions from Moscow to
all the great monasteries. There are few other sights of importance,
but these, in Russia, are quite unique--immense spaces surrounded by
walls, towers, and gates, which have stood many a siege, and which are
like the towns in old woodcuts, and contain gardens, cemeteries,
cathedrals, usually six churches with gilt domes and minarets, besides
accommodation for 600 or 800 monks and nuns, who have their wells,
gardens, farms, &c. One of those which I thought most attractive was
Novo Devichi, rising from an arid sandy plain close to the town, but
full of lovely flowers, which a kind old prioress came and gave us
handfuls of. Then we went to the New Jerusalem, where the famous Nikon
lived and is buried--many hours jolting along a no-road through the
forests in a rough tarantass, but a beautiful place when you get there.
Nikon chose it because he thought it so like the real Jerusalem, and
changed the name of its river to Jordan, and _made_ a Kedron. It was a
quiet countrified spot, and the only one I have seen which the Mother
and Lea would have enjoyed in the old days, and there was a primitive
inn with kindly, gentle people. We also went to the famous Troitsa, the
home and grave of Philaret. In all these excursions, as everywhere else,
we found the ‘difficulties’ of Russian travel entire imagination:
nothing can be easier.
[Illustration: CITADEL OF CRACOW.][393]
“Nevertheless, the journey to Kieff by a slow train was terrible,
lasting two days and a night, and awfully hot--across a hideous brown
steppe the whole way, with scarcely a tree to vary it. (There are
forests _till_ Moscow, only steppes afterwards.) I was ill and wretched
enough before this interesting place rose on its low hills above the
Dnieper.
“To-day, however, has quite satisfied me that it was worth while to
come. It is a most unique and beautiful place, the vast town, or rather
three great towns, so embosomed in trees and gardens, that the houses
are almost lost. But the greatest charm lies in the constant view over
the glorious Dnieper, and the immense aërial plain beyond, with its
delicate pink lights and blue shadows. Then Kieff is the Mecca of
Russia, full of tombs of saints and holy images, and, though this is no
special season, the thousands and thousands of pilgrims are most
extraordinary--in sheep-skins and goat-skins, in fur caps, high-peaked
head-dresses and turbans; in azure blue, bright pink, or pale primrose
colour. I never could have believed without seeing it the reverence of
the Russian religion, and it has seemed the same everywhere and in all
classes. The bowing and curvetting and crossing before the icons is most
extraordinary, and still more so the three prostrations which all make
on approaching any holy place, bending down and kissing the dust in a
way worthy of an acrobat, though treated as a matter of course by the
devotees themselves. But the intense expression of devotion borne by
these pilgrims (who have often _walked_ from Archangel!) is such as I
have never seen on other faces, and some of the old men and women
especially would make the grandest studies for pictures of saintly
apostles and matrons. To see a smart young officer unhesitatingly
prostrate himself and kiss the ground on sight of an icon (in the mud of
this morning even), in the presence of equally smart companions, has
something deeply touching in it, and one wonders if any young guardsman
in England would do the same if and because he thought it right.”
* * * * *
“_In the Warsaw train, Sept. 25._--In this smoothly gliding train, which
takes one in fifty-four weary hours across the steppes, it is as easy to
write as in the study at home. I should be most comfortable if it were
not that my companion (in the compartment for two) is the most odious
type of American I ever came across. ‘I guess you will not want to have
the windows of this carriage opened till you get to Warsaw, because I
will not submit to it: I am in my right, and I will _not_ submit to it.’
“We were arrested again yesterday at Kieff, though then only by
priests--veiled priests--for daring to sketch the outside of one of
their sacred chapels; but after being hurried about from place to place
for an hour, and shut up in a courtyard, with a wooden bench to sit
upon, for another, we were regaled with a pile of beautiful grapes and
apples, and sent about our business. This constant worrying when drawing
has really made Russia very tiresome; but for those who do not want to
draw, I do not see what difficulties travelling in the country can
present, and Russians are always civil, even when arresting you.”
* * * * *
“_Warsaw, Sept. 27._--We arrived at the junction station of Brest more
than two hours late, for on some of the Russian lines no hours are
obligatory, and you are quite at the mercy of conductors and their whims
for spending ten, thirty, or even forty minutes in gossiping at side
stations. So the Warsaw train had left Brest, and we had five hours to
wait for another. Ill and wretched, I left the horrible room where a
crowd of people were smoking, spitting, and _smelling_, and made my way
to a sort of deserted public garden, where cows were browsing on the
lilacs. Here, from mere want of something to do, I began to sketch some
cottages and bushes, when I was suddenly seized by two soldiers and
carried off to the guard-house. Here a very furious bombastical old
major cross-examined me, and went into a passion over each sketch in my
book, with volleys of questions about each, and then he sent me with a
military escort to the station to fetch my passport. It was right, of
course, and at last, after several hours, I was dismissed with
‘Maintenant c’est fini;’ but after a quadruple walk of two miles each
way, and over such a pavement as only Russia can supply.
“I never was at Warsaw before, and should not care to stay. The Vistula
divides the town, which is full of palaces and gardens, but has older
quarters full of Jews, which are like the old streets of Paris. This
afternoon I drove to the old Sobieski palace of Villanov. Two horses
were necessary, for just outside this capital city the roads are like
the roughest of ploughed fields.”
* * * * *
I spent the autumn of 1883 very quietly at Holmhurst, but paid some
visits in the winter.
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Palace, Lichfield, Jan. 1, 1884._--After a pleasant Christmas at
Kinmel, I came here yesterday to dear Augusta Maclagan. The immense
quantity of work she does suits her, though it seems too much to those
who do not know her. Town, Diocese, Chapter, and the society of the
neighbourhood all work the willing horse alike. I cannot sufficiently
admire the marvellous versatility of the Bishop, or his wonderful power
of conversation, recalling that of Dean Alford in its simplicity and
vivacity. He has led the most varied of lives, and has much of interest
to tell of each part of it. He was for three years a soldier. When he
was born, the whole house was disturbed by the most fearful row, and
when they inquired what it was, the servant said, ‘Eh, it’s just Sandie
and Nellie fighting over the bit bairnie.’ Sandie, who had been military
servant to the father, an army doctor, said it must be brought up as a
soldier. Nellie said, ‘Nay, it’s the seventh bairn, and if it’s a
soldier, it must be the Lord’s soldier: the bairn must aye be a
minister;’ and he was both. The Bishop is still passionately fond of
riding and driving, and as soon as he gets out of Lichfield, mounts the
box of his carriage and drives his own horses, ‘Pride’ and ‘Prejudice.’
He says people may consider it a terrible thing for a Bishop to be drawn
hither and thither by these passions, but then it is assuredly a fine
thing to have them well under control.
“The Lonsdales dined last night, and afterwards we sat up for a touching
little midnight service in the palace chapel, in which the Bishop
preached, but very briefly, saying just what I have so often felt, that
it is not the expected, but the _unexpected_ events which come with the
New Year--that God’s hand is full of ‘surprises.’
“Augusta has written so admirable, so intensely interesting a Memoir of
her dear mother, that I cannot say how delightful I find it, or how
beautifully it portrays that lovely and lovable life from life to death.
It is only in MS., though one of the best biographies I ever read--‘the
history of a life, not a stuffed animal.’
“The cathedral is most uniform in its beauty, even the modern monuments
so fine. Of the older ones, the most interesting is that of Bishop
Hackett, who was appointed by Charles II. after the destruction caused
by the Puritans. He found the church a ruin, and it is touching to hear
how he called his choir and the one remaining canon into the only bit
which had still a roof, and prayed that he might have life and energy to
restore it. Going back to his palace, he harnessed his coach-horses to
the first cart that drew materials for the cathedral, and, though his
income was so small, he spent £8000 upon it.
“The statue of our Lord over the west front was put up by the present
Bishop in the place of a statue of Charles II., which was due to a Mrs.
Wilson. She was of an old Lichfield family, and married far beneath her,
a mere mason; but she said to him, ‘Now you are a clever man: you know
how to carve; make a good statue of his Majesty for the cathedral, and
it will be heard of at court, and you will be knighted, and I shall die
“my lady.”’ And all this actually happened. When the statue of Charles
was being taken down, the present Dean gave a groan of ‘Poor King
Charles!’--‘Why do you call him poor King Charles?’ said the Bishop.
‘Because he is being dethroned by a _restoration_.’
“Bishop Selwyn always desired that he might not be buried in the
cathedral, so a little mortuary chapel on the outside was restored for
him, and you look from the church through arches upon his beautiful
sleeping figure by Adams. When the Maori chiefs were in England, they
came down especially to see it, and gazed upon it with their eyes
streaming with tears. ‘They have laid him on a New Zealand mat, as a
chieftain should lie,’ they said.”
* * * * *
“_Fawsley, Jan. 8, 1884._--I came here from Lichfield to find a very
large party in this large and most comfortable house, with a hall of
Henry VII.’s time. Sir Rainald Knightley, its owner, is a splendid type
of an English gentleman, very conservative, very courteous, very clever,
and devoted to country sports and interests, which alternate with the
politics in which his more serious moments are spent. The only blemish
on his perfectly happy married life with Miss Bowater, who enters into
all his pursuits, whether duties or pleasures, politics, country
business, hunting, &c., is that they have no children. He is surrounded
by cousins--Charleses and Valentines--repeating in actual life the many
Charleses and Valentines to whom there are monuments in the fine old
church near the house. In the autumn, rheumatism takes him to Homburg,
but he refuses to learn German, ‘the grinding gibberish of the
garrulous Goth.’
“The parish has a population of fifty-eight, and there is only service
once on Sundays, performed by the cousin who is in orders. It is
alternately in the morning and afternoon, the difference being that the
morning service begins at noon, and the afternoon service at a quarter
past.
“Mrs. Charles Knightley drove me to Canons Ashby, the beautiful and
romantic old place of the eccentric and impoverished Sir H. Dryden. I
thought it looked like the background of a novel, and afterwards found
that it was the background of--‘Sir Charles Grandison’!
“Lady Knightley took me to Shackborough--a pretty place. When Charles I.
was going to the battle of Edgehill he met its proprietor of that day
merrily hunting. He had never heard that there was a civil war going on,
such was the paucity of political news! But he turned about and went
with the king into the fight and was wounded there.
“At the beginning of this century, the daughter of the house became
engaged to be married to an officer quartered at Weedon--a mésalliance
which was greatly disapproved by her family. At last she was induced to
break it off. But the officer persuaded her to grant him one last
interview at the summer-house on the hill that he might give her back
her letters. He gave her the letters with one hand, and with the other
he shot her dead, and then shot himself.
“At Marston St. Lawrence, near this, is an old house, beautiful and
moated. Here a Mrs. Blencowe was one day being dressed by her maid
before the toilet-table. Suddenly she said, ‘Did you see
anything’--‘Yes,’ said the maid. A hand had come out from behind the
curtain. They had both seen it, and both screamed violently. Help came,
and the room was searched, but no one was there.”
* * * * *
“_Ickwellbury, Jan. 27._--A man here, being asked by Mrs. Harvey how he
liked going to church, said, ‘Well, I like it very much: I goes to
church, and I sits down, and I thinks o’ nowt.’”
* * * * *
“_London, Feb. 23._--My dear Mrs. Duncan Stewart is dead. She never
rallied from the sudden death of her son-in-law Mr. Rogerson. But she
was able to see several people, to whom she spoke with that all-majestic
charity which was the mainspring and keynote of her life. Her last words
were ‘Higher, higher!’ and we may believe that she has passed into those
higher regions where her thirst after life, not repose, meets its full
fruition. I went to see her in the solemn peace of the newly dead, and
last Thursday I saw her laid in a grave of flowers at Kensal Green, many
faithful hearts mourning, many sad eyes weeping beside her coffin.[394]
“There were few equal to her. Mrs. Procter is most so. I met her the
other day, and some one made her a pretty speech. She said, ‘When I was
very young, Sydney Smith said to me, “My dear, do you like
flattery?”--“Very much indeed,” I answered, “but I do not like it put on
with a trowel.” What I really do like is--in the words of Sterne--a few
delicate attentions, not so vague as to be bewildering, and not so
pointed as to be embarrassing.’”
* * * * *
“_Firle, Lewes, April 18, 1884._--I came here to find a party of twenty
in the house, including Sir Rainald and Lady Knightley. It is a large
house, like a French château, close under the downs, but as my kind but
singular little host, Lord Gage, likes every window open in these bitter
winds, the cold is ferocious. On Wednesday I got Lady Knightley to walk
with me (the inhabitants of this place had never heard of it!) 2½
miles across the marshes to Laughton Place, the ancient and original
residence of the Pelhams--a moated grange, having an old red brick tower
with terra-cotta ornaments, and many other curious remains,
looking--stranded in the desolate fen, and with an abundance of animal
life--like an old Dutch picture.
“Yesterday I walked with Sir Rainald to Glynde. It is a curious old
house, approached through a gateway and stableyard and by clipped yew
hedges, having a pleasant view over upland country and high gardens. A
fine black oak staircase leads to a noble gallery-room, with deep
alcoves, so pleasantly furnished with fine pictures, &c., that, though
suitable to an enormous party, a single individual would never feel
solitary in it. Miss Brand did the honours of the many good portraits
very pleasantly, and, before we left, Lady Hampden came in from walking,
and I was very glad to see her in her country home, having so often
been in her house in the palace at Westminster.”
* * * * *
Ill-health in June made a happy excuse for my spending a delightful
month abroad. I saw first the group of towns around Laon, charming
old-fashioned Noyon, beautiful Soissons, and Coucy with its grand
castle. Then Alick Pitt met me at Thun, and we spent a delightful time,
joining the Husseys of Scotney Castle at Mürren and Rosenlaui, sketching
and flower-picking, and reawakening every slumbering sense of the
delights of Switzerland.
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Pension Baumgarten, Thun, June 25, 1884._--You will be wishing to hear
from this well-remembered place, where the mountains are quite as rugged
and purple, the lake as limpid and still, the river as green and
rushing, and the old town and castle as picturesque, as any youthful
recollection could paint them. This pension, too, is perfectly
delightful, with its coloured awnings over the wide terrace, its tubs of
pomegranates and oleanders, its garden of roses, and its meadows behind,
with the wooden châlets and the women making hay, and the delightful
pathlets through the dark woods on the mountain-side.
“I had a calm crossing on Friday, and reached Laon by seven. On Saturday
morning I saw the stately cathedral at St. Quentin, and spent the
afternoon at Noyon, which has an exquisite cathedral, Calvin’s curious
old house, and a most attractive little inn. Sunday I was at Coucy,
where there is the finest ruined château in existence after Heidelberg,
beautifully situated amongst wooded hills, in scenery so pretty, you
would take it for the Vosges, not Picardy. Monday morning I spent at
Soissons, with two fine cathedrals, one in ruins, and an interesting
town, and then came on by night to Berne.
* * * * *
[Illustration: NOYON.][395]
* * * * *
“The last night I was in London I dined with the Reptons to meet the
Kildares--Lady Kildare quite the most beautiful creature I ever saw.”
[Illustration: SOISSONS.][396]
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Oct. 10._--Since I returned from Switzerland, my home life has been
quite happy and uneventful. Only ten days ago I had a telegram from ‘my
Prince’ (of Sweden and Norway), asking me to come and spend Sunday
afternoon and evening with him at Eastbourne, as he was only there for
two days. He met me most cordially and affectionately, making me feel as
if the seeming neglect of several years was only ‘royalty’s way,’ and
pleasantly taking up all the dropped threads of life. We were several
hours together, and while we were talking a sweet-faced young lady
looked in. ‘I must come in: you are such a friend of the Prince: I have
heard of you, too, all my life. I am so very glad to see you at
last,’--and I felt at once that the Crown-Princess was a friend.
“She wanted to know what I thought of the Prince--the Prince wanted to
know what I thought of her: I was glad to be able to answer both most
satisfactorily.
[Illustration: CHÂTEAU DE COUCY.][397]
* * * * *
“I saw her again at dinner, and she talked most delightfully, and was
full of animation and interest. I came away with a happy feeling that my
affectionate occupation of many months for the Prince had, after all,
not been thrown away.”
* * * * *
“_Highcliffe, Oct. 26, 1884._--Lady Waterford says that the father of
that Thérèse Longworth who called herself Lady Avonmore was a young
clerk at Bordeaux at the time of the Noyades. Two beautiful young girls
were tied together, and were going to be drowned. Suddenly a poissarde,
seized with compassion from their looks, jumped upon a barrel and
shouted, ‘Are there no young men here who will save the lives of these
two beautiful girls by marrying them?’ Longworth and another young
fellow were looking out of a window at the time and heard it, and said
to one another, ‘Shall we do it?’ It was rather a gulp, for they were
both very young at the time; but they went down and said they would, and
they were both married there and then, by joining hands after the
fashion of the Commune. The daughter of one of those marriages was
Thérèse Longworth.”
* * * * *
Early in October I paid a visit to my distant cousins, Mrs. Quin and her
brother, Edmund Boyle, who were staying at Ramsgate. The health of Sir
Moses Montefiore, at the great age of one hundred, was then a great
topic of the place. Mrs. Quin said something to him about another year
at his age being only a waiting time, when he answered sharply, “What do
you mean by feeling old? I only feel forty.” He said no one had ever
mentioned the name of Christ to him except one person, and that was
Cardinal Antonelli!
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Ruxley Lodge, Oct. 30._--I am enjoying a pleasant visit to Lady Foley
and her sons; only Lady Jane Repton here besides. It is a charming
house, full of books and pictures, in a beautiful country, with fine
views of Windsor and Claremont. Once there was an old priory here, but
only the fishponds are left. We went to-day to see the tomb of Pamela,
mother of my Uncle Fitzgerald, at Thames Ditton. It was brought there
from Montmartre, where it was broken by a bomb in 1870. It is inscribed,
‘Pamela, Ladye Edward Fitzgerald, par son ami dévoué, L. L.;’ and no one
now knows who L. L. was. Close by are the graves of her daughter, Lady
Campbell, and several of her grand-daughters.
“The Foleys are said to descend from ‘Foley the Fiddler,’ a mechanic who
determined to make his fortune by finding out the secret of making nails
by machinery in Sweden. Up to that time the secret had been successfully
kept: the ironfounders had shut every one out, and let no one see their
process. But Foley the Fiddler, pretending to be half-witted, went and
played in the neighbourhood of the manufactory. The Swedish workmen
danced to his music, and eventually were so delighted with him that they
could not resist taking him to play inside the factory. When he had been
there some time, he fancied he had seen all he wanted, and went home. He
set up ironworks on the plan of what he had seen, but when he came to
completing them, found that, after all, he did not understand the
process perfectly. He went back, and the Swedish workmen were quite
delighted to find him again fiddling outside the factory--‘a daft
fiddler’--and they brought him in, and he learnt all he wanted, and went
home and made a great fortune.”
* * * * *
_“Goldings, Herts, Nov. 20._--Isabel Smith says that a lady in Wales, a
friend of Miss Frances Wynne, looked up suddenly one day after reading
the obituary in the _Times_, and exclaimed, ‘Now, at last, my lips are
unsealed.’ Then she told this:--
“One day she had been alone at her country-house in Wales, with her son
and a friend of his. She had received all the money for her rents that
day--a very large sum--and put it away in a strong box. Being asked, she
said she did not mind the least having it in her room, and should sleep
with the key under her pillow.
“When she had been in bed some time, she was aware that her door opened,
and that a man in a cloak came into her room with a candle. He passed
the candle before her face, but she lay with closed eyes, perfectly
motionless. Then he felt for the key; he felt for a long time, but
somehow he failed to find it. At last he went away.
“As soon as the door closed, she sprang out of bed, intending to go to
her son’s room to warn him that a robber was in the house. But his room
was a long way off, and she thought it would be better to go instead to
the friend, whose room was nearer.
“As she opened the door suddenly, she saw a figure muffled up in a long
cloak put down the candle. It was the same figure who had come into her
room. She looked at him fixedly. ‘To-morrow at 9 A.M.,’ she said, ‘the
dogcart will come to the door which was to have taken my strong box to
the bank: you will go in that dogcart, and you will never enter my door
again. If you never attempt to do this, I will never say a word on what
has happened as long as you live.’ And she never did, even to her son.”
* * * * *
“_Nov. 21._--We have spent the day at Knebworth, an interesting place,
though full of shams--a sham old house, with a sham lake, sham heraldic
monsters, sham ancient portraits, &c. Lord Lytton, with his velvet
collar and gold chains, recalled his father, who is represented on the
walls, with his boots pointed like a needle, in a picture by Maclise.
The ‘old’ rooms are chiefly modern in reality, but there is one really
ancient bedroom--a room in which Queen Elizabeth once slept. Lady
Lytton, beautiful, charming, and courteous, looked like a queen in the
large saloons and galleries. We found Lady Marian Alford, Lady
Colley--the pretty widow of Sir George--and Lady Paget, with her nice
son Victor, amongst the guests.
“I wish one did not know that the real name of the Lyttons is Wiggett.
William Wiggett took the name of Bulwer on his marriage with Sarah
Bulwer in 1756, and his youngest son (the novelist) took the name of
Lytton on succeeding to his mother’s property of Knebworth, she being
one Elizabeth Warburton, whose very slight connection with the real
Lytton family consisted in the fact that her grandfather, John Robinson
was cousin (maternally) to Lytton Strode, who was great-nephew of a Sir
William Lytton, who died childless in 1704.
“I have had the small trial of another ‘call’ of £300 on those
unfortunate Electric Lights in which St. George Lane Fox involved me. I
had saved up the money, so it was there, but it was provoking to have to
pay what is almost certain to be lost, yet to be obliged to do so, as
the only chance of seeing again any part of the £7000 which had gone
before it. However, I am never more than very temporarily troubled by
such things--there is no use. All I have ever made by my writings in
fourteen very hard-worked years is gone now through St. G. Lane
Fox--there is nothing else left to lose.”
* * * * *
“_Thoresby Park, Dec. 12._--This has been a most delightful visit at one
of the great houses I like the best. Its inmates are always so perfectly
brimming with kindness, goodness, and simplicity, and every surrounding
is so really handsome, even magnificent, without the slightest
ostentation. I arrived with Lord and Lady Leitrim--he quite charming, so
merry, pleasant, and natural, and she one of the delightful sisters of
charming Lady Powerscourt. It has been a great pleasure to find the
Boynes here, and Lady Newark, who is an absolute sunbeam in her
husband’s home--perfect in her relation to every member of his family. I
have been again to Welbeck and Clumber, only remarking fresh at the
former a fine Sir Joshua of a Mr. Cleaver, an old man in the
neighbourhood, dressed in grey, and the melancholy interesting portrait
of Napoleon by Delaroche, given by the Duc de Coigny.
“A Mrs. Francklin (sister of Lord St. Vincent), staying here, says that
a young man, going to stay with Millais, saw distinctly a hand and arm
come out of the fireplace in his room, and do it repeatedly. At last he
told Millais, who said it had often happened before, and they had the
hearthstone taken up, and found the bodies of a woman and child.”
* * * * *
“_Babworth, Dec. 14._--Mrs. Drummond Baring has been most agreeable in
her talk of the society at Paris under the Empire, the _soirées
intimes_, at which all etiquette was laid aside, and Prosper Merimée,
Théophile Gautier, &c., were seen at their best. No one knew so much
about the Empress as Merimée. He had known her well as a girl, and all
the letters about the marriage had passed through his hands. Nothing
could be more naïve than the Empress in her early married days. She
_would_ go shopping. She clapped her hands with delight at the
opera-bouffe, and the Emperor took them and held them, to the great
delight of the people, who applauded vehemently.
“In the last days at the Tuileries, all the court ladies were only
occupied in packing up their own things; all deserted their mistress
except Madame le Breton. She and the Empress stayed to the last. The
Empress asked General Tronchin how long the palace could hold out. He
said, ‘Certainly three days.’ It did not hold out three hours. They fled
as the people entered, fled precipitately by the long galleries of the
Louvre, once in agony finding a door locked and having to look for the
key. The Empress had no bonnet. Madame le Breton, with a bit of lace,
made something for her head. They reached the street and hailed a cab.
‘Eh! ma petite mère,’ said the driver, ‘il parait que nous nous sauvons:
où est le papa donc?’ But he took them and did not recognise them. They
went in the cab to the Boulevard Haussmann. Then they found that they
had no money to pay it, and Madame le Breton took off one of her rings.
‘We have forgotten our money,’ she said, ‘but you see how suffering my
friend is. I _must_ take her on to the dentist, but I will leave this
with you; give me your address and I will redeem it.’ And he let them
go.
“They took a second cab to the house of Evans, the American dentist, and
there found he was gone to his villa at Passy. They followed him there,
but when they reached the villa, the servant said he was out, and
positively refused to let them in. But Madame le Breton insisted--her
friend was so terribly ill: Mr. Evans knew her very well: she was quite
certain that he would see her: and at length she almost forced her way
in, and, moreover, made the servant pay the cab. At last Mr. Evans came
in. He had been to Paris, in terrible anxiety as to the fate of the
Empress, knowing that the mob had broken into the Tuileries.
“Mrs. Baring said that when Plonplon, commonly called ‘_Fatalité_,’ was
ill, the people said he was ‘_Fat alité_.’”
* * * * *
“_Hickledon, Dec. 17._--No words can say how glad I am to be here with
the dearest friend of my young life--dearer still, if possible, with
all his six children around him, who are learning also to be fond of me.
We walk and talk, and are perfectly happy together in everything.
“We have been to visit Barnborough Church. A man met a wild-cat in Bella
Wood, some distance off. He and the cat fought all the way along the
hillside, and they both fell down dead in this church porch.
“Yesterday we went to Sprotborough to visit old Miss Copley. It is a
very pretty place, a handsome house on a terrace upon a wooded bank
above the river. Sir Joseph Copley and his wife Lady Charlotte (Pelham)
quarrelled early in their married life. He overheard her at Naples,
through a thin wall of a room, telling a friend that he was mad, and he
never forgave it. They were separated for some years, then they lived
together again, but there was no cordiality. They were really Moyles. A
Moyle married a Copley heiress, and the Copleys long ago had married the
heiress of the Fitzwilliams, for Sprotborough was the old Fitzwilliam
place, and many of the family are buried there in the church. The
Copleys divided into two branches, of Sprotborough and Wadsworth, and it
is a pretty story that when the Copley of Sprotborough had nothing but
daughters, he left the estate to the Copley of Wadsworth, and then, when
the Copley of Wadsworth had nothing but daughters, he left it back to
the representative of the other branch. Not far from Sprotborough,
Conisborough stands beautifully on the top of a wooded hill: in
‘Ivanhoe’ its castle is the place where Athelstan lies in state when
supposed to be dead.
“The Bishop of Winchester told Charlie Wood that his predecessor, Bishop
Wilberforce, had always very much wished to see a portrait at Wotton
(the Evelyns’ place) of Mrs. Godolphin, whose life he had written whilst
he was at Alverstoke. This wish he had often expressed; but Mr. Evelyn
had not liked the Bishop, and he had never been invited.
“On the day on which the Bishop set off with Lord Granville to ride to
‘Freddie Leveson’s,’ Mr. Evelyn, his brother, and a doctor were sitting
late in the dining-room at Wotton, when the brother exclaimed, ‘Why,
there is the Bishop of Winchester looking in at the window.’ They all
three then saw him distinctly. Then he seemed to go away towards some
shrubs, and they thought he must have gone round to the door, and
expected him to be announced. But he never came, and an hour after a
servant brought in the news that he had been killed only two miles off.
“Mrs. George Portal of Burgclere told Charlie Wood that when Allan
Herbert was so ill at Highclere--ill to death, it was supposed--the
nurse, who was sitting up, saw an old lady come into the room when he
was at the worst, gaze at him from the foot of the bed, and nod her head
repeatedly. When he was better, and after he could be left, the
housekeeper, wishing to give the nurse a little distraction, showed her
through the rooms, and, in Lord Carnarvon’s sitting-room, the nurse
suddenly pointed at the portrait over the chimney-piece and said, ‘That
is the lady who came into the sick-room.’ The portrait was that of old
Lady Carnarvon, Allan Herbert’s mother, and the servants well
recollected her peculiar way of nodding her head repeatedly.
“Mrs. George Portal was niece of Lady Anne Townshend, who was also aunt
of that young Lord George Osborne who was killed at Oxford when
wrestling with Lord Downshire in 1831. On the day of his death, she saw
him pass through the room; she called to him, and he did not answer; she
rang the bell for the servant, who declared he had never entered the
house, and then she wrote the fact of having seen him to her husband,
who was absent. Next morning came a messenger to tell Lady Anne of the
death of her nephew, with whom she had been very intimate, and to beg
her to break it to her sister--his mother, the Duchess of Leeds. Years
after, when Mrs. George Portal was sorting her aunt’s letters after her
death, she found amongst them the very letter to her husband in which
she told what she had seen.”
* * * * *
“_Mount St. John, Dec. 20._--To-day was Lord Halifax’s birthday. The
hounds met at Hickledon, wishing to do him honour, but it was almost too
much for him. With me, I think it has been a pleasure to him to go back
into old days, old memories, old sketch-books, &c. I cannot say how much
I enjoyed my visit to the kind old man, as well as to my own dear
Charlie--better, dearer, more charming than ever, and more in favour,
one feels sure, with God as well as with man.
“Yet Charlie does not wish to die: his life here is so perfectly happy
and useful, but he says that it must be ‘very unpleasant to God to feel
that His children never wish to come home: he is sure _he_ should feel
it so with his children.’ He says he is quite certain what the pains of
Purgatory will be--‘they will be the realising for the first time the
love of God, and not being able to do anything for Him: this life is our
only chance.’ He says he is ‘sure that the next life will be in a more
beautiful world, like this, only glorified, and so much, oh! so much
better in everything. “Such cats!” my Uncle Courtenay says, “_such_
cats!”’
“Young Charlie came home yesterday, a most delightful boy, only less
engaging perhaps than little Francis.[398] To me, these children of my
dear brother-like friend are what no other children can ever be.
“This Mount St. John (where I am now visiting Mrs. J. Dundas, Charlie
Wood’s sister) is a beautiful place, very high up in hills which are now
snowy. There is a long chain of them, ending in Rolleston Scaur, where
it is said that, in the earliest times of Christianity, the followers of
the Druids met the first missionaries in a public discussion. The devil
was disguised in the ranks of the former, who, for a long time, had the
best of it; but, when Christian truth began to prevail, he was so
disgusted that he flew away to the neighbouring isolated height of
Hode’s Point, and a stone which stuck to his red-hot foot was deposited
on its summit--a tangible proof of the story, as it is of a wholly
different geological formation from its surroundings. The view from
these hills is intensely beautiful, comprising York Minster in the hazy
plain, and the many places which take their name from the god
Thor--Thirkleby, Thirsk, &c.”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 24._--Yesterday we spent at Newburgh, cordially received, and
shown all over the house by Lady Julia Wombwell--a most simple,
pleasant, winning person. There is the look of an old Dutch house
externally, in the clock-tower, clipped yews, and formal water. Inside,
the house is very uncomfortable and cold, and has no good staircase.
Mary, Lady Falconberg, Cromwell’s daughter, is said to have rescued her
father’s body from Westminster at the Restoration, and to have buried it
here at the top of the stairs leading to the maids’ rooms. The family,
however, prudently refuse to open ‘the tomb’ and see if there is
anything inside. Two portraits are shown as those of Mary, Lady
Falconberg, and there really is an old silver pen which belonged to her
father. There is a beautiful Vandyke of a Bellasye in a red coat, and a
good Romney of a lady. The church has an octagonal tower and some tombs
of Falconbergs. At the end of the village is the house of Sterne, who
was curate there, with an inscription.”
* * * * *
“_Whitburn, Dec. 28._--Lizzie Williamson[399] says she wonders very much
that, when our Saviour was on earth, no one thought of asking Him if
people ill of hopeless and agonising complaints, idiots, cretins, &c.,
might not be put out of the way--‘the Bible would have been so much more
useful if it had only given us a little information on these points.’
“I stayed a few hours in Durham as I passed through, and found what is
so picturesque in summer unbearably black and dismal in winter. The
present Dean (Lake), who has so spoilt the cathedral, is most unpopular.
One day he had taken upon himself to lecture Mr. Greenwell, one of the
minor canons, for doing his part in the service in thick laced boots.
Greenwell was furious. Rushing out of the cathedral, he met Archdeacon
Bland, the most polite and deliberate of men, and exclaimed, ‘I’ve been
having the most odious time with the Dean, and I really think he must
have got the devil in him.’--‘No, Mr. Greenwell, no, no, not that,’ said
Archdeacon Bland in his quiet way; ‘he is only possessed by three imps:
he is imperious, he is impetuous, and he is impertinent.’
“People are full of ‘The Unclassed,’ a powerful novel, though, as a very
pretty young lady said to me the other day, ‘not at all the sort of book
one would give to one’s mother to read!’
“Coming through Roker, I heard a woman say, ‘Wal, geese is geese, and ye
canna mak um nought else.’ But some one else had this to report as a
specimen Northumbrian sentence: ‘I left the door on the sneck, and, as I
was ganging doun the sandy chare (lane), I met twa bairnies huggin a can
o’ bumblekites, and a good few tykes were havin a reglar hubbledeshoo o’
a midden.’”
* * * * *
“_Brancepeth Castle, Jan. 3, 1885._--Mr. Wharton dined. He said, ‘When I
was at the little inn at Ayscliffe, I met a Mr. Bond, who told me a
story about my friend Johnnie Greenwood of Swancliffe. Johnnie had to
ride one night through a wood a mile long to the place he was going to.
At the entrance of the wood a large black dog joined him, and pattered
along by his side. He could not make out where it came from, but it
never left him, and when the wood grew so dark that he could not see it,
he still heard it pattering beside him. When he emerged from the wood,
the dog had disappeared, and he could not tell where it had gone to.
Well, Johnnie paid his visit, and set out to return the same way. At the
entrance of the wood, the dog joined him, and pattered along beside him
as before; but it never touched him, and he never spoke to it, and
again, as he emerged from the wood, it ceased to be there.
“‘Years after, two condemned prisoners in York gaol told the chaplain
that they had intended to rob and murder Johnnie that night in the wood,
but that he had a large dog with him, and when they saw that, they felt
that Johnnie and the dog together would be too much for them.’
“‘Now that is what I call a useful ghostly apparition,’ said Mr.
Wharton.”
* * * * *
“_London, Feb. 22, 1885._--At dinner at Miss Bromley’s I met the Misses
Bryant, who live in 17 Somerset Street. On the ground-floor of the house
is a large room said to be haunted, and in which such terrible noises
are heard as prevent any one sleeping there. A man with a grey beard
once committed suicide in that room. The other day some children,
nephews and nieces of the Misses Bryant, came to spend the afternoon
with them, and, to amuse them, one of the ladies got them to help her in
arranging her garden upon the leads. While they were at work, the little
boy looked over the parapet into the court below, and said, ‘Who is that
old man with the grey beard who keeps looking at me out of that window?
Oh! he is gone now, but he has put out his head and looked up at me
several times.’ The window was that of ‘Greybeard’s room.’ Miss Bryant
immediately ran down and asked the servants if any one with a grey beard
had come into the house, but no one had entered the house at all, and
‘Greybeard’s room’ was locked up.”
* * * * *
“_March 7._--Two days ago I dined with Lady Sarah Lindsay to meet
Colonel Hugh Lindsay and Lady Jane. Colonel Lindsay was full of
spiritualism and the wonderful discoveries this generation seems on the
verge of. He had himself seen a large table, which had been first set in
motion, after the hands which touched it were taken away, float up to
the ceiling, remain there for some time over their heads, and then float
down again. ‘The conjurors Maskelyne and Cook could not have done this;
they might have raised the table (by wires), but it would not have
floated.’
“Colonel Lindsay spoke much of the wonderful Providence which keeps down
voracious animals. He said that the aphis (of the rose, &c.) reproduced
itself in such intense multitudes, that, if not kept down by weather
and other insects, it would, _in ten days_, have assumed proportions
equal in volume to many thousand times the inhabitants of the earth, the
whole air would be darkened, and every living thing upon earth would be
utterly consumed by them!
“Lady Sarah told of her grandmother, old Lady Hardwicke,[400] with whom
a young lady came to stay. They dined at three o’clock, but when the
girl came down, she was dreadfully agitated, and looked as if she had
seen a ghost. When Lady Hardwicke pressed her as to the reason, she,
after a time, confessed that it was because there was a spirit in her
room. It came to her lamenting its hard fate whilst she was dressing,
and she was sure there had been a murder in that room. Lady Hardwicke
said, ‘Well, my dear, to-morrow you must let me come and stay with you
when you are dressing,’ and she did. Soon the girl said, ‘There--there
it is!’ and Lady Hardwicke really did hear something. ‘Oh, listen!’
cried the girl. ‘Once I was hap-hap-hap-y, but now I am me-e-e-serable!’
a voice seemed to wail: it was the old kitchen jack!”
* * * * *
“_March 19._--Edward Malet was married to Lady Ermyntrude Russell in
Westminster Abbey at 4 P.M. Seldom was there a greater crowd in the
streets near Westminster. I met Lady Jane Repton in the crush, and we
made our way in together through the Deanery. The glorious building was
crowded from end to end, and the music most beautiful. Perhaps the
greatest of smaller features was Lady Ermyntrude’s dress, which the
papers describe as ‘more pearly than pearl, and more snowy than snow.’”
* * * * *
“_March 28._--Dining at Mrs. Quin’s, I met Mrs. Ward, who was very
amusing.
“She described the airs of Frances-Anne, Lady Londonderry.[401] One day
she was extremely irritated with her page, and sent him to Lord
Londonderry with a note, in which she had written in pencil, ‘Flog this
fellow well for me: he has been quite unendurable.’ But the page read
the note on the way, and meeting one of the great magnificent flunkeys,
six feet high, said, ‘Just oblige me by taking this note in to my lord:
I am forced to do something else.’ The flunkey brought out the answer,
and met the page, who took it in to his lady. She was rather surprised,
for it was--‘I’m afraid.’ Mrs. Ward was in the house when this happened.
“Mrs. Ward recollected, in her own childhood, when she was not three
years old, sitting on the floor in her mother’s sitting-room cutting up
a newspaper with a pair of blunt scissors. A lady came in to see her
mother, and brought with her two very fat children, with great round
staring eyes. The children were told to sit down by her on the floor,
and she was bidden to amuse them. It was impossible: they only stared in
hopeless irresponsiveness. Soon her mother began to talk as loudly as
she could. It was to drown the voice of her own little girl, whom she
heard repeating aloud a verse of the psalm she had been learning that
morning, ‘Eyes have they, but they see not: ears have they, but they
hear not: neither speak they with their lips.’
[Illustration: SHRINE OF ST. ERASMUS, WESTMINSTER ABBEY.][402]
“In the afternoon I went with a crowd to see Herkomer’s portrait of my
friend Katharine Grant--a magnificent _tour de force_, white upon
white.”
On the 1st of May 1885 I set off on the first of a series of excursions
in France for literary purposes, oftentimes of dismal solitude, and
always of weary hard work, though full of interest of their own. I found
then, as I have always done, how different seeing a thing with intention
is to ordinary sight-seeing. A dentist at Rome once said to me, “Mr.
Hare, you do not brush your teeth.”--“Yes, indeed I do,” I answered,
“every night and morning.”--“Ah! yes; you brush them from habit, but not
from motive;” and I discovered the result from my many past tours in
France had been just the same. As usual, I found that the ordinary
English travellers, who are always occupied in playing at “follow my
leader” all the time they are abroad, had missed the best part of
France, and that the churches and abbeys of the Correze and
Creuse--almost unknown hitherto--are absolutely glorious; and some
places in that part of France--Rocamadour, for instance--worthy of being
compared with the very finest scenes in Italy. I described much of this
tour in a series of papers in the _Art Journal_, as well as in my books
on France. In the central provinces the accommodation was very good in
its way, and the food always excellent, but in some of the places in the
Eastern Pyrenees the dirt was scarcely endurable. The excellent hotel
at Montpelier came as a real respite. Whilst there, I made some
acquaintance with a banker of the place, who had a poetic Ruskin-like
way of describing the wildness of the Cevennes, the grey rocks, desolate
scenery, long lines of russet landscape. This so took hold of me, that I
went to Lodêve and engaged a carriage for several days to explore the
Cevennes thoroughly. It was wild enough certainly and rather curious,
but an unbroken monotone; every view, every rocky foreground, even each
dreary ruinous village, repeated the last, and after eight or nine hours
I was utterly wearied of it; thus it was an intense relief when my
driver came in the evening, with no end of apologies, and said he had
received a telegram, bidding him return at once to Lodêve; and I was
free to jump into the first diligence and reach the nearest station.
Railway then took me to Mende, an exceedingly beautiful place, and
afterwards to Rodez. Hence I went south again by S. Antonin and
Bruniquel, whence beautiful recollections of the spring verdure and
clear river come back to me. I made a little tour afterwards to Luchon
and other places in the Pyrenees which I had not seen before, and
returned straight home from Bordeaux. During this two months’ tour I do
not think I ever once saw an English person, even in the railway, and I
made no acquaintances.
I found Lourdes entirely changed since I was there last by its enormous
religious pilgrimages, and no doubt, whether from the healing waters or
the power of faith, many wonderful cures had taken place. It was
strange, on nearing the miraculous fountain, to read the inscription,
“Ici les malades vont au pas,” &c. A story was told of an officer who
had a wooden leg and came to the fountain. When he put in his legs (he
put them both in, the wooden leg and the other), as he did so he uttered
a little prayer--“Faites, Seigneur, O faites que mes jambes soient
pareilles.” When he drew them out, they were both wooden legs!
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Châteauroux, May 6, 1885._--What weather! bitter north-east winds and
torrents of rain ever since I landed in France.... I spent Sunday at
Etampes, a little narrow town, one street wide and three miles long,
with four churches of the utmost architectural importance.... Leaving
Orleans, my ‘Untrodden France’ began, and very pleasantly, at pretty
Vierzon on the rushing river Cher. There are rather oppressive moments
of solitude, but in this awful weather I am especially glad not to have
any grumblers against disagreeables which cannot be helped.”
* * * * *
“_Argenton, May 8._--Yesterday I was called at five for an excursion of
forty miles up the valley of the Creuse, but it rained in such torrents
it was impossible. At eight it cleared a little, and I set off, and
_did_ it all, returning at eight, but it rained in a deluge more than
half the time. There were, however, beautiful moments of sun-gleam, and
the scenery very lovely. At Le Crozant, the great rendezvous of French
artists, where a most charming old woman keeps a very primitive inn, it
is even magnificent, finer than anything on Rhine or Moselle--stupendous
rocks and a grand castle. Gargilesse, the place where Mme. George Sand
lived so oddly, and wrote ‘Promenades autour de mon Village,’ is also a
very curious and charming place, the village clustering around a
romanesque church in the _enceinte_ of a great ruined castle above the
river.”
* * * * *
“_Brive, May 15._--I feel like a child eating through a cake, feeling it
a duty not to leave anything remarkable unseen in this part of France,
so little known to the English. How unfairly those judge this country
who measure France by what they see from the well-known railways to
Strasbourg or Marseilles. Nothing can be more beautiful than these hills
and valleys of the Creuse and Correze, nothing more rich than the
forest-clad country, besides the interest of endless castles and later
châteaux, of old towns where the greater proportion of the houses date
from the thirteenth century, and of perfectly honest, primitive, and
unspoilt people.
“I came to Limoges last Friday, and remained there five days, that is to
say, was scarcely there at all, but returned to a good hotel there at
night. I saw the great castle of Chalusset; the romanesque Abbey of
Solignac; S. Junien, a most grand church; Le Dorat, almost as fine;
Montmorillon, full of curiosities; and Chalus, where Richard Cœur de
Lion was killed, and where, under the old castle he was besieging, the
stone called Rocher de Malmont still rises in the water-meadows, upon
which he was standing when the fatal arrow struck him.
[Illustration: LE CROZANT.][403]
“Then I came here, and am staying here in the same way, breakfasting
daily at seven, off at half-past seven, and only returning to go to
bed. All yesterday I was at the wonderful sanctuary of Rocamadour--the
La Salette of these parts--a most curious place, beautiful exceedingly;
indeed, though it sounds a very grand comparison, rather like--Tivoli!
But it poured all day, with a bitter wind, and this has been the case
every day, only this afternoon there have been lovely lights at the
falls of Gimel in the exquisite mountain forests. I am so glad I have no
companions: they would never have endured the discomfort. No words can
say how tired I am every day, nor how wet, nor how dirty; but I shall be
glad afterwards to have done it all.”
[Illustration: SOLIGNAC.][404]
[Illustration: ROCAMADOUR.][405]
* * * * *
“_Sarlat in the Dordogne, May 21._--We are still in swelching torrents
... but this is a pleasant little hotel in an old cathedral town, with
marvellous streets of houses of fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth
centuries. The weather makes no end of hindrances and discomforts, yet
in this tour, as in all others, I have found that expected misfortunes
never happen: there are plenty of others, but what one looks for never
comes, and I have gone on steadily, missing nothing of the plan marked
out, only sometimes delayed. The people are beyond measure pleasant and
kind, and the cheapness of everything is a perpetual amazement.”
* * * * *
“_Carcassonne, May 28._--On Friday 23rd it poured in torrents, but I
could not give in, so went by the earliest train as far into the hills
as it penetrated, and then by omnibus to Souillac, one of the grand and
glorious abbey churches, now parochial, which are so common in that part
of France and nowhere else--full of colour and solemnity, though rugged
to a degree, and into which you descend by long flights of steps.
“It poured in returning too, but I stopped at a wayside station, and a
long walk through chalky mud and a ferry over the Dordogne took me to
Fénelon, which is a noble old château splendidly placed on a peninsula
looking down upon the meeting of many valleys and streams. It has always
been kept up; its terraces were in luxuriant beauty of flowers, and the
owner, Comte de Morville, was excessively civil in showing everything. I
drew under an umbrella in torrents.
[Illustration: CLOISTER OF CADOUIN.][406]
“Saturday I was up at five, and off by rail and road to Cadouin, another
of those grand abbey churches, of the same character as the rest, but
with the addition of a splendid gothic cloister. I arrived at nine,
perished with wet and cold, but was resuscitated by the kind woman at
the little inn, who made a hot fire on the great dogs of her hearth, and
soon had hot coffee ready. It was, however, a long day, and I did not
arrive till near midnight at Montpazier. This curious Bastide was built
by Edward III. of England, and has never been touched since his time,
and, whilst all is so changed in England, it was interesting to find in
this remote French hill-country a town the same as when the Black Prince
lived there, with old walls and gates, gothic house-windows, rectangular
streets, and in the centre of all the market, surrounded by arcades
like those at Padua, only here the arcades are so wide that you can
drive _in_ them. It was a quaint, charming place, and I stayed till
Monday, spending Sunday in the magnificent old Château de Biron.
[Illustration: ARCADES OF MONTPAZIER.][407]
“Then, by Cahors, with its wonderful old bridge over the Lot, I came to
Montpezat, a very simple place and primitive inn--wild open down, old
church, arcaded streets, flowers, goats, and old women in white-winged
caps. Late that night I reached Moissac, a place where there is a
wonderful church and cloister, which has been extolled as one of the
archaeological marvels of the world, but its describers have evidently
never seen St. Junien, Le Dorat, Souillac, Cadouin.”
* * * * *
“_Narbonne, June 4._--The wet weather has changed to intense heat.
Saturday was an interesting day at Alet, a ruined cathedral, and pretty
desolate place on the edge of the Eastern Pyrenees, with a very
admirable old curé, with whom I made great friends. That afternoon
brought me to Perpignan, an almost Spanish town on the
frontier--filthily dirty, but I was obliged to stay there to see Prades,
the fine lonely monastery of S. Michel de Cuxa, Amélie les Bains, and
Arles-sur-Tech. The great excursion to the latter place was indeed a
penance--ten hours in a jolting diligence, five each way, with burning
sun and stifling dust, and four passengers forced into each place meant
for three, so that _any_ movement was impossible, and as the diligence
started at five, one was breakfastless. However, all miseries have an
end, and Aries had to be visited, for St. Abdon and St. Sennen are
buried there; but oh! how glad I was I had no companion to suffer too!
On the way here I saw Elne, most Spanish and picturesque, with perhaps
the most beautiful cloister in the world. Yesterday too was an
interesting day, spent entirely at the great convent of Fontefroide, in
the mountains nine miles from hence, spared at the late suppression of
monasteries on account of the beneficent and useful lives of its
monks--of whom there are still more than fifty--the benefactors of the
whole of this part of the country, not only in teaching and preaching,
but by taking the lead in all industrial and agricultural work. They
receive all strangers, and gave me an excellent luncheon, though, being
Wednesday, they had only boiled beans for themselves. The mountains all
round the monastery were ablaze with cistus--white, pink, and
rose-coloured, with yellow salvia and honeysuckle in masses.”
[Illustration: AT FONTEFROIDE.][408]
* * * * *
“_Lodéve, June 8._--From Montpelier I went to Aigues-Mortes, the old
sea-town where St. Louis embarked for the Crusades, little altered since
his time, unless, indeed, the mosquitoes are worse, for they are
terrible.”
* * * * *
“_Lexos, Aveyron, June 15._--From Rodez and its great cathedral, and
Mareillac in the heart of the vine country, I had an excursion of
transcendent beauty through the most exquisite mountain valleys and
chestnut forests, by rocks and waterfalls, to Conques. I was taken there
by a single line in Fergusson’s ‘Architecture’ comparing it with
Souillac, which I had already seen, but found perhaps the most beautiful
spot in France, and, in that desolation, a glorious romanesque abbey
church, grand as a cathedral of the first rank, in which, owing to its
lonely position, all the curious mediaeval treasures remain unspoilt.
Here, and indeed everywhere, I found the greatest kindness from the
charming well-to-do peasantry. Every one seems well off: every one full
of courtesy and goodness; and though all the men in blouses expect to be
treated as equals, they are indescribably pleasant.
“Anything so cheap as ‘Untravelled France’ it is impossible to imagine.
Even at Mende, where it is quite a good hotel, prices were: room--very
good, 1 fr., dinner 2 fr., breakfast 50 c., service 50 c., bougie never
anything, and these are the usual prices.
“Nothing can describe what the delicious, sweetness of the acacias has
been, so abundant in all these town-villages, and now it is giving way
to that of the limes.
“This is a wooden inn of the humblest kind, close in the shadow of a
great junction station, at which I am for convenience, but the
pleasantness of the people gives it a charm. This solitary existence is
a placid, peculiar halt in life.”
* * * * *
I was the greater part of July in London.
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
[Illustration: CONQUES.][409]
“_July 25, 1885._--Mrs. Rogerson, working in the east end of London, met
with a family of poor children--very hopelessly poor children--whom she
knew, with a dog. She stopped and told them that, as they could not keep
themselves, she wondered they could keep a dog. The eldest boy answered
rather savagely, ‘Father bought it: father gave sixpence for the dog,
and right well he did too, for the rats wos so many, they wos, they
used to eat our toes at night, and the dog keeps them all off.’
“The Maharajah of Johore asked me to his ball. When he goes out to
luncheon or dinner he sends on his own cook to prepare for him, taking
with him, to kill on the spot, the chicken which his master is to eat.
When the cook kills it he says a sort of little prayer--‘Dear little
brother, forgive me for the pain I am going to inflict upon you: it will
only be momentary, and it really cannot be helped.’”
* * * * *
“_Campsea Ashe, Suffolk, August 22._--On the way here I saw Ipswich, its
great feature being ‘the Ancient House,’ adorned outside with
representations of the Seasons. Close to St. Peter’s Church is Wolsey’s
Gate, covered with ivy, which led to his college. This place, which the
William Lowthers have bought, in the flat corn-lands of Suffolk, has a
fine old garden, with clipped yew hedges and long tanks like Wrest. It
has been a most pleasant visit. I heard some one say once, ‘Mrs. Lowther
is a most extraordinary woman: she never will let the grass grow under
any one of her children’s feet even for a single instant;’ but it has
made them all very agreeable, from the immense variety of occupations in
which they are interested, and in which, consequently, they interest
others. James Lowther, who is at home now, is certainly one of the
pleasantest and best-informed young men of the day. He has just been
very amusing about answers in Board Schools, telling, amongst others, of
a child who was asked ‘If King Alfred had been alive now, what part
would he have taken in politics?’ and replied, ‘If King Alfred had been
alive now, he would have been far too old to have taken part in politics
at all!’
“We had a pleasant picnic at Framlingham, a noble ruined castle, which,
for Suffolk, stands almost on a height, and went to Sanbourn, the
luxurious home of the rich family of Heywood, and to Glemham, where Lady
North, mother of Lord Guildford, lives in a fine old house, which
contains much good old furniture and china.
“We spent a long interesting day at the noble old moated house of
Helmingham, where Lady Tollemache apologised amusingly for only having
nine of her sons at home to assist her in doing the honours! It is a
delightful place, with beautiful old gardens, and its inhabitants are
delightful too. Lord Tollemache especially brims with goodness to all
around him. He was very amusing in urging Miss Lowther, when she had as
many sons as he has (!), to make their home pleasanter to them than any
other place in the world, so that they should always prefer it to
everything else. He showed us all his relics, especially his Anglo-Saxon
MS. of the time of Alfred the Great, and several beautiful Bibles of the
time of Edward I. There is a pretty picture of Mary Tudor as a child.
Queen Elizabeth was at Helmingham, and stood godmother to a baby there,
who lived to become Sir Lionel Tollemache: that baby is represented,
with its three little sisters, in a curious picture in the hall.
“In the church is the tomb of Colonel Thomas Tollemache, who was
distinguished in the wars of Queen Anne’s time. The Duke of Marlborough
ordered him to attack Brest. There were reasons which made him very
doubtful of success, and he represented to the Duke that the only chance
of it lay in a surprise: still the Duke ordered him to attempt it. Brest
was found thoroughly prepared, the hoped-for surprise was an utter
failure, and Tollemache fell in the attack. The French Government had
been forewarned, and it was afterwards found that it had been forewarned
by Marlborough! When the Duc d’Aumale came to Helmingham, he said that
the thing he was most anxious to see was the monument of this
unfortunate officer, and that he had himself read, in the archives at
Brest, the letter of the Duke of Marlborough warning the garrison of the
coming attack.
“The last owner of Campsea Ashe, Mr. Shepherd, was the grandson of a
gardener. The Mr. Shepherd who then owned Campsea adopted a nephew, a
young Frere, grandfather of the well-known Sir Bartle. The nephew
invited his friends to Campsea, and, after the fashion of the time, they
sat up drinking. Very late, young Frere rang the bell and ordered
another bottle of port. The butler, very cross, went up to his master’s
room and woke him, saying that Mr. Frere wanted some more port and that
he must have the key of the cellar. Old Mr. Shepherd, furious, gave the
key, but next morning sent for a lawyer and disinherited his nephew,
and, no one else being handy, and having a gardener he liked who bore
his own name of Shepherd, he left him his fortune.”
* * * * *
“_Holmhurst, August 23._--In returning from Campsea Ashe I spent some
hours at Colchester, and saw its two abbeys and its castle--rather
curious than beautiful.”
* * * * *
“_Drayton House, Northamptonshire, Sept. 20._--I have been spending
several days in this most pleasant old house, which is full of charm and
interest--many-towered, with an entrance court, a deserted Georgian
chapel, a grand hall full of fine pictures, a vaulted room dating from
Edward III., cellars probably from Henry III., admirable buildings of
Elizabeth and James I.
“The place belonged to the Greenes, who, with the Earl of Wiltshire, who
married a daughter of the house, have grand tombs in the church. Then it
passed to the Mordaunts, and was left by Lady Mary Mordaunt, the
divorced wife of the Duke of Norfolk, to her second husband, Sir John
Germaine, whose second wife, Lady Betty, left it to Lord George
Sackville, from whom it descended to its present owner, sweet engaging
Mrs. Sackville, who inherited it from her uncle, the last Duke of
Dorset, and who has all the perfect simplicity of the truest
high-breeding.
“The gardens are full of terraces, staircases, fountains, pleached
walks, avenues, and leaden statues--beautiful exceedingly. There is a
gallery of Mordaunt portraits in the house; in the old library at the
top are no end of treasures, and out of it opens the Duchess of
Norfolk’s boudoir, with old Japanese ornaments. Through a plank missing
in the floor of an upper gallery you can look into quite a large room
which no one has ever entered. Its windows are darkened by the
overgrowth of the creepers outside, and the only object in it is a large
box like a portmanteau. The Sackvilles have always lived here, yet not
one of them has had the curiosity to descend into that room or to look
into that portmanteau!
“I have been taken to see the curious old house of Lyveden--never
finished--one of the three strange semi-religious erections of the
Tresham of the Gunpowder Plot. This is supposed to be in honour of the
Virgin, and is covered with the oddest devices, such as ‘the Seven Eyes
of God,’ the money-bag of Judas, with the thirty pieces of silver round
it, &c. The second of Tresham’s buildings is Rothwell townhall; the
third a lodge at Rushton in honour of the Trinity, in which everything,
down to the minutest ornament, is three-cornered.
“Then we have been to Boughton, the Duke of Buccleuch’s great desolate
house, which contains two cartoons attributed, without any cause, to
Raffaelle. The house was built by the Duke of Montagu, who was
ambassador to Louis XIV., and the king lent him a French architect and
gardener. He made it as like a French château as possible. Then he told
his friends that he must plant an avenue to drive to London by, and when
they remonstrated that an immense part of the way to London did not
belong to him, he said, ‘Well, at any rate I will have an avenue of the
same length,’ and he planted seventy-two miles of it in his park. These
trees, hemming in the view in all directions, make the place
indescribably dull. Just outside the park is the pretty village of
Geddington, with a fine old church and bridge, and a beautiful Eleanor
cross with slender detached columns. We went on thence to tea at Warkton
with Mrs. Bridges, wife of the clergyman, a real patrician Venetian
beauty, who has set all Northamptonshire quarrelling as to whether the
glorious colour of her hair can be real; but it is. Half of the church
her husband serves is a mausoleum of the Dukes of Buccleuch, who have
four large and magnificent monuments in it.
“The old Duchess of Buccleuch, a homely-looking person, was very fond of
joining people who came to see the place and talking to them. One day
she walked by a visitor and said, ‘You know, all this belongs to the
Duke of Buccleuch.’--‘And pray, whom did he marry?’--‘ME!’”
* * * * *
“_Cromer, Sept. 22._--I came yesterday to stay with the Lockers, who
have lately taken the additional name of Lampson, with a fortune from
her father, Sir Curtis Lampson. They are exceedingly happy together. ‘My
winsome marrow,’ Mr. Locker has just said to his wife, ‘you know I never
can go anywhere without you.’ In the evening, Mr. Locker was very
pleasant in describing Rogers and his stories. Apropos of the dictum
that the postscript of a well-told story is often its best feature, he
told of Rogers describing a duel between a Frenchman and an Englishman,
which was to be fought in the dark. The Englishman was a very humane
man, and when it came to his turn to fire, fired up the chimney, that he
might do his adversary no harm, but brought down the Frenchman, who had
taken refuge there. ‘But when I tell that story in Paris,’ added
Rogers, ‘it is the Englishman who is up the chimney.’
[Illustration: CROMER.]
“He told of a Mr. Egerton who was with his regiment in Canada. Coming
into the messroom one morning, he seemed much depressed, and being asked
the reason, said he was troubled by an oddly vivid dream, in which he
had seen his own coffin on the deck of a vessel, and in the dream had
been even able to read the plate upon the coffin, which bore his name
and the date June 16. He was so full of it, that the Colonel, to humour
him, wrote down the circumstances and the date. This was in April.
Afterwards he went to Upper Canada, where he was killed by Indians on
the 16th of June, and his coffin was brought down the river as he had
seen it. Mr. Locker told this story to Lord Algernon St. Maur, who said,
‘I can corroborate that story, for I was in the messroom when what you
describe occurred.’
“Mr. Locker described Dickens’s way of telling stories. He heard him
tell that of Lincoln’s dream, and of his describing the oppressive
feeling he had, how he was ‘drifting, drifting, drifting,’ and how at
that moment the members of council came in and he said, ‘Now we must go
to business.’ It was on leaving that council that he was shot, so no one
heard the end of that dream, or whether there would seem to be any
forewarning in it.
“We have been to-day to Felbrigge, the fine old house of the Windhams,
sold to a Norwich tradesman named Catton, whose daughters have adopted
the older family as if it were their own, and are quite worthy of the
old pictures, MSS., &c., all left in the house, _nothing_ having been
taken away when the place was given up. ‘Mr. Windham comes every night
to look after his favourite books in the library,’ said Miss Catton; ‘he
often comes, and he goes straight to the shelves where they are: we hear
him moving the tables and chairs about: we never disturb him though, for
we intend to be ghosts ourselves some day, and to come about the old
place just as he does.’ In the hall there is a grand bust of the
statesman by Nollekens. Formerly it was on his monument in the church,
but after some years the family put a copy there, and moved the original
into the house. The church, however, still retains the most glorious
brasses. One is that of a lady in waiting who came over with Anne of
Bohemia, and whose daughter was herself invited to share the throne. But
the man she really married was one of the early owners of Felbrigge.”
* * * * *
“_Sept. 24._--We have been with the Dick Gurneys in their fleet
waggonette to Blickling, quite glorious, so perfect in colour, with an
exquisite entrance, and a splendid herbaceous garden. In the church is
the tomb which Lady Lothian has erected to her husband,[410] a most
grand one, with the head of the reclining statue turned to one side, and
the long beard drifted over the pillow.
“The innumerable Gurneys, Buxtons, and Hoares who populate Cromer come
in and out of this house, as of each other’s, whenever they like,
without ringing the bell.
“Last night Mrs. R. Hoare dined here. She says the people here always
address their superiors in the third person, as in French. They always
say ‘I’m very much fatagued,’ for bothered. ‘Well, Mrs. Smith, are you
going to take the blue dress or the brown?’ she said when keeping a
charity shop. ‘Why, ma’am, I’ve not fairly averdupoised,’ replied the
woman; and it is a common expression for balancing.
“There are many remnants here in Cromer from Danish occupation. The
ghosts, as in Denmark, are always without heads. There is great faith in
the story of ‘Old Strop,’ a Danish dog who was washed ashore with the
bodies of two Danish sailors, one of whom was buried at Overstrand and
the other at Cromer. Every night the dog, headless, is believed to run
from one grave to the other, and fishermen will always go round by the
shore at night rather than by the shorter lane, which the dog is
supposed to take.”
* * * * *
“_Sept. 25._--Mrs. Ritchie (Miss Thackeray) is here, most charming and
interesting, as I have always thought her. She describes Tennyson and
Mrs. Kemble as the noblest man and woman she knows.
“Mrs. Kemble found, when in England, that her husband was going to take
advantage of an American law which allowed him to obtain a divorce if
she was away from him two years. For her children’s sake it was
imperative that she should prevent this. She hurried back, and just
arrived in time by two or three days. Afterwards she herself quietly
obtained a divorce in some way which gave her the charge of her
children.... One of her daughters is Mrs. Leigh, whose husband, the
Vicar of St. Mary, Bryanston Square, she is always trying to persuade to
go out to the family plantations in Georgia. The other, Sarah, is the
wife of a merchant in New York, and a replica--a much feebler
replica--of her mother.
“Now, Mrs. Kemble is generally to be found knitting by her fireside. One
day Mrs. Ritchie took her little girl to see her. ‘Here I am,’ Mrs.
Kemble said to the child, ‘an old woman who never allows another person
to put in a word when she is talking; and now, what do you think of me?’
The little girl, who was shy, did not know what to say, and looked as if
she was going to cry. Mrs. Ritchie, to fill up the gap, said, ‘Oh, she
thinks, Mrs. Kemble, that no one could possibly wish to put in a word
when they could listen to you.’ ‘Ma fille, ne dites pas des choses
comme ça,’ cried Mrs. Kemble furiously; and then, more quietly, ‘You
should not say such things before the child: it is not right to teach
her to be artificial.’
“‘Right is right,’ she said one day, ‘and wrong is wrong, but God forbid
that I should judge of another whether he is right or wrong.’
“‘One day,’ said Mrs. Ritchie, ‘I found Mrs. Kemble sitting by her
fireside looking rather disconsolate, and asked her what she was doing.
“Oh, I’m knocking my head against the wall, my dear; that man who was
here was so dreadfully stupid, I’m obliged to knock it out of me.”’
“Mrs. Kemble was at an inn in Switzerland with a lady with whom she
never made acquaintance. They were both reading ‘Middlemarch,’ and came
down with their books into the public room, and were engrossed in them.
But one day the lady was so enchanted with a passage in her volume that
she burst out with, ‘Well, this woman is one of the noblest of authors:
whatever the peculiarities of her views on life may be, I will never
believe that the woman who can write thus can be other than one with the
very noblest aims.’ Then Mrs. Kemble turned upon her furiously with,
‘Who are _you_ that you should presume to _dare_ to judge such a woman
as George Eliot? how can you _dare_ to judge her?’ and the lady jumped
up, and, instead of being angry, embraced Mrs. Kemble upon the spot.
“For her own sharp sayings, Mrs. Kemble is repaid by her grandchildren.
She wrote to one of her grandsons that she did not care for Wagner’s
music, she could not understand what he meant by it. He answered, that
a fly crawling up the wall of Cologne Cathedral might as well presume to
judge of its architectural glories as she of Wagner! She did not seem to
know whether to be angry or pleased at this.
“Dear Lady Marian Alford used to tell of her first meeting Mrs. Kemble
at a garden-party. She had scarcely sat down by her when Mrs. Kemble
said slowly, with her peculiar intonation and inflection upon each
syllable--‘I do per-ceive a ... stink!’
“Being asked if she would employ Pakenham or M’Crackem as agent for
sending her goods from Italy to England, Mrs. Kemble said, ‘Why, rather
Pack’em than Crack’em, to be sure.’”
* * * * *
“_Sept. 30._--A charming visit to the Delawarrs at Buckhurst. I had no
idea there was such a beautiful place in Sussex, such moss-grown oaks
and beeches; such deep ferny and heathy glens; such still pools, in
which all the autumnal tints are reflected; such winding forest-paths,
up and down and in and out of which Lady Delawarr has driven me with her
two ponies tandem; an infantine Medway, nearly to the source of which
the eldest boy, Cantilupe, rowed me through channels so narrow that one
could touch the great water-plants on either side. Then the house has
many delightful books and pictures, including two Sir Joshuas; and there
are two other old houses, semi-deserted, but with grand castellated
gateways, infinitely picturesque; and there is a monumental chapel,
where a marble Duke and Duchess of Dorset kneel eternally by the tomb of
the many children who died before them.
[Illustration: GATEWAY OF BUCKHURST.][411]
“The ‘company’ has been varied and amusing--Miss (Doll) Farquharson of
Invercauld, a perfect Niagara of amusing Scottish anecdote; Mr.
Broadley, of terrible review reputation; and the Roman Catholic Bishop
of Portsmouth, who has propounded many quaint riddles of his own
invention.
“Miss Farquharson described a minister at Invercauld, who, wishing to
flatter the family, stated in his sermon that the Farquharson tartan was
one of the oldest dresses in the world, as it was evident that Joseph’s
coat of many colours was made of it, ‘thereby giving mortal offence to
the Duffs, who sat in the opposite pew.’
“When the minister was changed, Miss Farquharson asked an old woman if
she liked the new one as well as the old. ‘Eh, I like him weel eneuch,
but he’s na sae frolicsome in the pulpit.’
“I made great friends with all the family at Buckhurst, down to the
little Margaret of three, who peoples all the forest with imaginary
bears and elephants, and talks to them, and of her adventures with them,
exactly as if they were realities. We picnicked on an island in the
lake, dreadfully damp, but it was very merry and pleasant.”
* * * * *
_“Burwarton, Shropshire, Oct. 23._--This is a beautiful place of Lord
Boyne’s, high in the Clee hills, with glorious views of the Welsh and
Malvern ranges, beyond exquisite wooded scenery. The house is modern,
but has good pictures, several representing members of the Medmenham
brotherhood, and one a Lady Paisley, an ancestress, who declared that
she did not wish to go to heaven if poor people went there. Many
pleasant people are here, especially a Mr. Bankes, who is very amusing
about the primitive ways of the Isle of Purbeck. At one time the people
of Corfe had been very good for some time, so that the lock-up had not
been used, and the Mayor, one Robert Taylor, had filled it with his
potatoes after they were dug up. But at last there was a man who was
very naughty indeed, and he had to be put in the lock-up, though there
was scarcely room for him even to stand in it, it was so full of the
Mayor’s potatoes. Late that night, some people going past stumbled over
a great heap lying in the middle of the road--quite a huge heap. It was
the Mayor’s potatoes, which the prisoner had amused himself by throwing
through the bars of the window: so then the Mayor was obliged to
compromise matters, and to let his victim out on condition of his
picking up all the potatoes and putting them back again.
“This Mayor, Robert Taylor, used to say, ‘I shall have to adjudicate
upon such and such a case to-morrow.’ He kept a shop where he sold hats.
One day he saw a neighbour walking by with a very smart shiny hat, and
called out, ‘Thomas, good-day, Thomas; you’ve got a new hat, may I ask
where you got it, Thomas?’--‘Well, I bought it at Wareham, Mr.
Taylor.’--‘Oh, you bought it at Wareham, did you? Very good, Thomas.’
Some days afterwards Thomas was set upon by a man in a lonely road and
very badly beaten, really very much hurt. He went to the Mayor and said,
‘Really, Mr. Taylor, I think I must take out a summons.’--‘A summons!
must you, Thomas? Well, you may just go and take it out where you bought
your hat.’
“The ignorance of the people in Purbeck is intense. A clergyman preached
about Zachaeus climbing into the fig-tree, &c. An old widow woman, who
had stayed at home, asked her son if he could tell her what the sermon
was about. ‘Yes, that he could,’ he said, ‘for it was all about Jack Key
(a bad character in the village), who had been up to summut, and was to
have to give half of all his goods to the poor.’
“Here, at Burwarton, witchcraft is generally believed in. A tenant said
the other day that his pig was bewitched by an old woman, and that it
would certainly die, unless he could have her blood; by which he meant
nothing murderous--a prick of a pin would do. Many of the neighbouring
clergy are bad. At a small hill-parish near this an old woman asked the
clergyman what he did for his rheumatism. ‘Well, I swear like hell,’ he
said.”
* * * * *
“_Oakley Park, Oct. 17._--A lovely place, with glorious old oaks
mentioned in Domesday Book. Ludlow is only 2½les off. Its castle,
which stands grandly opposite the entrance to the drive, is associated
with Prince Arthur, ‘Comus’ was acted there, and it was thence that the
Princes were taken to the Tower. It was also from Ludlow that the
pilgrims came who were met in the Holy Land by St. John when he gave
them the ring to take back to Edward the Confessor, and this story is
represented on the windows of the grand old church. Stokesay, which we
have been to sketch, is inimitably picturesque. Nothing can be kinder
than my present hostess, Lady Mary Clive, so considerate of all that can
interest or amuse one,[412] even whilst talking incessantly of her two
hobbies--Conservatism and Church matters. In the latter she is just now
in her glory, as the house is full of clergy for the Church Congress at
Ludlow, where all the ecclesiastics in the county are delighting, like
dogs, to bark and bite. There is _table-d’hôte_ for them here at every
meal, and the house is like a clerical hotel.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Nov. 22, 1885._--Mother’s birthday! on which for so many years we have
been through the Catacombs (lighted up this one day of the year) to
visit the grave of S. Cecilia. My pleasant holiday and happy visits are
already becoming dreamlike, and it is as if my last time alone here
going on still, as I sit in my hill-set solitude. The wind whistles in
the fir-trees; a cow lows in the meadow for a lost calf; Rollo snorts
with fat, but is always ready to play with Selma the cat, though greatly
annoyed at her having given birth to a numerous progeny _in_ his bed;
new pigstyes are built, and a Lawsoniana hedge is planted round the
little garden up the steps. ‘The Holmhurst muffin-bell,’ as St. Leonards
calls it, already rung for a tea-party next Tuesday; and ‘the boys’ (now
Heddie Williamson and Freddie Russell) are due for their half-holiday on
Wednesday; George Jolliffe is coming to stay on the 4th; and for myself,
there is constant work to be done on ‘Paris,’ where, as I labour down
the highways, a thousand by-ways of interest and instruction are ever
opening up.
“I have, however, a little disappointment in Smith and Elder’s account,
nearly £300 to the bad again this year, and no gain whatever: so much
for the supposed riches of ‘a very successful author.’
“Just now also I am being most tremendously bored with the visit of
young ----, and am wondering if he will profit by one of George
Washington’s admirable ‘Rules of Civility,’ which I am going to read
aloud to him. ‘In the presence of others, sing not to yourself with a
humming voice, nor drum with your fingers or feet.’”
* * * * *
“_Powderham Castle, Nov. 14._--I have been spending a week with Charlie
Halifax in this beautiful place, which recalls the Little Gidding of
‘John Inglesant’ in its intense, its real saintliness--in the constant
chapel services with wonderful singing of the servants, in the
commemorative hymns for such saints as Martin and Bricius, in the spirit
of harmony and universal love, which rules everything. Lord Devon[413]
is absolutely seraphic. Charlie says he knows only two perfect forms of
happiness, reciting the Holy Office or attending the Board of Guardians.
‘I know one thing troubles you in respect of heaven,’ says Charlie, ‘it
is, that there are no boards of guardians there; but, dearest Lord
Devon, if they are quite essential to your happiness, I am sure that a
board will be created in some planet, with celestial paupers for you to
relieve.’
“When with the Halifaxes, I always become brimful of good intentions.
But then something comes back to me that I once heard a Countess Zitchi
say, ‘Moi, je suis tout-à-fait comme Jésus Christ, seulement il me
manque--la conduite!’
“We have had a delightful twenty-seven miles’ excursion to the very
curious old desolate house of Fulford and a picnic in its deserted
deer-park. Another day, Charlie, his uncle Francis Grey, and I, went to
Berry Head, a wild rock-girt promontory, with ruined walls of an old
fortress, looking on the bay crowded with Brixham trawlers.”
* * * * *
The latter months of 1885 found me quietly at home, exceedingly busy
over my work on France. As at all other times, except in fine summer
weather, I was chiefly alone, save when on Sundays some of my young men
friends--“the boys”--were generally at Holmhurst for two nights, being
usually those whose whole life is spent in bearing--
“The work-day burden of dull life,
About the footsore flags of a weary world;”[414]
for I have always felt how much, in similar circumstances, I should have
cared myself to have a friend and a homelike little refuge to go to.
Besides, “although in a very humble and apparently confined sphere of
action, who can tell the effect which our influence or that of our
conduct may have upon others, and its reaction throughout future
ages?”[415]
In latter years I have had better “material” in this respect; but it
must be allowed that, except in very rare cases, those I tried to be
useful to in former days turned out very ill. Here are just a few
instances:--
* * * * *
No. 1 was a gentleman once in a good position, who had fallen into
extreme poverty. I gave up being in London, I gave up going abroad, I
always went in an omnibus instead of a cab, always travelled second
class instead of first, to have £50 a year to give to No. 1. But when I
found that my poor gentleman always took a hansom even to cross Eaton
Square, I drew in my purse-strings.
No. 2 seemed very different. Rudely nurtured, he minded no difficulties,
and was willing to live hardly. He only cared for work, and his work was
science. He threw his whole life into it, and seemed on the eve of great
discoveries--in fact, he made them. But he had no one to help him to buy
the patents that were necessary, and I spent £800 for this, and
altogether many thousand pounds in his behalf. He was to have repaid
this sum if he became successful in life, but he made a very large
fortune, and “forgot to pay it.” Then, having lost his fortune again,
his originality and cleverness took another direction: he suddenly
turned Buddhist, cared for nothing but the divine essence, and went off
to India to join a brotherhood in which, after years of prayer and
fasting, he might hope to obtain the distinction of “a little yellow
garment.” He wrote then that his religion itself would prevent his ever
again forgetting that he owed me four thousand pounds with interest.
Yet, after his return, he repudiated his debt altogether, and denied
that he had even the slightest obligation to me. All I had spent was
thrown away! No. 2 was an utter collapse.
No. 3 wanted to be married. He had led a wild life, and his marriage
would “be the saving of him;” with his marriage a new page of his life
would be turned over; but to enable the marriage to be, a loan of money
was necessary. I sent the money, but the marriage never took place, and
the loan was never returned. No. 3 vanished into chaos.
No. 4 was very engaging and I became very fond of him. He was
perpetually at my home, where I always treated him as a younger brother,
giving him money when I was away for whatever he wanted. When he wished
to give a party to his friends in London, the food, the wine, the
flowers, came from Holmhurst. He had to work hard in a public office, so
every year I gave him money for the change of a Continental tour, and on
one occasion, when he had no other companion, I took him myself, and
showed him the whole of a foreign country. This went on for nine years.
Then a circumstance occurred which made me feel that he, in his turn,
might, not even for one day, but for one hour, be useful to me. Under
these circumstances I asked a favour of him. “No,” it was refused at
once, “it might not be to his advantage: it might even possibly be
rather inconvenient.” No. 4 collapsed.
No. 5 was a very young and ingenuous boy. I met him first when he was at
Oxford, when his family--country gentlefolk--were trying to compel him
to take Orders. He confided to me his misery about it, and his utter
unfitness. I backed him up in resisting. From that time I saw a great
deal of him. He was very affectionate to me, and I grew very fond of
him. His family, irritated at his opposition to taking Orders, refused
to go on spending money upon his education. I continued it, or thought
I did, by letter, sending him daily questions to answer by post, and
receiving _précis_ of History from him and correcting them. He was also
very frequently at Holmhurst for a long time together, and had more of a
real home there than with his own parents. Once, without my knowledge or
that of his family, he went to London, and got into terribly bad
companionship and disgracefully bad habits. He was plundered of all he
possessed, and had to pawn his watch to get away. To prevent the
discovery of this, which would have hopelessly estranged him from his
family, I redeemed his valuables for a considerable sum. He then seemed
penitent, promised amendment, and took refuge at Holmhurst again. About
a year after I found him on the eve of wilfully making an acquaintance
which was sure to cause his ruin. I pointed out to him the misery he was
bringing upon himself, and he promised to give it up. Then I found that
all the while he was promising to do nothing of the kind, he had been
constantly writing to the person in question, with whom he had no
previous acquaintance, making assignations for meetings, &c. From that
time he got into one miserable scrape after another. He sank and sank.
Whenever he has made a promise, he has always broken his word; nothing
he says can be believed; his every act must be mistrusted.... Now, he
has taken Holy Orders! This is the end of No. 5.
No. 6 was very dear to me. I had known him intimately from his earliest
childhood. Exceedingly unprepossessing in appearance, he gave the most
brilliant promise of a distinguished career. To me he showed the most
unbounded affection and confidence, but he never told the truth. This
led to a series of miserable deceptions which caused his expulsion from
school and brought about his failure everywhere. Dreaded, mistrusted, he
became alienated from his family, almost from his fellow-men. No
opportunity of extravagant folly occurred but was greedily seized upon,
to be followed by fresh falsehood. His whole life has been a sorrow to
those who know him, and who think mournfully of its beautiful “might
have been.”
I met No. 7 when he was eighteen. Of very lowly origin but gentle
instincts, he had been turned adrift at seventeen upon London to earn
his own living, and he seemed at first to be earning it bravely and
honestly. He was clever and was anxious to improve himself, and he spent
all his evenings in reading, and succeeded in teaching himself French.
By his own unaided efforts he had really given himself an education. At
first I used only to lend him books and do what I could to help his
reading. Then I frequently invited him to Holmhurst, and paid for his
coming there. He had a bad illness in London, when I went constantly to
him in his miserable garret, and supplied all his little comforts. About
a year after I first knew him, he yielded to a great temptation in
misappropriating a large sum of money belonging to the firm he was
serving, and spending it in a very disgraceful manner. It seemed as if
he really did this under a diabolic influence, and as if he really
believed that he should be able to replace the money before the theft
was discovered. But the time drew very near when his accounts would be
examined, and there was no chance--there never had been--that they would
be found correct. Then the full agony of his position came upon him, and
he confessed the whole to me and implored me to save him. The day before
the examination of accounts I replaced the stolen money, and the
defalcation was never discovered.
From this time he seemed to go on well, and I became much attached to
him. Five times a year I paid his expenses to Holmhurst, to give him
country air, treating him like my own son when he was with me. Then came
a time when, after several years, he fell into feeble health, and had to
leave his situation. I was then not perfectly satisfied with the way in
which he was going on, and did not think him as frank and candid as he
had been, but I took him home with me for a month to recruit. At
Holmhurst he had every kindness and indulgence, and was received not
only as an equal, but almost as a child of the house. At the end of a
month, he told me that he had heard of some very suitable employment in
London, and hoped that I would not object to his going to town to see
about it. I said, “Certainly not; but what is the employment?” To my
surprise, he said that he could not tell me then, but I should know
later. I was more surprised because, when he left, he was so unusually
affectionate--“I am very glad you are so fond of me, but I cannot
imagine why you should show it especially to-day, as you are coming back
in a few hours.” He never came back. It was many days before he wrote.
Then I had a formal letter saying that, when he went up to London, he
had been received into the Church of Rome at Brompton Oratory, and
enclosing a list of his possessions left at Holmhurst, and directions
for sending them. Since then he has sunk lower and lower. I have often
heard of him, and always a worse account. He is utterly lost to me. That
is the end of No. 7.
No. 8 was excessively good-looking, had pleasant manners, and was
especially winning to ladies. I had known his family long ago, and his
home, a very quiet rectory in a desolate fen district. When he was at
Oxford, I found him, like No. 5, very unhappy at being expected to take
Orders, for which he honestly felt himself unfitted, and I persuaded him
to tell his father that it was impossible. Then, as he was penniless and
had no prospects, it was necessary that a profession should be found for
him, and I obtained a nomination for him for the Foreign Office from
Lord Granville. He came to London to work for this, and he worked well.
Feeling that it would be most undesirable for him to go on in London,
especially to enter the Foreign Office, knowing no one in society, I
took him out with me every day to parties, and introduced him
everywhere, claiming all kindness for him as my intimate friend. His
good looks and pleasing manners made him very welcome. But he fell in
love with an Earl’s daughter. Strange to say, his suit was not rejected,
though a probation of two years was required, during which he must begin
to make an income. With this view, he abandoned all thought of the
Foreign Office and took to the Stock Exchange. A week before the end of
the two years’ probation, the lady, of her own accord, threw him over,
but, as far as love went, her place was soon supplied. By this time,
too, the young man had acquired _l’habitude de société_, had begun to
despise his humble relations, to cut his old friends, and a shake of the
Prince of Wales’s hand finally turned his head. He scarcely speaks to me
now when we meet. He openly says that, as he has gained all he can from
me, he naturally prefers “those who can be more useful” to him.
No. 9, poor fellow, was long a great anxiety to me. He was of good
family. He fell often--fell into the most frightful vice and shame. He
repented bitterly, and then fell again worse than before. But in one of
his best and truest times of repentance, God saw that he was positively
unable to cope with temptation, and he died--died most mercifully, full
of faith, hope, and gratitude. This was the end of No. 9. Thinking of
him has often brought to my mind Rossetti’s lines--
“Look in my face: my name is Might-have-been,
I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell.”
And yet--
“La bontà infinita ha sì gran braccia,
Che prende ciò che si rivolve a lei.”[416]
As I retrace here, on paper, the story of my failures, a sentence of
Balzac comes into my mind: “Il vous arrivera souvent d’être utile aux
autres, de leur rendre service, et vous en serez pen récompensé”; mais
n’imitez pas ceux qui se plaignent des hommes et se vantent de ne
trouver que des ingrats. N’est-ce pas se mettre sur un piédestal? puis
n’est-il pas un peu niais d’avouer son peu de connaissance du
monde?”[417]
And then Bunyan said in his last sermon (1692):--“Dost thou see a soul
that has had the image of God in him? Love him: love him: say, This man
must go to heaven some day. Do good to one another, and if any wrong
you, pray to God to right you, and love the brotherhood.”
And there is a line of Tasso which comes back to me in all times of
disappointment--
“Brama assai--poco spera--nulla chiede.”
END OF VOL. V.
_Printed by_ BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO
_Edinburgh and London_
ERRATUM
_Page 405_, _for_ “Shackborough” _read_ “Shuckborough.”
“Story of my Life.”--End of Vol. V.
THE STORY OF MY LIFE
VOL. VI
[Illustration: Charlotte Leycester]
THE STORY OF
MY LIFE
BY
AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE
AUTHOR OF “MEMORIALS OF A QUIET LIFE,”
“THE STORY OF TWO NOBLE LIVES,”
ETC. ETC.
VOLUME VI
LONDON
GEORGE ALLEN, 156, CHARING CROSS ROAD
1900
[_All rights reserved_]
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
At the Ballantyne Press
CONTENTS
PAGE
BEYOND THE TOP OF THE HILL 1
IN PLEASURE AND PAIN 118
AT HOME AND ABROAD 192
SOCIAL REMINISCENCES 252
A KNOCKING AT THE DOOR 295
WRITING THE GURNEY MEMOIRS 337
IN MANY PLACES 393
FAREWELL 526
INDEX 539
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VOL. VI
CHARLOTTE LEYCESTER. (_Photogravure_) _Frontispiece_
PAGE
THE DEANERY, BATTLE 5
L’ARICCIA 10
GALLERIA DI SOTTO, ALBANO 11
LAKE OF BOLSENA 12
S. DOMENICO, SIENA 13
MONTE OLIVETO 14
SENS 15
THE PARACLETE 16
THE PORCH, HOLMHURST 27
RIEZ 36
GRIGNAN 37
CLOISTER OF CAVAILLON 38
MONTMAJOUR 40
LES BAUX 41
LES S. MARIES DE LA CAMARGUE 42
LA SALETTE 43
DOMREMY, VILLAGE STREET 45
HOUSE OF JEANNE DARC 46
EMBRUN 47
CHÂTEAU DE VIZILLE 49
QUAYS OF GRENOBLE 51
SCOTNEY CASTLE 55
AT WESTMINSTER 64
THE GARDEN, HOLMHURST 98
THE MANOR WALK, HOLMHURST 110
ROSNY 113
ALNWICK CASTLE 137
HOLMHURST FROM THE SHRUBBERY 140
S. FLOUR, FROM THE SOUTH 147
CHÂTEAU DU ROI, S. EMILION 148
AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE, 1888. (_Photogravure_) _To face_ 150
S. NECTAIRE 151
GATE OF LA GUERANDE 153
PONT S. LOUIS, MENTONE 165
IN S. FRANCESCO NEL DESERTO 169
THE ROCKY VALLEY, HOLMHURST 171
FROM THE WALKS, HOLMHURST 174
ST. MICHAEL’S MOUNT 176
CEMETERY OF PERA, CONSTANTINOPLE 195
THE BATHS, BROUSSA 213
OBER-AMMERGAU 218
TOMB OF LADY WATERFORD, FORD 251
THE OAK WALK, HOLMHURST 254
THE VENETIAN WELL, HOLMHURST 255
BISHOP’S BRIDGE, NORWICH 260
SASSO 265
AT BORDIGHERA 266
AT REBEKAH’S WELL, NEAR S. REMO 267
AT S. REMO 268
GLEN AT S. REMO 269
CLAUDIAN AQUEDUCT 274
REMAINS OF TEMPLE OF JUPITER LATIARIS, MONTE CAVI 281
VENETIAN POZZO 292
BROADHURST 322
GROOMBRIDGE PLACE 323
AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE (_Photogravure_) _To face_ 336
EARLHAM HALL 338
MONT S. MICHEL 344
S. JEAN DU DOIGT 345
AT CARNAC 346
LES ROCHERS 347
QUEEN ANNE AT HOLMHURST 349
BELLA’S LOGHOUSE, ALDERLEY MERE 352
STOKESAY 382
PITCHFORD 383
IN THE WALKS, HOLMHURST 395
THE TERRACE DOOR, HOLMHURST 426
THE NAYLOR LANDING, HOLMHURST 430
THE ARSON STEPS, HOLMHURST 450
IN THE WALPOLE CORRIDOR, HOLMHURST 469
WARBLETON PRIORY, ON APPROACHING 471
WARBLETON PRIORY, SEEN FROM BEHIND 472
PORCH OF HOSPICE, HOLMHURST 477
THE AVE-VALE STEPS, HOLMHURST 481
IN THE CHURCHYARD, HURSTMONCEAUX 489
THE AVE-VALE GATE, HOLMHURST 492
IN THE UPPER CORRIDOR, HOLMHURST 503
THE PORCH, HOLMHURST 511
XXIV
BEYOND THE TOP OF THE HILL
“Un jour tout sera bien, voilà notre espérance!
Tout est bien aujourd’hui, voilà l’illusion.
* * * * *
Que tout soit mal ou bien, faisons que tout soit mieux.”
--ROUSSEAU.
“Il faut travailler en ce monde, il faut souffrir el combattre. On
aura bien le temps de se reposer toute l’érnité.
“Si nous comprenions bien notre bonheur, nous pourrions presque
dire que nous sommes plus heureux que les saints dans le ciel. Ils
vivent des leurs rentes; ils ne peuvent rien gagner; tandis que
nous, nous pouvons à chaque instant augmenter notre trésor.”--LE
CURÉ D’ARS.
“La debolezza umana piange, sorride l’imortale speranza.”--_Epitaph
at Pisa._
There is an old print at Holmhurst which represents life in its
successive stages as the ascent and descent of a hill. At fifty the top
of the hill is reached and the descent begins. I have passed the top,
and every year must bring less power of work and action, though I
scarcely feel older now than I did at five-and-twenty. But certain marks
in the forehead show that age has left his card upon one; we do not
know when he called, but the visit has been paid. Well, it is the more
necessary to do all we can whilst power lasts, never talking, but
acting, and recollecting that a duty once divined binds one from that
moment; while as for the abuse, public and private, received for
anything attempted out of the ordinary groove, we ought ever to follow
the simple advice of Sœur Rosalie, “Faites le bien, et laissez dire.”
Certainly the longer one lives one feels how, of all shams, the
religious sham is the worst--the man who talks “goody” without any heart
to sympathise with sorrow or _shame_, and who thus can never help those
who struggle sadly against vice and meanness, whilst tremulously aiming
at a nobler life. The same, in a wider sense, is true of almost all
sermons one hears--
“Two lips wagging, and never a wise word.”[418]
So few clergymen _feel_ what they say, that it only does harm. It was a
saying of Pope Pius II., “Bad physicians kill the body, unskilful
priests the soul.”
It ought not to be, but it certainly is true that the Church and
Religion are _two_; and, _apropos_ of sermons and religious
discussions, another saying of Pope Pius often comes back to me, “The
nature of God can be better grasped by believing than disputing.” “Let
us not be the slaves of any human authority, but clear our way through
all creeds and confessions to Thine own original revelation.” With
Thomas Chalmers, can I not feel this?
I have endless compensations for a lonely life in my pretty little home,
my sufficient means, my multitudes of friends. Besides, it is as Madame
d’Houdetot wrote to Madame Necker, “Vous savez que le seul être
malheureux est celui qui ne peut ni aimer, ni agir, ni mourir, et je
suis bien loin de cette situation.” I often feel, however, that this
book would give a very false idea of my life. I recount my many visits
and what I hear there because it is amusing, and I leave unnoticed the
months and months when nothing happens, and in which I am probably
employed in quiet work at Holmhurst. With every one naturally it must be
true that
“The life of man is made of many lives,
His heart and mind of many minds and hearts.”[419]
This, however, is enough of sentimentalising. I will return to facts.
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Jan. 9, 1886._--I am just come back from a very pleasant visit at
Battle Abbey, where I met the Powerscourts, Lord and Lady George
Campbell (she lovely and like a beautiful Gainsborough), Lord Hardinge
and a very nice daughter, Lord Wolmer and Lady Maude, Sir Prescott
Hewitt, a young Ryder, and Lady Dorothy Nevill. The latter was most
amusing, and well understands the famous principle--‘Glissez, mortels,
n’appuyez pas.’ She and the Duchess of Cleveland, who was in very good
vein, were quite charming together.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Holmhurst, Feb. 20, 1886._--Do you know that, except for ten days, I
have been at home just three months to-day, and nearly all the time
quite alone. I cannot say how much I have enjoyed the quietude of study
and communing with great and wise people through many books. There is
certainly the greatest pleasure in thus acquiring new thoughts, and, in
a small way, fresh knowledge: indeed, I always feel that to give myself
up to overwork is quite as great a temptation to me as over-idleness to
some people.
“Each different literary work I have had has seemed to me, at the time,
more interesting and engrossing. The little accidental discoveries are
so amusing. Amongst those of this week, who do you think invented a
wheel-barrow?--Blaise Pascal.
[Illustration: THE DEANERY, BATTLE.][420]
“My diversion has been reading masses of old family letters, unearthed
by Lady Hartopp. They are very curious, and a complete portrait of the
family at the beginning of the century. My grandfather, Mr. Hare Naylor,
must have been quite odious--so imperious and arrogant: Lady Jones, the
incarnation of a rod in pickle, but with very fine qualities:
great-uncle Robert, the rector, more of a rowdy farmer than anything
else. Penelope Shipley (Mrs. Warren), a very fine unselfish creature:
Dean Shipley, selfish and dictatorial: Francis Hare, a self-indulgent
dandy: Julius, a miracle of boyish learning, talking like a Solon:
Augustus (it must be allowed), very priggish, but very amiable: Marcus,
indulged in everything by his aunts: the second Mrs. Hare Naylor,
foolish and querulous, but by no means an unjust stepmother. The
religious letters of consolation which the whole party write to one
another when little Anna dies are so stilted as to be truly comic. What
is touching is that over the harsh letters of her fierce elder sister,
the beloved memory of the first Mrs. Hare Naylor ever broods as a
softening influence: however much trouble the Hare brothers give her, no
pains or expense are too great for them, because ‘they were hers.’”
* * * * *
On the 9th of February I went up to London for Miss Jolliffe’s wedding,
and came in for--a revolution! On returning from the City, I found
Trafalgar Square one mass of people, and many orators addressing them,
but expected nothing more. Soon, however, a Socialist leader named Burns
suggested a reign of terror and offered himself as captain. Thousands of
men--well fed, well dressed, but still the scum of London--rushed down
Pall-Mall, breaking windows as they went--a very carnival of outlawry.
Their passions grew with their progress, and in St. James Street they
wrecked the University Club, which had expelled Hyndman, one of their
leaders, from its society. They seized certain carriages, turning out
the ladies they contained, and stripped a footman of his livery. They
pulled Lady Claude Hamilton out of her carriage and boxed her ears, but
when, _after_ this, she denounced them as dogs who ought to be flogged
as curs, they applauded her courage, and let her go on. Breaking windows
and wrecking many shops in Piccadilly, they entered the Park at Hyde
Park Corner and left it at Stanhope Gate. Then they rushed on through
South Audley Street, which they left much like Paris after the excesses
of the Commune. How truly Milton said--
“License they mean when they cry Liberty.”
I went the next day to see Lady Foley, whose house in Grosvenor Square
had been on their line of route. It had not only no pane of glass
unbroken, but not even fragments of glass left, and stones heaped in the
library enough to mend a good piece of road with. Lord Percy’s house,
next door, was so ruined that they went away next day.
For the two following days London had indeed a miserable aspect--windows
all broken, streets littered with fragments, shops shut, streets paraded
constantly by bands of entirely victorious and triumphant ruffians, and
shop-keepers, in some cases, guarding their property with revolvers.
The call for a fresh edition of my “Walks in Rome” made me suddenly
determine to go to Italy at the end of February. At Florence I was the
constant guest of the ever-kind Duchess Dowager of Sermoneta, with whom
I made delightful excursions in the hills.
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Hotel Paoli, Florence, March 7, 1886._--France was covered with snow
from end to end, yet next day we were speeding through lemon-groves
laden with fruit, and carpeted with a blaze of iris and scarlet geranium
in full flower. Here, after reading about the snowstorms in England, I
am glad in the gardens of Arcetri to sit to draw in the shade of the
cypresses, and all the hills are pink with almond-blossom. I spent one
evening with the Duchess at Palazzo Torrigiani, alone with the family
there, which is the most perfect type of a grand old Italian household,
consisting of between eighty and ninety persons. The kind and charming
old Marchesa Elisabetta has four sons, who have all married as soon as
they came of age, yet none have gone farther than to an apartment of
their own under the maternal roof, and eighteen children and
grandchildren dine with her daily, besides other guests. The four
daughters-in-law all live in the utmost harmony; the Marchesa Giulia,
wife of the eldest son Pietro, and the Marchesa Margherita, who was a
Malespina (which in Italy means great things), quietly giving
precedence to the Marchesa Cristina, who is a princess (Scilla) by
birth. All sat with work round a table, visitors dropped in, and it was
most easy and pleasant.
“Another day, the Duchess, Miss Phillimore, and I went out by the
steam-tram to spend a day at the Marchese della Stufa’s[421] old castle
of Castagnolo. We had an amusing luncheon of Italian dishes, guitar
music and singing, a walk to pick violets, with which the hedges are
full, a visit to the green-houses and aviaries of rare birds, and we
were taken back to the tram-line, where the station is built of
sunflower-stalks, which are like bamboo in their qualities.”
* * * * *
I reached Rome on the 10th of March, warmly welcomed by a large circle
of friends. In the hotel were Mrs. Tilt and Letitia Hibbert, very
familiar to me in early days at Birtles, and with them and their very
charming sister-in-law, Mrs. Frank Hibbert (_née_ Cholmondeley), I made
delightful excursions to familiar places--Tivoli, Frascati, Albano. Sir
John Lumley was now reigning at the Embassy and making it delightful to
his countrymen.
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Hotel d’Italie, Rome, March 17, 1886._--What lovely June weather this
is, so very hot, so unspeakably beautiful.... I find an immense deal to
do in correcting and writing, chiefly, however, in taking away from my
‘Walks in Rome,’ so very much is destroyed; indeed, Lanciani, the
archaeologist in power, says, ‘If they go on like this for twenty years,
there will be nothing left of older Rome but St Peter’s and the
Coliseum--_if_ those.’”
[Illustration: L’ARICCIA.][422]
* * * * *
“_March 21._--What expeditions we have had! On Monday we walked through
the glen at Ariccia and round the glorious old woods of the Parco Chigi,
full of cyclamen, cytisus, blue squills, green iris, and masses of dark
violets. Then, whilst the others went on to the convent of Palazzuola, I
sat to draw above the still lake, and, when they came back, we went to
the grand pine-groves of the Villa Barberini, to Castel Gandolfo, and
through the ilex galleries in time for the evening train.... I have
dined out every day, just as in London.”
[Illustration: GALLERIA DI SOTTO, ALBANO.][423]
* * * * *
“_March 31._--I wish I could transport you suddenly into the glorious
radiance of this cloudless sunshine and deepest of blue skies. To me
Rome has never seemed so delightful in climate as after three months of
fog and sleet at Holmhurst.... Amid all the changes elsewhere, I can
always turn with comfort to the Palatine, and have spent many happy
mornings there amongst the gigantic ruins, and the groves of laurustinus
and lentisc, and the huge fenochii, meditating on my past and its
past.”
[Illustration: LAKE OF BOLSENA.][424]
On April 22 I went to Perugia, finding in Brufani’s excellent hotel Mrs.
Robert Drummond and her daughter, and two charming Americans, Miss
Isabel and Miss Lorraine Wood, domesticated at Dresden. For the next
fortnight we toured about together. As to some of the most restful and
happiest days of my later years, I look back to the extreme comfort of
Perugia, and the perfect view from the windows of my room, unspeakably
glorious at all hours, but most of all when the rising sun was lighting
up the tops of the distant mountains, whilst all the detail of the
intermediate plain was lost in soft white haze. Equally delightful was
the old-fashioned inn at Orvieto, and the drives into the hills and to
Bagnorea and the Lago di Bolsena, returning in the carriage laden with
branches of honeysuckle and masses of anemones, violets, cyclamen, and
other spring flowers. From Siena, too, we made again the interesting
excursions to Monte Oliveto and S. Gimignano.
[Illustration: S. DOMENICO, SIENA.][425]
Crossing the St. Gothard to Basle, I turned aside to visit the whole of
the Jura country, greatly overrated, I thought, by former travellers.
Burgundy was much more interesting, with its fine churches and its noble
inhabited châteaux of Ancy le Franc and Tanlay. As I was dining in the
tiny primitive inn at the latter, the tradesmen who held the minute
shops in the village were disputing as to the superiority of their
different trades. The carpenter certainly won the day by winding up
with, “Et la Vierge s’est mariée avec un charpentier: elle était bien
libre de son choix, et elle a choisi--un charpentier!” Nearly the whole
of June I stayed in Paris, working at the archaeological details of the
town for my book, and seeing no one.
[Illustration: MONTE OLIVETO.][426]
[Illustration: SENS.][427]
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Montbard, May 23, 1886._--I wonder if my date conveys anything to you?
I had determined to evade this place if it were possible, yet here I am
for two days at the place so connected with the agonising anxiety of
_our_ last journey, where Mother in her illness was laid flat upon the
railway platform, to find, when the train was gone, that the little
hotel was closed, and where she was carried through the lanes to an old
farmhouse. There the people were most kind to us, and she almost enjoyed
it, and dear Lea was very happy, and of its inmates both were often so
anxious to hear during the after-summer of the German invasion. The old
host and hostess are dead now, and the two boys, whom I saw when I went
to luncheon with Mme. de Montgolfier, are married, and have twelve
children between them!”
[Illustration: THE PARACLETE.][428]
* * * * *
“_Sens, May 28._--The weather has changed to bitter wind, but it has
seemed appropriate to the wild country of Avallon and Vezelay. Auxerre
is very interesting and beautiful, especially the great abbey of S.
Germain and the marvellously simple and pure cathedral. Old affection
for Thomas à Becket took me thence, through the sweet acacia forests, to
Pontigny, since which I have been very comfortable for two nights at a
charming inn close under the shadow of this old archiepiscopal
cathedral.”
* * * * *
“_Hotel Noël Peter, Paris, June 6._--I am very glad to have accomplished
a long-wished-for visit to the historic sites of Clairvaux and the
Paraclete, though there is nothing whatever to see in either of them!
How I have worked since I have been here! My book is written, but I have
to go through every part of it on the spot. I breakfast at seven and
work till eleven, then luncheon and work again till four o’clock, when I
come in dead-tired, only to go out again to have food at a restaurant,
and to bed at eight.”
* * * * *
“_June 16._--Two desperately hard days at Versailles and two at the
Louvre, looking over and collating. Certainly no place of residence need
be cheaper than Paris. Life seems to cost nothing at all, a week here
being equivalent to a day in London, or even at Rome. It is an oddly
lonely life, as, except for ten minutes, I have seen no one to speak to
since May 11: however, there would certainly have been no time for it.”
* * * * *
In July I was in London, and then at Buckhurst, in glorious summer
weather, to meet Lord and Lady Lathom.
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_August 13, 1886._--Two days ago Lady Ossington took me to Lady Evelyn
Campbell’s wedding with James Baillie Hamilton in Henry VII.’s Chapel.
They have married on his vocation, which played all the time of the
ceremony, and on which their future depends for the bread and butter of
life, at present supplied to them by America for looking after it. They
have also a camp, in which they propose to train boys for hardships in
the colonies, and the sweet little bride began her own hardships by
having to walk two miles to this, through the wet grass and fern of a
desolate moor, carrying in a basket the cold chicken and bread which her
sisters had put up for her supper.
“I have been reminded how James Baillie Hamilton was at Harrow at
Hayward’s house, which in my time used to be Harris’s, and to have then
the reputation of being haunted. He told Catherine Vaughan that one
night whilst he was there, Albert Grey, also a senior boy in the house,
rushed into his room wild with horror, and said that when he was in bed
he had seen by the moonlight a most terrible figure come in, a kind of
nondescript, and that as it approached a chill as of death came over
him. Eventually it had seemed to go into a corner of the room and
disappear there. Something was arranged for Albert Grey for that night,
and the friends never told at Harrow what had occurred. Years
afterwards, at his camp, Baillie Hamilton met a boy called Anderson, who
had been in Hayward’s house. He told how he and another boy slept in the
same room. One night he heard his companion in an agonised tone say,
‘Oh, _do_ light the candle: there is something most dreadful in the
room.’ He lighted it, and found his friend sitting on the edge of his
bed, trembling from head to foot. He said that the door had opened, and
a horrible nondescript figure had come in, when the most terrible
chill, as of death, had come over him. After a time, all seeming as
usual, the boys put out the light. They had hardly done so, when
Anderson himself saw the figure--the appalling figure, come towards him,
and the same deathly icy chill seized him. They lighted the candle
again, when the apparition vanished.
“One of the curates at Llandaff was going to the place where Miss
Hayward, sister of the Harrow Master, lived, and Catherine asked him to
inquire if she remembered the circumstance. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘that is
exactly what happened; and that room is never used now.’
“On the evening of the wedding-day I went to Chichester, where the
Bishop’s palace, venerable and grey, but buried in myrtles and
coronillas, and radiant with brilliant flowers, lies close under the
shadow of the beautiful cathedral spire. The Bishop (Durnford), at
eighty-seven, is the very type of a christian scholar, perfectly
charming in conversation, equally at home in classical and in French,
English, and Italian reminiscence and quotation, and touchingly filled
with a generous and kindly spirit to all he meets with. Circling around
him were various relations, a brother-in-law--a pleasant old clergyman
Mr. Keate, nieces, two sons, Dick and Walter, the latter the pleasantest
and frankest of young Eton masters, and the daughter, Miss Durnford, who
is mistress of the house, and whose active energy makes all right
wherever she goes, and very cheerily right too. The profuse family use
of adjectives and verbs, which they unearth for themselves, was very
entertaining. ‘We seem to be going to have a regular Belshazzar,’ said
Walter Durnford when something more than usual appeared for luncheon.
“There is much to interest in the palace, which has a charming early
English chapel and a grand old kitchen. The cathedral retains the human
interest of its old pavement and a few tombs, sadly mutilated or
tinkered up: one of a Lady Arundel is very fine. There are curious
paintings of Cadwallador and of Henry VIII. giving charters on one of
the walls, by a painter of Henry VIII.’s time, who also decorated the
ceiling of the very fine old dining-room in the palace. Round the town,
much of the old wall remains, making a pleasant walk; but the most
curious building is St. Mary’s Hospital, like a church, with a great
single nave divided at the sides by chapels, which form the little
two-roomed houses of ten old women, presented by the Bishop and custos,
who live there rent-free in great comfort, with firing, and twelve
shillings a week for their maintenance. At the end is the chapel, only
separated from the rest by an old oak screen.
“With the Bishop and his party I went to Midhurst, a most attractive old
town in lovely country, and we walked through an ancient wood above the
Rother to the grand ruins of Cowdray, full of recollections of the
Poyntz family, who, as its possessors, came in bitterly for the curse of
sacrilege. When Mr. Poyntz went out in a boat at Bognor with his two
sons, and the boat upset whilst Mrs. Poyntz was watching it from the
hotel-window, the boys clung to the tail of their father’s coat as he
held the side of the boat in the waves, and he--who could not swim--had
the agony of feeling one after the other leave go and sink, without
being able to help them. He himself was eventually saved by the boatmen.
In the church of Easebourne, which stands in the park, near the fine old
building called the Priory, is a touching tomb by Chantrey, erected to
this Mr. and Mrs. Poyntz by their three daughters--Ladies Clinton,
Exeter, and Spencer. As they were co-heiresses, Cowdray was obliged to
be sold, and was bought by the Egmonts.”
* * * * *
“_Highcliffe, August 25._--I arrived here for my usual happy summer week
with Tina, Lady Waterford, who has been a curious contrast to the lady
of the place, but in herself very pleasant. She described how Cromwell,
determined to take ‘the golden vale of Tipperary,’ said he would take it
‘by Hook or by Crook’--the two villages on either side the river--and
thence the proverb.
“There has been a bee-show on the lawn here, Mr. Bellairs and young Evan
Maberly going amongst the bees, taking them up, and treating them just
as they pleased; but it looked horrible when their hats were covered
with a crawling mass, and bees were hanging to nose and ears.
“Lady Jane Ellice says that at Harewood there is one of the most
splendid collections of china--quantities of it. Formerly it all used to
be kept in the gallery in which the family live, on bureaux, tables, &c.
One evening it was all left in its usual place, and the next morning the
whole collection--everything--quite unbroken, was found on the ground.
There was never the least explanation. The china has ever since been
kept in cases.”
* * * * *
“_Lychett Heath, Poole, August 30._--My visit at Highcliffe was a very
happy one. ‘We have not had a single quarrel, scarcely even a dispute,’
said Lady Waterford when I came away.
“This is the beautiful house of the Eustace Cecils. The modern house is
exquisitely placed amongst sandy, heathery hills, with a lovely view,
across a rich wooded foreground, of the various reaches and windings of
Poole harbour. I have had much pleasant talk with Lord Eustace, and like
him immensely. We had a delightful excursion to-day, taking the train to
Wool, and then driving in a car to Lulworth Cove, and walking up the
fine wild hills, with noble sea-views, behind it. Then we went on to
Lulworth Castle, stern and stately, quadrangular with round towers at
the corners, standing on a terraced base, with beautiful park and woods
around. We saw the pictures, a few good family portraits of the Welds,
and Charles X.’s room which he inhabited when in exile.
“Thomas Weld of Lulworth, who took orders after the death of his wife,
became a bishop, and finally (1830) a cardinal. As a layman he had been
perfectly devoted to hunting, and, on establishing himself at Rome, the
first thing he did was to procure a very nice horse and hunt vigorously.
The Pope (Pius VIII.) sent for him and said, ‘Cardinals must not hunt.’
So, for his health’s sake, Cardinal Weld took to a vehement course of
walking; but the Pope sent for him again and said, ‘Cardinals must not
walk’--adding, ‘If it is necessary for your health that you should
walk, there is a place outside the walls where cardinals do walk up and
down; you can go there.’ But Cardinal Weld died of it.
“We had tea with the Bond family and the Misses Weld of Lulworth at
Binden Abbey, a Cistercian ruin, of which little remains beyond
foundations near some very curious fish-ponds.”
* * * * *
“_August 31._--I should find it difficult to say how perfectly congenial
I find Lord Eustace, or how much I could look upon him as a friend. In
many ways he is like Charlie (Halifax), but is no ceremony-lover. No, he
says he always admires Gallio--‘such an excellent straightforward
man,’--and even agrees with him on the special occasion on which we hear
of him.”
* * * * *
“_Hardwick Hall, Suffolk, Sept. 17._--I have been spending several happy
days with the Lowthers at Campsea Ashe, pleasant in every way, with much
agreeable conversation. One day, when it turned on the origin of words,
Mr. Lowther described how the expression of ‘never set the Thames on
fire’ originated in the reproach to an unenthusiastic cook, who would
never set her _tamise_ on fire.
“We went to Aldeburgh, sailing in a yacht down an estuary to a point
where the sea has eaten up what was once the site of a considerable
town, of which only the picturesque ‘Moot Hall’ remains, stranded on the
beach. It was a still, hot, glowing day, with a sea like that of the
Ancient Mariner.
“Yesterday we went to an old house, Parham Hall, which is a poem in
itself. In this flat country it stands in a wide moat, in a desolate
grassy hollow, surrounded by old trees, the richly sculptured oriels and
gables, grey, battered, and moss-grown, rising straight from the
waters.”
* * * * *
“_Holmhurst, Sept. 26._--From Campsea Ashe I went to visit Gery Cullum,
a friend I have long known, but never till lately been intimate with.
One of his nieces met me at the station at Bury St. Edmunds, and brought
me in a dogcart through that quaint town, past abbey gateways and the
church where Mary, sister of Henry VIII., is buried, to the fine old
house of Hardwick, which stands beyond a park well wooded with cedars
and indigenous box, and which, with its bright flowers and sculptured
terraces, well deserves the name of Allegro, as contrasted with
Penseroso, the old neighbouring house of Rushbrooke.
“There is a great charm about the interior--not fine, but very large and
most thoroughly comfortable--a small low hall with good portraits of
James I. and Elizabeth as a child, &c.; a dining-room with family
portraits; a library with curious MSS. The gardens are gorgeous in
colour, and there are delightful walks beyond, with pines of all
descriptions.
“The first day, knowing my love of being taken about, Gery arranged an
excursion to Hengrave, a very fine old house, with an exceedingly rich
front and stately garden, belonging to Lady Gage,[429] and close beside
it a church filled with curious tombs.
“On Sunday we went to service at Hawsteads, where the church has fine
old monuments of Drurys and Cullums, and we sat in a high James I. pew
to listen to a ranting Irish preacher, who lost himself completely in
the mazes of his own nonsense, and finally made us laugh by the emphasis
with which he announced, ‘As it is written, my brethren, in the Duke of
Bookeronomy,’ &c.
“On Monday we picnicked in the park of Penseroso, the old house of
Rushbrooke, standing in a wide moat, into which a former mistress of the
place, an unfaithful wife, was thrown by her husband, and upon which she
is said to float nightly. Her picture hangs above the magnificent
staircase, and the window whence she was thrown is pointed out at the
end of a suite of desolate unfurnished rooms. The house belonged to Lord
Jermyn, and, whatever his relation to Henrietta Maria may have been, two
magnificent cabinets of hers are here, which Lord Bristol, to his
despair, inadvertently sold, with the house, to its present possessors.
Here also the church has fine tombs.
“Apropos of the dispersion of family relics, Gery told me how young Mrs.
Le Strange of Hunstanton had inadvertently given away an old Persian
carpet, an absolute rag, to an old woman in the village, regarding it as
useless lumber. The next night she saw the most awful apparition, whom
she recognised from a portrait as her husband’s grandmother, old Mrs.
Styleman, looking most ferocious and diabolical. Soon an old neighbour
called and said, ‘How could you venture to give away the famous carpet:
you will have old Mrs. Styleman coming from the grave to remonstrate
about it;’ and then it was explained that Mrs. Styleman, who had been a
great heiress, and had possessed a number of beautiful things, had lived
to see almost all of them dispersed and sold, owing to the extravagance
of the family into which she married. At last only the carpet
remained--at that time a thing of some value, and in her old age she
said, ‘Now if ever you sell that, I swear before God that I will haunt
you till it is replaced.’ Mrs. Le Strange bought back the carpet and
laid it down in its former place, and old Mrs. Styleman has never
appeared since.
“From Hardwick I went to Mrs. Robert Drummond in the lovely little black
and white Upton Court of the fourteenth century, which she is renting
near Eton. Over the entrance is the little figure of a monk, and in the
wide porch rude old oak settees. It was a sanatorium of Merton Abbey,
and the quaint old fish-tanks of the monks remain.
“We went to Ockwells, the desolate and decaying old house of the
Norris’s, and finding the door off its hinges, entered, and went in and
out of the deserted rooms, in one of which a coat of mail was hanging
up.[430]
“And now I am at home again, furiously busy, alone, but never finding
the day half long enough for all I have to do. ‘Rien ne vous serait plus
laborieux qu’une grande oisiveté, si vous aviez le malheur d’y tomber.
Dégouté premièrement des affaires, puis des plaisirs, vous seriez enfin
dégouté de l’oisiveté elle-même.’ These are words of Louis XIV.,
admirable and worth thinking of.”
[Illustration: THE PORCH, HOLMHURST.]
* * * * *
“_Ickwellbury Oct. 14._--A visit to Mrs. Harvey. Parts of the house are
said to date from Henry II. The Ickwell is the oak-well, a pretty
bubbling spring in the garden.”
* * * * *
“_Nov. 18._--An agreeable party at Worth (Mrs. Montefiore’s), the most
luxurious of modern houses, where a bit of the Law in a little bottle is
screwed upon the door of every bedroom. Mr. Algernon Tumour, who is
here, stated, and considered he proved, that the average life of a
five-pound note is only a single day.”
* * * * *
“_London, Nov. 27._--Charlie Halifax says that a tenant of Carlo Milnes
Gaskell (of Thornes) was found dead--murdered evidently--in one of his
woods. A very bad character in the neighbourhood, who was known to hate
the dead man, and who had been seen near the wood at the time of his
death, was arrested and tried for the murder. All the evidence was
against him, but he got off because, instead of measuring the footprints
near the body and then the boots of the accused, the boots had been
taken to the spot and fitted into the footprints, which allowed of its
being said that they had been manufactured by pressing the boots into
the soft earth. The man was always afterwards suspected of the murder,
but he got work in a factory. If the subject was spoken of, he became
very violent, and prayed that the devil might take him if he was guilty.
One day, after he had been declaiming thus, he was caught by the mill
machinery and torn to pieces. The iron claw which had caught him and
pulled him in is that always known as ‘the Devil.’”
* * * * *
“_London, Dec. 6._--Luncheon with Miss Seymour to meet Madame du
Quaire,[431] who talked of the Praslin murder. She was with the old
Duchesse de Grammont soon after, and Madame Alfred de Grammont was
there. They began to discuss the division of money apportioned to
different members of a family according to the French system, and they
spoke of a member of the Praslin family whom they thought stingy. One of
them added up her different expenses, ending with--‘et puis les
dix-mille francs pour l’Angleterre.’ At this Madame Alfred, who is
_très-bête_, suddenly broke in with,’ Avez vous été au Bois de Boulogne
ce matin?’ ‘It was then,’ said Madame du Quaire, ‘that I first learnt
that the Duc de Praslin was alive, and that they knew it.” The next day
the Duc de Grammont came to call upon me, and I told him of the
conversation, adding--“I know now that the Duke is alive.” He neither
allowed it nor denied it. A few days after, however, the Duke came again
and said, “J’ai une petite faveur à vous demander.” It was that I would
never repeat to his mother what I had said to him: it might upset her.
Of course I promised, but then I _knew_ the Duke was alive.’
“‘The Duke did not wish to marry Mademoiselle de Luzy: that is an
invention. He only murdered the Duchess because she was such a bore. He
certainly did not wish to marry any one else.’
“Miss Seymour[432] said that the Queen of the Belgians, speaking of the
Praslin murder to Mrs. Augustus Craven, said, ‘How dreadful to find one
was being murdered by one’s husband: one could not even cry out.’
“Madame du Quaire was reminded of her friend Madame Solkoff, whose hair
was quite snow-white whilst she was still quite young. ‘She was a Miss
Childe, you know, a daughter of that Mrs. Childe who had a salon--_un
salon très répandu_--at Paris. She eloped with a Polish Count, to whom
her family objected most intensely, and she was disinherited. Very soon
after her marriage it became known that it had turned out very ill, and
that the young Countess was very unhappy. Eventually it became
impossible for her to remain with her husband, and she went to live at
Cracow with her mother-in-law, who had a very fine old palace there, and
was very kind to her. She had a large apartment of her own in her
mother-in-law’s house, her bedroom being approached through her
sitting-room. She was still only twenty-two, when she was found one
morning insensible on the floor of her sitting-room in her night-dress,
and with the floor all around her saturated with blood from a terrible
wound in her head. Her cabinets and jewel-cases were all broken open and
rifled. The _interrogatoire_ came, and she was examined. She said that
in the night she heard a noise in her sitting-room, and going to see
what it was, had found a man breaking open her drawers; that she had
received a blow, and knew no more. It was in vain that she was
questioned as to whom she had seen; she affirmed that she could not
possibly tell who it was. But her hair was turned snow-white from that
night. It was not till she knew he was dead that she allowed it was her
husband she had seen.’
“Speaking of reading novels when young, Madame du Quaire said that she
remembered at eleven years old reading ‘La Princesse de Babylone,’ and
being found convulsed with laughter at the description of a
dinner-party given by the Witch of Endor. She was described as having
the guardianship of Nebuchadnezzar, who was browsing near her, and that
at her party, ‘_par délicatesse pour lui_,’ she would allow nothing to
appear which--in his unfortunate position--could wound his feelings--no
beef, &c., &c.
“Madame du Quaire talked of the prevailing passion for Buddhism, and
said, ‘I am not even going to attempt to believe in it, for it is not
necessary to salvation: there is such a tremendous quantity that I am
obliged to swallow, that I cannot possibly undertake anything--“_che non
e d’obligo_” as the Italian priests say.’
“Madame du Quaire had met Lady Colin Campbell at dinner and sat opposite
to her, but she did not know her. She could not help being attracted by
the necklace she wore, it was so very extraordinary. After a time it
seemed to be moving by itself. She fancied at first that this must be a
delusion, but, putting up her glasses, she certainly saw the necklace
writhing round Lady Colin’s throat. Seeing her astonished look, Lady
Colin said, ‘Oh, I see you are looking at my snake: I always wear a live
snake round my throat in hot weather: it keeps one’s neck so cool;’ and
it really was a live snake.”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 8._--Sat by Sir George Dasent at breakfast. A Mr. Frere passed
through the room. ‘He comes from Roffham,’ said Sir G., ‘one of those
places of which the name has such a rough East Anglian sound, and he is
member of the family which possessed the Paston Letters without knowing
it. There were six volumes of letters. Two of them were sent up, by
request, for Queen Charlotte to look at, and they were lost. She was
very accurate herself, that old woman, especially about things that were
lent to her, and there is no doubt that she had given them to one of her
ladies to return: anyhow they were lost. Afterwards, however, duplicate
copies of many of the lost letters were found to be still in the
possession of the family, and their existence quite disproved an
assertion that the letters had been forgeries.
“‘They were wonderful people, those old Pastons. They used to thrash
their daughters like anything if they did not behave themselves, and
then, when they had flogged them well, they would say, “And now they
must have silk dresses, rich, red, and beautiful!”’
* * * * *
“_Dec. 9._--Dined with M. B., who told me of Lady Vane[433] being quite
worn-out by the ghastly noises at their place in Cumberland: it was as
if some one were always trying to climb up a disused chimney in the
wall, and then falling violently down again. But lately, when Sir Henry
Vane was away, she had the wall opened. Inside she found a wide and very
lofty closet, narrowing into a funnel as it reached the roof, where it
opened by a very small hole to the sky. In it were human bones, a broken
water-bottle, and the cover of an old Bible, which bore a date. Lady
Vane had the bones gathered up and put into a box, which was left in a
corner of Sir Henry Vane’s room till his return.
“When Sir Henry Vane came home, he was exhausted by a long journey and
went at once to rest. Lady Vane did not intend to tell him of her
discovery till the next day. But suddenly, late in the afternoon, she
heard a tremendous noise in her husband’s room. She rushed in, and found
Sir Henry in a state of the greatest agitation. He said, ‘I have seen
the most frightful apparition--a woman in that corner,’ pointing to
where the box of bones had been deposited.
“From old family archives they found that, some years before, exactly at
the date upon the Bible cover, a woman had been walled up in the house.
She had made desperate efforts to escape up the funnel of the disused
chimney, and had always fallen down again. Sir Henry and Lady Vane
themselves buried the bones in the churchyard, and the house has been at
peace ever since.”
* * * * *
“_Thorncombe, Dec. 13._--Miss Montgomery is here, a lady of the most
impassive countenance, though she is the authoress of ‘Misunderstood.’”
* * * * *
“_Warwick Castle, Jan. 30, 1887._--A delightful visit to this beautiful
place. I came off suddenly on a telegram from Lady Warwick,[434] and
found several pleasant people, besides the family. More than ever have I
been charmed by Lady Warwick, who has the rarest of all
attractions--absolute simplicity, and ‘rien n’est difficile comme le
simple,’ as Madame de Maintenon used to say. Then most glorious in
position is the castle, with the river close underneath, so that the
family feed the swans daily from the aërial balcony outside the
breakfast-room window. Pilgrim-visitors constantly pour through the
rooms with the pictures, of which the finest are a grand Morone, and a
Raffaelle finished by Ghirlandajo. The visitors are conducted through
the rooms by the housekeeper, who is a great character in her way. When
the Prince of Wales was here, she showed him a relic which ‘belonged to
King James III.’--‘Ah! the old Pretender,’ said the Prince. ‘_We_ do not
think so, your Royal Highness,’ she replied very stiffly. The pictures
at Warwick are a real enjoyment, not only important and valuable, which
is generally thought enough, but each individually lovely and
suggestive. And the happy family life is perfection--such a sharing of
interests, the hunting sons not entirely engrossed by it, and no single
member of the family talking scandal or looking for motes in their
neighbours’ eyes. The old town is charming, with the Leicester hospital,
and the great church, chiefly renaissance, but with a fine gothic choir.
One evening there was a dance, and after it Mrs. Bob Lyttelton (Miss
Santley), who lives in the town, sang most gloriously.
“We have driven to see the exceedingly curious old house of Badeley
Clinton, of which my distant cousin, Mr. Dering, has married the widowed
owner. It is a most singular and poetical place, and there are many
curious stories about it. Handsome, refined, and naturally, not
affectedly, poetical and picturesque, Edward Dering is wonderfully
suited to the place, and its very solitariness facilitates his leading a
life there of almost mediaeval saintliness.”[435]
* * * * *
On the 26th of February 1887 I left England again for my French work,
and spent a month in Paris at a primitive and economical inn in the Rue
d’Amboise. Living here, I spent my days entirely amongst the historic
quarters, seeing nothing of the Boulevards or Rue de Rivoli, but making
great progress with a work--my “Paris”--which had no interruptions, and
in which I became increasingly interested as I knew more of my subject.
On the fine days of early March many excursions were very pleasant,
involving long walks to the Abbaye du Val, Nogent les Vierges, &c.
Unfortunately the weather changed before I set out on a tour through the
Bourbonnais; and in Provence, where many long excursions were necessary,
the mistral was quite terrific. Mounting into the wild fastnesses of the
Maritime Alps above S. Maximin, to visit the cave in which the Magdalen
is believed to have died, I caught a terrible chill, from which I was
afterwards very ill at Manosque. But the kindly though rough proprietors
of the inn--M. and Mme. Pascal--persuaded me to try the remedy of taking
no nourishment whatever except hot tea, and letting nature lie
absolutely at rest for forty-eight hours, and, as often since, I found
this quite answer, though during that time I drove in an open carriage
for eight hours to visit the Roman remains at Riez.
[Illustration: RIEZ.][436]
[Illustration: GRIGNAN.][437]
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Avignon, April 3, 1887._--It has been a suffering week, owing to the
biting, rending, lacerating mistral, which has seemed perpetually to
tear one’s vitals inside out, and to frizzle them afterwards. Thursday I
went by rail to Montelimar, and then in a carriage with a horse which
either galloped furiously or would not go at all, over the sixteen miles
of mountain-road to Grignan, where Madame de Sévigné lived so much with
her daughter, and where she died. It is a really grand and striking
place--the immense château rising on a solitary rock, backed by a lovely
mountain distance, and the town at its foot surrounded by cork forests.
All was ruined at the Revolution, but the shell of the rich
palace-castle remains--‘un château vraiment royal,’ as Madame de
Sévigné calls it. In a solitary spot near is the cave, with old
ilex-trees, where she used to sit, and, even with blinding dust and
wind, the colouring was most beautiful.
[Illustration: CLOISTER OF CAVAILLON.][438]
“On Saturday, I had to spend five hours at Cavaillon, and wondered how
to dispose of myself. But, on reaching the cathedral, the whole
population was pouring in to take part in the funeral of a famous doctor
who had been a great benefactor of the place. Every one there was
presented by the family with a huge wax-candle, as long as a
walking-stick, and asked to ‘assist.’ I had one, and walked and stood
with my burning candle for two hours! It was a striking sight, thousands
taking part, and the old bishop pronouncing the elegy of the deceased,
whom he described as quite a saint. But oh! how it poured, and blew, and
swelched, and how deep was the white mortar-mud of Provence!”
* * * * *
“_Arles, April 13._--The visit to this place--perhaps more than any
other connected with happy days of our long-ago travels, and which I
have always avoided hitherto since I have been alone--has unexpectedly
proved a great pleasure. And I am glad, now I have seen so much, that I
still think Arles by far the most interesting place in the south of
France, and the excursion to Montmajour and Les Baux, which I made again
on Saturday, quite incomparable--the former, as far as I have seen the
world, one of its most beautiful ruins, the latter so glorious as to
scenery. Yesterday there was what the French call a bull-fight in the
amphitheatre, but there is nothing terrible: no horses, only men
enticing bulls with handkerchiefs, and when they run at them, vaulting
like chamois over the barriers; while the arcades of Roman masonry are
filled with vast multitudes, chiefly ‘belles Arlesiennes’ in their
picturesque costume--a very fine sight.”
[Illustration: MONTMAJOUR.][439]
[Illustration: LES BAUX.][440]
* * * * *
“_Aix in Provence, April 15._--All Provence, as you perhaps know, is
full of the same very early Church legend, that a number of the earliest
Christians, escaping from Jerusalem after the Ascension, landed here on
the coast and became the earliest missionaries of Gaul. Of these, Mary
Salome and Mary Cleopas are supposed to have stayed at Les Saintes
Maries in the Camargue, Lazarus to have gone to preach at Marseilles,
Restitutus at S. Restitut, Maximin at S. Maximin; but Mary Magdalen went
farther, spent years of penitence, and died in a cave at the top of the
mountains, which is certainly one of the most curious places of
pilgrimage in Europe. So it was to La Sainte Baume that I went
yesterday, starting at 6 A.M. by rail to S. Maximin, and there engaging
a carriage to Nant, where the road comes to an end. Thence it is an
ascent of an hour and a half through the steep lonely rocky forest,
covered with blue hepaticas, over stones, rocks, and quagmires. Near the
top it began to hail and rain furiously, and the cold was most intense,
snow still lying in great masses; but the cave is very curious, and the
view magnificent over the lower mountains, beyond the masses of Alpine
forest. How it poured! I sheltered at the worst times under some rocks,
and got safely down to the sunlit valley about five, then had to wait
at S. Maximin till nine o’clock for a train, and did not get back here
till nearly one.”
[Illustration: LES S. MARIES DE LA CAMARGUE.][441]
[Illustration: LA SALETTE.][442]
* * * * *
“_Grenoble, April 22._--On Wednesday evening, after returning from
Briançon to Gap, I engaged a carriage thence to Corps, at the foot of
the mountain of La Salette. It was supposed to be three hours’ drive,
but took five and a half hours, and we did not arrive till nine o’clock,
having spent the last two hours in pitch darkness, with a single
lanthorn, driving along the edge of the most terrific precipices, with a
driver who had never been there before! Still we arrived at last at the
very miserable inn. On Thursday morning I set off early on foot to La
Salette, three hours of weary steep ascent of the mountains, rather fine
in their snowy solitudes, but affording just a slight panic to a
solitary traveller owing to the bears which still prowl about there. In
the latter part of the way the snow was above my waist, but a little
gulley (turned into a watercourse from the meltings) was cut through it.
When at length I reached the convent, I was received with great
astonishment, as no one had visited those solitudes since April 6. All
around, and up to the first floor of the building, was deep massy snow,
not a rock to be seen. I was comfortably fed, however, and saw the
strange place to which 15,000 pilgrims come annually. You know the
story, how two children declared that the Virgin had appeared to them,
and told them that the bad language of the neighbouring villages was so
shocking that she could no longer restrain the avenging hand of her Son
unless a church was built. You will remember how Madame de Trafford
never varied in her account, that she was herself botanising in those
mountains in one of her eccentric expeditions, and came suddenly out of
a fog upon two children, to whom she spoke of the shocking language she
had heard, saying it was sure to be punished, and why was there no
church? &c.: then the fog became very thick again, and when it cleared,
the children were gone.”
* * * * *
“_Cambrai, April 30._--How I thought of you to-day when I was by the
tomb of Fénelon, which has a striking statue. But how ugly, how
treeless, how black with coal-dust is all this north-east of France. I
always imagined the Ardennes were pretty, but the beauty is only in the
Belgian part. Nothing can be more frightful than Sedan, Charleville,
Mezières, Valenciennes, and this place is also hideous; though perhaps
all has looked worse than usual under a black sky and incessant rain.
“On Thursday I saw Domremy, which is well worth a visit, and can be
little altered from the time of Jeanne Darc. Seen across the flat
meadows, backed by a low range of hills like Hawkestone, and with a
winding stream (the infant Meuse) like the Terne, it is really a little
like Stoke. The mere hamlet ends in the little church, hung all over
inside, and very prettily, with wreaths and banners, sent from all
quarters in honour of Jeanne; and close by is her quaint old cottage,
carefully preserved, with some of its old beams, an ancient armoire,
&c., and its original garden. It is now in the hands of Sisters of
Charity, who manage an orphanage joining her garden and established to
her memory.
[Illustration: DOMREMY, VILLAGE STREET.][443]
“It is really a great reward for many _misères de voyage_ that I have
now seen almost everything in Eastern France, and may soon think of
publishing that part of my work.”
[Illustration: HOUSE OF JEANNE DARC.][444]
[Illustration: EMBRUN.][445]
During the latter part of this French tour I had an unpleasant
adventure, which excited more attention than I ever anticipated at the
time. On April 19 I had gone from Gap to visit Embrun, a curious little
town in the Alpes Dauphinoises. I had not long left the station before I
was aware that I was watched and followed wherever I went. However, at
last I contrived to dodge my pursuer, and made, from behind a wall, the
sketch of the cathedral which I wanted, and then had dinner at the
hotel. When I was returning to the station, separated by a desolate
plain from the town, I saw, by the faint waning light, the same figure
following wherever I went. It was dark when the train by which I was to
leave was to start. I had taken my place, and the train was already in
motion, when it was stopped, and an official accompanied by a gendarme
entered the carriage and demanded what I had been doing at Embrun.
“Visiting the cathedral.” “Why should I visit the cathedral?” and so on,
through a long series of questions of the same kind. My passport was
demanded, and, though not usually considered necessary for English
travellers, I happened to have one. It was, however, refused as an
identification, not being dated in the present year. Fortunately, I
recollected having in my pocket-book an order from the Préfet de la
Seine authorising me to draw in all the palaces in Paris and elsewhere
in France, and this was considered sufficient. The train was allowed to
move on just as a crowd was collecting.
[Illustration: CHÂTEAU DE VIZILLE.][446]
At Briançon (where I spent the following day), I carefully abstained
from drawing, as it was a fortified town. But on April 23 I left the
station at Vizille to visit the old château of the famous Lesdiguières,
two miles distant. I had seen the château, and began to occupy the
quarter of an hour which remained before the omnibus started for the
station by sketching it from the village street, when I was pounced upon
by a gendarme. “Who has authorised you to sketch the château of
Vizille?”--“No one.”--“If you can draw this, you may also have drawn
other places. You will go with me to the gendarmerie;” and I was marched
through the long street of Vizille, followed by a crowd, and with the
hand of the gendarme occasionally grasping me by the shoulder. At the
gendarmerie a superior officer appeared, and, with the most extreme
insolence of manner, demanded what I had been doing in France, &c. “What
had I drawn?”--“Churches and mountains.”--“Ah! mountains! then it has
been very easy for you to make a little mark in the drawing, known only
to yourself, meaning here is a fortress, and there a fortress.”--“But I
am an Englishman.”--“Oh, you are, are you? Then I am all the more glad
that we have taken you, for we shall probably soon be at war with
England, and then you will make your sketches useful to your Government;
so you will consider yourself under arrest.” The letter of the Préfet de
la Seine was treated as worthless because it had no seal. The passport
was rejected altogether with contempt. After this, all further
protestations and remonstrances were answered by an insolent shout
of--“Taisez vous donc, vous êtes en état d’arrestation.”
Then the first gendarme was sent with me to the station, where my
portmanteaux were opened and ransacked, the contents being tossed out
upon the platform. Two suspicious articles were found. First, a slight
sketch of the gorge at Sisteron (not the fort; the fort is on the other
side of the rock), and, far worse, three volumes of the _Guide Joanne_
for France. “What did I want with guidebooks?”--“To study the
country.”--“Ah! that is just what I thought;” and all the officials of
the station were called in to witness the discovery. The gendarme then
declared that I must return with him and be locked up at Vizille, but a
train coming up at that moment, I made a dash into it, and probably
thinking a public scrimmage impolitic, the gendarme allowed the
station-master to fasten my boxes and bring me a ticket. The gendarme
then took his place opposite to me in a first-class carriage.
[Illustration: QUAYS OF GRENOBLE.][447]
At 5 P.M. the train arrived at Grenoble. At the station the gendarme of
Vizille summoned a gendarme of the town, and I was conducted as a
prisoner by the two to the Hotel Monnet. The gendarme of Vizille then
left me in care of the other, shut up in a room of the hotel, where the
gendarme of Grenoble sat silent opposite to me till 6.30. I thought that
then the other gendarme would come back from the Préfecture with an
order that I was to be freed from further annoyance. Not a bit of it! He
came back with an order that all my possessions were to be carefully
ransacked, and all the contents of my boxes were turned out upon the
floor. All suspected articles--all my sketches, manuscripts, letters,
and all the volumes of the _Guide Joanne_ were then put into my smallest
portmanteau, which one of the gendarmes carried, and I was marched
between the two to the old palace of the Dauphins, where the courts are.
Here two clerks (or secretaries of the Préfecture) subjected me to a
long examination--who I was, what was my employment, where I had been,
&c. The English letters found in my blotting-book (ordinary family
letters) were translated into French by a clerk who understood English.
All my drawings (chiefly of church architecture) were examined in
detail, and their objects inquired into. The terrible _Guides Joanne_
were passed in review and, after an hour, I was told I was free, but
without a single word of apology or regret. Indeed, I should not have
got away then if at last one of the clerks had not said in his insolent
manner, “Est que vous êtes donc un tel, qu’il n’y a une seule personne
dans toute cette partie de la France qui peut répondre de vous?” And
goaded to desperation I answered, “Well, yes, there is one person, it is
a lady; she is only a few miles from here now (at Aix les Bains): it is
the Queen of England.” On parting, the gendarme of Vizille was told in
my presence that he had only done his duty in arresting me for having
ventured to draw the Château of Lesdiguières; and he left, carrying off
in his pocket (by accident no doubt) a sealed packet which he had taken
from my dressing-case, saying, “Nous allons ouvrir ça devant ces
messieurs, ça doit être des instruments pour tirer des plans.” I called
the next day upon my examiners to ask them to obtain restitution of the
packet, but they declined to take any trouble. One of their comrades,
looking up from his writing, said insolently, “Puisque vous avez été
arrêté hier, est-ce qu’on ne vous a encore condamné?”
I wrote this story in the train, and posted it at one of the stations to
the editor of the _Times_, who inserted it in the paper, so that when I
reached home I found England ringing with it, and a question asked in
the House about it. I also complained to the Foreign Office, and Lord
Salisbury sent me afterwards the French answer to the inquiries made.
They allowed the facts of the examination, but denied that I had ever
been arrested, though the leading feature through the whole had been
that whenever I attempted to speak I had been silenced by a shout of
“Taisez-vous donc; rappelez-vous donc que vous êtes en arrestation.” The
sealed packet was never restored.
I returned home on May 3, and at the beginning of June was at Scotney
Castle.
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Scotney, June 1, 1887._--We have been for the day at Glassenbury, the
old moated house of Mr. Atkin Roberts, in a wooded hollow of the hills,
surrounded by fine old trees, but of damp and dismal aspect. There is a
lime avenue there, haunted by a lady--once Miss Roberts--who is always
looking for her husband, for as she was riding away with him down the
avenue on their wedding-day, he was thrown from his horse and killed on
the spot. She never afterwards left the paternal home, where there are
pictures of her, unmarried and as a widow. Some hundred years ago the
last Roberts of Glassenbury had only daughters, and of these the last
married the then Duke of St. Albans. The Duke was a gambler and a
spendthrift, and sold all her fine things--her diamonds, her plate, her
china; but she was determined that he should not make away the place,
and that she would leave it to those who would take care of it; the
question was--to whom?
[Illustration: SCOTNEY CASTLE.][448]
“One day she had sent for a painter to come to Glassenbury to paint a
coat of arms on her carriage, and, when she showed him the arms, he
said, ‘Why, your Grace, those are the very arms I was employed to paint
at a place in Ireland, to which I went quite by accident, having been
shipwrecked on the coast close by.’ The Duchess inquired, and found that
the people in Ireland, for whom he had painted the arms, were very
distant relations, and she settled the property upon the Irish Colonel
Roberts, who left it to the present owner, his nephew, formerly Atkin.
“Sir Arthur Birch, who has some high appointment at the Bank of England,
has lately been at Scotney, full of a very singular circumstance. He had
two clerks, an elderly Mr. Sperati and a Mr. Lutwich, and they were very
intimate friends. One Whit-Monday evening, as he was sitting with his
wife by the fire in his house in Burlington Gardens, Mr. Lutwich, with a
very scared look, bade her mark the exact time, ‘for,’ said he, ‘I have
just seen Sperati; he has just appeared in this room, as distinctly as I
ever saw him in my life. He wore a very old coat of his, which I know
quite well, and had a very peculiar silver-knobbed stick in his hand; I
am certain he is dead, and I must go to his house and see.’
“But the wife urged him so much not to go then, and to wait till the
next morning, that he assented.
“As he was on his way in the morning to Sperati’s house, he met
Sperati’s brother, who said, ‘I was on my way to tell you sad news; my
brother died last night at nine o’clock, very suddenly, of
heart-disease.’ It was exactly the hour at which Mr. Lutwich had seen
him.
“Mr. Lutwich went on to the house, and saw the butler, whom he knew
well. He said, ‘I have an especial reason for asking about an old coat
which I remember well, and which your master use to have--has he worn
it lately?’--‘Well, it is strange you should ask about it, sir, because,
though he has not worn it for some time, he had it on last night.’--‘And
do you remember what stick he had in his hand?’--‘Yes, perfectly, sir,
it is in the hall now,’ and it was the very stick with which he had
appeared.
“Mrs. Papillon had been telling the Husseys of a very famous female
mesmerist living in Park Street. Late one night this person had a
visitor who urged her very much to consent to go at once to a mysterious
patient, to whom she could only travel blindfolded. She hesitated for
some time, but finally, being very much urged, she assented. A
well-appointed carriage was at the door, in which she was driven to the
railway. In the train she was blindfolded. Several hours were passed in
travelling by train. Then she was taken out to a carriage and driven for
some distance. On arriving at a house, she was led up a staircase and
into a large room. As her bandage was removed, she saw two ladies in
black just leaving the room. A gentleman was lying in bed, very
dangerously ill of typhoid fever. She mesmerised him and he fell asleep.
When he awoke, a great change for the better was perceptible. He said,
‘I feel better; I could drink a glass of beer.’ She said, ‘Give him the
beer.’ He drank it, and fell into a restful, natural sleep.
“Then the lady was blindfolded again and conveyed back in the same way
in which she came. When she reached her own house in Park Street, a
cheque for a very large amount was left in her hands. The next day she
read in the paper that the Prince of Wales--then most dangerously ill at
Sandringham--had rallied, and fallen into a deep natural sleep from the
moment of drinking a glass of beer.
“Mr. Hussey told me that an old Mr. and Mrs. Close of Nottingham were
very rich and great misers, and they both made wills leaving all they
possessed each to the other. However, as they died within a few hours of
each other, that made very little difference to anybody.
“When the heirs-at-law arrived at Nottingham--young people full of
spirits--they were greatly excited and brimming with curiosity. It was
known that there were splendid diamonds, and that vast wealth of every
kind existed, but at first nothing seemed to be forthcoming. Cupboards
and drawers were ransacked in vain. Nothing particular was found.
“At last, in a room at the top of the house a great trunk was
discovered. ‘Here,’ they said, ‘it all is; we shall find all the
treasures now.’ But when the trunk was opened, the upper part was found
to be full of nothing but scraps of human hair, as if for years the
off-scourings of all the old hair-brushes had been collected; then below
that was a layer of very dirty old curl-papers; and the bottom of the
box was full of still more dirty old corsets of ladies’ dresses,
and--the box was alive! When young Mrs. Close had dived into the box,
she exclaimed, ‘What disgusting old creatures our relations must have
been! This horrible mess might infest the whole house; we must have it
burnt at once.’ So she had some men up, and the trunk carried down into
the courtyard of the house, and a huge bonfire made there, and the
trunk upset into it.
“As it was burning, she stood by, and heedlessly, with her stick, pulled
one of the curl-papers towards her, and poked it open at her feet. It
was a £50 note! In an agony, she scrimmaged at the fire, and raked out
all she possibly could, but it was too late; most of the notes were
burnt; she only saved about £800.
“Naturally her husband was furious, and of course he was very unjust.
‘Any one but you would have examined the box carefully; there never was
such an idiot of a woman,’ &c. And every time he saw the burnt heap in
the courtyard, he burst forth afresh. So she sent for the dustman round
the corner, and had all the ashes carefully cleared away.
“Still nothing had been found of the diamonds. They had certainly
existed; there were always the diamonds to fall back upon. But though
they searched everywhere, nothing could be found of them. At last they
asked the only old lady with whom Mrs. Close had visited if she knew of
any one who could help them. ‘Yes, certainly,’ she said; ‘there’s old
Betty Thompson at the almshouses, she was always in and out of the house
as charwoman; she knew more of Mrs. Close and her ways than any one
else.’ So away they went to the almshouses, and asked Betty Thompson.
‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘she knew very well that there were diamonds, very
fine diamonds indeed, but small good _they_ ever did to old Mrs. Close,
for she always kept them sewn up and hidden away in her old stays.’
“The stays had all perished in the fire; the diamonds would not have
burnt, but then the very ashes had been thrown away; there was no trace
left of them. The bank-notes were all very old--the few that were
saved--but they were quite good; but there was very little else left of
the great inheritance.”
* * * * *
_To_ LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD.
“_Jermyn Street, June 16, 1887._--London is in gala costume, the streets
flooded with flowers, and the West End thoroughfares lined by stands,
with seats covered with red and gay awnings. I am perpetually thinking
of what Arthur Stanley’s ecstasy would have been on looking forward to
having so many kings and queens, besides no end of other royalty, in the
Abbey at once. On Saturday I was at Osterley, where the gardens were
quite lovely and delicious in the heat, and yesterday there was a
pleasant party at Lord Beauchamp’s, with little comedies to amuse
Princess Mary, who was exceedingly gracious and kind to me.
“Alas! we are expecting the news of Theodore Walrond’s death--a man
apparently as healthy in body as in mind till his last illness set in,
and quite universally beloved.”
* * * * *
“_June 17._--Yesterday I had luncheon with Miss Geary at her very pretty
house in Grosvenor Street, and met Lady Elgin and a charming, fresh,
sensible Miss Boscawen. I dined at Lady Manners’, where I made rather
friends with Lord Apsley: afterwards there was a large brilliant party
at Mrs. Portman’s.
“To-day my two young American friends, Sands and Martin, gave a most
pleasant luncheon. I sat by Lady Middleton, who talked charmingly and
gratefully of the happiness of married life--the pleasure to a woman of
entire self-renunciation: then of her own life, which she would not
exchange for any in the world, though she has had to give up all her own
inclinations, and to throw herself absolutely and entirely into the
interests of hunting. She said she never allowed an ill word on the
field, and if she heard one, rode even for miles till she caught up the
culprit to say so.”
* * * * *
“_June 19._--Lady Dorothy Nevill has been most funny about a burglary at
Lady Orford’s. While the family were away, a man came to the door, who
said he was sent to measure the dining-room chimney-piece, and asked the
old woman who was taking care of the place to go up to the top of the
house to get him a piece of tape for the purpose. When she came down,
the man was gone, and so were two of the best pictures. ‘I could swear
to the pictures anywhere,’ said the old woman afterwards, ‘for they were
of members of the Orford family.’ ‘They _were_ the Virgin Mary and St.
Sebastian,’ added Lady Dorothy, ‘and I leave you to imagine how far
_they_ were ever likely to have been members of the Orford family!’
“At breakfast I sat by Sir George Dasent. I spoke of his wonderful
memory. He said, ‘When I was a boy, my father saw me writing--writing
with a pen was never a strong point with me--but still I was busy at it,
and he asked me what I was doing. I said, “Writing down what I’ve
read.”--“Don’t write it down, my boy,” he said; “carry it all in your
head; it is much better,” and I have always done so.’
“He spoke of the folly of interfering in any street rows. ‘It had been a
wet day, and you know when the pavement is wet--why I cannot tell--you
can see much farther than at other times, and down the whole length of
Eaton Place I saw a man knock a woman down; she got up, and he knocked
her down again. He knocked her down several times running. At last I got
up to him and said, “You villain, to knock a woman down like that; how
can you dare to do it?”--“Now you just go along with you,” said the
woman; “he only gave me what I deserved.”--“Oh, if you like being
knocked down, it’s another matter,” I said.’
“‘One day in the street,’ he related, ‘I passed a party of Germans
abusing each other with most outrageous language, and I said, “Remember
there are police here as well as in Germany.” When I got near St Peter’s
Church, I was aware that one of the Germans was following me, and he
came up and said, “I am come to demand satisfaction.”--“Very well, you
shall have satisfaction,” I said, and I beckoned a policeman from the
other side of the street, who came across saying, “What can I do for
you, sir?” for all the police know me. So I said, “You will just take
this man up, and I will go with you and appear against him.” So we went
on our way, the policeman, the German, and I. When we had gone some way,
the policeman said, “It’s giving you a great deal of trouble, sir,
isn’t it, to go to the police-station; couldn’t we manage it here?’ So I
said, “Yes, perhaps we may as well try him here. If he kneels down in
the gutter in the mud and prays for forgiveness, we will let him off.”
So I said in German, “He (the policeman) says that if you kneel down in
the gutter and beg for forgiveness, he will let you off.”--“May not I
kneel on the pavement?” he said. “No, that will not do; you must kneel
in the mud, with your hands up so. “So down in the mud he went and said,
“I am very sorry for vat I have done,” and we let him go.’
“Chief-Justice Morris said he was sitting on the bench in Ireland, and
after a case had been tried, he said to the jurymen, ‘Now, to consider
this matter, you will retire to your accustomed place,’ and two-thirds
of them went into _the dock_.
“Another time he said to a culprit, ‘I can produce five witnesses who
saw you steal that cow.”--‘Yes,’ said the prisoner, ‘but I can produce
five hundred who did not.’
“Sir George Dasent said he should not go to the Abbey on the Jubilee
Day. His legs were so infirm now, that a touch would upset him, and,
when once down, he could not get up again. He had once been knocked down
by a newspaper--‘retributive, you might say.’”[449]
* * * * *
“_June 20._--The streets are all hung with scarlet and blue draperies,
and Waterloo Place is embowered in a succession of triumphal arches. The
crowds are tremendous. The foot-passengers have already expelled the
carriages from the principal thoroughfares, and two million more people
are expected to arrive to-day.
[Illustration: AT WESTMINSTER.][450]
“I dined last night with Charlie Halifax, meeting Lady Morton, the
Arundel Mildmays, and Sir Hickman Bacon--a pale frail youth, so
High-Church that he could not take part in any Jubilee gaieties
whilst ---- (one of their especial clergy) was imprisoned. Charlie was
very funny in his tantrums against the bishops. ‘I hate them all except
Lincoln, and--as cowards--I despise them.’ He said he would not go to
the service in the Abbey, because he considers it desecrated by having
seats erected over the altar!”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_June 21, 1887._--Nothing can have been more sublimely pathetic than
the whole ceremony (of the Jubilee)--more inexpressibly touching and
elevating. The Abbey, too, did not look spoilt: all the tiers of seats,
all the galleries disappeared utterly: nothing was visible between the
time-worn pillars and under the grey arches but the masses of people
they contained.
“I went at 8 A.M. It was not a moment too soon. Cabs charged two pounds
to the Abbey, but I walked very comfortably. The tickets had little maps
of the Abbey, with the entrance for the bearer marked on each. Mine was
by a door on the north-east behind St. Margaret’s, and there I waited,
with a small crowd, till nine struck, and some iron gates were opened by
the police, when we ran down an awned passage to where a staircase of
rough timber led up by the great Norris tomb to our places.
“Mine was simply perfect, a splendid place, from whence--
‘To see the lords of human kind go by,’
as Goldsmith says. I would not have changed it with any other in the
building. In the theatre it would have been the royal box--a little red
gallery to hold four, over the tomb of Aylmer de Valence; in front of
the gallery on the left of the sanctuary; close above the princesses of
Austria, Spain, and Portugal; opposite the kings; with a view of the
peers and peeresses in the right transept, and so near the Queen that
one could see every play of her expression. My companions were a doctor
of music in his red gown and two females of the middle class, who were
very good-natured in lending me their glasses.
“The time of waiting did not seem long: all was so full of interest.
“The Abbey blazed with colour--crimson uniforms, smart ladies, ushers
stiff with gold embroidery, yeomen of the guard in plumed helmets. Only,
for another coronation, I would clothe the supporting pillars of the
galleries with red cloth. The grey wooden supports looked cold, and
their angular outlines drew attention to them amongst the rounded forms
of the pillars, whereas the red seats and galleries disappeared
altogether, or only served as admirable setting and background to the
picture. The grand old tombs--Aylmer de Valence, Edmond Crouchback, Anne
of Cleves--stood detached from the red, and in front of the altar the
mosaic pavement of Henry III. was left exposed--not covered, like the
rest of the floor, by red carpeting. Near the altar were two benches on
each side--‘tabourets’--for queens and princesses in front, kings and
princes behind. Farther back stood, on a daïs, the coronation chair,
facing the altar, covered and hidden by red, and with the royal robe of
state hanging over it and trailing down from the daïs on the side
towards us: before it was a fald-stool and kneeling cushion.
“Every moment the vast edifice became more filled with colour, but the
peers and peeresses arrived very gradually. Lady Exeter, beautiful
still, sat long alone in the marchionesses’ seats, Lord and Lady Cross
in the ministerial benches, and two or three duchesses in that appointed
for them. Then the Argylls came in, he gorgeous in the uniform
of--MacCallum More. Behind I recognised the Spencers, Powerscourts,
Stanhopes, Charlie Halifax, and Lord Londonderry with the white ribbon
of the Order of St. Patrick. The Lord Chancellor, preceded by mace and
bag, now came in and took his place in the centre of the front row, with
Lord and Lady Salisbury and the Duchess of Marlborough on his right
hand. A figure which attracted more attention than any other was that of
Maria, Lady Aylesbury, except her three Cambridge cousins and her two
pages, the sole survivor of all those represented in the great picture
of the Queen’s coronation.
“At 11.15 a burst of music announced the first procession, and Princess
Frederica and the Tecks were conducted to the stalls, with two of the
Edinburgh children, and three gorgeous Eastern princes[451] to the
places immediately below us. Then the Queen of Hawaii, in a black dress
covered with green embroidery, and with the famous yellow feathers only
allowed to Sandwich Island royalty, was seated just opposite to us, with
her princess-sister[452] (the heiress of the throne) in black velvet
covered with orders, and with a great white ostrich fan:--not together,
however, as every one was to sit according to rank, and an intermediate
place after queens had to be reserved for the Duchess of
Mecklenbourg-Strelitz.
“A long tension of waiting followed, but at twelve a rising of the
white-robed choristers in their south-western gallery announced the
second procession, and a flood of royalty poured in beneath us. Opposite
sat the kings of Greece, Denmark (his father), the very handsome king of
the Belgians, whose beard is beginning to turn grey, the king of Saxony,
the Crown Princes of Austria, Portugal, Würtemburg, and Sweden, the Duc
d’Aosta, and Prince George of Greece--a charming boy in a naval uniform.
Beneath us were the Crown Princess of Portugal, Doña Eulalia of Spain,
the hereditary Duchess of Mecklenbourg, and Princess Philip of
Saxe-Coburg. One of these royal ladies--Doña Eulalia, I think--had a
white lace mantilla instead of a bonnet, with very pretty effect. But
really one of the finest features of the whole was the coming in of the
Queen of the Belgians--so simple, royal, imperial--saluting everybody in
comprehensive though slight inclination, infinitely graceful and regal
in every attitude.
“At last a blaze of trumpets announced the Queen’s procession. It was
headed by canons, the Bishop of London, the two Archbishops in most
gorgeous copes, and the Dean of Westminster in a heavy old embroidered
cope to his feet, which made him look like a figure risen from one of
the old altar-tombs. Then--alone--serene--pale (not red)--beautifully
dressed in something between a cap and bonnet of white lace and
diamonds, but _most_ becoming to her--perfectly self-possessed, full of
the most gracious sweetness, lovely and lovable--the Queen! All the
princesses in the choir, with the Queen of the Belgians at their head,
curtseyed low as she took her place upon the throne, from which the long
robe of state trailed so that it looked part of her dress.
“When she was seated in lonely splendour, the princes poured in upon her
right, and the princesses on her left, and took their places on gilt
chairs on either side--a little behind. The bevy of granddaughters, in
white and pale blue, was very pretty--so many, all curtseying as they
passed the Queen, and she smiling most sweetly and engagingly upon them
with the most loving and motherly of looks.
“Then came the burst of the ‘Te Deum.’ The silver trumpets at St.
Peter’s seemed as nothing to the trumpet-shout which gave effect to the
exultant sentences, pealing triumphantly through the arches, and
contrasting with the single voices of solitary choristers thrilling
alone at intervals--voices far, far away, like the tenderest echo. The
Queen did not shed a tear, and held a book all the time, but once sat
down as if it was too much for her, and often looked round at the Crown
Princess--who stood nearest, very sweet and sympathetic--with a look of
‘_What_ this is to us!’ Princess Beatrice and the Grand Duchess Sergius
cried the whole time.
“A striking figure throughout the entire service was the Crown Prince of
Germany, especially when kneeling erect like a knight, in jackboots, but
with folded hands and a simplicity of unwavering devotion.
“Very solemnly, audibly everywhere, the Archbishop of Canterbury read
the prayers--the thanksgiving for all the mercies of the reign, the
petition for eternal life. There was another psalm, sung most
gloriously, then an anthem with a burst of trumpets in the ‘To be king
for the Lord thy God.’ Lastly, the benediction, in which the Queen bent
low, lower, lower, as the ‘Amen,’ sung over and over again, died away in
vanishing cadences.
“When it was quite silent, in a great hush, she rose up, and a beautiful
ray of sunshine shot through the stained windows and laid itself at her
feet, and then passed on and gilded the head of the Prince of Wales.
“She beckoned to him afterwards, and he came and kissed her hand, but
she kissed him twice most affectionately. Then came the Crown Prince and
the Grand Duke of Hesse, who kissed her hands, and then the Duke of
Connaught. When the Queen saw him, maternal feelings overcame those of
royalty, and she embraced him fervently, and then, evidently fearing
that the last two princes might be hurt, she called them back, and
kissed them too, and so all the princes, who came in order. She was
especially cordial to Prince Albert Victor, and heartily kissed Lord
Lorne, who had bent down, as if he did not expect it.
“Meantime the Crown Princess stood by the step of the throne on the
other side, and I think the most touching part of the whole was when she
bent low to kiss her mother’s hand and was folded in a close embrace,
and so all the daughters and the grand-daughters--such a galaxy of
graceful girls--bent to kiss the hand, and were kissed in turn.
“Then the Queen went away, bowing all down the choir, and the flood of
her youthful descendants ebbed after her.
“I felt I scarcely cared to see the procession afterwards, but it was
very fine. How a past age is repeating itself! One sees this in
comparing the newspaper accounts of the procession yesterday with the
contemporary tracts about the entry of Queen Elizabeth, telling how ‘in
all her passage she did show her most gracious love towards the people
in general,’ and how the citizens, when they saw her, ‘took such
comfort, that with tears they expressed the same.’ I am one of the 400
asked to meet the 100 royalties at the Foreign Office, but cannot manage
arranging levée dress properly in time.”
* * * * *
“_June 23, 1887._--This is a postscript to my last.
“Nothing could exceed the orderliness, good-nature, and merriment of the
immense crowd at the illuminations on the evening of the Jubilee day. I
took Letitia Hibbert and her friend Miss Robertson to see the best from
Hyde Park, and then along the Green Park, where movement was quite easy,
and the effect of the houses bathed in a halo of coloured light very
beautiful through the dark massy foliage.
“Yesterday I went at 3 P.M. to Hyde Park. A dense mass of people walled
in the vast enclosed space, but all in the utmost good-humour, though
many came forward with--‘Oh, do give me your ticket: oh, do now, just
for once.’ Inside the outer barrier was a second, within which people
walked, and whence they saw. I was indignant at first at not being
admitted farther, but when I saw the Archbishop of Canterbury refused,
was quite contented to share the fate of the first subject in the realm.
However, eventually we were both passed into the immense space where the
children were playing, not apparently the least over-done by the hot
sun, or tired from having been on the move since 10 A.M., and having
been provided, on arriving, with nothing but a bag containing a
meat-pie, a bun (they say the buns would have reached from London to
Brentford in a direct line), and an orange, with instructions to put the
bag in their pockets when done with! Each of the 30,000 children also
had a ‘Jubilee mug’ of Doulton ware. Every now and then volleys of tiny
coloured balloons were sent up, like flights of bright birds floating
away into the soft blue, and, as the royalties arrived, a great yellow
balloon, with several people in its car, bore a huge ‘Victoria’
skywards.
“I found my cousin Lady Normanton lost, and stayed with her and a very
pleasant ex-governess of Princess May, most indignant at her adored
pupil having received no Order out of the numbers distributed. Between
half-past four and five life-guards heralded a long procession of
carriages, with the Indian princes, the foreign queens and kings, and
our own royal family in force. A number of Eastern chieftains were
riding six abreast, and very like Bluebeard one or two of them looked.
Finally came the Queen, smiling, good and gracious beyond words, and
with a wonderful reception everywhere. ‘I have made Socialist speeches
for years,’ said one man, ‘and the last two days have shown me how
useless they have been, and always must be in this country.’
“As the Queen passed up the green drive by which we were standing, all
the 30,000 children sang ‘God save the Queen,’ and a thanksgiving hymn,
which I think must have been, not for their tea (for they never had
any), but for hers, which I hope she enjoyed out of the great fourgons
we saw arriving, and must much have needed. All the royal ladies’-maids
and other servants also passed by in carriages on their way to the
station, by the Queen’s wish, that they should share in the sight.
“Having escorted Lady Normanton to the safe solitudes of Wilton Place, I
rushed off to Windsor, arriving at nine. Certainly the grandeur of the
London illuminations paled before the intense picturesqueness of those
in the old royal city. I had no time to go to Eton, where the Queen had
entered--like Queen Elizabeth--under an arch on the battlements of which
Eton boys were lustily trumpeting. But the bridge, brilliant in electric
light, also ended in an arch, kept dark itself, beyond which every house
in the steep, sharply-winding street was seen adorned with its own
varied devices of coloured light, from basement to attics, whilst the
walls were hung with scarlet draperies, and brilliant banners of scarlet
and gold waved across the roadway.
“I stayed on the bridge to see the thousand Eton boys cross, marching in
detachments, with white and blue uniforms alternately, carrying their
(then unlighted) torches, and then went after them to the castle, where
I was one of the few admitted, and pushed on at once to the inner court
under the Queen’s apartments.
“Most unspeakably weird, picturesque, inspiring, beautiful, and
glorious was the sight, when, with a burst of drums and trumpets, the
wonderful procession emerged under the old gate of Edward III., headed
by a detachment of the Blues, then the boys, six abreast, carrying
lighted torches, till hundreds upon hundreds had filed in, singing
splendidly ‘God save the Queen.’ All the bigger boys formed into figures
of blazing light in the great court, weaving designs of light in their
march--‘Welcome,’ ‘Victoria,’ &c., in radiant blaze of moving living
illumination; whilst the little boys, each carrying a coloured Chinese
lantern on a wand, ascended in winding chains of light the staircases on
the steep hill of the Round Tower opposite the Queen’s window, till the
slope was covered with brilliancy and colour. The little boys sang very
sweetly in the still night their song of welcome, and then all the mass
of the boys below, raising their flaming torches high into the air,
shouted with their whole hearts and lungs, ‘Rule Britannia!’
“It was an unspeakably transporting scene, and I am sure that the
beloved figure in the white cap seated in the wide-open central window
felt it so, and was most deeply moved by the sight and sound of so much
loyal and youthful chivalry.
“Then, in a great hush, she almost astonished them by leaving her place
and suddenly reappearing in the open air in the courtyard amongst them,
and making them a queenly and tender little speech in her clear
beautiful voice--‘I do thank you so very very much,’ &c.
“You may imagine the hurrahs which followed, the frantic emotion and
applause whilst she called up and spoke to Lord Ampthill and one or two
other boys whose parents had been especial friends.
“And then, in figures of light from their torches, as she reappeared at
the window, the vast assembly formed the word ‘Good-night.’ Nothing
could possibly have been more picturesquely pretty.
“Immediately afterwards the whole of the great central tower was flooded
with red light, which seemed to turn it into blood, and I went with J.
Dundas to the North Terrace, whence we looked down upon the
fireworks--fire-fountains, comets, cascades of golden, sapphire, and
amethyst rain.
“It was 2 A.M. when I got back to London, but well worth the fatigue.”
* * * * *
LONDON JOURNAL.
“_June 23, 1887._--Sat at breakfast by Sir George Dasent. ‘Did you ever
know,’ he said, ‘the late old Bengal tiger at Asbburnham?[453] He asked
me down there, and when I went he said, “You are here, sir, under false
pretences. I have discovered that you are a member, sir, of that most
disreputable society called the ‘Historic MSS. Commission:’ they are a
society of ruffians, sir.”--“Surely, Lord Ashburnham, a great many
eminent persons are members of that society,--Lord Salisbury, for
instance, surely he is not a ruffian.”--“Yes, sir, he _is_ a ruffian
when he is acting for that society: and you, sir, you are a ruffian
too--you tamper with title-deeds, sir,” and it was quite in vain to
assure him that our society had no interest whatever in title-deeds of
the last hundred years.
“‘I told Lady Ashburnham what he said, and she answered, “You must not
mind: he is the most kind-hearted of men, but he has--his savage
moments!”
“‘Afterwards he was very kind to me, and showed me all his treasures,
especially his glorious Anglo-Saxon MSS.
“‘When I was at Hornby, I went up with the present Duchess of Leeds into
a tower into which a former Duchess had carried a quantity of books,
because, she said, “there were enough downstairs.” They had been taken
up at haphazard, and some of them were of extraordinary value: there
were wonderful editions of Aretino there, excessively improper, but
nobody could read them. The tower had been open to the bats and owls,
and when we took out the books, many of them were matted together in one
solid mass: they bore the name of Hewit Osborne, the apprentice who
jumped from London Bridge to save the life of his master’s daughter,
and, afterwards marrying her, founded the family; he was a great Italian
scholar.’”
* * * * *
“_July 1._--Sir G. Dasent says that the late Queen of Sweden said to him
that she could not imagine how it was that her eldest son had done all
he could to alienate the affections of his people, and was adored, and
the second all he could to conciliate them, and was detested. The eldest
(the late King) was a Hercules. ‘His Majesty will rise at 3 A.M.
to-morrow and will ride thirty miles (to Gripsholm), and wishes you to
accompany him,’ was a frequent announcement to guests and courtiers; and
when they reached Gripsholm, all was prepared for a great elk-hunt, and
when _that_ was finished, and they were gasping for rest, came the
announcement, ‘His Majesty will rise at 2 A.M. to-morrow, and will ride
forty miles,’ &c.
“Luncheon with Lady Stradbroke, who told me that as she was walking up
Grosvenor Crescent during the illuminations, a group of country people
were inspecting the devices. ‘Ah!’ she heard one of them explain, ‘V.
R.--that’s for _very respectable_.’”
* * * * *
“_July 3._--Yesterday was very hot--a hotter scirocco, said Roman Mr.
Story, than any he had felt in Italy. There was a great volunteer
review, which brought the usual picturesque procession of the Queen,
with her glittering life-guards, through the Park.
“On Friday I went with Florentia Hughes to a great garden-party of the
Baroness Coutts at Holly Lodge--a most lovely place, with steep hilly
gardens and splendid herbaceous flowers.”
* * * * *
“_July 6._--Yesterday I went with the Indian princes by special train to
Woburn. Everything was arranged _en grand seigneur_--nothing to be paid
anywhere--a train with saloon carriages, in which we floated into
Bedfordshire without stopping, and thirty-two carriages, beautifully
equipped, sent to meet us at the station. In one of these I drove
through the lanes lined with dog-roses with Lord Normanby and Miss
Grosvenor. ‘I am always mistaken for Princess Mary, so must keep up her
character,’ said the latter, and bowed incessantly, right and left, to
the village crowds, who were quite delighted with her. We had a long
wait before luncheon, Europe and Asia separated by a great gulf which no
one seemed able to bridge over. Lady Tavistock did her best, but the
party hung fire, and, though a magnificent banquet, with all the gold
plate displayed, took part of the time, there was not much to animate
us, and we lounged on the lawn, tried to be agreeable and were not, and
admired the beautiful Indians, with their gorgeous dresses and languid
eyes, till another chain of carriages took us back through the Ampthill
woods to another station.”
* * * * *
“_July 7._--Miss Holford was married this afternoon to Mr. Benson at St.
George’s before an immense crowd. There was a great breakfast
afterwards--though so late--at Dorchester House, where all London
flocked through the rooms to admire the presents, which were
indescribably splendid. The scene on the beautiful white marble
staircase was charming, especially when the bride went away, her father
and mother leading her down on either side, and all the tiny bridesmaids
and pages--nieces and nephews between six and seven--gambolling in
front, with huge baskets of dark red roses. Above, under the circular
arches, between the pillars of coloured marbles, and against a golden
wall background, the overhanging galleries were filled with all the most
beautiful women in London leaning over the balustrades.
“Dined at the Speaker’s--lovely lights sparkling along the shore, and
the splash of the river and distant hum only making one feel more the
silence of night. We sat out upon the haunted terrace afterwards--such
stars, and a moon rising behind the towers of Lambeth.”
* * * * *
_To_ LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD.
“_June 30._--On Saturday I went to Osterley, meeting beautiful Lady
Katherine Vane[454] with her brother and sister at the Victoria Station,
and going down with them. Troops of people emerged from the train close
to the gate in the park wall, and we all flocked together along the
gravel walks through the hot meadows to the house, where the shade was
very refreshing. Lady Jersey was receiving under the portico, and groups
of Indian princes with their interpreters were busy over strawberries
and cream in the corners of the great stone hall. I went, with several
people who had an equally tender remembrance of the kind old Duchess of
Cleveland, who lived there so long, to visit the little library where
she always sat in winter--quite deserted now, and all the books
sold--and then joined the many groups of people on the lawns and the
green glade which ends in a porticoed summer-house like a
Claude-Lorraine picture. Others went in a boat upon the lake. The
Jerseys pressed me to stay to dinner with Lord and Lady Muncaster; so
Lady M. and I both got a volume of a very dull novel, over which we had
a pleasant rest when all the crowd were gone. Never were such airy
people as the Jerseys, a line of six windows open on one side and two
doors on the other all dinner-time. Lady Hilda Brodrick and one of Lady
Jersey’s brothers were my neighbours, and very pleasant.
“On Sunday I had luncheon at Lord Breadalbane’s, to have a quiet sight
of my Prince. It is a wonderful house--deeply coved ceilings with
frescoes like those in an old Venetian palace, and wide spaces round the
outside planted with groves of plane-trees. The Breadalbanes have
thought it worth while to make a new dining-room (though sacrificing two
old ceilings), as they have taken all the rest of the lease, after which
the house reverts (it is Harcourt House) to the Harcourts of Nuneham.
The Duchess of Roxburgh, an Indian prince, and several other ladies
dropped in, so there were three tables for luncheon. In the middle, Lady
Breadalbane[455] got up and went round to each table, almost to each
guest, to see that they had all they could possibly want, and to say the
pleasantest things to them in the prettiest way: she certainly is a
queen of hostesses. Afterwards my Prince came to me, and we walked up
and down upon the terrace. He was most affectionate, as he always is
when we meet, and talked of all people and things as if we had never
parted, but reproached me much with never coming to him in Norway,
urging very much that I should write at any time, or even telegraph that
I was coming for any length of stay. Some day, when I am free from my
French work, I will go. He evidently wished that I should say something
to Lady Breadalbane of the great difference her excessive kindness had
made during all this visit to England, so I was very glad to do so. ‘We
have done our best,’ she said, ‘and I am very glad it has gone off so
well; but it has not been my doing, but all owing to those who have
helped me.’ The Indian had brought a suit of flannels with him in a
carpet-bag, and changed into them, and when my Prince went to get ready
to play at tennis with him, I came away.
“On Monday (27th) we had our large drawing-party down the river. Meeting
at Westminster Bridge, we all took tickets to ‘Cherry-Tree Yard’ at
Rotherhithe. Just as we were going to embark, the ticket-man very
good-naturedly emerged, and coming to me said, ‘I do not know if you are
aware, sir, that you are taking all these ladies into a most rough and
dangerous part of London.’ I said we were only going to draw at the
wharf, when he was satisfied. But when we arrived, they would not let us
stay on the wharf. A man said, ‘I know of a most respectable
public-house where you can go: all the artists draw from thence.’ And
there we all sat, in great shade and comfort, under a wide verandah,
directly overhanging the river and overlooking the Pool, with all the
fine shipping which comes up to that picturesque reach of the
Thames--‘Dutch Crawls’ inclusive.
“I dined with the Eustace Cecils, meeting, amongst others, Professor and
Mrs. Flower, of whom the former was holding Arthur Stanley’s hand when
he died.
“At a quarter to five yesterday I went to Buckingham Palace--no string,
no crowd, no difficulty. By my ticket I had to enter through the hall
and rooms beyond it--the most picturesque way. The terrace was already
full of people, but the space is so vast there never could be a crowd,
and the scene was beautiful, looking down upon the sunlit lawns, the
lake and fountain, and the thousands of gaily-dressed people--the
splendid uniforms and lustrous robes and sparkling jewels of the Indians
glistening amongst them. It was impossible to find any one one looked
for, but one came upon hundreds of unexpected friends. Very few young
men seemed to have been asked, but there were galaxies of pretty girls.
One ancient Indian chief in white, with a flowing beard and a robe of
cloth of gold over his shoulders, was told he might salute the Queen. He
said he must do it after his fashion, which was to wipe the dust from
her feet with his handkerchief, and then kiss it.
“The beloved Queen, though very hot and tired (she had been before to
revisit her birthplace at Kensington), looked very sweet and smiling,
and walked indefatigably from side to side of the long avenues of
people, shaking hands with different ladies. There was the usual
procession of princes and princesses, including the white-haired Duchess
of Mecklenbourg and the ever-pretty group of Hesse princesses. The
Princess Beatrice’s baby assisted at the party in her perambulator,
pushed by a nurse in white. A good deal of my time was taken up by the
Duchess of Cleveland insisting that she could have no refreshment but
lemonade, and that being quite a quarter of a mile off; but I could not
get it after all, through people ten deep in the refreshment tents. Some
of the guests were rowed by the Queen’s boatmen in their gorgeous
mediaeval costume upon the lake, with very pretty effect. The palace is
very handsome on the garden side.”
* * * * *
“_July 8, 1887._--I made rather friends at the Speaker’s with his eldest
boy, Willie Peel, and walked about with him on the terrace. He is in all
the first flush of people-seeing, and thinks everybody full of
originality; yet how few ever say more than something they have heard or
read long ago, and dug up out of some remote corner of their brain. He
is, however, delightful, and being evidently ambitious, will some day be
very distinguished, I should think.
“How often one wishes one could enter society again, with one’s past
conversation like a white page, that where one could not say good of any
one, one had always kept silence. I sympathise with General Gordon
saying that one reason why he never desired to enter social life was the
very great difficulty of knowing people and not discussing others.”
* * * * *
“_July 9._--At Lambeth garden-party I sat with ----, whose marriage, an
admirable one, was quelched by worldly motives on the other side, sadly,
long ago. She spoke of the married happiness of her brilliant and
popular namesake ‘Yes, life for _her_ is always delightful now; but
_I_--but I!’--‘Where do you live?’--‘I don’t live, I exist.’
“I sat at dinner by Lady C, a very singular religious ‘talker,’ who
plunged at once into--‘I trust you are interested in the good
work.’--‘What good work?’--‘Raising the classes,’ and so on, and so on,
endless well-meant nonsense, in very grand expressions, till I longed to
say to her, and did, in other words, what Madame de Sévigné said to some
one, ‘Thicken me your religion a little; it is evaporating altogether by
being subtilised.’ I tried to dwell upon the really higher life (for she
had talked of her own neglected education), of teaching herself first as
much as possible, that she might help herself to teach her young son. I
suppose that, for her, would be the higher life. How much, in this
generation, ‘religious people’ are apt to forget John Wyckliff’s motto,
‘He who liveth best, prayeth best.’”
* * * * *
“_Sunday, July 10._--Sat in the afternoon in the garden at Lowther
Lodge, seeing a long diorama of people drop in and have tea.
“Afterwards I ascended the great brick mansions close by to see Mrs.
Procter (Barry Cornwall’s widow), who is not the least aged in mind, and
apparently not in body. People thought she would be broken by her
daughter’s death; but constitutions, especially of the old, seldom take
any notice of heart-blows, though there is something touching in the way
she speaks of her lost daughters as ‘my Edith,’ ‘my Adelaide.’ People
call her ‘Our Lady of Bitterness,’ but her words have no touch of
sharpness. No one is more agreeable still: no one has more boundless
conversational powers: indeed, she often says of herself that ‘talking
is meat, drink, and clothing’ to her. Her sense of humour is exquisite;
she never speaks bad grammar herself, so she can never tolerate it in
others. She wears a front of _blonde cendré_, and boldly speaks of it
as a wig. Mr. Browning came in, and they were most amusing together. ‘My
wife thought you would not perhaps like to meet Mr. Labouchere, Mrs.
Procter?’ said Mr. Thompson of the _Pall Mall Gazette_, rather
interrogatively. ‘Your wife was quite right: had I found, on coming to
dine with you, that Mr. Labouchere was expected, I should have been
compelled to ask you at once to call me a cab.’--‘Ah! Labby,
Labby!--Hie, cabby, cabby!!’ cried Mr. Browning in the quaintest
way.[456] Mr. Browning goes to see Mrs. Procter every Sunday afternoon,
giving up all else for it.
“Mrs. Procter has the almost lost art of conversation in the fullest
degree. Lord Houghton recollects how she was asked to meet Macaulay at
one of Rogers’ breakfasts. Afterwards she said to Rogers, ‘But where was
Macaulay?’--‘Why, he sat opposite to you!’--‘Was _that_ him? Why, I
always heard he was such a tremendous talker.’--‘So he is,’ said Rogers;
‘but you see I talked so much myself, I only left one opening, and that
_you_ took.’”
* * * * *
“_July 11._--Dined with the Seymour Hughes’s, where General Higginson
was full of indignation about the mismanagement of royal
invitations--that it was impossible for the Lord Chamberlain to do it
alone, but that he might have a committee--three or four men of the
Kenneth Howard kind--who would see that the right people were asked. The
Prince of Wales had said to one lady, ‘I did not see you at the
garden-party,’ and she had answered, ‘No, I was not asked; but my
dressmaker was.’”
* * * * *
“_July 15._--Dined with Mrs. Portman--a very large party. She told me
that, close to her country-house, a labourer had watched some boys
bathing, and thought how delightful was the way in which they dived,
floated, &c., and, though he could not swim, he determined that, on the
very first chance, he would enjoy the same amusement. Soon after, he was
sent to cut rushes with two other men. When his work was finished, he
remembered his wish, and did not even wait to undress, but, pulling off
his boots, jumped into the water with his clothes on. Soon he got into
a hole and began to sink. He called for help, and another of the men
jumped in, and was sucked into the hole also, and so the third. Mr.
Fitzhardinge Portman came up when it was all over, and said, ‘I will
ride on and break it to Mrs. W.,’ the wife of one of the men. As he
reached the cottage, Mrs. W. came out to meet him and said, ‘I know what
you have come to tell me, sir. Poor W. is dead.’--‘How can you know
it?’--‘Why, sir, just now my little girl came running in all awestruck,
and said that she had met a figure all in white in the wood-path down
which she always ran to meet her father; and then I knew it was a
warning.’
“There was a beautiful ball at Lowther Lodge--the Princess Christian
there and the garden illuminated, and looking, in that dress, as big as
the Green Park. I sat out with Lady Strathmore, full of all the
discomforts of a great inheritance--such endless details to be filled
up: such endless new responsibilities; and just what seems the wrong
things always left away.
“I heard such a charming story of little Jane Smith the other day. Her
nurse told her to say her prayers. She wouldn’t; she said God wouldn’t
expect her to. ‘But He always expects it,’ said the nurse. ‘No, He
doesn’t,’ replied little Jane, ‘for I told Him the other day I couldn’t
say them, I was so sleepy, and He said, ‘Don’t mention it, _Miss
Smith_.’”
* * * * *
“_July 15._--Rain on St. Swithin’s Day. Lady Lyndhurst says, ‘Do you
know that he was three times Lord Chancellor of England, and that the
only man who has filled that office three times since was my lord.’
“Went to see Mrs. Ross,[457] a breeze from Castagnuolo in London. She
was full of the enchantment of a visit to Lacaita at Leucaspide, and of
a tour she had made to Otranto; to Lecce, where all the professors had
met to receive ‘una donna molta istruita’ at the museum, where she had
not known anything whatever of the subjects they discoursed upon, but,
by judicious silence and an occasional ‘si,’ had now the highest
opinions; to Manfredonia, where the inn is now kept by one Don Michele,
to whom the would-be sojourners have to be formally presented, when he
accepts or rejects them, with ‘mi piace’ or ‘non mi piace.’ On one of
these excursions she heard the sound of an instrument hitherto unknown
to her from a hollow below the road, and going down, found a boy playing
on a long pipe of birch-bark. ‘Cosa è questo?’--‘Il fischio della
primavera;’ and she bought it for ten centimes--the sweetest of music
and of instruments; but it only lasts a week, and can only be obtained
with the spring.
“Afterwards I sat with Miss Seymour, who talked of the political state
of France, and of Kisseloff saying, ‘Ils se croient toujours malades
quand ils n’ont pas la fièvre.’
“Then to Mrs. Liddell (of Christ-Church). Princess Christian had just
been there for a committee for women’s work. Mrs. Liddell said she went
about immensely amongst the poor of Windsor, and had a district. Once,
when she went for a month to Berlin, she said to one of her poor women
that she was going away, but that she would be well looked after, as she
had got some one to take her place. ‘Yes, but it will not be the same to
me; for I shall have no one to tell my troubles to.’
“Mrs. Liddell had some capital oil-portraits. She asked who I thought
they were by. I supposed by young Richmond. ‘No; by my daughter
Violet.’”
* * * * *
“_July 16._--Luncheon with Lady Knightley and then to Osterley--a soft
warm day; the flowers, from the long drought, quite magnificent under
the dark cedars by the lake.
‘Look how the roses
Hold up their noses,’
said old Lord Ebury, with whom I walked about, and who begged Miss
Grosvenor not to leave him till she had found him an _innamorata_; which
she eventually did in the person of Lady Balfour of Burleigh, very
pretty in her attentions to the old man. Then the Duchess of
Mecklenbourg came, and also sat under the trees. Lady Wynford brought
Mr. Graham Vivian and me home, and I went to a Cinderella ball at Lady
Guinness’s--quite splendid; and though it began at ten and ended at
twelve, very crowded and successful, showing that the introduction of an
earlier hour for balls would be perfectly easy.”
* * * * *
“_July 17._--Met Mr. Reeve, the editor of the _Quarterly_. Mr. Tedder
reminded me of Mark Pattison’s speaking (in the _Academy_) of ‘those old
three-deckers--the _Edinburgh_ and the _Quarterly_; the latter of which
sets to sea under the guidance, apparently, of the Ancient Mariner.’
“I had luncheon yesterday with Mrs. Cyril Flower, the most amusingly
decided of women, and met young Lady Wenlock, pining to return to India,
where she enjoyed so much the languid life, or rather, as she called it,
the time for thought which the heat gave her.
“A most pleasant dinner at Charlie Balfour’s, meeting a group of real
friends--Guy Sebright and his nice wife, Basil Levett and his sweet Lady
Margaret, and Sir John Maxwell, who is most simple, clever, and
pleasant,--delightful to be with. Minnie Balfour was full of Mrs.
Slingsby, whose curious old house in Yorkshire is so strangely haunted.
One hot night, very late, when her husband was away, Mrs. Slingsby sat
out on the terrace, and below her, in the park, saw the most brilliant
light apparently burning on the grass. She went down to it, reached it,
and it disappeared. Exactly that day year, she watched for it and saw it
again. That time she went behind it, and saw it between herself and the
house.
“Lady Heathcote Amaury, whom I took down to dinner, said, ‘You know
young Lady Onslow was a daughter of Lord Gardner. She told me that her
father rented a place called Chilton from Colonel ----. When he took it,
Colonel ---- said, “As you are taking the place for some time, I think
perhaps it is my duty to tell you that the state bedroom is haunted. A
young ancestor of mine, dressed in a blue coat and breeches, with a
rose in his button-hole, comes in, arranges his hair at the mirror,
looks at the occupant of the room, throws up the window, and vanishes
through it. He does nobody any harm, and is excessively
pleasant-looking, still I ought not to let you take the place without
telling you.”
“‘Lord Gardner said he did not care a bit; but the state bedroom had
very remarkable furniture,--a magnificent bed with curtains looped up by
gilt cherubs, and, after Lady Gardner heard the story, she got leave to
change the furniture, and the old hangings were carefully put away, and
modern furniture used instead.
“‘Soon after some cousins of Lord Gardner, two ladies belonging to the
elder branch of the family, came from Scotland to stay, and were put
into that room. When they came down next morning, Lord Gardner asked the
elder if she had rested well after her journey. She answered, “Yes,
indeed, and I have had the most delightful dream: I dreamt that the room
I was in was furnished in the most beautiful way, with gilt cupids,
hangings, &c.,--and really what I dreamt was so charming that I longed
for you some time to be able to furnish the room just in that way. And
then--I seemed to be awake, but of course I could not have been--I saw a
young man of most beautiful countenance come into the room, dressed in a
blue coat, &c., which was quite in keeping with the room, and he went up
to the glass and arranged his hair, then he looked at me with a charming
expression upon his face, but just when he seemed going to speak, and I
was longing to know what he would say, he threw open the window, and
disappeared through it.”
“‘Lady Onslow said, “You may imagine the breathless interest with which
we listened.”’
* * * * *
“_July 17._--Supper at the Miss Hollands’. Met Mr. Turner, rather a
remarkable American. The sight of white roses made him say, ‘A white
rose comes home to me, Miss Holland, and I will tell you why. Many years
ago, in Philadelphia, I met a party of cousins, and we all spent the
evening together. A young cousin of mine--very pretty--was there, who
was lately married, and I was very glad to see her, and we talked much
together--so much together all evening that it was a matter of
comment--of foolish comment. When we parted, she gave me a white rose,
and she said, “You must keep that rose as long as we live.” I took the
rose home and pressed it. From time to time I heard from her afterwards,
but I never saw her, and I forgot the rose. Long afterwards I was in
Philadelphia again, and in the evening, opening a book, something fell
out on the floor: it was the white rose. I felt it an omen, and I said
to myself, “It is long since I heard of her; something has happened. I
will just go round to Uncle Joe’s and inquire.” I went, and found that
Uncle Joe knew nothing; but whilst I was there the news arrived that she
was dead.
“‘The white rose, when it fell, had told me that already.
“‘I believe in such things. I possess a looking-glass that I have long
had in my keeping. One day, there seemed no reason why, I saw it slide
from the table: it fell. The corner was broken off. I had it mended.
Almost immediately a cable was brought in announcing the death of a near
relation. Some time after it fell again. The other corner was broken
off. I said, “What is going to happen now?” The next day I heard of the
deaths of three intimate friends. So I said, “It will never do to go on
like this,” and I had the glass sawn down, and so framed and padded with
india-rubber at the back, that, if it fell, it was scarcely possible it
could be broken. Well, that--stopped it.’
“Mr. Turner gave a very curious account of the early state of many
American settlements--that the rivers or any running stream generally
marked the track for civilisation. It was easier to make a path along
them than anywhere else; a road followed, eventually a railway. Along
one of these tracks, many years ago, came annually a venerable old man.
People expected him--watched for his coming. He always came from the
east, and he was never observed to return: yet he came again from the
east in the following year. He was a kind of primitive missionary,
bringing Bibles, which he cut up, leaving parts in the different houses
he passed. Thus he would leave the Gospel of St. John one year, and the
next would call for it, and leave the Acts in its place. He had a
pocket-full of apple-seed, and wherever he stopped in the middle of the
day, he made a hole with his stick, and dropped one of his seeds into
it. People called him ‘Old John Apple-seed.’ Mr. Turner had seen many
fine apple-trees along the banks of streams, of which it was remembered
that they were planted by old John Apple-seed.
“Mr. Turner described how primitive many of the early lines of railway
were, made at the rate of three miles a week. At Harrisburg several of
these lines met, and it was a very dangerous point. A poor half-witted
man found his vocation in life by joining trains at this point, and
running in front screaming, ‘The engine is coming: the engine is
coming.’ And thus he would run for miles, keeping just in front of the
train, and if he saw a child, would seize it and throw it out of the
way, and would often seize a woman by the shoulder, and would almost
lift her off the line; but at last, after many years, whilst saving
another, he was killed himself.”
* * * * *
“_July 18._--A party at Lady Bantry’s, where Lady Helen Stewart recited
a poem much like the above story. Dined with the Grants. Old Lady
Frances Higginson[458] frightened a mincing curate out of his life who
said to her, ‘Will you _take_ some potatoes?’ by saying in her most
abrupt way, ‘God bless my soul, aren’t you going to _give_ me some?’”
* * * * *
“_July 20._--At luncheon at the Higginsons’, I met the Storys from Rome,
very happy in London, but ‘it is surely a bad arrangement of Nature,’ he
said, ‘that one should have so many coats and only one body. I should
like to have several--a body to work with; and a young smart body to go
into society with; and the old body, which always sleeps so well, to go
to bed with.’
“At luncheon at Lady Airlie’s I met Henry Cowper,[459] Mr. Morley, Lady
Tweeddale, and Miss Betty Ponsonby. Henry Cowper talked of the
friendship between Bright and Tuke. They had always been intimate. Then
they loved the same woman. In his great friendship Tuke gave way, and
the lady became the first Mrs. John Bright. Afterwards they were greater
friends, and saw more of each other than ever: Bright would do anything
for Tuke. But the conversation was chiefly about Gladstone, giving
instances of his marvellous personal charm--of his way of telling
things, bearing out Goethe’s words--
‘Märchen! doch so wunderbar,
Dichterkünster machen’s wahr.’
“Tea with Mrs. Ford--always interesting. She talked much of Dr. Morell
Mackenzie--well known to her. When he arrived at Berlin, he found six
great doctors waiting for him at the palace. They took him to a room
filled with knives, &c. ‘What are these for?’--‘For your choice in
operating upon the Crown Prince.’--‘But I can only operate upon him in
one way, that is my own;’ and he explained it. Four of the doctors
agreed with what he said, two violently opposed it. He was taken at once
to Bismarck, who said, ‘Do not consult me: ask me as many questions as
you like about _la haute politique_, but about this I can say nothing.’
Then he was taken to the Emperor, to whom he explained his views. The
Emperor listened to all, and then only said quietly--turning to those
who were with him--‘Let the Englishman act.’ He then went at once to the
Crown Prince. He performed the operation with his own forceps, steeped
in cocotine, which deadens, absolutely paralyses the throat, and seizing
the wart, dragged--not cut--it out. It seemed like a terrible
responsibility for England, as if the life of the Crown Prince was in
its hands.
“Mr. Browning described how he had been asked to dinner by two elderly
ladies--sisters. He did not know them, but it was very kind of them to
ask him, and he went. He met a very singular party at their
house--Gladstone, Mrs. Thistlethwayte, and others. Going down to dinner,
the lady who fell to his share suddenly said to him, ‘You are a poet,
aren’t you?’--‘Well, people are sometimes kind enough to say that I
am.’--‘Oh, don’t mind my having mentioned it: you know _Lord Byron was a
poet_!’
“Browning is unlike Tennyson; he does not write from inspiration, but by
power of work. He says he sets himself a certain number of lines to
write in a day, and he writes them. Sometimes he says, ‘To-morrow
morning I will write a sonnet; and he writes it. Nevertheless he is
always greater in aspiration than achievement. Mr. Carlyle could not
bear his poems. ‘What did the fellow mean by leaving that cart-load of
stones at my door?’ he said to Alfred Tennyson when Browning left one of
his poems there.
“London is now always asking itself ‘What is the cause of this long
drought?’--‘Because we have had fifty years’ rain (reign).’
“Went to the Halifax’s in the evening to meet the Indian princes, and
then to Lady Lamington’s party, made exceedingly pretty by its arcaded
garden on the roof.”
* * * * *
“_Langleybury, August 2._--I am staying with Harry Loyd, who at
twenty-six is certainly as near perfection as any one can possibly be in
every relation of life--son, brother, friend, landlord, county magnate.
His mother and four sisters live with him, and their hospitalities are
boundless.”
* * * * *
“_August 28._--Little Holmhurst has been full of summer guests--gentle
Lady Donoughmore and Lady Margaret Hamilton, Lady Airlie and Lady
Griselda Ogilvie, Basil Levett and his Lady Margaret, Lady Sherborne,
and lastly George Jolliffe and Lady Bloomfield, the latter a constant
ripple of interesting anecdote.”
* * * * *
“_Tatton Park, Sept. 2, 1887._--The large party in this large pleasant
hospitable house has included the Archbishop of Canterbury and Mrs.
Benson, with their daughter--the ‘modest philosopher,’ as Miss Egerton
aptly calls her. We have been to Manchester to see the exhibition of all
the works of artists of Victoria’s reign--a very fine collection, from
the vapid works of Etty and the hard commonplaceness of the earlier
Landseers to the noble ‘Christ or Diana’ of Long, which struck most of
us as the grandest and most expressive work amongst such multitudes.
There is a curious contrast between the last and this Lady Egerton, who
cannot enjoy life enough herself, or contribute enough to making it
enjoyable for others.
[Illustration: THE GARDEN, HOLMHURST.]
“We have just been across the park to the old Hall, where a fine timber
roof remains, very richly carved; and we have driven to Tabley and its
old isleted hall in the lake, so mysteriously beautiful, which the
family abandoned two hundred and fifty years ago, leaving all its
contents in the deserted house, so that you still see the open spinnet
with the mouldering keys, the lace half worked on the cushion, the
flax half spun on the distaff in the little low rooms, with their carved
furniture and fireplaces, opening, in two stories, around the great
timbered hall.
[Illustration: THE RAVENNA PINE, HOLMHURST.]
“Raglan Somerset is here, unspeakably funny, so _décousu_ in his
conversation, which never stops for an instant. I like also Lord and
Lady Rayleigh: he is learned, but perfectly simple, and she, _née_
Balfour, is thoroughly pleasant and unsophisticated. Miss Mary Egerton,
very handsome, with her grey hair and youthful animated countenance, is
a delightful addition to the party. But the great, the real pleasure to
me, has been finding Derek Keppel (Lord Bury’s second son and
brother-in-law of the only daughter of the house) almost domesticated
here: I like him so very much, certainly better than any one I know in
the same degree. It is Sunday, and we have been to the new church at
Aston, built by Lord and Lady Egerton without an architect, and so
pleasant to look upon inside that an old man said, ‘Why, sir, one can be
cheerful in it, even when one is saying one’s prayers.’”
* * * * *
“_Woodlands, Glassbury, Sept. 7._--I came here through the lovely Church
Stretton country, stopping at picturesque Shrewsbury on the way to stay
with the Bishop of Lichfield and Augusta. Yesterday we went by rail
through the beautiful but drippingly wet valleys to visit the Venables
near Builth. Our host was the well-known and severe critic in the
_Saturday_--a pleasant old man to visitors, but evidently awful to the
younger members of his family.
“Augusta had many interesting reminiscences of Lord Beaconsfield. One
day, at luncheon, she offered him the mustard. ‘I never take mustard,’
he replied in his sepulchral voice. ‘Oh, don’t you?’ she said airily.
‘No,’ he continued in solemnest tones. ‘There are three things I have
never used: I have never touched mustard; I have never had a watch; and
I have never made use of an umbrella.’--‘Well,’ said Augusta, ‘I can
understand the mustard--that is a mere matter of taste; but surely going
without the other things must have been sometimes rather
inconvenient.’--‘And why should I want them?’ continued Disraeli more
sepulchrally than ever. ‘I live under the shadow of Big Ben, and there
is a clock in every room of the House of Commons, so that I cannot
possibly require a watch; and as I always go about in a close carriage,
I can never want an umbrella.’ Disraeli was always full of these small
affectations.”
* * * * *
“_Woodlands, Sept. 8._--This is a charming visit, and the place is
delightful--close to the glistening Wye, with green hills--‘mountains’
in Welsh--folding around, exquisite in the soft haze of early morning.
“Augusta has been giving an interesting account of Champlatreux in
France, belonging to the Duc d’Ayen, a representative of the De Noailles
family. In the château is preserved the precious volume of the
‘Imitation of Christ,’ which the young Duchesse de Noailles used in the
prison of the Luxembourg, where she devoted herself to keeping up the
courage of her mother-in-law and daughter. When the three generations of
the House of Noailles were summoned together to the scaffold, the
Duchesse was reading aloud to her fellow-prisoners from the chapter of
the ‘Chemin de la Croix.’ She turned down the page at that point and
gave the book to one of her companions in prison, begging her, if she
ever escaped, to convey it, as a memorial, to the De Noailles family.”
* * * * *
“_Sept. 10._--Two pleasant days with Graham Loyd in his charming cottage
at Sketty near Swansea, and a great cementing of friendship with him.
The first day he took me by a terrible path overhanging an unprotected
chasm opposite the Mumbles. All the population of Swansea seem to pour
out to drink in the neighbourhood of the Mumbles. ‘You want to close the
public-houses at Swansea, that men may get drunk at the Mumbles,’ said
Judge Bradwin, in opposing the Sunday-closing movement. At the same time
he said that he did not see any more reason why men should call beer a
‘pernicious liquor’ than that they should call water a ‘drowning fluid.’
“We have been to luncheon at Clyne, where Graham Vivian has an unkempt
but beautiful place, full of fine Italian treasures, and have dined at
Singleton with Lady Hussey Vivian.[460] Besides this, we have had a
wonderful drive, by heath, sandhill, and precipice, through the strange
district of Gower, where all the houses are whitewashed, and where there
are constant wrecks on the rock-girt coast, though a great bell tolls
eerily through the night on a sandbank, with the waves for its ringers.”
* * * * *
“_Sept. 12._--Two days at the Deanery at Llandaff, where family
furniture and pictures--familiar from Alderley, Norwich, Canterbury,
Oxford days--give a homelike aspect.
“Kate said that when she was in Madeira last year, a Mr. Husband, a
dentist from Hull, was staying in the same hotel. She had heard that he
had seen a ghost there, and she asked him about it. It was only on being
very much pressed that he told how that one night, when he was in his
bed in the hotel, a young man in lawn-tennis dress came in, stood at the
foot of the bed, and pointed with his finger at the pillow. Mr. H. was
not frightened, only annoyed, and asked the young man what he wanted. He
did not speak, and continued to point at the pillow. At last Mr. Husband
was so irritated that he said, ‘Well, if you will neither speak nor go
away, take that,’ and dealt him a blow, but his hand only seemed to sink
into cold icy vapour, and the apparition vanished.
“Next day Mr. Husband told the landlord of the hotel what had happened,
when he said, ‘Your story is very extraordinary, because a young man,
who was staying here for some time, and was treated by a doctor for a
very slight ailment, died in that bed under very suspicious
circumstances; and, as long as he was about, that young man was never
seen out of lawn-tennis dress.’
“Afterwards Mr. Husband heard of that young Mr. Hyndeman from other
people in Madeira. They remembered him perfectly. He was very silent and
shunned all society, and he was never out of lawn-tennis dress.”
* * * * *
“_Sept. 16._--A happy visit at cheerful merry Hardwick, which unites
the charms of an interesting house, of exquisite gardens, and most
varied and amusing society. There is a curious picture there of
Elizabeth Drury reclining on her side with her hand under her head,
which perhaps led to the story that she died of a box on the ear. She
was a great friend of Wotton and of Donne, who wrote verses to her, and
also her epitaph.”
* * * * *
“_Sept. 19._--A visit to the Ordes at Hopton, in the flat marshy country
near Yarmouth--a happy united family, with a very beautiful eldest
daughter, Evelyn. Hopton village is the Blunderstone of ‘David
Copperfield.’ Charlie Orde took me to Caister, the grandest fragment of
a castle I ever saw--so very lofty a tower rising abruptly from the edge
of a very wide moat. On Sunday we saw the great low-lying lake of
Flitton, which belongs to one of the Buxtons.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Sept. 22._--On Monday I went to Sculthorpe, near Fakenham, where I saw
the site of the old manor-house, part of the property which came to
Bishop Hare through his marriage with Mary-Margaret Alston. It has the
odd name of Hos Tendis. Only the foundation-walls exist now, with
remains of the moat, overhung with old apple-trees. The church is a very
fine one, and the existing manor-house, Cranmer, is an exceedingly
handsome, pleasant house inside. Sir Laurence Jones, who lives there,
had brought out quantities of old Hare and Alston deeds to show me: it
was odd to see them there, but they had been sold with the property.
“My kind host, the Rector, Herbert Jones, the squire’s uncle, was the
picture of old-fashioned courtesy. His wife, a Gurney, sister of Mrs.
Orde at Hopton, is well known for her archaeological writings. They took
me, with their niece Miss Laura Troubridge and her betrothed, Adrian
Hope, to the beautiful old brick and terra-cotta house of Wolterton,
with a very fine gateway.
“Yesterday we went to Houghton, in a well-timbered park--a house full of
stately magnificence. The present Lord Cholmondeley has sold many of its
treasures, but, though much has been taken away, it is especially
interesting because nothing has been added since the time of Sir Robert
Walpole. George, Lord Walpole, destroyed the grand staircase of the
house, so that you now have to enter through the basement, instead of in
state by the grand hall on the first floor, where Sir Robert and his
companions used to carouse, and where the chairs which they used still
remain, with the rings in the ceiling which supported the scales for
weighing deer. The pictures are interesting--Sir Robert over and over
again, with his beloved first wife, Catherine Shorter, and his inferior
second wife Maria Skerret; his daughter and heiress, who brought the
place to the Cholmondeleys; and his sister Dorothy, who still walks as a
ghost at Rainham, where she was the wife of Lord Townshend, who is said
to have walled her up in a spot where bones have been found, supposed to
be hers.
“In one of the drawing-rooms is a glorious picture of the Duchess of
Ancaster, who was sent to bring Princess Charlotte of
Mecklenbourg-Strelitz to England when she came to marry George III.
‘Pug, pug, pug!’ cried the people when they saw her appearance as she
was entering London. ‘Vat is dat they do say--poog?’ said the Princess,
‘vat means poog?’--‘Oh, that means, God bless your Majesty,’ promptly
replied the Duchess, without the slightest hesitation. The pictures
which are not portraits are wretched, chiefly bad copies.
“In the grounds is the little garden of Catherine, Lady Walpole, which
in her time was surrounded by a yew hedge. Now the yews have grown into
tall trees and are interweaving overhead above the little grassy circle.
“I came last night to the Locker-Lampsons at Cromer, finding Julia, Lady
Jersey, Brandling, Lady Kathleen Bligh, and Rollo Russell here. To-day
we have been to Blickling, where we found Lady Lothian and Lady Pembroke
walking in the radiantly beautiful garden of the grand old house. Lady
Lothian showed it all delightfully--the staircase, with its carved
figures on the banisters; the tapestried rooms; the long library with a
very rich ceiling, the room itself in exquisite harmony with its ranges
of wonderful old books. At tea in the dining-room Baroness Coutts
appeared, and many other unexpected persons dropped in.”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Salisbury, Sept. 28._--A very delightful visit to Canon Douglas
Gordon[461] and Lady Ellen, full of old-fashioned peculiarities and
brimming over with real excellence. One son, George, is at home, a
successful young architect, and two daughters, of whom the eldest is a
good artist. The Canon is interesting in his recollections--amongst many
others, of the Queen Dowager, whom, as Rector of Stanmore, he saw
constantly; and a portrait of her with the last words she ever wrote
beneath it--her gift to him--hangs over the drawing-room chimney-piece.
Near it is a very old oil-picture of Balmoral, interesting because the
sight of that picture first decided the Queen to buy the place, which
she had not then visited: it also shows how exactly her large modern
house follows the main lines of the old Scotch castle.
“Canon Gordon says that instantly after the Queen Dowager’s death, when
they were all in tears, and all the servants were waiting in the hall
for the last news of their mistress, they were startled by a tremendous
knocking at the door and a trumpet blowing, and three men entered with
the announcement, ‘We are the royal embalmers, and we are come to
perform our duty!’ They had actually been waiting outside--waiting for
the first announcement of the death. In this case, however, they were
sent away, as Queen Adelaide had left especial orders that her body was
not to be embalmed.
“In the Canonry garden here is a fine mulberry-tree. The _only_ fact
remembered about the old Canon who planted it is that whilst it was
being placed in the ground the cathedral bell rang for service, and the
gardener said, ‘You’ll be late for church, sir: the bell is ringing.’ To
which the Canon rejoined, ‘Church be d--d; but I’ll see this mulberry
planted.’ A lesson to be careful of what one says.
“Yesterday I went to Wilton in the pony-carriage with Miss Gordon, who
left me there. Lady Pembroke[462] soon came in in her riding-habit, and
took me at once through the beautiful brilliant gardens ending in the
old building still called ‘Holbein’s Porch,’ though it is now far away
from the house to which it once belonged. Then we walked on the sunny
lawns swept by the massy branches of grand old cedars and intersected by
three rivers, over one of which is a beautiful Palladian bridge like
that at Prior Park.
“Somehow Lady Pembroke is a person with whom one begins to talk
intimately very soon, and her own conversation is most original and
delightful. But she spoke much of her wish that religion was ‘not so
very odd,’--of her intense craving to know something, _anything_
tangible, about a future state. She had been seeing the Roman Mr. Story
lately, who has been much amongst spiritualists, had heard speaking
spirits, and had the very utmost faith in them. The spirits all
confirmed faith in a future state. Once a bad spirit came; its language
was perfectly horrible: in life it had been a pirate!
“Returning to the house, we saw the Vandykes, which are most glorious.
There is a very curious contemporary picture of the coronation of
Richard II. in the presence of his patron saints and of the heavenly
host. Lady Pembroke talked on and on, and when I got up to go, kept me:
but it was most interesting, and I would willingly have listened for
many hours more. Eventually she went with me to the end of the grounds,
and let me out at a postern-gate in the wall.
“To-day we have been to tea with the Pigott family, who live in George
Herbert’s rectory (which he built) at Bemerton. It is a lovely spot,
with the little church (vulgarised inside by glazed tiles), beneath the
altar of which he is believed to rest. The garden reaches to the clear
rushing Madder, full of trout and grayling, and has a beautiful view of
the cathedral across the water-meadows. We saw the register with the
notice of the burial of ‘Mr. George Herbert, Esquire, parson of this
place,’[463] and his old study with its very thick walls: but he was
only at Bemerton two years, leading a life ‘little less than sainted,
though not exempt from passion and choler,’ as his brother, Lord Herbert
of Cherbury, tells us in his memoirs. Americans come in crowds to see
the place, and can often repeat half his poems. Mr. Pigott asked one of
them to spend the night there, and in the morning inquired how he had
slept. ‘Sleep,’ he said, ‘do you suppose I could sleep in George
Herbert’s house? Why, I sat up all night thinking of him.’”[464]
* * * * *
“_Oct. 2._--Again at Highcliffe with Lady Waterford, whose conversation
is as charming as ever.
‘And thy eternal summer shall not fade,’
is a line of Shakspeare which seems ever to apply to her. Here are some
fragments from her lips:--
“‘That is like the priest who, when he was remonstrated with for eating
meat on Friday, said, “All flesh is grass.”
“‘When I was young, I delighted in Tittenhanger.[465] We used to post
down from London--a most delightful drive then. I thought it all
charming--the old house, and a wood with bluebells, and the Colne, a
mere dull sluggish stream, I suppose, but it had frogs and bulrushes,
and I found it enchanting. A few years ago I thought I would post down
to Tittenhanger in the old way, but it was a street all the way to
Barnet, and when the people saw the white horses and postillion in blue,
they came crowding round; for, though it was only my little maid
Boardman and me, they thought, “Now we shall see them: now we shall see
the newly-married pair.”
“The Duc d’Aumale is married. He married Mademoiselle Clinchamps, who
was lady-in-waiting to the Princess of Salerno, the Duchesse d’Aumale’s
mother. She does the honours of his house, but it is a sort of
morganatic marriage.... Madame Adelaide was married too to one of the
generals.... I remember the Aumales riding through the green avenues
near Ossington; Mary Boyle was with them. She was a most excellent
horsewoman, but a great gust of wind came, and the whole edifice of her
chignon was blown off before she could stop it. The little Prince de
Condé was very young then, and he was riding with her. He picked it up
and said, “I will keep it in my pocket, and then, when we reach
Thoresby, you can go away quietly and get it put on;” and so she did.
That young Condé used to say, “I am not _le grand Condé_; I am _le petit
Condé_.” ... Madame de Genlis used to write to Louis Philippe--“Sire et
cher enfant.”
[Illustration: THE MANOR WALK, HOLMHURST.]
“‘That Lord Shrewsbury[466] you were speaking of received Henri V. at
Alton Towers--received him as king of France, and dressed up all the
people of the different lodges to represent the different nations of
Europe giving him welcome. It was he who made the beautiful gardens.
There is a bust of him there, and inscribed beneath it--“He made the
desert to smile.” “And I don’t wonder at it,” said Lady Marian (Alford)
when she saw the bust: he was so comically hideous.’”
* * * * *
Whilst I was away on my visits, I had left my dear old cousin Charlotte
Leycester provided with companions at Holmhurst during the annual summer
visit of several months, which had never failed since my mother’s death.
I felt that thus my mother’s home, thus her own especial room, were
fulfilling what she would most have wished for them. And (though, unlike
my gentle mother, Calvinistic, vehement, with a habit of constantly
“improving the occasion,” and utterly intolerant still of all that did
not agree with her in religious matters), the beloved and beautiful old
cousin, at nearly ninety, was this year more than ever occupied by plans
and thoughts for the good of all around her, more full of spiritual
meditation herself, lifting her own heart and mind into celestial
dwelling-places. For her truly one might say, “The poetry of earth is
never dead,” and I often found that I knew little of the natural charms
of my own little home till she had shown them. “Speak to the earth and
it shall teach thee” is a verse of Job for which she had a constant
application, and the shrubs and flowers--at Holmhurst always planted in
the same places--were intimate and familiar friends to her--
“Still within this life,
Though lifted o’er its strife.”[467]
Sunday was always her great delight--a Sunday to be dealt with as John
Knox would have used it, and a church service freed from anything of
ritual, but with an extempore preacher if possible. She felt, “I always
like my victuals hot when I can get them,” as an old woman said in
reference to her preacher. Latterly, however, Charlotte Leycester was
scarcely able to hear sermons, though, as she wrote to me during my last
absence,--“I always _enjoy_ the sermon, though I do not hear it; for, as
our old friend George Herbert says, ‘God takes a text, and preaches
patience,’ and I can generally catch all texts quoted, which helps me to
follow the drift, like finding one stone after another in crossing a
current.”
[Illustration: ROSNY.][468]
When turned to her reminiscences of the past, her conversation was often
very interesting. I remember her telling me this summer of her visit to
Paris in 1827, and going to the Royal Chapel, into which came the king,
Louis XVIII., and the Duchess d’Angoulême with full evening dress in the
morning and feathers on her head. When the king entered, a great picture
of our Lord hung opposite where he was to sit, to which the master of
the ceremonies seemed to introduce him--“Le roi.” “At Rosny, a beautiful
old château with chestnut avenues, to which we drove out one October
evening after dining at Mantes, we saw the Duchesse de Berri. Most
amusing the travelling then was, with the postillions in blue and in
great jack-boots, into which they had to be lifted, with the blowing of
their horns at every village we passed through.”
* * * * *
A few days after I reached home, two more volumes of mine were
published, “Paris” and “Days near Paris.” They had been the engrossing
work of the last two years. My hourly thought had been for them, and I
had taken all the pains I could with them. I knew their faults, and know
them still; but all the same I am conscious, and I am sure it is not
conceit, that no better general books on those subjects have ever been
written,--certainly in French there is nothing of the kind. I suppose it
is one of the penalties of a lonely life, of having no near belongings,
that it seemed--perhaps a little bathos as regarded the subjects which
had filled one’s life--that no one spoke of them; that day after day
passed on, and no one ever mentioned their existence. And then came a
Review--a leading article indeed--in the _Athenæum_, not of mere abuse
of the books, though no words were strong enough for that, but of such
bitter personal malignity against myself, as gave one the shuddering
conviction that one must indeed have an enemy as virulent as he was
unscrupulous. “Turn author,” says Gray, “and straightway you expose
yourself to pit, boxes, and gallery: any coxcomb in the world may come
in and hiss if he pleases; ay, and what is almost as bad, clap too, and
you cannot hinder him.” Most of the Reviews of my books have been
unfavourable, but the books have always contrived to outlive them; and
generally, when they have been found fault with, I have felt almost
grateful for such lessons of humility, and have longed to say with
Goethe, “Pray continue to make me acquainted with my own work.” Even
honest reviewers, however, seldom read beyond the first chapter of a
book; _that_ they usually read, and occasionally criticise; but even
then the tendency to save themselves trouble generally causes a great
deal of copying. I have always found that a first Review has influenced
all the others except the very best. The excessive injustice and
untruthfulness this time made me understand the pain which Chatterton
felt, especially when it was said that the hundred and forty-seven
quotations, which I had been at such pains to find for my “Versailles,”
were “all taken second-hand from Dussieux’ History” of that palace,
though I am assured that not one (!!) of them is to be found there,
except the few taken from S. Simon, the especial historian of
Versailles, to which any one writing about it would naturally apply.
“Every white will have its black,
And every sweet its sour,”
and though serious disappointments are always a most bitter medicine,
life becomes much the same again after they are once swallowed and
assimilated. I know they must be good for one, like all the other
humiliations of--is it?--yes, I suppose in a right spirit it may be, _le
chemin de la croix_. Still I often wonder whether the writer of such an
article, when he _knows_ it is false and unjust, as this writer must
have done, does it with pleasure in taking away an author’s innocent
enjoyment in the birth of his book-child. In most cases of personal
injustice and injury, I am sure that it answers to take some secret
opportunity of doing something very kind towards the aggressor--it
“takes out the taste;” but when the intentional injury is anonymous, one
is deprived of even this consolation. Yet, to a certain extent, an inner
consciousness of high aims and disinterested intentions may raise a
screen against the base scurrilousness with which every one is assailed
at some time in their lives. Fortunately, also, I have never
quite--though very nearly--had to put in practice the maxim that--
“Those who live to please must please to live.”
It is curious, certainly, how one has only to turn to the pages of a
book which collects Reviews of past authors, like “Alibone’s
Dictionary,” to find plentiful consolation. I chanced to open it on
Thackeray, and found the _Edinburgh Review_, after abusing “Esmond” in
the most contemptuous tones, saying patronisingly, “If Esmond had been
confined within as short limits, it might have taken rank with the
‘Defence of Natural Society,’ but a parody three volumes long becomes
tiresome.” The same _Edinburgh Review_ advised Byron to abandon poetry
and apply his talents to some better use; and declared Coleridge’s
“Christabel” to be “a thing utterly destitute of value.” I think it is
Montaigne who says, “Aucun chemin de fleurs ne conduit à la gloire.”
XXV
IN PLEASURE AND PAIN
“Why, of all the countless faces which I meet as I walk down the
Strand, are the enormous majority failures--deflections from the
type of beauty _possible_ to them?”--DEAN CHURCH.
“Before the beginning of years there came to the making of man,
Time with a gift of tears, Grief with a glass that ran.”
--SWINBURNE.
“From the black depths, the ashes, and the dross
Of our waste lives, we reach out to the Cross,
And by its fulness measure all our loss.”
--WHITTIER.
In the middle of October I went North for a short time.
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Thoresby, Oct. 20, 1887._--A visit here has been charming--its inmates
all so filled with kindness and goodness of every description, and Lady
Manvers so very agreeable--‘une conversation si nourrie.” Nothing could
exceed the dying splendour of the autumnal tints in the forest, of which
we saw a great deal, as we sat out through the whole of each morning
drawing amongst the tall golden bracken, over which the great antlers
of a stag were now and then uplifted. My companions were Lady Mary
Pierrepont, very pretty and charming, and Mrs. Trebeck, daughter and
sister of a Bishop Wordsworth, who is here with her husband, Canon
Trebeck of Southwell, a very singular and admirable muscular Christian.
They have asked me to visit them. The first day of my visit I was
delighted to meet Lord and Lady Montagu, unusually pleasant people, with
a very nice daughter.”
* * * * *
“_Southwell, Oct. 21._--Lord Manvers--kindest of hosts--sent me here,
fourteen miles. It is a tiny town clustered around its--chiefly
Norman--minster. The beautiful chapter-house has a wreathed door, before
which Ruskin stood for an hour when he was here, motionless in rapt
contemplation. On one of the old Norman pillars on the right of the nave
are remains of a fresco of the Annunciation, evidently painted over an
altar of the Virgin: on the other side are traces of a very early organ.
In the graveyard is the tomb of Robert Lowe, Lord Sherbrooke’s father.
The Sub-dean and his wife are the centre around which the whole little
place revolves with its society and charities. The Bishop, who lives in
the country, seems rather to despise Southwell and to wish his cathedral
had been at Nottingham.
“We went from Thoresby to Rufford,[469] a curious old low-lying house
containing much fine tapestry, but where the old furniture is greatly
made up. The house has an obstreperous ghost, that especially haunted
the room which Augustus Lumley chose as his own, and frightened his
pug-dog out of its wits; for beyond that room is a little chamber in
which a girl was once shut up and starved to death; but since some bones
have been found under one of the passages and received christian burial,
the ghost has been laid. There is a portrait of a boy who was taken as a
baby from gipsies and brought up in the house, but who disappeared after
he grew up and never was heard of again: it was supposed that the
impulse was too strong, and that he rejoined the tribe he came from.”
* * * * *
“_Raby Castle, Oct. 25._--The Duchess of Cleveland has been describing
Lord Crawford’s interview with a famous clairvoyant. Lord Crawford saw
the medium go and hold his head in the fire: the flames played round him
and he was quite unhurt. Then the medium said he could make Lord
Crawford impervious to fire: ‘Would he like it?’ He said ‘yes,’ and the
medium took a large live coal from the fire and put it on the palm of
one of his hands, which was entirely unhurt, though the coal was left
upon it, and Lord Crawford was told to light his cigar at it, which he
did. The clairvoyant then said, ‘Your other hand is not impervious:
touch the coal with it,’ and he touched the coal which lay in the palm
of his left hand, and one of the fingers of his right hand bears the
marks of it still.”
* * * * *
“_Oct. 26._--It has been a great pleasure during this visit that the
Duke[470] has come in each morning for talk, generally more or less
narrative--in which he rises suddenly from his chair, walks rapidly
backwards and forwards to the fire, and then sits down again, always
with his sharp fiery restless look; but all he says most interesting.
To-day he told of his father’s early life,--sent to Oxford with a tutor,
Mr. Lipscombe, then abroad for three years, spent chiefly at Orleans
learning French with John, Duke of Bedford (the father of Lord Russell).
The Duke of Dorset was ambassador then, and took the two young men to
Versailles, where they played billiards with Marie Antoinette. The
French aristocracy were quite unconscious then of the coming danger, and
would not believe in the serious state of politics. The Duc de Bouillon
was the great person, and they stayed with him in the country. They went
on to Rome, where Cardinal York was then living. They went to his weekly
receptions, where he was always treated as royalty. ‘The Duchesse
d’Albanie gave my father a ring,’ said the Duke, ‘but after my father’s
death it was stolen from the Duchess Elisabeth by her maid. All young
men stayed abroad their three years at that time, and so did my father,
then as soon as he came home he was married to my mother, who was the
Duke of Bolton’s daughter.
“‘For myself, I went to Paris at eighteen in diplomacy, and was there
for many years. I spoke French better than English, and lived entirely
in French society. Thiers I knew intimately in all the different phases
of his life. He was said to have had an intrigue with Madame Dombes. I
don’t know how that may have been, but he married her daughter, and she
made him a very good wife. He always began his writing at six, when he
had a cup of coffee, and he wrote on--no one being allowed to disturb
him--till 12 A.M., which was the hour of _déjeûner_, and it was this
which enabled him to write his histories; when he was in office he had
not time. He and Guizot were always rivals.
“‘I was in Paris in Louis Philippe’s time, but not under the
Restoration. Many of the Dames de la Cour of the older time, however,
were still in Paris, and had _salons_--Madame de Noailles, &c. I used to
see much of Princess Charlotte de Rohan, who had been privately married
to the Duc d’Enghien, and whose excitement was great when Louis Philippe
was appointed. I was at Marienbad when the news of that revolution came,
and posted back to Paris at once: we expected great difficulty on the
way, but there was none. I saw the barricades, however, in the early
_émeute_ of Louis Philippe’s time, and the people with their passions
roused, and the _gamins_ who used to come under the windows of the
Palais Royal and call for the king till he came out and made them a bow:
it was the regular thing that was done.
“‘I was at Paris when the Duc de Bourbon hung himself. Cuvier and
another great naturalist were sent down to examine into it, and they
both said he must have done it himself; but the Legitimists declared it
was an arrangement between the Orleanists and Madame de Feuchères, who
shared his property between them.
“‘I was at Coppet with Auguste de Staël a few years after Madame de
Staël died: he asked Sismondi to meet me there and several others. Old
Madame Necker--Madame de Staël’s mother--had a very remarkable _salon_
in Paris: her daughter was Duchesse de Broglie and her grand-daughter
married the Comte d’Haussonville, whom I knew very well: but, oh! it is
more than half a century ago now that I was at Coppet.’
* * * * *
“_Oct. 27._--Mrs. Forester, wife of the Duke’s nephew, who is here, has
told me much that is curious.
“‘An old Mrs. Sauchiehall, unfortunately dead now, told Lady Vane that
when she was a girl at Doncaster, at a famous school of that time, she
made a very intimate friendship with two other girls, and when they
parted, they made each other a solemn vow that if either of the three
were in any real trouble in after life, the others would do all they
could to help her.
“They parted, and Mrs. Sauchiehall married in Cumberland--married twice,
and became a second time a widow. Life had seemed constantly to drift
her away from her old friends. At last, at Marienbad, she met one of
them, then Mrs. A., and spent some weeks there with her, renewing all
their old intimacy.
“Mrs. A. told her that she had always continued to be on terms of the
most extreme intimacy with their third friend--Lady B. Her own story had
been a very sad one. She had been left a widow with several children,
and almost in a state of destitution. In all her troubles, she had
continued to confide in Lady B., who never lost sight of her. At one
time especially, Lady B. was perplexed as to how she could help her, and
spoke of it to her husband, who said, ‘Well, there is at least one thing
I could do for her: there is that old place of ours in Dorsetshire,
where nobody lives. It is all being kept up for nothing, so if Mrs. A.
likes to go and inhabit it, she is quite welcome; only, you know, she
ought to be told that it is said to be haunted.’
“Lady B. made the proposal to Mrs. A., who was enchanted, and she moved
at once with her children to the house in Dorsetshire, where she seemed
to find a refuge from her troubles and every comfort. She asked the
servants whom she found in the house about the ghosts, and they said,
‘Oh yes, the great hall and the rooms beyond it are said to be haunted,
but we never go there, and the ghosts never come to our part of the
house, so we are never troubled by them in the least.’ For several years
Mrs. A. lived most happily in the old house, and nothing happened.
“At last, on one of her children’s birthdays, she invited some children
from the neighbourhood to come and play with her own children, who
begged that, after tea, they might all go and play hide-and-seek in the
great disused hall. The children had finished their games, and Mrs. A.
was alone in the hall setting things to rights afterwards, about 8 P.M.
in the evening, with an unlighted candle in her hand, when she heard
some one call out loudly, ‘Bring me a light! bring me a light!’ Then,
almost immediately, the door from the inner passage leading to the
farther rooms opened, and a lady rushed in, beautifully dressed in
white, but with all her dress in flames. She ran across the hall
screaming ‘She’s done it! she’s done it!’ and vanished through a door on
the other side. Mrs. A. instantly lighted her candle, and ran with it up
the passage from which the lady had emerged, but she found all the
doors locked. The next night, at exactly the same hour, she came again
to the hall, and exactly the same thing happened. She then wrote to Lady
B. that she should be obliged to leave the place, unless Lord B. could
explain the mystery.
“Lord B. then said that an ancestress of his--a widowed Lady B.--had an
only son, who fell in love with the charming daughter of a neighbouring
clergyman. The young lady was lovely, fascinating, and very well
educated, but the mother regarded it as a mésalliance and would not hear
of it. The young man, who was a very dutiful son, consented to gratify
his mother by waiting, and went abroad for two years. After that time,
as their attachment was unbroken, and he was of age, he married the
young lady.
“It was with joyful surprise that the young married pair received a very
kind letter from the mother, saying that as all was now settled, she
should make a point of welcoming the bride as her daughter, and always
living happily with her afterwards. They went home to the mother at the
old house which Lord B. had lent to Mrs. A., and were most kindly
received. All seemed perfectly smooth. At last a day came on which the
mother had invited an immense party to be introduced to and do honour to
the bride. The evening arrived, and the young lady was already dressed,
when her mother-in-law came into the room, kissed her affectionately,
and then said to her son, ‘Now that she is indeed my daughter, I am
going to fetch the family diamonds, that I may have the pleasure of
decorating her with them myself.’ The diamonds spoken of were really
the property of the son, but he had never liked to irritate his mother
by claiming them, and rejoiced that his wife should accept them from
her.
“The mother then went to fetch the diamonds, the son lighting her. As
they were coming back, they heard the voice of the young lady calling to
her husband to bring her a light. ‘Oh, I will take it to her,’ cried the
mother suddenly, and snatched the candle out of his hand. In another
instant the girl rushed by with her white dress enveloped in flames,
screaming ‘She’s done it! she’s done it!’ The mother confessed that her
hate and jealousy had been too much for her.
“Now the house is pulled down, and a railway passes over its site.
“Another curious story, told by Mrs. Sauchiehall to Lady Vane, was that
of a young lady, a great Cumberland heiress, who was engaged to be
married, but who pined away from some mysterious and causeless illness.
As there was no definite reason for her being ill, so nothing seemed to
do her any good, but she wasted constantly, and at last she died. After
her death, her old nurse, who had been her devoted attendant, rather
surprised those who knew her by insisting upon leaving the place and
moving to the south of England. A cousin succeeded to the property, but
did not prosper. His wife died, then his children, one after another. A
ghostly appearance also frequently took place, and was especially seen
by a little boy, the son of the house. At last the whole family became
extinct, and quite passed away out of Cumberland memory.
“Many, many years afterwards, Mrs. Sauchiehall was herself at Richmond
in Surrey, when she heard that a very old woman, a native of Cumberland,
was dying in the workhouse--dying, apparently, with some secret upon her
mind, which she could not bring herself to confess, but which never
allowed her to rest. ‘Well,’ said Mrs. Sauchiehall to her informant, ‘I
am a Cumberland woman myself; I will see what I can do.’ She went to the
workhouse, and soon found that the old woman had been the nurse of the
young heiress who had died so long before, and heard her confess that
she had accepted a large bribe from the cousin who succeeded, to poison
her by slow degrees. The bribe had done her no good. She had married,
all her children had died, her husband had gambled away her money, and
she herself had come to die in the workhouse.
“Mrs. Forester told me of a girl who had gone to a famous school at
Brighton. She was allowed to study after hours to fit her for the place
of a pupil-teacher, which she wanted to get. After some time, she looked
so pale and thin, that the mistress thought she was over-worked and
called in a doctor. He asked her many questions, and at last ‘if she
ever saw any strange visions.’ This she could conscientiously say she
did not. On learning this, the doctor said that being the case, it could
do her no harm to continue her studies, but that if she ever fancied she
saw anything unusual, it would be a sign that her brain was overworked,
and she must give up her studies at once.
“It was very soon after this that one night she distinctly heard the
door of her room, which was behind a screen at the foot of her bed,
open and shut again. She got up and went to the door, but it was closed,
and when she opened it, there was no one there. This happened several
times. At last she locked the door. Still it happened again. That night,
however, she assured herself that the delusion came from being
over-tired, and by sheer force of will she went to sleep.
“The next night, however, the same thing happened, and she again locked
the door. Happening to look up soon after, she saw something hanging
over the screen in front of her. It was a hand--an attenuated human
hand. It remained there some time, then it disappeared.
“The girl then felt that she must lessen her studies, but, for fear they
should be stopped altogether, she said nothing, whilst at the school, of
what she had seen. Soon after this, however, she went home to the old
aunt who had brought her up, and who was in very poor circumstances. She
was almost surprised at the extreme and anxious tenderness with which
she was received. After tea she said, ‘Auntie, I have a curious little
story I want to tell you,’ and she told her what she had seen. The aunt
said, ‘My love, you have unconsciously made easier for me the task of
telling you some very sad news; I did not know how to break it to you,
but Edward’ (the young man to whom the girl was engaged) ‘is dead; he
died the night you saw the hand.’
“Mrs. Forester told this story to Lord Rayleigh, who said, ‘That is a
very simple and explicable story: it is a case of telepathy.’
“The Duchess of Cleveland says that when the Sultan was at Buckingham
Palace, one of his servants offended him, and he condemned him to death.
The Sultan was informed that he could not execute him in this country;
then he said he should do it on board his own ship. One of his wives
also is said to have been executed whilst he was here, ‘because, poor
thing, she had been so dreadfully sea-sick, that it was quite
disgusting,’ and she is said to be buried in the palace garden.
“‘Mr. Lowell asserted to me,’ said the Duchess, ‘that there were no
really old families in England. “Surely the Nevilles?” I protested. The
next morning Lowell said, “I’ve been thinking that I am descended myself
from the Nevilles, but I never thought it worth while before to inquire
about it.”’
“‘Some one went,’ said the Duchess, ‘to inquire after the health of
Madame Brunnow. “Oh,” said the servant, “she will never be any better.”
The inquirer was admitted afterwards to see Baron Brunnow, to whom he
said, “I am so grieved to hear from your servant that Madame Brunnow is
never likely to be any better.” “Did he really say that?” said Baron
Brunnow. “Oh, the faithfulness of these English servants! The fact is,
Madame Brunnow really died three days ago; but the servant knows that it
was not at all convenient that she should die before the reception of
the Duke of Edinburgh is over, so--for inquirers--she is still only very
ill.”’”
* * * * *
_“Raby Castle, Oct. 28._--A pleasant Mr. and Mrs.
Wilkinson--neighbours--came to stay yesterday. He told me a very
remarkable story.
“One day last year, Mr. Gurdon, an excellent Catholic priest belonging
to a mission in the East End of London, had come in from his labours
dreadfully wet and tired, and rejoicing in the prospect of a quiet
evening, when the bell rung, and he was told that a lady wanted to see
him on most urgent business. He said to a friend who was with him, how
sincerely he dreaded being called out again into the wet that night, and
how he hoped that the visit meant nothing of the kind; but he admitted
the lady. She was a remarkably sweet, gentle-looking person, who told
him that there was a case in most urgent need of his immediate
ministrations at No. 24 in a street near, and she implored him to come
at once, saying that she would wait to point out the house to him. So he
only stayed to change his wet things, and then prepared to follow the
lady. He took with him the Host, which he wore against his breast,
holding, as is the custom, his hand over it. It is not considered right
for a priest carrying the Host to engage in conversation, so Mr. Gurdon
did not speak to the lady on the way to the house, but she walked a
little way in front of him. At last she stopped, pointed to a house, and
said, ‘This, Father, is No. 24.’ Then she passed on and left him.
“Mr. Gurdon rang the bell, and when the servant came, asked who it was
who was seriously ill in the house. The servant looked much surprised
and said there was no illness there at all. Much astonished, Mr. Gurdon
said he thought the servant must be mistaken, that he had been summoned
to the house to a case in most urgent need. The servant insisted that
there was no illness; but Mr. Gurdon would not go away without seeing
the owner of the house, and was shown up to a sitting-room, where he
found the master of the house, a pleasant-looking young man of about
five-and-twenty. To him Mr. Gurdon told how he had been brought there,
and the young man assured him that there must be some mistake--there was
certainly no illness in the house; and to satisfy Mr. Gurdon, he sent
down to his servants, and ascertained that they were all perfectly well.
“A tea-supper was upon the table, and very cordially and kindly the
young man asked Mr. Gurdon to sit down to it with him. He pressed it, so
they had tea together and much pleasant conversation. Eventually the
young man said, ‘I also am a Catholic,’ adding, in an ingenuous way,
‘but I fear you would think a very bad one;’ and he explained that the
sacraments and confession had long been practically unknown to him. ‘As
long as my dear mother lived,’ he said, ‘it was different: but she died
three years ago, and since her death I have paid no attention to
religion.’ And he described the careless life he had been leading.
“Very earnestly and openly Mr. Gurdon talked with him, urging him to
amend his ways, to go back to his old serious life. At first he urged it
for his mother’s sake, then from higher motives. He seemed to make an
impression, and the young man was touched by what he said, and said no
one had spoken to him thus since his mother died. At last Mr. Gurdon
said, ‘Why should you not begin a new life now? I might hear your
confession, and then be able to give you absolution this very evening.
But I should not wish you to decide this hurriedly: let me leave you for
an hour--let me leave you perfectly alone for that time--you will then
be able to think over your confession, and decide what you ought to tell
me.’ The young man consented, but urged Mr. Gurdon not to leave the
house again in the rain: there were a fire and lights in the library,
would not Mr. Gurdon wait there?
“Mr. Gurdon willingly went to spend the time in the library, where two
candles were lighted on the chimney-piece. Between these he placed the
Host. Then he occupied himself by examining the pictures in the room.
There were many fine engravings, and there was also the crayon portrait
of a lady which struck him very much. He seemed to remember the original
quite well, and yet he could not recall where he had seen her. On going
back to the other room, he told the young man how very much he had been
struck by the picture. ‘Ah!’ he said, ‘that is the portrait of my dear
mother, and it is indeed the greatest comfort I have, it is so very like
her.’ At that moment Mr. Gurdon suddenly recollected where he had seen
the lady: she it was who had come to fetch him to the house.
“Mr. Gurdon heard the young man’s confession and gave him absolution; he
seemed to be in the most serious and earnest frame of mind. He could not
receive the sacrament, because it must be taken fasting, so the evening
meal they had had made it impossible. But it was arranged that he should
come to the chapel at eight o’clock the next morning, and that he
should receive it then. Mr. Gurdon went home most deeply interested in
the case, and truly thankful for having been led to it; but when morning
came, and the service took place in the chapel, to his bitter
disappointment the young man was not there. He feared that he had
relapsed altogether, but he could not leave him thus, and as soon as the
service was over he hastened to his house. When he reached it, the
blinds were all down. The old female servant who opened the door was in
floods of tears: her master had died in his sleep.
“On the last evening of his life his mother had brought Father Gurdon to
him.”
* * * * *
“_Muncaster Castle, Oct. 30._--What a gloriously beautiful place this
is!--an ascent from the station, and then a descent through massy woods,
till the castle appears--infinitely picturesque in outline and in its
red and grey colouring--on the edge of a gorge, wooded on both sides,
and which now has every tint, from the dark blue-green of the hollies
and the russet of dead fern, through crimson, scarlet, orange, to the
faintest primrose colour of the fading chestnut leaves. Then behind are
the finest of Cumbrian mountains, and in front terraced gardens, and the
not far distant sea. The interior has almost an equal charm, in the
thick velvet-pile carpets of the long passages hung with portraits, the
fine collection of books in the (too dark) octagonal library, and the
low hall, which has an organ, flowers, and books, and is the common
sitting-room. I sleep in ‘the ghost-room,’ and in a red silk bed used by
Henry VI. when he was here, and when he gave ‘the luck of Muncaster’ to
the family--an old Venetian glass bowl, from which every child of the
house has been christened since. Once it was thrown from an upper
window: the owners never had the courage to hunt for and examine it, and
it remained buried in the earth for some years: then it was dug up quite
uninjured.
“We have driven up Eskdale--a delightfully wild mountain glen, with a
clear, tossing river, and dark mountains of jagged outline, covered with
brown bracken wherever a turfy space is left between the rocks.
“My host--‘Josceline’--is geniality itself, and very amusing, and Lady
Muncaster excessively pleasant. Only her sister, pretty Lady Kilmarnock,
is here with her little Ivan, and two young ladies, Miss Rhoda Lestrange
and Miss Winifred Yorke,[471] whom her friends call ‘Frivolina.’ The
Muncasters have lived here for six hundred years; then they came from
Pennington, where a mound still exists which was crowned by their
residence in ancient British times.”
* * * * *
“_Alnwick Castle, Nov. 4._--Yesterday I left Muncaster at eight, and had
two hours in the middle of the day to wait at Carlisle. Whilst I was
sauntering round the cathedral, one of the Canons came up to me,
introduced himself as a college acquaintance--son of Richmond the
artist--and asked me to luncheon. He also showed me the cathedral,
‘restored’ out of much interest, with a miserable modern reredos and
other rubbish, but with two fine old tombs, and the modern monuments of
Paley and Law. Below the great east window Sir Walter Scott was married.
A noble fragment remains of a beautiful renaissance screen, and at the
back of the stalls are very curious early pictures of the lives of S.
Anthony, S. Augustine, &c. Close to the cathedral is the Fratry--the
refectory of the abbey--now used for lectures. Carlisle is a black and
truly uninviting place.
“Lady Airlie and Lady Griselda Ogilvy were at the station, and I
travelled with them as far as Naworth. On arriving here, it was pleasant
to be met by the cordial welcome of Duchess Eleanor, always most genial
and kind. The actual Duchess[472] did not appear till dinner, when she
was wheeled into the room in a chair, very sweet and attractive-looking,
but very fragile. The Duke[473] looks wiry, refined, rather bored, and
some people would find him very alarming. Lord and Lady Percy seem to be
two of the most silent people in the world--she pretty still in spite of
her ten children. There are also here pleasant little Lady Constance
Campbell, Miss Ellison, who goes about with Duchess Eleanor, and Lady
Emma and Miss M’Neile--the former a violent Radical, who went to bed at
once when the Primrose League became the topic of conversation. We
played at whist in the evening, but it was broken at ten by going to
prayers, which the Duke reads in the chapel. It is the only time I have
seen evening prayers in any country-house for the last fifteen years.
“This morning Duchess Eleanor showed me the rooms--the magnificent
Italian rooms, which owe their glory to her husband, Duke Algernon, who,
when remonstrated with for thus changing a mediaeval fortress, said,
‘Would you wish us only to sit on benches upon a floor strewn with
rushes?’ He purchased the whole of the great Camuccini collection at
Rome, because of his great wish to have one single picture, which they
would not sell separately. It is the so-called ‘Feast of the Gods’ by
Gian Bellini, with a landscape by Titian. Other noble pictures involved
in the purchase are a Crucifixion by Guido, singularly dark for the
master; a splendid portrait attributed to Andrea del Sarto, but more
like Franciabigio; and a little Raffaelle of SS. Mary Magdalen and
Catherine. Bought from the Manfrini Palace at Venice are two noble works
of Pordenone--one of them the picture of the father, mother, and son
mentioned by Byron (in ‘Beppo’). From the Davenport collection are
portions of a grand fresco of the ‘Salutation,’ by Sebastian del Piombo,
once in S. Maria della Pace at Rome. The magnificent decorations of the
rooms are by Canina. But the most lasting attraction of the castle is
the library, with the really splendid collection of books formed by Duke
Algernon.
“The Percies are Irvingites now, as well as the Duke and Duchess. Her
father, Mr. Drummond, was ‘one of the twelve apostles,’ in whose time it
is a tenet of faith that the Lord must return. Now only one ‘apostle’ is
alive, and when he dies what will happen? Meantime, though a very old
man, he is hard at work beating up recruits and inciting proselytism.
The family go to the church here, but then the vicar of Alnwick is also
an Irvingite. All the gibberish which the Irvingites talk when seized by
the spirit is taken down and treasured up as ‘prophecy.’”
[Illustration: ALNWICK CASTLE.]
* * * * *
“_Nov. 5._--This Irvingite family is constantly waiting and looking out
for the millennium: it is terribly anxious work. But their faith is most
simple and touching. When one of the Percy boys was very ill, they had
him anointed with oil; after that he recovered. ‘We had no doubt it
would be so,’ said Lady Percy, ‘no doubt whatever.’ After the anointing,
the friends of a patient have altogether done with human agency, and
leave everything in the Divine hands. It is curious to hear members of
this family say casually--‘The angel was here on Monday, and will be
here again on Friday.’
“I have had an interesting hour with the Duchess in her own
sitting-room, where she showed me all the treasures in her cabinet--two
miniatures of Elizabeth, contemporary, for they are painted without any
shadow, which she forbade, upon her face, and two others, evidently
painted afterwards, and naturally much more becoming; a miniature of
Mary Queen of Scots painted in prison, with the fat face and thick neck
which want of exercise caused in one used to so much riding; some of the
hair of Charles I., cut off by Sir Henry Halford when the king’s coffin
was opened at Windsor; miniatures of James I., Anne of Denmark, and
three of their children; the splendid ‘George’ of the fifth Earl of
Northumberland, made with the blue enamel which is now a lost art; one
of the amber snuff-boxes which Queen Charlotte had constructed in
Germany for her ladies, with her miniature on the outside, her dog
inside the lid, and her monkey at the bottom of the box; the pencil-case
of Lord Chesterfield, with a diamond at the end, being the pencil
mentioned by Pope. Not less interesting is a little (Dutch) silver
woman, which runs by clockwork, because it was the means of saving all
the family plate. For when burglars broke into Sion, it scampered about
the floor when they were going to pack it up, which made them think the
plate was possessed, and they took to flight, leaving all their booty
behind, with the baskets in which they had intended to carry it off.”
* * * * *
“_Nov. 6._--All this morning I was left to ‘browse in the library,’ as
Dr. Johnson expresses it. In the afternoon I had a walk with the Duke
and Percy to Alnwick Abbey--utterly unknown to history, and with only
the ruin of its fine gateway standing, yet which must have been one of
the most important buildings in the North of England. Its substructions
were sought and dug for in exact accordance with the rules laid down for
building a Premonstratensian abbey, and so they were found. The church
must have been grand as any cathedral.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Holmhurst, Nov. 27, 1887._--I am greatly enjoying a little solitude in
this time so congenial for hard work, when all nature seems wrapped in a
swampy mist-cloud. There are great improvements in the garden. Along
that little upper walk to the field, where the frames were, is now a
rockery with rare heaths, and behind it a bed of kalmias, and then the
cypress hedge of my especial little garden. Rock and fern are also put
on the steep descent to the pond, opposite the line of tree-fuchsias.
“I wonder if you remember hearing of the extraordinary visitation of
crickets on the night of (my mother’s death) Nov. 12-13, seventeen years
ago--the uproar, like the sea in a storm, all night, scarcely allowing a
voice to be heard: then heard no more till the night, twelve years
after, in which dear Lea passed away. I was so struck by coming across
an allusion to it when reading the last chapter of Ecclesiastes as the
lesson in church last Sunday--‘And the grasshopper shall become a
burden, because man goeth to his long home.’”
[Illustration: HOLMHURST FROM THE SHRUBBERY.]
* * * * *
“_Dec. 24._--The dreary Christmas season of damp and dyspepsia, bills
and bother, is less odious than usual this year, as the day itself is
swallowed up in Sunday. I have, however, also had a real pleasure in a
present from the Duchess of Cleveland of her Life of Everard Primrose,
only printed for his friends. It is most beautifully, touchingly, really
nobly done, and the most perfect memorial of a high-minded
single-hearted young man’s life. I think I never read so perfect a
biography. The story is entirely told in Everard’s own admirable
letters, but the Duchess has not shrunk from her own part, and the
little touches from her own life, the Duke’s, &c., are indescribably
simple, graceful, and sincere. The book gives one a far higher opinion
of _her_ (of Everard I had always the very highest), and makes one
regret many hasty judgments. I have been quite engrossed with the book,
so perfectly delightful is it.”
* * * * *
After a busy six weeks of work, I spent the New Year again at Cobham,
always charming in its quiet home life, but was glad to return soon
again to work.
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Holmhurst, Feb. 10, 1888._--The news of Lady Marian Alford’s sudden
death removes from the cycle of life one whom I had felt to be a true
friend for more than thirty years. Our meetings were at long intervals,
but when we met, it was as more than mere acquaintances. With a grace
which was all her own, she often unfolded beautiful chapters in her own
life to me, and she was one of the very few persons who have read in
manuscript much of these written volumes of my past. She was a perfect
_grande dame_, unable to harbour an ignoble thought, incapable of a
small action. Regal, imperious, and extravagant,[474] she was generous,
kind, and personally most unselfish, and, had the real greatness and
goodness that was in her been regulated and disciplined by the
circumstances of her early life, she would have been one of the noblest
women of her century. Alas! only yesterday she was! How soon one has to
school oneself to say ‘would have been.’ Thus, however, it will
certainly be with oneself. The day after one dies people will say--and
how few with even a pang--‘He would: he might have been.’”
* * * * *
“_March 14._--Met Lady Fergusson Davy (_née_ Fortescue). She told me
that when Lady Hills Johnes, the friend of Thirlwall, was twenty-four,
she was once in society with the late Lord Lytton, who was talking of
second-sight, and of his own power of seeing the future of those he was
with. She urged him very much to tell her future, but he was very
unwilling to do so. Still she urged it so much that at last he did. He
did it after the manner of the Chaldees--told it to her, and wrote it
down at the same time in hieroglyphics. He said, ‘You will have a very
great sorrow, which will shake your faith in man: then you will have
another even greater sorrow, which will come to you through an old and
trusted servant: you will marry late in life a king among men, and the
close of your existence will be cloudlessly happy.’ All the first part
of the prophecy has come true--the breaking off of her first
engagement; the terrible murder of her father by his servant; her
marriage with Sir James Hills; all that remains now is happiness.”
* * * * *
“_Holmhurst, May 14._--I have just returned from an interesting month in
London, seeing many people delightfully and making some pleasant new
acquaintance. At Lady Delawarr’s I was presented to the young Duchess of
Mecklenbourg, very pretty and full of life and animation. No one else
came up to talk to her, and I was left to make conversation from five
till a quarter to seven! by which time I think we had both exhausted all
possible topics, though she was very charming. At last she said, ‘I
always go at six to read to the Duchess of Cambridge.’--‘Well, ma’am,’ I
answered, ‘you will certainly be terribly late to-day.’--‘What very odd
things you do say to me!’ she said. The next day I sent her my ‘Walks in
London,’ and as her speaking of the Duchess of Cambridge convinced me of
her identity, I directed to the ‘Hereditary Grand Duchess of
Mecklenbourg-Strelitz.’ The next time I saw her I had found out, and
said, ‘I am sorry, ma’am, that I have made three mistakes in one line in
directing to you--that you are not ‘Hereditary,’ not ‘Grand,’ and not
‘Strelitz;’ for she was the Duchess Paul of Mecklenbourg-Schwerin; but
she laughed heartily.
“In going to London, I first saw, on a placard at the station, that
Matthew Arnold was dead. It seemed to carry away a whole joyous part of
life in a moment--for I have known Matthew Arnold ever since I remember
anything, though I did not know till I lost him that his happy
personality and cordial welcome had made a real difference to me for
years, especially in the rooms of the Athenaeum, where I have spent so
much time of late years. He had an evergreen youth, and died young at
sixty-six, and he was so impregnated with social tact and courtesy, as
well as with intellectual buoyancy, that he was beyond all men liveable
with. Herman Merivale has written some lines which seem to express what
I shall always remember--
‘Thrice happy he, whose buoyant youth
In light of Beauty sought for Truth,
* * * * *
And to the longing listener showed
How Beauty decks the ugliest road.’
“All who knew Matthew Arnold well loved him, though ‘the Apostle of
Moderation in Criticism’ would certainly have been shocked by some of
the fulsome articles which have followed his death; and I doubt of any
of his writings surviving his generation, especially his refined and
delicate verses, which surely lack the fire of a poet whose work is to
be eternal. I went on April 19, with Montagu Wood, to his funeral in the
graveyard of the ancient church at Laleham, where his father was vicar
before he went to Rugby, and where his children are buried. It was a day
of pitiless rain, which pelted upon the widow and sisters and crowd of
mourners round the grave, and on the piles of exquisite flowers beneath
which his coffin was hidden. As Alfred Austin says in a beautiful
article upon him, ‘Wherever he lies, there will be a Campo-Santo.’ I was
glad in going down to the funeral to make friends with Edward Arnold, a
charming fellow, who is the present editor of _Murray’s Magazine_.
“At dinner at the Miss Monks’ I was interested to find myself sitting
next to Lady Sawle, who told me that she was niece of the Rose Aylmer
who was the love of Landor’s youth. It was on her that he wrote the
lines which Archbishop Trench declared to be better than many an epic,
and which Charles Lamb said he lived upon for a fortnight. Lady Sawle
was herself one of the three Roses to whom Landor afterwards addressed a
poem, the third Rose being her mother. She described the death, when she
was at Rome, of Miss Bathurst--beautiful, radiant, and a splendid
horsewoman, riding along the narrow path between the Acqua Acetosa and
the Ponte Molle. The horse suddenly slipped backwards into the Tiber.
She called out to Lord Aylmer, ‘Uncle, save me!’ but he could not swim,
nor could any of the gentlemen or the groom who was present. Another
groom, who was a good swimmer, had been sent back to Rome with a restive
horse. She sank in her long blue habit, and her body was never found.
All Rome mourned ‘La bella Inglesa,’ and the little party of friends,
closely united and present at her death, dispersed sadly. One of them
alone, Mr. Charles Mills (of the Villa Mills), returned to Rome in the
autumn. As he was about to enter the city, he sent his carriage on to
the gate from the Ponte Molle, and walked slowly along the Tiber bank by
what had been the scene of the accident six months before. As he walked,
he saw two peasants on the other side of the river catch at something
which looked like a piece of blue cloth on the mud, and pass on. A
sudden impulse seized him, and he got some men to come at once with
spades and dig there in the Tiber bank. There Miss Bathurst was found as
if she were embalmed, in her blue riding-habit, perfectly beautiful, and
with her long hair over her shoulders. There was only one little mark of
a wound in her forehead. For a minute she was visible in all her
loveliness--a minute only. She was buried in the English cemetery.”[475]
[Illustration: S. FLOUR, FROM THE SOUTH.][476]
[Illustration: CHÂTEAU DU ROI, S. EMILION.][477]
* * * * *
On 28th May 1888 I went abroad to my French work, feeling as usual
greatly depressed at leaving home and going off into solitude, but soon
able to throw myself vigorously into all the interests of my foreign
life and its work. How full each week seemed!--the two first alone
amongst quiet villages and churches in Picardy and afterwards in
Auvergne, and many others after my friend Hugh Bryans joined me at wild
S. Flour, in the hill country of Auvergne, at beautiful Obazine, and at
Rocamadour again, then at beautiful S. Emilion, in wandering amongst the
innumerable historic relics of La Vendée; lastly by the Loire and its
surroundings. Three places especially come back to me with pleasant
memories--the home-like inn at S. Emilion, its beautiful old buildings
radiant with the blossom of pinks and valerian, and the sunset walks on
its old walls looking into the vineyards and cornfields:--the little
fishing port of Le Croisic, with its gay boats, its snow-white houses,
and its windy surroundings:--and charming Clisson, with its pleasant
inn and its balconies overhung with roses and wistaria. Hugh was a
capital companion, and full of interest in what he saw, though--like so
many at twenty-four--he pretended to hate all the historic detail.
However, I am sure my endless archaeological inquiries must have sorely
tried his patience, and he was always unweariedly good to me.
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Beauvais, June 1, 1888._--A number of friends wrote urging me to give
up what was ‘entirely an imaginary duty.’ However, I felt it was a duty
to finish what I had worked at so long, though perhaps it had not been a
duty to begin it; and so, much as I hated coming, I am here! It is no
use thinking of all one has left, and there is a great deal in what one
_has_, most of all _le grand air_ for hours and hours, and the
marvellous light and shade, which is in itself such a beauty in this
pellucid atmosphere. Then the peasants in Western France are delightful,
and I have not much fear of being taken up here; and I come so well
primed and informed that I know exactly what to look for everywhere, and
where to find it, and almost what to say about it.
“I left dear Holmhurst at 6.30 P.M. and at 2.30 A.M. was carrying my own
portmanteau down the desolate moonlit streets of Abbeville, where the
old town struck me more than ever, such a complete change from England,
and so romantically picturesque.”
* * * * *
“_Clermont Ferrand, June 9._--Oh, it has been so hot! Never in my life
have I been so grilled, roasted, boiled, and melted down; and it has
been hard having to work on all day, whatever the intense exhaustion
from the heat. But I have kept up to exactly the tale of work measured
out for each day before I left home.”
* * * * *
“_Le Puy, June 13._--We had an exquisite journey on Tuesday by rail down
the valley of the Alagnon to Neussargues, the quantity of old castles on
the rocky hills as striking as those on the Rhine were forty years ago,
and the mountain flowers lovely. Then we drove up through the cool
forests to the high plateau which is under snow nine months of the year,
and which was quite chilly even now. Here, in the evening, we reached
the old episcopal town of S. Flour, on a great basaltic rock, the most
wonderfully placed of all French cities, and much recalling Orvieto.
Everything seemed to belong to another world. From my window I could
throw anything sheer down the most tremendous of quite perpendicular
precipices, and the view was magnificent. The house had been in the same
family for four hundred years, and the landlady showed with pride the
dark passage where her ancestor intercepted the Protestants when they
were trying to take the city by stealth, the stone on which they were
beheaded, and the drain by which their blood flowed away. The other side
of the house opened into a great square, with the cathedral standing
amongst trees as in an English close, and houses with sixteenth-century
colonnades. I saw the huge modern viaduct bridge of Garrabit, most
extraordinary certainly, but though much more interesting to most
people, less so to me than the glorious views of S. Flour itself, on its
black and orange rocks, backed by the great purple towers of the
cathedral.”
[Illustration: Augustus J. C. Hare
1888]
[Illustration: S. NECTAIRE.][478]
* * * * *
“_S. Nectaire le Haut, June 28._--It was dark and raining in torrents
before we arrived here, and the driver suddenly announced not only that
he had lost his way, but that one of our wheels was likely to come off!
We were skirting a precipice by a rocky road without any parapet, and at
last, by holding the carriage lamps low, found that we had somehow got
into a very ancient churchyard, where stone coffins were strewn all
about. At last we knocked up a woman at a farmhouse, who guided us back
to the hotel, which we had long passed in the dark. This is an
enchanting place, beautifully situated in a wooded gorge below the old
romanesque church, where the Sunday congregation--from many far-away
villages--winding up the hill with baskets of food for the day, has been
most picturesque. There are lovely walks in all directions, and
Switzerland at its best never had more beautiful flowers, fields covered
with lilies, orchis, narcissus, globe ranunculus, pansies, pinks, &c.”
* * * * *
“_Le Croisic, July 17._--At this little fishing-town there is no fine
scenery, but it is most artistically lovely, with wide views over the
grey reaches of sea and yellow sandy flats to the soft hills, and
endless fishing-boats with red sails and nets.
“Yesterday we spent the day at La Guerande, a little unaltered mediaeval
town above the salt-flats; a very superior Winchelsea, described in
Balzac’s wonderful novel of ‘Beatrix.’”
* * * * *
I returned to England on August 7th, just in time to attend Alwyne
Greville’s wedding in London. In September I paid the Eustace Cecils a
visit, and then went to the Spencer Smiths at Kingston near Wareham.
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
[Illustration: GATE OF LA GUERANDE.][479]
“_Sept. 17._--It was a great pleasure to find Sir Howard and Lady
Elphinstone at the Eustace Cecils’. I like them both so very much. They
say the Queen is much occupied in learning Hindustanee and speaks it
now quite well--a great delight to her Indian subjects. She has three
Indian servants in constant attendance, and converses fluently with
them. This afternoon has been delightful, with Mrs. Spencer Smith and
her children, at St. Alban’s (St. Aldhelm’s) Head. In the little hollow
with stone cottages on the way thither a boy opened a gate for us whose
name was Sagittary Clump. The name came from his parents’ lodger, but it
must have had its origin in Sagittarius. Mrs. Spencer Smith spoke to the
boy’s father about his daughter’s misconduct. ‘I can’t help it,’ he
said; ‘I’d given her her documents,’ meaning that he had spoken to her
seriously: Shakspeare uses ‘documents’ in the same sense. Walking up the
hill, we were terribly bitten by harvest-bugs, which little Michael
Smith poetically called ‘Ces petites bêtes rouges dans les fleurs
bleues’ (harebells). Close to the coastguard station, near the edge of
the cliff, is a tiny chapel, perfectly square, supported by a single
pillar, and with only one wee romanesque window, so that almost all the
light comes from the open door: however, there is only service here in
summer. A monk of Sherborne Abbey was always kept here to toll a bell to
warn off ships, whilst he prayed for the shipwrecked. Seven little
children aged from three to four came up to us while we were drawing.
‘We be going to throw ourselves over the cliff, we be: we be going to
smash ourselves quite up, we be,’ the little monsters announced to their
mothers, as they all seven marched away arm-in-arm to the edge of the
cliff. Then ‘little sister’ made ‘Ernest’ sit down upon a thistle, at
which ‘Ernest’ roared; and finally the mother caught up Ernest and
carried it off, ‘little sister’ whacking its little naked behind with a
stick all the way as they went. Then a young Palgrave appeared, who took
the Spencer Smith children down to a wreck in Chapman’s (Shipman’s) Bay,
to their great delight. There were seven parrots saved from that ship,
but one was lost which was prepared for death by being able to say the
Lord’s Prayer straight through. We went afterwards to the desolate
village of Worth, where, in the wind-stricken rectory, the clergyman and
his wife see no one for five months of the year, and have to shout into
each other’s ears to be audible in the roaring winter blast. The church
has a Saxon arch, and in its graveyard two stone sarcophagi, one that of
a child-abbot, with an incised crosier lying upon it; also the
gravestone, of Mr. ‘Jessy,’ ‘who, by his great courage, innoculated his
wife and two sons from the (cow)’--_sic._ He rode up to London with
saddle-bags to give his experience to the Government. The Dorsetshire
here is pure Anglo-Saxon: King Alfred spoke Dorsetshire. The people are
very long-lived; at Steeple in Purbeck there have only been four rectors
since the time of Charles I. Three Messrs. Bond have lasted 160 years,
and an old Mrs. Ross of 101 drives up this hill in a dogcart to visit
her old servant of ninety-four in the village. In church the clerk said
‘Stand in a wee (awe) and sin not!’”
* * * * *
_To_ LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD.
“_Cadland, Sept. 21._--This comfortable house stands in a park, which is
a piece of enclosed forest full of noble oaks and hollies, with glints
of blue sea and shipping between. The passages are entirely clothed with
fine prints and drawings, and in the rooms are many fine portraits,
especially that by Zoffany of the Drummond who founded the Bank. The
collection of autographs is priceless, and includes many by early kings
of France, letters of Marie Antoinette, a charming one of the little
Dauphin, and the execution-warrant of Madame du Barry. Amongst the
drawings is the touching sketch which Severn made ‘to keep himself
awake’ sitting by the death-bed of Keats.... We have driven to ‘the
Cottage,’ a charming house where Lady Elizabeth Drummond lived, in woods
of ilex and fir above the Solent.... The company has included Valletort;
Harry Forster, a very good-looking fellow; Robert Scott, Lord Montagu’s
second son; and Christopher Walsh, a very nice son of Lord Ormathwayte.”
* * * * *
“_Malshanger, Sept. 25._--I came here on the 22nd to visit Mr. Wyndham
Portal, and (in her grandmotherhood) his most beautiful as well as
charming wife. After luncheon we drove to the Vyne, admirable in the
rich colour of its old red brick and grey copings, and greatly beloved
by Horace Walpole, who used to stay there with his friend John Chute, to
whom he gave many pictures, and whose ‘Chutehood’--depression of spirits
and gout--he often deplored. It was to him that Gray wrote ‘suavissime
Chuti.’ The house has always been cared for and never allowed to ‘run
down,’ and there is much of interest in its fine old rooms, especially
in its two stories of ‘gallery,’ lined with busts and portraits. Four of
these were brought hither by Lady Dacre of Hurstmonceaux, upon her
second marriage with Challoner Chute of the Vyne, and include a portrait
of Chrysogona Baker, afterwards Lady Dacre; of the widow of the Lord
Dacre who was executed, with his picture hanging behind her, and two of
the Chute Lady Dacre herself, one of them copied from a picture now at
Belhus, the place of the Lennards. The present owner of the Vyne, who
married Miss Eleanor Portal, showed it all admirably, and has written a
capital book on the place.[480] He educates his own beautiful boys,
making scholars of them before they are ten years old.
“This district--‘Portalia,’ as people call it--is quite peopled with
Portals and their connections. They were a French Protestant family,
greatly persecuted under Louis XIV., when they took refuge at La
Cavalerie in the Larzac. Jean François de Portal escaped to Holland, and
his eight children, concealed in barrels and smuggled out of the kingdom
by faithful nurses, reached England. The eldest of these became tutor to
George III., and the second, Henri, obtained the monopoly of the
manufacture of bank-notes, which the family have enjoyed ever since. The
last Portal left his vast landed estates to his eldest son, Melville,
and his mills to his second son, Wyndham: now the land is only a burden,
but, police-guarded, the mills at Laverstoke constantly increase in
value, and turn out daily 50,000 Bank of England notes, 12,000 Indian
notes, and 100,000 postal orders. By the process of one beautiful
machine, the linen rags (nothing but new rags of the best linen being
used) are reduced to pulp, the pulp is flattened into paper, stamped,
drained, dried, and behold! before it leaves the machine, a bank-note
ready for the printer. All the machinery is turned by the transparent
Teste, which is full of trout almost up to its source. The workmen, who
live in comfortable cottages near the mills and receive high wages, are
hereditary, and always fulfil their quota of duty from father to son.
Mr. Portal throws open his fine gardens here every Saturday to the
people of Basingstoke, who play tennis and generally enjoy themselves,
and do no harm whatever.”
* * * * *
JOURNAL AND LETTERS TO MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Ford Castle, Northumberland, Nov. 23._--I set out to come here on
Wednesday evening, after attending Miss Higginson’s wedding at Marlow.
When we--two other guests, Mr. and Mrs. Bellairs, and I--reached the
desolate station amongst the bleak moorlands, we found only one little
gig in waiting, and no chance of anything else. Mrs. B. and I struggled
into it, and came through the howling raging storm for seven miles here;
Mr. B. walked; but our reception in these fine old rooms made us forget
all else, and to-day has been like all days at Ford and
Highcliffe--drawing, reading aloud with talking at intervals, and walks
in the glen and gardens.”
* * * * *
“_Nov. 26._--A delightful walk, combating with the wind, to the Devil’s
rocks, ‘where,’ say the Northumbrians, ‘the devil hanged his
grandmother.’ Mr. Neville (the rector) dined. He says the old rectory
here was haunted. His sister came to stay with him in the spare room
that looked out on the castle. The second day she said very quietly but
firmly that she could not sleep in that room again; another must be
given her or she must leave. Then she described that, on two successive
nights, the curtain of her bed had been drawn, and a strange voice had
distinctly said to her, ‘This is not a spare room.’
“Mr. Neville said--
“‘I belong to the Neville-Rolfes of Hitcham in Norfolk. After my cousin,
Charles Neville-Rolfe, who was beloved by every one, died, his boxes
were all found to be fastened with letter-locks, and the family were a
long time before they were able to get them undone, as he had not left
the clue. My cousins suggested to me afterwards that I should ask Crisp
the carpenter how he had discovered it at last; so, as I was rubbing an
inscription on a stone in the church, I got him to come and move part of
a pew which covered it, and I asked him about it. He said, “Whilst we
were puzzling over those locks, I heard in a dream the voice of Mr.
Charles, and he said, ‘Crisp, come and walk and talk,’ and I said, ‘Yes,
sir, gladly;’ and then he turned to me and said, ‘Crisp, guess!’--and I
woke, and ‘guess’ was the word we wanted.” I told my cousins afterwards
what Crisp had told me, and they said, “Yes, but the really curious part
was that only three letters were wanted. Crisp thought ‘guess’ was spelt
‘ges,’ still we acted on what he said, and it was right.’”
“Lady Waterford says--‘My maid is very good, very good: her only fault
is that she has three hands, she has a right hand and a left hand, and a
little behind-hand.’
“Mr. Bellairs, the Highcliffe agent, who is here, said--
“‘My grandfather was both at Trafalgar and Waterloo, for he was wounded
as a middy at Trafalgar, and then went into the army. It was odd when,
long afterwards, some one said about Trafalgar, “It was so and so” and
he said, “No, it was not, for _I_ was there,” and that the conversation
then went on to Waterloo, “It was so and so.”--“No, I beg your pardon,
but I was _there_.”
“‘Afterwards he fell in love with Miss Mackenzie, one of two heiress
sisters. He had nothing to marry upon, and the father forbade him the
house, but he was allowed one interview, and in that he found out that
the butler was just leaving, and the family would be wanting another. He
dressed up and came and applied for the place. He got it, and it was
three weeks before he was found out, and then Mr. Mackenzie allowed that
he was too much for him, and allowed that he should marry his daughter.
But he insisted that my grandfather should leave the army. “Very well,”
he said, “if you like I will go into the Church.” So that was agreed to,
and in time he became a Canon. He was as earnest in the Church as
everywhere else. Soon after his appointment to a country living, as he
was crossing some fields on a Sunday, he found a number of miners
crowding round some prize-fighters. “Come,” he said, “I can’t have this:
I shall not allow this.” “But you can’t prevent it,” they cried. “Can’t
prevent it! you’ll soon see if I can’t fight for my God as well as for
my king: I’ll fight you all in turn,” and he polished off the two
strongest miners in fair fight, and then the others were so pleased,
they chaired him, and carried him through the village to his church,
which they filled from that time forward.’
“Most delightful and full of holiest teaching have been the many quiet
hours I have spent with the lady of the castle. There is a sentence of
Confucius which says--‘If you would escape vexation, reprove yourself
liberally and others sparingly.’ It is exactly her case. And there is
another sentence of Confucius which applies to her--‘The wise have no
doubts, the virtuous no sorrows, the brave no fears.’ Being here so
quietly, I have seen even more of her than on other visits, and more
than ever has she seemed to be a fountain of original, interesting,
noble, and elevating words and thoughts. She is wonderfully well now,
and able to walk, and take all her old energetic interest in the place
and people, and oh! how we have talked!”
* * * * *
“_Littlecote, Wilts, Dec. 3._--A charming visit to this beautiful old
house, which mostly dates from Henry VII., and has a noble hall hung
with armour and the yellow jerkins of the Commonwealth, a long gallery
filled with fine Popham portraits, and a charming old pleasaunce with
bowling-green and long grass walks. I sleep in the ghost-room, and just
outside my door is the ante-chapel where Wild Darrell roasted the baby
as described in the notes to ‘Rokeby,’ but the grandfather of the
present possessor was so bored by inquiring visitors that he burnt the
old hangings of the bed by which the nurse identified the room of the
crime, and the bed itself, with much other old furniture, was sold to
provide the fortunes of the younger children in the present generation.
Nothing can be more delightfully comfortable, however, than the house as
it now is, and my young host--Frank Popham--is most pleasant and genial.
It has been a great pleasure to find Lady Sherborne domesticated here,
and to listen once more on a Sunday evening to her exquisite singing of
‘Oh rest in the Lord’--so delicate and touching in its faintly vanishing
cadences as to draw tears from her audience. Very pleasant too has it
been to meet charming Mrs. Howard of Greystoke and her daughter again.”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 11._--My old cousins, Mr. and Mrs. Thurlow, who had often invited
me before to their house of Baynards, wrote that this week was my last
chance of going, as Baynards was just sold, so I have been for one
night. The house is partly modern, but the place was an ancient royal
residence, and was part of the dower of Katherine Parr. A pretty statue
of Edward VI. was discovered there walled up, and Margaret Roper lived
there afterwards, and long kept her father’s head in a box, which still
exists at the foot of the staircase. There are also numbers of fine
portraits, the dressing-box and travelling trunk of Elizabeth, and I
slept in a magnificent old tapestried room and in Henry VIII.’s bed.
“Mrs. Thurlow says that Cardinal Wiseman went to dine with some friends
of hers. It was a Friday, but they had quite forgotten to provide a
fast-day dinner. However, he was quite equal to the occasion, for he
stretched out his hands in benediction over the table and said, ‘I
pronounce all this to be fish,’ and forthwith enjoyed all the good
things heartily.”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 12._--Henry Lyte says that Porson was told to write a Latin theme
as to whether Brutus did well or not in killing Cæsar--‘Si bene fecit
aut male fecit.’ He wrote--‘Non bene fecit, nee male fecit, sed
interfecit.’
“The Stuart Exhibition is most indescribably interesting. A glorious
Vandyke hangs there representing Henrietta Maria in radiant youth and
happiness, with husband and children. Close by hangs the most touching
portrait in the gallery--Henrietta Maria, the same person exactly, with
the same curls, only grey, the same features sunken and worn by sorrow,
in her old age at Chaillot, by Le Fevre.”[481]
* * * * *
“_Cobham, Jan. 3, 1889._--Drove with Lady Kathleen Bligh, Lady Mary, and
Lady Lurgan to Rochester to see the interesting old hospice for ‘six
poor travellers, not rogues or proctors,’ where that number are still
daily received and cared for. They are given half a loaf, boiled beef,
and porter for supper, have six small clean comfortable rooms lighted by
a street gas-lamp outside, and are sent away with fourpence each in the
morning. On Christmas Day a lady sends the travellers of the day some
tobacco, a pipe, and a sixpence each, and quaint are their letters of
thanks. ‘May you live for ever and a day after,’ was the good wish of
one of them this year.
“Lord Darnley went himself into the village of Cobham to engage lodgings
at a poor woman’s cottage for a man who wanted to come there. Lady
Kathleen went to see the poor woman afterwards, and found her greatly
delighted. ‘As soon as my Lord was gone,’ she said, ‘up I went to my
room, and down upon my knees I dropped to return thanks to the Almighty,
because the Lord above, and the Lord below, were working together for my
good.’”
* * * * *
“_Jan. 10._--To tea with Mrs. Humphry Ward, almost a celebrity now as
authoress of ‘Robert Elsmere,’ at her house in Russell Square. She said
it tried her somewhat to receive from an American ‘Whiteley’ his
circular with--‘for economy in literature we defy anything to beat our
Elsmere at six cents.’”
* * * * *
On Shrove Tuesday, March 6, I left home for the south, and spent a
fortnight at Mentone in the Hotel d’Italie, which I remembered--one of
the few houses then existing--as the residence of Mrs. Usborne when we
were living close by in 1869-70. My cousin Florentia Hughes was at
Mentone with her youngest daughter, and we had many pleasant excursions
together. In the hotel were Lord Northbrook and his daughter, with whom
I dined several times, meeting the excessively entertaining Lord
Alington and his pleasant daughters. On the 22nd I reached Rome, where
I spent six weeks in the Hotel d’Italie, seeing many friends, correcting
my “Walks in Rome,” and drawing a great deal.
[Illustration: PONT S. LOUIS, MENTONE.][482]
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_April 7._--On Friday I went with some friends to Albano, and, whilst
they drove to Neni, drew in the glen at Ariccia, and never was I so
tormented by children as by a beautiful little cowherd--Amalia
Maria--who, on my refusing her demand for _soldi_, vowed she would ‘lead
me a life,’ which she did by fetching six other little demons worse than
herself, when they all joined hands and danced round me and my
campstool, kicking and screaming with all their might. Then they fetched
a black _pecorello_, and having tried to make it eat my paints, danced
again, the _pecorello_, held by a string, prancing behind them. Happily
at last the cow which Amalia Maria was supposed to be chaperoning made
its escape over a hedge, and whilst she was pursuing it over the
country, I fled, and joined my companions at a little caffè, where we
had a delicious luncheon of excellent bread, hard-boiled eggs--painted
purple for Lent--and sparkling Aleatico, for fourpence a head.
Afterwards we sat to draw, looking down upon that loveliest of lakes and
woods full of cyclamens and anemones.
“The crowds in the Roman galleries are endless. Whole families arrive
together, every member of them carrying a campstool, and they will sit
down opposite each of the statues in turn, and move onwards gradually,
whilst the father reads aloud from a guidebook, and they all drink it
in. He often begins the description at the wrong end, but they do not
find it out, and ... it does not signify! An American, a Mrs. Ruggles,
coming to the Apollo Belvidere, said, ‘Is _that_ the Apollo
Belvidere?’--‘Yes, that’s the Apollo Belvidere.’--‘Well, then, if that’s
the Apollo Belvidere, I don’t think much of _him_: give me Ruggles.’”
* * * * *
“_April 18._--Caught in tremendous rain and hail near a warehouse at the
back of the Palatine, and took refuge under a rude porch with a number
of peasants and was kept there an hour. One of the men described his
life as a soldier when his battalion was sent against the brigands near
Pescara. Of these, the famous Angelo Maria was so horrible a monster,
that his own mother determined to rid the world of such a fiend and to
deliver him up. He discovered this, seized his mother, laid her on a
table, ripped her up, and taking out her steaming heart--ate it! Words
cannot describe the horrible gestures with which the peasant told this
story, or the dramatic power with which he described the sister seeing
the terrible scene through a chink in the door, and coming afterwards to
the guard-house, saying that she wished to betray her brother. ‘Oh,’
said the officer, ‘you need not suppose that we trust you; this is a
trap you have laid for us.’--‘Yesterday,’ she answered, ‘I might have
laid a trap, but I had not then seen that monster eat my mother’s
heart.’ And he was taken.
“But Capolo Roscia was worse. He came one night to a _masseria_. The
doors were barred, but he forced his way in with his band. The head of
the farm hid himself in the straw, but he was found and dragged out.
All the men in the _masseria_, eighteen in number, were brought out and
made to sit in a row. ‘Now you must all be shaved,’ said Capolo Roscia,
and he cut all their eighteen heads off and put them in a basket.
“‘Oh, in that time when we were brigand-hunting we did not stop much to
inquire how far they were guilty. “A ginocchio: avete cinque minuti,” we
shouted to a peasant if we caught him. “Oh, ma signori, signori!” he
would say. “A ginocchio! Un minuto, due, tre, cinque--bo-o-o-ah!” and he
was done for; for he had given the brigands provisions, and so he was as
bad as themselves. Even with _i sindaci_, well, we often did the same;
but--we got rid of the brigands.’”
* * * * *
“_Easter Sunday, April 21._--To St. Peter’s. The service was under the
dome, but the group around the shrine would not call up even a
reminiscence of the glorious services under the Papacy. The relics were
shown afterwards from a high gallery--the spear-head of Longinus, the
bit of the true cross, the napkin of Veronica, to the sight of which
seven thousand years’ indulgence is attached. I gazed hard, but could
only see its glittering frame, nor could any other member of the
congregation see any more.”
[Illustration: IN S. FRANCESCO NEL DESERTO.][483]
* * * * *
After leaving Rome, I spent ten days with a pleasant party of friends at
beautiful Perugia, and then went on to Venice, where I saw much of
Ainslie Bean, who took me in his gondola to many places I wanted to
see, and much also of the Comte and Comtesse de Lützow, on the eve then
of the great but still unforeseen sorrow of losing the dear daughter
Maude who was the sunshine of their lives. I was at the Pension
Anglaise, crowded with lively, kindly ultra-English people, whose
mistakes were amusing. “Gesu-Maria!” suddenly exclaimed the gondolier on
narrowly escaping a concussion at a sharp corner. “Why on earth does he
say ‘Je suis marié’?” said a Mrs. R. Afterwards I had a week’s hard work
in intense heat in Eastern France, and reached home on May 27.
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Holmhurst, May 27, 1889._--How quiet it is here! how shady! how
thankful I am to be back! The heat yesterday at Amiens was appalling,
but I reached the green retreat this morning at nine, a telegram
announcing my advent having only been delivered five minutes before, so
that I had the amusement of seeing Holmhurst as I had never done before,
in complete _un_-dress.... I never saw such foliage. Charles II. might
easily hide this year in any of the oak trees.”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_July 16._--Dined at Lord Chetwynd’s, taking down a Mrs. Severn. She
talked of the difficulties of faith; of the comfort she had received
from Farrar’s ‘Justice and Mercy;’ of the simple impossibility of
eternal punishment; of the verse ‘The Lord shall save all men,
_especially_ such as are of the household of faith,’ as especially
indicating gradations of happiness in a future state.”
[Illustration: THE ROCKY VALLEY, HOLMHURST.]
* * * * *
“_July 18._--With troops of the London ‘world’ to a garden-party at
Hatfield to meet the Shah of Persia (Nasr-ed-Din), who looks most savage
and unimpressionable. He is, however, preferred to his servants, who
give themselves endless airs, refusing the rooms prepared for them, &c.,
and their hosts are afraid to complain of them to the Shah, for fear he
should cut off their heads! He is a true Eastern potentate in his
consideration for himself and himself only: is most unconcernedly late
whenever he chooses: utterly ignores every one he does not want to speak
to: amuses himself with monkeyish and often dirty tricks: sacrifices a
cock to the rising sun, and wipes his wet hands on the coat-tails of the
gentleman next him without compunction. He expressed his wonder that
Lord Salisbury did not take a new wife, though he gave Lady Salisbury a
magnificent jewelled order. He knows no English and very few words of
French, but when the Baroness Coutts, as the great benefactress of her
country, was presented to him by the Prince of Wales, he looked in her
face and exclaimed, ‘Quelle horreur!’”
* * * * *
“_July 22._--A wonderful speech (at the Aberdeens’) on Christian work
from the Bishop of Ripon (Boyd Carpenter)--eloquent, elevating, touching
beyond description. He pictured the system of work going on through all
creation--some one resting under a tree as under an object in repose,
and then, if the senses could be quickened, hearing the pulse, the
ever-labouring pulse which sends the sap through its every fibre: of how
fallacious is the ordinary view of God as a sovereign in contemplative
repose--how inconsistent with the description given us, ‘My Father
worketh and I work:’ of the way in which every practical worker might be
a particle of the Spirit of God: of the way in which the Christian life
of every individual might radiate on others and permeate their
existence, like the halos--unseen by the wearers--on the brows of
saints: of the way in which the impression of a visit carried away from
each country-house might influence a life, and the duty of leaving the
right impression--never by ‘religious talking,’ but by loving action:
that the usual saying was ‘Omnia vincit labor,’ but a truer one would be
‘Laborem vincit amor.’”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Holmhurst, August 15, 1889._--I wish you were here this morning. A
delicate haze softens the view of the distant sea, sprinkled over with
vessels, and the castle-rock rises up pink-grey against it. Far
overhead, the softest of white clouds float in the blue ether. In the
meadows, where the cows are ringing their Swiss bells, the old oak-trees
are throwing long deep shadows across lawns of the most emerald green,
and the flower-beds and the terrace borders are brimming with the most
brilliant flowers, over which whole battalions of butterflies and bees
are floating and buzzing; the little pathlet at the side winds with
enticing shadows under the beech-trees, whilst the white marble Venetian
well, covered with delicate sculpture of vines and pomegranates,
standing on the little grassy platform, makes a point of refinement
which accentuates the whole. Selma steals lazily round the corner to see
if she can catch a bird, but finds it quite too hot for the exertion;
and Rollo raises himself now and then carelessly to snap at a fly. The
doves are cooing on the ledge of the roof, and the pigeons are
collecting on the smokeless chimneys. Upstairs Mrs. Whitford and Anne
are dusting and laughing over their work, with the windows wide open
above the ivied verandah, and Rogers is planting out a box of
sweet-scented tobacco-plants which has come by the post.
[Illustration: FROM THE WALKS, HOLMHURST.]
“Such is little Holmhurst on an August morning. You would be amused with
my hearing the other day that one of the servants had said, ‘Our
master’s a gentleman as knows his place,’ which meant that I never find
fault with an under-servant except through an upper, or cast even the
faintest shadow upon an upper-servant if an under-servant is present.
After all, it is only another form of Landor’s observation--‘The spider
is a gentleman, for he takes his fly in secret.’”
* * * * *
_To_ LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD.
“_St. Michael’s Mount, Sept. 7, 1889._--This is a wonderful and
delightful place. It was nearly 10 P.M. when I reached the Marazion
station. The day had been very hot, and the evening lights and
reflections perfectly lovely; but night had quite closed in. Lord St.
Levan’s carriage met me at the station, and stopped at the head of a
staircase leading to the sea, where four sturdy boatmen took possession
of me and my things, and rowed away on a waveless sea, following up the
long stream of brilliant light which fell from one of the upper windows
of the castle on the sacred mount, grim and black in the still night. An
old man with a lanthorn met me at the landing-place, and guided me up a
steep pathlet in the rocks. At the door a maid received me, for the
family were all at dinner, but I found a pleasant meal ready for me in a
small sitting-room, and then was ushered in to the large party--Lord and
Lady St. Levan, six daughters, a son, a niece--Lady Agnes Townshend,
Hugh Amherst, two Misses Tyssen Amherst, Mr. and Lady Harriet Cavendish,
Miss Hill Trevor, Mr. Stewart, a young Manners, and Mrs. and Miss
Lowther. With the latter I have spent many pleasant mornings in drawing
on the rock (really improving greatly, I think, in knowledge of the
‘how’ and ‘why’ of everything), whilst the whole family has gone out
fishing, and most glorious are the subjects. Mrs. Lowther’s enthusiastic
energy makes her a first-rate companion. ‘Elle est au-dessus de l’ennui
et de l’oisiveté, deux vilaines bêtes,’ as Madame de Sévigné would have
said.
[Illustration: ST. MICHAEL’S MOUNT.]
“It is a life apart. The chapel-bell rings at nine, and I always meet
Mrs. Lowther on the staircase hurrying up to the service, which is
reached by an open-air walk at the top of everything. Then, before
breakfast in the ‘Chevy Chase Hall’ (surrounded by old stucco hunting
scenes), we linger on the grand platform, looking down into the
chrysoprase waves with sea-birds floating over them, and across to the
mainland with its various bays, and its fleeting golden lights and
purple shadows.
“On Friday we went a long drive, passing St. Buryan’s, one of the three
parishes of the Deanery of St. Levan. A Mr. Stanhope was long the rector
here, having also a rich living, where he resided, in Essex. At St.
Buryan’s he kept a curate, to whom it was only necessary to give a very
small stipend indeed, because he was--a harmless maniac! He used to be
fastened to the altar-rail by a long chain, which allowed him to reach
either the altar or the reading-desk. When once there, he was quite sane
enough to go through the service perfectly! On week-day evenings he
earned his subsistence by playing the fiddle at village taverns; but he
continued to be the officiating clergyman of St. Buryan’s till his death
in 1808.
“This truly aquatic family bathe together from a raft at 7 A.M. most
mornings. To-day they were all rowed in their scanty bathing costumes,
looking like Charon’s souls being ferried to purgatory, into the little
port, and there (at twelve mid-day) one after the other took a header
into the sea, and swam--many of the guests with them--to the main-shore
at Marazion, to the great astonishment of the natives on the beach
there. The parents followed or accompanied their mermaid-daughters in
safety-boats, but instead of being anxious about those who became
exhausted, encouraged them to hold on. George Manners was almost choked
by a butterfly flying down his throat, mistaking his head for an
unexpected islet.
“The place is beyond everything poetical: even I have been unable to
refrain from some verses, which I send you.
“Grey cloud-wreaths lovingly entwine,
And in their mystic maze enfold
The sacred Mount, which day’s decline
Shadowed upon a sheet of gold:
And faint and sweet, the surges beat
The burthen of the ancient lay,
Which low or loud, through mirk and cloud,
The Past bewails eternally.
But when the radiant morn awakes
To kiss fresh life into the flowers,
The windows beam, the turrets gleam,
The blue waves break in silver showers,
Tossing their glistening foam away
In merry riplets to the shore:
The Present reigns; the murmuring Past,
Though whispering still, is heard no more.
Serene, the great Archangel keeps
His vigil here on high,
Whilst in the changeful world below
Fleet life is fluttering by.
Through shine or shower, his silent power,
Unheard, unseen his sway,
Spirits of ill, which daunt or chill,
Shall drive rebuked away.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_St. Michael’s Mount, Sept. 7, 1889._--I have enjoyed my visit here
extremely, and, difficult as it was to manage coming, it is more
difficult to get away, from the extreme kindness and genuine
hospitality of Lord and Lady St. Levan, who would like one to stay
months. I think I never saw such excellent people, or a happier, more
united family; and being very well off, their kindnesses to rich and
poor cannot be calculated. Then it is indeed the most delightful of
homes, so healthy in its pure air of mingled sea and mountain
exhilaration, so glorious in its views over land and water, with every
atmospheric effect which Nature, never the same, can paint upon both.
Looking down from the ramparts into the deep clear chrysoprase water is
in itself a delight, and watching the fish rising and leaping with
sparkling showers, and the great white seagulls swooping down upon them.
No wonder the sons of the house, devoted to sport of every kind, think
there is nothing to compare to the fishing excursions round their home.
But there is unspeakable grandeur, too, when the sacred Mount is
enveloped in sea-fog, shrouding it from all sign of the mainland and
everything else, and when nothing is heard but the distant booming of
the waves far down below. This is the one great house of England, I
suppose, which is approached by no road whatever, for even the pathlet
which winds among the cliffs and low wind-blown bushes of the island is
lost where it crosses the turfy slopes which intervene here and there.
The castle is in seven stories (of which I inhabit the second); many of
the rooms are walled with rock, and in one of the narrow passages it is
known that a number of skeletons--naughty nuns, I suppose--are walled
up. I never saw a place where so much of daily life was in the open
air.”
* * * * *
“_Holmhurst, Sept. 19._--From the Mount I went to visit the Tremaynes in
the Vale of Tavistock. It was an exquisite still evening when I arrived
at Sydenham, and it is a beautiful drive through a richly-wooded valley,
till a sharp turn brings one to the old bridge over the clear tossing
Lyd, on the other side of which rises the noble old manor-house, only
separated from the road by ‘the green court’ with a wrought iron gate.
By this gate, as I drove up, stood, with her daughter, Mrs. Tremayne,
her exquisite profile, quite white, like a Greek gem, relieved against
the dark yew foliage: it is a picture that remains with one. We had tea
in the old panelled hall, surrounded by four fine Chinese dogs.
“It would be difficult to over-praise the sweet seclusion of the spot,
the constant merry ripple of the sparkling river, the deep shade of the
tall trees, the old-fashioned gardens of splendid herbaceous flowers,
the charming old rooms and staircase, in which--even in this desolate
place--the two powdered footmen do not look out of keeping. But the
great charm lies in the family itself--in the ever-genial, courteous,
sweet-tempered father--the perfectly beautiful and dignified but simple
mother--the daughters and the only son.
“A relic in the house is the ‘tongue-token,’ only given during the Civil
Wars to the most faithful friends of the King and Queen,--a little gold
medal which could be concealed under the tongue. In this case it was
given to the Tremayne of the day, because, at imminent risk to himself,
he rode to announce to the King at Oxford the birth of the Princess
Henrietta at Exeter.
“We went several excursions: to the fine old gateway of Bradstone; to
the Kellys of Kelly, who have a most admirable collection of Alpine
plants, growing upon little but old mortar; to the Duke of Bedford’s
house of Ensleigh, beautiful in hilly woods feathering down to a river;
and to Launceston, a dull place, where the castle recalls that of
Gisors.
“From Sydenham I went to see the Elphinstones[484] at their beautiful
Government House at Plymouth, and on the same evening to Whiteway, where
I paid a delightful visit to the dear Dowager Lady Morley, who is still
as genially kind and as sharply truth-exacting as ever. It was comically
characteristic that when the foolish Bishop of Exeter (Bickersteth) came
over to Whiteway, Lady Morley, with innocent pride, showed him the
improvements she had made. ‘You should not take a sinful pride in your
possessions,’ said the Bishop; ‘_all_ God’s works are beautiful, and all
these are the works of God.’--‘That is all very well,’ answered Lady
Morley, ‘but _I_ made this walk.’ It was sad to see Lady Katherine, the
companion of many happy mountain excursions long ago, laid up as a
permanent invalid; but she is indescribably brave and cheerful.
“A child at Whiteway, being asked where the eggs were laid, answered,
‘On an average.’--‘What do you mean? who told you so?’--‘Father; he said
the hens laid, on an average, twenty eggs a day.’
“With the Lowthers and Listers we one day met the Halifaxes and their
two eldest children at Bovey, and we all went a delightful excursion
over Dartmoor to several of the great tors, which rise above the russet
wastes of moor, like castles in the south of France, and to Tecket
Falls, near which Lord Devon has a cottage. Hence, after ascending
through the mazes of a wood, Charlie H. insisted on our being taken
blindfold till we reached ‘Exclamation Point,’ where the present
Archbishop of Canterbury had fallen on his knees from the beauty of the
view. We did not return till eight, when the Halifaxes stayed to dine,
and went home at eleven, walking miles over the moors by night in true
Charlie Halifax fashion.
“Endless was the amusing talk of Devonshire quaintnesses. ‘How did you
break your arm?’ said Lady Katherine to an old woman. ‘Well, ‘twere all
along of gathering apples; ‘twere first the apples and then the fall: I
were like Eve, I reckon.’ ‘Blow your nose,’ she said to a child. ‘Yes,
mum, but her won’t bide blowed.’”
* * * * *
_To_ LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD.
“_Holmhurst, Nov. 1889._--I have been far too long without writing, life
ripples by so quickly: it seems every day more different from the years
before I was grown up, when all was so long.... My ‘outing’ to the North
was very enjoyable. I was nearly a week at Tatton, where the host and
hostess were boundlessly kind. The party there had admirable
elements--Lord Savile, Lord and Lady Knutsford, Lord and Lady Jersey,
Lord and Lady Waldegrave, Lord and Lady Amherst, Sir Redvers and Lady
Audrey Buller, Mr. and Mrs. Piers Warburton, Mrs. Percy Mitford, Mrs.
Legh of Lyme, Sir Charles Grant, and Dick Bagot. We were all taken to
see the Ship Canal in a royal way, with special trains, luncheon sent
on, and tea at the mouth of the Canal in ‘Bridgewater House,’ where the
old Duke of Bridgewater spent his later years, and where his picture
still presides in the seldom-used dining-room.
“I left with Mrs. Legh, whose ponies met us at the Disley station, and
took us a wild drive over moor and fen, rock and fell--a drive of
glorious views, but no road whatever--before returning to Lyme. Lady
Lovelace came in the evening and was most agreeable, especially in her
reminiscences of India and Lady Canning. With her and Mrs. Legh I went
to draw the old hall at Marple, an interesting house of the Usherwoods,
who inherited it from the Bradshaws: the regicide’s chamber has its
original furniture and tapestry.
“Next, I went to Ingmire, a fine old place of Mrs. Upton
Cottrell-Dormer, beautifully situated amongst the Westmoreland fells,
though geographically in Yorkshire. John Way, the vicar of Henbury, was
there, who said that when the boys in his school were reading of
Jezebel, how she ‘painted her face, tired her head,’ &c., he asked, ‘Why
do you suppose she did that?’--‘She wanted to get married,’ promptly
answered a boy--true, probably, too. He described how his
great-grandfather, Sir Roger Hill, and his son lay dying at Denham at
the same time. It was of the most vital importance to the son’s wife to
keep her husband alive beyond his father, just sufficient time to
enable him to sign a will, and this she did by killing one pigeon after
another, keeping his feet immersed in the body of the hot steaming bird,
and, as soon as it chilled, changing it for another. The pigeons
conquered, and the Hedgeley property was left away to the son’s widow.
The Denham property went to the daughter, Mrs. Lockey, whose daughter
Abigail married Mr. Way, and was mother of Benjamin Way and Lady
Sheffield.
“From Ingmire I went to Muncaster, which I thought even more beautiful
and delightful than before. With Lady Muncaster and Lady Kilmarnock I
had one lovely day at Wastwater--glorious in the last coruscations of
Nature. The Bishop of Carlisle had just been at Muncaster, who said that
a boy in a Board-school examination, being asked one of the foolish
Catechism questions of ‘Why is a boy baptized when by reason of his
tender age?’ &c., wrote, ‘Why indeed?’
“Another child in a higher class, being asked to define faith, said it
was ‘the power of believing absolutely what was utterly incredible.’”
* * * * *
“_Bramfield House, Hertford, Nov. 27, 1889._--Lady Bloomfield is very
comfortably established here in a good house of Abel Smith’s, near a
pretty little church and village, and in the midst of the amiable Smith
colony. She finds no end of good works to do, and really is beyond
measure kind, in addition to a thousand other unostentatious goodnesses,
in filling her extra rooms with homeless and feeble gentlefolk needing
help, kindness, and temporary home. We went through Panshanger
yesterday, but I do not admire this cabbage-tree district, all so
prosperously unpicturesque.
“You must buy, you really must, ‘John Smith on Church Reform.’ It is by
no means the dull book it sounds. You will delight in it, and will
present it to Mr. Neville, as I shall to our little clergyman, who is
becoming quite as like naughty Rome as he dares, but is a good little
man all the same.”
* * * * *
In quoting so constantly from journal and letters, I do not think I have
mentioned how much poverty had been pressing upon me in the last few
years. Not only had Messrs. Daldy and Virtue, representing my first
publishers, ceased to pay even the interest of their large debt, or paid
it most irregularly, but under my second set of publishers I had made
_nothing whatever_ during the seven years I had been with them. Their
accounts showed that 28,000 of my books had been sold in the time, but
the innumerable percentages, &c., had swallowed up the whole of the
profits, leaving me nothing but the loss of money expended on woodcuts,
&c.
“’Tis a very good world that we live in,
To lend, or to spend, or to give in;
But to beg or to borrow, or get a man’s own,
’Tis the very worst world that ever was known.”
Whilst I was at Muncaster, however, Mrs. Arthur Severn came to the
castle, and told me how Mr. Ruskin also had made nothing by his books in
the hands of my then publishers, but that they had brought him in a good
income since they were removed to the hands of Mr. Allen of Orpington.
To his hands, therefore, I soon after removed all my books. I had no
complaint of unfairness to make against those I had lately employed;
they only acted according to their agreements and their usual method,
which I had long hoped against hope might eventually result to my
advantage: and they behaved very handsomely about parting with the
books, though it must have been both a loss and disappointment to them.
* * * * *
_To_ LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD.
“_Campsea Ashe High House, Dec. 27, 1889._--We have had a very pleasant
merry week in this most kindly and happy of family homes, not going out
much, but the days full of intellectual interest, the evenings of games,
acting, &c. The party has been the two really charming Miss Farquhars,
their brother Ernest, pretty, attractive Miss Theresa Lister, Lady
Cecily Clifton, Captain Sydney, Kenneth and Miss Matheson, James
Lowther, young Brooke--a pleasant clever little county magnate,
delightful Jack Cator and his remarkably nice sister, a young Macgregor
in the Guards, and to-day the Anstruther Thompsons, the Edmund Fanes,
Miss Mullholland, and a young Burroughs have come. Last night we acted a
play, ‘The Bilious Husband,’ before a large audience of neighbours. Can
you fancy me as Captain Marmaduke Mynch of the Royal Berkshire Plungers?
Then there was ‘Barnum’s Show’--Miss Matheson as a mermaid, myself as a
dwarf, Miss Lowther as the tattooed woman, Miss Farquhar the fat woman,
Brooke a Zulu, Ernest Farquhar an Arab, and Mr. Lowther as ‘The Bearded
Lady!’ Another day I dressed up and came in as an old aunt of the
family--being the first scene of the word _Antidote_, for which we made
a little story. I have liked my frivolous week very much, but it is
enough, and I shall be glad to go back to my solitary work at Holmhurst
on Monday.
“Kenneth Matheson very kindly said, ‘I know you will consider it
sacrilege my pressing you to come to Highcliffe whilst I am its
tenant’--which I allowed to be the case!
“I was very glad to hear of Lady Ossington’s will--just like an echo
from the generosity, justice, and beneficence of her life.”
* * * * *
From Christmas 1889-90 people were already beginning to talk a great
deal about the “Influenza epidemic” which was spreading over Europe, and
was like a malarial fever. I was in London for a few hours on January
11, and bringing it back to Holmhurst with me, was very ill for nearly
a month, but with the comfort of being in my own home, and, to me, the
great comfort of being alone. In illness I quite feel the extreme
blessing of religion--not the religion worried and touzled by a thousand
million vagaries of personality, but the simple main facts, in which I
believe so fully. I find some lines of Elizabeth Trench which exactly
express what I feel myself:--
* * * * *
“Lord, I believe not yet as fain I would;
Dimly Thy dealings have I understood:
Thy word and message yet to me have brought
Only a shadow of Thy wondrous thought.
Fain would I follow on to know thee, Lord,
Fain learn the meaning of Thy every word;
Truth would I know--the truth that dwells in Thee,
Setting the lowest heart from doubting free.
Lord, I believe! oh fan this trembling spark,
Lest all my hope be lost in endless dark;
And where I yet believe not, lead Thou me,
And help my unbelief, which seeks for Thee.”
“When all fails, and to stand firm seems impossible, stand on the wood
of the Cross; it will float with you,” said Queen Marie Leczinska.
“The Mercy of God--_all_ is included in that word Mercy,” was a saying
of the Mère Angelique.
* * * * *
Yet I find it very difficult to endure any other religious book than the
Bible itself: all are so self-asserting, so self-seeking; and hymns,
with one or two sublime exceptions, are either abjectly foolish or full
of the self, even if it be the religious self, of man.
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Feb. 13, 1890._--In December my old servant Joe Cornford died, who had
been all my lifetime in the family service. For several years he had
been too old and infirm to do any work, but, when he was well enough, he
made a pretence of picking up a leaf or two, and received his wages all
the same. If it had not been for his grumbling old wife, it would have
been a pleasure to see him slowly dragging himself about the walks, but
her temper was a trial! He was worse for some time. One day I went in to
the lodge to see him after breakfast, and at that moment he suddenly
died! Again, as often before, I felt the wonderful power of the great
mystery of death, actually seeing life ebb downwards: the forehead
become white and waxen, then the cheeks, then the whole being. How I was
reminded of the lines of Caroline Bowles (Mrs. Southey):--
‘Oh change, oh wondrous change!
Burst are the prison bars,
This moment there so low,
So agonized, and now
Beyond the stars!
Oh change, stupendous change!
There lies the soulless clod;
The sun eternal breaks,
The new immortal wakes--
Wakes with his God.’
“I was at his funeral some days afterwards, the poor old man carried to
the grave by our workmen, and followed by seventeen of his descendants,
children and grandchildren. He has left me a chair which came out of
Hurstmonceaux Castle.”
* * * * *
“_Feb. 26, 1890._--Went to see Lady De Ros,[485] aged ninety-five. She
brought out for me her greatest treasure, a beautifully printed Church
of England Prayer-book in Spanish. It belonged to the great Duke of
Ormonde, and descended from him to Lady Eleanor Butler, by whom and Miss
Ponsonby--‘ladies of Llangollen’--it was given to the Duke of Wellington
as a boy. He taught himself Spanish by following its services, as he
himself says in an inscription on the fly-leaf. In his old age, when
Lady De Ros was with him at Strathfieldsaye, she found it in the
library, and told him what a valuable book she thought it. ‘Then, if you
think it such a valuable thing, I will give it you, my dear.’--‘So, as
Douro and Charles were just coming, I took my book away at once,’ said
Lady De Ros, ‘for fear they should stop me.’ Some years afterwards the
Duke asked Lady De Ros to lend him the book to show to some great
librarian. She let it go, but made it a condition that, before it was
returned, the Duke should write its history in the book with his own
hands; and this he did.
“Lady De Ros also showed me a brush of hogs’-bristles, mounted in ebony,
and with a silver plate. And she told how, when she was hunting wild
boars with the Duke on Mont St. Jean near Cambrai, an immense boar
sprang out of the thicket close by her. The Duke speared it. It was a
horrid sight and she shrank from it. ‘Oh, my dear,’ said the Duke, ‘you
must not mind it, for I am prouder of having killed that boar than of
the battle of Waterloo.’
“Lady De Ros was very full of her dispute with Sir William Fraser about
the house in which the ball was given at Brussels by her father, the
Duke of Richmond, on the eve of the battle of Waterloo. She was quite
certain of her facts, and that the house was now gone. She had been
living in the house itself, in the Rue de la Blanchisserie (‘where the
Duke would direct to me “in the wash-house“‘), and cited as a proof that
the ball was given in her own house, the fact that her youngest sister,
who had been sent to bed, stole out, and watched the company arrive
through the banisters. ‘I believe Sir William Fraser asserts,’ said Lady
De Ros, ‘that I am confused and doting now through my great age, but you
know very old people remember the long-ago as if it was to-day, and that
is the case with me. In 1860 I went back to see Brussels, and I could
not find our house then; the whole street was swept away. At last, as I
was walking up and down, I was attracted by the name on a pastry-cook’s
shop: it was a name I remembered in that long-ago time. So I went in and
asked if they knew anything of our house. “Oh, a house in the Rue de la
Blanchisserie,” they said; “it has been pulled down years and years
ago.”’
XXVI
AT HOME AND ABROAD
“Le monde n’est éternel pour personne; laisse le passer, et
t’attache à celui qui l’a fait.”--DIDEROT, “_Sarrasins_.”
“Time there was, but it is gone;
Time there may be--who can tell?
Time there is to act upon,
Help me, Lord, to use it well.”
--LADY WATERFORD’S _Note-Book_.
“Non aver tema, disse il mio Signore:
Fatti sicuro, chè noi siamo a buon punto:
Non stringer, ma rallarga ogni vigore.”
--DANTE, “_Purgatorio_,” Canto ix.
“I hope the hereafter will not lack something to remind us of the
beautiful earth-life--beautiful in spite of its sin and
sorrow.”--WHITTIER’S _Letters_.
When my friend George Jolliffe had passed his diplomatic examination, I
promised him that I would go out and pay him a month’s visit wherever he
was sent to. Thus I came to set out for Constantinople on April 10,
1890. The faithful Hugh Bryans went with me. At Vienna I spent several
days with the Lützows, who showed me the sights in the most agreeable
way. The town was full of grand-dukes or exiled princes--Cumberland,
Parma, Tuscany, &c., all very rich and adding to its prosperity.
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_British Embassy, Constantinople, April 22, 1890._--We came straight
through from Vienna, through the strange unknown country. There were
vast plains of corn till Belgrade, a poor town hanging shaggy on the
hillside: then we entered low wooded hills like the Sabina. In the
Servian villages of rude huts and ruder fences we could see the swarming
people, men and women in loose folds of white linen, the former with the
air of princes. All seemed remote and unreal, and the shadows, as in
Syrian clearness, fell pure blue upon the dusty hills. By the second
morning we were passing through Roumelia. All had become poorer. The
villages, of wretched huts, stood in wattled enclosures of thorns,
inside which all the domestic animals are driven. Now, the men were seen
in crimson and green, with magnificent mahogany-coloured faces beneath
their turbans, and the women, all closely veiled, moved like masses of
dark drapery; a little mosque appeared, with a delicate and refined
minaret; a little fountain-cistern with a gothic arch in a grove of
thorns; marshes with storks; plains with buffaloes.
“About 3 P.M. the lovely Sea of Marmora gleamed upon the right, with a
variety of inlet bays of solitary beauty, and, in the distance, the
aërial mountains of Asia. Then a succession of battlemented towers rose
on the left from the untrodden plain--the walls of Stamboul! Through
these the train passes. We were far from the station still, but what a
change from our two days’ desolation! We rushed across many shabby
courts, paved either with mud or rough stones. The old houses, with
their projecting lattices, were veiled in a web of flowering wistaria,
and shaded by pink Judas-trees in fullest bloom. Then above us rose the
mosques with their slender minarets and huge storm-blasted cypresses.
St. Sophia itself, Achmet, Suleiman, Mahmoud were passed, with many a
strange gothic fountain or decorated cistern, before we reached the
shed-like station, where George was a most welcome sight, armed with an
Embassy cavass to extricate us from the mass of yelping, screaming
natives.
“Off we went across the creaking, rocking, timber bridge over the Golden
Horn, thronged by the strangest of multitudes. Then up the steep street
of Galata, where the lattices project till they almost obliterate the
sky, and the pavement is made of rough stones set edgeways, up which the
horses scrambled like cats. A road succeeded, a dusty deep-rutted track,
overlooking an old burial-ground without barriers, where, amid the
immemorial cypresses, thousands of battered tombstones remain,
neglected, ruined, but never wilfully destroyed; and so we reached the
handsome palace of the Embassy, with its delightful garden, overlooking
the valley of the Golden Horn.
[Illustration: CEMETERY OF PERA, CONSTANTINOPLE.]
“I have been here two days now, and cannot say how delightful I find it
to be with George, with whom every thought may be exchanged. I live in
the room of an absent attaché, and the life is like that of a college.
Unfortunately, on the first afternoon I caught a dreadful chill in the
boat, and have been very ill ever since, though I dragged myself out
yesterday to take advantage of a rarely procured permit to see the
famous church of St. Irene, where the Council of Constantinople was
held, and where the Christian emperors, Constantine, Arcadius, &c.,
repose, some of them in grand porphyry sarcophagi. I went with two
clergymen, friends of Arthur Stanley, Canon Farrar of Durham, and Dr.
Livingstone, who had been to every other scene of a General Council:
this was the last!”
* * * * *
“_April 27._--I have been suffering terribly from rheumatic fever, but
am better to-day, and have been to St. Sophia. The carriage stopped at
an obscure door on the N.W., where the cavass took off his boots and
fetched some of the Turkish guardians of holiness, who, for a very large
consideration of baksheesh, put slippers over ours. Then we passed the
curtain, and found ourselves at once at the northern extremity of the
great western narthex, like that of St. Mark’s at Venice on a huge
scale, and--almost immediately--from a side-door, in the church itself.
“It is so unspeakably, overwhelmingly, indescribably, entrancingly,
bewilderingly glorious, words can give no idea of it.
“Of the immense space--a St. Mark’s lifted into the heavens, soaring far
above in the mystic involutions of its entwining arches and the delicate
nuances of its grey-golden colouring, never sufficiently defined to be
obtrusive in any special point, only melting and harmonising into a
whole as tender and glorious as the hues on a dove’s back. So also in
the architectural details; all the walls, all the chapels are filled
with the most exquisite and graceful sculptured ornament, but the grand
impression of space is never lessened by any single object leaving its
own identity upon the vision, till the gaze rests far above upon the
pendentives of the mightiest dome, where float the four huge prophetic
seraphim[486] with their many wings folded in repose--with twain they
covered their breasts, with twain they covered their feet, and with
twain they did fly.
“Close to the entrance was a vast fountain gurgling, rushing,
spouting--a fountain of ablutions. Far towards the east, and beneath the
two floating green banners of the Prophet, was the _mimber_ or pulpit of
Friday prayer, and near it a platform for the choir, who face, not the
east, but the Kibla, the holy house of Mecca. Under the shadowy arches
are the cup and cradle of Jesus of Bethlehem, revered as a great
teacher, the latter a hollowed block of red marble; the ‘sweating
column,’ the ‘shining stone,’ and the ‘cold window,’ fresh with the
north wind, where the Sheik Shemseddin, the companion of Mahomet II.
(the Conqueror), expounded the Koran. We may also see the pillar on
which Mahomet the Conqueror left the mark of his bloody hand; for
through the church itself, and the crowds of clergy and virgins who had
taken refuge there, he rode, exclaiming ‘There is no God but God, and
Mohammed is his Prophet,’ and ordaining the violation of sanctuary. Here
and there, but lost in the extreme immensity, are chapels or refuges
where groups of men, or of veiled women apart from them, seem to hold
little services, with private litanies of their own. In some of these,
solitary individuals, wrapped in devotion or penance, were perpetually
smiting the earth with their foreheads: in one an old man was shouting,
yelling, screaming portions of the Koran, flinging the words with
savagest ferocity amongst groups of squatters in fezes and turbans, who
received them quite unconcerned.
“The columns in the church make up the mystic number of forty, typical
to the Eastern mind of all pomp and splendour. The cupola is inscribed
‘God is the light of the heavens and the earth!’ On its Rhodian tiles
are written ‘God hath founded it, and it will not be overthrown: God
will support it in the blush of the dawn.’ Nothing probably remains of
the fourth-century church of Constantine, but the present church is
chiefly that of Justinian, who employed a hundred architects, each with
a hundred masons under him, of whom five thousand worked on the right,
and five thousand on the left, according to the advice given to the
emperor by an angel. The church itself is under the guardianship of an
angel, who appeared to a boy watching the tools of lazy masons, and bade
him hurry them back to their work, saying he would guard his charge till
he came back. But the boy never came back, for the emperor intercepted
him, and sent him off, well provided for, to the Cyclades, that the
angel might be obliged to watch for ever.
“Our driver stuck his cigarette behind his ear and took us to the
Hippodrome, where we saw the great obelisk, raised by Theodosius on a
base with curious reliefs: and the brazen serpents supposed to have been
brought from Delphi, or the remains of them, for the Sultan Murad broke
off one of their heads. Along the side of the square runs the screen of
the Mosque of Ahmed (the state church), enclosing its vast dusty court,
old elm-trees, cloister, and a fountain, around which were groups of
people washing, dressing, and being shaved before entering the
sanctuary.
“We drove by the tomb of the Sultan Mahmoud the Reformer, where we
stared through a metal screen at his sarcophagus, to the finest of the
great mosques or _djami_, the glorious Suleimanyeh, which Solyman the
Magnificent intended to surpass St. Sophia. On its giant dome is the
truly catholic inscription (Sura xxiv. 36), ‘God is the light of heaven
and earth. His light is in the windows on the wall, in which a lamp
burns covered with glass. The glass shines like a star, the lamp is lit
with the oil of a blessed tree. No Eastern, no Western oil; it shines
for whoever wills it.’ On the ever-clean matted floor of this mosque of
glorious proportions numbers of barefooted children were sporting as in
a playground, and very pretty and graceful were the interlacing groups
which they made. The ecclesiastical revenue of Suleimanyeh is 300,000
piastres. Behind is a curious burial-ground, crowded with tombs, chiefly
of women, marked by a sculptured rose, whilst the headstones of the men
are crowned by a turban or fez. In two great sepulchral chapels or
_turbé_ lie Solyman the Magnificent and his immediate family and
successors. The sarcophagi are covered with splendid embroideries and
delicate muslins, those of the sultans being often shrouded by their
favourite wives with their shawls--most precious of their possessions.
At their heads are their tall white turbans, with bunches of peacocks’
feathers on either side. The famous Roxolana lies amongst the group of
ladies.
“But all through the streets of Stamboul the greatest feature is the
little burial-grounds, with their closely packed tombs and their huge
cypresses or tamarind trees, which always give them picturesqueness,
between the houses, at the angles of the streets, everywhere--the dead
forced, as it were, into the very life of the living, and never to be
forgotten for a moment.
“The next great feature--and an odious one--is the swarms of dogs, like
little foxes, which lie about everywhere in the sun, encumbering the
footways, and refusing to move for any one. They are the friends of
cats, but if a strange dog enters their quarter, they demolish him at
once. They never bite a human being, at least they have never been known
to bite more than one, and that was--the Russian ambassador! Successive
travellers have given the idea that they are scavengers, but it is quite
false: a man goes round at night with a cart and takes everything
undesirable away. All night the air resounds with the yells of the dogs.
The English doctor is obliged to poison them by hundreds near the
hospital, or all the patients would die of the noise.
“We ended our first eventful drive at the Mosque of Bajazet, where the
court was now turned into a bazaar, and round the central fountain
glowed a moving mass of colour--white turbans, green turbans of Mecca,
pilgrims, negroes, Armenians, robed women in shot violet silk. Overhead
a perfect roar of wings indicated that the sacred pigeons of the mosque
were moving in vast battalions from one part to another. At the
many-coloured stalls, the beads--especially the green beads--were quite
irresistible. In the _turbé_ of Bajazet, under the head of the Sultan,
is a brick made of all the dust collected off his clothes and shoes
during his lifetime: his mother and his two daughters lie beside him.
“It is a great pleasure having Gerard Lowther here; and the other
attachés, Finlay and Tower, are charming.”
* * * * *
“_May 12._--As I have felt stronger, each day here has been more full of
interest. On alternate mornings I stay quietly in the Embassy garden or
the adjoining cemeteries and have luncheon with my kind hosts, with whom
I have several times been out afterwards to the bazaars, steep, rugged,
stony lanes, arched overhead, and a blaze of colour from their shops and
costumes. Here we have been served with cups of coffee in the inner den
of Marchetto, the tradesman of ‘Paul Patoff,’[487] whilst going through
the wearisome routine of bargaining for old silver, weighing and
reweighing, and only discovering one had concluded a purchase when one
had utterly despaired of it. How forcibly the truth of that verse of
Proverbs strikes one here--‘It is nought, it is nought, saith the buyer,
but when he goeth his way, he boasteth thereof.’ The whole bazaar seems
like an inextricable web to outsiders, yet any one or anything can be
found there in ten minutes by one who knows the place; and, amid all the
bustle and confusion, one sees many a charming picture of an old Turk
with snowy beard and robes, sitting cross-legged at an angle of his
counter, poring over an ancient parchment Koran, and as utterly absorbed
in it as if he were in the Great Desert. How the names Aladdin,
Mustapha, Scheherazade, Zobeide, recalled the large edition of the
‘Arabian Nights’ which was at Hurstmonceaux Rectory in my childhood.
“On other days I have gone off immediately after breakfast with a cavass
from the Embassy--Dimitri--as my guard, making much use of the trams,
from which one sees so much that is curious, and in which one has so
many experiences of Turkish life, from the ladies like bundles of green,
brown, or shot silk, who are huddled behind the curtain at the end of
the carriage, to the child-pasha well provided with copper coins to
quiet the numerous clamourers for baksheesh. Thus I have twice reached
Yedi Kouli, the Seven Towers, where the triple walls of the town make
their farthest angle close to the Sea of Marmora--bluest of blue waters
melting into chrysoprase-green near the shore. Here I was drawing an old
gate in pencil in my little book, heedless of an old Turk who had been
cursing the ‘christian dog’ as a breaker of the second commandment, when
suddenly, with a spring, he flew upon me, and in an instant his long
talons would have torn out my eyes, if Dimitri, throwing himself upon
him, had not hurled him on his back in the gutter, after which he got
up, and went away quite quietly. Another day, after we had made the
circuit of the wonderful walls, I was sitting to draw in the middle of
the white dusty road near the Adrianople gate, and Dimitri had fallen
asleep on a tombstone a few steps behind me, when suddenly he called out
with a rueful voice that he had been robbed, plundered of his watch and
chain, whilst I, rather more in evidence in the sunshine, had escaped.
It is near this gate, the Polyandria of the Greeks, that we saw the
curious mosque, once a church covered with mosaics like St. Mark’s, and
still retaining many of them. One was shown as the Virgin waiting for
her Teskerei, or passport, to go into Egypt!
“All around the walls are tombs: the woods are filled, the hillsides are
powdered, with them. The woods are all of cypress, which is supposed to
neutralise effluvia. When a death occurs, a body is hurried to the grave
as soon as possible, for the soul is always in torment, it is believed,
between the death and burial. Little parcels of food are laid in holes
by the side of the grave, and large headstones are always erected,
stones on which the angels Nebir and Munkir sit to judge the souls of
the dead. We saw many touching little funerals--young girls being
carried to the grave without any coffin or shroud. The blocks of stone
on the road date from the time of Justinian. At an angle of the cemetery
opposite the gate of Silivri a row of head-stones marks the graves of
the heads of Ali Pacha (de Tébelin) and his four sons, cut off in 1827.
Close to this a lane turns off through the tombs and cypresses to the
monastery of Baloukli. Here, from a courtyard, filled, like everything
else, with tombs, we descended a staircase at the head of which an old
priest was squatting as guardian of a number of huge brass alms-dishes.
In the subterranean chapel below are more alms-dishes, and a fountain
with the ‘miraculous fish,’ black on one side, red on the other. On the
29th of May 1455, a monk was engaged in frying them, when a man rushed
in and announced the capture of Constantinople by the Turks. ‘I shall
believe it,’ said the monk, ‘when these fish leap out of the
frying-pan,’ and they leapt out immediately, and have remained
half-cooked to this day! At the little restaurant close to the
monastery, shaded by pink Judas-trees and strewn with white sand, we had
our luncheon, bread, pilaf, galetta, hard eggs, wine, and syrup of
roses.
“Beyond the Adrianople Gate the walls and cemetery descend together to
Eyoub, a hamlet at the head of the Golden Horn, with a very sacred
mosque, which heretics are not allowed to enter, as it contains the
sword of Mahomet, with which the Sultan girds himself on the day of his
installation, and in its court, shaded by noble plane-trees, the tomb of
Eyoub, standard-bearer of the Prophet, near whose resting-place are
grouped a number of royal _turbé_, those of the Valide Sultana, mother
of Selim III., and of Hussein Pacha being the most remarkable. We made a
separate excursion hither, finding the rugged streets round the mosque
occupied by the gay booths of a fair shaded by banksia roses in full
bloom, and the keeper of the sanctuary standing at the gate with a drawn
sword to prevent the entrance of the giaours. But we wandered behind, by
the steep ascent between the eternal burial-grounds, where there was a
grand view down the Golden Horn between the old cypresses, all the
mosques of Stamboul embossed upon an aërial sunset sky.
“On May 3 we met a large party at Dolma Baghtché, one of the great
palaces which are memorials of the extravagance of Abdul Medjid. The
rooms are those in which his son, the savage Abdul Aziz, used to throw
everything that came to hand at those who offended him. They are only
used by the present Sultan for the great reception of Beiram, when all
the great dignitaries of the empire flock to kiss the hem of his
garment. The palace is vast, but decorated like a French café, with
glass banisters to the staircase and numbers of fifth-rate pictures:
nothing but the hall is worth seeing. Close by is the mosque of Abdul
Medjid, with two slender minarets, and beyond it the palace of
Teheragan-Sérai, where the ex-Sultan Murad is kept a prisoner, no one
being allowed to linger either on the road or in a boat in front of the
building. The existing Sultan goes to see him sometimes, but asserts ‘My
brother and every one belonging to him are quite perfectly mad.’
“We all went by carriage with an order to the Seraï or Seraglio near St.
Sophia, which occupies at least two-thirds of the ancient Byzantium,
selected by Constantine for his capital. By an unkempt ascent we reach
the Bab-el-Sélam, or Gate of Safety, which had doors on either side, and
in the intermediate space of which high officials condemned by the Divan
were executed. Passing an avenue of cypresses, we reached a second gate,
the Bab Seadet, or Gate of Happiness, guarded by white eunuchs. It was
here that the sultans used to give up their unpopular ministers to the
popular fury; that Murad III. gave up his favourite falconer, Mehemet,
to be cut to pieces before his eyes; that Mahomet III. gave up his three
chief eunuchs, and Murad IV. his grand-vizier Hafiz, who was killed by
seventeen wounds. Many old aunts and cousins of sultans still reside in
the inner apartments, guarded by numbers of eunuchs, the historic
criminal figures of Turkish history, whose existence is expressly
condemned by the Koran, and who are generally bought or stolen as
children from Syria or Abyssinia. Without name, family, or sex, they
often marry, and even have harems for the sake of feminine friendship.
“The treasury is full of boundless barbaric treasures, uncut emeralds,
&c., and much fine armour and china. The finest single object is the
throne of Selim I., taken from the Shah of Persia, of green enamel
studded with pearls and rubies. In the Salle du Divan is the curious bed
where the sultans received ambassadors, though they only saw him through
the window. We also saw the glorious Bagdad mosque lined with blue
Persian tiles, built by the Sultan Amurath in remembrance of one he had
known at Bagdad. In the garden is the famous cage where, from the time
of Mahomet IV., sultans shut up princes who rebelled against them: Abdul
Aziz was confined there from his deposition to his death. Afterwards, I
sat with Sir George Bowen on the terrace, which has an exquisite view up
the Bosphorus, while immediately below us ran the railway line, which
suggests the fall of Turkey. We were served with sweetmeats of
rose-leaves, and coffee in golden cups studded with diamonds, by an
attendant who bore an embroidered cloth upon his shoulder to conceal the
empty cups which had been used by Christians, and were therefore
unclean. This would sound hospitable on the part of the Sultan if one
forgot to mention that we had each had to pay about fifteen francs to
enter the palace, and that there were about thirty of us.
“Another day we went to the mosque of Selimyeh, beautifully situated,
and afterwards I sat to draw under a bower of banksia roses, surrounded
by a marvellous group of Turkish figures, in the Saddlers’ Bazaar
(_serra-jobane-jamissi_). Here the people were good to us, as there are
so many Christians in that quarter of the town, but generally the
natives never cease cursing those who are breaking the second
commandment by making a likeness of something in heaven or earth. In the
courtyard of Suleimanyeh I was less fortunate: a number of soldiers
crowded in front, wholly obstructing all view, and on Dimitri
remonstrating, their officer came up quite furious, with ‘My men shall
stand where they like, and if they wish to hide the man’s view they
shall certainly do so.’ Twice I have toiled to the distant mosque of
Mehmedyé, for Mahomet the Conqueror built it on the site of the famous
church of the Holy Apostles, founded by Constantine the Great, and where
he was buried with eleven other emperors. A dial over a gate near this
is inscribed (from the Koran), ‘Didst thou not see thy Lord, how He
extended thy shadow?’ On some of these excursions it has been most
difficult to procure anything whatever for luncheon, for it is the fast
of Ramazan, when no good Turk allows any food whatever to pass his lips
between sunrise and sunset, on the approach of which he will begin to
hold in his hands the viands which he will devour the very instant the
gun fires. Wine at all times is described as ‘the father of all
abominations,’ yet Solyman the Great, who burnt all the vessels laden
with wine in the port, himself died drunk: Murad IV., who cut off the
head of any one who smelt of wine, was a regular drunkard: Bajazet I.
and II. both drank, and to Selim II. was given the surname of
‘mesth’--the drunkard: so much for the far-famed Turkish consistency.
“We went to the evening service at St. Sophia, three white-turbaned
figures receiving us in the dark at a postern door, and--after exacting
ten francs apiece--conducting us by a winding stair to the broad
gallery, far beneath which the great chandeliers gleamed like
flower-beds over the immense grey space, intersected by long lines of
black figures--all males, for women are soulless--bending, curvetting,
prostrating symmetrically like corn in a wind, and with the same kind of
rush and rustle. It is a curious but monotonous sight, a repetition of
the same movement over and over again, and the shrill harsh cry of the
swaying and falling lines, even more discordant in its echo by the
choir, soon grates upon one: especially as the priests never cease
whispering and worrying for extra baksheesh.
“After waiting one morning for a weary time with an order at the
‘Selamlik,’ we saw the Sultan go to the Yildis mosque. The coachman was
gorgeous in his golden livery, but the ‘Sultan of Sultans, the King of
Kings,’ was a piteous sight, a mixture of boredom and terror. Cringing
cowardice prevents his going to Stamboul more than one day in the year,
and this occurred lately. It is a great day for the court ladies, who
are all allowed to accompany him in three hundred carriages, and avenge
themselves for veiled faces by exhibiting their bare arms covered with
bracelets and as much else as they dare. Mahomet says, ‘He who espouses
only one wife is praiseworthy,’ and now it is considered indiscreet to
have more than four legitimate wives, who are all equal, and who have
each their own dowry and servants. Women are generally well treated
here now, a divorce is easy, and each wife has a right to a separate
room, and may even exact a separate house, if she cannot get on with the
other wives.
“Almost every night through the streets there is a rush of the
Talumbodgi or firemen--half-naked savages with primitive engines, who
scurry to save the valuables of burning houses, not for the owners, but
for themselves, so that they are far more dreaded than the flames. In
recent conflagrations in Galata and Pera it is certain that the fire
began in three or four places at the same moment; for when a street in
Constantinople is wholly bad or unsafe, the authorities do not scruple
to set fire to it, regardless of the consequences, though the people are
such fatalists that they will not leave their dwellings till the last
moment, and then fly, leaving everything behind them.”
* * * * *
“_May 22._--I write during a quiet day with George at the Embassy, after
my return from Broussa, where I have been spending a week.... It was a
voyage of five hours in a steamer crowded with Turks on their carpets,
sleeping, praying, or reciting the Koran, and at the ends of the vessel
knots, lumps, and clusters of women. Outside Seraglio Point the view of
Stamboul is very fine, St. Sophia and the Achmet mosque rising above the
old sea-walls, and the gardens lovely with rich green and pink Judas
bloom. We passed the islands--Antigone, where Sir H. Bulwer lived with
the Greek princess, and Prinkapo, to which the Empress Irene was
banished, and where she is buried. After two hours it became very
rough, and all were sick, especially a number of Turkish officers, who
up to that time had been eating voraciously. So it was indeed a relief
when we entered the comparatively calm bay of Mudania, with its glorious
leaping ‘multitudinous seas’ of sapphire and chrysoprase waves, amid
which endless dolphins--true clowns of the sea--were tumbling and
sporting.
“At Mudania a horde of half-naked savages leaped on board to seize our
luggage, and a hand-to-hand fight ensued, during which we had to scale
the bulwarks of the vessel to reach the pier. Then came a scramble and a
bargaining for carriages, but at last we were off and up the hills,
where boys were selling piles of cherries for half a piastre (1¼ d.)
on the ascent. In the valley beyond, we came up with a knot of carriages
in a desolate place, the inmates standing in the road round one whose
wheel was coming off. It had contained two ladies, and I took up one of
them, who turned out to be Miss Holmes, sister of the librarian at
Windsor. Very lovely was the ascent to Broussa, through the rich green
walnut-woods and by rushing streams, to the exquisite chain of mosques
and minarets under the lower slopes of Olympus. At the table-d’hôte we
had the British Consul, who stated that he ‘was not at all gone on
mosques;’ he had been seventeen years in Constantinople and had seen
nothing but St. Sophia--‘what on earth was the good?’ The hotel was
delightful, and nothing could be more exquisite than the view from my
window, whence I watched the long lines of camels following the
inevitable donkey, and the handsome population, arrayed in every colour
of the rainbow as to male turbans and girdles and the loose robes women
are arrayed in. Thence also, I constantly heard, from the mosque of
Murad, the shrill voice ‘La Ilah il Allah vè Mohammed resoul Allah,’
calling the people to prayer.
“On the first day I joined Miss Holmes and her friend Miss Bacon on a
long excursion through the town, going first to the famous Green Mosque
(Yéchil-Djami), which stands on a platform with old trees and a glorious
view over the plain. We were not allowed to enter at once; it was the
service for women, who are permitted this mosque only. ‘Priest very old
and well covered up: it must be so,’ said the dragoman; ‘it is necessary
to guard their moralities: just let them a little loose, and it is a
very bad job.’
“Close by is a beautiful _turbé_ with an entrance worthy of the
Alhambra, and lovely tiles and jewelled glass within. Beneath the dome
lies the sarcophagus of Mahomet I., with those of his son, his six
daughters, and their nurse--the last very plain, but close to the royal
coffins. In the centre of the mosque itself is a beautiful fountain,
which freshens the air with a rush of falling waters: around are
inscriptions--‘God is love,’ ‘Mahomet is the prophet of God,’ and the
names of the six caliphs who were the companions of Mahomet. The
_mimber_ here is only ascended by the Sheik el Islam himself, when he
gives the blessing with the Koran. As an interior, Oulou-Djami, the
great mosque in the centre of the town, has even more perfect
proportions--a perfection of interlacing architecture inclining to
gothic, forming twenty-four cupolas, and centering in the great dome
above a splashing fountain. Outside this mosque, facing the street, a
bay-tree overshadows the tomb of a sainted dervish: sick people hang
bits of their clothes around it, and think that, with them, they leave
their ailments there. Oulou-Djami stands on the edge of the vast bazaar,
where splendid Eastern dresses are seen in perfection: the perfectly
fitting jackets and breeches of the men, of richest embroidered stuff,
never costing less than from £3 to £10, so that one wondered at their
not minding the frequent torrents of rain; but it is all ‘kismet.’ When
at home these glorious-looking Turks do nothing, for there is nothing to
do: if a house takes fire, they do not care--there is nothing to burn
but a few divans: perhaps the owner takes his clothes with him when he
escapes--there is nothing else to take. They rise early and have a cup
of coffee, at ten they breakfast, at six is dinner, at eight they go to
bed: a few possible visits are the only variety of the day.
“It was a delightful drive to the Citadel, where all the space not
occupied by wonderful old buildings is shaded by the most magnificent
planes and cypresses, watered by crystal streams, which have their
source here. The tombs of the first Osmanli princes, Osman and Orchan,
are here, restored after an earthquake. On the tomb of Osman lies the
order of the Osmanlieh: two of his sons and fourteen of his daughters
surround him. A more curious family burial-place is that of Mouradié, a
green enclosure, bright with fountains and roses, and containing a whole
succession of venerable _turbé_ of the family of Murad I. and Mehemet
II., chiefly murdered victims. Amongst the latter, the tomb of the
hero-prince Djem is especially rich and striking. The grave of Murad, by
his own desire, is left open to the rain of heaven, and is covered with
sickly grass. Of the early Broussa Sultans, several--being sons of
fathers of eighteen and mothers of sixteen--were generals of armies and
governors of provinces at fourteen, and their enormous families were due
to the fact that they continued to have children from sixteen to
seventy.
[Illustration: THE BATHS, BROUSSA.]
“We drove on to another noble mosque at Tchékirgué, about two miles from
Broussa, with more tombs and relics. Amongst the latter is shown a
prayer, inscribed on wood and enclosed in a bottle. ‘When the bottle
breaks, Broussa will become christian,’ is the tradition--suggesting an
easy and cheap enterprise for missionaries. In front of this mosque
(Ghazy-Hounkiar) is a fountain surrounded by cold and hot springs
alternately, and a little below the village, on the edge of the valley,
are the picturesque old domed baths, the strong sulphuric springs of
which are famous throughout Turkey. All around Broussa is rich soil and
vegetation; hollyhocks grow wild along the hedges: it is a glorious
climate: only justice and government are needed.
“I am sorry to go away without seeing more of the Bosphorus, but I have
just been to Therapia, where the _villeggiatura_ life in summer must be
delightful.”
* * * * *
“_May 23._--My last hours at Constantinople were spent in an expedition
with the Whites in their picturesque state barge to the Sweet Waters of
Europe. I believe I have said nothing of Sir William White, though he is
the ambassador in whose house I have been living so long. His simple
manners are full of bluff humour. He is said to understand the Turk
perfectly, and rose entirely by his own merits, with the help of a lucky
appointment to the Conference of 1876-77.”
* * * * *
_To_ LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD.
“_Ober-Ammergau, June 2._--We have seen the Passion-Play. It is a day to
have lived for: nothing can be more sublimely devotional, more
indescribably pathetic.
“Our journey from Constantinople was accomplished very easily. We stayed
to see Buda-Pesth, a very handsome modern city, and then had two days
of perfect enjoyment at Halstadt and the exquisite Gosau Lake. On Friday
night we slept at Oberau, and drove here early on Saturday morning,
finding the Lowthers at once in the village street, and spending most of
that day in drawing with them. We went at once to the house of the
Burgomaster to inquire where we were billeted. All the material part of
life is most comfortably and economically arranged for visitors. I am
quartered with St. Thomas, and all through the day one meets peasants
with long hair, recalling Biblical figures. The Burgomaster’s beautiful
daughter is the Virgin Mary. In a gracious and touching spirit of
unselfish love all these villagers live together for mutual help and
comfort. They have been trained under their late pastor, Aloys
Daisemberger, to regard the Passions-Spiel, which is the great event of
their quiet lives, not only as a religious service of thanksgiving to
which every talent and energy must be contributed for the glory of God,
and a manifestation of gratitude for His preservation of them, but they
are also taught to look upon it as an instrument which God’s grace has
placed in their hands for the calling back of Europe to Christianity,
through the dark mists of infidelity which have been creeping over it in
the nineteenth century. And truly in this the actual visit to
Ober-Ammergau may be as full of teaching as the great representation
itself--the simple contact with such men as ‘Christus Maier,’[488] as he
is called, whose life’s work is ‘to endeavour to do God’s will _aufs
innersten_, and to be helpful to those around him.’ Here, in
Ober-Ammergau--perhaps here alone--religion takes no heed of Roman
Catholic or Protestant vagaries; the will of God, the example of Christ,
those are the only guidance of life. In the five sermons of Daisemberger
preparatory to the Passion-Play of 1871,[489] there is not a single word
which indicates Romanism. ‘Look, O disciples of Christ,’ says
Daisemberger to his people; ‘see your Master, how gentle, how kind He
is, how mild in His intercourse with those around Him, how full of
heartiest sympathy for their joys and sorrows. Then can you, in your
intercourse with those around you, be grumbling, rough, discourteous,
self-asserting, repellent, and wanting in sympathy? Oh no! you could
never endure to be so unlike your Master.’
“It is a beautiful place, a high upland mountain valley, covered with
rich pastures and enamelled with flowers. A long street, or rather road,
lined by comfortable detached timber houses, leads to the handsome
church, around which the older part of the village groups itself above
the clear rushing Ammer, and is highly picturesque. Beyond the village,
in the meadows overlooked by the peak of the Kofel, is the theatre where
the great drama of the Passion is enacted, which, ever since 1634, has
commemorated every tenth year the then deliverance of Ammergau from the
plague which was devastating the neighbouring villages.
“All through Friday it was curious to meet a succession of London
acquaintances, and most unexpected ones, but from all being here with
one object, no one was uncongenial. And all is so perfectly managed,
there is no fuss or hurry; comfortable accommodation, good seats,
excellent food are provided for all who are permitted to come, for the
visitors for every performance are limited to the 2000 for whom there is
room; no unexpected persons, no excursionists are ever admitted. No
thought of gain has ever the slightest influence upon the villagers, and
the prices are only such as pay what is absolutely due.
“Yesterday morning, I imagine, no visitor could sleep after four, when
their peasant hosts began to tramp overhead and clatter down their
narrow oak staircases. Then, after an excellent breakfast of hot coffee,
cream, eggs, and toast, many visitors and all the people of
Ober-Ammergau hurried to the six-o’clock service in the church, where
all the five hundred actors knelt with their pastor in silent prayer,
and many of them received the Sacrament. At eight all were comfortably
placed in their seats in the open-air theatre, and the soft wild music
of Schutzgeister, which seems to come from behind the hills, preluded
the performance.
[Illustration: OBER-AMMERGAU.]
“One might be seated in the Piazza del Popolo at Rome with one’s back to
the gate. There is the same vast intervening space, and the same three
branching streets (the central closed by an inner theatre for tableaux),
with marked buildings at the entrance. Only here those buildings are the
houses of Annas, Caiaphas, and Pilate, and the streets are those of
Jerusalem, lined with Eastern houses, domes, and here and there a
palm-tree, and they melt far away into lovely ethereal mountain
distances, the real mountains of the Bavarian Alps. The performance
begins when the spirit-chorus of eighteen persons, male and female, in
many-coloured tunics and mantles, advance in stately lines from either
side of the stage, and in a chaunt, weird but most distinctly audible,
explain what is coming, and urge those present to receive it in a humble
spirit of reverence and adoration of God. Then, on the central stage,
begin the strange series of types and antitypes, and, as the veil falls
the second time, the vast Hosanna-procession of five hundred men, women,
and children, singing, shouting, and strewing palm-branches, appears
down the distant streets, and, as it draws nearer, and the mountains
resound with jubilant shouts and the whole air is ablaze with life and
colour, the serene, rapt, stately figure of the Christus, riding upon
the ass, but even then spiritualised into absolute sublimity by the
sense of his divine mission, comes for the first time before us.
Afterwards, through the long eight hours of thrilling tension which
follow, overshadowing the endless, almost wearisome, series of Old
Testament scenes, drawing every heart and eye nearer to himself through
the agony of the trial, the cross-bearing, the crucifixion, does that
sublime figure become more familiar; never again can the thought of the
God-man be severed from it. And in the great drama itself one sees all
the rest, but one feels with, one lives for, the Christ alone; and the
dignity of his lofty patience, unmoved from the holy calm which pervades
his whole being even when four hundred savage Jews are shouting and
jibing round in clamorous eagerness for his death, must be present with
one through life.
“I cannot tell it all. Words fail and emotions are too much. Through
that long day--oh! is it that day alone?--one knows how to live with, to
suffer with Christ: one is raised above earth and its surroundings: one
dies with Him to sin and suffering: one is raised with Him into heavenly
places. After some hours, England is forgotten, Germany is forgotten.
You are a Jew. Jerusalem is your home: all, _all_ your interests are
centred there: nothing earthly is of the very least importance to you
except the great tragedy that is being enacted before your eyes. It is
perhaps the humanity of Christ which is brought most forcibly before
you; but oh! how divinely human, how humanly divine!
“Could one wonder that Mr. Vanderbilt, the American millionaire, said
that he owed everything--everything for this world and the next--to
Ober-Ammergau? it had unveiled and explained religion for him: it had
made the Bible a living reality.
“I think of the Old Testament scenes, the Fall of the Manna is the most
beautiful. More than four hundred Israelites, including a hundred and
fifty children, are seen--groups of the most exquisite and harmonious
colour--with Moses and Aaron in the desert; and between you and them,
and amongst and around them, falls mysteriously the soft vaporous manna;
whilst the chorus in sweet, wild, lingering monotone chaunt the
beautiful hymn beginning--
‘Gut ist der Herr, gut ist der Herr.’
“Of the New Testament scenes, the leave-taking with the family of
Bethany is perhaps the most pathetic. It is an exquisite sunset scene.
Huge olive-trees stretch their gnarled boughs overhead and are embossed
against the amber sky, in the distance the village of Bethany stands out
in the soft blue mists of evening. Through the sunset comes the Christ
in lingering last words with the sisters and Lazarus, and there, under
the old trees, is their last farewell, touching indescribably, after
which the weeping family return to Bethany, and he goes away, a solitary
figure upon the burnt hills in the twilight, to his death at Jerusalem.
“At Ober-Ammergau one for the first time realises the many phases of
the trial--in the house of Caiaphas, of Annas, of Pilate, of Caiaphas
again, of Pilate again; and all is terribly real--the three crosses, for
instance, so really heavy, that none but a very strong man can support
them. One thinks better of Pilate after the performance, through which
one has watched his struggles--his weary, hopeless struggles to save the
life of Christ. Almost every act, nearly every word, is directly taken
from the Gospel history. Amongst the few touches added is that of Mary
the mother, accidentally arriving at Jerusalem, meeting the other Marys
in one of the side streets and talking of the condemnation of a Galilean
which has just taken place. Then, as the street opens, suddenly seeing
the cross-bearing in the distance, and thrilling the whole audience with
anguish in her cry of ‘It is my son: it is Jesus!’ The Last Supper is an
exact reproduction of Leonardo’s fresco, and many of the other scenes
follow the great masters.
“How thrilling were the words, how almost more thrilling were the
_silences_, of Christ.[490]
“The evening shadows are beginning to fall as we see Christ raised on
the cross. He hangs there for twenty minutes, and most indescribably
sublime are the words given from thence. When all is over, it is so
real, you think that _this time_ death must really have taken place. The
three crosses, the bound thieves, the fainting women, the mounted
centurion, the soldiers drawing lots, all seem to belong to real events,
enacted, not acted. The deposition of the dead Christ on the white
sheet is a vast Rubens picture.[491]
“The resurrection is more theatrical, but in the final scene, where the
perfect figure of the spiritual Christ is seen for the last time, he
goes far away with his disciples and the Marys, and then, upon Olivet,
in the midst of the group relieved against the golden sunset, he
solemnly blesses his beloved ones, and whilst you gaze rapt, seems to be
raised a little, and then you look for him and he is not.
“Each one of the four thousand spectators then sits in a vast sense of
loneliness amid the silent Bavarian hills. The long tension is over. The
day is lived out. The Master we have followed we can follow no longer
with material sight. He has suffered, died, and risen from the grave,
and is no longer with us: in the heavens alone can we hope to behold Him
as He is.”
* * * * *
After leaving Ober-Ammergau, Hugh Bryans and I went with the Lowthers
and Mrs. Ridley to Rothenburg, still an unaltered diminutive mediaeval
city, and the most interesting place in Germany. Then I paid a
delightful visit to my dear Bunsen friends at Carlsruhe and Herrenalb,
and on our way back to England we saw the marvellous Schloss Eltz,
going thither in a bullock-cart up the bed of the river from the
attractive little inn at Moselkern, kept by a very old man and woman,
sitting upon the very border-land of heaven.
* * * * *
During the varied occupations of this summer of 1890 I was asked to
write biographies of several members of my family for the “Dictionary of
National Biography,” and did so. My articles appeared, but greatly
altered. The editor had a perfect right to condense them at his
pleasure, but I was astonished to find _additions_. Bishop Hare was
saddled with a third son, Richard Hare, “an apothecary of Winchester,”
who was the father of James Hare, afterwards called the “Hare with many
friends.” This son of my great-great-grandfather is entirely imaginary;
our family was never in the remotest degree related to Richard or James
Hare. It gave one a terrible impression of how the veracity and
usefulness of a work of really national importance might be spoilt by
the conceited ignorance of an editor; and to add such trash to an
article published with the signature of another was as unjustifiable as
it was abominable.
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Woodbastwick Hall, August 6, 1890._--I have enjoyed a visit at Cobham
very much. We had only the usual circle of guests, but summer days in
that beautiful place are a delicious halt in life. Thence I went to
Osterley, which looked bewitching, with its swans floating in sunshine
beyond the shade of the old cedars. Those radiant gardens will now bloom
through five years unseen, for Lord Jersey has accepted the Governorship
of New South Wales, which can only be from a sense of duty, as it is an
immense self-sacrifice, though he and Lady Jersey can never fail
anywhere to be a centre of all that is most interesting and useful. To
English society her absence will be a terrible loss, as, with the utmost
simplicity of high breeding, she is the one person left in England who
is capable of holding a _salon_ and keeping it filled, to the
advantage--in every best sense--of all who enter it. Nothing can be more
charming than the relation of Lord and Lady Jersey to their children,
and the fact that the latter were always of the party, yet never in its
way, was the greatest testimony to their up-bringing. The weather was
really hot enough for the luxury of open windows everywhere and for
sitting out all day. The party was a most pleasant one--M. de Staël, the
Russian Ambassador; Lady Crawford, still lovely as daylight, and her
nice daughter Lady Evelyn; Lady Galloway, brimming with cleverness; M.
de Montholon, French Minister at Athens; Mr. and Mrs. Frank Parker, most
amusing and cheery; Sir Philip Currie, General Fielding, &c. Everything
was most unostentatiously sumptuous and most enjoyable. On Monday we
were sent in three carriages to Richmond, where we saw Sir Francis
Cooke’s collections, very curious and worth seeing as it is, but which,
if his pictures deserved the names they bear, would be one of the finest
galleries in the world. Then, after a luxurious luncheon at the ‘Star
and Garter,’ we went on to Ham House, where Lady Huntingtower showed the
curiosities, including all the old dresses kept in a chest in the long
gallery. Finally, I told the Jersey children--splendid audience--a long
story in a glade of the Osterley garden, where the scene might have
recalled the ‘Decameron.’ I was very sorry to leave these kind friends,
and to know it would be so long before I saw them again.
“I came here with the Lowthers, finding kind Mrs. Cator surrounded by
three sons and eight daughters. This is a luxurious modern house,
replacing one which was burnt. Only a lawn and trees separate it from
the Norfolk Broads, and we have floated down the Bere in a delightful
sailing-boat, through the huge thirsty water-plants, to the weird
remains of St. Benet in the Holme, of which the Bishops of Norwich are
still titular Abbots.”
* * * * *
“_Sept. 6._--I have enjoyed a visit to Holmbury (Mr. Leveson Gower’s),
now let to Mr. Knowles of the _Nineteenth Century_--a lovely place with
a delightful view over Surrey plains. I like its homelike character
better than the larger place of Mr. Ralli, whither we went yesterday to
a garden-party. Mr. Knowles is most delightful company, full of
pertinent and never _im_pertinent questions. He has talked much of
Tennyson, with whom his family are very intimate, and who used often to
stay with him when he first married and lived on Clapham Common.
Tennyson speaks every thought without respect of persons. ‘What fish is
this?’ (at dinner).--‘Whiting.’--‘Yes, the meanest fish there is.’ Yet
his kindness of heart is such, that when his partridge was afterwards
given him almost raw, he ate steadily through it, for fear his hostess
might be vexed.
“After dinner Tennyson will sit smoking his pipe by the chimney-corner.
That is his great time for inspiration, but he will seldom write
anything down. ‘Thousands of lines just float up this chimney,’ he said
one day. Sometimes he will go into the drawing-room and recite something
he has just composed. Some of these poems Mr. Knowles has written down.
If asked to repeat them again, Tennyson can never do it in the same way,
something is always altered or forgotten: so hundreds of his poems are
lost. One day lately, when he was unusually melancholy, his nurse, whom
he greatly likes (he always has a nurse now), took him to task. ‘Mr.
Tennyson, you ought to be ashamed of yourself for grumbling in this way:
you ought to be expressing your gratitude for your recovery from your
bad illness by giving us something--by giving it to the world.’ And he
took her reproof very well, and went away to his own room, and in
half-an-hour had written his lines ‘Crossing the Bar,’ which he gave to
her.
“Tennyson was very rude to Mrs. Brotherton, a neighbour at Freshwater.
The next day he came to her house with a great cabbage under each arm.
‘I heard you liked these, so I brought them.’ It was his idea of a
peace-offering.
“My ‘France’ is just appearing, under the guardianship of Ruskin’s
friend Allen. I think it is good. I have certainly worked hard at it.
The woodcuts are beautifully engraved, and with the letterpress I have
even more than usual followed Arthur Young’s advice to authors--‘To
expunge as readily as to compose.’”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Oct. 14, 1890._--I went on the 27th to Worth, the ultra-luxurious
house of the Montefiores, where the servants have their own
billiard-tables, ballroom, theatre, and pianofortes, and are arrogant
and presumptuous in proportion. It was a pleasure to drive over to the
picturesque old manor-house of Gravetye, which belongs to Mr. W.
Robinson, who wrote ‘The English Flower-Garden;’ but except the thickets
of Michaelmas daisies, I was disappointed in his flowers, for he only
attempts those which belong to the naturally existing soil. A far more
beautiful garden is that of Mrs. Rate at Milton Court, near Dorking,
whither I went afterwards. John Evelyn’s own house of Wotton is much
altered, but this, which was the dower-house of the Evelyns, remains as
it was in his time, and most lovely are the ranges of brilliant
old-fashioned flowers relieved against the yew-hedges. Mrs. Rate took me
a long drive over the back of Leith Hill, with views of unspeakable
beauty: abroad, there is nothing like such radiance and wealth of
woodland, such exquisite delicacy of misty distance. I was put down at
the station on my way to Highcliffe, to which I hastened in answer to an
unusually urgent and affectionate invitation from its dear lady, bidding
me on no account to miss coming at that time; at another time it might
not be possible. I found the dear Lady Waterford sadly ailing, but I
hope I was able to be useful to her during some days of extreme quietude
and much reading aloud. She had lately been to the Queen at Osborne,
crossing the Solent in the _Elfin_, seated between the two great
bags--‘as big as large arm-chairs’--containing the Queen’s letters for
the day. ‘The Queen would have my drawings in. It was dreadful! for you
know how a big portfolio slides off the table, and the Queen looked at
them all so closely, and I was afraid the portfolio would slip and catch
hold of her nose, and then I should have been sent to the Tower or
something. There was one of the drawings she liked so much that I gave
it to her. It was of Time with his scythe over his shoulder. A quantity
of little children were gambolling and sporting in front and beckoning
him onwards, but behind were a number of old people trying to hold him
back; for one wanted to go on with his book, another to finish a
drawing, and so on, and so they were clinging to his skirts as he was
striding away.’
“Lady Waterford cannot understand the physical signs of age which seem
to be suddenly attacking her: yet spiritually she is more than ever
living in Eternity’s sunrise. Truly those who have lived much at
Highcliffe or Ford can never ‘think this life a low and poor place in
which to seek the Divine Master walking to and fro.’[492]
“I felt sadder than usual in leaving Highcliffe this time, as if it
might be a last visit, yet it is difficult to imagine life without what
has given its greatest interest and charm. The dear lady was down before
I came away, though it was very early, and I retain a beautiful picture
of her standing in the conservatory under the great brugmantia laden
with its orange flowers. She came with me through the rooms, and I
looked back at her, and found her still looking after me, and so,
somehow walked away sadly down the dewy lanes to the station, with a
desolate feeling that I might see her no more.
“I went on to Babraham (the Adeanes’), whence I drove with Charlie to
spend the afternoon at Audley End--what a magnificent place! Afterwards
I had two days at pleasant, merry Hardwick.”
* * * * *
_To_ LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD.
“_Nov. 10, 1890._--On October 20 I went to Tatton, meeting a large and
pleasant party for the week, and one sees every one there to perfection,
Lady Egerton knowing so well how to unlock a portal of
communication--often of friendship--with just the right key. Truly,
indeed, might Lady Egerton say--
‘Je suis né pour plaire aux nobles âmes,
Pour les consoler un peu d’un monde impur.’[493]
The country is black but always interesting. Little Knutsford was sanded
all over in patterns (as in India) for a wedding: it is a custom which
dates from King Alfred, who met a wedding-party as he was passing
through the town and threw down some sand, saying that he hoped the
descendants of the marriage might be as numerous as its grains. The
patterns of sand--flowers, love-knots, &c.--are made through the spout
of a teapot. One day the conversation fell upon the little hamlet of
Flash in the Cheshire hills. Pedlars from Manchester used to waste their
time there in drinking on their way to London, whence the term
‘flash-goods!’ We drove to Holford Hall, passing on the outskirts of
Tabley many of the brown many-horned sheep, which are said to have
descended from some washed ashore from the Armada. I was glad to go
again with Lady Egerton to Arley, where the beautiful gardens, really
modern, have all the picturesqueness of antiquity. It is typical of the
kindness which old Mr. Warburton shows in everything that all round the
roads on his estate he leaves open spaces with plenty of brambles for
blackberry gatherers.
“Lord Donington told Lady Egerton that when he went to live where he
does now, his two young boys were taught by an admirable English
governess. One day, having observed the housekeeper carefully locking
the door of a spare bedroom, she casually said, ‘Do you always keep the
doors of the unused bedrooms locked?’--‘No,’ said the housekeeper, ‘only
this one;’ and she invited the governess to look into it, saying that
there was a mystery about it. Some one always seemed to come to sleep
there, whom she could not imagine, and she believed some trick was being
played upon her. As an experiment, she said she would be very much
obliged if the governess would take away the key after the room was
locked, and keep it till the following morning. The next day they went
together to the room, which showed every appearance of having been slept
in, yet the window was carefully fastened inside, and there was no other
possible entrance.
“Some time after, a young man came to shoot with the boys, and was put
into that room. In the morning he came down with a very scared look, and
said he was very sorry, but he must leave. Being much pressed, he
allowed that he had been dreadfully frightened. He had kept his candle
by his bed to finish a book he had been reading, and, looking up, he saw
an old man sitting by the fire, who eventually rose, came, looked into
the bed, and seeing him there, walked away. ‘And,’ said the visitor,
‘_that_ is the man!’ pointing to a picture on the wall of an ancestor
who had died centuries before.
“Amongst the guests at Tatton were a Mr. and Mrs. Crum, most delightful
people. He had made a fortune as a manufacturer, and they now live at
Broxton Old Hall, a dower-house and beautiful old black and white manor
of Sir Philip Egerton’s, whither I went to visit them. Thence I saw Mr.
Wolley Dodd’s wonderful garden, the most interesting herbaceous
collection in England. Mr. Wolley, well known as an Eton master, married
Miss Dodd, the heiress of Edge, and of a family which has lived there
from Saxon times, and of which a member was knighted at Agincourt; and
he has turned a farmyard, a quarry, a pond, a wood, &c., into the most
astonishing of gardens, in which each genus of plants is provided with
the exact soil it loves best, and grows as it never does elsewhere. Near
Edge we saw the noble old black and white house of Carden. We also saw
the once splendid church of Malpas, utterly ruined by its so-called
‘restoration’ under a Chester architect named Douglas--old pavements,
old pews ruthlessly destroyed, and a vestry by Vanbrugh only spared for
want of funds to pull it down. A miserable window commemorates Reginald
Heber, once rector, and a lime avenue leads to his rectory. I was
several days at Drayton as I returned--most beautiful and interesting.
“C. writes to me for advice, but I feel more and more diffident about
giving any. I found such a capital bit about this in a novel called
‘Margaret Maliphant,’ the other day. The old servant Deborah says, ‘What
you think’s the right way most times turns out to be the wrong way; and
when you make folks turn to the right when they was minded to turn to
the left, it’s most like the left would have been the best way for them
to travel after all. I’ve done advisin’ long ago; for it’s a queer tract
of country here below, and every one has to take their own chance in the
long-run.’
“_How_ tiresome the shibboleth which many clergymen talk in church is!
Mr. ---- has been dwelling upon the exceeding _sinfulness of sin_. We
_may_ find a meaning for this, but is it in fact different from the
_beautifulness of beauty_, which we should call nonsense?”
* * * * *
_To_ LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD.
“_Nov. 30, 1890._--I had a pleasant visit at St. Audries, Sir A. Acland
Hood’s beautiful place. It is a red sandstone house, enfolded amongst
green hills, chiefly covered with golden or russet woods or rich growth
of arbutus, and in front is the sea. In the morning-room are Turner’s
water-colour pictures of Sussex (including one of Hurstmonceaux),
executed for Mr. Fuller of Rosehill, of whom, with two other fortunes,
Lady Hood was the heiress. In a corner of the hall are baby-clothes of
three boys beneath the portrait of another remote ancestor, Edward
Palmer of Ightham Mote. One Whitsunday morning a servant came in and
said, ‘Sir, your lady has presented you with a son.’--‘The most joyful
news you could have brought me!’ said Mr. Palmer. The following Sunday
the servant came again: ‘Sir, your lady has presented you with another
son.’--‘Oh, God bless my soul! you don’t say so?’ exclaimed Mr. Palmer.
But the third Sunday the servant came in with ‘Sir, your lady has
presented you with another son.’ It seemed quite too much; but the
babies all lived, and grew up to be very distinguished men, being all
knighted for their valour by Henry VIII.[494] I was delightfully taken
about--to Crowcombe, where the Carew heiress has married Cranmer
Trollope, and where there are noble Vandykes and a fine Titian portrait:
to Quantockshead, with a delightful old hall and carved chimney-pieces:
and to Nettlecombe, where the old hall of the Catholic Sir Alfred
Trevelyan nestles close to the parish church. Sir Alfred described how
the ‘church restorers’ at Bideford had turned all that was worth having
out of the church. A figure of a man was bought by an old woman, but she
thought it was too undressed and kept it--in bed! There it was found
with its head comfortably laid on the pillow, a figure of St. John
Baptist. The old woman had some notion of its value, as she asked £600
for it; but it was well worth that, as it was a priceless Donatello!
“All about this neighbourhood it is the same thing. Sir A. Hood had been
to see a friend of his, and remarked, ‘What a pretty and peculiar
flower-stand you have.’--‘Yes,’ said the friend, ‘and an interesting one
too, for it is the font of Ongar church, in which Gunthran the Dane was
baptized, and by which King Alfred stood as his sponsor.’
“Mr. W. Neville, who was one of the guests at St. Audries, had been to
hear Dr. Parker, of the Congregational Hall, preach. He began his sermon
by saying, ‘My brethren, I have received a letter from a gentleman
saying that he intends to be present to-day and to make a philosophical
analysis of my discourse to you. I am sure you will all sympathise with
me in the embarrassment and nervousness which I must experience on such
an occasion, though certainly I may derive some little comfort from the
fact that my correspondent spells “philosophical” with an _f_.’
“Mr. Neville told me that he had asked a boy in his parish what was the
difference between the head and the stomach. ‘The head has brains in it,
if the owner has any,’ replied the boy; ‘the stomach has bowels; they
are five--_a-e-i-o-u_.’
“It was only a drive from St. Audries to Dunster, where I spent three
days, and which is, as Charlie Halifax has often described it, quite the
most beautiful place in the south of England. It is an old castle, of
which the earlier parts are of Edward I., on a great height, rising from
glorious evergreen woods, with a view of the sea on one side and russet
moorland on the other: in the depth, on one side, a tossing crystalline
river and old pointed bridge; on the other, the town with its ancient
market-house and glorious church. I slept in ‘King Charles’s Room,’ in a
great carved bed. The cottages in the villages around are covered with
myrtle, coronilla, and geranium.
“Mrs. Stucley, one of the Fanes of Clovelly, was at St. Audries. She
told me that one Sunday their clergyman preached entirely on
Thermopylae, and wound up by saying that the Spartans were much the
bravest men that ever lived; that there was never any battle like
Thermopylae. Afterwards, at luncheon, Colonel Stucley said he did not
agree with what the preacher had said, for all the Thespians perished,
whilst the Spartans survived: had the Thespians survived, they might
have proved as good as their rivals.
“Three weeks afterwards the clergyman surprised the Stucleys by saying,
‘Well, my case is proved. I’ve the opinion of the greatest Greek scholar
of the age--Mr. Gladstone--that it is as I stated it, that the Spartans
were the bravest.’ He had actually written to Mr. Gladstone, and
produced the answer.
“Afterwards Mrs. Stucley was dining out in London, and went down with
Mr. Godley, one of Gladstone’s secretaries. She said, ‘I am afraid my
name may not be unknown to you?’--‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Thermopylae,’ and went
on to tell that when one of the secretaries opened the letter, they all
discussed the question, and not being able to agree, took it in to Mr.
Gladstone, who was so excited by it that he left his finance and all
else, and walked about for three hours talking of nothing but
Thermopylae.
“Except the Lefevres and Brasseys, I think my Dunster visit is the only
time I have ever stayed in a Radical house; but its mistress, Mrs.
Luttrell, with the support of her own family twelve miles off, holds out
as a Conservative.
“From Somersetshire I went to Hatfield, arriving just after sunset. You
could only just see the red colouring on the majestic old house, but all
the windows blazed and glittered with light through the dark walls; the
Golden Gallery with its hundreds of electric lamps was like a Venetian
illumination. The many guests coming and going, the curiously varied
names inscribed upon the bedroom doors, give the effect of having all
the elements of society compressed under one roof. It was pleasant to
meet Lady Lytton, beautiful still, and with all the charm of the most
high-bred refinement. Another guest was Count Herbert Bismarck. Lady
Salisbury had spoken of him as a fallen power, greatly broken by his
fall, and so had enlisted our sympathies for him, but he quenched them
by his loud authoritative manner, flinging every sentence from him with
defiant self-assertion. He was especially opinionated about Henry
VIII.’s wives, utterly refusing to allow that Anne of Cleves did not
precede Anne Boleyn. He is a colossal man and a great eater, and would
always fill two glasses of wine at once, to have one in reserve. At
dinner he was rather amusing about the inefficiency of doctors, and said
that the only time when cause follows effect was when a doctor follows
the funeral of his patient. Lord Selborne, who was sitting near, spoke
of Baron Munchausen, how he took the whole College of Physicians up in
his balloon, and kept them there a month, and then, when he sent them
down again out of pity for their patients, found all their patients had
got quite well in their absence, but that all the undertakers were
ruined.
“The life of a Prime Minister’s family is certainly no sinecure. Lady
Salisbury and her daughter have constantly to go off to found or open
charities of every description. Lord Salisbury is occupied with his
secretaries to the very last moment before breakfast and luncheon, into
which he walks stooping, with hands folded behind him, and a deeply
meditative countenance, and by his side the great boar-hound called
‘Pharaoh’--‘because he will not let the people go;’ but when once seated
as a host, he wakes up into the most interesting and animated
conversation.
“How cold it is! but, as Mr. Bennett has been saying in Curzon Street
Chapel, ‘Winter is like the pause of the instrument; not the paralysis,
but the preparation of Nature.’ These sermons at Curzon Street are one
of the greatest interests of London now. Last Sunday’s was on
‘anonymous sins.’ ‘How many there are,’ said the preacher, ‘even in
fashionable life, who say, “Lord, I will follow Thee, I mean to follow
Thee ... but ...;”’ and proceeded to describe how ‘the future of the
world depends upon its unknown saints.’ Very different are these from
the nonsensical sermons one often hears about ‘the awful circumstances
of the times,’ interlarded with prophetic texts.
“There has been a long and amusing Review of my ‘France’ in the
_Speaker_, reproaching me with my Roman Catholic tendencies, as evinced
in the length of my account of Ars and its Curé, the writer being
evidently unconscious that for every English traveller who lingers at
Lyons, at least a hundred (Catholics) turn aside to Ars. This Review is
noticed in an American paper, which says, ‘As a matter of fact, Mr. Hare
is a well-known Low Church clergyman, who _poses at clerical meetings as
an advanced Evangelical_!’ The other Reviews seem to have been mostly
written by men who knew nothing of the subject, and who have not taken
the trouble to know more of the book than, at most, the first chapter.
One of them asserts that ‘the illustrations, said to be taken from
original sketches, are evidently all from photographs’ (!); but ‘j’ai
pour principe que le radotage des sots ne tire pas à conséquence,’ as
Ernest Renan says.”
* * * * *
_To_ LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD.
“_Dec. 7, 1890._--I have had an interesting visit to the De Capel
Brookes in the old grey Tudor house of Great Oakley Hall in
Northamptonshire. Thence I saw two of the finest houses in England.
Rushton (Mr. Clarke Thornhill’s) is a great Tudor house with a screen
like that of a Genoese palace. In the garden is ‘Dryden’s Walk,’ and the
three-cornered lodge built by Richard Tresham (with Lyveden and the
town-hall of Rothwell) as a strange votive offering to propitiate the
Trinity for success in the enterprise of the Gunpowder Plot. Rockingham
is even more interesting. Once the hunting-palace of King John, it was
inhabited ever afterwards by the English kings till the time of Henry
VII., since which the Watsons have possessed it. The position is
splendid, with a wide view of map-like Northamptonshire country, and it
is approached by a gateway between noble Plantagenet towers. All
additions have been made in the best taste, and the great drawing-room
is magnificent. King John’s treasure-chest remains in the hall. There is
a noble Sir Joshua, and a most beautiful Angelica Kauffmann, probably
her finest work. Other interesting pictures came to the Watsons through
marriages, many of Lord Strafford and his surroundings through the
marriage of his daughter with Lord Rockingham; those of Henry Pelham,
the Duke of Newcastle, &c., through the daughter of the former.
“How interesting is the Parnell crisis! At Miss Seymour’s I met a
Countess Ziski, who talked of how curious it was that abroad, if a woman
misconducts herself, she is boycotted, but no notice is taken of the
misconduct of the man: here, if a woman misconducts herself, an
easy-going society makes excuses for her, but the man is cashiered for
ever.
“The Dean of Chester says that a friend of his was once baptizing a
child of six. All went well, till it came to making the sign of the
cross, when the child exclaimed, ‘If you do that again, I’ll hit yer in
the eye.’ At a recent Board-school examination ‘Education’ was defined
as ‘that which enables you to despise the opinions of others, and
conduces to situations of considerable emolument.’ I think it was Miss
Cobbe who defined ‘Conscience’ as ‘that which supplies you with an
excellent motive for doing that which you desire to do, and which fills
you with self-satisfaction when you have done it.’”
* * * * *
_To_ W. H. MILLIGAN.
“_Llandaff, Dec. 18, 1890._--I was a week at Ammerdown, meeting Lord and
Lady Temple, the Phelips’s of Montacute, and a charming Miss Devereux,
Lord Hereford’s daughter.... The Dean of ---- had been out with a
shooting party in the neighbourhood. ‘I hope you sent some pheasants the
Dean’s way,’ said the owner of the ground to a keeper. ‘Oh yes, that I
have, and his holiness has been pepperin’ away as stiff as a biscuit.’
“Here at Llandaff it has been interesting to meet Mr. Herbert Ward of
the African Stanley rearguard, a most frank, simple, and evidently most
truthful fellow, who speaks with great moderation of the leader of the
expedition, to whom they owed so much of suffering, misery, death, and
slander.
“Have you never remarked how hypnotism is described in Wisdom xvii.?”
* * * * *
_To_ LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD.
“_Honingham, Norfolk, January 8, 1891._--I enjoyed my Christmas visit to
the Lowthers, though it was rather spoilt by what novelists would call
the incipient agonies of a cold, which has about attained its perfection
now, and I am glad to be in this warm house of the hospitable Ailwyn
Fellowes’s, where I am well looked after.
“I heard such a capital story of Bishop Magee the other day. He was in a
carriage on the Great Western with two young clergymen, one of whom
began, and went on violently abusing the Bishop of Peterborough by name,
without observing who he was. At Swindon the Bishop got out to have some
soup. When he was gone, the other curate said, ‘How could you go on like
that? couldn’t you see that _was_ the Bishop of Peterborough?’--‘Why
didn’t you stop me?’--‘Well, I did all I could; I’m sure I kicked you
hard enough.’--‘What _can_ I do?’--‘Well, if I was you, I should
apologise.’ So, when the Bishop came back, the young man said, ‘I’m very
sorry, my Lord, to have said all I did in your presence. I am sure I had
not an idea who you were, and if there is anything you especially
objected to, I should be very glad to withdraw it and
apologise.’--‘Well,’ said the Bishop, ‘there was one thing, there
certainly was one thing which annoyed me very much: you _would_ call me
Majee; now my name is Magee!”
* * * * *
Alas! the shadows which I had observed during my last visit to my dear
friend Lady Waterford were now gathering very thickly around her. She
had failed rapidly from the time of her removal from Highcliffe to her
Northumbrian home, and was no longer able to answer me; but I still
wrote to her.
* * * * *
_To_ LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD.
“_Athenaeum Club, March 1, 1891._--I am thankful still to hear of you
from many common friends, and quite satisfied without hearing from
yourself, and rejoice to think of you as able to enjoy drives. I think
you will often find out, by carriage, points which will be almost new to
you, and I can imagine how lovely the effects must have been in the hazy
hollows of the Cheviots in these last days, when even here sunshine has
broken through the fog in which London was shrouded for a week. It is
Sunday, and I am just going to Curzon Street Chapel. I would not miss
one of Mr. Bennett’s sermons on any account.... The one which struck me
most was on the brief text ‘Nothing but leaves!’--so many bear those,
quite a great growth of them, and no more: I am sure I do.”
* * * * *
“_March 16._--Two days ago I ran in from this Club to luncheon at the
Brownlows’ close by, and had such a pleasant visit.
“I went first into the large room they call the library on the ground
floor--the most enchanting of rooms, hung all round with noble Italian
pictures, some of them bequeathed by Miss Talbot, and bright with many
flowers; some of your prettiest drawings on the table; Westminster
Abbey, faint, grey, and impressive, beyond the leafless trees outside
the window. Here I found Lord Pembroke, always as genial, pleasant, and
charming as he is handsome.
“The staircase is quite beautiful, chiefly designed by Lord Brownlow,
but partly taken from the old palace-inn at Parma, with friezes and
alcoves, and lighted by a copy of Michelangelo’s lanthorn. In the wide
gallery above we found Lady Brownlow. Her two sisters came in, and then
we had luncheon.
“Afterwards we went to the pretty little sitting-room, full of beautiful
things, which is called Lady Lothian’s. What an attractive group the
sisters made--the pale, spiritual, abstracted Lady Lothian, the very
type of refined gentleness: Lady Brownlow, with her noble Bronzino-like
head and colouring, and the figure of a classic caryatide: Lady
Pembroke, less interesting at first, but so intensely _grande dame_; and
then the two husbands leaning over them, on such happy, devoted terms
with all three, were such noble specimens of humanity. The conversation
there is delightful--so un-Londony, so original, so high-minded and
high-meaning.
“To-day I have been to Edward Clifford’s studio to see his drawings and
his Burne-Jones’s--all of the usual lean, limp, scared-woman kind. What
was more interesting was the handsome, radiant, bright-eyed elderly
woman who was looking over the drawings: it was the famous Madame
Novikoff. I had much talk with her, and found her most simple and
attractive, and not the least an alarming person.”
* * * * *
It was on the day after writing this that I first truly realised that my
dearest Lady’s illness must be fatal. Our Lady was told that it must be
so, that the end might come any day, any hour. At first she shed a few
natural tears, and said, “I thought I should have lived to
seventy-seven, as my mother did,” and then added sweetly, “But why
should I mind, since God so wills it? tell me how it will be.”--“Perhaps
in your chair, just as you are sitting now.”--“Oh, that will be well--so
quiet, so well.” One day soon afterwards she wished to go out into the
garden when it was not thought good for her. “Perhaps you might die when
you are out.”--“And why should it not be like that? If God called me in
the garden, it would be as well as in any other place.” I could not go
to Ford, because Lady Waterford was not allowed to see any one
unnecessarily, but for many weeks succeeding my whole heart was there
with the faithful friend, the kind sympathiser, the constant
correspondent of thirty years. One heard of the gradual increase of the
disease: of her laying aside all painting and writing: of her reading
prayers to her servants for the last time; but still talking in her wise
and beautiful way of all things “lovely and of good report,” laughing
brightly over old recollections: then of her lying constantly on a sofa,
always rejoicing to see those she loved, but mistaking her younger
relations for their mothers, dear to her in the long ago. Often also
others, those dearest to her, who had gone before, appeared to be
present with her as angel ministrants to cheer and comfort. The sweet
face of old Lady Stuart, her mother, seemed visibly present: she
imagined her old governess to be in the house, and bade Miss Lindsay to
be sure to arrange for the drives which she knew the old lady liked.
Through the flowers upon her table she constantly saw her sister
Charlotte, Lady Canning, in all her loveliness. Her sense of the
companionship of this beloved sister was so vivid, and she spoke of her
so often, that at last one of those present thought it necessary to say
to her, “Dear lady, Lady Canning died very many years ago.” “Oh, did
she? How delightful! then I shall soon be able to talk to her. I see her
now, but soon we shall talk as we used to do.” One evening there was a
beautiful sunset. Our dear Lady sat watching it. “It is like the coming
of the Lord,” she said. Surely the watchers at Ford realised General
Gordon’s words--“Any one to whom God gives to be much with Him, cannot
even suffer a pang at the approach of death. For what is death to a
believer? It is a closer approach to Him whom, even through the veil,
he is ever with.”
Mr. Neville, the rector of Ford, prayed with her daily. “How I wish that
others might have the solace this is to me,” she said, with her peculiar
emphasis on the word “solace.”
Lady Brownlow was with her three days, and was her last visitor: she
came away saying it had been like being in a beautiful church, so
pervading was the sense of holiness. “Oh, darling Adelaide! goodness and
beauty, beauty and goodness: those are ever the great things!” were our
dear Lady’s last words to her, as she took her hands and gazed at her
earnestly. They were very characteristic.
* * * * *
_To_ LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD.
“_April 12, 1891._--How often my thoughts go to Ford, and how well I can
imagine all that surrounds you there--the snowy Cheviots, that pretty
little garden in the bastion tower, the warm bright library; most of all
the constant care of Miss Thompson and Miss Lindsay. I am so glad I know
it so well, and have so many memories of happy visits--in the old
castle, in the cottage with dear Lady Stuart, in the renewed castle
since. I seem to see you this bright Sunday morning, and hope it is as
bright with you. Inwardly I am sure the sun is shining, and that the
Saviour you have loved so well is very near you in hours of weakness. I
often wish I could do something--anything--for you, but I can only
think of you with ever-grateful love, and pray that all may be peaceful
and smooth with you.
“Lady Bloomfield is feeling the loss of her old friend Mrs. Hogg,[495]
but she had the most gentle and peaceful end, just talking to her sister
and daughter very calmly and quietly without any pain or fear, and then
falling sweetly asleep and not waking....
“‘The Blessed Trinity have you in his keeping,’ as Margaret Paston wrote
in 1461.”
* * * * *
“_April 26._--Another week of bitter cold and biting winds, and I fear
you will have been the worse for them. Your state of suspension from so
much that you used to be able to do so constantly recalls that of my
dearest mother--in winter--for many years; but when the limbs seemed
least helpful, and eyes and hands least active, all happy memories of
her wealthy past seemed brighter to her, and she was always able to find
comfort in the feeling that ‘they also serve who only stand and wait.’
... I know that, to the weakest, Christ can give such blessed assurance
of His love, that in the joy of it all pain and fear are unfelt and
vanish. Oh, would that I could do anything for you, but you know how
much I always am your most affectionate and grateful
“A. J. C. H.”
This letter was read to our Lady: then I was told to write no more. The
end was very near, and each hour became filled with a tensity of
waiting for the silent summons. There were none of the ordinary signs of
an illness. Our Lady suffered no pain at all, scarcely even discomfort.
Her former beauty returned to her, only in a more majestic form, the
signs of age seeming to be smoothed away, except in the grey hair half
hidden by soft lace. She rarely spoke, and noticed little except the
beauty of the flowers by which she was surrounded. But when she did
speak, those with her knew that, with entire and humblest prostration of
self at the foot of the Cross, her faith and hope had never been
brighter. She looked beyond the snowy hills into a sky of unearthly
beauty. And so, peacefully, radiantly, our dearest Lady fell into the
ever-smiling unconsciousness, in which, on May 11th, she passed away
from us to join the beloved and honoured who are at rest with Christ. As
I think of her, some lines come back to me which I read to her on my
last morning at Ford:--
“Now for all waiting hours
Well am I comforted,
For of a surety now I see
That, without dire distress
Of tears or weariness,
My Lady verily awaiteth me:
So that, until with her I be,
For my dear Lady’s sake
I am right fain to make
Out of my pain a pillow, and to take
Grief for a golden garment unto me;
Knowing that I, at last, shall stand
In that green garden-land,
And, in the holding of my Lady’s hand,
Forget the grieving and the misery.”[496]
I should have gone to Ford afterwards, but our Lady only died on Monday,
and it was late on Wednesday night before I heard that she was to be
buried on Thursday afternoon, so to arrive in time was impossible. Miss
Lindsay wrote to me how her coffin was carried on the shoulders of her
own labourers to the churchyard, how all the village and all her
tenantry came to her funeral, with the few intimate friends within
reach, and how Helmore’s music was sung. It was well the end was at
Ford. Highcliffe is a rapidly changing place, and it has already passed
to comparative strangers; but at Ford she will always be _the_ Lady
Waterford, “the good, the dear Lady Waterford.”
There our Lady rests, within view of her own Cheviots, surrounded by the
affectionate Border people, to whom their “Border Queen” was their
greatest pride and interest and joy. An aching void will remain in our
hearts through life, but it is only for our poor selves. When one thinks
of her, earth fades and vanishes, and if--when one is alone--one allows
oneself to think, to dwell upon all the glory of what she _was_, an
all-pervading sense of peace and holiness comes upon one, and one seems,
for the moment, almost to pass into the Land of Beulah--into the higher
life, without worry or vexation, where she _is_.
When her things were being distributed, the distributors were surprised
to hear that “the odd man” most earnestly begged for something: it was
for her old sealskin jacket. It was thought a most singular request at
first, but he urged it very much: he should “treasure the jacket as long
as ever he lived.”
[Illustration: TOMB OF LADY WATERFORD, FORD.]
He had been walking by her donkey-chair in the road, when they found a
female tramp lying in the ditch, very ill indeed. Lady Waterford got out
of her chair and made the man help her to lift the poor woman into it.
Then she took off her own jacket, and put it upon the sick woman, and
walked home by the side of the chair, tending and comforting her all the
way. “But it was not my Lady’s putting her jacket on the woman that I
cared about,” said the man, “but that she did not consider her jacket
the least polluted by having been worn by the tramp; _she wore it
herself afterwards_ as if nothing had happened.”
XXVII
SOCIAL REMINISCENCES
“Napoleon used to say that what was most fatal to a general was the
knack of combining objects into pictures. A good officer, he said,
never makes pictures; he sees objects, as through a field-glass,
exactly as they are.”--_Macmillan_, No. 306.
“Small causes are sufficient to make a man uneasy when great ones
are not in the way. For want of a block, he will stumble on a
straw.”--SWIFT.
“Errors like straws upon the surface flow,
He who would search for pearls must dive below.”
--DRYDEN.
_To the_ HON. G. JOLLIFE.
“_Holmhurst, August 1891._--I enjoyed my months in London at the time,
yet was very glad to come away. It is a terrible waste of life. The size
and lateness of dinners have killed society. Scarcely any one says
anything worth hearing, and if any one does, nobody listens.
“‘Que de bonnes choses vont tous les jours mourir dans l’oreille d’un
sot,’ was always a true saying of Fontenelle, but is less true now than
formerly--there are so few _bonnes choses_.
“People love talking, but not talk. Dinners are rather display than
hospitality, supplying abundance of sumptuous viands, but no _esprit_.
I heard pleasanter conversation in one quiet luncheon at the Speaker’s
from his delightful family than at a hundred parties: as a social art it
is extinct. One never hears such conversationalists as gathered round my
aunt Mrs. Stanley’s homely table long ago, or as, in later times, round
Arthur Stanley, Mrs. Grote, Madame Mohl, the first Lady Carnarvon, Lord
Houghton, Lady Margaret Beaumont. The dinners, in food sense, have never
any attraction to me. L. and I dined out together at ---- and I think it
was an even match which of us suffered most, L. or myself: myself,
because the dinner was too good; L., because it was not good enough.
[Illustration: THE OAK WALK, HOLMHURST.]
“From what I hear from the East End, the scandal of Tranby Croft seems
to be acting as the _affaire du collier_ did in France in preparing the
way for a revolution. But the West End goes on as if nothing had
happened. I saw the Emperor (of Germany) several times, a fat young man
with a bright good-humoured face, though apparently never free from the
oppression of his own importance, as well as of the importance of his
dress, which he changes very often in the day. And I went, one glorious
afternoon, when the limes were in blossom, with several thousand other
people to Hatfield to meet the Prince of Naples, whose intelligence
(especially on subjects connected with Natural History) seems to have
pleased everybody. He is very small, but has none of the aggressive
ugliness of his father and grandfather. One day I went to luncheon with
Miss Rhoda Broughton, who is seen at her very best in her little house
at Richmond, most attractive in its old prints and furniture and lovely
river view. Then I spent a Sunday with my cousin Theresa Earle in her
pretty Surrey home, and wound up the season by meeting a large party at
Cobham.”
[Illustration: THE VENETIAN WELL, HOLMHURST.]
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER (_æt._ 94).
“_Holmhurst, Sept. 2, 1891._--You will imagine how your birthday makes
me think of you, and how much I give thanks for the blessing which your
love and kindness has been to us for so many years. I like to think of
you on your peaceful sofa, and I know you are like John Wilson Croker,
who, when some one remarked in his presence that death was an awful
thing, said, ‘I do not feel it so. The same Hand which took care of me
when I came into this world will take care of me when I go out of it.’”
* * * * *
_To_ W. H. MILLIGAN, _and Note-book_.
“_Holmhurst, Oct. 1891._--I have returned from my autumn visits, which
have been delightful. The Watsons, who live at Rockingham, the old royal
palace of the Midlands, are well worthy of its noble rooms and its
brilliant gardens, relieved against the quaintest of yew hedges.
“At Hovingham, in Yorkshire, I found Mrs. Lowther, and we sketched
together very happily. It is an unusual great house, approached through
a riding-school and a sculpture gallery, which contains a huge work of
Giovanni da Bologna and the loveliest little Greek statue in England.
Genial Sir William Worsley, the adopted uncle of all the nicest young
ladies in the county, is a centre of love and goodness, and his
saint-like wife, crippled and utterly motionless from chronic
rheumatism, is the sunshine of all around her. Most quaint are some of
the old-fashioned dependants. The old coachman seriously asked his
master, ‘Is it true, Sir William, that Baron Rothschild was refused when
he offered to pay the whole of the natural debt if he might drive eight
horses like the Queen, instead of seven horses and a mule?’
“We saw Gilling, the fine old Fairfax castle, and spent a delicious day
at Rievaulx. Sir William has oratorios(!) annually performed in his
riding-school.
“I arrived at Bishopthorpe the day before the Archbishop’s enthronement,
and found a large party of relations assembling; but it would be
difficult to crowd the house, as there are forty bedrooms and the
dining-room is huge. The palace lies low, and out of the dining-room
window you could very nearly fish in the Ouse, which often floods the
cellars, the only part remaining of the original house of Walter de
Gray. The rococo gateway is imposed by guidebooks upon the uninitiated
as that of Wolsey’s palace at Cawood: perhaps a few of its ornaments
came from thence. The ceremony in the Minster was very imposing, the
more so as a military escort was given to the Archbishop, as having been
an old soldier. Most moving was his address upon the responsibilities,
and what he felt to be the duties, of his office. The ebb and flow of
processional music was beautiful, as the long stream of choristers and
clergy flowed in and out of the Minster. The Archbishop’s brothers--one
of them, Sir Douglas-Maclagan, being eighty--made a very remarkable
group.
“Most happy and interesting were my four succeeding days at Hickleton,
where I met one of the familiar circles of people I always connect with
Charlie Halifax--Lady Ernestine Edgecumbe, Lady Morton, Canon and Lady
Caroline Courtenay, the Haygarths. More characteristic still of the host
was the presence of a nun in full canonicals--Sister Caroline--‘this
religious,’ as Charlie called her--who appeared at meals, though only to
partake of a rabbit’s diet. In the churchyard a great crucifix, twelve
feet high, is being erected, and the people of Doncaster do not come out
to stone it; on the contrary, the crucifix and its adjuncts attract
large congregations of pitmen, who would not go to church at all
otherwise; and the neighbourhood is beginning to wonder how long the
Church of England can dare to deny its Lord by condemning the crucifix,
the vacant cross being but the frame of the picture with the portrait
left out, and in itself an eloquent protest against the omission.
Another smaller crucifix commemorates the three dear boys who have ‘gone
home.’ The shadow of their great loss here is ever present, but it is
truly a sanctified grief: their memory is kept ever fresh and the
thought of them sunny, and thus they still seem to have their
part--invisible--in the daily life, upon which their beautiful pictured
semblances look down from the walls of their home. Only a deep sudden
sigh from the father now and then recalls all he has undergone. The
short morning services in the house-chapel, with its huge crucifix from
Ober-Ammergau, where the household sing in parts, are very touching.
Still more so are the Sunday services in the beautiful church, close to
the house, the low mass, then the full surpliced choir and the blazing
lights, and the holy rood above the reredos glittering through them in a
golden glamour. In the darker aisle where we sat were the sleeping
alabaster figures of the late Lord and Lady Halifax upon their great
altar-tomb, and near me the dearest friend of my long-ago was
kneeling--a stainless knight--in a rapt devotion which seemed to carry
him far into the unseen. I could only feel, as Inglesant at Little
Gidding, the presence of a peace and glory utterly unearthly, and as if
there--as nowhere else--Heaven took possession of one and entered into
one’s soul.
“A journey through the Fen country took me to Campsea Ashe, where the
artistic party collected in the pleasant Lowther home spent a most
pleasant week in drawing--studying--by the silent moats of old-timbered
houses--Parham, Seckford, and Otley. We went also to the attractive old
town of Woodbridge, where Percy Fitzgerald lived, who wrote so many
capital articles. A characteristic story told of him is that he once
spent the evening in the company of a bore who buzzed on incessantly
about this lord and that till he could bear it no longer and left the
room, but as he did so, opened the door once more, and, putting in his
head, said, ‘_I_ knew a lord once, but he’s dead!’
[Illustration: BISHOP’S BRIDGE, NORWICH.][497]
“I was at Felixstowe for a day afterwards, and made
acquaintance--friends, I hope--with Felix Cobbold, a most attractive
fellow, with a delightful house, and a garden close above the sea, which
truly makes ‘the desert smile’ in that most hideous of all sea-places.
Then I was a night at the Palace at Norwich, full of childish
reminiscence to me, and most stately and beautiful it all looked--the
smooth lawns and bright flowers, the grand grey cathedral and soaring
spire, the old chapel and ruin; only the palace itself has had all the
picturesqueness washed out of it. Its geography is entirely altered, but
it was delightful to recognise old nooks and corners, and I almost
seemed to see my Mother sitting by the old-fashioned chimney-piece in
the Abbey-room. I spent a delightful evening with the Bishop (Pelham),
who poured out a rich store of anecdote and recollection for hours. He
spoke much of Manning, whom he had known most intimately--how his
characteristic had always been his ambition. He wanted in early life to
have gone into Parliament; then, when that failed, he wished to have
entered diplomacy; then his father’s bank broke, and he was obliged to
go into the Church. ‘Your uncle Julius and he,’ said the Bishop, ‘were
once with my brother (Lord Chichester), and Manning had been holding
forth upon the celibacy of the clergy. “At least you will agree with
me,” he said, turning to my brother, “that celibacy is the holier
state.” “Then of course you think,” said my brother, “that matrimony is
a _less_ holy state than celibacy.” And he started, with a reminiscence
of his own happy married life, and said, “Oh no!”’
“The Bishop talked much of Jenny Lind’s visit to Norwich when he was
here with the Stanleys; how the Duke of Cambridge had spoken to her of
the wonderful enjoyment her noble gift of voice must be, and how she had
answered, ‘I do enjoy it, and I thank God for giving it to me, and I
feel that in return I ought to use it first for His glory, and then for
the raising of my profession.’ When her great concert took place, Mr.
Thompson, a Norwich doctor, who had the management of the town
charities, ventured to put the best of the workhouse school-girls under
the orchestra, where no one could see them, whilst they could hear
everything. But Jenny was sometimes greatly overcome at the end of one
of her own songs, and it was so then, and when her song was over, she
retired to her own room; but, to reach it, she had to pass under the
orchestra, and there she saw a number of girls in tears, and asked who
they were. Mr. Thompson came to explain with some diffidence, for he did
not know how she would take it; but she was much interested, and asked,
‘Is there any one of your charities especially to which I could be of
any use?’ And he thought a minute and said, ‘What we really want is a
children’s hospital; there has never been one in Norwich.’--‘Then that
is just what I will give a concert for,’ said Jenny Lind; and of course
every one was delighted, and so the hospital was started. Afterwards she
sent down some one incognito to see how it was managed, and the report
was so favourable that she said she would give another concert, and that
set it up altogether. It is now the ‘Jenny Lind Hospital.’
“Talking of the late event at York led to the Bishop’s saying, ‘I heard
a fine thing of Archbishop Musgrave. I was not meant to hear it,
though. I was at Bishopthorpe to preach a consecration sermon for the
Bishop of Ripon. It was before I was a bishop myself, and I knew nothing
about precedence, and did not take my proper place in the procession as
was intended, though I was all ready, and I let them all pass out before
me. Only the Archbishop and Mrs. Musgrave remained. The Archbishop had
had a stroke of apoplexy then, from which he was only just recovering,
and it was his first appearance since, and they were all very anxious
about him. Just as they were leaving the house, the Archbishop said to
his wife, “My dear, take this key: it will unlock that box, in which you
will find a commission ready signed and sealed for the three bishops
present to take my place if anything _happens_ to me during the service:
whatever happens to me, the service must not be stopped.” And they went
on quietly to the church. I did not know which to admire most, the
Archbishop for making the speech, or Mrs. Musgrave’s perfect calmness in
hearing it and in taking the key. I spoke of it to Mrs. Bickersteth (the
Bishop of Ripon’s wife) afterwards, and she said, “That explains what
the Archbishop said to me last night--‘I am afraid you may be anxious
about the service to-morrow: set yourself quite at rest: everything is
quite settled, so that, whatever happens to me, the ceremony of
to-morrow will be carried out.’”
“The Lowthers joined me at Norwich, and we went together to
Woodbastwick, and for a delightful visit to the Locker-Lampsons at
Cromer. What an enchanting place it is! All the society meets on the
beach. Two bathing-machines were drawn up side by side, and their
inmates were in the sea. ‘I hope you will kindly consider this as a
visit,’ said one of them to his neighbour, with his head just above the
water. ‘Oh, certainly,’ said the neighbour, ‘and I hope you will kindly
consider this as a visit returned.’
“Mr. Locker is delightful. He says, ‘I suppose what makes a bore is a
man’s perpetually harping upon one subject, not knowing what details to
leave out, and insisting upon making his voice heard at unsuitable
times. But certainly a bore is a bore in accordance with what he is
talking about: if, for instance, a man went on talking for hours of my
“Lyra Elegantiarum,” I should never think him a bore.’ ‘My dear,’ he
says to Mrs. Locker-Lampson, ‘are you not sometimes of rather _too_
rigid a disposition? You know, at railway stations you often point out
to me a man as eternally damned because he wears trousers with rather a
broad check, and has an unusually large cigar in his mouth.’
“In Lady Buxton’s pretty house are a whole gallery of Richmond
portraits--a stately full-length of (her aunt) Mrs. Fry, most speaking
likenesses of her benignant father, her beautiful mother, of Sarah and
Anna Gurney, the ‘Cottage Ladies’--of her father-in-law, Sir Fowell of
the Slave Trade--of her sons and brothers-in-law. Yellow tulips, like
those at Florence, grow wild in her fields in abundance, and the cows
eat them.”
* * * * *
_To the_ COUNTESS OF DARNLEY.
“_Hotel d’Italie, Rome, March 30, 1892._--I think you will have wondered
what has become of me, and that you will like to know.
“I have been abroad since November 16, beginning by a week at Paris with
George Jolliffe, who was very ill then, and a month spent at Cannes in
visits to the De Wesselows, old friends of my Hurstmonceaux childhood;
and to my old schoolfellow Fred Walker and his nice wife, one of the few
people I know who have seen two separate and undoubted ghosts with their
own eyes. How civilised and be-villa’d Cannes is now, almost the least
pretentious house remaining in it being the little Villa Nevada, where
the Duke of Albany died, which was close to us, and which was so often
visited by ‘Madame d’Angleterre,’ as the people of Cannes call our
Queen. My ever-kindest of hosts were more people-seeking than
place-seeing. We had one delightful picnic, however, at the old deserted
villa of Castellaras, looking upon the blue gorge of the Saut de Loup. A
little suspicion of earthquake remained in the air from the alarm of the
last shock, when my friends’ native housemaid had refused to leave the
window, saying, ‘Puisque le dernier jour est arrivé, je veux avoir les
yeux partout, pour voir ce que se passe!’ Here at Rome there was a smart
shock this spring. Our old friend Miss Garden asked _her_ ‘donna’ if she
was frightened. ‘Oh yes,’ she said; ‘I felt the two walls of my little
room press in upon my bed. I knew what it was. But I could not remember
which was the right saint to pray to in an earthquake. So I just prayed
to my own grandmother, for she was the best person I ever knew, and
immediately I heard the voice of my grandmother, who said, “Don’t be
frightened; it will all pass; no harm will come to you.” So then I was
quite calm and satisfied.’ Might not this incident account for many
stories of Catholic saints?
[Illustration: SASSO.]
“I spent a week at Bordighera. Such varied points for walks! villages
like Sasso, which are just bright bits of umber colour amongst the
tender grey olives; little painted towns amongst the orange-gardens,
like Dolceacqua, with its pointed bridge and blue river and great
deserted palace of the Dorias. George Macdonald, a most grand old
patriarch to look upon, is king of the place. He writes constantly, and
never leaves the house, except to see a neighbour in need of help or
comfort. One after another of his delicate daughters has faded away,
but his sons seem strong and well, and there are several adopted
children in the house, half in and half out of the family, but all
calling Mrs. Macdonald ‘Mama.’ It is a very unusual household, but ruled
in a spirit of love which is most beautiful. I dined with them, the
dining-table placed across one end of the vast common sitting-room. On
Sunday evenings he gives a sort of Bible lecture, which all the
sojourners in Bordighera may attend.
[Illustration: AT BORDIGHERA.][498]
[Illustration: AT REBEKAH’S WELL, NEAR S. REMO.]
“Then I was a month in a palatial hotel at S. Remo, and greatly enjoyed
bright winter days of quiet drawing in its ravines with their
high-striding bridges, by its torrents full of Titanic boulders, or on
its pathlets winding through vine and fig gardens or along precipitous
crags; most of all in a delicious palm-shaded cove by the sea, where I
spent whole days alone with the great chrysoprase waves breaking over
the rocks in showers of crystal spray. With a charming Mrs. Rycroft and
her pleasant Eton boys, I made longer excursions to Ceriano and
Badalucco, very curious places surrounded by high mountains, with deep
gorges, old bridges, and waterfalls.
[Illustration: AT S. REMO.]
“But it is in changed, spoilt Rome that I have spent the last two
months. All picturesqueness is now washed out of the place, so that
people who have any interest about them now usually give it only a
glance and pass on. It has been delightful for me, however, that Miss
Hosmer is settled in this hotel, and that we dine together daily at a
little round table, where she is a constant coruscation of wit and
wisdom. All day she is shut up in her studio, which is closed to all the
world, but she cannot have a dull time, by the stories she has to tell
of the workmen and models who are her only companions. Here are a few
of them, only they sound nothing without her twinkling eyes and capital
manner of telling:--
[Illustration: GLEN AT S. REMO.]
“‘Minicuccia was an excellent model, but very jealous. “Have you seen
Rosa? What fine arms she has!” I said to her one day. “I have seen
_Rosaccia_” she replied, “and I should have thought, Signorina, that a
lady of your taste would have known better than to admire her arms. What
are they in comparison with really fine arms--with mine, for instance?”
“‘One day Minicuccia was at a café, and some one admired the legs of
another model. Forthwith she gathered up her petticoats, and danced with
her legs perfectly bare all about the place. She was not a bad woman; on
the contrary, she was a very moral one, and there was never a word
against her, but she wanted to show what fine legs were. The police,
however, heard of that escapade, and she was put in prison for a month
afterwards for such an offence against the _decenza pubblica_. Poor
Minicuccia!
“‘Then there was Nana, whom Lady Marian (Alford) painted so often, and
whom she was so fond of. She was a magnificent woman. Dear Lady Marian
used to say, “I would give anything to be able to come into a room with
the grace and dignity of Nana.” Her dignity was natural to her. Another
model once said to me, “I met that Nanaccia; she was walking down the
Via Sistina as if it all belonged to her.”
“‘There was a very nice boy-model I had, Fortunato he was called. He is
dead now--died of consumption, for he was always delicate. One day he
said to me, “Last Sunday, Signorina, I went to the garden of the
Cappuccini, and it is _such_ a garden!--quite full of fruit, the most
beautiful fruit. And the Fathers are so kind; they said I might eat as
much as ever I liked; only think of that, Signorina!”--“Well, that was
kind indeed; but what sort of fruit was it?”--“O, cipolle and
lettuge,[499] Signorina--most delicious fruit.”
“‘Marietta was another model who came to me, a large handsome woman. One
day I said to her, “Now, Marietta, I want you to look sad--_tutta
dolorosa_.”--“What! _lagrime_, Signorina?”--“No,” I said, “only _look_
sad; but if I wanted _lagrime_, could I have them too?”--“Sì, Signora:
basta pensare a quel calzolajo chi m’a fatto pagare sette lire in vece
di cinque, et piango subito.”[500]
“‘Marietta had a brother who managed her little business for her. I
asked her if it would not be very easy for him to misappropriate a
_scudo_ now and then. “Facile sì,” she said, “_essendo fratello_.”
“‘Mariuccia lived to be old, and many is the dinner and _paolo_ I have
given her; but when she was fifteen or so, she was the model for Mr.
Gibson’s ‘Psyche borne by the Zephyrs.’ She was always a wonderful
model: no one could act or stand as she did.
“‘Then there was that woman who had the drunken husband, who used to
beat her. One night he came in late and fell down dead drunk across the
bed. She took her needle and thread, and sewed him up in the sheets so
that he could not move, and then she took a stick, and beat him so that
he died of it: she was imprisoned for some years for that, though.
“‘I asked one of the workmen what he did when every one was away. “Why,
Signorina, I have the studio to clean out.”--“Well, I suppose that takes
you half-an-hour; and what do you do then?”--“Ma, Signorina, sto a
sedere.”--“And after your dinner, what do you do then?”--“Sto ancora a
sedere, Signorina.”--“Well, and in the evening?”--“Ma, Signorina,
continuo di stare a sedere.”
“‘My man Gigi came to me the other day and said, “I went to the Acqua
Acetosa[501] last Sunday, Signorina, and I liked the water so much, I
drank no less than twenty _fiaschi_ of it.”--“Well,” I said, “Gigi, that
was a good deal; I’ll get twenty _fiaschi_ of it, and put twenty _scudi_
down by them, and then, if you can drink them all off, you shall have
the _scudi_.”--“Well, Signorina, perhaps I did exaggerate a little: now
I come to think it over, perhaps it was ten _fiaschi_ I drank.”--“Well,
do it again before me, and you shall have ten _scudi_.” “Now, Signorina,
you know I like to be precise, perhaps it was six _fiaschi_ I
drank.”--“Well, do it again and you shall have six _scudi_.”--“Well, I
suppose it really was two _fiaschi_.”--“Oh, I could drink that myself!”’
“You may imagine how entertaining stories like these--traits from the
life around one--make our little dinners, and afterwards we often go
into the Storys’ apartment close by, where the easy intellectual
pleasant talk and fun are always reviving. Besides, it amuses Mrs.
Story, who is most sadly ailing now, though her cheerfulness is an
example. She says she comforts her sleepless nights by the old distich--
‘For all the ills beneath the sun
There is a cure, or there is none:
If there is one, try to find it;
If there is none, never mind it.’
“Nothing can describe the charm of Mr. Story’s natural bubble of fun and
wit, or the merry twinkle which often comes into his eye, even now, at
moments when his wife’s illness does not make him too anxious.[502] He
and Miss Hosmer are capital together. It is difficult to say what are
their ‘projecting peculiarities,’ as Dr. Chalmers would have called
them, they have so many; but they are all of a perfectly delightful
kind.
“‘Well, what’s the news, Harriet?’ he said as we went in to-night. ‘Why,
that I am going to be married.’--‘What! to the Pope?’--‘Yes, only I
didn’t want it to get out till he announced it himself.’
“‘An American was looking at my statue of Canidia the other day,’ said
Mr. Story, and exclaimed--“Ah! Dante, I suppose, or is it--Savonarola?”
Another man who came to my studio said, “Mr. Story, have you baptized
your statue?”--“Why, yes,” I said; “generally we think of the name
first, and then we set to work in accordance with it.”--“Well,” he said,
“there’s some as doos, and there’s some as doosn’t.”’
“Mrs Story was very amusing about an Italian who wanted a portrait of
his father very much, and came to an artist she knew and asked him to
paint it. The artist asked, ‘But when can I see your father?’--‘Oh, you
can’t see him: he’s dead.’--‘But how can I paint him, then?’--‘Well, I
can describe him, and he was very like me: I think you can paint him
very well.’ So the artist painted away, according to the description,
as well as he could. When he had finished the portrait he sent for the
son, anxious to see if he would find any likeness. The son rushed up to
the picture, knelt down by it, was bathed in tears, and sobbed out, ‘O
padre mio, quanto avete sofferto, o quanto siete cambiato: O non l’aveva
mai riconosciuto.’
[Illustration: CLAUDIAN AQUEDUCT.][503]
“Mr. Story says that when _Othello_ was performed at Rome, he saw it
with an Italian friend, who said afterwards, ‘Convengo che ci sono
qualche belle concette in questa dramma, ma fare tanto disturbo per un
fazzoletto non mi conviene.’
“Miss Hosmer told of a countryman who was asked what he thought of a
train, for he had just seen one for the first time--seen it as it was
entering a tunnel. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it was just a black monster with a
goggle eye, and when it saw me, it gave a horrible shriek and ran into
its hole.’
“I should like you to have heard Miss Hosmer’s recollections of Kestner,
whose name was so familiar to me in old Bunsen days. He died soon after
she first came to Rome, but she recollects him as always wearing his old
red studio cap. He knew he was dying, and when it was very near the end,
he said to those who were with him, ‘Now, my dear friends, it is a very
sad experience to see a person die: I must beg you to leave me: it is my
great wish to be alone, and you may come back in two hours.’ They came
back in two hours, and found him lying peacefully dead. That is a
beautiful story, I think. It was Kestner who, priding himself very much
on his good English, said to Lord Houghton, ‘Allow me to present to you
my knee-pot (_nipote_).’
“Outside the charmed circle of Palazzo Barberini there is little now at
Rome but the most inferior American society. ‘We must stop at Milan, you
know, going back; there is a picture there by a man called Leonard
Vinchey we must be sure to see,’ said a neighbour at the hotel luncheon.
And, ‘Mr. Brown, sir, how’s Mrs. Brown’?--‘Well, she’s slim but round’
(meaning weak but about): this is the sort of thing one hears.
“In this hotel is the intelligent Indian Princess Tanjore, with whom I
have spent several evenings very pleasantly. Her ‘lady’ is Miss Blyth,
sister of the Bishop of Jerusalem, and authoress of that capital novel
‘Antoinette.’
“Dear old Miss Garden, whom you will remember hearing of as the kindest
and most original of Scottish ladies, still lives at 64 Via Sistina.
‘How did you manage to boil the eggs so well, Maria, when you can’t
tell the clock?’ said Miss Garden to her old donna, ‘for the eggs are
just perfect.’--‘Why, I’ll tell you how it is,’ said Maria: ‘a lady I
lived with showed me how to do it. I just put them into the water, and
then I say thirty-three _Credos_, and then I know that they’re done.’
“With Miss Garden and Mrs. Ramsay I went one day to the curious little
early christian cemetery of S. Generosa, a lovely spot, where marble
slabs covering the graves of martyrs under Diocletian are still seen in
a little hollow surrounded by wild roses and fenochii.
“My room in this hotel looks out on the Barberini gardens, and the
splash of its fountain is an enjoyment. Its being lighted by electricity
for the King’s visit the other day was a type of the times, rather a
contrast to twenty years ago, when there were torches on every step of
the great staircase to welcome even a cardinal, and when not only the
staircase, but the whole street as far as S. Teresa, was hung with
tapestries for the Prince’s funeral.
“On Ash-Wednesday I went, as I have always done here, to the ‘stations’
on the Aventine. It is still a thoroughly Roman scene. Before one
reaches S. Sabina, one is assailed by the chorus of old lady beggars
seated in a double avenue of armchairs leading up to the door, with
‘Datemi qualche cosa, signore, per l’amore della Madonna, datemi
qual’co;’ and behind them kneel the old men--‘Poveri, poveretti cieci,
signore,’ in brown gowns and with arms stretched out _alla maniera di S.
Francesco_. Spread with box is the church itself, with its doors wide
open to the cloistered porch and the sacred orange-tree[504] seen in the
sunny garden beyond. The Abbot is standing there, and has his hand
kissed by all the monks who arrive for the stations, till a cardinal
appears, after which he takes the lower place and is quite deserted.
Then we all hurry on to S. Alessio and its crypt, and then to the
Priorato garden, where, by old custom, we look through the keyhole of
the door, and see St. Peter’s down a beautiful avenue of bays.
“The passage of the Pope to the Sistine on his coronation anniversary
was a very fine sight. Borne along in his golden chair, with the white
peacock fans waving in front of him, and wearing his triple crown, Leo
XIII. looked dying, but gave his benediction with the most serene
majesty, sinking back between each effort upon his cushions, as if the
end had indeed come. Only his eyes lived, and lived only in his office;
otherwise his perfectly spiritualised countenance seemed utterly
unconscious of the thundering _evvivas_ with which he was greeted, and
which rose into a perfect roar as he was carried into the Sala Regia.
The potency of ‘Orders’ here is so great, that my Swedish decoration not
only gave me the best place, but I took in two young men as my chaplain
and equerry! After the Pope had entered the Sistine, we sat in great
comfort in the Sala Regia till he returned, and then, as there was no
one between us and the procession, we saw all the individual faces of
the old cardinals--how few of them the same now as those I remember in
the processions of Pius IX.
“There are no _evvivas_ now for the comparatively young king with the
white hair and the ever-tragic countenance: the taxes are too great. I
believe that he can read, if no one else can, the handwriting on the
wall which foretells the doom of his southern kingdom. And yet
personally no one could be braver or more royal, and, where they detest
the king, the people honour the man. ‘Your king is at that house which
has fallen down, helping with his own hands to dig out that old man who
is buried: he won’t leave till the old man is safe,’ said Mrs. Story to
her Italian maid Margherita. ‘Si, Signora, casa di Savoia manca qualche
volta di testa, mai di cuore;’ and it is quite true. All one hears of
the King’s self-abnegation is so fine. He used to be quite devoted to
smoking, but he was ill, and one day his physician told him that it was
extremely deleterious to him. He instantly took his cigar out of his
mouth, threw it into the back of the fire, and has never smoked again.
“The Pope’s secretary has just died of the influenza. Leo XIII. was much
attached to him, and is greatly distressed by his death. There is
something touching in the newspaper account of the Pope’s having refused
to eat, and his attendants having had to use _qualche dolce violenze_ to
make him do it.
“We have had two months of rain, only four fine days last week, in which
I went to the Crimera, to Fidenae, to Ostia, and to a touching and
beautiful Mass in the heart of the Catacomb of S. Praetextatus, where
the martyrs’ hymn was sung by a full choir upon their graves, its
cadences swelling through the subterranean church and dying away down
the endless rude passages, so long their refuge, and at last their place
of death.
“And now I must stop. I am just come up from luncheon. ‘Wal, I guess I’m
stuffed, but I’m not appeased,’ said my neighbour as we came out; and
she was _con rispetto parlando_, as they say here--a lady.”
* * * * *
_To_ HUGH BRYANS.
“_Rome, April 26, 1892._--How I wish you were here: how you would enjoy
it, though there is little to admire now in this much-changed Rome
beyond the extreme loveliness of the spring, with its Judas and May
flowers, and the golden broom of the Campagna. I have just been, with my
old friends Mrs. Ramsay and Miss Garden, to the Villa Doria to pick
anemones. There were thousands of them, and the ladies gathered them in
like a harvest. Their servant was told off to look after the violets.
Their late man, Francesco, said his was usually a very light place--‘ma
nella primavera, al tempo dei violette, e duro veramente.’
“I have seen little of the Easter ceremonies. On Holy Thursday I went to
St. Peter’s, and watched in the immense crowd for the extinction of the
last candle and beginning of the Miserere; but all the effect was lost
and the music inaudible from the incessant moving and talking.
Afterwards there was a fine scene at the blessing of the altar in the
already dark church--the procession, with lights, moving up and down
the altar-steps, and then kneeling all along the central aisle, whilst
the relics were exhibited from the brilliantly lighted gallery.
“Fifty-eight artisans and schoolmasters from the Toynbee Hall Institute,
with some of their wives, have been in Rome for the Easter holidays. On
Thursday I took them all over the Palatine, finding them most delightful
companions, and the most informed and interested audience I have ever
known. So since that I have been with them to the Appian Way, and Miss
Fleetwood Wilson kindly invited the whole party to tea at the old
Palazzo Mattei, unaltered through three hundred years. I made friends
with many of the party individually, and think that for really good,
intelligent, high-minded society, one should frequent the East End.
“What struck me most of all was the absence amongst them of the
scandal-talk which in our own society is so prevalent. ‘Consider how
cheap a kindness it is not to speak ill: it only requires silence,’ is
an exhortation of Bishop Tillotson. They remember this; we don’t.
“Do you recollect the pretty Miss Cators? With them and some pleasant
Americans, and Lanciani the famous archaeologist, I have been up Monte
Cavi. Lanciani was most delightful, and told us about everything in a
way which had all the enthusiasm and colour without the dry bones of
archaeology, and oh! what lilies, violets, cyclamen, narcissus, covered
the woods. Another day he lectured on old Fidenae, standing aloft on the
ancient citadel, with all his listeners in groups on the turf around
him, and afterwards they all had luncheon--still in scattered groups: it
was like the pictures of the miracle of the loaves and fishes.
[Illustration: REMAINS OF TEMPLE OF JUPITER LATIARIS, MONTE CAVI.][505]
“It has been a great pleasure to see a good deal of ‘Mark Twain’ (Mr.
Samuel Clemens) and his most charming wife. He is a wiry, thin old man,
with abundant grey hair, full round the head, like an Italian _zazzara_.
He speaks very slowly, dragging his words and sentences laboriously, and
is long in warming up, and when he does, he walks about the room whilst
he makes all his utterances, which have additional drollery from the
slowness with which they are given. He began life as a wharfinger,
throwing parcels into barges, and as he threw them the overseer called
out ‘Mark one, Mark twain,’ and the chime of the words struck him, and
he took the name. Speaking of the Catacombs he said, ‘I might have
hooked the bone of a saint and carried it off in my carpet-sack, but
then I might get caught with it at the frontier. I should not like to
get caught with a thing like that; I would rather it were something
else.’ ‘That story by Symonds,’ he said, ‘of a crucifix which contained
a dagger, reminds me of the State of Maine. Spirits were strictly
forbidden there, but pocket-testaments became very abundant. They
contained two or three leaves, then there was a whisky flask. Now with
one of those crucifixes and one of these pocket-testaments, one might
cope with the worst society in the world.’
“‘My man George has made his fortune,’ said Mark Twain. ‘He used to bet
on revivals, then he took to betting on horses: he understands it all
round, and he has made a good thing of it.
“‘One night when I came home unawares, I found the house-door open.
After going in and poking round, I rang up George. “Well,” I said,
“George, you’ve been here probably some hours with the house-door
undone.”--“Good heavens!” he cried, striking his forehead, and rushed up
the stairs five steps at a time. When he came down I said, “Why, George,
what was the matter?”--“The matter! why, that the house-door was left
open, and that there were fifteen hundred dollars between my
mattresses.”’
“Mrs. Clemens spoke to George one day about his answering ‘Not at home’
when she did not want to see visitors. In England it is understood, but
in quiet places in America it is not: it is a lie. And Mrs. Clemens
said, ‘George, you really should not say what you know is not true; you
should say I’m engaged or that I beg to be excused.’ George came close
up to her and said, ‘Mrs. Clemens, if I did not lie, you’d not be able
to keep house a month.’
“A rival to Mark Twain, or rather one who draws him out capitally, is an
American Miss Page, a very handsome elderly woman like an ancient Juno.
She said yesterday, ‘I must be going home soon to see all the coloured
friends and relations. Aunt Maria was groaning very much one day, so I
asked her if she had found religion. She said, “No, but she was on the
anxious bench.” A few days after she had “found religion,” and I asked
her about it. “Why,” she said, “I got religion, and when I found that
I’d got religion, I just did make the chignots (chignons) fly. And so we
did all; we danced so hard that Uncle Adam had to be sent right away the
next day to bring them all home in a wheelbarrow.”
“‘My cousin was begged of by a woman one night,” said Miss Page. ‘She
was very violent, and she said, “You must give me money, you _shall_, or
I’ll say you’re Jack the Ripper.” He went close up to her, and in
sepulchral accents whispered “I _am_!” and the woman ran off as hard as
she could.’
“There are other friends I must tell you about. At No. 38 Gregoriana, in
a delightfully home-like apartment with a view of St. Peter’s, live Miss
Leigh Smith and her friend Miss Blyth. The former is a sister of Madame
Bodichon, who was such an admirable artist, and is of a most serene,
noble, and beautiful countenance, but perhaps severe: the latter is
gentleness and sweetness itself, though she is less striking in
appearance. Every one likes them both, but every one loves Miss Blyth.
They are known as ‘Justitia’ and ‘Misericordia.’
“Another person of interest, another American, who has come to Rome to
visit Miss Hosmer, is Mrs. Powers. She is charming. She said this to me
to-day: ‘I took a young lady with me on a Mississippi steamer. She was
very pretty and attractive. On the deck she sat by an old lady, who
looked at her and ejaculated “Married?”--“No.” “Engaged?”--“No.” Just
then her husband came up, and she said to him, “Here’s a young lady who
says she’s not married and not engaged: how’s that?” He looked her all
over and said, “Guess the pattern don’t take.”’
“And now, that you may be introduced to all my present society, Miss
Hosmer is going to give you one of her dinner enliveners. ‘An American
came in one day with, “Have you heard this extraordinary news from
England?”--“No; what?”--“Why, about the Archbishop of Canterbury.”--“No;
what about him?” “Why, about his having refused to bury a waiter at the
Langham Hotel.”--“No; what a proud contemptuous priest he must be; but
what possible reason could he give for refusing to bury the
waiter?”--“Why, that he was not dead.”
“‘That’s a good catch,’ says Miss Hosmer, who is talking to you; ‘and
now I’ll give you another. A young man--a very charming young man--was
engaged to be married, and he went down from London for the wedding to
the place where his bride lived, full of the brightest hopes and
expectations, and in his pocket he carried the ring with which he was
going to marry his love. But alas! when he reached his destination, his
love had changed her mind, thought better of it, would not marry him at
all. So he came away very miserable, and he thought he would go and hide
his sorrows in a little fishing-village, where he had often been in
happier days; he really could not face the world yet. And as soon as he
arrived at the village, he went out in a boat, and took the ring from
his pocket, and threw it far out to sea. Next day a remarkably fine fish
was brought to table, and when it was opened, what do you think they
found?--“Why, the ring,” of course you will say, as I did--No, a
fishbone.’ A most provoking story!
“There are two Misses Feuchtwanger in the hotel, kindest of elderly
American ladies, full of funny reminiscence. ‘Mrs. Broadhurst,’ said one
of them, ‘liked nothing so much as going to dine with her old “Black
Mammy;” it was the thing she liked best: and so, through a long course
of years, she heard Black Mammy’s old husband say grace, and the words
he used were always the same. “Beautiful mansions, we thee redorable,
many sensations, Amen.” The sound meant a whole world to him.’
“But I shall send you too much anecdotage, so good-night.”
* * * * *
_To the_ HON. G. H. JOLLIFFE _and_ JOURNAL.
“_Rome, April 27._--All the features of this Roman spring have been
American. Mrs. Lee was in this hotel. ‘I was just raised in the South,’
she said, ‘and I’m a Southerner to the backbone. Some one wanted to be
complimentary, and wrote of me in a newspaper as one raised in the lap
of luxury, but I was just raised in the lap of an old nigger.’ She was
very full of having been to the masquerade ball at La Scala. ‘It was
awfully indecent. I could not have let my daughter go, but for me it did
not matter; so I just went, and stayed to the end, for I thought some
one might come along and say, “Ah! you don’t know about that, because it
happened after you left,” so I thought I’d just see what was indecent
for once; it might be my only chance; and I made quite sure nothing
should happen after I left.’
“‘Don’t you know,’ she says, ‘that we call a story we have heard before
“a chestnut”? Why, in America the smart young men used to wear a little
bell on their watch-chains, and if they heard a story too often, they
rung it to show the story was stale. That was the chestnut-bell.’
“Perhaps the most interesting American here is the Bishop of Nova
Scotia. ‘“I’ve captured a church,” said a young American parson to me.
“Captured a church! what in the world do you mean?”--“Why, I went into a
church where the boys (soldiers) go, and I was asked to take the
service. Soon the boys came in, and I saw that there was going to be a
row. A lot of them sat down by the door, and as soon as I began to
preach, one of them crowed like a cock. I said, ‘Just crow again, will
you; I’m not ready for you yet.’ So he crowed again. Then I said, ‘Now,
if you crow again, I’ll just fix up your beak to the anvil of God’s
righteousness, and I’ll beat out your brains with the sledge-hammer of
the wrath of God. Now, crow again, if you dare,’ and he did not crow any
more, so I captured the church.”
“‘I would not give five cents to hear what Bob Ingleson considers to be
the faults of Moses, but I’d give every cent I possess to know what
Moses thinks of the faults of Bob Ingleson.
“‘I asked somebody if he thought my sermon was too low or too high, and
he said “Neither, but I thought it was too long.”’
“I always dine at a little table with Miss Hosmer, where I am sure her
fun and wit are more nourishing than all the rest of the viands put
together. She says, ‘Our real name is Osmer, but our country people
could never manage a name like that, so we voluntarily added the H.
Generally, provided we are born somehow, we never care who our fathers
and mothers were; but I did, and I had an uncle who found out that we
were descended from a robber chieftain on the Rhine. Afterwards, in
Turner’s “History of the Anglo-Saxons,” I found that the robber chief
Osmer was one of the sons of Ida, king of Northumberland, and Ida
claimed descent from Odin, so it is from Odin that I descend.’
“‘I promised to tell you about the siege of Rome,’ said Miss Hosmer the
other day. ‘All that year we knew it was coming, and at last it came.
The Italians had 70,000 men, and the Pope had only 11,000, so of course
all effectual resistance was out of the question; but it was necessary
to make a semblance of defence, to show that the Romans only gave in to
force. September came, and the _forestieri_ who remained in Rome were
all urged to leave, but Miss Brewster and I elected to stay. We were not
likely to have another chance of seeing a bombardment, so we just hung
an American flag out of our windows; that we were told we must do, as it
might be necessary to protect us from pillage. All the other
_forestieri_ left, and most of the Roman aristocracy. In the last days,
when the Sardinians were just going to enter, there was a solemn Mass in
St. Peter’s for the Pope, to implore protection for him against his
enemies. I went with Miss Brewster. It was the most striking sight I
ever saw. Every corner of the vast church was filled. Every one was in
black--every one except the Pope in his white robes, and when he
appeared, a universal wail echoed through the church. It was not a
silent cry; it was the wail of thousands. There was not a dry eye in the
church. The Pope passed close to me. His face was as white as his dress,
and down his face the large tears kept rolling, and all his clergy, in
black, were crying too. Oh, it was a terrible sight. I am not a
Catholic, I am much the contrary, but I sobbed; every one did. Well, the
Pope passed into the chapel where he was to say Mass, and he said it,
and he walked back again; but he was still crying. It was very piteous,
and when we went out into the piazza, there was Monte Mario white with
the tents of the Italians, waiting, like vultures, to descend. It was
uncertain, for the last few days, by which gate they would enter. It
was thought it would be by the Porta Angelica, then by the Porta del
Popolo; finally, it was by the Porta Pia.
“‘We were told that there would be no bombardment, but at five in the
morning we were waked by the cannon, and they went on till ten. Shells
came flying over our house, and one of them struck the church near us,
and carried part of it away. At ten there seemed to be a cessation, so I
sallied out as far as the Quattro Fontane, with my man Pietro behind me.
When I got into the Via Pia (now Venti Settembre), I heard a cry of “In
dietro! in dietro!” and the people ran. I thought I might as well get
out of the way too, but indeed, any way, I was carried back by the
crowd. I heard what I thought was a scampering of feet behind me, and
when I reached the Quattro Fontane, I looked back, and seeing a man I
knew, I said, “Why, what is the matter with you?” for he was covered
with blood, and he said, “Why, Signorina, did not you know that a shell
burst close behind you, and it has carried off several of my fingers,
Signorina?” So I just took him into my house and gave him some wine, and
bound his hand up as well as I could, and then sent him on to a surgeon.
Then I went up to Rossetti’s house beyond the Cappuccini, because I
thought from his loggia I should be able to see all that was to be seen;
but as soon as we reached the roof a musket-ball grazed my face, and
others were playing round us, so I said, “We had better get out of
this,” and we went down.
“‘After the firing finally stopped, we went to Porta Pia to see the
damage. The house which is now the British Embassy was completely
riddled. Six dead Zouaves were lying in the Villa Napoleone opposite,
and though the statues of S. Peter and S. Paul, which you will remember
at the gate, were otherwise intact, both their heads were lying at their
feet.
“‘At four, we went out again to see the Italian troops march into the
city. There was no enthusiasm whatever. The troops divided, some going
by S. Niccola, others by the Quattro Fontane, to their different
barracks.’
“No one who did not know the ‘has been’ can believe how the sights of
the Rome of our former days have dwindled away. All is now vulgarity and
tinsel: the calm majesty of the Rome of our former winters is gone for
ever.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Cadenabbia, May 13._--At Florence, I went with the Duchess of
Sermoneta and Lady Shrewsbury to spend an evening with the grand old
family of Torrigiani, in the palace where the four sons, their wives,
and children innumerable, live with their charming mother, the Marchesa
Elisabetta, in perfect harmony and love; and another day went out to
Poggio Gherardo, a grand fortified villa, approached through half-a-mile
of roses, where the Ross’s now live. Then I was half a day at Padua,
visiting it as a tourist after many years, with my own book as a guide,
and a most delightful book I thought it!
“At Venice, I went to see ‘Pen Browning’ at the Palazzo Rezzonico, his
most beautiful old palace, full of memorials of Pope Clement XIII. The
son Browning has no likeness to either father or mother: he has worked
hard, both as painter and sculptor, and has a good portrait as well as a
bust of his father, from his own hands. There were many relics of his
parents and their friends, amongst them a sketch by Rossetti of Tennyson
reading one of his own poems to them, with an inscription by Mrs.
Browning. ‘Pen’ was going off to his house at Asolo, a place which his
father first brought into notice when he walked there and wrote ‘Pippa
Passes.’
“Calling on a Mrs. Bronson in a neighbouring house, I met a young lady
with fluffy hair, a Countess Mocenigo. ‘My dear, how many Doges had you
in your family?’ said Mrs. B. ‘Seven,’ she answered, and there really
were seven Doges of the name Mocenigo, besides all those from whom she
was descended by the different marriages of her ancestors.
“Venice is still as full of odd stories as when my sister went to a
party there, and was surprised because the oddly dressed old lady by her
side never answered when she spoke, and then found she was made of wax.
Most of the company were, being ancestors present thus in the family
life of the present. Recently a lady named Berthold has lived at Venice
who was of marvellous beauty and charm. All the society flocked to her
parties. One evening she invited all her friends as usual. They found
the palace splendidly lighted, and listened to the most exquisite music.
At the close of the evening, curtains which concealed a platform at the
end of the principal room were drawn aside, and within, the beautiful
hostess was seen, seated on a throne, and sparkling with jewels, in all
her resplendent loveliness. And then, as she waved a farewell to all
present, the curtains were suddenly drawn, and she disappeared for ever.
No human eye has seen her since. She had observed signs, unperceived by
others, that her beauty was beginning to wane!
[Illustration: VENETIAN POZZO.][506]
“In the hotel was a charming old lady who had just come back from Japan,
and who was arrayed in a thick quilted and embroidered dress, presented
to her by a Japanese lady. Her name, American fashion, was Mrs. Mary
Ridge Perkins. Her husband had sent her abroad, as she said, ‘with a
big letter of credit.’ ‘Mary, you may just go and do the honours of the
old country alone.’ She hates English aristocrats, but was ameliorated
towards Lord Digby, with whom she travelled back from Japan. He pressed
her to come and see him in London--‘Not if you have your paint on.’ She
has no children of her own, but, in the war, she and her husband adopted
no less than thirty, who were rendered homeless. They all call her
‘Auntie Perkins,’ but their children call her grandmother. All the
thirty are married now, and Mrs. Perkins never intends to leave her own
home again, except to visit them. She came down to the gondola to see me
off to the station with no bonnet on her aureole of short white curls,
and I was touched by her parting benediction: ‘May your life always be
happy, for you have always made others happy.’
“Here, at pleasant Cadenabbia, I have been glad to fall in with Lord and
Lady Ripon. He said, ‘Do you know that _you_ have been the cause of my
buying a property in Italy?’ It was in consequence of the sentence in my
‘Cities of Central Italy’ beseeching some Roman Catholic nobleman to
save such a sacred and historic place, that he had bought S. Chiara’s
convent of S. Damiano near Assisi, giving its use to the monks on the
sole condition that it was never to be ‘restored.’
“An odd thing has happened to me here, almost like a slight shadow on
the path. I met ---- who lives here, and whom I used to know very well,
and went up to meet him with pleasure, and he cut me dead! I have not an
idea why, and he will give no explanation. ‘Il faut apprendre de la vie
à souffrir la vie.’
“The Archbishop of York and Augusta are at Cadenabbia, and have taken me
across the lake in their little boat to tea with Charlie Dalison on that
lovely terrace of Villa Serbelloni.”
XXVIII
A KNOCKING AT THE DOOR
“Let us try to see, try to do, better always and better. No
honourable, truly good and noble thing we do or have done for one
another, but will bear its good fruit. That is as true as truth
itself, a faith that should never fail us.”--CARLYLE’S _Letters_.
“What I must do is all that concerns me, and not what the people
think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual
life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and
meanness.
“It is the harder because you will always find those who think they
know what your duty is better than you know it. It is easy in the
world to live after the world’s opinion: it is easy in solitude to
live after your own; but the great man is he who, in the midst of
the crowd, keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of
solitude.”--EMERSON.
“On parent knees, a naked new-born child,
Weeping thou sat’st, while all around thee smiled:
So live, that, sinking in thy last long sleep,
Calm thou may’st smile while all around thee weep.”
--SIR W. JONES, _from the Persian_.
The summer of 1892 was full of quiet pleasures. Visits to Cobham,
Chevening, and to Mrs. Rycroft at Everlands, leave little to be
remembered except the pleasant parties and the extreme kindness of hosts
and hostesses everywhere. I am indeed glad that my visiting-lines are
cast in such pleasant places, that I so seldom have to consort with the
drearier part of human nature--the “Hem-haw, really, you don’t say so”
sort of people. In these houses, where the conversation is perfectly
charming, yet where no evil is spoken of any one or by any one, one sees
truly how a christian spirit will christianise everything it touches,
and one learns--as, indeed, when does one not learn?--that the best
shield against slander is to live so that nobody may believe it.
In September I was at gloriously picturesque Montacute in Somersetshire,
a noble house of yellow grey stone, where all the surroundings,
terraces, vases, flowers, chime into the most harmonious whole. With its
charming owner, Mrs. Phelips, I made an excursion to Ford, a grand old
abbey altered into a luxurious dwelling-house by Inigo Jones, and where
Time has blended the new work with the old, till they are equally
picturesque. The great hall has its gothic roof of abbatial times, and
in the stately saloon are noble Mortlake tapestries, said to have been
presented by Charles I. to his Chancellor, but more probably the gift of
Anne. Then I was with Lord Zouche, a pleasant friend of late times, at
his fine old haunted house and ferny deer-park at Parham, meeting, with
others, Lord Robert Bruce, called “the King of Hayling Island,” where he
lives and brims over with fun and anecdote. I saw from Parham the new
castle at Arundel, magnificently uncomfortable and containing little of
interest. But there was something touching in looking into the open
grave in which Cardinal Howard was to be laid in a few days, and
remembering the different phases in which I had known him well--as the
smartest of young Guardsmen, as a priest, where he seemed so unnatural,
and finally as Cardinal. The recollection came back of how, when the
other cardinals were shuffling along St. Peter’s, Cardinal Howard
marched along in stately complacency, holding back his train on one side
as a lady does her dress. “E troppo soldato,” said the other cardinals.
At Petworth I saw the magnificent Vandykes, Turners, and Reynoldses in
the waste of its dreary saloons. Then with Mary Hare I went to
Woolbeding, a drive through loveliest lanes, across an open common
covered with fern turned brown by the early frost, and then down an
avenue of magnificent Scotch firs, to where lines of gorgeous flowers
led up to the house, like a French château with high roof and dormer
windows. I had always wished to see its charming owner, Lady Lanerton,
who was just what I expected--a beautiful old lady, quite unable from
rheumatism to move out of the chair in which, put upon wheels, she can
be taken to the services in the little church in the garden, filled with
memorials of those she has loved and outlived. In her face was the
satisfied and restful expression of one waiting in grateful patience and
humblest hope upon the borderland. She seemed to say, what I have just
read as amongst Mrs. Stowe’s last words, “I feel about all things now as
I do about the things that happen in a hotel after my trunk is packed to
go home. I may be vexed and annoyed--but what of it? I am going home
soon.” In the garden, amongst the splendid profusion of old-fashioned
flowers, I was glad to find Lady Bagot, linked with many memories of my
long ago.
* * * * *
_To the_ HON. G. H. JOLLIFFE.
“_Nov. 1._--I have had an interesting and most pleasant visit to Sir
John Lubbock, one of the most delightful of men, so entirely captivating
in his simplicity of true wisdom, that no one could fail to be fond of
him. His home of High Elms, near Orpington, is a beautiful place, quite
near London, but with glorious woods and an entirely country aspect.
Professor Forster and many other clever men were there, all far too
learned for me, but I did not even try to ‘live up to them,’ and so
enjoyed myself thoroughly. I went on from High Elms to Sir George
Higginson’s at Great Marlow, and he--a very dear old friend--with all
the manly straightforwardness of a splendid soldier and the chivalry of
the most refined gentleness, is almost as attractive as Sir John, doing
far more than many cleverer people to make life pleasant, and verifying
Madame Swetchine’s words, ‘C’est par l’esprit qu’on s’amuse, c’est par
le cœur qu’on ne s’ennuie pas.’ Thence, I was taken to see my
Dashwood cousins at West Wycombe House, which is full of curious
pictures and furniture, recalling a French château of the beginning of
the eighteenth century, even in the peculiarly refined and delicate
loveliness of its chatelaine.”
* * * * *
_To_ VISCOUNT HALIFAX.
“_Nov. 9._--I have been very ill. It was a bad chill at first, followed
by most terrible pains, which I thought were part of the chill, and
struggled against, moving about when I ought to have kept perfectly
still. When at last I sent for a doctor, he said I had been in most
imminent danger for several days, and that I must have died before
another forty-eight hours were over if he had not come just then. A
slight operation was necessary at once to re-arrange an internal
misplacement, and this relieved the agonising pain. I have not often
been before so immediately, never so suddenly, face to face with
possible death. For some hours no one knew how it would go, yet I have
often _felt_ more ill. There was constantly in my mind a text which I
believe is in the Old Testament somewhere, ‘Shall not the Judge of all
the earth do right?’ and I rested upon it somehow. There seems something
almost cowardly in the way in which, when very ill, one turns for
comfort to texts and hymns and prayers, which one seldom thinks of at
other times. But I _do_ find them a comfort, and I suppose it is partly
the natural transition from active to contemplative life.... Still I
cannot say what my extreme thankfulness was when it was pronounced that
all was going on well and that I was likely to recover. I suspect that I
shall have to ‘go softly’ for a long time to come, perhaps always, and
never be quite as well as I have been: still, in the many mercies which
are left to me, I shall never have time to think of the disagreeables.
“How strange it is when one knows, when one is told, that one is almost
in the valley of the shadow of death! I felt more surprised than
frightened; indeed, I do not think I felt frightened at all, I could
leave it so completely in wiser Hands. But I know that I looked very
wistfully at all the little familiar pictures on the wall, feeling how
sorry I should be to see them for the last time, and to part from all
‘the boys’ and my many interests here, and go into the unknown, of which
one knows so little; only that I do, absolutely and entirely, trust in
the mercy of God, and know that it will be well somehow; as to the how,
God will know best how to settle it.
“Perhaps it may be, as in Michelangelo’s sonnet--
‘Not death indeed, but the dread thought of death saveth and severeth.’
“I may not always go on feeling so; but I feel now as if I had left my
long youth on the other side of this illness. Andersen says, ‘The stem
of the pine-tree forms knots which betray the age of the tree: human
life has also its perceptible rings;’ I suspect this illness will be a
perceptible ring to me.”
* * * * *
_To the_ HON. G. H. JOLLIFFE.
“_Dec. 21, 1892._--You know how ill I was in November, but you do not
know all the serious thoughts it awakened. ‘Il est ennuyeux de vivre
dans la grâce de Dieu, mais tout le monde veut y mourir;’ is that what
you would answer? I have a great deal to say about it, but as you will
like facts better, I will only tell you that since I recovered I have
been quite a tour of visits, beginning with Lady Beauchamp,[507] and
meeting charming Lady Granville and a party of sixteen young men and
maidens at Madresfield Court, a moated house with a lovely view of the
Malvern Hills, and full of precious collections of every kind--old
books, old music, old miniatures, ivories, enamels, &c. In my room, ‘the
Stuart Room,’ it was a pleasure to live with portraits inscribed ‘Mary
Stewart, Princess of Orange,’ and ‘King James III.’ There is a chapel,
where Lady Mary Lygon watches over the musical part of the services,
aided by a footman who sings splendidly and plays five instruments well!
“I was several days at Moor Park near Ludlow, the stately house of Mrs.
Johnston Foster and her pleasant heiress-daughters. They have built a
huge and handsome church near their present home, and another in
Yorkshire. Mrs. Foster took me to spend the day at the curious old house
of Kyre, where there is a hiding-place in the hall behind a picture on a
sliding panel, and an oubliette in the floor beneath a trap-door.
Amongst the pictures was a curious portrait of Lady Pytts, whose
daughter married Sir Thomas Stanley, the first baronet of Alderley, and
planted the Alderley wood with beech-nuts from her old home, for before
that ‘there were no beech-trees in Cheshire.’ The lady of the house,
Mrs. Childe, has a wonderful power of making slight sketches from all
such old portraits in the houses where she visits, and has many volumes
of them.
“At Hereford I spent a most pleasant day with kindly Dean Herbert, who
showed me all the details of his cathedral, which is beautiful still,
though somewhat spoilt by Wyatt. Nothing was more interesting than the
slab tombs of a bishop and dean, who were such friends, that their hands
are represented as clasping each other from their adjoining gravestones.
How seldom this can have been possible!
“I was one day with my Biddulph cousins at Ledbury, and was even more
struck than before with their delightful old house of 1590, ‘entre cour
et jardin,’ like the houses of the Faubourg S. Germain, entered by a
court from the little town, and with a delicious garden and an old
deer-park--perhaps the smallest in England--on the other side. I was at
Shakspeare’s Charlecote afterwards, and at Warwick, and oh! so bitterly
cold!
“It has been almost constantly bad weather, but I do not mind that as I
used. I think it was Caroline Fox who first reminded us of ‘A wet day
and all its luxuries, a fine day and all its liabilities.’
“Then I had a happy week at beautiful old Blickling, with Constance,
Lady Lothian, who--though no blood relation to her--reminded me more
than any one else of my dear Lady Waterford, with much the same charm of
manner and power of enjoyment of all the smallest things of beauty. The
park, gloriously wild, belonged to Harold, and endless illustrious
owners since. The house is a dream of beauty externally, and is full of
ghost-stories. It was the family home of the Boleyns, and in the
tapestried drawing-room Anne Boleyn is still supposed to walk at night
with her head in her hand. In the present serving-room the devil
appeared to Lord Rockingham, who threw an inkstand at him, which missed,
and marked the wall. When Lord and Lady Lothian first came to Blickling,
they altered the house and pulled down partitions to make the present
morning-room. ‘I wish these young people would not pull down the
partitions,’ said an old woman in the village to the clergyman. ‘Why
so?’--‘Oh, because of the dog. Don’t you know that when A. was fishing
in the lake, he caught an enormous fish, and that, when it was landed, a
great black dog came out of its mouth? They never could get rid of that
dog, who kept going round and round in circles inside the house, till
they sent for a wise man from London, who opposed the straight lines of
the partitions to the lines of the circles, and so quieted the dog. But
if these young people pull down the partitions, they will let the dog
loose again, and there’s not a wise man in all London could lay that dog
now.’
“Lady Lothian took me to Mannington, Lord Orford’s[508] curious little
place. The garden, with its clipped hedges, statues, and vases, is
surrounded, with the house, by a wide moat. The house is full of old
pictures and furniture. In the dining-room is a sculptured skeleton
whispering to a monk. It was here that Dr. Jephson saw his
much-talked-of ghost. He had been sitting up late over the MSS., when an
old man appeared to him. He spoke to the figure, and, though it did not
answer, he was for some time quite certain of the apparition. Whilst I
was at Blickling, however, Dr. Jephson was one of my fellow-guests, and
he now thinks the vision was an optical delusion.
“On the outer wall of the house of Mannington are a number of Latin
inscriptions, put up by the present owner. They are all most bitter,
vehement, and incisive against women. But in a distant part of the
grounds there is also a monument to ‘Louise,’[509] with ‘Pensez à lui,
et priez pour elle.’ This is in a little wood, close to an old ruined
chapel, within which Lord Orford has already placed his own sarcophagus,
with an inscription (saying nobody else would ever do it), and around
which he has collected a vast number of architectural fragments from
destroyed churches. Lord Orford seldom comes to Mannington now, but
till five years ago he was much here in strictest seclusion, with his
adopted son and his wife, who were much tried by the dinner at half-past
six, always of exactly the same food, after which he would talk to the
lady with incessant quotations from the Latin poets, of which she did
not understand a word. Every Saturday he used to pass Blickling on his
way to Norwich, where he used to see his doctor, play a game of whist,
and hear a mass, returning next day.
“I was two days at Titsey with Granville Leveson Gower, who is a
delightful archaeologist. I remember him at Oxford. Now he has six sons
of his own, several of them very handsome.
“And all this time dear Lady Egerton’s death has been a shadow. She was
a most kind friend to me, and ‘La Mort laisse souvent plus de vide que
la Vie ne prenait de place.’ It was characteristic of her great
unselfishness that, when she knew her illness must be a very suffering
one and certainly fatal, she insisted upon being removed from the home
she loved so devotedly to a hired house at Eastbourne, in order that
Tatton might not be left with any distressing association for her
husband. Truly of her may be said--
‘But by her grave is peace and perfect beauty,
With the sweet heaven above,
Fit emblems of a life of Work and Duty
Transfigured into Love.’”
* * * * *
_To_ W. H. MILLIGAN _and_ JOURNAL.
“_Belvoir Castle, Jan. 6, 1893._--‘Be firm with the weather, and it’s
sure to clear up,’ said old Miss Hammersley, and, after the terrible
early winter, the weather, though bitterly cold, is most glorious. My
arrival at this stately castle was a fiasco. The Duchess had forgotten
that she had told me to come to their little station of Redmile, and
when I arrived at that desolate place, with deep snow on the ground and
night fast closing in, there was nothing to meet me. The stationmaster
sent his little boy to the next village, and in an hour he returned with
an open waggonette, agonisingly cold across the open plain. But I was
repaid when we entered the still loveliness of the ice-laden woods,
every bough sparkling in the moonlight like crystallised silver; and
still more when we emerged upon the plateau at the top of the hill, and
the mighty towers of the castle rose pale grey into the clear air,
looking down into the wooded frost-bound gorges like the palace of the
ice-queen. I found the Duchess waiting for me in the corridor, with that
genial solicitude for one’s comfort which goes straight to the heart
when one does meet with it, which is so seldom.
“It was a great pleasure to find the all-delightful Speaker here, with
his pleasant daughters, also my friend Wilfrid Ricardo. The rest of the
party are Lady Bristol and her daughter, Lady Clancarty and hers,
pleasant Fred Henniker and his sister, Mr. Macalmont, Mr. G. H. Smith,
Miss De la Brosse, &c., besides the sons and daughters of the house.
“How I like all the mediaeval ways--the trumpeters, who walk up and down
the passages and sound the dressing-time: the watchman, who calls the
hours through the night; the ball-room, always ready in the evenings for
those who want to dance: the band, in uniform, which plays soft music
from an adjoining room during dinner, at which all the hunting men
appear in their red coats, and add brilliancy and colour to the
immensely long table with its glorious old silver ornaments.
“On the first morning, the Speaker and I went after breakfast with the
Duchess to her private rooms, filled with comfort and sunshine, where
she fed thousands of birds upon the little platform outside her windows,
and the Duke, amongst other treasures, showed me a deed of King John
conferring Haddon upon Richard Manners.
“At 12, I met the Duke and Duchess again, and walked alone with them on
the terraces and along the exquisitely beautiful wood walks, all
glistening in silvered splendour, whilst the sun was bright and the air
quite still. The Duke told me how he had the bill--at £60 a piece--of
those curious statues by Cibber which are such an ornament to the
garden. Nothing could be more delightful than the way in which he talked
about the place, and with great affection of his brother the late Duke.
When we reached a little garden where there is a slab inscribed with
verses by Mrs. Kemble, he was tired and returned. I went on with the
Duchess, a long and most attractive path through the woods, and she
talked of her real devotion to the Queen, and of the Queen’s extreme
kindness to her, especially in insisting on the Duke’s going to
Wiesbaden to the doctor who cured his eyes when he seemed upon the verge
of total blindness. After luncheon, the Duke took the Speaker and me to
see in detail the miniatures, which are so beautifully arranged in
little panels on the drawing-room walls, with movable glasses in front.
Wonderful are those portraits of Sir Philip Sidney, of his friend Prince
Henry (with pearl earrings), and of Charles I. as a boy, with an
inscription speaking of him as ‘the Hope of England.’ Then we saw those
two little tables; one a sort of shrine to the Duke of Wellington, with
the (framed) letter which he wrote to the then Duchess after her son
Lord Robert was wounded in Spain--the prettiest, kindest letter ever
written: the other a shrine to the Duke of York, with his little bust,
part of his famous Protestant speech on yellow satin, and part of the
famous Cheshire cheese presented to him after it, and a bit of which he
sent, with a letter, to the Duchess of Rutland.
“In an exquisite old case worked by the Duke’s great-grandmother, and
beneath a heart of pearls enclosing his hair, is the last letter of her
son, Lord Robert Manners, who fell as captain of the _Resolution_ in
action under Rodney. The letter is addressed to the captain of another
ship, asking him to come to see him, and is written in the utmost
cheerfulness--‘though one leg is off, the other shattered, and one arm
broke.’ He died immediately afterwards of lockjaw. The beautiful
portrait of this very handsome young hero hangs in the ball-room.
“Yesterday the Duchess was ill, and I went out alone with the Duke to
the kitchen-garden and to the fine stables, of Charles II.’s time, where
there are still sixty horses, over which Edward Manners presides as
‘field-master.’ The Government gives £5 annually as a retaining fee for
ten of the best horses being always entered to serve in case of an
invasion. I cannot say how delightful I think the Duke, what a noble old
man in every truest sense.”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Jan. 1893._--Mrs. Kemble was certainly the living person I most wished
to see, but I have let too many opportunities slip, and she has passed
away without my knowing her. She must have been a great and generous
woman, and those who knew her always loved though they feared her. Miss
Hosmer has often told me how dearly she and her companions loved Mrs.
Kemble when she was at school in America near the place where she lived.
She would come voluntarily and read to the school-girls half a play in
the morning and would finish it in the evening. Once, when she was
reading, snow came on, and when she was to go home it was quite deep; so
all the school-girls turned out with spades and brooms and cleared it
away before her.
“But her severe manner terrified those who were given that way. ‘We had
some private theatricals,’ Mrs. Story told me, ‘and Mrs. Kemble came to
look on at the rehearsal, at which a girl was acting who was supposed to
do it very well. Afterwards, when she came in, Mrs. Kemble walked up to
her, and ‘_Are_ you a fool?’ was all she said.
“Dr. Silas Bartol, the Unitarian minister at Boston, took his girl to
see Mrs. Kemble. He was nervous, and said, ‘My daughter wished so much
to have the honour of knowing--rather of hearing--rather of seeing Mrs.
Kemble, that I have ventured to bring her.’ Mrs. Kemble bowed stiffly,
and motioned them to sit down, but she said nothing. The girl only sat
and stared at her. Then the father[510] tried again--‘My daughter is
very young--is very nervous--is very shy.’ Then Mrs. Kemble looked at
them both, and, in her most sepulchral accents, said, ‘Shy! I also am
shy. And since your daughter has nothing to say to me, and since most
assuredly I have nothing to say to her, I will wish you good morning.’
“To some Americans she met she said, ‘We hate you for your politics: we
hate you for your prosperity: we hate you for your manners: and ... I
don’t wonder at it.’
“Mrs. Sartoris had more talent, but Mrs. Kemble had the greater genius.
Those who met her recognised it at once. I heard one who loved her best
say, ‘She married Mr. Butler because, for once in her life, she was a
fool. He was very faulty as a husband, but she was so imperious, _no
one_ could have lived with dear Mrs. Kemble.’
“When Mr. Cummings was taking the duty in the chapel at Dresden, they
lived in the same house. Mrs. Cummings wishing to be civil, after some
time sent her card, and asked if she might wait on Mrs. Kemble. The
daughter came up at once and explained, very civilly, that her mother
now saw no one, so Mrs. Cummings thought no more about it. But some
time after, as she was sitting alone in her room, came a tap at the
door, and on her opening it, she saw a lady in black velvet and lace,
closely veiled, who startled her by saying in sepulchral accents, ‘I’m
come to say that I shall never come again.’--‘Oh, is that really you,
Mrs. Butler?’ said lively little Mrs. Cummings, and the sound of her
real name, unheard for years, made her quite pleasant, and she came in,
and was glad to hear of many mutual friends in the Berkshire of
Massachusetts. But unfortunately Mrs. Cummings made some allusion to
Shakspeare, and ‘I did not come here to speak of Shakspeare,’ said Mrs.
Kemble in her most awful accents, and the charm was broken.
“When in Boston long ago, while she was reading in public, she ordered
dresses, pink and blue satin, at the great shop, the Marshall &
Snelgrove of the town, but gave no address. The shopmen were afraid to
ask her. The manager felt he must run after her and ask where the things
should be sent. Unfortunately, to attract her attention, he touched her.
‘Unhand me, ruffian,’ she shouted in her most ferocious tone. ‘And such
was the man’s terror,’ said my informant, ‘that, though he was quite
young, his hair was turned white that night.’
“From personal vanity she was absolutely free. Miss Hosmer once
expressed her regret that she had been photographed in a hat--‘We would
so much rather have seen your head.’--‘My dear,’ said Mrs. Kemble, ‘my
sister, and my friends, and you yourself expressed a wish to possess my
photograph, so, as I was passing a photographer’s shop, I just went in
and flopped down and was photographed as I was.’
“A lady was once alluding to the hope she entertained of reducing her
figure. In her most tragical voice Mrs. Kemble said, dwelling on every
syllable, ‘With a hereditary tendency to fat, nor exercise, nor diet,
nor grief may avail.’”
* * * * *
_To_ MRS. C. VAUGHAN _and_ JOURNAL.
“_Longford Castle, Salisbury, Jan. 18._--I have been five days in this
magnificent old place, and it has been a very interesting visit--and
weird, from being with people to whom the other world is so very near,
who seem to be as intimate with the dead as with the living, and who
think no more of ‘receiving a message’ from one of their ‘guiding
spirits’ than we should of a note from an ordinary acquaintance. These
spirits, the wise ‘Huldah,’ the scientific ‘Iganesis,’ the sympathetic
‘Echord,’ the evangelistic ‘Ernest,’ and ‘Semirus,’ the wise physician,
are the friends of the Radnors’ daily life. There comes a rap, such a
noise as we should speak of as ‘only the furniture,’ and then it is
supposed that one of the spirits has something to say, and a pencil is
put into the hand of a medium. One cannot say that she writes, for she
often even goes fast asleep! but _it_ writes, frequently volumes--not
the sprawling incomprehensible stuff which I have often seen before from
‘Planchette,’ but clear MS. in different handwritings, and purporting to
come from one of the spiritual friends. Personally, I should say that
most of these communications were not the least worth the immense
amount of time and thought given to them. The letters--‘messages’--from
Echord and Ernest, are excellent certainly, but mild and affectionate
religious platitudes, such as might be written by an Evangelical
clergyman of rather poetical tendencies. They all, however, speak of the
dead as not asleep, but in action: of there being no ‘place,’ but ‘a
state’ after death: of existence after death being a process through
gradations. None of the spirits have seen ‘God,’ but ‘the dear Master,’
‘the sweet Master,’ is ever with them and amongst them. The
communications from Semirus are more important. He is the great
physician, and his advice has provided means of healing and safety for
numbers, where earthly physicians have proved powerless or helpless. The
Bishop of Salisbury has been scandalised at the state of things at
Longford and felt impelled to come and testify against it. He recognised
all that happened as fact, as every one must, but denounced it as
‘devilry,’ saying that the owners of the castle were risking their own
souls and all the souls around them. They answer: ‘It was said to
Christ, Thou hast a devil.’
“The great medium is Miss K. Wingfield, now aged about twenty-six. The
Radnors have known her and her family most intimately for many years,
and are certain of her absolute trustworthiness with regard to what she
hears or writes. She is almost as a daughter to them, and they have
watched the development of her psychical powers, through various steps,
with the greatest interest. Her most remarkable gift is automatic
writing, which has been given in many languages, several with which she
is wholly unacquainted (including a very old form of Chinese, only
decipherable at the British Museum), and in many different handwritings.
When her hand writes, or rather the pencil in her hand, she has never
the least idea of what is being written. A divining rod has unfailing
power in her hands.
“The really remarkable communications are those which have reference to
History. In August 1889, Sir Joseph (then Mr.) Barnby, came down to
Longford to play the organ at Lady Skelmersdale’s marriage. One day at
this time Miss Wingfield’s hand wrote a communication in strange
old-fashioned characters, which purported to come from one ‘John
Longland.’ When asked why he came, he said that he had been brought ‘by
the influence of Mr. Barnby, whose music he had heard in Eton College
Chapel, where he was buried.’ Later in the day, the party went to
Salisbury Cathedral, and while Lady Radnor and Miss Wingfield were
sitting in the Hungerford Chapel (the freehold family pew of the Radnor
family), Mr. Barnby played. Whilst he was playing, Miss Wingfield saw,
as in a vision, various scenes enacted, culminating in a procession of
monks and other ecclesiastics with banners and canopies: one of these, a
grave-faced man, came up to the chapel and looked in at her through the
bars. At the same time he announced (by loud raps on the wainscot, which
is the ordinary means of communication) that he was John Longland, that
it was he who had written in the morning, and that he had come to the
cathedral because he had been Dean there in 1514, and that he had more
to tell. Another vision in the cathedral showed the gorgeous ceremonial
of a consecration, which was announced to be that of one Brian Duppa,
Bishop of Salisbury: in a third vision, Brian Duppa was again seen,
lying dead in his coffin.
“On reaching Longford, Miss Wingfield received more writing from John
Longland, who described himself as anxious to confess how faithless he
had been to his intimate friendship with Thomas Bullen (Anne’s father);
that he had been instrumental in persuading Henry VIII. to divorce
Catherine and to marry Anne, thus advancing his friend’s daughter, and
that afterwards--entirely from motives of personal pique against his
former friend--he had influenced Henry against Anne, and fostered
suspicions which led to her execution. He again said that he was buried
in Eton College Chapel.
“Anxious to verify these statements, Mr. Wingfield (Coldstream Guards)
purposely went to Eton to search for the tomb of John Longland, and
nowhere could it be found. The Radnors and Miss Wingfield then thought
that John Longland must be a ‘lying spirit,’ and not finding any record
of his being Dean of Salisbury either, they tore up his writings.
“After Mr. Barnby had left Longford, John Longland came again, but no
one would listen to him. He was, however, so persistent, that the
Radnors decided to have a hunt for a list of officers of the cathedral.
In a lobby cupboard they discovered some old volumes of county history,
uncut and covered with dust. In one of these they found that John
Longland had been Dean of Salisbury at the date mentioned, and that he
was translated to Lincoln in 1521. Turning to ‘Britton’s Lincolnshire,’
equally covered with dust, showing it had not been moved for months (so
that there was no possibility of Miss Wingfield having seen the
statement), it was found that Bishop John Longland was a person of great
learning and piety, &c., that he was confessor to Henry VIII., and
suspected of having unduly influenced the King with regard to Catherine
and Anne, &c. He died at Woburn, and was privately buried in Eton
College Chapel, of which he was ‘visitor,’ his heart being sent to
Lincoln.[511] The Radnors afterwards learnt that the tombstone of
Longland was removed from Eton College Chapel during a ‘restoration.’
“Some time after, when Miss Wingfield went for the first time to the
Palace at Salisbury with Lady Radnor, she exclaimed, ‘There is my Bishop
that I saw!’ and went straight up to a portrait on which the name of
Brian Duppa was found to be inscribed in very small characters.
“The day after I came was Sunday--thick snow without, with bright
sunshine, which together threw a glorious light on the pictures. Lady
Radnor showed them all delightfully. Amongst those which remain in one’s
mind are a delightful full-length of his boy by Rubens in the Long
Parlour, which the family chiefly inhabit, and the ‘Child Feeding
Chickens,’ and Mrs. Edward Bouverie and her child, by Reynolds, in the
great saloon. In the Long Gallery are two grand Claudes and a steel
chair of enormous value, the delicate work of one Thomas Ruker, given
by the city of Augsburg to Rudolph II. in 1577. This gallery opens on
one side toward the chapel, with the font in which little Lucius Hare,
son of Lord Coleraine, who once lived here, was baptized; and on the
other to a sort of ‘Tribune’ with the choicest pictures--the Egidius of
Quentin Matsys, the Erasmus of Holbein, a fine Sebastian del Piombo, and
a glorious Paris Bordone of a scornful beauty--‘Violante’--in a red
velvet dress. In a passage is the curious portrait of Mrs. Honeywood,
aged ninety-three, who had 367 descendants at the time of her death. She
is represented with a glass goblet. In her great age she was sure she
was doomed to eternal damnation. ‘I am as certain to be lost,’ she said,
‘as that goblet is to be broken to pieces,’ and she dashed it to the
ground, and it rolled away quite unhurt. So after that she remained
perfectly satisfied that all would be well with her. But the pictures
which interested me most personally were the noble Vandyke of my
great-great-great-great-grandmother, Margaret Carey, Countess of
Monmouth, and the Holbein of Mary Boleyn, who married William Carey, and
was also my grandmother by just ten removes.
“The house is built in a triangle, with three round towers at the
angles, known as the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Lord Radnor told me
how, when he walked out with his father every summer evening, as they
neared the house he always saw his father take off his hat, look up at
the windows, and bow three times. When his father died he often
regretted that he had never liked to ask him why he did this. But now
he _had_ asked his father’s spirit through a medium, and the spirit
answered that he had always repented not having told him the cause, in
an old distich, which he wrote:--
‘Owner of Longford, whoe’er you be,
Turn and bow with bends full three,
And call on the name of the Trinitie,
Or castle and lands will pass from thee.’
And since that he had always done the same.
“In one of the round towers is a pleasant room with ancient panelling of
white and gold. This is now Lady Radnor’s boudoir, and here she has
often sung to us delightfully. The grounds, with their two rivers, and
the garden with its terraces and vases and yew-hedges, are enchanting.
The younger son, Stuart Bouverie, called ‘Toby’ in the family, is, at
fourteen, a clever mechanician.”
* * * * *
On the 17th of February 1893, my dear old cousin Charlotte Leycester
died peacefully at her house in London. For months past she had been
failing in her great age (ninety-five) as to physical powers, but her
mind was as much alive as ever, and her affection and sympathy as warm
and ready. “She seemed,” as I have read in the novel “Diana Tempest,” to
“have reached a quiet backwater in the river of life, where the pressure
of the current could no longer reach her, would never reach her again.”
In the last days of her own life, my dearest mother begged me always to
be all I possibly could to this dear cousin and friend of her whole
life, and I believe that I have been able to fulfil her wishes. She has
had a home at Holmhurst every summer, and I have never allowed a week,
generally not three days, to pass without writing to her. She carries
away with her my closest link with the past, but no one could wish to
keep her here. Better that she should go in her great age before the
suffering of age came.
Just when her gentle life flickered out in sleep, I read in Grinnell’s
“Pawnee Hero Stories”--“The sun was glad. He gave them great age. They
were never sick. When they were very old, one morning their children
said, ‘Awake, rise and eat.’ They did not move. In the night, in sleep,
without pain, their shadows had departed for the sandhills.”
* * * * *
_To_ HUGH BRYANS.
“_June 20, 1893._--I was in London a long time, but saw and heard little
of interest. At Mr. Knowles’s one day I met the honest sturdy Miss
Octavia Hill, and another day Bret Harte, a young-old man, with white
hair and an unwrinkled rosy face. It was odd to hear him called ‘Mr.
Harte.’ After luncheon Mr. Knowles read Tennyson’s ‘Boadicea’ in a
weird monotonous kind of chaunt, imitating him exactly, I should think.
He said that was the way Tennyson always wished his poems to be
read--straight on, without emphasis or any change of voice. One day I
went with the Lowthers to draw at Fulham, and we had tea delightfully in
the open air with the Bishop and Mrs. Temple, he helping his boy
meanwhile to do Latin verses. George Lefevre had a great pleasant party
at the old palace at Kew, to which we went by the river, and where we
saw the Tecks with their daughter and the Duke of York a very little
while before their marriage. For this I saw the picturesque procession
capitally.”
* * * * *
_To_ VISCOUNT HALIFAX.
“_October 20, 1893._--I have been little away from home all summer,
being so busy with my Waterford Memorial, at which I have certainly
worked _con amore_.
“One little frisk I have had to Montacute, whence Mrs. Phelips took me
to see two fine old houses, Barrington, and Wolferton near Dorchester.
Then I was three pleasant days with Lord Arthur Hervey, the delightful
old Bishop of Bath and Wells, in his moated fortified palace, as
picturesque and as beautiful as it could possibly be. How attractive is
all the apple-filled neighbourhood of Avalon--‘the Apple Island’--and
how delightful its legends of Arthur if one seeks them.
“‘As Arthur ever still in British memory lives,’ says the inscription at
Cardeña on the tomb of the Cid, but I fear few think of him where he
lived. The Bishop took me to Cheddar. How very grand it is! We mounted
by a coombe into the hills, and so descended upon the gorge. ‘Imagine
yourself a river working its way down,’ said the Bishop, as the narrow
ravine opened beneath us with its great purple rocks in labyrinthine
windings of inexpressible beauty. Very lovely, too, I thought the little
lake at the bottom, covered with a kind of ranunculus unknown elsewhere.
“The Bishop talks freely on all subjects with perfect ease and
simplicity, in the repose of a mind at rest and the humility of real
knowledge. He was much occupied with the question as to whether the
children of Israel were 200 or 400 years in the wilderness, all
depending upon where a stop ought to be placed. He was also full of
derivations of names, and mentioned several interesting ones--Bevan, ap
Evan; Bethel, ap Ithil; Coblentz, confluence; and Snowdon and Ben Nevis,
meaning the same thing. He talked of having known Madame de Gontaut long
ago, and how, when Louis XVIII. did something she could not approve, she
always turned his portrait to the wall. The last time he went to see
her, the servant said, ‘Depuis qu’elle est en enfance, Madame la
Duchesse ne reçoit pas.’ He told of having been in his childhood at the
ball which George IV. gave to children, and how a little girl being
asked there what she would like to have, said, ‘I should like to have
too much.’ In his room hung a beautiful engraving from Millet’s
‘Angelus,’ which he aptly called ‘the picture of the good lout’[512]
[Illustration: BROADHURST.][513]
“Later, for my little ‘Sussex’ book, I was four days wandering about the
deep sandy lanes and semi-forest tracts in the central part of the
county. One of the prettiest places was Broadhurst, near Horsted Keynes,
where the saintly Archbishop Leighton passed the last years of his life,
and taught his sister’s children and grandchildren under the old oaks. I
slept two nights at Groombridge Place, a delightful house, little
altered since it was built in James I.’s time, and with three terraced
gardens, and peacocks innumerable sunning themselves on the grey
parapet of the wall above the moat.
[Illustration: GROOMBRIDGE PLACE.][514]
“At Holmhurst I have been much alone, and I feel, with Carlyle, that
‘the memory of many things which it is not at all good to forget rises
with strange clearness on me in these solitudes, very touching, very
sad, out of the depths of old dead years.’”
* * * * *
The only incidents of my autumn were visits to Sir Raymond and Lady
Burrell at Knepp Castle, containing one of the finest collections of
portraits to be found at any small place in England; and to the Palace
at Chichester, where the noble old Bishop Durnford seemed at ninety-one
more full of tireless energy than ever, and whence I was taken to visit
the site of the original bishopric, Selsey, with its lichen-covered
walls and storm-beaten gravestones.
In December, whilst staying at ever-pleasant Thorncombe with my cousin
Victoria Rowe, I sat for my portrait to Mr. Eddis.
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Dec. 5, 1893._--I had a delightful morning with Mr. Eddis, now
eighty-three, but full of vigour and vivacity, and still more of
reminiscence. He said, ‘You would not have been here now having your
portrait painted if it had not been for the Athenaeum. When I was a very
young man, one Magrath, who was secretary there, told me he wanted a
sketch made of himself, and that he would give me £5 for one. So I did
it, and it was such a success, that no fewer than sixty members of the
club put their names down to be drawn by me. I was doubtful if I should
do them, for I wanted to study, and I had not studied enough, but I
asked Hilton, who was a very good artist then, and he told me it would
be folly to refuse what came so easily; and so I did the portraits, and
from that time orders have poured in all through my long life, and so I
have never had time for real study since: I have only learnt through my
work.’
“‘What one learns most by experience is the value of reflected light. I
once had a discussion with Gladstone about what was the brightest colour
in Nature. He maintained red was: he was perfectly certain, and very
determined in his opinion. I said blue was. I told him how, in the
evening, when all was mysterious, the red flowers in the garden
disappeared, but the blue remained visible. But he was unconvinced. Then
I showed him how, in a photograph of a flower-bed, the red flowers
remained dead, undetached from the leaves, but the blue flowers were
light and visible in all their forms. Then--“Good night, Mr. Eddis,” he
said.’
“‘Did you know D’Israeli?’ said Mr. Eddis. ‘No, he must have been before
your time, but I used to meet him often. He always struck me as _lying
in wait for points_: to make a point was what he cared for most.
“‘James Croker had much to do with the building of the Athenaeum. They
wanted him--the members did--to make an icehouse for them, but he
wouldn’t. Afterwards some one found in a waste-paper basket a couplet he
had written--
‘My name is James Croker, I’ll do as I please;
You wish for an ice-house, I’ll give you a frieze.’
“‘Sydney Smith did not make at the time all the jokes which were
attributed to him: he thought of them afterwards, and circulated them.
He told me once, for instance, that Landseer had asked him to sit for
his portrait, and that he had answered, “How could I possibly refuse a
chance of immortality,” which was perhaps a very natural thing to say.
But it was reported afterwards in London, and reported with at least his
consent, that he had answered, “Is thy servant a dog, that I should do
this thing?”
“‘One of his best real sayings was of Dr. Whewell--“Science is his
forte, omniscience his passion.”
“‘Macaulay, it is true, talked incessantly--talked like a machine, but
he had his attractive points. I found this out especially when he
brought the present Lady Knutsford, as a very little girl, to me to be
painted, and talked nonsense to her the whole time, but it was always
nonsense which had a lesson in it.
“‘Lady Waterford was the most glorious specimen of womanhood I ever saw.
She came in with Lady Canning when I was drawing the Archbishop of
Armagh[515]--“the Beauty of Holiness,” as he was called. Lady Canning
had the lovelier face and the more beautiful eyes, but Lady Waterford
was always the more striking from the grand pose of her head and her
majestic mien. In seeing her, one felt as if one looked upon a goddess.’
“This afternoon Victoria took me to see Mr. Watts.[516] A drive through
wooded lanes and water-meadows; then the carriage stopped at the foot of
a wooded knoll, and we walked up little winding paths through the
bracken and Scotch firs to the house--a rustic hermitage. You enter
directly upon the principal dwelling apartment--two low rooms, with old
carved furniture and deep windows, and much colour and many pictures.
The ceiling is in panels, decorated in stucco by Mrs. Watts (_née_
Fraser Tytler). At least she has finished one room, and is going to do
the other with an epitome of the religion of all the nations of the
earth--‘A work,’ she said, ‘which gives me much study.’
“Soon Mr. Watts came in, like a pilgrim, like a mediaeval hermit-saint,
in a brown blouse and slippers, with a skull-cap above his white hair
and beard, and his sharp eager features, in which there is also
boundless tenderness and refinement. He sat by me on the window-sill,
and began at once to talk of Lady Waterford--of her wonderful
inspirations, her unrivalled colouring, her utter unconsciousness of
self, and her majestic beauty--how, when he first saw her out walking at
Blickling, with her grand mien, he could not but exclaim--‘It is Pallas
Athene herself!’
“He regretted that she should never have been painted in later life.
‘When she came into a studio, it was like a glorious vision.’ His wife
said how often he spoke of Lady Waterford, and that to herself it was a
lifelong regret that she should never have looked upon one who so
occupied his thoughts and admiration.
“Mr. Watts took us into his studio, an immense and beautiful room added
to the cottage. Here were many of his pictures, the work of years, on
which, from time to time, he adds a few touches. He likes to have many
of his works around him, and to add to them thus.
“At the end of the room hangs his vast ‘Court of Death,’ which can be
lowered by pulleys whenever he wishes to add to it. He was greatly
pleased with a photograph of it, which has the effect of a Tintoretto,
and which, while preserving the grand masses, blots out the detail.
‘Death’ is throned in the upper part of the picture. ‘I have given her
wings,” said Mr. Watts, ‘that she may not seem like a Madonna. In her
arms nestles a child--a child unborn, perhaps, who has taken refuge
there. By her side the angels of silence guard the portals of the
unseen. Beneath is the altar of Death, to which many worshippers are
hastening: the old mendicant comes to beg; the noble offers his coronet;
the warrior does not offer--but surrenders--his sword; the sick girl
clings for refuge to the feet of Death. I have wished to paint Death
entirely without terrors.
“‘You wonder what that is, that other picture of a figure of a rich man
in Eastern dress whose face is half-hidden, buried away in the folds of
his garment. I meant that for the man who was “very sorry, for he had
great possessions.” He cannot give them up. He has tried, but he
_cannot_. He is going out into the world again, and yet--and yet he is
very sorry. I have only got to give him a number of rings and to put a
gold chain round him, and I think his story will be told.’
“‘And that great picture?’ we asked. ‘Oh, that is the Angel of Rest. He
has come to that old man, by whom all the instruments of music and
science are lying, that weary old man, and he is touching his hand and
bidding him come with him and rest.’
“Besides these, Mr. Watts produced from a corner a grand chalk portrait
of Lady De Vesci--a most noble picture, giving all the dignity and all
the sympathy and pity of her expression. Mr. Watts said he was going to
give it to her little girl.
“He said, ‘I am within two years of eighty, and I have worked all my
life, but I do not feel old or feeble. I do not even use a maul-stick,
and I intend to do my best work yet.’
“On the walls were photographs from Lady Waterford’s drawings, placed
beside Titians, and in their ideas as fine.
“Mr. Watts took me to the window of the other room to look out into ‘the
half-clothed trees of the winter world.’ In the foreground, a number of
cocoa-nuts, open at the ends, were hung up, and wrens and other tiny
birds were fluttering in and out of them. ‘They like cocoa-nut,’ he
said, ‘and I like to see them enjoy it.’
“He said he had no wish to go into the world again. Living was
outliving. Holland House, the second home of many years, was swept away
for him, and all its intimates were passing away, and its memories
perishing. Nothing else in London could attract him.
“He had wished to make large pictures of Hope, Charity, and Faith. With
the two first he had no difficulty, but he lingered long over the third.
He showed us the picture he had done--of a woman seated, looking
upwards, an Amazonian woman, sheathing her sword, and bathing her
blood-stained feet in a brook of clear water. ‘She had found out that
all that was no use--no use at all.’ His words, his thoughts, his works,
all seemed imbued with the truest spirit of religion. ‘With theology,’
he said, ‘I have nothing to do.’
“He said he had no models. ‘Models are well as studies to draw from, but
they check inspiration.’ He rejoiced in Lady Waterford’s using no models
for her smaller pictures, and said she would not have been so truly
great had she done so.”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 7._--Another delightful sitting with Mr. Eddis. I told him of our
visit to Watts, and he said how he felt, on seeing his pictures and
those of Alma Tadema, that Watts was the head, while Tadema was only the
hand.
“He talked of his own early life as a student. At that time, Fuseli[517]
had recently been the head of the Academy--the very fierce head. He used
to say to his pupils, ‘You may be very good buttermen, you may be very
good cheesemen, but students of Art you will never be; and now, give me
my umbrella, and I’ll go and look at Constable’s pictures.’
“‘Turner[518] often used to come in and look at us and our work. There
was a student amongst us who had painted in a red background, and he
painted it the crudest, brightest red he could manage. Turner came in
and said, “Come now, this will never do; give me your palette and
brush,” and in a few minutes he had toned and mellowed it down with a
hundred delicate gradations of tint. “Well now, don’t you think it’s
improved?” said Turner. “No, I don’t,” answered the man; “I think it
was much better before,” which annoyed Turner rather.
“‘I remember that he came to me that day. I was copying a Vandyke, and
he looked at my work. “Part of that is very good,” he said; “why isn’t
all the rest as good?”--“Because,” I said, “all the rest is me, and that
part is an accident.”--“Well, let that accident to-day become principle
to-morrow,” said Turner, and we were always rather friends afterwards.
“‘Turner was proud of his picture of Carthage. He had received many
mortifications about his pictures, and people had haggled about the
prices--very small prices too--that he asked for them. When Lord Francis
Egerton came and told him that a subscription was on foot to buy that
picture from him and present it to the National Gallery, he burst into
tears, he was so moved. But he said, “No, I will not sell it, but I will
leave it to the National Gallery.”
“‘Afterwards, however, he changed his mind, and wished to be buried in
that picture. He spoke of it to Chantrey, who was his executor, and
begged that he would see that it was done, urging him to promise that it
should be done. “Yes, since you wish it, I’ll see you buried in that
picture,” said Chantrey, “but, as sure as you’re alive now, I’ll see you
dug up again.”
“‘Eventually the picture was left to the National Gallery.
“‘I was very near becoming an Academician,’ said Mr. Eddis, ‘but I never
did. I had painted a picture of the “Raising of Jairus’s Daughter,”
which was considered a good thing, and my election was thought certain.
I was advised to call upon some of the principal members, not to ask
them to vote for me, but to conciliate them by the attention. It went
rather against the grain with me, and I asked Stanfield about it. “Your
election is as certain,” said Stanfield, “as that I am sitting upon this
sofa, but you may perhaps hasten it a little if you call as you’ve been
advised.” I never did, however; I let it slip, and I was never elected.
Then younger men cropped up, and I was forgotten: it was all as well,
perhaps.’
“In the afternoon Victoria took me to Lady Sligo’s new house, to which,
instead of the suitable name of Altamont,[519] she has insisted on
giving that of Mount Brown. It is beautifully situated on a wooded
platform above the town of Guildford. I thought the inside of the house
very charming, but Frank Thomas, the architect, who was with us,
objected because ‘there was too little of the architect, and too much of
Lady Sligo in it,’ which seemed to me just its greatest recommendation.
“‘May I tum in?’ said a little boy, knocking at his little sister’s
door. ‘No, oo mayn’t,’ answered the little sister. ‘May I tum in now?’
said the little boy. ‘Yes, oo may,’ answered the little sister. ‘And why
mightn’t I tum in before?’ said the little boy. ‘Because Mammy said oo
wasn’t to see me in my chemise, and now I’ve taken it off,’ answered the
little sister.”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 8._--‘I see some pictures by amateurs,’ said Mr. Eddis this
morning, ‘which produce the same effect that _we was_ does in
conversation: it is because they have never studied the grammar of art.
“‘You would scarcely remember Chantrey, I think. He was always a kind
friend to me. He rose quite from the ranks, and began as a carver of
wood. Rogers was always said to have a table which had been carved by
Chantrey.
“‘Lord Eldon sat to me three times, and, while he sat, told me all the
story of his life, so when that Life was published, it was all familiar
to me: he had told it all. He was unsuccessful as a lawyer in early
life, had no practice whatever, and his friends advised him to throw up
the profession altogether. Only two friends urged him to wait just a
little longer, and he took their advice, and in that “little longer” the
tide turned, and carried him on to the Chancellorship: “And then,” said
Lord Eldon, “I was able to provide those two friends with very good
places.’”
* * * * *
In December 1893 my “Story of Two Noble Lives” appeared, and was warmly
welcomed by the upper classes of society--“the public” for whom it was
especially written. The last time I had gone out with Lady Waterford, we
walked up and down the little ilex avenue by the churchyard at
Highcliffe. She spoke then of the great and increasing desolation of her
life, and said, “If I survive Charles Stuart, there will not be any one
left who would even put up a monument to me.” At the time I inwardly
said, “I will,” and held firm to that resolution; and from what people
say of the book, I feel that I may venture to regard it, though very
unworthy, as a memorial of my dear Lady and her so-beloved sister. Lady
Canning’s is the better portrait, for her letters remained; the
destruction of all Lady Waterford’s best letters has prevented an
equally good picture of her life being produced. General Stuart and many
other of Lady Waterford’s friends assured me that a detailed memoir of
her was impossible; but no good work was ever successfully carried
through which has not at one time seemed impossible.
It was curious, on going to London, to see how opinions differed about
the book--how one heard, “Oh, all the interest is confined to Lady
Canning,” or, “Of course all one’s sympathies are with Lady Waterford;
it is only Lady Waterford one cares for,” or, “The old French history is
the only point of interest.” The Reviews were just the same, wishing
that the first, or the second, or the third volume were excluded--“the
general public would have been sure to welcome the book if it had been
much shorter.” But that was exactly the welcome I did not care that it
should receive. The general public had no interest in, could not
understand, and was not constituted to benefit by such “noble lives,”
while the inner circle for whom they were intended could always
skip--skip a whole volume if it pleased, just as suited the reader. “Le
plus grand malheur d’un homme de lettres n’est peut-être pas d’être
l’objet de la jalousie de ses confrères, la victime de la cabale, le
mépris des puissants du monde; c’est d’être jugé par des sots.” I was,
however, very grateful for the letter of “a Radical,” well known, though
quite unknown to me, who wrote that the book had shown him that he had
often talked and written of what he had known nothing about, of a class
he had misjudged or judged only from individuals, and that “the Story”
had taught him what noble, devoted, unselfish lives might belong to the
class he had maligned, and that he would never speak against it--in
generalities--again. Lady Cork was furious because the married life of
Lord and Lady Canning had not been painted as cloudlessly, beatifically
happy. But how could I do this with all the written evidence before me?
And, after all, what made Lady Canning’s so perfectly “noble” a life was
that, however much she suffered, she allowed her mother and sister to
live and _die_ under the impression that she was the happiest of wives.
A very large first edition--5300 copies--was produced. I felt these
would be called for, and that such an edition would probably cover the
very heavy expenses. But the sale of the book is not likely to go on;
the generation contemporary with the two sisters will have passed away.
For myself, if I like a book, I prefer that it should be very long. It
enables you to make a real acquaintance with the people described, to
learn to love them perhaps, and to be very sorry to part with them. I
wonder if it will be so if some of these--very long--journals are ever
made public.
[Illustration: Augustus J C Hare
From a photograph by Elliott & Fry]
XXIX
WRITING THE GURNEY MEMOIRS
“O thou wealthy Past,
Thine are our treasures!--thine and ours alone
Through thee: the Present doth in fear rejoice;
The Future, but in fantasy: but thou
Holdest secure for ever and for ever
The bliss that has been ours; nor present woe,
Nor future dread, can touch that heritage
Of joy gone by--the only joy we own.”
--FANNY ANNE KEMBLE.
“The stream bears us on, and our joys and our griefs are alike left
behind us: we may be shipwrecked, but we cannot be delayed: whether
rough or smooth, the river hastens towards its home, till the
roaring of the ocean is in our ears, and the tossing of the waves
is beneath our keel, and the lands lessen from our eyes, and the
floods are lifted up around us, and the earth loses sight of us,
and we take our last leave of earth and its inhabitants, and of our
further voyage there is no witness, but the Infinite and the
Eternal.”--REGINALD HEBER, _Farewell Sermon at Hodnet_.
I had frequently been urged by my friend Madame E. de Bunsen to write
the lives and edit the letters of her family--the Gurneys of Earlham;
but I had long declined. Much as I honoured the life-work and character
of the Gurneys, I felt that I was so little in sympathy with their
outward forms of religion, with their peculiar expression of it--with
their religious talking, in fact--that I doubted if I could do them
justice. Others seemed much better fitted for the task.
[Illustration: EARLHAM HALL][520]
But towards the close of 1893 it was again urged upon me--urged with
great persistency; and when I had taken many of the Gurney journals and
letters home, a memoir seemed gradually to unravel itself in my mind,
and at length I promised to do my best. I know, however, how true it is
that “in a whole imbroglio of capabilities, we go stupidly groping
about, to grope which is ours, and very often clutch the wrong
one.”[521]
In many respects the work soon brought its own reward--inwardly, in
being led to enter into the spiritual life and difficulties of so many
holy departed ones: outwardly, in many visits to still living members of
the family, whose life is a constant example, and has often an
intellectual as well as a spiritual charm. Especially charming were some
winter days at Colne House, the delightful home of Catherine, Lady
Buxton, second daughter of Samuel Gurney; and a lovely spring day with
Mrs. Ripley at Earlham, in the old-fashioned rooms, and on the green
lawns, fragrant to the family--but also to thousands of others--with
endless sacred memories.
* * * * *
_To the_ HON. G. HYLTON JOLLIFFE.
“_London, April 1894._--I have had a pleasant time here, and as usual
have found that there is more to be learnt by enduring the ups and downs
of social pleasures than by withdrawing from them, while in the
mornings I have been very busy at the Athenaeum with a new edition of
‘Walks in London’ and the production of my little ‘Sussex.’ At Lady
Wynford’s I met Miss Harynden, the authoress of ‘Ships that Pass in the
Night,’ a very delicate-looking brown ‘Girton girl’--only her degree was
not taken at Girton, but at the London University. She was very simple
and nice, but seems to _feel_ her books too much. She said she was
generally ill and fretful because she was writing, but more ill and more
fretful if she was not. She did not find her lodging at Hampstead quiet
enough to write in, but shut herself up by day in a desolate cottage on
the Heath. She said she had received hundreds of letters about her
‘Ships that Pass.’ That very morning she had a very kind one from an
unknown gentleman, saying he liked her book very much, but was
disappointed because--in spite of the title--he found no information
about shipping in it!
“A little Gould child said the other day, ‘Can God Almighty do
everything, mother?’--‘Yes, my dear, God is omnipotent.’--‘I know one
thing He couldn’t do, mother.’--‘Quite impossible, my dear.’--‘Yes,
mother; God couldn’t make a stone so big that He couldn’t carry
it,’--deep unconscious theology.
” ...There is no place where Death makes a stranger impression than at
the Athenaeum. You become so accustomed to many men you do not know, to
their comings and goings, that they become almost a part of your daily
life. You watch them growing older, the dapper young man becoming
grizzled, first too careful and then too neglectful of his dress: you
see his face become furrowed, his hair grow grey, then white, and at
last he is lame and bent. You become worried by his coughs, and hems,
and little peculiarities. And--suddenly--you are aware that he is not
there, and all your little annoyances immediately seem to have been
absurd. For a time you miss him. He never comes. He will cough no more,
no longer creak across the floor. He has passed into the unseen;
gradually he is forgotten. His place knows him no more. But the wheel
goes on turning; it is others; it is oneself perhaps, who is waning
away.”
* * * * *
_To the_ HON. MRS. W. LOWTHER.
“_Holmhurst, May 21, 1894._--You said you would like to hear about
Belvoir.
“I went with Henry Maxwell-Lyte. At Grantham was a quantity of red
cloth, and crowds of people to see the Princess (Louise), and a string
of carriages from the castle, and George Manners to show us which we
were to go in. In mine I found a young man, who turned out to be Cecil
Hanbury of La Mortola, with whom I made great friends, and found, as I
always do, that it makes all the difference if one has one special
friend in a large party. The Princess was already at tea when we
arrived, and very gracious and kind. But though she is such a really
charming person, the conversation had the effect of muffled drums, which
always accompanies the presence of royalty. Lord Lorne is much improved
in appearance by age--a good Rubens, as his uncle, Ronald Gower--also at
Belvoir--is a bad Bronzino. The Duke, as always, was most delightful, so
courteous, considerate, and full of interesting information. In the
mornings we walked, drew, or sat in the gardens--a many-hued carpet of
spring glories. In the evenings most of the company danced. The last day
we drove, all the way through the property, to Croxton Old Park, where
there was once a monastery, but nothing is left of it now. There is a
quaint little house, where the Duchess Mary-Isabella, whoever she may
have been, died, and in its succursale we had tea, with all possible
‘ameliorations.’ ...
“Holmhurst is now a nest of spring blossoms, the azaleas glorious, and
the gold of the laburnums quite hiding the leaves.
‘A tout oiseau
Son nid semble beau:’
But my nest really _is_ ‘beau.’ I am sometimes blamed for caring so much
about it, so that it was a comfort to read somewhere (I cannot remember
where), ‘Every man’s proper mansion-house and home, being the theater of
his hospitality, the seate of self-fruition, the comfortablest part of
his own life, a kind of private princedome, nay, to the possessor
thereof an epitome of the whole world, may well deserve by these
attributes, according to the degree of the master, to be decently and
delightfully adorned.’”
* * * * *
It had weighed upon my mind for the last two years that my “France”
remained unfinished. There was still another volume which could not be
written without personally visiting all the places of interest in
Normandy and Brittany, and my publishers were constantly urging its
completion. The book has always been utterly unremunerative, very much
the contrary, which is very depressing in its way, but “on ne vit dans
le mémoire du monde que par ses travaux pour le monde.’[522] So I
determined to give up London and home pleasures this summer, and to set
about it, taking my young cousin Theodore Chambers as my companion and
guest.
We left Holmhurst together on the first of June, and spent June in
Normandy and July in Brittany. It was one of the most laborious journeys
I ever made--eight or nine hours a day of walking, standing, collating,
correcting, simmering in the relaxing western heat, and constantly
soaked by the Scotch mist which pervades that district five days out of
seven. For the latter month young Inverurie, Lady Kintore’s eldest boy,
was also with me, a most kind and pleasant fellow-traveller, but, though
eager about drawing, neither of my companions had any more interest in
architecture or history than a stone. Thus my associations with
North-Western France are not transcendent. Places, even the most
beautiful, are innutritious to the mind in the long run; one needs
people with mental life, and enthusiasm to see them with.
[Illustration: MONT S. MICHEL.][523]
[Illustration: S. JEAN DU DOIGT.][524]
[Illustration: AT CARNAC.][525]
To the cloudiest days, however, come gleams of sunshine. I remember with
great pleasure the Abbey of S. Waudrille near Caudebec, restored once
more to the Benedictines, ejected at the Revolution. We were cordially
pressed to go and stay there, and shown the charming rooms we might
have, and I should really have liked it. Then five days at Mont S.
Michel were enchanting, and the invigorating air, which the hundred and
thirty steps to our bedrooms gave us full opportunity of benefiting by.
And then from Brittany come recollections of many wonderful calvaries;
of Tregastel and its golden rocks; of S. Jean du Doigt in its deep
hollow, lovely in spite of soaking rain; and of Carnac and its wild
moorland, redolent of sweet basil and thyme. We also saw two stately
well-kept houses, Josselin of the Duc de Rohan, and Maintenon of the Duc
de Noailles; but, after all, seeing houses without their owners is like
seeing frames without portraits. More living to me, because I felt
already so familiar with the place, was Les Rochers, pervaded by the
spirit of Madame de Sévigné, and even more fragrant from the memories
she has bequeathed to it than from the blossoms with which the glorious
old orange-trees in its garden are covered now as in her day. It was
enchanting to reach home again at the end of July. My companions said
the journey had turned my hair grey, and so it really had--rather.
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
[Illustration: LES ROCHERS.][526]
“_August 16._--Most delightful has been the return to Holmhurst with its
freedom and peace. The shades in my life now are seldom troubles, only
uncongenialities, and the ‘small fretting fretfulnesses’ which accompany
them: still, when these are past, the relief is enormous, and visits
from such delightful young friends as Herbert Vaughan, Cecil Hanbury,
and George Cockerton have been a great enjoyment. The last is indeed, in
every respect, a dear and true friend. No rules of friendship, I feel,
are better than those inculcated by Buddhism:--
“‘An honourable man should minister to his friends and companions by
giving presents, by courteous speech, by promoting their interests, by
treating them as his equals, by sharing with them his prosperity.
“‘They, in return, should show attachment, by watching over him when he
is off his guard, by guarding his property when he is careless, by
offering him a refuge in danger, by adhering to him in misfortune, by
showing kindness to his family.’
“The natural beauty of the garden here is a never-failing delight to me.
Most people seem to be so full of expectations from the future that they
do not allow themselves to enjoy the present; but when I am at home, I
am sure that is not the case with me. On the prettiest site in the
grounds I have just finished putting up the statues of Queen Anne and
her four satellites by Bird, which formerly stood in front of St.
Paul’s. They were taken away four years ago, and disappeared altogether
till last spring, when my friend Lewis Gilbertson discovered them in a
stonemason’s yard on the point of being broken up for the sake of the
marble. I found they belonged to three people--the Archbishop of
Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and the Lord Mayor, and all these were
persuaded to resign their claims to me. The statues were brought down to
Holmhurst at great expense, and put up, at much greater, on a home-made
pedestal like their old one; and now I hope they are enjoying the
verdure and sea-breezes after the smoke of the City.”
* * * * *
_To_ W. H. MILLIGAN, _and_ JOURNAL.
[Illustration: QUEEN ANNE AT HOLMHURST.]
“_Alderley Rectory, Oct. 5, 1894._--I left home on September 29, to
visit the Townshend Marshams at Frognal--the place I have so often heard
of and thought of, from Lord and Lady Canning having been there so
frequently as the guests of Lord and Lady Sydney, who left it to the
Marshams. No wonder they loved it, and that it was one of the places
poor Lady Canning most looked forward to seeing again on her return
from her long Indian exile. It is an enchanting old house!--its endless
succession of small sitting-rooms, all lived in, all full of pictures,
books, and flowers, and opening on to a sunny terrace and broad expanse
of lawn, with pine-trees beyond it. In one of the rooms Lady Sydney
still presides from her picture, but as few alive now can remember her,
radiant in loveliness, with a coronet surmounting her abundant and
beautiful hair. Upstairs there is an oak gallery, half library, half
passage, but deliciously pleasant and quaint. The boy of the family is
named Ferdinand, from Ferdinando Marsham, Charles I.’s esquire, upon
whose tombstone it is said that ‘he was lamented by all gentlemen.’
Amongst the many curious pamphlets in the house is an account of Charles
I.’s execution, printed whilst the king’s body was still lying at
Whitehall, and mentioning his famous word, ‘Remember,’ as referring to
his ‘George,’ which he had desired might be given to his eldest son. A
sketch by Lady Sydney represents the drawing-room at Frognal, with both
the Cannings and many other habitués of the house introduced, and easily
recognisable as portraits.
“Through a most picturesque and lovely bit of primeval chase belonging
to Frognal we walked to Chislehurst, to see the fine tomb of Lord Sydney
by Boehm, surrounded by memorials of his family, and, on the common, the
Prince Imperial’s Memorial Cross. Mr. Marsham Townshend, who recollected
having seen the Empress in all her splendour at Paris, happened once to
come upon her here, a widowed and lonely exile, in her deep mourning,
attended by a single servant, sobbing alone before this memorial of her
murdered son. Often, in the years she was at Chislehurst, while the
family at Frognal were sitting at tea in the hall, a carriage would dash
up, and the Empress Eugénie come in to stay for two hours. She loved the
Sydneys.
“It was most delightful at Frognal having old Mrs. Sackville of Drayton
there--‘still constant in a wondrous excellence.’
“A longish journey took me to Bromsgrove, where a carriage met me and an
old Mrs. Laurence, who is apparently ‘a power’ in American society, with
her nephew, Mr. Mercer, and brought us to Hewell, the great modern house
which Bodley has built for the Windsors. It has an immense hall, with
open galleries round it, never a comfortable arrangement, I think, but
it is handsome, has two beautiful Italian chimney-pieces, and is divided
by arches into compartments at the two ends. Lady Windsor is quite as
beautiful and fascinating as before she married, and her mother, Lady
Paget, is rather additionally embellished than otherwise by added years.
Lady De Vesci was at Hewell also, supremely beautiful in her own--a
poetical way.
[Illustration: BELLA’S LOGHOUSE, ALDERLEY MERE.][527]
“I have enjoyed being in this familiar place, where the Rector of
Alderley, Mr. Bell, and his daughters, are very kind. He has just been
driving me to see the Ernest Leycesters at Mobberley. Passing beneath a
field on the way to Chorley, he said, ‘A curious thing happened there
when I was a little boy. A farmer went out very early to look over his
land, and in that field he found a place where the soil had been
recently upturned. ‘Oh, poachers must have been here,’ he said to
himself, ‘and have buried their game;’ so he dug, and very soon came
upon a sack. ‘Here it is,’ he said, when behold! from the sack emerged
the long tresses of a young woman! Pale as death, he rushed across the
field to Ellen Baskerville’s house, and told what had happened. It was
the body of a young woman, buried in Alderley Churchyard a few days
before. Resurrection-men had dug it up, and being suddenly surprised,
had hastily buried it here.
“‘When I was living as chaplain in the Infirmary at Norwich,’ said Mr.
Bell, ‘I was startled by hearing what seemed to be loud and furious
imprecations overhead. They did not stop, and at last I ran upstairs to
see. There, in bed, was the old fat swarthy cook, screaming with all her
might, and a huge monkey was sitting on the bed grinning at her. I
seized a newspaper which lay there, rolled it up, and hit out at the
monkey. But the beast knew better than to be afraid of that, seized it,
tore it up, and made at me. Then I caught up a large ruler, which was
happily lying near, to defend myself with. The monkey did not like that,
and bounded across the room and out at the window, and I heard a scream
from the people upon whom it had descended in the street.
“‘The woman told me how the monkey had come in at the window, and jumped
straight on to her bed, where it had found the pot of ointment used for
her bad leg, and eaten it all up directly. Having finished that, it made
for the table, where it found her wig-box, pulled it open and began to
demolish her wig. _That_ she could not stand. “Oh, ye varmint! ye
varmint!” she shouted, and continued shouting till I came to the
rescue.’”
* * * * *
“_Temple Newsam, Oct. 9._--This grand old house in the Black Country has
been receiving the Duke and Duchess of York. They were just gone when I
arrived, but the Duchess’s pleasant brother, Prince Adolphus, is here,
and his future bride, Lady Sybil Grosvenor, with Lady Grosvenor and her
daughter, also the William Lowthers and the beloved Halifax’s. With the
Lowthers I have been two excursions--to Swillerton, Sir C. Lowther’s
rather fine house, and to the beautiful old house of Ledstone, a very
picturesque place.”
* * * * *
“_Ravenstone, Oct. 14._--This lovely little place of Mrs. Howard is
above Lake Bassenthwayte, not considered a beautiful lake, but
infinitely lovely at the spot to which she has taken me, through the
garden of Sir H. Vane, where a richly wooded promontory embossed upon
the still evening sky was reflected in every detail in the calm limpid
waters.
“We have been for service to the most delightfully primitive little
church--a Dalesman’s church--such as Wordsworth has described. At
Greystoke we have spent a day, received by the little girl, daughter of
the house, with the manners of a princess. Little of the old castle
remains.”
* * * * *
“_Bishopthorpe, Oct. 16._--‘That is a portrait of Bishop Willmer of
Louisiana,’ said the Archbishop, showing his study. ‘He was at one of
the conferences at Lambeth in Archbishop Tait’s time. When he went away
Mrs. Tait said to him, “Well, good-bye, Bishop; I hope you’ll come again
at the next conference.”--“No, Mrs. Tait, neither you nor I will be at
the next conference.”--“Oh, Bishop, but I hope we shall see you
again.”--“No, Mrs. Tait,” said the Bishop very solemnly, “neither you
nor I shall be at the next conference, but we shall meet again very
soon.” Three months after that--one in America, the other at
Edinburgh--the Bishop and Mrs. Tait died on the very same day.
“‘Bishop Willmer had the utmost simplicity of character, but he was a
true apostle. One day, crossing a green at Boston, he found a little boy
playing pitch-and-toss. He was very fond of little boys, and he stopped
and spoke to this one--spoke to him very kindly. “Now, are you a good
little boy?” he said at length. “Well, I sometimes say cuss words,”
answered the boy. “Oh, I’m sorry for that,” said the Bishop; “but at any
rate, I see you speak the truth.”--“Oh, only dogs tell lies,” said the
boy. “Well, now,” said the Bishop, “would you like to do me a
kindness?”--“Yes,” said the boy. “Well, I expect a parcel at the railway
station, and I want you to go for it, and bring it to a particular
house. There will be seven dollars to pay for that parcel, and here are
the seven dollars, and there are fifty cents for yourself.” The boy took
the $7.50 and went off.
“‘When the Bishop reached the house, he told what he had done, and was
heartily jeered at--that he should trust a Boston waif like that. There
was a very large party, and they all went in to dinner. Before it was
over, a servant came in and said that there was a boy there who wanted
to speak to the Bishop. The Bishop went out, and the whole company
followed him--they followed him into the hall, and there was the boy at
the door. He was not the least abashed, but, when he saw the Bishop,
said, “Well, I’ve brought the parcel, but it cost seven dollars fifty
cents: you did not see the fifty cents marked in the corner.”--“Well,
how did you get the parcel, then?”--” Oh, I paid the fifty cents you
gave me.”--“And how did you know you’d get the fifty cents again?”--“
Well, I thought as a chap as would trust me with seven dollars would
never make a trouble for fifty cents.”
“‘Well,’ said the Bishop, before they parted, ‘now I should like to give
you my blessing;’ and the boy knelt on the door-mat, and solemnly and
episcopally, before all the company, the Bishop gave the poor boy his
blessing.’
“The chapel here in the palace is thirteenth-century, and has been
restored by Archbishop Maclagan. The stained windows by Kempe are
beautiful, representing the Crucifixion, and the saints connected with
York. ‘I wished that the Saviour should be represented without any
appearance of suffering,’ said the Archbishop--‘as the offering of
humanity, not the sacrifice for sin. The suffering crucifixes only grew
up in mediaeval times with ideas of purgatory. The early artists wished
to excite faith, not pity, and represented the Saviour’s triumph over
death, even while enduring it. The earliest crucifix, in the Catacomb of
Pope Julius, given by Mrs. Jameson, but which totally disappeared a few
years since, represents on the cross a beautiful youth, draped from head
to foot, and without suffering.’
“I have had a delightful long drive with Augusta to Bramham. The old
house was burnt down sixty years ago, and has never been rebuilt. But
its glorious old gardens are kept up. There is nothing like them in
England. They were laid out by Le Nôtre when he laid out Versailles, and
are more like that than any other place. Eighty acres are intersected
by grand avenues with immense walls of clipped beech, ending in
summer-houses, statues, vases, or tanks walled in with stone and
surrounded by statues and vases of flowers. Mr. Fox, a most grand old
man, showed me everything, and talked of the change from the old times
of his youth, when Yorkshire country visits were so cheery, and the
chief dissipation of the county people was a ball at York. ‘Now every
man with three hundred a year and a daughter thinks he must go to
London.’ He talked of the degeneracy of Temple Newsam from the time when
three litters of cubs were regularly brought up in the woods near the
house. His sitting-room is full of hunting pictures and caricatures of
his old friends--a great enjoyment to him.
“I asked Augusta much about Mrs. (Adelaide) Sartoris, whom she had known
well. She said: ‘Edward Sartoris did not go with Adelaide when she went
to Vichy. Leighton, who was always as a slave to her, went with her,
took her lodgings, and did everything for her. Then he said, “You will
be very dull, knowing no one here; I know some young men here, and I
will introduce them to you. They are Burton and Swinburne, but you know
one is a believer in Buddhism, the other in nothing; so you must not
mind what they say.” Then Leighton left.
“‘The next evening Adelaide was having her coffee in the gardens, when
the two young men came up and sat down by her. At first they made
themselves very agreeable. Then at length they began to air their
opinions, and to say things evidently intended to shock. Adelaide laid
down her cup, looked at Burton, and said very slowly, “You believe, I
think, in _Juggernaut_, therefore, with regard to Juggernaut, I shall be
very careful not to hurt your feelings. And you, Mr. Swinburne (turning
to him), believe, I think, in _nothing_, but if anything is mentioned in
which you _do_ believe, I shall be very careful not to hurt your
feelings either, by abusing it: now I expect that you will show the same
courtesy to me.”
“‘The young men laughed, and for some days all went well. Then the
impression passed, and one day they began to talk as before. Adelaide
again laid down her cup, and began again in the same slow tones--“You
believe, Mr. Burton, I think, in Juggernaut”.... Then they burst out
laughing, and they always behaved themselves in future.’
“‘When I was a girl,’ said Augusta, ‘I was with Mary at Madame de
l’Aigle’s near Compiègne. There was to be a little function in the
village, and some music was got up for it. We assisted at the practices,
and Leighton also, who was there as a beautiful young man. But before
the day of the function came he had to go. “Oh, Fay, why should you
desert us? what can we do without our tenor?” said Madame de l’Aigle.
But she implored him in vain; he said he _must_ go. We all continued,
however, to urge him, and at last he said, “Well, I’ll tell you what
I’ll do: I must go, but I’ll come back.”--“What! all the way from
London?” “Yes.” And he did. It was not long after that we found out why
he thought himself obliged to go: it was because the sale of the
pictures of that poor artist, Mason, who had died leaving his wife and
children terribly unprovided for, was going to take place, and Leighton
thought that if he were present at the sale, and seen bidding for the
pictures, they would fetch higher prices. It was only one of a thousand
kindnesses Leighton has done.... People have sometimes called him
affected, but he was not. His manners were perfectly natural: he could
not help being the spoiled darling of society.
“‘George IV., as Prince Regent, was very charming when he was not drunk,
but he generally was. Do you remember how he asked Curran to dinner to
amuse him--only for that? Curran was up to it, and sat silent all
through dinner. This irritated the Prince, and at last, after dinner,
when he had had a good deal too much, he filled a glass with wine and
threw it in Curran’s face, with “Say something funny, can’t you!”
Curran, without moving a muscle, threw his own glass of wine in his
neighbour’s face, saying, “Pass his Royal Highness’s joke.”
“‘That story reminds me of the old Queen of Sweden. She was furious at
the appointment of Bernadotte, and would have nothing to do with him; at
which people congratulated him rather, because if she had seen him, they
said, she would certainly have killed him. But at last she seemed to get
tired of her estrangement, and she invited Bernadotte to a banquet. He
was delighted--so glad to be friends; but as he was going to her palace,
a paper was put into his hands inscribed--by whom he never knew--with
the words, “If she offers you food or drink, as you value your life,
refuse it.” He arrived, and the Queen was most affable, courtesy and
kindness itself. After dinner a cup of coffee was brought on a golden
salver, and, with the most exquisite grace, the Queen offered it to
Bernadotte. He was just about to drink it when he remembered the
warning, and he returned it to her, saying, “Après vous, Madame.” The
Queen turned deadly pale, looked him full in the face, and--drank it.
Next day Stockholm was agitated by terrible news. The Queen-Dowager had
died in the night.’
“The dining-room here is hung with Archbishops, a very fine set of
portraits. Sir Joshua painted Archbishop Harcourt, and came down with
the picture to Bishopthorpe. At dinner, the chaplain, who was afterwards
Archbishop Markham, said, ‘Who is the fellow who has painted that vile
picture of the Archbishop?’--‘The fellow is me,’ said Sir Joshua, who
was sitting by him; but he was so struck by what Markham said that he
insisted on taking the picture back with him to London, and repainted it
as it is now. Talking of the portraits led to Sir T. Lawrence, who was
an endless time over his pictures. That was the case with his portrait
of Lady Mexborough and her child. Lord Mexborough asked to have it home
again and again, but it was no use. At last he said he _must_ have the
picture. ‘Well,’ said Sir Thomas, ‘I’ve been a long time, I allow; but
I’ve got well forward with Lady Mexborough: it’s the baby wants
finishing. Now if Lady Mexborough would kindly bring the baby and give
me another sitting, I really will finish.’--‘Well, Sir Thomas,’ said
Lord Mexborough, ‘my wife will be happy to give you another sitting
whenever you like, but _the baby’s in the Guards_!’”
* * * * *
“_Lincoln, Oct. 18._--Between York and this, I turned aside to visit
Howden, a most grand church. In the vicarage garden I saw an old lady
feeding chickens, and I could not help going up to her and saying, ‘Were
you not once a Miss Dixon?’ She was so exactly like her sister, who was
with Miss Dixon, the miniature-painter, at the little Holmhurst hospice
last year. Her husband, Mr. Hutchinson, showed me all the relics, the
remains of the shrine of S. John of Howden, bearing a statue of the
Virgin with the dove whispering into her ear, as S. Gregory is so often
represented at Rome: the Saltmarshe Chapel, with its old tombs and its
stone altar with five crosses: and the lovely ruined choir, with
exquisite chantry chapels opening from it. Then, in the vicarage garden,
are remains of an old palace of the Bishops of Durham, with a beautiful
old gateway.
“I also saw Selby, a very fine church with a Norman nave, but less
interesting than Howden.
“Lincoln is altogether delightful, with its crown of yellow-grey towers
rising high above the red roofs of the town. And it is most pleasant in
staying with the beloved Precentor Venables to go back into the old
Hurstmonceaux days, which he, and almost no one else, remembers, even
though I could not join in his loyal reverence for Uncle Julius, when it
was extended to Aunt Esther also. Time seems to have stood still with
him and Mrs. Venables more than with any one I know, and it is difficult
to believe that it is more than half a century since they came to
Hurstmonceaux as bride and bridegroom--half a century of such entirely
happy married life, that one cannot contemplate one surviving the
other.[528]
“We visited the delightful and beautiful old Bishop King, who now has
fitted up the ruins of the old palace, and lives appropriately in the
heart of the cathedral society--‘very rightly placed,’ he says, ‘below
the church, and far above the world.’ He has an expression of gentle
benignity which I never saw equalled except by Pius IX., and a manner in
which the greatest dignity of office and the most perfect personal
humility are marvellously blended. He was sitting in what I thought was
a purple dressing-gown, but was told it was a cassock: a jewelled cross
was on his breast. I hoped to have seen him mitred in the cathedral, but
he only appears thus on great festivals. He talked of the Church in
France, and I urged him to visit Ars and enjoy its atmosphere of
spiritual love and blessing: he said he should go there. We also visited
Dean Wickham and his delightful wife, who is Gladstone’s daughter,
thinking her father’s principles always right, but so full of goodness,
gentleness, and beneficence herself, that it is impossible to connect
her with his practice.”
* * * * *
“_Nov. 16._--At Letton, the pleasant house of the Gurdons in Suffolk, I
have met a large party, including the Hamonds of Westacre, into whose
courtyard an invisible horse and rider clatter whenever any death is
about to occur in their family. I have been taken to see Hingham, where
the church contains the very fine tomb of Thomas, Lord Morley, of 1435.
Another day we went to Dereham. S. Werburga was the great saint of the
place, and was stolen by the Abbot of Ely, that her body might be
venerated there with her two sainted sisters. By her empty grave a
miraculous spring gushed forth to console the people of Dereham. So many
children died from being bathed in it, that it is now shut off by a
railing. In the church is the feeble monument of Cowper and Mrs. Unwin.
“Several curious stories were told:--
“Some young men once determined to frighten the famous naturalist
Cuvier. One of them got horns, hoofs, and a tail, and appeared by
Cuvier’s bedside. ‘I am the devil,’ he said, ‘and I am come to eat you.’
Cuvier looked at him. ‘Carnivorous! horns--hoofs--impossible!
Good-night;’ and he turned over and went to sleep.
“Mrs. Hall Dare had told of a young girl friend of hers. She was with a
number of other girls, foolish and frivolous, who went to consult an old
woman who had the reputation of being a witch, and who was supposed to
have the power of making them see their future husbands. She said they
must say their prayers backwards, perform certain incantations with
water, lock their doors when they went to bed, and then they would see
whom they were to marry, but they would find their doors locked in the
morning.
“The girl followed all the witch’s directions. Then she locked her
door, went to bed, and waited. Gradually, by the firelight, a young man
seemed to come in--to come straight through the locked door--a young man
in uniform; she saw him distinctly.
“He went to the end of the room and returned. As he passed the bed his
sword caught in the curtain and fell upon the floor. Then he seemed to
pass out. The girl fainted.
“In the morning at first she thought it was a dream, but there, though
her door was still locked, lay the actual sword upon the floor! Greatly
aghast, she told no one, but put it away and kept it hidden. It was a
terrible possession to her.
“The following year, at a country-house, she met the very young man she
had seen. They fell violently in love and were married. For one year
they were intensely--perfectly--happy.
“Then her husband’s regiment had to change its quarters. As she was
packing up, with horror which was an instinct, she came upon the sword
put away among her things. Just then, before she could hide it, her
husband came in. He saw the sword, turned deadly pale, and in a stern
voice said, ‘How did you come by that?’ She confessed the whole truth.
“He was rigid. He said, ‘I can never forgive it; I can never see you
again;’ and nothing she could say or do could move him. ‘Do you know
where I passed that terrible night?’ he said; ‘I passed it _in hell_!’
He has given up three-quarters of his income to her, but she has never
seen him since.
“A Miss Broke, a niece of our host, told me even a more curious story.
“A few years ago there was a lady living in Ireland--a Mrs.
Butler--clever, handsome, popular, prosperous, and perfectly happy. One
morning she said to her husband, and to any one who was staying there,
‘Last night I had the most wonderful night. I seemed to be spending
hours in the most delightful place, in the most enchanting house I ever
saw--not large, you know, but just the sort of house one might live in
one’s-self, and oh! so perfectly, so deliciously comfortable. Then there
was the loveliest conservatory, and the garden was so enchanting! I
wonder if anything half so perfect can really exist.’
“And the next morning she said, ‘Well, I have been to my house again. I
must have been there for hours. I sat in the library: I walked on the
terrace; I examined all the bedrooms: and it is simply the most perfect
house in the world.’ So it grew to be quite a joke in the family. People
would ask Mrs. Butler in the morning if she had been to her house in the
night, and often she had, and always with more intense enjoyment. She
would say, ‘I count the hours till bedtime, that I may get back to my
house!’ Then gradually the current of outside life flowed in, and gave a
turn to their thoughts: the house ceased to be talked about.
“Two years ago the Butlers grew very weary of their life in Ireland. The
district was wild and disturbed. The people were insolent and
ungrateful. At last they said, ‘We are well off, we have no children,
there’s no reason why we should put up with this, and we’ll go and live
altogether in England.’
“So they came to London, and sent for all the house-agents’ lists of
places within forty miles of London, and many were the places they went
to see. At last they heard of a house in Hampshire. They went to it by
rail; and drove from the station. As they came to the lodge, Mrs. Butler
said, ‘Do you know, this is the lodge of my house.’ They drove down an
avenue--‘But this _is_ my house!’ she said.
“When the housekeeper came, she said, ‘You will think it very odd, but
do you mind my showing _you_ the house: that passage leads to the
library, and through that there is a conservatory, and then through a
window you enter the drawing-room,’ &c., and it was all so. At last, in
an upstairs passage, they came upon a baize door. Mrs. Butler, for the
first time, looked puzzled. ‘But that door is not in my house,’ she
said. ‘I don’t understand about your house, ma’am,’ said the
housekeeper, ‘but that door has only been there six weeks.’
“Well, the house was for sale, and the price asked was very small, and
they decided at once to buy it. But when it was bought and paid for, the
price had been so extraordinarily small, that they could not help a
misgiving that there must be something wrong with the place. So they
went to the agent of the people who had sold it and said, ‘Well, now the
purchase is made and the deeds are signed, _will_ you mind telling us
why the price asked was so small?’
“The agent had started violently when they came in, but recovered
himself. Then he said to Mrs. Butler, ‘Yes, it is quite true the matter
is quite settled, so there can be no harm in telling now. The fact is
that the house has had a great reputation for being haunted; but you,
madam, need be under no apprehensions, for you are yourself the ghost!’
“On the nights when Mrs. Butler had dreamt she was at her house,
she--her ‘astral body’--had been seen there.”
* * * * *
“_Ashridge, Nov. 19._--I arrived here by tea-time, passing in the beech
woods Lady Lothian, who reminded me of Lady Waterford, as I saw her in
her long black dress and black hat, backed by the leafless trees against
the golden sunset. Then Lady Brownlow came in, still radiant in her
marvellous Bronzino-like beauty. There is much charm too in the
guests--Mrs. Dallas Yorke, with her subtle refinement, Mrs. Norman
Grosvenor, the Jerseys, pleasant Jack Cator, and many others. Before
dark, Lady Lothian took me to the drawing-room, built entirely from
designs of Lord Brownlow, and thoroughly Italian in its marble pillars,
green hangings, and many fine pictures, a Mona Lisa which disputes
originality with that at Paris, a beautiful Lo Spagna of a saint, and
the sketch for the Tintoret of the Presentation of the Virgin. The
dinner was lighted from brilliant sconces on old boiserie from a Flemish
sacristy. In the evening ‘Critic’ was acted as a charade, led by Lady
Jersey.
“Breakfast was at small tables. Lord Brownlow, at ours, talked of a
neighbouring house where a Lady Ferrers, a freebooter, used to steal out
at night and rob the pilgrims coming from St. Albans. She had a passage
from her room to the stables. In the morning one of the horses was often
found tired out and covered with foam: no one could tell why. At last
the poor lady was found dead on her doorstep in her suit of Lincoln
green. She constantly haunts the place. Mr. Ady, who lives there now,
meets her on the stairs and wishes her good-night. Once, seeing her with
her arms stretched out in the doorway, he called out to his wife who was
outside, ‘Now we’ve caught her!’ and they rushed upon her from both
sides, but caught--nothing.
“Lady Brownlow came over to our table. ‘I’ve come to join in your
conversation.’--‘Well, you’ve stopped it,’ said Lord B. ‘However, I
bring you this story. A man in a foreign hotel took a loaded pistol to
bed with him. By-and-by he saw a terrible deformed hand brandished at
the foot of the bed. “If you don’t go, I’ll fire,” he shouted. It did
not go and he fired. It was at his own foot.’
“It was Sunday, but I did not go to church, and walked with Lady Lothian
through the sunlit green glades and russet woods of autumn. The house is
of immense length of frontage, and behind it rises the chapel like a
great church. ‘Can you tell me in what part of this _village_ Lord
Brownlow lives?’ asked an American when he came to Ashridge. In the
evening we went to service in the chapel through the splendid
conservatory, with long falling festoons of Ipomea. There was a full
congregation and singing. Two panes of Holbein glass recall that
Ashridge was the palace of Edward VI. and Elizabeth when young, but she
hated it.
“We knew what you would say if you found Lady Waterford’s drawings all
lying about,’ said Lady Brownlow, ‘so we worked hard to hang them up
the day before you came.’ And they looked grand together, and such a
variety--the supreme desolation of the Hagar, the self-abandonment of
the Prodigal’s repentance, the proud Othello, the lovely springing,
leaping children.”
* * * * *
“_Middleton, Dec. 9._--A very agreeable visit to Lord and Lady Jersey.
The country is hideous, but the house pleasant and comfortable, and a
large new ball-room is hung with many fine portraits--the first Duke of
Buckingham by Mytens and by Van Somer; Frances, Countess of Jersey,
beloved by George IV., who was sent to meet Queen Caroline and persuaded
her to eat onions--‘There is nothing the king likes so much as the smell
of onions’--and Sarah, Countess of Jersey, the queen of Almack’s, a huge
noble picture by Lawrence. Joining the village church is the mortuary
chapel which she built, with her tomb, a copy of the Scipio tomb at
Rome, and lovely medallions of her daughters, Sarah, Princess Esterhazy,
and Lady Clementina Villiers. The font is said to have been that of
Edward the Confessor at Islip, but is of Gothic, not Saxon date.
“Conversation fell on Christine, Lady Saye and Sele, who had three
husbands. When she married the first surreptitiously, she took the bull
by the horns, and said to her father at dinner, ‘Father, I’m
married!’--‘Well, my dear, but at least wait till Thomas has left the
room.’--‘No, father, Thomas need not leave the room, for Thomas is the
man I’ve married.’”
My home life this year was very quiet and uneventful, only marked by my
books. The Edgeworth family had placed Maria Edgeworth’s letters in the
hands of Lionel Holland, now a publisher, and desired him to find an
editor. He asked me to accept the office--certainly not a remunerative
one, as I only received fifty pounds for it, the whole large profits of
the book falling to the publishers. I demurred at first, but eventually
undertook it, and became interested in the work, and the simple,
high-toned, unselfish character of the lady whose letters I was
selecting; and the book at once became popular, and had a very large
circulation.
But “The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth” was rather a by-play. Most
of my time was given to “The Gurneys of Earlham,” which gave me plenty
of very hard and anxious work. I could not help feeling, as I attacked
the mines and mountains of self-introspection in the form of religious
journals which each one of the Gurney brothers and sisters left behind
them, how unsuited I was for the task, how little I could enter into
their feelings. Indeed Catherine Vaughan had written to me--“You are
unworthy even to unfasten the shoe-latchets of those saints,” and I
quite agreed with her. Still, into the beauty of their _actions_, of
their devoted and unselfish lives, I could fully enter, and when the
peculiar shibboleth of those times is sifted from their words, they said
a great deal that was most beautiful and touching. The work has brought
me into contact with many good people. And the Gurneys are still, as
they were in the early days of Earlham, most liberal to all who do not
agree with them, if only they are trying to follow the same Lord and
Saviour--the dearest friend of the Gurneys of old time, and I think of
most of those of present date.
At Christmas I was with the Halifaxes.
* * * * *
_To_ W. H. MILLIGAN.
“_Hickleton, Dec. 28, 1894._--Can it be I? I say to myself, when I am
called in pitch darkness in these winter mornings, and hurry in the dawn
through the still dark shrubberies to the brilliantly lighted church,
where, amid clouds of incense and the chanted salutation of the Blessed
Sacrament, I receive ‘the mass,’ kneeling under the shadow of a great
crucifix. Then, after breakfast, there is matins, what we should call
early morning service, at which there are few worshippers; but when it
is over, and you think you are going away, not a bit of it; there is a
sound like the sea rushing in, and instantly the church is
filled--thronged with people--and these come, not to receive the
Sacrament, but to adore it! Charlie Halifax says, ‘How strangely things
come round. My uncle, a lawyer--who had his home here with my father and
mother, and died when I was five years old--used to be a great friend of
Newman and Lord Devon, and others who thought as they did, and his
beautiful spiritual letters and his religious sonnets remain to us. He
longed for what he thought was the impossible; he longed to have it
here, and now here it is. At that time there was only celebration here
four times in a year; he never hoped it could be otherwise, and yet what
he so longed for--what I, too, so longed for as a boy--has been all
realised.
“‘Do you know that when Miss Margot Tennant (Mrs. Asquith) said to
Jowett, “What do you _really_ think of God?” he said nothing for a
moment, and then answered, “I think all that signifies is what God
really thinks of me.”’
“I have had many delightful talks with Charlie. When I am with him I
feel imperceptibly lifted heavenwards. I do not agree with him in
everything, but oh! I _love_ him always. With him, as indeed with every
one else, even where I most disagree, I am careful never to speak
slightingly of anything he holds sacred. If it made any difference at
all, it would only cause him to hold the cloak tighter.”
* * * * *
“_Hatfield, Jan. 30._--After a visit to Lord and Lady Knightley at
Fawsley, in bitter cold and snow, I came here to meet a huge
party--Cadogans, Iveaghs, Hampdens, and very many others. Most of the
company have skated in the morning, but I have thoroughly enjoyed the
equably warm passages and rooms of this immense house. Arthur Balfour is
here, with charming manners, quite unspoilt. He stays in his room and
does not appear till luncheon-time, so getting many quiet hours for
work. Lord Warkworth was here for one night, a most promising youth, who
breaks the silence of the Percies. Lord Rowton also is here, and most
agreeable in his natural ripple of pleasant talk. He says that he once
asked Disraeli what was the most remarkable, the most self-sustained and
powerful sentence he knew. Dizzy paused for a moment, and then said,
‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’
“Disraeli used to say that, _apropos_ of history, he should always
remember going to a breakfast at Lord Houghton’s, and, as the door
opened, hearing the loud voice of Bunsen exclaim, ‘Modern history! why,
modern history begins with Abraham!’
“He described how the Duke of Wellington would always arrange everything
for a battle--he did before Waterloo--and then would sleep soundly for
an hour. ‘How could you sleep so soundly?’--‘Why, I had arranged
everything.’
“Lady Salisbury said that her _masseuse_ went constantly to the Queen.
She told Lady Salisbury that what appeared to be lameness in the Queen
was merely that her feet were too small to support the weight of her
body. Her hands are those of a little child.
“She gave the most graphic description of an awful storm she encountered
in going to S. Tropez. ‘The rivers, you know, generally flow into the
sea, but then the sea flowed into the rivers: it was such a reversion
of things.’
“Describing his great-grandfather, Lord Salisbury said he swore so
horribly that he used to be called ‘Blastus, the king’s chamberlain.’
“I said how one of the things I most wished to see, Lady Anne
Grimston’s[529] tomb, was in Hertfordshire. ‘Oh,’ said Lady Salisbury,
‘I will drive you there in my sledge;’ and so she did, across the
snow-laden roads. It is the most extraordinary sight. Lady Anne Grimston
was a sceptic, and when she lay upon her deathbed in 1717, her family
were most anxious to make her believe in a future state, but she
wouldn’t. ‘It is as likely,’ she said, ‘that I should rise again as that
a tree should grow out of my body when I’m dead.’
“Lady Anne Grimston died, and was buried in Tewin churchyard, and over
her grave was placed a great altar-tomb, with a huge massive stone slab
on the top of it. In a year or two, this slab showed signs of internal
combustion, and out of the middle of it--out of the very middle of
it--grew a tree (some say six different trees, but one could not see in
winter), and increased, till, in the time which has elapsed, it has
become one of the largest trees in Hertfordshire. Not only that, but the
branches of the tree have writhed about the tomb like the feelers of an
octopus, have seized it, and lifted it into the air, so that the very
base of the tomb is high up now, one with the tree or trees, so are
they welded together. Then a railing was put round the tomb, and the
tree has seized upon it in the same way, has twisted the strong iron
rails like pack-thread, and they are to be seen tangled and twirled high
in the branches of the tree. Another railing has now been put, and the
tree will behave to it just as before.
“If this tree were abroad, it would become the most popular place of
pilgrimage in the world. As it is, thousands visit it--even across the
snow a regular path was worn to it. Tewin churchyard preaches more
sermons than a thousand clergymen.
“‘I have brought back Mr. Hare a most firm believer in a future state,’
said Lady Salisbury as we re-entered the Golden Gallery at Hatfield,
where all the guests were sitting.”
* * * * *
“_London, Feb. 2._--I dined with my two friends, Lewis Gilbertson and
Frank Cookson, who live so happily together in the charming little
canonical house of the former in Amen Court. Gilbertson told me how Mr.
Spooner of Oxford, celebrated for his absence of mind, was one evening
found wandering disconsolately about the streets of Greenwich. ‘I’ve
been here hours,’ he said. ‘I had an important appointment to meet some
one at “The Dull Man, Greenwich,” and I can’t find it anywhere; and the
odd thing is no one seems to have heard of it.’ Late at night he went
back to Oxford. ‘You idiot!’ exclaimed his wife; ‘why, it was the Green
Man, Dulwich, you had to go to.’”
* * * * *
_To_ HERBERT VAUGHAN OF LLANGOEDMORE.
“_April 21._--My visit at Elton has been most pleasant, Lord and Lady
Carysfort so kind, the house a climax of comfort, and the party one of
old friends, Knightleys, Peels, Lady Tollemache, and beautiful Lady
Claude Hamilton the elder. Then the gardens and groves are quite
beautiful, especially at this time--
‘When daisies pied and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight.’[530]
But what I really cared for most was that I accomplished my
long-wished-for pilgrimage to Little Gidding.
“It is a most attractive spot, a bosky hollow in the uplands, with a
pool and an oak-wood. The monastic house is gone, but probably stood
where a farmhouse stands now, and whence the raised path which led to
the still existing chapel is yet visible in the turf. An ancient
box-tree with a stem like an oak, contemporary with the old house,
stands on the grass. An old contemporary book in the library at Elton
had made me even more familiar than ‘John Inglesant’ had done with
Nicholas Ferrar, his sister--‘a tall ancient gentlewoman about eighty
years of age, she being matron of the house’--and with Mrs. Collet and
her sixteen children, including the seven sisters named after the
Christian virtues--the Patient, the Cheerful, the Affectionate, the
Submiss, the Moderate, and the Charitable--who spent their home hours in
making such wonderful books of Christian Harmonies.
“To me the chapel was of most touching interest, backed by the
oak-wood--‘the fine grove and sweet walks’ which the little book
describes. A broad paved path leads to the door, but in the midst of the
path rises a high grey altar-tomb--Nicholas Ferrar’s, I suppose--and on
its paving-stones are inscriptions over graves, in which you may still
make out the oft-repeated names of Ferrar and Collet. Inside, the chapel
is lined by stalls of Charles I. date, with round-headed canopies and
divided by oak pillars. Below is the open space where the sisterhood,
who kept the six canonical hours, ‘prayed publicly three times a day
after the order of the Booke of Common Prayer,’ and where the writer of
my little book himself saw ‘the mother-matron with all her traine, which
were her daughters and daughters’ daughters, who, with four sonnes,
kneeled all the while in the body of the half-space, all being in black
gownes and round Monmouth capps, save one of the daughters, who was in a
friar’s grey gowne.’ There are brasses on one side of the chancel arch
to John Ferrar, 1637, and John Ferrar, 1719; and on the other side to
Susanna Collet, daughter of Nicholas Ferrar, who ‘had eight sons and
eight daughters, and who died at the age of 76;’ below this is a brass
to ‘Amy, wife of John Ferrar, 1702.’ And within is the chancel, where,
with the sacrament, Inglesant received stillness and peace unspeakable,
and life and light and sweetness filled his mind; where in the misty
autumn sunlight and the sweeping autumn wind, heaven itself seemed to
have opened to him.’
“There were many minor relics of those who did not wish it, but were
called ‘the Nuns of Gidding’--an embossed book-cover of their
gold-thread work, and tapestry cases to hold the sacred books; and in
the farmhouse some old church plate, given to Nicholas Ferrar, and a
chalice inscribed ‘What Sir Edmund Sandys bequeathed to the remembrance
of friendship, his friende hath consecrated to the honour of God’s
service,’ and on the handle--‘For the church of Little Gidding of
Huntington Shire.’
“The owner of the property came to dinner at Elton, and told me that
Charles Fitzwilliam, Lord Fitzwilliam’s brother, was lost many years ago
in the wilds of America. When at the very last gasp, he saw the lights
of a farmhouse, to which he made his way. The woman of the house
received him most kindly, warmed and dried him, and made him some tea.
‘It will do you good; it’s Gidding tea: I had it over from
Gidding.’--‘What! Gidding in Huntingdonshire.’--‘Yes.’--‘Why, that’s
where I come from: I’m a Fitzwilliam!’”
* * * * *
_To_ W. H. MILLIGAN.
“_July 20, 1895._--I have come away from London because all that was
interesting in the season seemed to be at an end; but I enjoyed it to
the last, though certainly what I find to delight in would not please
many others. Most of all I have liked my quiet writing-table at the
Athenæum, and the silence, not the society, of the club, where no one,
except Lord Acton and myself, seems to work in the mornings. Then, after
two o’clock, I never go back, but see people for the rest of the day.
The garden-parties make this delightful, and I had charming afternoons
at Osterley, at Roehampton, and at Sion, where the brilliant groups of
people are so picturesque under the great cedar-trees. It was a great
pleasure once more, to be welcomed to Holland House, and to find how
much those who possess it appreciate its great interest and charm. Once
a week the writing-time was broken into, and I went with drawing-parties
to the garden at Lambeth, to Waltham Abbey, and to the roof of the
Record Office, whence we tried to paint St. Paul’s and all the satellite
City churches reared up against an opal sky. In the evenings there was
less of interest, and a great party at Devonshire House left more to
recollect than the daily dinners, with little real conversation. I think
it is Bacon who says, ‘A crowd is not company, and faces are but a
gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is not
love.’ The last day, however, a dinner at Lady Audrey Buller’s was most
pleasant. It was in honour of her cousin Captain Townshend, the hero of
Chitral, who gave me a most graphic description of lying all day smoking
behind a barrier of earth, with a spyhole through which he could fire at
any man who showed himself, hearing the thud of the return shot against
his barrier afterwards. Returning to England, he was shocked to find no
one but boys at the balls--‘boys who shake hands with a movement like
that of kangaroos.’ I sat by ---- the widow of the historian, who talked
of other historians, especially of Mr. Freeman--how he had the head of a
Jupiter on the body of a gorilla: how he did not eat, but devour; it was
no use to put anything less than a joint before him: how scenery never
gave him the power of realising an event which he could not read of. One
day at dinner Mr. Parker was within one of him. To him Freeman talked
incessantly across the lady who was next him. At last there was a pause.
The lady thought she would have her innings. ‘It has been very hot
weather lately, Mr. Freeman,’ she said. ‘Stuff and nonsense,’ said
Freeman. ‘Parker, you were saying,’ &c. His biographer misses all his
characteristics, but errs most in speaking of him as a typical Teuton,
when he was undoubtedly a typical Celt.
“I grumbled very much at being engaged to spend a Sunday in the country
during my London time, but never enjoyed a visit more than that to Mr.
and Mrs. Tower at the Weald, in Essex. It is only seventeen miles from
London, but wild and most beautiful, with glorious trees, a delightful
old house, and a still more delightful walled garden, with the curious
brick chapel of Mary I., a long tank, and an acre of splendid roses. We
ate rather too much and long, but the company was charming. I went and
came back with young Lord Abinger, whom I like particularly.
‘How delightful the elections are, and the blatant, self-seeking
hypocritical Radicals getting the worst of it. Do you know Luttrell’s
lines?--
‘Oh, that there might in England be
A duty on Hypocrisy,
A tax on humbug, an excise
On solemn plausibilities.”’
* * * * *
_To_ VISCOUNT HALIFAX.
“_Penrhyn Castle, Sept. 22, 1895._--I left home in the case of one
‘Chi per lungo silenzio parea fioco,’[531]
[Illustration: STOKESAY.]
and have much enjoyed my holiday talking-time. How many delightful
people there are in the world. I so seldom see any one I cannot care in
the least about. One side, one aspect, seems unprepossessing, but then,
if one takes the trouble to go round on the other side, one is sure to
find something. Was it not Socrates who said, ‘It is impossible to lead
a quiet life, for that would be to disobey the Deity.’ And I am sure no
one can carry their eyes about with them through a variety of people as
I do, without learning fresh lessons of compensating qualities to be
traced in most, and the uniform case of all in the fight to be fought,
however different the enemies with which each has to contend. I saw no
end of people in Shropshire when I was at Buntingsdale--so familiar in
my long-ago--for Gertrude Percy’s wedding at Hodnet. After that I was
in quieter scenes, but oh! how lovely, on Wenlock Edge, that
eighteen-mile long strip of craggy wooded hill which stretches from
Wenlock to Craven Arms, with such fine views over the rich plain below.
Wenlock Abbey I saw the evening I arrived, with its grand ruin, and the
curious cloistered abbot’s house, so well restored as a residence by the
Milnes-Gaskells. Lutwyche, which Lord and Lady Chetwynd have hired, is a
charming old house in the very centre of all the beauty, and each day we
went to some wonderful old grange, manor, or mansion--Langley, Shipton,
Stokesay, Wilderhope, but I think you would have liked best of all
Pitchford, the gem of old black and white houses, though you would not
have enjoyed as I did the untouched pews of the church, where there is a
gigantic oaken effigy of a thirteenth-century De Pitchford. At Condover
we saw Miss Mary Cholmondeley the authoress,[532] who looks a genius,
which most authoresses I have met do not. Even in conversation, ‘les
gens d’esprit sont bêtes’ is usually as true as possible.
[Illustration: PITCHFORD.]
“Penrhyn Castle has been delightful, and my room, with its exquisite
views over sea and mountains, the most delightful thing in it. Lady
Penrhyn presides over the great place with the calm of perpetual
moonlight: sunlight is left to her beautiful and impulsive
step-daughter Miss Alice (Pennant), who orders out no end of carriages
to take guests up into the hills or wherever they want to go. And of
course I longed to go to Ogwen Bank and Capel Curig, connected with my
mother’s childhood, and more than ever admired these rude savage purple
mountains, which have so much individual character that height is quite
a secondary consideration. Then yesterday we went to that island in the
Menai Straits, where there is an old chapel of great sanctity, to which
Welsh funerals still wind along a narrow causeway, singing their
beautiful hymns as they go.
“Do you know that ‘The Gurneys of Earlham’ is out? You will not like it,
I think, and indeed I feel myself, that Carlyle would be justified in
saying it was ‘a very superfluous book.’ Still, I will anticipate your
asking me, and tell you that, up to its lights, it is not a bad piece of
work. The whole family are a singular instance of unity without
uniformity. While I have worked at the book, I have become irresistibly
and most strongly attracted by such characters as Catherine Gurney and
Richenda Cunningham, though for the great fetish of the family, the
self-opinionated, self-parading, egotistical Joseph John, I never could
have any warm feeling. Yet a descendant of one of his cousins (Lady Fry)
assures me that she was so distressed on hearing of his death in her
childhood, that she pulled down all the blinds of her doll’s house. So
he must have had his attractive points.
“The book is certainly better reading than the earlier memoirs of those
it concerns. Of those memoirs I heard an amusing story the other day.
Mr. Parke of Andover, a great American philosopher and thinker, at one
time quite lost the power of sleep. He said he had long tried all
remedies in vain, but at last found a remedy which never failed. It was
to have a book read to him, the story of a woman’s life. It always took
effect at once, and soothed him into the sweetest slumbers. If he was
nervous, his wife would take the book and begin--‘Elizabeth Fry was
born’--‘But,’ said Mr. Parke, ‘she has begun that book constantly for
two years, and I have never found out where she was born yet, for with
the first words I am in dreamland.’
“Here are two little stories for you. Miss R. told me how the Bishop of
Winchester and the Dean of Windsor were walking together down the street
of Windsor, when they saw a little boy struggling to reach a bell. ‘Why,
you’re not tall enough, my little man; let me ring the bell for you,’
said the Bishop. ‘Yes, if you please, sir,’ said the boy modestly. So
the Bishop gave the bell a good pull. ‘Now then, sir, run like the
devil,’ shrieked the boy, as he made off as hard as he could.
“Little E. L. was very naughty indeed the other day, and not only
scratched her governess, but spit at her. ‘How can you have been so
naughty?’ said her mother, ‘it can only have been the devil who made you
do such a thing.’ ‘Well, perhaps it was the devil who told me to scratch
her,’ replied little E----, ‘but, as for the spitting, it was entirely
my own idea.’”
* * * * *
_To_ W. H. MILLIGAN.
“_Garrowby, Yorkshire, Oct. 4._--The glorious weather which illuminated
Wales continued at Lyme, which was still in the full splendour of summer
flowers. I drew with Lady Newton each day, one day at Prestbury, where
there is a wonderful old Norman mortuary chapel, like those in Brittany.
Mrs. Mitford was at Lyme, and it was a pleasure to talk with her of the
dear Lady Egerton, whom we both so much appreciated, and who preserved
her sunny nature to the last. ‘How sad to see you suffering so!’ said
Mrs. M. to her in her last terrible illness. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but then,
you know, I have _enjoyed every day of my life_.’ Thinking of her, it is
a difficult endeavour to be ‘doux envers la mort,’ as Bossuet said after
Henrietta Maria’s death.
“I went on to flattest Lincolnshire, to Revesby Abbey, to visit my
distant cousin, dear Edward Stanhope’s widow. It is delightful to see
how, by making the effort at once, it is no effort to her now to talk of
him, and indeed he is so often spoken of, that he seems to have a part
still in the family life, and his cheerful grave, like a little garden,
under the east window of the church which he built, has nothing sad. It
is as if he had gone from this room into the next. Yet how delightful he
was, how truly lovable! I was taken, by my urgent desire, to Mavis
Enderby; but it is a little inland village with an insignificant church,
which could by no possibility have given any tidal warning; so I suppose
Jean Ingelow only took the name[533] because of its musical sound. On
the way we passed some grassy mounds. ‘What are those?’--‘The remains of
Bolingbroke--of the castle of Bolingbroke.’ How Arthur Stanley would
have loved them; yet they are amongst the things which are worth seeing
but not worth going to see. Another day we went by the remains of the
old house of Eresby, which gave its name to Willoughby d’Eresby, to
visit the grand tombs of the Willoughbys at Spilsby. They are all of
alabaster, the last representing a mother who died in childbirth, with
the infant which cost her life by her side in its cradle. Sir John
Franklin was born at Spilsby, and he and his two brothers have monuments
in the church. Their father was a small farmer close by, and when his
farm failed, he settled in the village itself, and kept its shop,
grocery on one side the door, drapery on the other. And, coming from
thence, John Franklin became the most famous of those Arctic travellers
whom Wilkie Collins aptly describes as ‘the men who go nowhere and find
nothing.’ In this drive we passed by Keil, where the church tower had
suddenly collapsed. ‘Well, now, how was it? was it a hurricane, or did
the soil give way, or what?’ said Mrs. Egerton to the sexton, who for a
minute answered nothing, and then, ‘Well, mum, ‘twere this way; her just
squatted and settled.’
“The house at Revesby was full of interesting objects. Amongst them was
a magnificent repeater watch which belonged to the old Lord
Stanhope.[534] One night, when he was out late, a man pounced upon him
with pistols and ‘Your money or your life.’ Always imperturbable, Lord
Stanhope replied very slowly, ‘My friend, I have no money with
me.’--‘No,’ said the robber, ‘but you have your watch; I must have your
watch.’--‘My friend, this watch was given to me by one very dear to me,
and I value it extremely. It is considered to be worth £100. Now, if you
will trust me, I will this evening place a hundred-pound note in the
hollow of that tree.’ And the highwayman trusted him and Lord Stanhope
placed the note there.
“Very many years after, Lord Stanhope was at a public dinner in London,
and opposite him sat a City magnate of great wealth and influence. They
conversed pleasantly. Next day Lord Stanhope received a letter from him,
enclosing a hundred-pound note, and saying, ‘It was your Lordship’s kind
_loan_ of that sum many years ago that started me in life, and enabled
me to rise to have the honour of sitting opposite your Lordship at
dinner.’
“When I was a child, ‘Marmion’ made me long passionately to see Whitby,
and ‘Sylvia’s Lovers’ afterwards increased the longing. Now I have been
there, and what a wonderful place it is. I think nothing on the English,
or French, or Spanish, or German coasts is equal to it. The first
morning was a thick fog--a most blessed fog. I felt a presentiment of
what would happen. I was certain where the abbey was, and through the
dim streets, up the slippery steps, and between the gravestones of the
churchyard dripping with wet, I made my way to a certain field, which I
was sure was the right place, and there I waited. Soon out of the thick
mists rose, bathed in sudden sunlight, the grand ruin of an abbey, all
glorious in the heavens, but no earth visible. It was as the summit of
Mont Blanc is sometimes seen, but a New Jerusalem, in splendour beyond
words--‘And the building of the wall of it was of pure gold.’ And then
suddenly the fog came down again and it vanished, and in a few minutes,
when the veil drew up the second time, a noble ruined abbey stood there,
every arch and pillar reflected in the waters of a lonely tarn, but it
was only the bones of the glorious vision which had been.
“The old courthouse of the Cholmondeleys was the abbot’s house, and in
it was ‘Lady Anne’s Chamber,’ terribly haunted. A figure used to come
down from a picture over the chimney, and was seen by many still living.
Close by was a passage with an oubliette, down which ‘the nuns used to
throw their babies.’ All, except the offices, has been cleared away by
Sir C. Strickland, and a hideous modern house built. Down the steep way
below the house Sir Nicholas Cholmondeley used to drive his four-in-hand
furiously.
“The fog was fainter all the rest of that day, and oh! how I luxuriated
in the winding ways upon the cliffs, in the dark red roofs piled one
upon another, and the delicate grey distances of buildings or sea.
“Here, at Garrowby, I have been very happy with the Halifaxes. I always
feel better for the life with them, and I have especially liked the
spiritual part of it here, where there is no chaplain, as at Hickleton,
and where the services in the beautiful little chapel are led by
Charlie Halifax himself. Everybody joins, and a footman sings gloriously
at the very pitch of his voice. In everything Charlie recalls to me
something which I have read with a higher reference--‘Not by his
doctrines has Christ laid hold upon the heart of men, but by the story
of his life.’[535] He has ‘under all circumstances that just admixture
in the moral character of sweetness and dignity’ which Marcus Aurelius
speaks of. Unlike everything else is the simplicity and singleness of
heart and purpose written so distinctly on everything he says and does.
Action is easy and natural where faith is so absolute. ‘At all times a
man who would do faithfully must believe firmly,’ was a saying of
Carlyle. And though religion pervades everything, no house was ever so
gay as that of which Charlie is master. What merriment we have had over
our games in the evening: what fun over the mysterious disappearances by
day into the four secret chambers which make this house so curious: what
admirably good stories have been told; and while the loss of the dear
boys who are gone ever leaves a blank in the parents’ hearts, how happy
life is made for the children who remain! ‘La joie est très bonne pour
la santé: ce qui est sot, c’est d’être triste’[536]--this seems to be
one of the minor guides of action. The place is not very interesting,
but the house delightfully full of books and pictures. In the park are
African cows, Japanese deer, emus, and kangaroos. Lady Ernestine
Edgecumbe and Lady Beauchamp are here. It is a little society of those
who feel that ‘we may not only know the truth, but may live even in this
life in the very household and court of God.’”[537]
* * * * *
_To_ GEORGE COCKERTON.
“_Holmhurst, Oct. 9._--My return home was saddened by finding dear old
Harriet Rogers--Lea’s niece--in a dying state at her little cottage in
the grounds. She was just able to recognise me, and whispered
touchingly, ‘I thank you! I thank you!’ As in the many other people I
have now seen enter the shadow of death, there was no fear and no joy;
the power of mental emotion seemed past. Yesterday, whilst I was with
her, she died, passing the barrier quite painlessly. Yet what a change
for her! There is always something very awe-striking in it.
‘And her smooth face sharpened slowly,’
is a line of the ‘Lady of Shalott’ which Tennyson afterwards removed, as
giving too painful an image of death; but it is exactly what happens.
To-day I feel it--yes, _odd_ to see the same farm and garden life, in
which she was interested and had a share, going on the same, and that
her part in it should be so suddenly over--snapped. How she must be
longing to tell one now what she felt at that momentous moment. I am
exactly like the person in ‘Hitherto’--‘I can’t get over expectin’ her
to come in and talk it all over. It seems as though she couldn’t do
nothin’ without tellin’ folk how!--But there, I dare say,--if ‘tain’t
wicked to think of it,--it’s half over heaven by this time.’
“‘Il faut mourir et rendre compte de sa vie, voilà dans toute sa
simplicité le grand enseignement de la maladie. Fais au plus tôt ce que
tu as à faire; rentre dans l’ordre, songe à ton devoir; prépare-toi au
départ; voilà ce que crient la conscience et la raison.’[538]
“My ‘North-Western France’ is now ready to appear. It has been an
immense labour, one compared with which ‘The Gurneys of Earlham’ is as a
drop to a river; but I have no doubt the latter will be more read, and
certainly more reviewed, for scarcely any Englishmen know enough of
France to be critical about descriptions of it. I have another little
book ready too--‘Biographical Essays’--which is sure to meet with plenty
of abuse, but does not deserve much, all the same. In it I have tried to
give such a picture of Arthur Stanley as may make people love him as a
friend, whilst they shrink from following him as a guide.”
XXX
IN MANY PLACES
“The whole value and meaning of life lies in the single sense of
conscience--duty.”--FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE.
“Do weel and dread nought though thou be espyit;
He is little gude worth that is not envyit:
Take thou nae heed what tales man tells;
If thou would’st live undeemed, gang where nae man dwells.”
--SIR WALTER SCOTT _in Orloff Davydoff’s Album_.
“True happiness is only to be obtained by devotedness to the will
of God. Seeking the universal good--the highest good of all. Life
can only be truly happy, not when we are in ecstasy, but when we
are doing right.”--THOMAS COOPER, _Thoughts at Fourscore_.
“Let nothing disturb thee,
Let nothing affright thee--
All passeth:
God only remaineth.
Patience wins all things;
Who hath God lacketh nothing:
Alone God supplieth.”
--ST. THERESA’S _Bookmark_.
Greatly as I always enjoy my little home of Holmhurst, dear as every
corner of it is to me, I never feel as if it was well to stay there too
long in winter alone. In summer, Nature itself can give sufficient
companionship; but when earth is dead and frost-bound, the silence in
the long hours after sunset becomes almost terrible, and I increasingly
feel that late autumn and winter are the best time for visits.
* * * * *
_To_ VISCOUNT HALIFAX.
“_Holmhurst, Nov. 25._--I have much enjoyed a visit from Mr. and Mrs.
Cummings, the Americans who were so kind to us on our terrible return
journey from Italy in 1860, and of whom the wife, at least, is so
clever, that she is suffering--as Mrs. Kemble said once of some
one--from a constipation of her talents. They came here fresh from a
visit to Haworth, much impressed with its severe desolation,--‘that any
one should be able to have any hope, or look forward to a future life,
on the top of Haworth hill is nothing short of a miracle.’ They have
made a Brontë museum there now, chiefly full of Branwell’s drawings, of
great interest, chiefly military. Did you know that Mr. Nichols hoped to
have been rector when Mr. Brontë died? But it was given by election, and
he was unpopular, and it went against him. He is still living in
Ireland, whither he took all the Brontë memorials he cared for. The rest
were sold by auction, and the butcher, baker, and candlestick-maker of
Haworth bought them. The sexton showed Mrs. Cummings some of Charlotte’s
underclothing, delicately marked by herself with her C. B., and her
wedding shoes, of some grey material to match her dress. He had often
seen her and her sister come out of the house, and go through the little
gate at the back to the moors, which at Haworth are grass, not heather.
After Charlotte married, Mr. Nichols would not let her write. His mind
was of the very narrowest, and he disapproved of novels, and when she
was pent up in that solitude, and all her secret thoughts were pent up
too, and never allowed to come out in writing, she--died.
[Illustration: IN THE WALKS, HOLMHURST.]
“Mrs. Cummings says we should not like America; ‘it is a country utterly
without perspective; one must go up to the Indians and the Jesuit
missionaries for that.’ She has been describing Miss Louisa
Alcott,[539] the well-known authoress. ‘She lived with her old father
and her beautiful mother and her three sisters. They used to write
little stories. One day her sisters said, “Louisa, you must write
something more than these.”--“I would, but I can’t do it here,” she
answered. So the sisters clubbed their little savings together, and they
sold a few things, and Louisa went to Boston. There she called upon
Roberts, the publisher of all American good things, and said, “I want to
write a story.”--“Very well,” he answered; “what kind will you
take?”--“Oh, I can’t make up anything,” said Louisa; “I can only just
write what I know.”--“Oh, you can just write what you know,” said
Roberts; “then don’t stay talking here; go away at once and begin.” So
she went and lived by herself and wrote, and in five weeks she brought
him her “Little Women.” He took it and said, “Come again to-morrow.” And
when she went next day he said, “Well, I will take your story, and I
will offer you one of two things; either you can take two hundred
dollars down for it, or you can take your chance.”--“But what would you
do if you were me?” asked Miss Alcott. Roberts said he had never been
placed in such an awkward predicament in his life, but he spoke the
truth and said, “I would take my chance.” She did, and soon after he had
to pay her 10,000 dollars.[540] She wrote “Little Men” afterwards, but
it did not answer as well; boys do not take books to their pillows as
girls do.’
“‘I love crying,’ said Mrs. Cummings, ‘but then I must have somebody to
cry to. I cried as a little girl because I thought my mother might die,
but I cried most because I thought that then I should have no one to cry
_to_.’ Miss Alcott said to her, ‘My dear, I shouldn’t mind dying if it
wasn’t for the funeral.’
“‘Mr. Tennyson was very rude and coarse,’ said Mrs. Cummings, ‘but he
died well--reading his little book in the moonlight: he really couldn’t
have done it better.’
“‘Louisa Payson, who wrote “The Pastor’s Daughter” and many other
books,[541] would not say “thank you” when she was a little girl. Her
father, the stern minister, punished her in various ways, but it was no
good--she said she couldn’t. So at last, at five years old, he turned
her out of doors late on a winter’s evening. He went to his affairs,
forgot her, I suppose; but her mother was in an agony, and she prayed
for her child with all the spirit that was in her. At last she could
bear it no longer, and she opened the door a little way, and then she
heard a little wail of “I can’t say thank you: I can’t say thank you.”
What was the end I do not know, but at any rate Louisa did not die, and
lived to write books.’
“These are some snatches from the Holmhurst tea-table.”
* * * * *
_To_ HERBERT VAUGHAN.
“_Kingston Vicarage, Wareham, Nov. 10._--You would have liked going with
us to Wool, on a ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ pilgrimage, for there,
rising by the reedy river-side, is the old gabled house to which Tess
was taken after her marriage. It is exactly as Hardy describes it;[542]
even the plank bridge remains across which Angel carried her in his
sleep to the stone coffin at Bindon Abbey. The two old pictures
mentioned in the book really hang at the top of the staircase, and the
lady in one of them is supposed to blow out the candle of any one who
ventures up the stairs after midnight. The whole country-side is full of
memories of the D’Urbervilles, and there are many still living who
depose to having met their phantom coach and four with outriders. The
family still exists at Kingston as--Tollerfield!
“We had an awful storm last night, but such hurricanes are the fashion
in Purbeck. A Mr. Bellasye, returning home, met, not his
bathing-machine, but his bathing-_house_ coming to meet him across the
hedges and ditches. Mr. and Mrs. Wordsworth had a huge hole blown into
their roof by one gust; but that did not much signify, as the next gust
blew a haystack on to the roof and filled the hole up. All the cabbages
and other vegetables in the kitchen-garden are frequently blown out of
the earth and into a heap in a corner, and on one occasion those in the
rectory-garden were all blown into the church porch.”
* * * * *
_To_ VISCOUNT HALIFAX.
“_Elvedon, Thetford, Nov. 14._--All the way back from Dorsetshire did I
come for the pleasure of meeting the Duchess of York here (at Lord and
Lady Iveagh’s); but that was not to be, as an impending event is
considered too near for her to travel with safety. The Duke is here, and
very unaffected and pleasant, really a very nice prince, and quite
good-looking. He never fails to be punctual to the moment--a grand
quality for a prince, and due, probably, to naval discipline. He talks a
great deal, and talks well, but in reality princes have no chance--no
chance at all--conversationally, as no one ever contradicts them,
however much they disagree; no subjects are aired but those which they
choose for themselves, and the merest commonplaces from royal lips are
listened to as if they were oracles.
“Anything more odious or annoying than being a prince certainly cannot
be imagined. Such a wearisome round of dullest duties and painful
‘pleasures’ as it is their life’s-work to live in like a tread-mill.
Then, every fault of manner, far more of conduct and character, is
commented, dwelt on, and exaggerated. I should be sorry for any prince,
but am really dreadfully sorry for this one, as he would have been
charming, and might have been extremely happy if the misfortune of his
birth had not condemned him to the severe and miserable existence of
princedom, in which all minor faults are uncorrected because
unsuggested, though I believe such a true friend and fine character as,
for instance, Lord Carrington, would always notice any sufficiently
grave to be of consequence either to the country or the royal family.
“I floated here in the luxurious saloon carriage of a special train, but
felt rather shy, because whereas all the rest of the party were on terms
of christian-name intimacy, I knew none of them before except Lord
Rowton, who is, however, always very kind and pleasant. But I was
interested to see those who are so frequently part of the royal circle,
and liked them all, especially and extremely Lord and Lady Carrington;
but then--everyone does!
“I wonder if you know this house of Elvedon. It was Duleep Singh’s, and
he tried to make it like an Indian palace inside. Much of his decoration
still remains, and the delicate white stucco-work has a pretty effect
when mingled with groups of tall palms and flowering plants. Otherwise
the house (with the kindest of hosts), is almost appallingly luxurious,
such masses of orchids, electric light everywhere, &c. However, a
set-off the other way is an electric piano, which goes on pounding away
by itself with a pertinacity which is perfectly distracting. In the
evenings singing men and dancing women are brought down from London, and
are supposed to enliven the royal guest.
“You know, probably, how this place is the most wonderful shooting in
England. The soil is so bad that it is not worth cultivating, and
agriculture has been abandoned as a bad business. Game is found to be
far more profitable. The sterile stony fields are intersected at
intervals by belts of fir; the hedges, where they exist, are of Scotch
fir kept low; and acres of thick broom are planted. Each day I have gone
out with the luncheon party, and we have met the shooters at tents
pitched at different parts of the wilderness, where boarded floors are
laid down, and a luxurious banquet is prepared, with plate and flowers.
The quantity of game killed is almost incredible, and the Royal Duke
shot more than any one, really, I believe, owing to his being a very
good shot, and not, as so often is the case in royal battues, from the
birds being driven his way.
“A great feature of the party is Admiral Keppel, kindest, most
courteous, and most engaging of old gentlemen, so captivating that there
is always a rivalry amongst the ladies as to who shall walk with him,
and amongst the men to get hold of his stories. He told me of how his
father first started him on his naval career, and, while he talked it
over at Holcombe, made him sit in the same chair in which he had talked
the same subject over with Nelson when he was starting _him_.
“He described the prayers at Holcombe on Sunday evening in his boyhood.
After dinner the men were allowed an hour or two over their wine. Then
the prayer-bell rang, and they all went in. Afterwards an old servant
stayed to take up those who could not get up from their knees, and carry
them to bed by turns when they were too drunk to go by themselves.
“He remembered Charles James Fox reeling down the corridor at Holcombe,
falling helplessly from side to side. His father followed him, and he
followed his father, who kept exclaiming, ‘Good God! drunk! Good God!
drunk again!’ for the expression had not gone out then.
“He said that the present Lord Leicester and his father had married at
exactly a hundred years apart.”
* * * * *
_To_ W. H. MILLIGAN _and_ JOURNAL.
“_Nov. 27, Hornby Castle, Bedale._--I came here yesterday. Several
people were in the castle omnibus when I got into it at the station, of
whom a grand lion-like old man turned out to be Mr. Bayard, the American
Ambassador. It was dark when we arrived. We found the Duchess (of
Leeds), tall, gracious, and most winning in manner, and indeed all the
family, in a noble hall, coved at the top, with busts in the upper
niches, like the halls of Roman palaces, and looking (by daylight) into
a courtyard, which is very picturesque and curious.
“Lady Harewood is here, sweet-looking and very white, with a pleasant
daughter, Mr. and Lady Alice Shaw Stewart, and several young men. Mr.
Bayard came down to dinner much delighted with a book he had found in
his room--the ‘Life of Agrippina’--in which ‘What news from Armenia?’ is
anxiously asked, showing how the same subject occupied conversation then
as now, at a distance of nineteen centuries. He said, ‘When bad men
_conspire_, good men ought to _confederate_.’
“This morning, in the library, I had much and delightful talk with Mr.
Bayard. He gave an interesting account of the allotment of land in
America: how a reserve was left to the Indians, but they were dying out,
chiefly because of their catching all the vices of Europeans, especially
their love of alcohol. He said they were like the buffaloes. These used
to come down and swoop through the country in vast herds, and devour all
the spring produce; and later, in their vast battalions they would
swoop back again; but now, fettered and shut in by barriers and fences,
they pined, starved, and died; and so it was with the Indians. He
described how, after an unjust woman had published a libel on her
country,[543] the greatest suffering had resulted to the slaves, who
would follow their former masters to suffering, wounds, imprisonment,
and death. A Southern lady, when ‘the army of liberation’ approached,
had entrusted all her silver and jewels to her slaves, and they had
brought it all back safely after the army had passed.
“He talked of the Banco di S. Giorgio at Genoa--‘one of the most
interesting buildings in the world;’ that whereas the Bank of London had
lasted two centuries, that of Genoa had lasted five: that the Bank was
the greatest evidence of the philosophy of nations. No aspersion was
ever cast upon it, and this was because those who administered it had
never derived any profit from it, only honour. An instance of its
usefulness as a record-office occurred lately, when a man in America
offered Mr. H. an autograph letter of Columbus. To all appearance it was
genuine, but Mr. H. asked leave, which was readily granted, to have a
photograph facsimile made of it before purchasing. In the Banco di
Giorgio the original letter was found, and, when compared with the
facsimile, proved that the copy was false. This was especially
fortunate, as, after Napoleon I., ‘that great collector of other
people’s property,’ took away the archives of Genoa, though most were
restored, all were not.
“The library at Hornby is full of interest, but I can only remember a
fifteenth-century ‘Roman de la Rose;’ a first edition of Shakspeare,
which came to its present owners through Henrietta, Duchess of
Marlborough, who inherited it from William Congreve; and a copy of
‘Dionysius the Areopagite,’ by Beghir, ‘the one-eyed scribe of
Brabant’--most delightful name--with notes by Dean Colet.
“The Duchess has shown us the house minutely and delightfully. The
family portraits were full of interest, beginning with that of Sir
William Hewitt, whose daughter married William Osborne, the apprentice
who saved her when she fell over London Bridge, and who founded the
Leeds family. In a curious Hogarth of ‘The Beggar’s Opera,’ the Duke of
Bolton is represented watching the acting of Polly Peachum, whom he
afterwards married: the picture is here because Sir Conyers d’Arcy, an
ancestor of the house, is also represented. Mr. Bayard was delighted to
find portraits of the wife of the seventh Duke, who was Miss Caton, one
of four beautiful American sisters.[544] The Duchess was amused that I
had never heard of ‘Godolphin Arabian,’ the ancestor of a succession of
famous racehorses.[545] In one of the rooms is the miniature
spinning-wheel of Madame de Pompadour; in another, a bed of such
glorious embroidery that when Lady Marian Alford was here, she could not
get up for looking at it.”
* * * * *
“_Nov. 29._--At breakfast, at one of several little round tables, Mr.
Bayard talked pleasantly of a grave in the cemetery at Nuremberg. It is
one of Adam Kraft’s iron tombstones, and it bears no name. Affixed to it
is a human skull, exquisitely modelled, with a jaw which opens and
shuts. In the forehead--the bronze forehead--is a white patch of some
other metal. The story is that the owner of that skull was very
unhappily married. His misery drove him from home, drove him into very
bad company, and he sank lower and lower. One day he suddenly died and
was buried; but soon afterwards his family began to suspect foul play,
and he was exhumed. At first his body seemed to bear no witness, but
then, in his forehead, under his hair, a large nail was found, buried up
to the hilt, hammered in so accurately that no blood had come. Every one
believed that it was his wife who had done it, but it could not be
brought home to her; his associates were too bad for their evidence to
be trusted. But the model of his skull was laid upon his grave, and his
wife left the place; she could not continue to exist near it.
“We went to luncheon at Thorp-Perrow with Sir Frederick and Lady
Milbank, who have a glorious garden. He is full of antiquarian lore and
interests, and has a precious collection of old locks and keys. She
knows sixteen languages well, and is learning a seventeenth. Hungarian
she acquired for the sake of its literature. A despatch came to the
Foreign Office in Hungarian, and no one there could read it, but Austen
Lee sent it to Lady Milbank, who translated it at once. The Milbanks
were very intimate with Madame Goldschmidt, whom they lived next door
to in London. One day in a church--a country church--they saw her go out
of her pew and shake a woman by her shoulders. ‘What on earth had that
unfortunate woman done?’ they asked when they came out. ‘Why, didn’t you
hear she was singing a false second.’”
* * * * *
“_Hams, Birmingham, Nov. 30._--This is a large house of extreme comfort,
and its owner, Lord Norton, who looks sixty, though he is eighty-two, is
one of the most agreeable hosts in England. Walking on the terrace this
morning, he said he ought to put up a slab to record how the whole
constitution of New Zealand was settled on that terrace: that which was
arranged while walking up and down there had never been altered. The
view of the pretty windings of the Thame recalled the exclamation of a
famous landscape-gardener when he saw it--‘Clever!’ ‘It was not made, it
is natural,’ said Lord Norton. But no, his friend could not regard it
except from the gardening point of view, and ‘clever’ was all he could
say. The river was terribly polluted by Birmingham, and Lord Norton went
to law about it. ‘Should the convenience of one man be considered before
that of millions?’ exclaimed the Birmingham advocate at the trial.
‘Yes,’ shouted the opposition, ‘for the grandeur of English law is that
millions may not interfere with the comfort and well-being of a single
individual. Now the pollution is partially diverted into a sewage farm
five miles in extent.
“The clergyman here has only the care of three hundred souls, so he
keeps three hundred chickens, and is often able to supplement his income
by getting fifty pounds for a cock.
“An oak avenue leads to the church, being a remnant probably of the
Forest of Arden, of which there are many traces still, but such an
avenue is very rare. The late storm had blown down several fine trees.
‘How strange it is,’ said Lord Norton, ‘that amid the thousand--the
million--theories that science has put forth, there should be none about
the wind: it is one of the many incidental proofs of the truths of the
Bible, that our Saviour saw this when he spoke of--“The wind bloweth
where it listeth,” &c.
“‘Those who say that as to religion we know nothing, do not recognise
that half religion is instinct (every one has the instinct that there is
a God), and the other half what Pascal calls “the submission of
reason.”’
“Lord Norton used to know very well Ellis the shoemaker, who devoted
himself to the reformation of boys. He said, ‘I do not take them to make
shoes only; I take them to give them a conscience.’ He said, ‘Many
people say that the boys are fools, but they are philosophers. They
reason at night. I overhear them; I hear them reasoning as to whether
there is a God.’ There was one boy especially who denied this, who
laughed at all who believed. One day this boy was given a parcel to take
to Sir Moses Montefiore. Now the boys may steal, but however much they
do that, when they are entrusted with anything, they are most tenacious
to fulfil their trust. This boy only knew of Sir Moses by his popular
name of ‘the King of the Jews,’ and all day long he asked his way to
him in vain. He could not find him anywhere. Evening closed in, and he
was faint with hunger and fatigue. He was quite sinking, but at the last
gasp cried, ‘O God, if there be a God, help me.’
“Immediately a policeman rushed at him. ‘What have you got there, you
young rascal? What’s in that parcel?--something you’ve been stealing, I
suppose?’--‘No, ‘taint; it’s a parcel for the King of the Jews, and I
can’t find him.’--‘Why, you young fool,’ said the policeman, shaking
him, ‘it’s Sir Moses Montefiore you mean: I can show you where to find
him.’
“That night the boys were philosophising as usual, declaring that there
was no God, there couldn’t be, when the boy who had taken the parcel
shouted, ‘Stop that rubbish, you fellows; there _is_ a God, and I _know_
it: and as for you, you’re just as much able to judge of God as a worm
is to judge of me.’”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 2._--A walk amidst the remnants of the Forest of Arden led to
much talk about trees. ‘When Gladstone meets any one new,’ said Lord
Norton, ‘his first thought is, “What does he know? what can I get out of
him?” When he met Lord Leigh, he had heard of Stoneleigh, that it
possessed some of the finest oaks in England; so, when he sat down by
him, he began at once, “Lord Leigh, have you any theory as to the age of
oaks?”--“Yes, certainly I have; I possess several myself that are above
a thousand years old.”--“And how do you know that is so?” said
Gladstone. “Well,” said Lord Leigh, “I have several that are called
‘Gospel Oaks,’ because the old Saxon missionaries used to preach under
them more than eight hundred years ago, and they would not be likely to
choose a young oak to preach under: we may suppose that they chose an
oak at least two hundred years old.”--“Well, that is a very good
reason,” said Gladstone.’
“Lord Norton had lately been with Gladstone to Drayton, full of Peel
relics, and with the wonderful collection of portraits which Sir Robert
brought together. All the heads of Government, from Walpole to the Peel
Administration, are represented. The pistols are preserved with which
Peel intended to fight O’Connell at Calais, but O’Connell’s wife
prevented it by giving notice and getting him arrested at Dover.
“While talking of hunting as conducive to the manliness of Englishmen,
Lord Norton said, ‘When I was hunting with Charlie Newdigate, a boy
almost naked, not quite, came out of a coal-pit, and on a donkey,
without saddle or bridle, hunted with us all day, not going over the
hedges, but through them. Newdigate was delighted. “_That’s_ the stuff
English heroes are made of,” he said, and he had a long talk with the
boy afterwards, and explained to him all about the field, &c.... In
Northumberland there was a boy who would ride one of his father’s bulls.
His father cut him off at last, and would have nothing more to do with
him. ‘I’m not a bad father,’ he said, ‘and I don’t mind his riding my
bull, but when he takes him out with the hounds it’s too much.’”
* * * * *
“_The Deanery, Llandaff, Dec. 7._--Lord Robert Bruce told me the facts
of Lord Llanover’s ghost story. As Sir Benjamin Hall and he were riding
in the Park in London, Sir Benjamin distinctly saw Lord Rivers, who was
an intimate friend of his, and he _saw him vanish_. He went to his club
immediately afterwards, and told what he had seen, and before he left
the club a telegram was brought in announcing that Lord Rivers was dead.
Afterwards Sir Benjamin Hall went to Mrs. Hanbury Leigh, and told her
what had happened, adding, ‘You know this must mean something; it must
mean that I am myself to die within the year;’ and so he did.
“I have enjoyed being again with the cousin so deeply loved in my
childhood, and also seeing the really beautiful work of the gentle and,
I am sure, holy Dean amongst the young men preparing for orders, who
hover reveringly around him.’
“Catherine Vaughan has told me how, after Augusta Stanley’s death, she
said to Mrs. Drummond (of Megginch), who was living at the Deanery,
‘Augusta’s presence so seems to fill this place, that I quite wonder she
never appears here;’ and was startled by the way in which Mrs. Drummond
said, ‘_She does_.’ Augusta used on her death-bed to say to Arthur, ‘I
shall always be near you when you give the Benediction.’ One day in the
Abbey, between the arches, but quite near Arthur, Mrs. Drummond most
distinctly saw Augusta--a vaporous figure, wrapped in folds of vaporous
white drapery, but with every feature as distinctly visible as in life.
This was just before the Benediction, and as its last tones died away
the appearance vanished. Mrs. Drummond had no doubt about it at all.”
* * * * *
_To_ GEORGE COCKERTON.
“_Burwarton, Shropshire, Dec. 12._--This is a charming place in the high
Clee Hills, and Lord and Lady Boyne, who live in it, are quite
delightful. I have been working for a great part of several days in the
library at a little book on ‘Shropshire,’ which I hope to be able to
finish another year. You would have been amused by the quaint sayings of
an old clergyman who came to dinner. Speaking of an unusually stupid
neighbour he said, ‘His folly is incredible, but even he has his lucid
intervals, for the other day he told me he knew he was an ass.’
“I would give up, if I were you, taking the extra work you speak of.
There is an old Swedish proverb which says--‘You cannot get more out of
an ox than beef,’ and there is no use, none, in trying to do, or to be,
two things at once.”
* * * * *
_To_ VISCOUNT HALIFAX.
“_Rome, April 23, 1896._--I wonder if you know that I have been abroad
since the first of February. At first, for a month, I was on ‘the
Rivieras,’ finishing up a little volume which will be so called, and
which will appear before next winter. Some new places are opened up now
by a railway--a most beautiful miniature railway--from Hyères to S.
Raphael, and amongst them is S. Maxime, a quiet scene of tranquil
beauty, where the pension is still only six francs, in a charming little
hotel with a garden which comes down to a sea-cove, where you look
across transparent shallows of emerald-green water into mountain
distances, not grand, but supremely lovely, and where, in our long-ago
days, you and I should have been in a fever of romantic interest over
the old castle of Grimaud, which was the cradle of the princely
Grimaldis.
“At Nice, I was not in the town, but at the old Villa Arson, which you
will remember. It is now a hotel, though its wonderful garden, full of
statues, staircases, fountains, and grottoes amongst the flowers and
palm-trees, is quite untouched. It was all beautiful, and the sky was
cloudlessly blue for a month; and I lingered at Bordighera with the
Strathmores and my dear old friend Emilia de Bunsen, and then at Alassio
with my cousin Lady Paul, and at beautiful Rapallo. But oh! the
difference on entering real Italy, and finding oneself in the delightful
old-world streets of Lucca, with their clean pavements and brown
green-shuttered houses, with the air so much more bracing, the sky so
much more soft, and the pleasant manner and winning tongue of the
Italian people.
“At the Florence station I had an unpleasant experience, in being robbed
of £100 by two roughly-jostling men at the entrance of the carriage. It
was a great loss, but I could not help admiring the cleverness with
which they contrived to extract my pocket-book out of the inner breast
pocket of my coat _with a greatcoat over it_. They were taken up
afterwards--Frenchmen, I am glad to say, not Italians--and immense booty
of watches, purses, &c., found upon them, all taken at Florence station;
but I have no chance of recovering my notes. I have had to appear
against them already six times and to identify them in prison.
“My last six weeks have been spent in Rome,--spoilt, destroyed, from
the old Rome of our many winters here, but settling down now into the
inferior mediocrity to which the Sardinian occupation has reduced it.
And, though one does not see them every hour as one used to do, there
are still many lovely and attractive corners to be hunted up. The
Italian archaeologists (so called) are also finding out that they have
made a great mistake in tearing away all the plants and shrubs which
protected the tops of the ruins, and are comically occupied in planting
little roots of grass and chickweed on their barren summits. There are
very few capable or interested winter visitors now. They mostly belong
to the class of the first of the three audience-seekers to whom Pius IX.
addressed his usual question of ‘How long have you been in Rome, and how
much have you seen?’ and who answered, ‘I have been here three days, and
have seen everything.’[546]
“Good old Dr. Gason has died lately (the man of whom Pius IX. said--‘un
certo pagano, chi si chiama Jasone’), the leader of the Evangelical
party here--one of a class who seemed to me ‘every one’ when I was a
boy, and when the dreary desert of Sunday was only enlivened by Foxe’s
‘Book of Martyrs’ and ‘Josephus,’ and almost everything pleasant was a
‘carnal indulgence.’ How few there are who think like that now--no one
who has a real part in my life since dear Charlotte Leycester passed
away. Certainly, there is no one now to think one--well, much worse than
a pagan for taking one’s sketch-book on Sundays to the Palace of the
Caesars, where I have spent many quiet hours meditating on my past and
its past. I am often oppressed, however, by my great loneliness, by the
want of any relation who has a real interest in me, by the constant
feeling--however kind people are--of _signifying_ nothing to anybody.
And those who remember our old life--the old life with the mother and
Lea which was so different from this--are becoming very, very few. I can
only try to say--
‘Call me, silent voices,
Forward to the starry track
Glimmering in the heights beyond me,
On, and always on.’[547]
“The ruin of the great families here is depressing. There has been a
sale at the old historic Orsini palace, at which a marble statue holding
a baton behind the auctioneer seemed to repeat his action and to preside
coldly over the ruin of his house and dispersion of its treasures. And
on the floor of the hall, appropriately surrounded by overthrown marble
pedestals, lay the great bust of the Orsini Pope, with a look of
unutterable disgust upon his face at having been just sold for £6. I
bought a little Madonna, which will adorn Holmhurst, if I can get it out
of the country.
“There is a new line to Viterbo now, which brings many places, formerly
difficult of access, within easy reach. With the Gordons from Salisbury
I went to Anguillara, splendid in colour from the orange roofs of its
quaint houses rising high above the broad, still lake in which
Bracciano and other towns on the farther shore were reflected. We
wandered afterwards in the beautiful gardens of an old ‘Ser Vincenzo,’
with woods--real trees--of camelias in fullest bloom, and larks singing,
and carpets of violets. Then another day, a large party of us went to
Segni in the purple recesses of the Volscian mountains, and saw that
wonderful arch whose origin is lost in pre-historic mystery. We took our
luncheon with us, and ate it on the down above the huge stones of the
wall. But generally we have something odd at the village inns. ‘How I
like topographical gastronomy!’ said old Mrs. Blackburn of Moidart on
one of these tourettes.
“Few interesting visitors have been at Rome this year, but having Lady
Airlie and Lady Kenmare here has been very pleasant, and dear old Miss
Garden--even in her great feebleness, which, alas! is constant
now--always ripples with wit and wisdom. At Mrs. Terry’s I met Miss
Paterson, the martyr-bishop’s sister, who told me how her old father,
when he first learnt his son’s determination to go out, began to say,
‘Oh, I cannot let him go,’ and then broke in with, ‘But oh! I _cannot_
deny him to God.’ He parted with him knowing they could never meet
again, but, after a time, in his letters found interest and consolation.
To-day--a desperately wet day--has been enlivened by a summons to
luncheon with the Crown Princess of Sweden, whom I think one of the most
charming, natural, and attractive of human beings; and oh! how simple,
how utterly without affectation is that sort of person who can have
nothing to _pretend_ to. It is that, I suppose, which makes such people
so much the easiest to talk to, which makes one feel so far more at
rest with them than with persons of another, even of one’s own class.
The Princess’s health obliges her to winter in Italy, away from her
husband and her little sons, but she will hurry back to them with the
warm weather. There was no one else at luncheon but the lady and
gentleman in waiting, and the conversation was chiefly about ghost
stories, the Princess declaring that ‘every hair of her head had curled
up’ from one I had told her at Eastbourne.
“There is a sort of homely amusement in seeing--I cannot help sometimes
counting them!--the great number of people who go about here with the
familiar little red and black volumes of ‘Walks in Rome.’ Sometimes also
I am touched by a kind note from an unknown hand saying that one of my
other books has been helpful to them. I am so glad when this happens. As
to any other feeling about my books, I think I gradually get to
_realise_ how ... ‘there is one glory of the terrestrial, another glory
of the celestial,’ and how one has to keep that in one’s heart.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS GARDEN _at Rome_.
“_Viterbo, May 1, 1896._--Yesterday I went to Toscanella. The landlord
of the hotel was to engage a little carriage for me, which I found at
the door when I went down, but with a horse which was an absolute
skeleton. Still they declared it could go, and it _could_. How it
rushed, and tore, and swung us down the rose-fringed descent to the
great Etruscan plain, where the faint dome of Montefiascone rose in the
blue haze against the heavens, beyond the aërial distances of burnt
grass, broken here and there by Etruscan caves and ruins. Then how the
skeleton horse still galloped into the uplands, till great towers
appeared grouped like ninepins, or rather like S. Gemignano. It is yet a
long circuit to the town, a descent into a rocky gorge, then a steep
ascent winding round the hill outside the walls, a sort of Calvary to
this Jerusalem, where the great churches stand, S. Pietro like the most
magnificent cathedral, girdled by huge walls and towers, with a ruined
episcopal palace beside it, and a triumphal arch, like those of
Brittany, in front of the east end. The church was locked and the key
was away, but a little girl snatched a sick bambino from its cradle, and
carried it, and guided me to S. Maria in the depth below--even far
lovelier and more refined in the delicate sculpture of its roseate stone
than the great church above. All its great western doors were open to
the brilliant sunshine, yet it was terribly damp, the font and all the
lower part of the pillars green as the grass outside. But the exquisite
pulpit and bishop’s throne were unhurt, and the lovely frescoes--even
more beautiful in effect than detail--with which the walls were covered.
Having secured the key, we returned to S. Pietro, entering it by the
crypt--_l’incolonnata_--a perfect maze of little columns like the mosque
at Cordova in extreme miniature. Most grand is the upper church in its
orange-grey desolation; mass there only once a year. But our bambino was
worse for the damp, so we did not stay long, and indeed it was cheering
to emerge on the breezy uplands, where the whole air was embalmed with
sweet-basil, as one trod it down.
“The city of Toscanella scrambles, a mass of brown towers, golden roofs,
and grey houses, along the opposite hill, and has a thousand corners
which are enough to drive an artist frantic--such gothic windows; such
dark entries; such arcaded streets, with glints of brilliant foliage and
flowers breaking in upon their solemn shadows. At a little inn I had
luncheon--a dish of poached eggs, excellent bread, cheese, and wine, and
all for forty centimes, so living is not dear in Toscanella.
“Then oh! how the skeleton horse galloped home under the serene
loveliness of the pellucid sky, over the plain where all the little
grasses and flowers were quivering and shimmering in golden sunset
ecstasy.
“I cannot say the food here is delicious; it would be an exaggeration.
All the little somethings and nothings a butchered calf is capable of,
and vegetables lost in garlic and oil. The host’s name is Zefferino; he
is a very substantial zephyr. He arranged for my going this morning to
S. Martino, which I was most anxious to visit, for love--or was it
hate?--of Donna Olimpia Pamfili. I so longed to see where the great
‘papessa’ died; and how the plague got hold of her on that most grand
height, overlooking seventy miles of pink and blue distances, one cannot
imagine. Rocky honeysuckle-hung lanes lead up to it--a little
brown-walled town, with gates and fountain, and just one street--the
steepest street in the world, up which the great white oxen can only
just struggle--leading up to the palace and church. Before the high
altar of the latter is Olimpia’s tomb, providently placed in her
lifetime, with, I thought, a rather touching inscription, saying that
she had really tried to do all the good she _could_; and in the palace
are her full-length portrait and furniture of her time, and two pictures
of Innocent X. The great cool halls are let in the summer months, and
have, oh! such a view from their terrace; while close behind the palace
is another gate of the walled town, from which glorious forest--the
great Ciminian oak forest--begins at once, and stretches away to
infinity. I drew there, and five little swineherds in peaked hats and
about a hundred pigs grouped themselves around me. How _human_ the
latter are! They all had names, to which, when their masters called
them, they responded from a great distance, grunting loud, and running
up as hard as they could.
“Then this afternoon--oh! wealthy Viterbo!--I have been again to the
glorious Villa Lante. Surely never was there so beautiful a garden;
never one so poetical out of nymph-and faun-land--the green glades, the
moss-grown staircases, the fountains and vases, the foaming waterfalls,
the orange-trees and flowers!”
* * * * *
_To_ W. H. MILLIGAN.
“_Abbazia di S. Gregorio, Venice, May 17._--On arriving here, I was
persuaded to go to one of the principal hotels, sumptuously luxurious,
and consequently intensely unsympathetic and unattractive. The mass of
Americans, travelling like their own trunks, and with as much
understanding of the place, drove me away at last, and I was enchanted
to find a refuge in this dear little abbey, with its venerable court
full of flowers and beautiful decorated gateway, outside which the
green waves of the Grand Canal sparkle and dance. Walter Townley and his
charming bride have the other rooms, and we go together for our dinner
to a restaurant, and close by are Lady Airlie and Lady Kenmare, and,
just opposite, Basil and Lady Margaret Levett, all as perfect types of
high-bred excellence as can be found anywhere. I have enjoyed Venice
more than any other part of this time abroad--have had very happy times
with these friends in the afternoons, and in the mornings by myself
drawing in desolate but lovely corners, unknown places, quite overlooked
in what Symonds calls ‘Ruskin’s paint-box of delirious words.’ Yet I
find colouring here very difficult, and quite a new style necessary,
where _every_ shadow is transparent. Miss Clara Montalba thoroughly
understands this, and the delicate drawings which come from her fairy
brush have as much of the most refined poetry of the place as mine have
of its most unimaginative prose. But, with the love which I suppose
every one has of seeking what is unusual, she paints rather the dull and
foggy than the bright days. From the windows of the old house in the
Zattere, where she lives with her mother and two sisters, she has the
most glorious subjects, in which shipping is the great feature. Her
sister Hilda has also a studio in the top of the house--such a quaint
and picturesque place, with two tame doves flying about in it. She
described an old palace in which they had lived near Vicenza, where the
immense dining-room table had a central leg, with a fireplace in it to
keep the dinner hot.
“Two sets of people ought always to live in Venice: those who have heart
complaints and those who are afraid of horses; the peaceful floating
gondola life would be so suited to them. Lord Houghton’s sister, old
Lady Galway, spent many winters here for the former reason. But no one
ought to come here unless they at least _intend_ to see the best of it,
and to enjoy it.”
* * * * *
_To_ W. H. MILLIGAN.
“_August 1, 1896._--I have enjoyed my six weeks in London with their
much people-seeing. People laugh at me for liking it all so much, and
still more for expressing my liking for it; but I believe I shall never
turn out to be ‘one of those whom Dante found in hell-border because
they had been sad under the blessed sun.’[548] How many people in ‘the
world,’ so called, are perfectly charming! Surely if there are many like
the Woods, Jerseys, William Lowthers, Pennants, Ilchesters, and oh! how
many others, good must far predominate over evil in society.
“You know how I have always said I hated leaving London for Sundays, but
I did leave it for three of them. The first was spent at Reigate
Manor--Lady Henry Somerset’s charming old house, with an oak panelled
hall and staircase, such as one is surprised to find near London. Lady
Henry is a delightful hostess, and though so enthusiastically interested
in all her good works, keeps them quite in the background. I was so glad
to find George Curzon at Reigate, as pleasant as ever, and his American
wife; and he has so much to say on all subjects that one does not wonder
he has been spoken of as the man who ‘had seen everything, known
everything, read all books, and written most of them.’ But yet the
‘feature’ of the party was Lord Carlisle’s son, Hubert Howard, who
jumped upon the donkeys browsing in the park, and was kicked off by
them; then upon a stray long-haired pony, and was kicked off by it; and
who finally would go out to sea on the lake in a barrel in his Sunday
clothes, and of course the barrel upset in the midst, and the nails with
which it was studded left him with very few clothes at all.[549]
“Then I was two days at Hatfield--days of brilliant sunshine, glowing
gardens, scent of lime-flowers, great kindness from host and hostess,
and much pleasant companionship. The rooms have names of trees: I was in
the hornbeam room, whence S. Alban’s Abbey was visible. I drew hard on
Sunday amid the brilliant flowers of the garden: oh! how wicked it would
have been thought when I was younger; but now no one thought it so. Most
of the guests did nothing but talk and enjoy the summer beauty. Madame
Ignatieff, coming to Hatfield, said, ‘Ah, I see what your life in great
country-houses is--eat and doddle (dawdle), doddle and eat.’ Dear Sir
Augustus Paget, of many pleasant Roman memories, sat out by me part of
the time, and on the Monday morning kept me after breakfast talking of
how very happy he was, how many enjoyments in his life. I could not help
feeling afterwards what characteristic ‘last words’ those were. I went
into the drawing-room to take leave of Lady Salisbury, and in an instant
Lady Cranborne ran in saying that Sir Augustus had fallen in the hall.
He scarcely spoke again, and on Saturday his bright spirit had
departed. I was _very_ sorry. I had known him so long, and--I am again
quoting George Eliot, whom I have just been reading--‘how unspeakably
the lengthening of memories in common endears one’s old friends.’
“Lady Salisbury is delightful, not only to listen to but to watch. She
is so young in her spirit. ‘On a l’age de son cœur.’ All she does, as
all she says, is so clever, and her relation to her many
daughters-in-law, to the great variety of her visitors, to her vast
household, is so unfailingly sagacious. Even ‘to know her is a liberal
education,’ as Steele said of a lady he admired. She is a great contrast
to Lord Salisbury: as I watched him solemnly and slowly walking up and
down the rooms with his hand on the head of his great dog Pharaoh, I was
always reminded of Henry Vaughan’s lines--
‘The darksome statesman, hung with weight and woe,
Like to thick midnight fog, mov’d there so slow,
He did not stay, nor go.’
“The next Sunday I was at Osterley, in intensely hot weather. Sir E.
Burne Jones was there (as well as at Hatfield), the painter of morbid
and unlovely women, who has given an apotheosis to ennui--the Botticelli
of the nineteenth century. He is very agreeable naturally, and made
infinitely more so by his seductively captivating voice. He spoke much
of Mr. Pepys’ ‘Diaries,’ and what a pity it was he became blind, ‘we
might have had so many more volumes.’ He described going to dine with
the Blumenthals, where the footman at the door presented him with a gilt
apple, and informed him that he was Paris, and would go down to dinner
with whichever of the Graces he presented it to. ‘I knew I must make two
deadly enemies,’ said Sir Edward, ‘so I shut my eyes and stretched out
the apple into space; _some one_ took it.’ He said peacocks made their
shrill cry because they were afraid a thief might come and steal their
beauty away, and then he talked of the Talmud--‘that great repository of
interesting stories.’ The Grand-Vizier, he said, was terribly afraid
Solomon would marry the Queen of Sheba, so he told the king her legs
were hairy. Then, in his wisdom, Solomon surrounded his throne with
running water, and covered it with glass. And when the queen came to him
and saw the water, she lifted up her trailing robe, and he beheld her
legs reflected in the glass, and they were not hairy, and he said, ‘The
Grand-Vizier is a liar,’ and he put him to death. The beloved Halifaxes
were at Osterley, quite delightful always--
‘Bright sparklings of all human excellence,
To which the silver wands of saints in heaven
Might point in rapturous joy.’[550]
“After leaving London finally I went to Oxton Hall in Nottinghamshire
for my dear Hugh Bryan’s wedding with Miss Violet Sherbrooke--such a
pretty wedding--and thence to Wollaton Hall, Lord Middleton’s glorious
old house near Nottingham. On the way I stayed to draw Nottingham
Castle, which I had drawn as a boy, but they have quite spoilt it by
tearing up its fine old plateau of grey flagstones, and putting down
asphalt, only, of course, in the drawing I left that out. Wollaton is a
beautiful old grey stone building full of varied ornaments--niches,
pinnacles, and busts, with a central tower and huge central hall. It was
built by John of Padua with stone from Ancaster, all brought on donkeys,
and for which nothing was paid, coal being taken and given in exchange
for it from a pit already open in Elizabeth’s time. In the church, to
which we went on Sunday morning, is the tomb of John of Padua’s clerk of
the works, also the monument of Lady Anne Willoughby, _née_ Grey, aunt
of Lady Jane, and a beautiful tomb of a Willoughby who was Knight of the
Holy Sepulchre, with little effigies of his four wives, one of whom was
mother of the Arctic voyager. The afternoon was wet, and amongst other
relics we saw the clothes of this Willoughby hero, left behind when he
went to the North Pole, and preserved with many other old dresses in a
vast deserted upper chamber called ‘Bedlam,’ probably because the
‘gentlemen’s gentlemen’ slept there in old times, as in a dormitory.
There is much else to see in the house, which was strongly fortified
against the Nottingham rioters, and a number of handcuffs are hanging up
which were prepared for them. The first evening I was alone with my
delightfully genial host and hostess, but on Saturday many guests came,
including the exceedingly pleasant young Lord Deramore.
“The late Lord Middleton lived in this palace in most primitive fashion.
He used to have dinner-parties, but the dinner consisted in a haunch of
venison at one end and a haunch of venison at the other, and
currant-jelly in the middle, and then two apple-pies to match.
[Illustration: THE TERRACE DOOR, HOLMHURST.]
“Here is a delightful story of the present Bishop of London for you,
which is _molto ben trovato_, at any rate. One day, he took a cab home
to Fulham from the City, and wishing to be liberal, gave the man
sixpence beyond the full fare. The man looked at it. ‘What, aren’t you
satisfied?’ said the Bishop. ‘Oh yes, I’m _satisfied_,’ said the man;
‘but if I might, I should like to ask you a question.’ ‘Oh certainly,’
said the Bishop, ‘ask whatever you like.’ ‘Well, then, if St. Paul had
come back to earth and was Bishop, do you suppose he’d be living in this
here palace?’ ‘Certainly not,’ replied the Bishop promptly, ‘for he’d be
living at Lambeth, and it would be a shilling fare.’
“And now, after all these luxurious fine houses, I am in what, to me, is
the tenfold luxury of Holmhurst.
‘My green and silent spot amid the hills,
Oh, ’tis a quiet spirit-healing nook.’[551]
I should not like to live in a bare or commonplace house, but then I
don’t; and oh! the luxury of absolute independence. I should rather
_like_ a carriage and horse perhaps, but I don’t in the least _want_
them. Certainly, in words I have been reading of Bishop Fraser, ‘living
in comfort is a phrase entirely depending for its meaning on the ideas
of him who uses it.’”
* * * * *
_To_ FRANCIS COOKSON.
“_Sept. 7._--Is it a sign of old age coming on, I wonder, when one has
the distaste for leaving home by which I am now possessed? I simply hate
it. When one has all one wants and exactly what one likes, why should
one set off on a round of visits, in which one may, and probably will,
have many pleasant hours, but as certainly many bare and dull ones,
often in dreary rooms, sometimes with wooden-headed people, and without
the possibility of the familiar associations which habit makes such a
pleasure? Then, in most country-houses, ‘l’anglais s’amuse moult
tristement,’ as Froissart says. I cannot say how delightful I always
find my home life--the ever-fresh morning glories of the familiar view
of brilliant flowers, green lawns, and oak woods; and then the sea,
which to me is so much more beautiful in its morning whiteness with
faint grey cloud-shadows, or smiling under the tremulous sun-rays,[552]
than in the evening light, which brings a lovely but monotonous blueness
with it: the joyous companionship of my little black spitz Nero
(‘Black,’ not the wicked emperor): the regularity of my proof-sheet
work, and other work, till luncheon-dinner, after which there are
generally visitors to be attended to; and then quiet work again, or
meditation on the long-ago and the future, when
‘Silent musings urge the mind to seek
Something too high for syllables to speak.’[553]
Then there is always my library, in which 6000 agreeable friends are
always ready to converse with me at any moment, and ‘vingt-sept années
d’ennui et de solitude lui firent lire bien des livres,’ as Catherine
II. said in her epitaph on herself, might certainly be applied to me.
Only I can imagine, if eyes and limbs failed, the winter evenings
becoming long and monotonous. ‘Meglio solo che male accompagnato’ is a
good Italian proverb, only it would be pleasant to be ‘ben
accompagnato.’ I am beginning to feel with Madame de Staël--‘J’aime la
solitude, mais il me faut à qui dire; j’aime la solitude.’
“The neighbours are very kindly beginning to consider me ‘the hermit of
Holmhurst,’ and come to visit me in my cell, especially on Tuesdays,
without expecting me to go to them. I would not have a bicycle on any
account, for then I might be obliged to go, and I am too poor to have a
carriage. So, in six weeks, I have only twice been outside the
gates--for one day to London for George Jolliffe’s wedding, and for two
nights to Battle, whence, to my great joy, the Duchess asked me to
‘mother’ her guests--charming Lady Edward Cavendish, the Vincent
Corbets, and Mr. Armstrong, the Oxford history professor--to
Hurstmonceaux. How beautiful, how interesting it all looked. No other
place ever seems to me half so romantic; but though ‘at each step one
treads on a memory,’ as Cicero says, I can go there now without a pang;
my affections are too full of Holmhurst to have any room for it, and the
old family are almost forgotten there already, ‘so much has happened
since they left.’ ‘Lord! to see how the world makes nothing of a man, an
houre after he is dead,’ writes Pepys in his Diary.
[Illustration: THE NAYLOR LANDING, HOLMHURST.]
“I wonder if you ever saw Coventry Patmore here, who died lately. He
often came to Holmhurst during the latter part of his residence at
Hastings, where he wrote ‘The Angel in the House’ in memory of his first
wife, and in memory of his second spent most of the large fortune she
had brought him, £60,000, in building a beautiful church, S. Mary Star
of the Sea; and whilst building it, though always a devout Catholic,
imbibed, from being brought into close contact with them, a hatred of
priests which never left him. The existence of ‘In Memoriam’ may be said
to be due to Patmore. When young, he and Tennyson lodged together at
some house in London, where they had a violent quarrel with their
landlady, and left suddenly in a huff. Once well away, they recollected
that the MS. of ‘In Memoriam’ was left in the cupboard of their room
with the unfinished ham and the half-empty jam-pot. The timid Alfred
would not face the wrath of the landlady, but Patmore went back to get
it. He found the woman cleaning her doorstep and told her that he was
come to get something he had left behind. ‘No,’ she said, ‘there was
nothing, and she had seen quite enough of him, he should not go
upstairs.’ But the slim Patmore took her by surprise, slipped past her,
rushed up to the room, and from the jam cupboard extracted the MS., and
made off with it in spite of her imprecations.
“Tennyson recognised what Patmore had done at the time, and said he
should give him the MS. But he never did; he gave it to Sir J. Simeon,
who left it to his second wife. When Tennyson’s MSS. rose so much in
value, his family asked for it back, and Lady Simeon has promised that
it shall go back at her death. In another generation, if Tennyson’s fame
lasts so long, it will probably be sold for a large sum.
“Apropos of poets, pleasant old Miss Courtenay was talking to me the
other day of how Browning was beyond all things a man of the world
rather than a poet. When she saw Mrs. Browning at Naples long ago, and
expressed some surprise at his being so much with Lockhart, who was then
in his last serious illness, Mrs. Browning said, ‘Yes, and isn’t it
delightful that Mr. Lockhart likes him so much; he told me the other
day, “I like Robert so much because he is not a damned _literary_
person!’”
“The clergyman in the little iron tabernacle of a church at our gate
seemed to some to preach at me last night for not having been at the
morning service, at which there was the Sacrament. He was quite right. I
really might have gone, for I had no ‘boys’ here, and I was not merely
kept away by my detestation of sermons, so seldom, what Spurgeon said
they should be, ‘the man in flower;’ but I never thought of it, and was
very busy at home about a thousand things. But though I revere the
Sacrament as a holy commemorative ordinance, I cannot feel as if it did
one the slightest good, except as concentrating one’s thoughts for a
few minutes on sacred memories. James Adderley, the monk-preacher, says
there are many who regard the Sacrament like a ‘mourning ring;’ and that
is exactly how I look upon it. I cannot understand how people can
consider such a mere commemorative service ‘a thing to live by,’ as they
call it; and all the transubstantiation idea is to me too truly
horrible. If I were dying--dying, I mean, in the trembling hope of a
near blessed reality--the reception of this mere type would be no
comfort to me. Then, also, as I am on the confession tack, I do not
believe for one instant in ‘original sin;’ rather, as Solomon--who had
much personal knowledge of the subject--says, that ‘God hath made man
upright, but he hath sought out many inventions.’[554] ... And yet,
truly, in my own way, I always feel that--
‘Malgré nous, vers le ciel il faut tourner les yeux.’”[555]
* * * * *
JOURNAL _and_ LETTERS.
“_Chesters, Northumberland, Oct. 6._--All my dread of visits passed away
when they began. Capital indeed is Milton’s advice--
‘Be not over-exquisite
To cast the fashion of uncertain evils.’
And then I know one ought to go into the world ‘as a fireman on duty,’
which Cardinal Manning said was his only way of visiting it for thirty
years. One thing a man who pays a good many visits should always be
certain of--_never_ to outstay his welcome. It would be dreadful to see
one’s hostess begin to have the fidgets. It is safest--at latest--to go
by the eleven o’clock train, but a good and pleasant plan is to take
leave overnight, and _be_ gone the next morning. I was full of enjoyment
at Penrhyn Castle--the genial and charming family, the great variety of
the guests, and the excursions, in spite of furious storms, into the
Welsh hills. Then I was with a most kind bachelor host, Fred Swete, at
Oswestry, and spent the day at Brogyntyn with Lord Harlech, a perfect
example of old-fashioned courtesy and kindness. In his grounds is a long
terrace with a glorious view over the plains and hills of Shropshire,
including the beloved Hawkestone range of my childhood. The next day, at
the Brownlow-Towers’ pleasant house at Ellesmere, a little girl of eight
was most amusingly _fin de siècle_. ‘Now, darling, you must go up to the
schoolroom and stay there,’ said her mother after luncheon. ‘No,
darling, no,’ answered the child. ‘I must not, darling,’ with an exact
imitation of its mother’s manner, ‘for I’ve been listening, and it’s
going to be interesting.’
“We made delightful excursions from Lutwyche to draw at Bridgenorth and
an old moated grange called Elswick, meeting Lady Boyne and her party,
who came from Burwarton as to a half-way house.
“Then I was at Ridley Hall, full of--oh! how many memories of my
long-ago. But it was the greatest pleasure to see Frank and Lady Anne
Lyon there, and how much they appreciated and cared for the place. Lord
and Lady Wantage were at Ridley, and I went with them to Hexham Abbey,
once a most grand church, but utterly ruined by an ignorant
restoration. And now, wandering still on the footprints of past days, I
am at Chesters with the widow and children of my dear old friend George
Clayton, he as well as all the earlier generation of his family having
passed away, and Miss Annie Ogle, whom I knew so well in those far-away
days, here as a delightful _old_ lady, with snow-white hair, but the
same winning character and ways as in her youth. A museum has been built
now for the immense collection of Roman altars and fragments, &c., from
the ‘stations’ of the Roman wall, one of the best of which (Cilurnum) is
just in front of the house; while below ‘the riotous rapids of the
Tyne,’ as Swinburne calls them, with their rocky shores and bosky banks,
are the boundary of the park.”
* * * * *
“_Redholm, North Berwick, Oct. 17._--I am staying here with Robert Shaw
Stewart, a friend of old Roman days, and his kind wife, who was a
daughter of Charles Warner, the well-known statesman-philanthropist of
Trinidad,--‘fort comme le diamant, plus tendre qu’une mère’--of whom
Froude has given so charming a description. The Dalzells and all my
other dear friends of past days here have gone over the border-land,
but, in this hospitable house, I have seen quite a diorama of people. A
topic has been the three modern Scotch novelists, Crockett,[556]
Barrie,[557] and Ian Maclaren (Watson): Crockett such a delightful
fellow, so full of sunshine, of real happy enjoyment of people and
things: Barrie, a weaver’s boy as to his origin, but simple and
straightforward to a degree, though his books have made him rich: Watson
just a little spoilt since the great success of his annals of
Drumtochty, which, under another name (Logiealmond, near Glenalmond) was
the place where he was minister. The Free Kirk minister in this place,
Dr. Davidson, told me how when they all were at college together, Barrie
and Crockett used to tell stories in class. They sate up in a corner,
with a little coterie round them, and held their audience enthralled. No
one listened to the lecturer, and some of the students outside the
charmed circle used to say, ‘Had not you better send down to the
professor and tell him not to make so much noise?’ The lower orders in
Scotland seem to read the modern national novelists just as much as the
upper, and they read other deeper books too, and think calmly in a way
very unlike Englishmen. ‘The Shorter Catechism,’ which they all
understand, is a proof of this. When it was published, indeed, there was
a far more serious catechism for adults: this one was only intended for
‘those of tender years,’ yet there is much requiring deepest thought in
it, though the peasant classes always master it.”
* * * * *
“_Airlie Castle, Oct. 18._--Monday was fearfully cold, and it was a
pleasure to see the beautiful face of Lady Airlie--more picturesque and
distinguished in late middle life than any one else--looking out of a
close carriage come to meet me. Her most poetical home is just suited to
her--the tiniest castle in the world, with its one noble gate-tower
giving access to a little green plateau beneath which the Melgum and
the Isla rush through deep wooded gorges to their meeting-place. And
into these gorges the castle windows look deep down. Then, to those who
know Lady Airlie, I need not say how beautiful the little rooms are, how
splendid the few flowers, how much of story clusters round the furniture
and pictures--‘only a few; I do not like a room or a wall to be crowded,
even with the best things,’ says their mistress.
“In the serene beauty of her age, she herself lends a lustre to her
surroundings; quietly, contentedly severing most links with the great
world in which she has so long been a star, ‘elle dépose fleur à fleur
la couronne de la vie.’[558]
“Lady Maude White is here, returning to an intellectual world with which
she has never broken a single link, after many years of privation,
solitude, and duty nobly borne, first with her brother, and then with
her husband, at a horse-ranch in America.
“The castle of Airlie has never recovered its burning by Argyll and the
Covenanters, when
‘It fell on a day, a bonnie summer day,
When the corn was brearin’ fairly,
That there fell out a great dispute
Between Argyll and Airlie.’
The family were always for the King and the Church, indeed too much so,
for Maryott Ogilvy was the mistress of Cardinal Beaton, for whom he
built several castles, and who was enormously endowed by him. Of their
six children, the eldest girl had the richest dower in Scotland, and
married the Lord Crawford of that day. It was David, Lord Ogilvy, who
was out in the ‘45, who rebuilt a bit of the old castle, just enough to
live in by himself after he came home, and added a few rooms for his
wife when he married a second time. Behind the castle is a delightful
old garden, to which Lady Airlie has added hedges and peacocks in
clipped yew, with divers other ‘incidents;’ and all along the ledges of
the gorges run wonderful little pathlets--beautiful exceedingly in the
crimson and gold of their autumnal glory. But they will be gone
directly; for, as Edward Fitzgerald says, ‘The trees in the Highlands
give themselves no dying airs, but turn orange in a day, and are swept
off in a whirlwind, and winter is come.’
“We drove to Cortachy through woods laid prostrate by the great storm of
1893, which has left the trees piled on one another, like the dead of a
vanquished army on a battlefield. Lady Airlie made the whole of the
weird desolate country live through her interpretation of it:--
“‘Those are the black hornless cattle of Angus. That is the hill of
Clota, on the top of which is the old tower where the last witch was
burnt. In the church books there is an entry that on a particular day
there was no service, because all the congregation were gone to the
burning of the witch. That village in the hollow, which is so red and
striking in the sunset, is Kirriemuir: it is the “Thrums” of Barrie’s
novel. Now we will leave the carriage at “the Devil’s Stone:” it is just
a stone which the devil threw at the kirk, but it missed and fell into
the stream: it rests the opposite way to all boulders, and it is of a
different formation from all the other stones in the district. Dicky
Doyle loved the story and the stone, and used to paint it. And now we
will go into the “Garden of Friendship.” I made it when I first married
out of an old kitchen-garden, and I cut down a belt of trees and let in
the view. The lines in the summer-house are by Robert Lowe. All the
trees bear the names of the different friends who planted them. That one
was planted by Dr. John Brown. He was often here. He told me that my
Clementine was a lassie who had said something she might be proud of.
That was because one day when I said to her, “I am so tired; are not you
tired, darling?” she answered, “Tired! oh no, not a bit. I have a box of
laughter inside me, and the key that unlocks it is ‘fun.’” Over there is
our deer-forest. Charlotte, Lady Strathmore, took me up to the tower of
Glamis once, and stretched out her hand towards our hills--“You have a
deer-forest, and a river, and _scenery_” she said, “and I have
_nothing_.”
“‘Here is King Charles’s room. Charles II. was here for the gathering of
the clans, but they did not gather as they ought, and he went away
disappointed. He left a Prayer-book and a Euclid here: he was a great
scientist. Under the floor at that corner is a secret room: we have
never seen it. Some workmen found it after the great fire here whilst
every one was away, and before we came back it was walled up, and it has
never been thought worth while to disturb it again. Those are the
portraits of the Ogilvy who was out in the ‘45 and his first wife. She
was shut up in the Tolbooth for singing Jacobite songs in the Canongate.
He was devoted to her, but after they went to St. Germains he was told
that he must take a mistress because it was the fashion, and he did.
After her death he married again, an extravagant woman, who wheedled
him out of £3000 which he had saved to buy the property on the other
side of the river at Airlie,[559] and spent it on her own devices. They
quarrelled at last, for she would give a ball at Airlie Lodge at Dundee,
and he told her if she did he would never forgive it; and she had the
ball, and he never saw her again.’
“Lord Airlie is a splendid young man,[560] and has the most delightful
of wives in one of the granddaughters of the beloved Lady Jocelyn. He is
a consummate soldier. His devotion to his profession only allows him to
be six weeks at Cortachy in the year, but in that time he drives about
and visits every person on the estate. He has the firm faith and strong
religious feeling of his Ogilvy forbears. One day, at the gate of Airlie
Castle, with its unprotected precipices, he had mounted a dogcart with
his sister Clementine. The horse plunged and backed violently. They were
on the very edge of the abyss. ‘Make your peace with God,’ he said to
his sister; ‘in an instant we shall be over.’ At the very last moment a
man rushed out and caught the horse, but the wheels were half over then.
“To-day we have been to see the Monros at Lindertis--a semi-gothic
house, most comfortable inside. Mrs. Munro is a capital portrait-painter
in the style of Raeburn, and has done first-rate work. All evening Lady
Airlie has talked delightfully:--
“‘We were a very quarrelsome family as children. At Gosport, whilst we
were at church, my next sister, Cecilia,[561] who had been left at home,
fell out of the window. She lived for some days, very suffering and
scarcely conscious, but she used constantly, in her half-delirium, to
say, “Oh, don’t quarrel, don’t quarrel;” and it made a very great
impression upon me, and afterwards I always tried never to quarrel. My
father never let us complain. If anything unpleasant happened and my
mother murmured, he would always say, “Oh, don’t; we have so much more
than we _deserve_.” He always thought it so ill-bred--so ill-bred
towards God--to murmur. A widow, especially, should never murmur. If one
has had a great place and occupied a great position which all vanishes
with one’s husband, one ought to be so filled with gratitude for the
has-been as to leave no room for complaints. “I have lived my life: I
have enjoyed to the utmost,” that should always be the feeling. It is
terrible when a widow murmurs, for it is God who gave the husband, who
gave the home; and when He takes them away again, how can one doubt that
He knows best when one has had enough? For children, leaving an old home
is worse than for the widow: she has lived her life, but theirs is to
come.
“‘Before I grew up, my mother often took me with her to Miss Berry’s in
the evening. My father was away at the House, and she took her work and
went there, and Miss Berry liked to see that good and beautiful young
woman sitting there. At Miss Berry’s house I saw all the clever men of
the day, so I knew them all before I really came out. I shall never
forget going down once to Richmond to take leave of Miss Berry before we
went into the country, and her saying to me, “Allez vous retremper l’âme
à la campagne;” it seemed to me such a beautiful thought. Forty years
afterwards my daughter Blanche told it to Schouvaloff, the Russian
Minister. “Oui,” he said, and added, “et engourdir l’esprit.” It was as
characteristic of him as the first part of the sentence was of Miss
Berry.
“‘As soon as I came out, I went with my parents to the Grange, where the
first Lady Ashburton was very kind to me, and I passionately adored her.
There I first saw Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle, but he had known my mother
very well before. Mrs. Carlyle really loved Lady Ashburton, yet she was
madly jealous of her. When they were at home, and Carlyle would come in
quite tired out with a long day’s work, she would say, “Now just walk
down to Bath House and see Lady Ashburton, and that will refresh you.”
She meant him to go, but as soon as he was gone her grief was
passionate, because she felt it would not have been the same thing to
him if he had stayed with her. He was always pleasant, but to a few--to
my mother especially--he never failed to show the most intense delicacy
of feeling.
“‘I cannot describe what Charles Buller was. Girl as I was, I loved him,
but so did every one else; he was so very delightful. I remember as if
it were to-day going once into my mother’s room: all her long beautiful
hair was down and she was sobbing violently. “Oh,” she said, “Charles
Buller is dead.” How I longed to cry too, but I did not dare. I only
went to my own room in most bitter grief. Wherever he went, Charles
Buller brought sunshine with him. He left me his Coleridge in his will.
It surprised people that he should leave anything to a young girl like
me, and when I went to the Grange again, many spoke of it. Each had
something to show which had belonged to him: we all mourned together.
“‘Oh, how many recollections there are which will always remain with
one, which will stay by one at the resurrection. Many of my happiest are
of the Grange. Lord Houghton asked me once how long I had been there,
and he told me long afterwards that I had answered “Oh, I cannot tell; I
only know that it is morning when I come, and night when I go away.”
This bookcase is full of the gifts of friends, and recalls much of my
past. Here is a volume of Thackeray with an etching by himself, and here
are all John Morley’s and Lord Sherbrooke’s books, which they gave me as
they came out. Here is Lord Houghton’s “Monographs,” with a touching
letter from him after we had had a little coldness; and here are two
bound volumes of Mrs. Carlyle’s Letters to me.”
* * * * *
“_Balcaskie, Oct. 21._--What a wild country is this ‘low, sea-salted,
wind-vexed’ Fife, with its little royal boroughs along the coast, each
with its tiny municipality. About them their natives have the same
pride, however, as an Aberdonian, who said the other day, ‘Just tak’ awa
Aberdeen and twenty mile round her, and where are ye?’ The sea-line is
broken by islets, the most important of them being May, where S. Adrian
lived in a hermitage, and where the steps at the very difficult
landing-place are worn away by the knees of the pilgrims to his shrine.
S. Monan lived there after him, but also frequented a little cave on the
mainland, where the old church stands to which we went on Sunday, so
near the waves that, in rough weather, the roar of the surges mingles
with the music.
“Highly picturesque is this house of Balcaskie, and its high-terraced
gardens with their vases and statues. The Anstruthers have taken me to
Balcarres to spend the afternoon with ever-sunny Lady Crawford. Her
husband, weird-looking as an old necromancer, only came in as we were
leaving, but several of the handsome sons were at home. The house looks
gloomy outside from the black stone of the country, but is bright and
cheerful within, and has a beautiful oak-panelled parlour.
“On Sunday afternoon we went to Kellie, a noble stern old castle, with
corbie-steps and tourelles. It was neglected and deserted by the Earls
of Kellie, but has been restored by Mrs. Lorimer, widow of an Edinburgh
professor, who rents it. ‘Two little red shoes’ haunt it, pattering up
and down its winding staircases at night. At Crail we saw wonderful old
tombs of the Lindsays in the churchyard, and inside the church that of
Miss Cunningham, who, said the sacristan, died on the eve of her
marriage with some great poet whose name he could not remember: we
afterwards found it was Drummond of Hawthornden.”
* * * * *
“_Bishopthorpe, Oct. 23._--This house has a charm from the great variety
of its styles, even the gingerbread-gothic is important as being of a
date anterior to Horace Walpole, who has the reputation of having
introduced that style.
“The Archbishop of York says, ‘From sudden death, good Lord deliver us,’
means, ‘From dying unprepared for death, good Lord deliver us.’
“Lord Falkland has been here. He had been lately at Skelton Castle. His
hostess, Miss Wharton, took him to his room, down a long passage--a
large room, panelled with dark oak and with a great four-post bed with
heavy hangings. It was very gloomy and oppressive, Lord Falkland
thought, but he said nothing, dressed, and went down to dinner.
“When he came upstairs again, he found the aspect of the room even more
oppressive, but he made up a great fire and went to bed. In the night he
was awakened by a pattering on the floor as of high-heeled shoes and the
rustling of a stiff silk dress. There was still a little fire burning,
but he could see nothing. As he distinctly heard the footsteps turn, he
thought, ‘Oh, I hope they may not come up to the bed.’ They _did_. But
then they turned away, and he heard them go out at the door.
“With difficulty he composed himself to sleep again, but was soon
reawakened by the same sound, the rustling of silk and the footsteps.
Then he was thoroughly miserable, got up, lighted candles, made up the
fire, and passed a wretched night. In the morning he was glad to find an
excuse for going away.
“Afterwards he heard an explanation. An old Wharton, cruel and brutal,
had a young wife. One day, coming tipsy into his wife’s room, he found
her nursing her baby. He was in a violent temper, and, seizing the baby
from her arms, he dashed its head against the wall and killed it on the
spot. When he saw it was dead, he softened at once. Even in her grief
and horror Mrs. Wharton could not bear to expose him, and together they
buried the child under the hearthstone; but she pined away and very soon
she died.
“She used to be heard not only rustling, but weeping, wailing, sobbing,
crying. At that time the Whartons were Roman Catholics, and when the
family were almost driven from their home by its terrors, they got a
priest to exorcise the castle and to bury the baby skeleton in
consecrated ground. Since then, there have been no sobs and cries, only
the rustling and pattering of feet.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS GARDEN _at Rome_.
“_Oct. 26, 1896._--The first three volumes of the ‘Story of my Life’ are
come out, and I send them to you. Even the favourable reviews complain
vehemently about their length; and yet, if they were not in a huge type
and had not quite half a volume’s space full of woodcuts, they might
easily have been two very moderate volumes.[562] Then, say the
reviewers, ‘the public would have welcomed the book.’ But after all, it
was not written or printed for the public, only for a private inner
circle, though I am sure that, in return for having been allowed to read
it, ‘the public’ will kindly be willing--well, just to _pay_ for the
printing! Then it is funny how each review wants a different part left
out--one the childhood, one the youth, one the experiences of later
life: there would be nothing left but the little anecdotes about already
well-known people, which they all wish to keep, and, in quoting these,
they one and all copy each other; it saves trouble. The _Saturday_ had
what the world calls ‘a cruel review’ of the book, but what was really
an article of nothing but personal vituperation against its author. I
know who the review was by, and that it was not, as every one seems to
think, by one of the family from whom I suffered in my childhood;
certainly, however, if any one cares to know how the members of that
family always spoke to and of me in my youth, they have only to read
that article. I think there is a good bit about criticism in Matthew
Arnold’s Letters. ‘The great thing is to speak without a particle of
vice, malice, or rancour.... Even in one’s ridicule one must preserve a
sweetness and good-humour.... I remember how Voltaire lamented that the
“literae humanae,” _humane_ letters, should be so dreadfully _inhuman_,
and determined in print to be always scrupulously polite.’ Then, how
truly Ruskin says, ‘The _slightest_ manifestation of jealousy or
self-complacency is sufficient to mark a second-rate character of
intellect.’
“As you know, I never intended the book, written seventeen and printed
two years ago, to appear till after my death, but this year it was so
strongly represented to me that then all who would care to read about my
earlier years would then be _dead too_, that I assented to the story up
to 1870 being published. To tell the truth, I feel now how sorry I
should have been to have missed the amusement of hearing even the most
abusive things people say. And certainly, as regards reviews, I feel
with Washington Irving, ‘I have one proud reflection to sustain myself
with--that I never in any way sought to win the praises nor deprecate
the censures of reviewers, but have left my work to rise or fall by its
own deserts. If my writings are worth anything, they will outlive
temporary criticism; if not, they are not worth caring about.’[563]
Yet, yet, just for the sake of variety, I should like some day, as a
change to the unknown, to read a really favourable review of _something_
I have written, though I read somewhere, ‘To like to be right is the
last weakness of a wise man: to like to be thought right is the
inveterate prejudice of fools.’[564]
“One of the things people find fault with is that I have not shown
sufficient adoration for Jowett, who was so exceedingly kind to me at
Oxford. But I always felt that it was for Arthur Stanley’s sake. Jowett
only really cared for three kinds of undergraduate--a pauper, a
profligate, or a peer: he was boundlessly good to the first, he tried to
reclaim the second, and he adored the third.”
* * * * *
“_Blaise Castle, Henbury, Nov. 23._--I came here to charming Mary
Harford[565] from Lockinge, where I paid a pleasant visit to Lord and
Lady Wantage, meeting a large party. Lady Wantage, beautified by the
glory of her snowy hair, was most charming--so thoughtful and kind for
every one--‘elle brillait surtout par le caractère,’[566] and though
‘few can understand an argument, all can appreciate a character.’[567]
One of the most agreeable guests, a ripple of interesting anecdote,
which began even in the omnibus driving up from the station in the dark,
was Lord James of Hereford. At dinner he told how Sir Drummond and Lady
Wolff had a Spanish dog, who was the best-bred creature in the world.
One day its mistress had a visitor who engrossed her so much that she
forgot her dog’s dinner. It would not scratch or whine, it was too well
conducted, but it went out into the garden and bit off a flower, and
came and laid it at its mistress’s feet: the flower was a forget-me-not.
“George Holford of Westonburt was at Lockinge, and very pleasant. Once
he walked from London to Ardington, close to Lockinge, where his
grandmother, Mrs. Lindsay, was then living. When he was within a mile
and a half of it, he saw a man kneeling on the body of another man on
the road. He went up to them, called out, had no answer, and at last
struck the kneeling man with his stick. His stick went through the man.
His story was received at Lockinge with shouts of derision.
“Three years after, at a tenants’ dinner, Lord Wantage told the story of
his nephew’s ‘optical delusion’ to the farmer sitting next, who said,
‘It is a very extraordinary thing, my Lord, but a man _was_ once
murdered by his servant on that very spot. The servant knocked him down,
knelt upon him, and killed him; and ever since the place has had the
reputation of being haunted.’”
* * * * *
_To_ VISCOUNT HALIFAX.
“_Jan. 9, 1897._--My Christmas was spent very pleasantly at Hewell,
where Lord and Lady Windsor had a large party. Most lovely and charming
was the hostess, most stately and beautiful the great modern house by
Bodley, greatly improved and embellished since I saw it last. How
closely, during a week’s visit, one is thrown with people, whom one
often does not see again for years, if ever. It is, as Florence
Montgomery says--‘People in a country-house play their parts, as it
were, before one, and then the curtain falls, and the actors disappear.
The play is played out.’[568] How laden with gifts children are
nowadays, and how far too luxurious their life is, as much in excess
that way as in the privations and penances which I remember in my own
childhood.
“Some people are very angry with me for telling the truth in the ‘Story
of my Life’[569] about these young years, when I was suffering ‘from an
indiscriminate theological education,’ as Mr. Schimmelpennick calls
such, and when I was made so constantly to feel how ‘l’ennui n’a pas
cessé d’être en Angleterre une institution religeuse.’[570] And it is
not merely the ‘canaille of talkers in type’[571] who find fault, but
many whose opinion I have a regard for. They think that the portrait of
a dead person should never be like a Franz Hals, portraying every
‘projecting peculiarity,’ but all delicately wrought with the smooth
enamelling touch of Carlo Dolce. They wonder I can ‘reconcile it to my
conscience’ to hold ‘another estimate of the Maurices to that which has
been hitherto popular.’ ‘Collect a bag of prejudices and call it
conscience, and there you are!’[572] For myself, I believe, and I am
sure it is the discipline of years which tells me so, that the rule of
after-death praise is a false one to be regulated by. It is true that
there is often an enlightenment from death upon sensations and
sympathies towards one who is gone, but I cannot feel that a faithful
record of words and actions ought to be altered by the mere _glamour_ of
death, which so often gives an apotheosis to those who little deserve
it. One of my reviewers says he would like to read a truthful
word-portrait of Augustus Hare by one of the persons he describes in
print: so should I exceedingly, and most appallingly horrible it would
be!
[Illustration: THE ARSON STEPS, HOLMHURST.]
‘O wad some power the giftie gi’e us
To see oorsels as ithers see us,’[573]
is what I would often say. Lately, a wonder whether I can have misjudged
or exaggerated my remembrance of the long-ago has made me give many
solitary evenings to old-letter reading; yet contemporary letters only
confirm _all_ I have expressed. How interesting they are! It is as
Archbishop Magee says, ‘Old letters are like old ghosts, coming often
uncalled for and startling us with their old familiar faces--pleasant
some of them, and some of them very ugly, but all of them dead and
bearing the stamp of death--and yet they will survive ourselves.’
“Most extraordinarily _virulent_ certainly reviews can be! Really,
‘hurricanes of calumny and tornados of abuse’[574] have been hurled at
me. As Cardinal Manning said, ‘To write anonymously is always a danger
to charity, truth, and justice.’ _Blackwood_ (_i.e._ the Maurice spirit
in _Blackwood_), in an article which breathes of white lips, after
dwelling scornfully upon ‘the sickening honey of the “Memorials,”’
writes:--
“What is Mr. Augustus Hare? He is neither anybody nor nobody--neither
male nor female--neither imbecile nor wise.... As we wade through this
foam of superannuated wrath ... this vicious and venomous personal
onslaught ... Mr. Hare’s paragraphs plump like drops of concentrated
venom over the dinted page.... Such a tenacity of ill-feeling, such a
cold rage of vituperation, is seldom to be met with.’
“I wonder a little if any one can really from his heart have offered
such ‘a genuine tribute of undissembled horror,’ or whether these
sentiments were only written to order? And then I look at Dante and
read:--
‘Vien dietro a me, e lascia dir le genti;
Sta come torre ferma che non crolla
Giammai la cima per soffiar de’ venti’[575]
And so--
‘I, painting from myself and to myself,
Know what I do, am unmoved by men’s blame,
Or their praise either.’”[576]
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Jan. 31, 1897._--Saw Lady Delawarr, and heard all about her marvellous
escape. Lady Mary (Sackville) first heard a crackling noise between two
and three in the morning, and, looking out of her room door, saw that
the staircase[577] was in flames. She rushed into her sister Margaret’s
room, roused her, shrieked to the maids and governess, and finding a
fiery gulf separated them from their mother’s room, the sisters flew in
their night-dresses down the stairs, already in flames, and into the
street. Lady Delawarr, stupefied by smoke, slept on heavily, though for
twenty minutes her old servant Vincent, who occupied a room off the
garden, threw stones at her window. He dragged his mattress beneath it,
and strained it across the garden area. At last he roused her, and she
rushed to the door, but closed it again as the flames poured in. Then
she threw up the window. ‘Jump, my lady, jump!’ shouted Vincent; ‘there
is not a moment to lose.’ There was not time even to throw out her
diamonds, but she knotted her sheets firmly together, and sliding down
them, dropped upon the mattress. With her it held, but the fat cook, who
had not had courage to face the fiery staircase, leapt from the fourth
floor, and under her great weight the mattress gave way and she fell
into the area, breaking her leg in three places and fracturing her
skull, and now she is dead. For a whole hour Lady Delawarr crouched
behind the lilac bushes in the ice-bound garden, with the blazing house
between her and all else. Then she succeeded in breaking the window of a
carpenter’s shop which adjoined the garden, and was dragged through it,
and reached a friend’s house in a four-wheel cab.
“This cab she sent back to fetch her daughter Mary, but the horse fell
on the ice in Grosvenor Square, and Lady Mary, as she was, had to walk
up Upper Brook Street to the house where her mother had taken refuge.”
* * * * *
“_Jan. 28._--Dined at Lady Hope’s to meet Dr. Tucker, Bishop of Uganda,
who had walked 10,000 miles in his bishopric; there were no other means
of locomotion. He said Africa as a whole was more swamp and thicket than
desert. ‘Were not the lions alarming?’ ‘Not very; they seldom attacked
unless irritated.’ Once he saw five at the same time around him, but
‘they all had their own affairs to attend to.’ Snakes were worse,
especially puff-adders, which would attack whenever they could.”
* * * * *
“_Feb. 2, 1897._--Dreadful news has come of the terrible murder in the
Benin expedition of my dear Kenneth Campbell (of Ardpatrick), than whom
no one was better, braver, more attractive to look upon, or more
pleasant to live with.
‘I loved him, and love him for ever: the dead are not dead, but alive.’[578]
Yet a shadow is thrown over everything, and when even his friend feels
as if he could never write or speak of him without tears, what must not
it be to his parents! One had felt that he, if any one, had ‘i pensieri
stretti ed il viso sciolto’ which would ‘go safely over the whole
world,’ as Alberto Scipioni said to Sir Henry Wotton, and which the
latter recommended to Milton when asked for advice as to his travels.”
* * * * *
_To_ MRS. C. VAUGHAN.
“_May 8, 1897._--Do you remember the article on my book, or rather on
me, headed ‘A Monument of Self-Sufficiency,’ which amused us both so
much? Dining at Lady Margaret Watney’s, I sate opposite to Mr. E. G. who
wrote it--a pleasant man and much liked--and longed to make acquaintance
with him, but had not the chance. Last night I dined with Lady
Ashburton, a quiet party, with all the beautiful Kent House pictures
lighted up. Mr. Henschel whistled like a bullfinch at dinner, and sang
gloriously ‘Der Kaiser’ afterwards. Mrs. F. Myers, who sate by me, was
most agreeable, and is one of those with whom one soon penetrates
‘l’écorce extérieur de la vie,’ as our dear S. Simon calls it. Amongst a
thousand interesting things, she told me that, at Cambridge, she found
Lord De Rothschild’s son especially difficult to get on with, till one
day he startled her by asking, ‘Have you got any fleas?’ She was
surprised, but found that special point of Natural History was just the
one thing he cared about, knew about, and would talk on for ever; and
she was able to get him some rare fleas from a friend in India, with
which he was greatly delighted.
“I also sate at dinner by ...whose father was ambassador at Vienna. He
rented Prince Clary’s house. One day, as a little girl, she was at the
end of the drawing-room with her mother, when they both saw a
chasseur--their own chasseur, they supposed--standing in an alcove at
the end of the room. ‘Oh, there is Fritz,’ said her mother. ‘What can he
be doing there? Run and tell him to go downstairs.’ She ran across the
room, but as she came up to the alcove the chasseur seemed to vanish.
This happened three times; then the mother said, ‘If we were
superstitious we might say we had seen a ghost, but it can be only a
question of angles.’ Soon afterwards her father met Prince Clary at
dinner and began, ‘Have you ever been troubled by any appearance?’ &c.
‘Oh, don’t speak of it,’ exclaimed Prince Clary; ‘it is a most painful
subject: the fact is, that, in a fit of anger, my father killed his
chasseur on that spot.’ Sir Augustus Loftus, who succeeded at the
Embassy, took the same house, and reproached them much for not warning
him of the apparition, on account of which he soon left and went to live
in a hotel.
“At Easter I was with the Carysforts at Elton, and was taken to see
Castor, with its fine Roman and Norman remains, and Stobbington, a very
interesting old house, with a most curious collection of rare living
fish, the pets of its owner. Lady Alwyn Compton, who was at Elton, told
me a curious story. It was one of the great commentators--Calamy, she
thought--who had occasion to go to a market-town in Devonshire, and take
a lodging there whilst the assizes were going on. In the evening a
servant came to his room and said that the master of the house hoped
that he would do him the honour of coming down to supper with him. He
said, ‘Oh, pray thank him very much, but say that I never take supper.’
But the servant came three times with the same message, and at last he
said to himself, ‘Well, he seems so anxious to have me that it is rather
churlish not to go,’ and he went. There were many people in the room,
quite a number of guests, and a great supper prepared. But, being a
religious man, before sitting down he said grace aloud, and, as he said
it, the whole thing vanished.
“Archbishop Benson told Lady Alwyn that two Americans were talking to
each other about spiritualism. Said one to the other, ‘You do not
believe in ghosts, do you?’--‘No, certainly not!’ ‘You would not believe
even if you saw one?’--‘No, certainly not.’ ‘Well, I am one!’ and he
vanished on the spot.
“Afterwards I saw Higham Ferrers on my way to stay at Ecton, such a
pleasant old house; and the next week I was with the George Drummonds at
Swaylands, which has the finest rock-garden in England, and drew with
Miss Henniker in the delicious old gardens of Penshurst Place.”
* * * * *
_To_ HUGH BRYAN _and_ JOURNAL.
“_Castle Hale, Painswick, June 17._--‘Voici venir les longs crépuscules
de juin,’[579] and I will employ one of them in writing to you. I have
had a Whitsuntide of visits, beginning with the Deanery of Hereford.
Mrs. Leigh[580] was full of her visit to Butler’s Island, from which she
was lately returned--her last visit, she thinks, but I expect she will
not long be able to keep away from the old home in the rice-swamps which
she loves so dearly. Before she left, she had a little feast for all the
older negroes, who had been slaves, and whose ancestors had been on the
place since her great-grandfather’s time. She thanked them for coming in
a little speech, expressing her attachment to them, but saying that as
her years were advancing, she might not meet them often again on earth,
but that she trusted to see them again hereafter. She was much moved
herself, and many of the negroes wept; then, as by a universal impulse,
they all sprang up and sang the Doxology! Her daughter Alice had a
supper for the younger negroes in another room. One of them, a young
man, made a speech, and ended it by saying, ‘I am sure that this
festival will be remembered by our offspring long after their forespring
are dead and gone.’
“‘Old Sie is my foreman,’ said Mrs. Leigh. ‘His grandfather lived with
my great-grandfather, the first of our family who established himself on
Butler’s Island. He was a very clever, efficient slave. Once, when all
the other slaves were out at another island trying to cultivate it--it
is called “Experiment” still--there came on one of those tremendous
hurricanes which are, happily, very rare with us. The slaves, who are
like sheep, all wanted at once to take to the boats and get home. Had
they succeeded in embarking, they would all have been lost, as many
other negroes were then, when all boats were swamped. But, at the point
of the whip, Sie’s grandfather drove them all back inland to a hut where
they could take refuge. Afterwards Sie was offered his freedom, but he
would not take it; so my grandfather had a silver cup made for him, with
an inscription recording what he had done. Last winter I said to Sie, “I
think you had better let me buy that cup from you; you are all free now,
and your children are not likely to care for it.” He considered awhile,
then he said, “No, Missus, I tink not: I keep cup;” and then he thought
a little more and said, “Missus, when I be gone done dead, you have de
cup.”’
“I went with the Leighs to see the wonderful old church of ‘Abbeydore in
the Golden Valley,’ as romantic as its name, and Kilpeck, a marvellous
old Norman building.
“I went next to Madresfield, a first visit in a new reign, and very
different it looked in its long grass and flowers, with the lovely
Malvern hills behind, from the frost-bound place I remember. Its young
master has spent all the time of his possession in beautifying it,
planting glorious masses of peonies, iris, and a thousand other flowers
in the grass, and making a herbaceous walk--winding--with a background
of yew hedge, which is a very dream of loveliness. I was very happy at
Madresfield, liking Beauchamp and Lady Mary so much, and all the many
guests were charming, especially the Arthur Walronds, genial Dick
Somerset, delightful Lady Northcote, the evergreen Duchess of
Cleveland--‘Aunt Wilhelmine’--and three pleasant young men, Charlie
Harris, Victor Cochran, and Lord Jedburgh. What a pleasure there is in
thoroughly well-bred society! There is a capital passage in Ouida’s last
book about this--‘You are always telling me that I wear my clothes too
long: you’ve often seen me in an old coat--a shockingly old coat; but
you never saw me in an ill-cut one. Well, I like my acquaintance to be
like my clothes. They may be out at elbows, but I must have ’em well
cut.’
“One afternoon we drove to Eastnor, which was in great beauty, and the
castle--hideous outside--a palace of art treasures within, infinitely
lovely from the flowers with which Lady Henry Somerset fills it.
“But most I liked the rambles about the inexhaustible gardens of
Madresfield itself, with my charming young host and hostess, and one or
other of the guests, and the practice inculcated by the oft-repeated
questions which they ask so cheerily--‘Is it wise? is it kind? is it
true?’ the very thought of which stops so much scandal; yet one has to
consider all the three questions together, for the last would so often
bring an affirmative where there would be a negative for the two others.
The house itself is full of interesting and precious things, old
furniture, miniatures, enamels, &c.
“Now I am with Mrs. Baddeley, whom you will remember as Helen Grant,
the second of the three beautiful sisters whom all the great artists
wanted to paint, but who have been such dear friends of mine from their
earliest childhood, and often at Holmhurst, whether I were there or not.
Helen’s husband, St. Clair Baddeley, is full of amusing stories, and his
adopted father, Mr. Christie, with whom they live, is the dearest of old
gentlemen. Just behind this house is the old courthouse where Charles I.
lodged in most troublous times, and whence he fled. Many of his
Cavaliers took refuge in the church, and numbers of them were afterwards
shot in the churchyard, where old helmets are still dug up, and where a
row of yews are said to mark their graves. There are ninety-nine yews
altogether, and it is said that a mystic power guards this number; if
any one tries to plant more, the old yews destroy them. In their shadow
are a number of fine tombs, executed by Italian workmen, who left the
place because they were not allowed to have their own chapel, but who
were brought over when Painswick was a very flourishing town from its
cloth factories, now transferred to Yorkshire.
“Just before her marriage, H. went to see Lady Burton at Mortlake, and
was taken to Burton’s mausoleum as a natural part of her visit.
Afterwards Lady Burton wrote to her saying that she wanted to ask a very
great favour. It was that she would never wear again the hat in which
she had come down to Mortlake. H. liked her hat very much--a pretty
Paris hat in which she fancied herself particularly, but she said she
would do as an old friend of her future husband wished, though utterly
mystified. Afterwards Lady Burton wrote that when H. had come into the
room on her visit, she was horrified to see three black roses in her
hat; that they were the mark of a most terrible secret sect in Arabia,
mixed up in every possible atrocity, and that--especially as worn by a
girl about to be married--they were a presage of every kind of
misfortune; that, in another case of the same kind, she had given the
same warning, and the girl, who disregarded it, died on the day before
her wedding. H. wore her hat again, but took out the black roses.
“Sir Richard Burton died of syncope of the heart--died twenty minutes
before Lady Burton’s priest could arrive; so her report of his having
been received into the Roman Catholic Church was a complete delusion.
“H. says that Count Herbert Bismarck went lately to a great function in
Russia. While he wished to be incognito, he still did not see why he
could not have the advantages of his cognito. ‘Stand back; you must keep
the line,’ said an official as he was pushing through. ‘You do not know
who I am: I am Count Herbert Bismarck.’ ‘Really? Well that quite
_explains_, but it does not _excuse_ your conduct,’ rejoined the
officer.
“At the silver wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales, a northern
town wished to present an address, but there was a great discussion as
to its wording; for some time they could not agree at all. ‘Conscious as
we are of our own unworthiness,’ was universally condemned, but when
some one proposed, ‘Conscious as we are of each other’s unworthiness,’
it was agreed to to a man.
“Mr. P----, Q.C., who has just been here, has called to mind that the
Queen’s name is neither Victoria nor Guelf. Her real name is Victorina
Wetting (pronounced Vettine). She was christened Victorina, and then
there was a little girl called Victorina who played a most unpleasant
part in Queen Caroline’s trial, and the Duke and Duchess of Kent changed
their child’s name to Victoria, that it might not be the same. And
Wetting is her husband’s--the real Saxe-Coburg name.
“H. had been at Oxford when Max Müller one day received a letter which
pleased him so much that he insisted on sending a very nice letter in
return, though it was evidently only written to get an autograph. It
asked if there was any reason, other than coincidence, for _meche_ and
_mechant_: wick, wicked. One day an American was shown in to Max Müller,
saying, ‘I have come, sir, four thousand miles to see you,’ &c. The
professor was terribly pressed for time, and bored too; but as to the
latter, felt that in a quarter of an hour he would be released, as he
had a lecture to deliver. So he was civil, and then excused himself,
saying that he was afraid he must go to his lecture, but that if his
visitor wished to go to hear it, he could. ‘No,’ said the American, ‘I
will not go with you, for I am rather deaf; but I can make myself
perfectly happy here, and you shall find me here on your return.”
“St. Clair has been talking of Mrs. Procter, whom he knew well, and how
she used to say, ‘Never tell anybody how you are, because nobody wants
to know.’ All her circle are gone now, Lowell, Matthew Arnold, Browning,
Adelaide Sartoris. When she was dying, her nun-daughter came and tried
to get a priest in, but she would not have it. She had preserved the
letters of Thackeray, Dickens, and others in three tin boxes. Mrs.
Procter left Browning and two others her executors, but the nun wanted
all the papers to be given to a young Nottingham doctor, to be published
just as she wished, and, when they would not have it so, she put the
whole of the correspondence on the kitchen-fire: it was her vendetta on
her mother for having refused the priest.
* * * * *
_To the_ COUNTESS OF DARNLEY.
“_Holmhurst, June 29, 1897._--I said I would tell you about the Jubilee.
For the first few days I was with the hospitable Lowthers, and thence,
on Sunday, went to the Thanksgiving service at St. Paul’s. Going very
early, I had perhaps the best place in the choir, and enjoyed seeing the
gradual gathering of so much of the bravery, learning, and beauty of
England beneath the dusky arches and glistening mosaics. When the long
file of clergy went out to meet the royal procession at the west door,
the faint distant song was very lovely, gradually swelling, and lost in
the blare of trumpets, the roll of drums, and the triumphant shout of
welcoming voices as the clergy re-entered the choir. The most important
figure was the Bishop of Finland in a white satin train with two
gorgeous train-bearers; but the newspapers tell this, and how the lines
of royal persons sate on crimson chairs opposite the entrance of the
choir, and how the Bishop of London preached touchingly, not effusively,
about the Queen and her reign, and officiated at the altar in a gorgeous
mitre and cope.
“On Monday Miss Lowther and I went to tea with my friend (minor-canon)
Lewis Gilbertson at his lovely little house in Amen Court, and then were
taken, by one of the many secret staircases of the cathedral, to emerge
over the portico for the rehearsal of the next day’s ceremony. Perhaps,
in some ways, this was more impressive than the reality, as none of the
vast surrounding space was kept clear; all was one sea of heads, whilst
every window, every house-top, even every chimney-pot, was crowded with
people. Never was anything more jubilant than the ‘Te Deum,’ more
reverent than the solemn Lord’s Prayer in the open air--every hat off.
When the appointed programme was over, the crowd very naturally asked
for ‘God save the Queen,’ and after some hesitation, and goings to and
fro of dean and canons, it was begun by the bands and choristers, and
taken up vigorously by the mile of people as far as Temple Bar. How
grand it was!
“That evening the dear Queen said to Miss ... ‘To-morrow will be a
_very_ happy day for me;’ and I think it must have been. Where are
anarchists and socialists before such a universal burst of loyalty--not
of respect only, but of heartfelt filial _love_?--Nowhere! Their very
existence seems ridiculous. I saw all from the Beaumonts’ in Piccadilly
Terrace, where a most kind hostess managed all most beautifully for us,
and, entering through the garden, we had neither heat nor crowd to fear.
No small part of the sight was the crowd itself--the unfailing
good-humour increased by the extreme kindness of the police towards
fainting women and all who needed their help. The Colonial procession
was charming--its young representatives rode so well, and were in
themselves such splendid specimens of humanity, and so picturesquely
equipped. Then the group of old English generals on horseback drew every
eye, and the sixteen carriages of princesses, amongst whom the Duchess
of Teck was far more cheered than any one except the Queen herself. And
lastly came the cream-coloured horses with their golden-coated footmen,
and the beloved Lady herself--the ‘Mother of the Land,’--every inch a
queen, royal most exceedingly, but with an expression of such love, such
gratitude, such devotion, such thankfulness! Oh, no one felt for and
_with_ her only as a sovereign; it was a far closer tie than that.
“In the evening, Mrs. Tilt and her sister went with me to the
Maxwell-Lytes on the top of the Record Tower, whence we saw the bonfires
round London light up one by one, and St. Paul’s in silver light--a
glorified spiritual church rising out of the darkness of the city
against the deep blue sky. Far more than the illuminations of the noisy
streets, it was a fitting end to so solemn and momentous a day.
“And on Wednesday I was in the Green Park, and heard the thousands of
school-children sing their farewell to the Queen as she went away to
Windsor.”
* * * * *
_To_ MRS. C VAUGHAN.
“_March 1897._--I think the reviews of the first three volumes of my
‘Story’ must be coming to an end now. I have had them all sent to me,
and very amusing they have been, mostly recalling the dictum of
Disraeli, that ‘critics are those who have failed in art and
literature.’ Many criticisms have been kind. One or two, but not more,
have been rather clever, and some of the fault-finding ones would have
been very instructive if I had not so entirely agreed with them at the
outset on all their main points--that I was a mere nobody, that my life
was wholly without importance, and that it was shocking to see parts of
the story in print, especially the painful episode which I called ‘The
Roman Catholic Conspiracy;’ for reviewers, of course, could not know the
anguish it cost when I was led to publish that chapter, by its being my
_one_ chance of giving the true version of a story of which so many
false versions had been given already. However, it is as Zola says,
‘Every author must, at the outset, swallow his toad,’ _i.e._, some
malicious attack in the periodicals of the day; only I think my toads
become more numerous and venomous as years go on.
“Some of the reviews are very funny indeed. The _Saturday Review_ of ‘A
Monument of Self-Sufficiency’ contrives to read (oh! where?) ‘how sweet
and amenable and clever Augustus was,’ but is so shocked by a book
‘wholly without delicacy’ that it--‘cannot promise to read any more of
it’!! The _British Review_, which thinks me an absolute beast, has a
stirring article on ‘Myself in Three Volumes.’ The _Pall Mall Gazette_
dwells upon their ‘bedside sentiment and goody-goody twaddle,’ and is
‘filled with genuine pity for a man who can attach importance to a life
so trivial.’ The _Athenæum_ describes me as a mere ‘literary valet.’
The _New York Tribune_ finds the book ‘the continuous wail of a very
garrulous person.’ The reviewer in the _Bookbuyer_ speaks of the
‘irritation and occasional fierce anger’ which the book arouses in
him(!). The _New York Independent_ dwells upon my ‘want not only of all
kindly sense of humour, but also of propriety.’ It is long since the
_National Observer_ has met with an author ‘so garrulous or so
self-complacent.’ Finally, the _Allahabad Pioneer_ (what a name!) votes
that Mr. Hare’s chatter is ‘becoming a prodigious nuisance,’ and ‘if it
had its deserts his book would make its way, and pretty quickly, to the
pastry-cook and the trunk-maker.’
“What fun! Yet I am glad that most of the more respectable reviews say
exactly the opposite, and certainly the public does not seem to agree
with those I have quoted; it would be terribly expensive if it did. They
are only birds of prey with their beaks cut and their claws pulled out,
and if a book is found to be interesting, people read it whatever they
say. They influence nobody, except just at first those who choose books
for lending libraries.
“What is really almost irritating is the very ragtag and bobtail of
reviews, whose writers can scarcely even glance at the books they are
penny-a-lining--such as the _Table_, which ‘explains’ that ‘my
grandmother was the wife of Archdeacon Hare;’ as another (I have lost it
now) which speaks of ‘Priscilla Maurice, second wife of Julius Hare;’ as
the _Weekly Register_, which reviews the life of ‘Esmeralda,’ or the
student of the book who writes in _The Dial_ and describes my life at
‘Balliol College,’ or _Household Words_ (copied by the _Free-thinker_
and several other even inferior reviews), which ‘quotes’ in full a long
story about Mr. Gladstone and Father Healy which is not to be found in
the ‘Story’ at all.
“Then, did you see Mr. Murray’s letter to the _Times_, which certainly
gives a touching picture of the spirit of self-sacrifice which actuates
publishers in their daily life, for he announces that my ‘Handbook of
Berks, Bucks, and Oxon,’ which had three editions before his father’s
death, and on which the author was only paid _altogether_ £152, left, at
that death, a deficit of £158!! I was sorry, all the same, that he was
annoyed at my description of his father wrapt in his _enveloppe de
glace_; for old Mr. Murray (who had cut me dead for all the years since
the appearance of my Italian Handbooks) asked me to shake hands with him
once again a few months before he died, which I did most cordially.”
* * * * *
_To_ FRANCIS COOKSON.
“_Holmhurst, August 29, 1897._-- ...With me, life has rippled on through
several months, only I have been away for some days with the Lowthers to
draw under Carlandi, and quite lately I have sorrowed bitterly at the
early death of my dear Inverurie, kindest and most affectionate of young
friends. I feel his being taken so much myself that I cannot bear even
to think of what it must be to his nearest belongings; and yet--while
absolutely free from all humbug--surely never was there any young man
more simply and trustfully prepared for an early death.
[Illustration: IN THE WALPOLE CORRIDOR, HOLMHURST.]
“He cared less for ‘the world’ than any young fellow I have ever known,
and was more in love with his family, his homes, and their surroundings.
‘Felix ille animi, divisque simillimus ipsis.
Quem non mordaci resplendens gloria fuco
Sollicitat, non fastosi mala gaudia luxus
Sed tacitos sinit ire dies et paupere cultu
Exegit innocuae tranquilla silentia vitae.’[581]
“Last week I was for three nights at Hurstmonceaux, actually--for the
first time in thirty-seven years--at my old home of Lime. What a mixture
of emotions it was; but within all is so changed, I could not recall my
mother and Lea there; and the present inhabitants, the young Baron and
Baroness von Roemer, were boundlessly good to me. Outside, there were
many spots alive with old memories, especially in the garden, where my
mother and I lived so much alone--our earthly Paradise. Did you know
that the word Paradeisos means a garden?
“How I should like you to know the peculiar surroundings of Lime,
different to those of any other place I have seen--the brown parched
sun-dried uplands, the bosky ferny hollows, the reedy pools fragrant
with mint, the eternal variety of pink lights and grey shadows on the
soft downs beyond the wide Levels, which recall O’Hara’s lines--
‘Where the herds are slowly winding over leagues of waving grass,
And the wild cranes seek the sedges, and the wild swans homeward pass.’
[Illustration: WARBLETON PRIORY, ON APPROACHING.]
[Illustration: WARBLETON PRIORY, SEEN FROM BEHIND.]
“We made a little excursion. In my very early childhood I was once at
the ever-haunted Warbleton Priory, and the recollection of its utter
weirdness and of the skulls kept there had always so remained with me
that I had quite longed to see it again. The many stories about it are
such as ought never to be told, only whispered. The very approaches have
a mystery. No one will stay there now, even by broadest daylight; so we
went to an old manor near Rushlake Green for the keys, but found even
that so bolted and barred that we were long in obtaining them. ‘Oh no,
there is never any one there,’ said the servant, ‘but you must go on
till you come to a black gate, then drive in.’ To reach this, we
followed a lane with well-built cottages, but they were deserted, their
windows broken and their gardens overgrown; no one could live so near
the accursed spot. Through the black gate we enter dark woods. A
cart-track exists, winding through thickets with fine oaks interspersed,
and by reedy ponds dense with waving cotton-plants. Then we cross open
fields entirely covered with thistles--enough to seed all Sussex--for no
one will work there. Then, through another black gate, we enter a
turf-grown space, with lovely distant view between old trees, and
there, with high red-tiled roofs, golden here and there with lichen, is
a forlorn and mossy but handsome old stone house, built from and rising
amidst other remains of an Augustinian priory. In its little garden are
roses, and box bushes which have once been clipped into shapes. Inside,
the mildewed rooms have some scanty remnants of their old furniture. In
one of them, where a most terrible murder was committed, the blood then
shed still comes up through the floor--a dark awful pool which no
carpenter’s work can efface. The most frightful sounds, cries, and
shrieks of anguish, rumblings and clankings, even apparently explosions,
are always heard by night, and sometimes by day. In the principal room
of the ground floor, in the recess of a window, are two skulls. They
are believed to be those of two brothers who fought here and both fell
dead. From one, the lower jaw has fallen down, increasing its ghastly
effect. Successive generations of farmers have buried them, and
instantly everything has gone wrong on the farm and all the cattle have
died: now they have altogether abandoned a hopeless struggle with the
unseen world. Besides this there is a tradition--often verified--that if
any one touches the skulls, within twelve hours they pass through the
valley of the shadow of Death. So naturally Warbleton Priory is left to
the undisputed possession of its demon-ghosts.”
* * * * *
JOURNAL _and_ LETTER _to_ W. H. MILLIGAN.
“_Thoresby, Oct. 22, 1897._--I began my little tour of visits at Maiden
Bradley.... You know how it is almost the only remnant the title
possesses from the once vast Somerset estates. The 12th Duke left
everything he possibly could away, and when the present Duke and Duchess
succeeded, they were pictureless, bookless, almost spoonless. Still they
were determined to make the best of it. ‘He could not take away our
future: we will not lament over all that is lost, but enjoy to the very
utmost what we have;’ this has been the rule of their existence, and so
‘Algie and Susie,’ as they, always speak of each other, have had a most
delightful life, enjoying and giving enjoyment. No one ever looked more
ducal than this genial, hearty, handsome Duke: no one brighter or
pleasanter than his Duchess: ‘all who have to do with her find nothing
but courtesy, gentleness, and goodness,’ as Brantôme wrote of Claude of
France. I liked my visit extremely. My fellow-guests were Sir E. Poynter
of the Royal Academy, Lady Heytesbury, and Mrs. Kelly, an authoress.
With the last I saw stately Longleat, which I had not visited since I
was fourteen, and--as horses are the one indulgence the Duke gives
himself--he drove us luxuriously about the country on his
coach-and-four.
“The following week was delightful--with the Boynes in their beautiful
hill-set home. They took me glorious excursions, and we picnicked out in
beautiful places five days running. One day we went to Kinlet--a really
great house, as well kept by Swedish maids (its mistress is a Swede) as
if there were a dozen men-servants. And the last day we went to a real
still-standing Norman farmhouse (Millichope), with its original round
arched doors and windows.
“From Burwarton I went on to my pleasant cousin’s, the Francis
Bridgemans, close to that beautiful church at Tong, and we spent a day
with Francis’s kind old father, Lord Bradford, at Weston, and he showed
us all the pictures and treasures in the house, and drove us about in
his sociable to the ‘Temple of Diana’ and other points of interest in
the park of a very comfortable well-to-do place.
“Next, I visited Lady Margaret Herbert (daughter of my dear Lady
Carnarvon) as châtelaine at Teversal manor in Notts, a smoky
wind-stricken country, but with Hardwicke and other fine houses to see.
The charming aunt of my hostess, Lady Guendolen, was living with her as
chaperon, none the worse in body for being a strict vegetarian, and in
mind the sunniest of the sunny, delightful to be with.
‘And scarcely is she altered, for the hours
Have led her lightly down the vale of life,
Dancing and scattering roses, and her face
Seems a perpetual daybreak.’[582]
I was glad to be taken to spend the day at Bestwood, the Duke of St.
Alban’s modern place, its woods an oasis in the wilderness, and its
honours were charmingly done by Lady Sybil Beauclerk and her
good-looking brother Burford. In the Duchess’s room were a series of
albums with all the original drawings for Dickens’s works. All the best
pictures were burnt in a fire.
“The Ladies Herbert sometimes, but in a far-away sense, remind me of
their mother, who was quite the most perfectly brilliant person I have
ever known. I have always heard that she was this even as a girl, and
that it was a perpetual surprise to her parents, who were very inferior
people. Lady Dufferin used to say that they were like savages who had
found a watch.
“Taking stern dismal Bolsover--its delicate carvings utterly ruined by
‘trippers’--on the way, I came on to meet a large party here at
Thoresby, which is in more than usual autumnal forest glory. We have
just been spending the afternoon at Welbeck, shown all the improvements
by Mrs. Dallas Yorke, in the absence of the tall handsome Duchess, who,
however, returned before we left. One did not wonder that she is such a
special joy to the old people of the place, because they had ‘been so
long without a duchess, and when there was one long ago, it was only
such a little one.’ She has built a delightful
gallery--Florence-fashion--between the old house and the new, and hung
it with a galaxy of old prints, and has made fascinating little
terrace-gardens, and edged their beds with dwarf lavender, so that ‘when
the ladies’ dresses brush against it, its scent may be wafted into the
house.’
“And meantime my thoughts have been much at Llandaff, with the
cousin[583] who was the dearest friend of my boyhood, seeming to pass
with her through the closing scenes of the good Dean’s life, and to see
him as she did, lying in his cathedral, dressed in his surplice, in the
majesty of eternal repose.”
* * * * *
_To_ MRS. C. VAUGHAN.
“_Holmhurst, Nov. 16, 1897._--Here I am again in quietude, thinking of
you very much in your last days at Llandaff; busy over the building of
which I am architect, overseer, a hundred things at once, and planting a
great deal, with a reminiscence of Dumbiedykes in Walter Scott--‘Be aye
sticking in a tree; it will be growing, Jock, while you’re sleeping.’ My
only companions now are the pleasant Hospitallers in the little Hospice,
whom I constantly meet in the garden and wood walks. I wish you could
see their little house, and the late roses lingering on their porch.
“I have been away for a week. Lady Stanhope took me from Chevening to
see Lullingstone Castle in Kent, the old house of the Dykes, with a
good brick gateway, a richly ceilinged upper gallery, and a chapel with
interesting tombs. Two days afterwards, Lady Chetwynd took me to a finer
place--Chawton in Hants, where the Knights, of Godmersham, live now,
representing several old extinct families, especially the Lewknors, with
whom I am very familiar through their tombs scattered all over Sussex,
and who are commemorated at Chawton by many portraits and fine
tapestried needlework. A little bookcase with a globe outside and a
series of Elzevir Histories of the World within, was very attractive.
[Illustration: PORCH OF HOSPICE, HOLMHURST.]
“Then I went to stay with ‘the richest man in the world,’ genial
unassuming Mr. Astor, in his beautiful Cliveden, much improved since he
bought it from its ducal owners, and enriched within by glorious
portraits of Reynolds and Romney, and without by the noble terrace
parapet of the Villa Borghese and its fountains, already looking here a
natural part of the Buckinghamshire landscape, and replaced on its old
site by a copy, which is just the same to nineteenth-century Italians!
All the splendid sarcophagi and even the marble benches of the
world-famous villa are now also at Cliveden, where they are more valued
than at Rome. We had a charming party--Jane, Lady Churchill, retaining
in advancing years ‘sa marche de déesse sur les nues,’[584] for which
she was famous in her youth; the Lord Chancellor, Lady Halsbury, and a
daughter; pretty gentle Princess Löwenstein; the Duchess of Roxburghe,
ever wreathed in smiles of geniality and kindness, with two very tall
agreeable daughters; Lord Sandwich, as bubbling with fun as when he was
a young man; Lord and Lady Stanhope--always salt of the earth; with Mr.
Marshall Hall and Sir Arthur Sullivan as geniuses; so, as you will see,
‘une élite très intelligente.’ Every one of these delightful people,
too, was simplicity itself, rare as that virtue is to find. I see that
Queen Adelaide, as Duchess of Clarence, wrote to Gabrielle von
Bülow--‘How rarely you meet a really simple man or woman in our great
world; they would be hard to find even with Diogenes’ lantern.’
Certainly ‘learned’ people are scarcely ever agreeable. There is a very
good sentence in Hamerton about that--‘A good mental condition includes
just as much culture as is necessary to the development of the
faculties, but not any burden of erudition heavy enough to diminish, as
erudition so often does, the promptitude or elasticity of the mind.’
“On Sunday morning we all went to the beautifully situated little church
at Hedsor, arriving early and seeing the congregation wind up the steep
grassy hill as to a church in Dalecarlia. In the afternoon we were
driven about the grounds of Cliveden to the principal points--Waldo
Story’s grand fountain in the avenue and his noble landing-place on the
river. Exquisitely beautiful were the peace of the still autumn evening,
the amber and golden tints of the woods, and the wide river with its
reflections. Mr. Astor has attended to all the historic associations of
the spot; placing a fine statue of Marlborough in the temple built by
Lord Orkney, who was one of his generals, and portraits of Lady
Shrewsbury and her Duke of Buckingham, and of Frederick and Augusta of
Wales, in the successor of the house where they lived. Another portrait
of Frederick, with his three sisters, Anne, Emily, and Caroline, all
playing on musical instruments, has the old house in the background. Our
host seemed to me quite absolutely frank and delightful; indeed,
Surrey’s lines on Sir T. Wyatt might be applied to him--
‘An eye whose judgment no effect could blind,
Friends to allure and foes to reconcile,
Whose piercing look did represent a mind
With virtue fraught, reposèd, void of guile.’
“Now, I am enjoying the time alone at home, with its much-reading
opportunity, and I often think that my natural bent would have been to
enjoy it quite as much as a boy, when all the family except you treated
me not only as a consummate dunce, but a _hopeless_ dunce; and when
almost every book was thought wicked, or at best quite unsuited for a
boy’s digestion. Now, eyes ache often, but I may say with Lady M.
Wortley Montagu, ‘If relays of eyes were to be ordered like post-horses,
I would admit none but silent companions.’
“Les années d’ennui et de solitude lui firent lire bien des
livres’--part of Catherine II.’s epitaph on herself--is certainly true
in my case. Just now I have been labouring through the two long thick
volumes which are called ‘Memoirs of Tennyson,’ though, when you close
them, you have less idea of what the man was like than when you
began--of the rude, rugged old egotist, who was yet almost sublimely
picturesque; of the aged sage, who in dress, language, manners was
always posing for the adoration of strangers, and furious if he did not
get it, or--if he did. The book is most provoking, for it would by no
means have destroyed the hero to have truthfully described the man.
“There have been no end of hard-worked boy-friends here for Sundays, and
it is no trouble, but very much the contrary. We always get on together
capitally--
‘That which we like, likes us:
No need of any fuss,’
is a capital Feejee proverb.[585]
[Illustration: THE AVE-VALE STEPS, HOLMHURST.]
“I think it is Frederick Locker who says that one gradually finds out
how much of the affection one inspires is ‘_reflected_.’ ‘Though thou
lose all that thou deemest happiness, if thou canst but make the
happiness of others, thou shall find it again in thine own heart,’ is a
sentence of George Ebers, of which I mentally leave out as irrelevant
the conclusion--‘Is not this playing at being God Almighty?’”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS GARDEN _at_ LUCCA, _and_ JOURNAL.
“_Holmhurst, August 1, 1898._--I have been much in London since I wrote
last, enjoying the garden-parties at Sion, Osterley, Holland House,
Hatfield, Lady Penrhyn’s, Lady Portman’s, &c., and seeing many pleasant
people, mostly ‘grandes dames de par le monde.’ Yet, in the season, it
is all too great a hurry; one seldom has time to become really
acquainted with any one; there are few who have even sufficient
personality to leave an individual impression on the mind; if any one
does, he or she is ‘like a tree in the steppe’ in the monotony of London
life. I dined out daily for two months, but how difficult it is to
remember any dinner-party! ‘Who cares for the whipped cream of London
society?’ was a saying of Walter Scott. I do recollect one dinner,
however, at Mr. Knowles’s, from the fine effect of light on Leighton’s
‘Clytie,’ the principal ornament of his dining-room, all the
illumination being given to one fold of the dress, and the rest
effectively left in shadow. One charming person whom I remember was Lady
Blake, lately returned to England with her husband, who had been
governor of Jamaica. She was fond of tame animals. ‘In Jamaica,’ she
said, ‘I often had a large snake coiled round my waist; my tiger-cat I
generally led by a string, for I never knew what he might do, but my
tame crocodile always quietly followed me.’ She was Irish--a Bernal
Osborne. ‘Oh, I assure you the Irish are very good to us, quite
charming, in fact.’ ‘But if you do anything they don’t like, they kill
you.’--‘Naturally.’
“On July 11 I was at Miss Fleetwood Wilson’s wedding to Prince
Dolgorouki, and also at Lady Mary Savile’s in the Church of the
Assumption, which was a most picturesque ceremony, performed by Cardinal
Vaughan--such a fine cardinal!--in a jewelled mitre, with all
accompaniments of cross-bearers, incense-swingers, &c.
“The nobly Christian death of Mr. Gladstone and the almost ludicrous
apotheosis of one who, in his political life, did nothing and undid so
much, were events of the spring. I have personally more individual
recollection of his kindness to those who needed it than of his witty
sayings; but they were constant. ‘What do you think of Purcell’s Life of
Manning?’ some one said to him shortly before the end. ‘I think that
Manning need have nothing to fear at the day of judgment.’ He was
formidable to strangers, chiefly on account of ‘those demoniac eyes of
his,’ as Cardinal Alcander said of Luther; and though in his private
capacity he was all goodness, it seemed inconsistent with his public
one. Yet what admirers he had! I remember his saying once to Lord
Houghton, ‘I lead the life of a dog,’ and the answer, ‘Yes, of a St.
Bernard--the saviour of men.’ Joseph Parker used to describe him as ‘the
greatest Englishman of the century, he was so massive, sincere, and
majestic. If he had had humour he would have been too good to live, but
eagles don’t laugh.’
“How much and long people have talked of him, and now what a silence
will fall upon it all. An amusing breakfast at Mr. Leveson’s has just
been recalled to me, where Lady Marian Alford said, ‘Gladstone really
puts his foot in it so often, he is a perfect centipede.’ Directly
after, a wasp lighted on the breakfast-table and there was some question
of killing it. ‘Oh, don’t; I can’t bear killing anything,’ cried Lady
Marian. ‘What! not even a centipede?’ quietly said Lord Lyons, who was
present.
“I was with Mrs. John Dundas at Holt in Wiltshire, where the little
village once prospered exceedingly owing to its mineral spring. Ten
smart carriages used to wait round its fountain at once whilst their
owners drank the waters, and a house is pointed out where some Duchess
or other died. Then the fashion changed, and drainage was allowed to
filter into the spring, and Holt sank into obscurity.
“We went to see Mr. Moseley, the admirable old Rector, who is
half-paralysed. A farmer had been to him to ask whether he did not think
he might get his hay in on a Sunday afternoon, as the weather was likely
to change, and he answered, ‘Certainly; it is God’s hay; save it by all
means.’ How unlike most English priests, but how Christ-like--‘personne
moins prêtre que Jesus Christ.’ ‘From the fetters of spiritual
narrowness, Good Lord deliver us,’ is a petition which I feel more and
more ought to be added to the Litany.[586] Yet in many houses I visit I
still find much of the old Sabbath-bondage remaining, though certainly
it is true that ‘we almost sigh with relief when we discover that even
saints can find monotony monotonous.’
“There is a perfect cordon of drawable old manor-houses round Holt, and
it is only two miles from Bradford-on-Avon, from which the great town in
Yorkshire was colonised, and which owes much of its foreign look to
French refugees. Its houses rise high, tier above tier, on the hillside,
blue-grey against the sky. Over the Avon is a beautiful bridge with a
fine old bracketed mass-chapel, long used as a lock-up. A tiny Saxon
church--the only real one probably in England--has been discovered
walled up into cottages; and there is a noble old ‘palace’ of the Dukes
of Kingston standing in high-terraced gardens. Great Chalfield is a most
lovely Tudor house, with an old chapel and moat. At South Wraxhall how I
recalled many visits from my miserable so-called tutors at Lyncombe, in
days of penury and starvation. How indefinite the misty future seemed in
the thinking-time which those long solitary rambles afforded, and how I
longed to penetrate it. At fifteen ‘j’ai trop voulu, des choses
infinies,’ but I was at a parting of the ways of life then, and I think
I decided in those early days to try to do the best I could here, and
leave the eternities and infinities--of which I heard so much more than
of realities--to take care of themselves, for:--
‘Though reason may at her own quarry fly,
Yet how can finite grasp infinity?’
“But I am moralising too much and must return to my old houses, which
were full of smugglers formerly--‘moonrakers’ they called them in
Wiltshire, because many of the smuggled goods were concealed in the
ponds, and when the excisemen caught the smugglers extracting them at
night, and demanded what they were doing, they answered, ‘Oh, we are
raking out the moon.’ I was working in Shropshire for some time after
my Wiltshire visit, inspecting almost every church and old house for my
book, and hospitably entertained by genial Fred Swete at Oswestry and
the Misses Windsor Clive at beautiful Oakly Park near Ludlow.
“While in London I went for two days to Bulstrode, which the late Duke
of Somerset left to his youngest daughter, Lady Guendolen Ramsden, who
is the most charming of hostesses, but the place is disappointing--a
very large modern villa, only one room remaining of the old house where
Mrs. Delany lived so much with Margaret, Duchess of Portland, and
nothing of that of Judge Jeffreys, which preceded it. It contains an
early portrait of Shakspeare, and a most grand Sir Joshua of a Mrs.
Weddell. We dawdled most of the day in the verandah. Oh, the waste of
time in country-house visits; but Lady Guendolen had much that was
pleasant to tell of her mother, the witty (Sheridan) Duchess of
Somerset. ‘She was once at a bazaar selling things, and a fat, burly,
plethoric farmer asked her the price of something and she mentioned it.
The price seemed to him absurd. ‘Do you take me for the Prodigal,’ he
said. ‘Oh, no,’ she replied; ‘I take you for the fatted calf.’ This made
Graham Vivian, who was one of the party, recollect. ‘I was walking by
the Duchess’s donkey-chair, and suddenly the donkey brayed horribly.
“Will he do it again?” said the Duchess. “Not unless he hears another,”
answered the donkey-boy. “Then mind _you_ don’t sneeze,” said the
Duchess, turning to me.’
“About Mr. L., who always speaks his mind, Lady Guendolen was very
amusing:--‘Mr. L. took me in to dinner, and I thought I was making
myself very agreeable to him, when he suddenly said--“Talk to your
neighbour on the other side.” I felt humiliated, but I thought he
fancied I couldn’t, so I did, and went on, and never spoke another word
to Mr. L. I told him of it afterwards, that he had hurt me so much that
I dreamt of it, and I told him my dream--that I said to him that I was
considered to become very amusing after I had had two glasses of wine,
and he answered, ‘_Then_, my dear lady, you must have been most
uncommonly sober this evening.’”
* * * * *
_To_ VISCOUNT HALIFAX.
“_Holmhurst, August 21, 1898._--I have been for three days at
Hurstmonceaux, doubly picturesque in the burnt turf of this hot summer,
upon which the massy foliage of the trees is embossed as in Titian’s
landscapes. I always feel there, as nowhere else except in the views of
the Roman Campagna from the Alban Hills, the supreme beauty of looking
down upon vast stretches of flat pasture-land, reaching for ten miles or
more, and iridescent in its pink and blue cloud-shadows, with here and
there a ripple of delicate green in softest glamour of quivering light.
Every hour one sees it change--luminous with long lines of natural
shadow, purple from drifting storm-clouds--
‘Then at some angel evening after rain
Glowing like early Paradise again.’
It is a pleasure now to be there, though life there is living amongst
the sepulchres. ‘La morte, l’estrema visitatrice,’[587] has come to all
I knew, and the gravestones of most of them are _moss-grown_--not only
of all the family of my childhood, but of all the neighbours, and all
that generation of poor people. How often there comes into one’s mind
something like the lines often repeated in the cemetery of Port-Royal--
‘Tous ces morts ont véçu, toi qui vis, tu mourras:
Ce jour terrible approche, et tu n’y penses pas.’
[Illustration: IN THE CHURCHYARD, HURSTMONCEAUX.]
‘Ce n’est pas le temps qui passe, ce sont les hommes,’ was a saying of
Louis Philippe. How different everything is to the time which
Hurstmonceaux recalls; all hurry now and energy and updoing, and then
such an extreme quietude of intellectual pursuits, in which every
uninitiated visitor was considered an unendurable bore, if, however
interesting he might be in himself, he did not fall in with the mutual
admiration society of which the Rectory was the axis. I remember how
Thomas Carlyle and Monckton Milnes, with his ‘gay and airy mind,’[588]
were amongst those so considered, for they had naturally their outside
views and intelligence, and the Rectory group never tried for a moment
to penetrate ‘l’écorce exterieur de leur vie;’ and, while bristling with
prejudices themselves, they always found much to be shocked at in every
outside person they came across. It seemed oddly apropos in all the
remembrance of the closed Hurstmonceaux life to read in Madame de
Montagu--‘It is not a good thing for everybody to see each other every
day and too closely; they risk becoming unconscious egoists, critics,
rulers, or subjects, and exhaust themselves by revolving perpetually on
a tiny axis.’ Yet in many ways how much more really interesting the life
was then; how picturesque Uncle Julius’s enthusiasm, how pathetic his
pathos over the books which were his realities; how interesting the
conversation, and how genial the courtesy of such constant visitors as
Bunsen and Landor, though the latter was such a perfect original,
‘dressed in classical adorning,’ as Arthur Young said of some one; then
how unruffled my dearest mother’s temper, over which even Aunt Esther’s
_strenuous_ exactions were powerless; and how ceaseless the flow of her
_love_--not charity, as people use the word now--to the poor of the
cottages in the hazel-fringed lanes around her, whose cares she made her
own, more moved and stirred by the querulous mutterings of Mrs. Burchett
or Mrs. Cornford than by the most important events of English politics
or the world’s history. Certainly she had a wonderful power with the
poor, and an influence which has never passed away, for she had the rare
art of entering into and understanding all their feelings; and then,
when with them, she always gave them her _whole_ attention. I feel that
my two books give very different ideas of what Hurstmonceaux was fifty
years ago, but both are quite true; only the ‘Memorials of a Quiet Life’
is the inside, and the ‘Story of my Life’ the outside view. How much of
life, after sixty, consists in retrospect! It is, as Fanny Kemble says--
‘Youth with swift feet walks onward in the way,
The land of joy lies all before his eyes;
Age, stumbling, lingers slower day by day,
Still looking back, for it behind him lies.’
One great difference of feeling older is that one is afraid to put off
doing anything. ‘By the street of By-and-by, you come to the house of
Nowhere,’ is an admirable Spanish proverb.
“I have greatly enjoyed the vivid, charming, simple letters of Mary
Sibylla Holland--‘anche oggi si sente una dolcezza d’affetto a leggere
quel libro.’”
* * * * *
_To_ W. H. MILLIGAN.
[Illustration: THE AVE-VALE GATE, HOLMHURST.]
“_Holmhurst, Sept. 29, 1898._--The building and changes here go on well,
but very slowly, a result of having the work done with my own stone, and
as much as possible by the men of our village. I think all will look
well in the end. Not a chair or a book will be moved from the older part
of the house, consecrated by my mother’s memory, but room will be given
for the many things connected with Esmeralda, which I bought back at Sir
Edward Paul’s sale, and, if I survive her, for many precious pieces of
furniture, pictures, prints, and books from Norwich which Mrs. Vaughan
says that she has left me. Where you will remember a steep grass bank,
there is now a double stone terrace, with vases and obelisks, and
luxuriant beds of brilliant flowers edged with stone, copied as a whole
from the Italian Villa Lante near Viterbo. At the end are a staircase
and gateway to the Solitude, the ‘Ave-Vale Gate,’ with ‘Ave’ on the
outside and ‘Vale’ within. Cypresses are growing up beside it to enhance
the impression of Italy, which is further carried out in a widening
staircase from the centre of the terrace, with lead vases on the piers,
copied in design and proportions from one at the Villa Arson near Nice.
Just now, in this hot noon-day, the gorgeous flowers against the stone
parapet, and background of brown-green ilex and blue-green pine are
really very Italian, while below in the meadows all is as English as it
can be, the cows feeding in the rich grass, the heavy rounded masses of
oak foliage, and the misty sea asleep in the motionless heat. Nothing
seems to move, except my little black Pomeranian spitz, Nero, frisking
and barking at the butterflies. I am sure that much the happiest part of
my present life is that spent at home, though there is nothing to tell
about it--‘l’histoire ne se soucie pas des heureux.’
“Emmie Penrhyn is here, whose visits are always an unusual pleasure to
me, and who is one of the dearest relations I have left, partly because,
more than any one else, she has a distant likeness to my mother. She
lives happily and most usefully at Richmond in a very little world, with
a weak body but an all-sufficing soul.
“I have grieved so truly over the news of Ranulph Mostyn’s death in
India, that I could not help writing to his mother. Yet I always
hesitate about whether letters of condolence can be of any comfort, and
can only act upon the knowledge that I like myself to have them in any
great sorrow. No Christian disquisitions, however: they always seem
forced and unmeaning. ‘Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief;’
that is somewhere in Shakspeare. Thirlwall’s Letters have an excellent
passage about them--‘Expressions of general condolence may be welcome as
tokens of goodwill, but can scarcely exert any general alleviating
power. The afflicted ones stand within a circle of images and feelings
of their own, which, painful as they may be, they would not part with
for worlds. Any attempt to draw them out of that circle can only inflict
a useless annoyance.”
* * * * *
_To_ MRS. C. VAUGHAN.
“_Holmhurst, Oct. 16, 1898._--I am alone this evening; the wind is
wailing a dirge, and ‘the dark sea drinks in the greyness of the
sky.’[589] But I have been away for three weeks. First to the sisters of
my old friend Willie Milligan, who now live in the Barrington
dower-house at Shrivenham, close to Beckett, the ideal ‘great house’ of
my boyhood, so stately and luxurious. Now, so are the mighty fallen, it
is let to some Australians, and the family--unless helped by an
heiress--can never afford to live there again. Then I was with the
delightful Boynes in the high Shropshire uplands, seeing in the most
charming way many beautiful old houses. I saw two more from my next
visit at Oxton in Notts--Wiverton, and Annesley where the Miss Chaworth
Musters, beloved by Byron, once walked on the beautiful old terraces.
Another echo from my long-ago came from my visit to Streatlam, where I
so often was in my young days, and which is now inhabited by Lord
Strathmore’s sister, Lady Frances Trevanion, and her pleasant cheery
husband, both most kind cousins to me. The long galleries are filled
with family portraits, including a great one of Mary Eleanor Bowes,
whose strange story I have so often told. Lady Frances’s time is greatly
taken up by the manners and morals of her dogs, the very smallest and
noisiest I ever saw. They must be the sort of dogs Chaucer speaks of--
‘Of small houndes hadde she, that she fedde
With rosted flesh and milk, and wastel brede;
But sore wept she if one of hem were dead.’
“It was a short journey from Streatlam to Kiplin, the beautiful old
house of Admiral Carpenter.... He told me how his grandfather had six
sons, Talbots, and was fond of making them all lie down full length on
the dining-room floor, joining one another, that he might see how many
yards of sons he had! I saw Richmond from Kiplin: what a beautiful
place, few abroad equal to it.
“But my most interesting visit was that to Baddesley Clinton in
Warwickshire, rising, with a fortified central gate-tower, from a deep
still moat, and with an inner courtyard full of flowers. It has dark
tapestried rooms, several priest’s hiding-holes, ghosts of a lady and a
child, and a murder-room, stained with the blood of a priest whom a
squire of Edward IV.’s time slew when he caught him chucking his wife
under the chin.[590] Then there are all the refined luxuries of fast-day
dinners, evening prayers in the chapel with a congregation of maids
veiled like nuns, and a live Bishop (of Portsmouth), in violet robes and
gold cross and chain, to officiate.
“Such a bishop he is! such a ripple of wit and wisdom! and so full of
playfulness! I read and copied somewhere--“A man after God’s own heart
is never a one-sided man. He is not wholly spiritual, he is not wholly
natural; he is not all earnestness, he is not all play; he cannot be all
things at once, and therefore he is all things by turns.”[591] Our
Bishop at Baddesley was just like this in his fun, in his love of cats,
and never more charming than when he gathered up all the scraps of toast
left at breakfast, and throwing open one of the windows, called ‘Quack,
quack!’ and crowds of ducks came rushing under the bridge over the moat
to scramble for them, one brown duck, which the Bishop called ‘the
orphan,’ being especially cared for. Speaking of the frequent ignorance
of religious intolerance led him to tell of the people of Imola and
Brigatella, who were always quarrelling. When the priest at Brigatella
began the paschal mass with ‘Christus immolatus est,’ his congregation
thought it was some compliment to the people of Imola, and declared they
would kill him unless he began ‘Christus brigatellatus est.’
“He had been with the Calthorpes of Woodland Vale to see an old house of
theirs in the Isle of Wight, which was quite deserted, and in the very
room where it occurred was told the reason why. A friend who had come
there to stay with Mr. Calthorpe saw there, in the dawn of the morning,
an old woman sitting knitting at the foot of the bed; he even heard the
click of the knitting-needles. At first he thought she had mistaken the
room, but it happened again the next day. The third time it happened, he
kicked out. The old woman then turned round her face towards him, and
displayed--a death’s-head. Another guest met the old woman on the stairs
and equally saw the death’s-head. No servant would stay in the house,
and now it is pulled down.
“After the evening service in the chapel, the Bishop went to have a
cigar before going to bed. When I excused myself from joining him, he
told of Benedict XIV., who offered a pinch of snuff to one of his
Cardinals. ‘Santo padre, non ho quel vizio,’ he answered. ‘Se fosse
vizio, tu l’avrei,’ said the Pope.
“Most charming of all was the châtelaine, the widow of my cousin Heneage
Dering, whose first wife was her aunt, Lady Chatterton, the well-known
novelist. The niece (‘Pysie’ Orpen) was then married to Marmion Ferrers,
the last of a famous Catholic family lineally descended from the Earl of
Derby attainted in the Wars of the Roses, and himself legally Baron
Compton and De Ferrers, though he never claimed the title on account of
his poverty and having no son. He was the pleasantest and most genial of
men--‘the old squire’ he used to be called in Warwickshire. One day he
found an old woman stealing his wood, and, when she expected a great
scolding, he only said, ‘That load of wood is a great deal too heavy for
you; you must let me carry it home for you,’ and he did. Another day he
caught three poachers, and said, ‘Come, now, let us have it out!’ and
they pulled off their coats and had a regular set-to: he floored two of
them, he was so strong, and then he let them all go.
“His life seems to have been made up of deeds of faith and charity, but
his property fell into decadence and must have been sold, if Heneage
Dering, who had married his wife’s aunt, had not come to the rescue.
They all lived together in the old house, mediaevally, almost mediaeval
even in their dress; and after Lady Chatterton died, and then Marmion
Ferrers, a final break-up of the remaining links with the past was
prevented by the marriage of Heneage Dering with the widowed ‘Pysie.’
They were perfectly happy for several years, but he always said ‘a
sudden death is the happiest death,’ and so in 1892 it was.
“Over the chapel door is inscribed--
‘Transit gloria mundi,
Fides catholica manet,’
and the Catholic religion nourishes as much at Baddesley still as it did
in the time of Sir Edward Ferrers, who founded this branch of the family
in 1517, and left ‘five masses in worship of the five wounds principal
that Our Lord suffered in His bitter Passion,’ and who is depicted
kneeling before a crucifix, with the legend ‘Amor meus crucifixus est’
issuing from his mouth. On Sunday afternoon we went to hear the
Benediction service beautifully sung by the invisible nuns of a convent
close by--a convent of ‘Colettines’ from Bruges, a severe form of Poor
Clares, founded here in 1850, the first of the Order since the
Dissolution. A niece of Lord Clifford was their abbess. There are 250
Catholics at Baddesley.
“As we drove to Warwick, we passed through a village where the learned
Dr. Parr was rector. ‘He took pupils,’ said the Bishop. ‘They were not
very bright. One of them said, “I make a point of never believing
anything I do not understand.” “Then your creed must be most uncommonly
brief,” said Dr. Parr.’
“In returning home, I lingered one day with my kind friend E. Mathews at
Sonning. I had often longed to go there on a pilgrimage to dear Hugh
Pearson’s grave, and never before been able. What a lovely village it
is, with its old red roofs nestling under tufted trees, and how fragrant
is the beloved memory of the true pastor who gave himself so royally for
his people. ‘Go and break it to my family,’ were his first words when
told he could not live, meaning by his family his parishioners, the
people in the village, who loved him so, and amongst whom he was almost
ideally happy, for he was not only always striving to do good for the
poor and helpless, but was successful in doing it.
‘His virtues walked their humble round,
Nor knew a pause, nor felt a void,
And sure the Eternal Master found
His single talent well employ’d.’[592]
“My volume on ‘Shropshire’ has come out--another book-child launched
into public life.”
* * * * *
_To_ W. H. MILLIGAN, _and_ JOURNAL.
“_Belvoir Castle, Nov. 18, 1898._--I have been with my dear Lowthers at
Campsea Ashe, enjoying their large party of pleasant musicianers,
Countess Valda Gleichen, radiant Mrs. Arkwright of the lovely voice,
&c., but enjoying much more two quiet days with the family when the
others were gone. Mrs. L. took me to Crowe Hall, a moated house with a
delightful old lady-farmeress, of the hard-working high-thinking type,
so familiar in my boyhood, but almost extinct in these days of
over-dressed, gig-driving, pianoforte-strumming minxes.
“One of those kind and characteristic telegrams of the Duchess of
Rutland, extending over a whole page, has brought me here, where there
is a large party too, almost entirely composed of the Duke’s innumerable
nephews and nieces. As I do not either shoot or care for the regular
evening ball in the gallery, what I like best is the daily walk with the
Duke and Duchess, meeting them in the hall as the clock strikes 12.15,
and wandering in the wood walks or on the nearer terraces, already
fragrant with violets, listening to the Duke’s reminiscences of his own
past and Belvoir’s past, always of endless interest. How I pity my host
and hostess in their over-anxious cares about their immense estates; but
they must be comforted themselves by the pleasure they are able to give.
Sightseers are admitted always, and the great Midland towns daily pour
their legions into these beautiful woods: they do no harm and behave
wonderfully well, but one almost feels as if the public, who most enjoy
it, ought to help to keep up the place. In the case of Belvoir, the
scourge of the death-duties affects what is the pleasaunce of thousands.
“I went with Mrs. G. Drummond to Bottesford, where there is such a grand
series of monuments of the Earls of Rutland and their families,
including one of some children who died by witchcraft. Their nurse was
condemned to be burnt for it, but said, ‘If I am guilty, may this bit of
bread choke me,’ and it did! The Duchess Elizabeth, who made all the
charming walks here, moved all the Dukes to her new mausoleum in the
Belvoir woods, but she left the Earls at Bottesford.
“Hearing of her again here has recalled much that Lady Waterford used to
tell me of the Duchess Isabella, who was called ‘Was a bella’ in her
later years. She used to describe the painting of her fine portrait by
Sir Joshua, how he would rush forward and look closely into her eyes,
take her well in, and then go as far back as possible and look at the
general effect in a distant glass, chiefly making his picture from that.
Lady Adeliza Manners once met a very beautiful peasant girl near
Belvoir, very beautiful except that she had lost one of her best front
teeth. ‘What a misfortune,’ said Lady A.; ‘how could it have
happened?’--‘Oh, the Duchess (Isabella) had lost one of her front teeth,
so she forced me to have mine taken out to replace it.’
“I wonder if you went to Harlaxton when you were here--the immense
modern house by Blomfield, of which a most pleasant Mr. Pearson Gregory
suddenly found himself the heir from a godfather. He was staying at the
castle and took me there. When the Empress Frederick was here, she
admired it beyond words, but I did not: it is magnificent, but too
heavy, and the staircase very dark. Outside there are garden-staircases
and fountains, which are really beautiful, almost worthy of the Villa
Aldobrandini. There is a picture of a De Ligne baby, the heir of the
place, whose cradle was put too close to the fire: a coal flew out, and
it was burnt to death. The village is rendered infinitely picturesque by
stone wells and portals made from fragments of a recently destroyed
moated manor-house, of which only the gateway is left.
“There is a great charm in being made a sharer in what Disraeli called
‘the sustained splendour of a stately life,’ but much of the pleasure of
a great country-house depends upon whom it falls to your lot to take
down to dinner, and the Duchess attends to this with careful cleverness.
I was especially amused by one sentence in that delightful ‘Isabel
Carnaby’--‘There is one good thing in getting married. You know then
that, whatever happens, there is one woman you will never have to take
in to dinner again as long as you live.’
“And what funny things people say at dinner. Lately--not here--a very
‘great lady’ said to me, ‘I can assure you that the consciousness of
being well dressed gives me an inward peace which religion could never
bestow.’”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
[Illustration: IN THE UPPER CORRIDOR, HOLMHURST.]
“_Holmhurst, Jan. 21, 1899._--I sit alone on my hilltop, amid the
swirling mists, and howling winds, and swelching rain, and am often very
desolate and full of melancholy thoughts, which require active work to
drive them away. But I ought not to complain, for before Christmas I was
a week with the kind Llangattocks at the Hendre in beautiful
Monmouthshire, seeing much that was interesting, and driving with four
horses and postillions, to Raglan, and through the beautiful brown
billowy country of the Forest of Dean. Then I had a quietly happy
fortnight at Torquay with my kind Thornycroft cousins; and went from
them to Mount Ebford to Pamela Turner, a very pleasant first cousin I
had not seen for years; paying, lastly, a sad visit--because probably
the last ever possible--to beautiful Cobham.... Yet I am alone now, and
perhaps it is as well that my thoughts should be always turning to the
‘undiscovered country’ which will be so much to us, and of which we know
nothing, even though we may be very near its shores. I work on, I enjoy
on, but I feel more that life is becoming a waiting time.
‘I have a journey, sir, shortly to go;
My master calls me, I must not say no.’[593]
And there is a sentence of Epictetus which seems to demand thinking
about. ‘If the Master call, run to the ship, forsaking all these things,
and looking not behind. And if thou be in old age, go not far from the
ship at any time, lest the Master should ask, and thou not be ready.’
... It was Adrienne de Lafayette who said, ‘Must we not all die? The
great thing is to be always ready; as for the kind of death, that is
only a detail.’ I think and think, as so many millions have thought, how
it can be after death, and such inquiries and searchings have no answer.
Still, as Jowett wrote towards the close of life, ‘Though we cannot see
into another life, we believe, with inextinguishable hope, that there is
still something reserved for us.’
“I feel the view usually held now on these subjects is wholesomer than
that of my childhood, when ‘good people’ talked with such dogmatic
assurance, in all ‘le bel air de leur devotion,’ of how glorious their
life in another world would be, whilst definitely condemning so many of
their neighbours to the hell which, in their imagination, was their
God’s vindictive retaliation for His injuries. I often remember her
words, and I think I realise the feeling with which my dear old friend
Mrs. Duncan Stewart once said to me, ‘I should say, like Dr. Johnson, I
am speaking in crass ignorance, according to the failings of my fallible
human nature; and yet, may we not all, whilst acting like fallible human
beings as we are, trust respectfully to God’s mercy, though speaking of
no glorious future as reserved for us, lest He should say, “What hast
thou done to deserve this?”’
“Lord Llangattock writes urging me to join the Anti-vivisection Society;
but I answer I am not competent to judge of it. Then he sends me its
pamphlets, which seem to me rather blasphemous, asserting that ‘Christ
died just as much for all animals as for all human beings.’ What! for
bugs, lice, ringworms, mosquitoes? ‘Don’t kill that flea; Christ died
for it.’ Then how about cobras and puff-adders? Surely it must have been
the Devil that died for those. What nonsense people, especially
‘religious people,’ write in these little pamphlets, almost as great
nonsense as most country clergy preach in the dreary Sahara of their
endless sermons. ‘Long texts, short sermons,’ was John Wesley’s maxim,
and what a good one!”
* * * * *
JOURNAL _and_ LETTERS.
“_Rome, March 10, 1899._--I was very ailing, and Catherine Vaughan
insisted on my seeing Dr. Sansom, who found me so ‘run down’ that he
insisted on my coming out here to my ‘native air;’ therefore here I am,
and already it has done me good. I found my dear old friend Miss Garden
rather better than I left her three years ago, and full of her sister
Mrs. Ramsay’s escape, having been upset in a carriage close to the edge
of the Tarpeian rock. ‘If the horse had not been _assolutamente
pecora_,’ said the coachman, ‘she must have gone over.’
“The other day I was with a circle of old friends who were discussing
the ‘Story of my Life.’ ‘Surely the early part must have been
exaggerated,’ said one of them, ‘that story of Aunt Esther hanging the
cat, for instance,[594] because the child loved it.’ ‘I can testify that
that story was absolutely true, for _I was there_,’ said an old
clergyman present, ‘and I have shuddered over the cruel recollection
ever since.’ It was Canon Douglas Gordon. I had quite forgotten that he
was a pupil of Mr. Simpkinson, curate of Hurstmonceaux, at the time. Mr.
Gordon also said, ‘I can vouch, too, for the truth of the story of the
bullying at Harrow, for _I was myself the victim_;’ and he told how a
brutal bully got a dead dog, and cut off its feet, ears, &c., and forced
him to drink them in coffee. That day he ran away. ‘Alexander Russell’
went with him. They had only four miles to go to his father Lord
Aberdeen’s house at Stanmore. He and Lord Abercorn were governors of the
school. They happened to be together, and they sent him back in a
carriage that evening with a letter to the head-master saying that, in
the interests of the school, what had happened had better be hushed up;
but that it was so dreadful, that he--the master--must be compelled to
take the awful bullying in the school seriously in hand. And he did. Mr.
Gordon says that the wickedness of Harrow at that time was quite
appalling: things which could never be mentioned were then of nightly
occurrence all over the school. The masters were as bad, and would come
into the very pupil-rooms humming obscene songs.
“What an age of independent criticism it is! An acquaintance here said
to me the other day, ‘I have a horror of the patriarchs, and how any one
can set up such wicked, low, mean men as an example, I cannot
understand--Jacob and the rams, for instance. No wonder the Jews were
bad with such examples to follow.... I believe in Christ thoroughly and
cling to the thought of Him: of course the story of His birth and all
that is very difficult, but “autre pays, autres mœurs,” that is what
I say.’”
* * * * *
“_March 24._--We have been to Tivoli on the most glorious day--a
pellucid sky, and exquisite blue shadows flitting over the young green
of the Campagna. From the station I went to S. Antonio, the old
hermitage and shrine bought by the Searles. Mrs. Searle met me most
kindly. I said, ‘_What_ a beautiful home you have!’ ‘Yes,’ she answered,
‘and the really delightful thing is that _the Lord_ has given it to us.’
I could hardly help saying, ‘I suppose that means you bought it.’
Afterwards I found she was one of the very few ladies who belong to the
Salvation Army. She is kind and Christian beyond words--‘vraie marchande
de bonheur’--and her lovely home is a centre of thoughtful charity; but
being in this Catholic country gives her many qualms and shocks. One day
lately she was alone in a lane near her home, and came upon a shrine of
the Virgin with her little statue, and was filled with righteous
indignation at ‘that doll.’ As she stood there, a number of peasant
women came up and knelt before the shrine and prayed most devoutly. When
they got up she said, ‘How could you pray to that graven image? I wonder
what you were praying for.’ ‘Why, we were asking the Madonna to send us
rain; our land needs it so much,’ said the women, much surprised at her
wrath. ‘How can you pray to _her_ for that?’ said Mrs. Searle; ‘let me
show you how to pray,’ and then and there she knelt down in the dusty
road and prayed aloud, prayed with her whole heart to her Lord, that He
would send them the rain they needed; and immediately, though the sky
had been quite clear till then, it _poured_!
“The women went away to their priest and told him that they had seen a
lady who reviled the Madonna, but who was a powerful witch and had been
able to bring the rain by her enchantments.”
* * * * *
“_March 29._--To Sutri with Mrs. Ramsay. In the early morning the dew
was like crystal, every leaf glistening. The mountains rose pale blue
against an opal sky, but were hidden at their base by the delicate mists
of the plain. It was a long, long drive before we reached the great
solid rock, which is hewn away within into all the circular steps of a
vast amphitheatre overhung by mighty ilexes. Behind it, is an Early
Christian church, also hewn out of the rock,--pillars, font, and altar
all one with it.
“Se voi pensate sedere sopra una cittadina Americana, voi vi sbagliate,’
was heard by Gery Cullum from an American lady here in altercation with
her cabman.”
* * * * *
“_April 1._--I have had one of my Palatine lectures quite in the old
way, and a luncheon with the charming Crown Princess of Sweden has been
a great pleasure.
“Dining at Palazzo Bonaparte, M. de Westenberg told me that one day when
Madame Mère was living there, a stranger came to the palace and insisted
upon seeing her on a matter of vital importance. He was evidently a
gentleman, but would not tell his name or errand. At last his urgency
prevailed, and Madame Mère admitted him. He gave her a crucifix and said
it belonged to her son in St. Helena, and then he said, ‘You need no
longer be unhappy about him, for he has just entered into rest: his
sorrows are over.’ It was on that day that Napoleon died in St. Helena.
“Miss Garden says, ‘Lanciani came to me one day. He was not married
then, and he said, “I am too miserably dull; it cannot go on; I must
either take a wife or a cat.” “Well, and which should you prefer, Signer
Lanciani?”--“Oh, a me sono tutte due eguale,” he said. “But la signora
madre, which would she prefer?”--“Oh, la madre,” he said meditatively,
“il gatto.”
“‘All life has its sorrows,’ says Miss Garden, ‘only they are unequally
distributed. Do you know what Eddie Baddeley’s sorrow is? He is only
three, you know. It is that the turkey-cock at the Villa Borghese will
not make friends with him. “But don’t you think he will ever like me?”
he said to his mother. “No, my dear,” she said, “I don’t think he ever
will.” But it was just one of those cases in which I think a lie would
have been permissible; she had better have held out hopes.’”
* * * * *
“_Palazzo Guadagni, Florence, April 17._--I have been here ten days as
the guest of the ever-kind Duchess Dowager of Sermoneta, and found Mrs.
and Miss Lowther here. It is an unusual life. We scarcely see our
hostess till dinner-time, unless she asks us to drive with her, and we
have each a most comfortable apartment, with excellent food and service,
and the whole day to employ as we like. Many are the old friends we have
seen, but most frequently the Marchesa Peruzzi, Story’s daughter, who
has all his agreeable power of narration. ‘The reason why we loved Mrs.
Browning so much as children,’ she says, ‘is because she always treated
us as her equals, and talked to us as such. Pen and I used to sit at her
feet, and she was just as courteous to us as to any of the grown-up
people.’”
* * * * *
“_Arco in Sud Tyrol, April 27._--I came here with the Lowthers, and we
have been some days with two delightful Misses Warre, sisters of the
head-master of Eton. It is an exquisitely beautiful place, with glorious
excursions. One day we have spent most deliciously at Castel Toblino, a
grand old castle which looks at itself in a glassy lake surrounded by
mountains. General Baratieri, a hero, though a most unfortunate one, is
one of those of whom we have seen something here.”
* * * * *
“_Holmhurst, May 10._--Reached the dear home with great thankfulness,
after a most severely hard-worked fortnight for a new edition of my
‘Paris.’”
[Illustration: THE PORCH, HOLMHURST.]
* * * * *
“_June 14, 1899._--At luncheon at Lady Constance Leslie’s I met Mr.
Holman Hunt, a charming, simple, natural man. He spoke of the great
difficulty of getting any one to do such work as is wanted for St.
Paul’s Cathedral; that few would give up the high prices paid now for
other work for the small prices the Government would pay. He talked of
Leighton, whom he had known intimately in early life. Three tailors in
Bond Street, thinking it might be a good speculation, clubbed together
to buy one of his first pictures. They offered £100 for it: he stuck out
for £200. Eventually it was arranged that they should pay £150, but a
suit of clothes was to be thrown in. Then came the violent abuse of all
Leighton’s work, and the tailors got alarmed, and sold the picture for
£100 without any suit of clothes. That picture was afterwards bought for
thousands by the Gallery at Liverpool, and there it is now, unlikely
ever to come to the hammer again.
“After this, when Leighton’s pictures were accepted for the Academy and
he was hard at work for the next year, he was told by his studio-man
that some one wanted to speak to him. He sent out word that he was very
busy and could not see any one; but the man was pertinacious and would
not go away. At last Leighton said, ‘Well, he had better come in for a
minute and say what his business is.’ So he was let in. But it was a man
who stood by the door and did not come further. ‘Well,’ said Leighton,
‘what do you want?’ ‘To come straight to the point at once,’ said the
man, ‘I want that picture’ (pointing to the work upon the easel). ‘You
get £300 now for your pictures, don’t you? Well, I will give you £700.’
‘But you have not even seen the picture,’ said Leighton; ‘you don’t even
know what the subject is.’ ‘No, I don’t,’ said the man, ‘and, if I did,
I should know no more about it than I do now.’ That man was Agnew. He
acquired the picture: it was his first venture.
“Mr. Holman Hunt said, speaking of the bad results of Board Schools,
that he had been away lately. When he came back, a boy came to him as a
model, a very good boy, whom he had not seen for some time. ‘Well,’ he
said to the boy, ‘it’s a long time since I’ve seen you; I’ve been away;
I’ve been at Stratford-on-Avon.’ ‘Ah,’ said the boy slowly, ‘so you’ve
been at Stratford-on-Avon, have you? That’s where Shakspeare lived, him
as married Anne Hathaway, and him as they called the Swan of Avon and
the smooth-tongued liar (lyre). It’s well I didn’t live in them times,
or they might have been calling me some such beastly names as that.’”
* * * * *
“_Holmhurst, Sept. 8._--Early on the morning of July 29 I was summoned
from home by telegraph to the dying bed of my dear cousin Catherine
Vaughan, perhaps more than any one else still left bound up with all my
life in the long-ago. She had forbidden any one to come to her when ill,
but desired that, if it was known she was dying, I should be sent for. I
found her terribly ill and suffering, though delighted to see me. That
Saturday was a day of great anguish, both for herself and those with
her. But she grew calmer in the night, and was with us still for four
days and nights, during which I seemed to go back into my old life with
my mother, constantly by her side, fanning her, wiping the poor brow,
trying to help her to bear through. Almost her very last words were
‘Dear, dear Augustus.’ Then, the day before she quite left us, she was
unconscious, and we sate in a great calm, only waiting for the coming of
the angel. A majestic beauty had come back to her in the shadow of
death, a likeness to her mother, to her brother Arthur Stanley at his
best, to the ‘Curly Kate’ of sixty years ago, only now they were
snow-white curls which rippled over the pillow. I think it was the so
frequent sight of this life-long friend, more intimate and dearer than
ever in the last few years, yet so much older than myself, which has
always made me feel young, and that, with her passing away, a bridge is
broken down. It has been since quite a small added pain to take leave of
the old furniture and pictures, the inanimate witnesses of our
lives--‘auld nick-nackets’ somebody called them--but still silent and
sacred memorials of the dear Alderley and Norwich family homes, which
have now passed almost to a stranger. They could still recall to those
familiar with them so much that only Kate and I knew, and so much more
that only Kate and I cared about.
‘Yea, truly, as the sallowing years
Fall from us faster, like frost-loosened leaves
Pushed by the misty touch of shortening days,
And that unwakened winter nears,
’Tis the void chair our surest guest receives,
’Tis lips long cold that give the warmest kiss,
’Tis the lost voice comes oftenest to our ears;
We count our rosary by the beads we miss.’[595]
“How long and how full the hours of watching by a death-bed seem! how
full of what varied emotions and anxieties, an almost agonising
eagerness to do the right thing every minute even in a physical sense,
but much more to _say_ the right thing, only the right thing, to one
who is on the awful threshold of so great a transition, to whom, because
she is on the very brink of unravelling the great mystery, all the
commonplaces, even of religion, must fall so flat. One can only try to
help, to _support_ the beloved one, who is passing away from our
possibilities, spiritually as well as physically, try to recollect what
would be a comfort to oneself in such a crisis, and let oneself go
_with_ the departing one to the very portal itself.
“With dear Kate I had often spoken of this, yet, when the reality came,
it was unlike all we had imagined, and I suppose it is always so. But I
felt how well it must always be to talk over the end of life with those
you are likely to be near when the close really comes. It makes a sort
of death-bed comradeship, if I can so call it, which could never exist
without it, and certainly in this case it made Kate cling to my being
constantly with her, when she would allow no one else to see her. Then
how seldom _any_ words are possible from a dying person. In the six
death-beds I have attended it has been so; and even in this case, when
it lasted four days and nights, there was little speech, only an urgency
that I should never leave her, that I should keep near her, that I
should be close by her side as long as she was on earth at all, till she
passed into the unseen.
“Whilst feeling the change which her loss makes in my life, I have read
words of Bishop Magee which have come home to me. ‘The most beautiful
and natural of sunsets is still a sunset, and the shadows that follow it
are chill and depressing. I begin to feel the peculiar sadness that the
death of much older relatives brings to those who are entering
themselves on old age. When I see all those whom I remember once,
middle-aged men and women, younger by many years than I am now, all
passed and gone, I feel somehow as if light was going out of life very
fast. There are so few living with whom one can recall the _past_, and
grow young again in recalling it.’”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Holmhurst, Sept. 31._--I have been a week at Swaylands to meet the
Duchess of York, and as there were scarcely any other guests, saw a
great deal of her, and was increasingly filled with admiration for the
dignified simplicity and single-mindedness, and the high sense of duty
by which her naturally merry, genial nature is pervaded, and which will
be the very salvation of England some day. Before her scandal sits dumb:
she has a quiet but inflexible power of silencing everything which seems
likely to approach ill-natured gossip, yet immediately after gives such
a genial kindly look and word to the silenced one as prevents any
feeling of mortification. All morning the Duchess was occupied with her
lady in real hard work, chiefly letters, I believe; in the afternoons we
went for long drives and sight-seeings--of Penshurst, Knole,
Groombridge, Hever, Ightham, and she was full of interest in the history
and associations of these old-world places. At Hever the owners were
away, but we got a table from a cottage, and an excellent tea-meal was
spread upon it at the top of the high field above the castle. If the
Duchess is ever Queen of England, that table will be considered to have
a history.”
* * * * *
“_Holmhurst, Sept. 8._--I have been in Suffolk on an ancestor-hunt,
which involved a delightful visit to Herbert and Lady Mary Ewart at
Great Thurlow. It was in the time of George I., I think, that our
great-great-uncle Francis Naylor, the owner of Hurstmonceaux Castle, a
‘Medmenham Brother’ and the wildest of the wild, was led to a changed
and better life by his love for the beautiful Carlotta Alston of
Edwardstone. Unfortunately, whilst they were engaged, his father, Bishop
Hare, found out that her elder sister, Mary Margaret, was one of the
greatest heiresses in England, married her without telling his son till
the day before the wedding, and then positively forbade him to become
his brother-in-law. Francis Naylor was very much inclined to go to the
devil again, but Carlotta maintained her influence, and eventually they
were married without the Bishop’s consent. They were too poor to live at
Hurstmonceaux, but the third Miss Alston had married the rich Stephen
Soame, and she gave them a home, and there, in the house of the generous
Anne Soame, they lived and died. The old Jacobean mansion of Little
Thurlow was magnificent and had eighty-one bedrooms; its beautiful
wrought-iron gates with pilasters were given by Charles II., who often
stayed there, and the family lived at Little Thurlow in most unusual
state, even for that time, driving out daily in three
carriages-and-four. Sir Stephen Soame, the builder of the house, has a
grand tomb in the church where Francis and Carlotta Naylor and Anne
Soame are buried behind his stately carved pew, and there are a most
picturesque grammar-school and almshouses erected by him. I remember
some of the Soames coming to Hurstmonceaux--as cousins--in my childhood,
but their direct line died out at last, and the place went to some very
distant relations from Beverley, who pulled down the old hall, because
‘they could not live in a house where you could drive a coach-and-four
up the great staircase.’ Old Mrs. Soame, however, of the second set, did
not die till she was 104, and the last of her two daughters only in
1885. Yet the Misses Soame had never been to London: their travels were
limited to being driven twice a year to Lowestoft in their large yellow
chariot with post-horses. They always intended to try the railway by
going from Haverhill to the next station and having their carriage to
meet them there; but when the day came they shrank from the feat. They
were ‘worth an income to the doctor, the chemist, and the fishmonger,’
and they left a fortune to the family of a man who had once proposed to
one of them.”
* * * * *
“_Holmhurst, Oct. 23._--Again I have been on an ancestor-hunt. I met
Mrs. Lowther at the old haunted house of Lawford Hall near Manningtree,
and our hostess, Mrs. Mouncey, sent us to Hadleigh, where Mary Margaret
Alston’s grandfather, Charles Trumbull, was the very saintly Rector in
the time of James II., and resigned his living for his ordination oath’s
sake on the advent of William III. The Rectory, now known as the
Deanery, is a glorious old house, with a grand brick gateway, priests’
hiding-holes, and curious pictures by Canaletto--an intimate friend and
visitor of one of the rectors--let into its walls. It was the home of
Rowland Taylor, the Marian martyr, who was dragged down the street of
Hadleigh to his stake outside the town ‘cracking jokes all the way,’ and
another vicar was Hugh Rose, when Archbishop Trench was the curate.
“Two days later I went to Edwardstone, a delightful old place near
Sudbury, one of the many of which Bishop Hare’s wife was the heiress,
and where numbers of her Alston ancestors are buried; and then I was two
days at the familiar Campsea Ashe, where, as its beloved owner says, ‘If
you do not know how to enjoy yourself, you must be made to.’ Mr. Astor
was there, and told me that the origin of the American expression ‘a
chestnut’ lay in the rivalries of the theatres in Chestnut Street and
Walnut Street in New York. An expected star who came out in the Walnut
Street Theatre could only do things which had already appeared in
Chestnut Street, and when the young men saw them they said, ‘That’s a
chestnut,’ and it passed into a proverb.
“Mr. Astor was very funny about a man who was always late for
everything, and who one day, when he was expecting a party to stay with
him, rushed home after all his guests had arrived. On the stairs he met
a man, with whom, to make up for lost time, he shook hands most warmly,
saying, ‘Oh, my dear fellow, I’m so glad to see you; do make yourself
quite at home and enjoy yourself.’ It was a burglar, very much surprised
at his cordial reception, for he was carrying off all the valuables. He
also said--
“‘You know Dr. N. and his wonderful tales. I heard him tell of going to
shoot chamois. He had sighted one a long way off and fired. He said the
chamois never moved, but put up one foot and scratched its ear. He fired
again, and it put up the other foot and scratched the other ear. Then he
fired again and killed it. When he came up to it, he found that each of
the first shots had touched an ear. The chamois had only thought, “Oh,
these damned fleas!”
“‘Then Dr. N. told of how he went after bears. A grisly came and he shot
him: then another grisly came and he shot him: then a third grisly
came.... “If you say you shot _him_” said a man present, “I’ll throw
this bottle at your head.” “Well, the third grisly escaped,” calmly said
Dr. N.’
“The last two days of my absence I spent with the Grant Duffs at Lexden
Manor, where Sir Mountstuart was most agreeable and anecdotive, and
whence Lady Grant Duff drove me to see the old gateway of Layer Marney,
beautiful in its great decay.”
* * * * *
“_London, Nov. 29._--Luncheon with the C.’s, who had dined last night
with the Wilberforces. Canon Wilberforce told them of a missionary
establishment in Africa, a most admirable mission, which had been most
effective, had converted the whole neighbourhood, built church and
schools, and done no end of good.
“Then, in some crisis or other, the mission was swept away and the place
was long left desolate.
“After many years the missionaries returned, expecting to find
everything destroyed. But, to their astonishment, they found the
church-bell going and the buildings in perfect repair, all looking as
before--only there _was_ a difference. They could not make out what it
was.
“So they went to the chief and asked him about it. ‘Well, yes,’ he said,
‘there _is_ one little difference. You used to tell us that God was love
and always watching over us for good, while the devil was always seeking
to destroy us; so we felt it was the devil we had better propitiate, and
it is the devil we have worshipped ever since you left, and--it has most
completely answered.’”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 22, 1899._--I am just at the end of a long retreat in a sort of
private hospital, where I have been for the sake of the ‘Nauheim cure’
for an affection of the heart, from which I have now suffered for more
than a year, and which was greatly increased by the anxieties and
sorrows of last August. I am better since my ‘cure,’ but am seldom quite
well now, and, as I read in a novel, ‘my dinner is always either a
satisfying fact or a poignant memory,’ and generally the latter. The
South African war news is casting a shadow over the closing year, and
the death of Lady Salisbury has been a real sorrow--an ever-kind friend
since my early boyhood. I went to the memorial service for her in the
Chapel-Royal--a beautiful service, but a very sad one to many.”
* * * * *
_To_ MRS. _and_ MISS AGNES THORNYCROFT (_after a happy visit to
them at Torquay_).
“_Liskeard, May 7, 1900._--I will begin a history to my two kindest of
hostesses from this dreary wind-stricken little town, which is as ugly
as it can be, but with a large, clean, old-fashioned posting-inn. I got
a little victoria to take me the 2½ miles to St. Cleer’s Well in the
uplands, in a moorland village, approached by primrosy, stitchworty
lanes. The well is a glorious subject for sketching, old grey stones
tinged with golden lichen, a canopy of open Norman arches, and
background of purple hill. It was so bitterly, snowily cold that I
feared, as I sate down on my camp-stool, that sciatica would never allow
me to rise from it; but Providence sent me a whole schoolful of
children, boys and girls, about sixty of them, who pressed close round
through the whole performance, so I just wore them like an eider-down,
and was rather hot than otherwise. Returning, the evening was still so
young that I took the carriage on to St Keyne’s Well, on the other side
of Liskeard, but it was scarcely worth the visit.”
“_Helston, May 8_, 6 P.M.--No farther than this, for when I arrived here
at midday, I found there was no chance of getting on to the Lizard; the
whole town was in too great a turmoil to attend to any individual, for
it was Furry Day, a local floral festa from very early times, and all
the gentlemen and ladies of the neighbourhood (the real ones!) were
dancing in couples, with bands playing through the streets, under
garlanded arches and flags flying from every window. This sounds
lovely, but really was not--only curious, though it gave infinite
satisfaction to the thousands of spectators, who on this day bring great
wealth to the town. But oh! the noise and discomfort for an unwilling
spectator--the organs, and peep-shows, and wild-beast shows, and ‘Boer
and Briton’ shows, and horsemanship-ladies careering through the streets
after the dancing was over. If any one wishes to know what the Inferno
is like and the worst din the human mind can imagine, they should spend
a ‘Furry Day;’ only, to be sure, at Helston all the people are quite
good, which would probably make a very considerable difference!”
“_Helston, May 10._--Yesterday I breakfasted in the coffee-room with an
old gentleman who was exceedingly angry with me because I did not think
Sterne’s ‘Sentimental Journey’ should be one of the twelve novels to be
saved if all the rest in the world were swept away--‘only the most dense
ignorance of literature’ could make me confess such a thing!
“It was a drive of ten miles in a grand and lonely landau through a
country brilliant with gorse and blackthorn. Beneath a great plantation
on the right was the Loe Pool, only separated by a strip of silver sand
from the sea, and described in Tennyson’s ‘Morte d’Arthur.’ Beyond a
wooded hollow with rocks and fir trees the road enters upon the
high-lying plain of the Lizard, wind-stricken, storm-swept, without a
tree, the houses of ugly Lizard-town rising black against a pellucid sky
on the horizon. A scrambling walk down a rugged lane, and then a pathlet
marked by white stones above tremendous precipices brought me to
Kynance Cove--a little disappointing, for it was high water when it
ought to have been low, and a grey colourless day when it ought to have
been brilliant. However, my drawing ‘answered,’ as Aunt Kitty would have
said, and in two hours, as it began to mizzle, I was ready to return.”
“_Tintagel, May 10._--The ‘girling’ of the sea in the old ballad of ‘Sir
Patrick Spens’ just expresses what one hears here. This ‘Wharncliffe
Arms’ is an ideal inn, and very striking is the little glen, now so
primrosy, with the black ruined castle, the cries of the seabirds--
‘And the great sea-waves below,
Pulse of the midnight, beating slow.’”[596]
* * * * *
“_Royal Hotel, Bideford, May 15._--This house has beautiful old rooms
built by John Davy, the first tobacco merchant, with splendid Italian
ceilings: the little _Revenge_ was built in a shipping yard just before
the house, and in a narrow street on the other side the river is a
public-house which is the house of Sir Richard Grenville. I thought the
path above the precipice at Lynton the most beautiful sea-walk I ever
saw. In places it is a sheer wall of rock rising from the waves--
‘Which roar, rock-thwarted, under bellowing caves
Beneath the windy wall.’”
* * * * *
“_Middlewick, Corsham, May 18._--The kind Clutterbucks, with whom I am
staying, took me to Castlecombe yesterday, the home of the Scroopes for
five hundred years, and quite one of the most enchanting places in
England, in its green glen, its clear rushing river, its exquisite
church tower and old market-cross. I saw it last at nine years old, and
was enchanted to find its loveliness all and more than I remembered.
To-day we went to luncheon at Harnish, and I visited once more the
little rectory where I was at school for three and a half most miserable
years. How different a little boy’s path is now! We saw Corsham Court
afterwards, with Cronje’s flag floating over its staircase.”
“_Holmhurst, May 23._--I found a very large party on Saturday at
hospitable Mr. Astor’s, and Cliveden in great beauty, entrancing carpets
of bluebells under the trees. A telegram from the Queen of Sweden took
me to Roehampton on Monday. It was twenty-two years since I had seen the
King, and I thought him even handsomer and more royal-looking than of
old. The Queen is not less fragile, and as full of good thoughts and
words as ever. I had luncheon with the royal pair and their household,
and a long talk with the Queen afterwards, who told me much of my
especial Prince, now Regent in his father’s absence.”
XXXI
FAREWELL
“Pleasure to our hot grasp
Gives flowers after flowers;
With passionate warmth we grasp
Hand after hand in ours:
Now do we soon perceive how fast our youth is spent.”
--MATTHEW ARNOLD.
“Oh, He has taught us what reply to make,
Or secretly in spirit, or in words,
If there be need, when sorrowing men complain
The fair illusions of their youth depart,
All things are going from them, and to-day
Is emptier of delights than yesterday,
Even as to-morrow will be barer yet:
We have been taught to feel this need not be,
This is not life’s inevitable law;
But that the gladness we are called to know
Is an increasing gladness, that the soil
Of the human heart, tilled rightly, will become
Richer and deeper, fitted to bear fruit
Of an immortal growth from day to day,
Fruit of love, life, and inefficient joy.”--R. C TRENCH.
“Lord, I owe thee a death: let it not be terrible: yet Thy will,
not mine, be done.”--HOOKER.
“When the tapers now burn blue,
And the comforters are few,
And that number more than true,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!”--HERRICK.
I must close this book. Printers are calling for its last pages. It is
like seeing an old friend go forth into a new world, and wondering if
those who inhabit it will understand him and treat him well. Perhaps no
one will read it except the intimate circle--a large one certainly--who
have loved Hurstmonceaux, Stoke, and little Holmhurst at different
times. But I can never regret having written it, and it has been so
great an enjoyment to me, that perhaps others may like it; for I have
concealed nothing, and Coleridge says, “I could inform the dullest
author how he might write an interesting book. Let him relate the events
of his own life with honesty, not disguising the feelings that
accompanied them.”[597]
Most people will say two volumes would have been enough, but the fact is
I have written chiefly for myself and my relations, and not for the
general public at all. They may read the book if they like, but it was
not intended for them, and, as Walter Scott describes it--
“Most men, when drawn to speak about themselves,
Are moved by little and by little to say more
Than they first dreamt; until at last they blush,
And can but hope to find secret excuse
In the self-knowledge of their auditors.”[598]
Except that I have seen more varieties of people than some do, I believe
there has been nothing unusual in my life. All lives are made up of joys
and sorrows with a little calm, neutral ground connecting them; though,
from physical reasons perhaps, I think I have enjoyed the pleasures and
suffered in the troubles more than most. But from the calm backwater of
my present life at Holmhurst, as I overlook the past, the pleasures seem
to predominate, and I could cordially answer to any one who asked me “Is
life worth living?”--“Yes, to the very dregs.”
Sainte-Beuve says, “Il est donné, de nos jours, à un bien petit nombre,
même parmi les plus délicats et ceux qui les apprécient le mieux, de
recueillir, d’ordonner sa vie selon ses admirations et selon ses goûts,
avec suite, avec noblesse.” And latterly my days have been “avec suite;”
“avec noblesse” is what they ought to have been. In my quiet home, of
which little has been said in these volumes, days succeed each other
unmarked, but on the whole happy, though sometimes very lonely. The
whole time passes very quickly, yet it is, as I remember the Grand
Duchess Stephanie of Baden wrote to my aunt Mrs. Stanley--“In youth the
years are long, the moments short, but in age the moments are long, the
years short.” Really I have been alone here for thirty years, twelve in
which my dearest Lea was still presiding over the lower regions of the
house, and eighteen in absolute solitude. It is the winter evenings,
after the early twilight has set in, which are the longest. Then there
are often no voices but those of the past:--
“Time brought me many another friend
That loved me longer;
New love was kind, but in the end
Old love was stronger.
Years come and go, no New Year yet
Hath slain December,
And all that should have cried, Forget!
Cried but--Remember!”
People say, “It is all your own fault that you are solitary; you ought
to have married long ago.” But they know nothing about it; for as long
as my mother lived, and for some time after, I had nothing whatever to
marry upon, and after that I had very little, and I have been constantly
reminded that people of the class in which I have always lived do not
like to marry paupers. Besides, the fact is, that except in one
impossible case perhaps, very long ago, “I have never loved any one
well enough to put myself in a noose for them: it is a noose, you
know.”[599] What I have to regret is that I have no very near relations
who have in the least my own interests and sympathies, though they are
all very kind to me. I have far more in common with many of my younger
friends, “the boys,” who cease to be boys after a few years, and many of
whom, I am sure, turn to Holmhurst as the haven of their lives. But one
feels that there would be this difference between any very congenial
near relations and even the kindest friends: the latter are very glad to
see one, but would be very sorry to see more of one; whilst the former,
if they existed, would take it as a matter of course.
By friends I often feel that I am greatly over-estimated, so many ask my
advice, and act upon what I tell them. It is a responsibility, but I
feel that I am right in urging what I have always found answer in my own
case, and what has greatly added to my happiness. When a wrong,
sometimes a very cruel wrong, is done to one, one must not try at once
to do some good to those who have done it, because that would be to
mortify them; but if one immediately, at once, sets to think of what
one can do for somebody else, it takes out the taste. Then one can very
soon paste down that unpleasant page of life, as if it had never
existed, and all will be as before.
Also, always believe the best of people till the worst is proved, and
meditate not on your miseries, but your blessings.
The greatest of all the blessings I have to be grateful for is, that
though, since my serious illness six years ago, I have never been
entirely without pain, I have, notwithstanding this, good health and a
feeling of youth--just the same feeling I had forty years ago. I suppose
there will be many who will be surprised to see in these pages how old I
am; I am unspeakably surprised at it myself. I have to be perpetually
reminding myself of my years, that I am so much nearer the close than
the outset of life. I feel so young still, that I can hardly help making
plans for quite the far-distant future, schemes of work and of travel,
and I hope sometimes of usefulness, which of course can never be
realised. I have very good spirits, and I feel that I should be
inexcusable if I were not happy when I remember the contrast of my
present life to my oppressed boyhood, or to the terrible trial of the
time when every thought was occupied by such tangled perplexities as
those of the Roman Catholic conspiracy.
My next greatest blessing is my home, so infinitely, so exquisitely
suited to my needs, and indeed to all my wishes. As I write this, and
look from my window across the tiny terrace with its brilliant flowers
to the oakwoods, golden in the autumn sunset, and the blue sea beyond,
with the craggy mass of Hastings Castle rising up against it, I feel
that there are few places more lovely than Holmhurst. Then the walks in
the grounds offer a constant variety of wood and rock, flowers and
water, and the distant view changes constantly, and composes into a
hundred pictures. And in the little circle of this pleasant home love
assuredly reigns supreme. I look upon my servants as my best and truest
friends; their rooms, in their way, are as pretty and comfortable as my
own, and I believe that they have a real pleasure in serving me. We
unite together in looking after our less fortunate friends, who come in
batches, for a month each set, to the little Hospice in the grounds. I
could not ask my servants to do this, but they are delighted to help me
thus, as in everything. When one of our little household community, as
has happened four times now, passes, in an honoured and cherished old
age, from amongst us, we all mourn together, watch by the deathbed, and
follow the flower-laden coffin to the grave.
My local affections are centred in Holmhurst now. Rome, which I was
formerly even fonder of, is so utterly changed, it has lost its
enchaining power, and, with the places, the familiar faces there have
all passed away. I go there every third year, but not for pleasure, only
because it is necessary for “Walks in Rome,” the one of my books which
pays best.
In the summer I generally have guests at Holmhurst, but even then my
mornings are passed in writing, and several twilight hours besides. In
the evenings there is generally reading aloud, or there are drawings to
be looked at, or if “the boys” are with me there are games. Then the
early months of spring are often spent abroad, and the later in London,
and in the autumn I have the opportunity of far more visits than I like
to pay: so that I have quite sufficient people-seeing to prevent getting
rusty, or at any rate to remind me of my utter insignificance in every
society except my own. However, Reviews are a perfect antidote to all
follies of vainglory. I used to be pained by the most abusive ones,
though I generally learnt something from them. Latterly, however, I have
been more aware of the indescribable incapacity and indolence of the
writers, and have not cared at all. I a little wonder, however, why I
have scarcely ever had a favourable Review. My work cannot always have
been so _terribly_ bad, or it would not have had so wide a
circulation--wider, I think, than has attended any other work of the
kind.
How I wish one knew something, anything, of the hereafter to which the
Old Testament never alludes, and of which the New Testament tells us
nothing satisfactory. Can we really sleep, for millions of years
perhaps, or can we live in another hemisphere, or can we linger here
near people and places we love, incorporeal, invisible? I believe all
the truths of revealed religion, but there is so much that is
unrevealed. Oh! if the disciples, during their three years’ opportunity,
had only asked our Saviour a few more questions--questions so absolutely
essential, to which the answers would have been of such _vital_
importance. For oh! how far more important what our state after death is
than all our life’s work, than everything we have done or said or
written, or what any one has thought of us. I can truly say with Olga de
la Ferronays, “Je crois, j’aime, j’espère, je me repens;” but how
strangely dim is the clearest sight as to the future. “The awful
mysteries of life and nature,” says Whittier, “sometimes almost
overwhelm me. What? Where? Whither? These questions sometimes hold me
breathless. How little, after all, do we know! And the soul’s anchor of
Faith can only grapple fast upon two or three things, and fast and
surest of all upon the Fatherhood of God.”[600]
It is astonishing how little good can be derived from all the religious
teaching which is the form and order of the day, from the endless
monotony of services, from the wearisome sermons, not one of which
remains with me from the thousands upon thousands I have been condemned
to listen to, some few of them excellent, but most of them a farrago of
stilted nonsense. I suppose that there are some types of mind which are
benefited by them: I cannot believe that they were good for me. “Oh,
stop, do stop; you have talked enough,” my whole heart has generally
cried out when I have listened to a preacher--generally a man whom one
would never dream of listening to in ordinary conversation for a quarter
of an hour. It is a terrible penalty to pay for one’s religion to have
weekly to hear it worried and tangled by these incapable and often
arrogant beings. What does really remain with me, and raise my mind
heavenwards with every thought of it, is the gentle teaching of my sweet
mother in my childhood, and the practical lesson of her long life of
love to God and man; the austere, unswerving uprightness and justice
which was the mainspring of life’s action to the dear old nurse who was
spared for forty-eight years to be the blessing of our home, ever one of
those who, as Emerson says, “make the earth wholesome;” the remembrance
of Hugh Pearson, Lady Waterford, and many other holy ones entered into
the Perfect Life, and the certainty whence their peace in life and their
calm in death was derived. Whittier again echoes my own thoughts when he
says, “I regard Christianity as a life rather than a creed; and in
judging my fellow-men, I can use no other standard than that which our
Lord and Master has given us, ‘By their fruits ye shall know them.’ The
only orthodoxy that I am especially interested in is that of life and
practice.”
I know my own great imperfection and unworthiness, and when I turn from
myself to others, I cannot judge them. One cannot know all the secret
guiding wires of action in them. I think perhaps the secret of any
influence I have with boys is, that though I am willing to tell them
what I think best as to the future, I never condemn their past; I am not
called upon to do so. Southey’s lines come back to me:--
“Oh, what are we,
Frail creatures that we are, that we should sit
In judgment man on man! And what were we
If the All-Merciful should mete to us
With the same rigorous measure wherewithal
Sinner to sinner metes!”[601]
When I look at the dates of births and deaths in our family in the
Family Bible, I see that I have already exceeded the age which has been
usually allotted to the Hares. Can it be that, while I still feel so
young, the evening of life is closing in. Perhaps it may not be so,
perhaps long years may still be before me. I hope so; but the lesson
should be the same, for “man can do no better than live in eternity’s
sunrise.”[602]
“La figure de ce monde passe. Sans la possession de l’éternité, sans la
vue religieuse de la vie, ces journées fugitives ne sont qu’un sujet
d’effroi, le bonheur doit être une prière et le malheur aussi. Pense,
aime, agis et souffris en Dieu; c’est la grande science.”[603]
“Seek out with earnest search the things above;
Thence to God’s presence rise on wings of love.
By Truth the veils of earth and sense are riven,
And Glory is the only veil of Heaven.
Seek’st thou by earthly roads to find thy way?
Surprise will seize thy rein and bid thee stay;
Only man’s Guardian has cross’d o’er that sea,
And those whom He has bidden--‘Follow me.’
He who has journeyed on without this Friend,
Worn out, has failed to reach his journey’s end.
Oh, Sàdi, think not man has ever gone
Along the path of Holiness alone,
But only he who treads behind the Chosen One.”[604]
“Then gin I thinke on that which Nature sayd,
Of that same time when no more Change shall be,
But stedfast rest of all things, firmely stayd
Upon the pillours of Eternity,
That is contrayr to Mutabilitie;
For all that moveth doth in Change delight;
But thence-forth all shall rest eternally
With Him that is the God of Sabaoth hight:
O! that great Sabaoth God, grant me that
Sabaoth’s sight.”[605]
INDEX
A.
Abbots-kerswel, iv. 249.
Aberdare, Henry Bruce, 1st Lord, iv. 427, 428; v. 225.
Aberdeen, Hon. Ishbel Marjoribanks, Countess of, v. 192, 204, 205, 380.
---- John Gordon, 7th Earl of, iii. 43; v. 192, 204, 205, 380.
---- Lady Mary Baillie, Countess of, v. 204.
Abinger, James Scarlett, 4th Lord, vi. 380.
Ackermann, Félix, i. 36, 97, 158; ii. 192, 195, 423; iii. 53-56, 338,
349.
---- Madame Victoire, i. 31, 32, 96, 339-340; ii. 192, 195, 405,
422-423, 499; iii. 52-64, 189, 253, 308, 310-312, 339, 351.
---- Victoria, iii. 309.
Acland, Sir Thomas, ii. 149.
Acland-Hood, Sir Alexander, vi. 233.
Acton, Sir John, iv. 437.
Acuto, ii. 426, 438-441; iv. 103.
Adeane, Lady Elizabeth, iv. 360.
---- Henry John, i. 214.
Adelaide, Madame, de France, iii. 23; iv. 339-340; vi. 109.
---- of Saxe-Meiningen, Queen of England, i. 189, 294; vi. 106, 478.
Aïdé, Mrs., iv. 293.
Aigues-Mortes, v. 431.
Ailesbury, Maria Tollemache, Marchioness of, v. 213, 233; vi. 67.
Airlie, Hon. Blanche Stanley, Countess of, iv. 127-128, 325-326; v.
274-275, 278, 289, 312, 384; vi. 90, 97, 135, 415-420, 436-443.
---- David Stanley William Ogilvy, 10th Earl of, vi. 440.
---- Lady Mabel Gore, Countess of, vi. 440.
Alacoque, Marguerite Marie, i. 445.
Alatri, iv. 103.
Albanie, Louisa of Stohlberg, Duchesse d’, vi. 121.
Albert, H.R.H. the Prince Consort, i. 302; ii. 286-288.
Albrecht, Archduke of Austria, 11. 35-36.
Alcock, Mrs., story of, iii. 118-123.
---- Sir Rutherford, v. 209.
Alcott, Miss Louisa, the authoress, vi. 405.
Aldeburgh, vi. 23.
Alderley, i. 61, 66; ii. 292, 293; vi. 351.
Aldermaston, ii. 219.
Alderson, Miss Louisa, iv. 73, 123.
Alemayu, Prince of Abyssinia, v. 237-238.
Alexander, Mary Manning, Mrs., i. 185, 248-251, 357, 469, 481; ii. 128.
Alford, Henry, Dean of Canterbury, i. 479; ii. 390-391, 432-433; iii.
155-157, 393-394.
---- Lady Marian, i. 293; ii. 298; iii. 28, 368; iv. 51, 55-60, 121,
399; v. 20-21, 66, 213-214, 294, 415, 455; vi. 110, 141-142, 270, 404,
483, 484.
Alfriston, i. 505.
Algeciras, iv. 33.
Alice, H.R.H. Princess, of Hesse, ii. 288; iv. 101; v. 147.
Alington, Henry Gerard Stuart, 1st Lord, vi. 164.
Allan, Charles Stuart, ii. 515.
---- John Hay, ii. 515.
Almena, Marqueza d’, iv. 41.
Alnwick Castle, ii. 353; iii. 33; vi. 134-139.
Alston, Carlotta, i. 2; vi. 517.
---- Mary Margaret, i. 2, 5; vi. 519
Altieri, Prince and Princess, v. 148, 159.
Alton Barnes, i. 45-48, 191-192, 278; iii. 110.
Amadeo, Duke of Aosta and King of Spain, iv. 31.
Amboise, ii. 495.
Amesbury, v. 292-293.
Ammerdown Park, vi. 240.
Amory, Henrietta Unwin, Lady Heathcote, vi. 90.
Ampère, J. J., v. 305.
Ampthill, Arthur, 2nd Lord, vi. 75.
Ampthill Park, iv. 412-422; v. 55.
Anagni, iv. 103.
Ancaster, Mary Panton, Duchess of, vi. 105.
Anderson, Henry, of Bradley, ii. 320.
Andover, Henry Charles Howard, Viscount, iv. 392, 393.
---- Lady Jane Coke, Viscountess, iv. 453-454.
Anglesey, Henry-William Paget, 1st Marquis of, v. 335.
Angoulême, Marie Therése de France, Duchesse d’, ii. 298; iii. 43-44;
vi. 113.
Anguillara, vi. 414.
Annesley, vi. 494.
Anson, Sir John, iv. 359.
Anthony, iv. 243.
Antibes, iii. 146-149.
Antonelli, Cardinal Giacomo, ii. 72; iii. 71; iv. 172.
Antrobus, Marianne Dashwood, Lady, v. 292.
Aponte, Dom Emmanuele, i. 6-8.
Apponyi, Countess, v. 148.
Aquila, iv. 179.
Aram, Eugene, ii. 232-234.
Arcachon, ii. 465.
Archaeological Society, Roman, speech at the, v. 179.
Arco, vi. 310.
Argyll, George Douglas Campbell, 8th Duke of, iv. 329.
---- John Campbell, 2nd Duke of, iv. 216-217.
Arkcoll, Mrs. Thomas, ii. 228, 244.
Arles, iii. 184; vi. 3, 39.
---- sur Tech, v. 440.
Arley, iv. 461; vi. 230.
Armagh, Lord John George Beresford, Archbishop of, vi. 326.
Arnold, Edward, iii. 329.
---- Edward, the younger, vi. 145.
---- Mary Penrose, Mrs., i. 177; iii. 327-329, 418; iv. 63.
---- Matthew, the poet, i. 177, 512; v. 288; vi. 143-144.
---- Dr. Thomas, Headmaster of Rugby, i. 160.
Arpino, iv. 181.
Ars, Jean-Marie Vianney, le Curé d’, ii. 417-420.
Ars, visit to, iii. 134-136.
Arthur, King of Britain, vi. 320.
---- H.R.H. Prince, iv. 88, 90-93, 224.
Arundel, vi. 297.
Ashburnham House, London, iv. 337.
Ashburnham, Bertram, 4th Earl of, vi. 79.
---- Lady Catherine Baillie, Countess of, v. 323; vi. 76.
---- Hon. John, iv. 271.
---- Lady Mary, v. 320.
Ashburton, Lady Harriet Montagu, Lady, vi. 441.
---- Louisa Stewart Mackenzie, Lady, iv. 90, 91, 99, 121, 154, 305, 329;
v. 60, 61, 66, 73, 211, 284, 294, 297, 314.
Ashdown, ii. 229.
Ashley, Hon. Anthony Lionel, iv. 290-291.
Ashridge, vi. 367.
Astor, Hon. W., vi. 478, 519, 525.
Athelstan, Mrs., ii. 270.
Atkens, Mr., of Kingston-Lyle, ii. 140.
Aubrey, Sir George, v. 333.
Audley End, iv. 243.
Augusta of Saxe-Weimar, Empress of Germany, v. 195.
Aumale, Henri de Bourbon, Duc d’, iii. 18; v. 446; vi. 109.
Austin, Alfred, the poet, v. 92.
Autun, ii. 320.
Avalanche, on the Mont Cenis, v. 133-135.
Avalon, the Isle of, vi. 320.
Avezzano, iv. 180.
Avila, iv. 43.
Avonmore, Therèse Longworth, Lady, v. 412.
Aylesford, Jane Knightley, Countess of, v. 292.
B.
Babington, Mrs. Catherine, ii. 351.
Babraham, vi. 229.
Babworth Hall, v. 41, 366, 417.
Bacon, Sir Hickman, vi. 64.
---- Mrs. Nicholas, iii. 169.
Baddeley, Helen Grant, Mrs. St. Clair, vi. 459, 460.
Baddesley-Clinton, vi. 34, 495.
Baden, Frederic William, Grand Duke, and Louisa, Grand Duchess, iii.
109.
---- Louis, Hereditary Grand Duke of, v. 211, 212, 213, 225-228.
Baden-Baden, i. 384.
Bagot, Mr. Charles, iii. 132.
---- Lucia Welbore, Lady, iii. 32, 368; vi. 298.
---- William, Lord, iii. 368.
Baillie-Hamilton, Mrs. Cospatrick, iii. 395.
---- James, vi. 17-18.
Baker, Sir George and Lady, v. 245.
---- Sir Samuel, iv. 388, 482.
---- Thomas Barwick Lloyd, iv. 350.
Balcarres, vi. 443.
---- Anne Dalrymple, Countess of, iv. 137.
---- Colin, 3rd Earl of, iii. 25.
---- James, 5th Earl of, iii. 24.
Balcaskie, vi. 442.
Balfour, Right Hon. Arthur, v. 92; vi. 373.
---- Charles, of Newton Don, vi. 88.
---- of Burleigh, Lady Katherine Gordon, Lady, vi. 94.
---- Minnie Georgiana Liddell, Mrs. Charles, vi. 88.
Bamborough Castle, ii. 271, 354; iii. 8, 170.
Bampfylde, Hon. Coplestone, v. 318.
Bankes, Rev. E. S., v. 457.
Bankhead, Charles, Secretary of Legation at Constantinople, i. 26.
---- Maria Horatia Paul, Mrs., i. 27, 28, 296.
Bantry, Jane Herbert, Countess of, vi. 94.
Bar-le-Duc, iii. 333.
Baratieri, General, vi. 510.
Barcelona, iv. 28.
Baring, Mrs. Drummond, v. 41, 417.
---- Hon. Mary, iv. 95.
Barker, Mary Ann Stewart, Lady, iv. 304, 331.
Barnard, Lady Anne, iii. 14, 27, 324-326.
Barnard Castle, ii. 275, 340.
Barnby, Sir Joseph, the musician, vi. 314.
Barnekow, Countess, v. 145, 152, 158.
---- Elizabeth de, v. 152.
Barraud, Madame and Mademoiselle, ii. 116, 125-128.
Barrère, Madame, iii. 87.
Barrie, James M., the novelist, vi. 434-435.
Barrington, Hon. Adelaide, ii. 139.
---- Hon. Augusta, ii. 139.
---- George, 5th Viscount, ii. 320.
---- George, 7th Viscount, iv. 362, 395.
---- Hon. Jane Liddell, Viscountess, iii. 138, 140; iv. 362, 395; v. 20,
210.
---- Maria Lyon, Hon. Mrs. Russell, ii. 282.
---- Shute, Bishop of Durham, ii. 139.
---- William Keppel, 6th Viscount, ii. 139, 140.
Bassi, Donna Laura, i. 7.
Bathurst, Benjamin, vi. 146.
---- Miss Rosa, vi. 145.
Bathyany, Count and Countess, iv. 285, 286, 429.
Battle Abbey, iv. 300-301; v. 66; vi. 4.
Baume, La Sainte, vi. 40.
Bayard, Hon. T. F., American Ambassador, vi. 402.
Bayley, Mrs., iii. 130-134.
Baynards, vi. 162.
Beaconsfield, Benjamin Disraeli, the Prime Minister, 1st Earl of, v.
47-48, 210, 343-344; vi. 99-100, 325, 373.
Bean, Ainslie, the artist, vi. 168.
Beauchamp, Lady Emily Pierrepont, Countess, vi. 101.
---- William, 7th Earl, vi. 459.
Beauclerk, Lady Sybil, vi. 475.
Beaujour, Château de, ii. 500-503.
Beaumont, Hubert G., ii. 66, 147; v. 377-378.
---- Lady Margaret, iv. 62, 65-69, 122, 148, 307, 329; v. 196; vi. 253.
---- Wentworth, iv. 62.
Beaurepaire, Mademoiselle de, iv. 411.
Beckett, ii. 138-140, 217, 229; vi. 494.
Beckwith, Priscilla Maria Hopper, Mrs., of Silksworth, ii. 422.
Bedford, Lady Elizabeth Sackville West, Duchess of, iv. 145; v. 60.
----Francis Russell, 9th Duke of, v. 60-61.
Belgians, Marie Henriette, Queen of the, vi. 29, 68.
Belgium, tour in, ii. 377.
Belhaven, Hamilton Campbell, Lady, ii. 335-337, 354-355, 358; iii.
35-36; iv. 268.
---- Robert, Lord, ii. 354, 358; iii. 35, 45-46.
Bell, Rev. Edward, vi. 351-353.
Bellagio, iii. 106.
Bellairs, Mr. and Mrs., vi. 158.
Belsay, ii. 347.
Belvoir Castle, iv. 58-60; vi. 305, 341-342.
Benalta family, story of, ii. 454-460.
Benedict, Sir Julius, the composer, v. 8.
Benedict XIV., Pope, vi. 497.
Beneventum, v. 271.
Bengivenga, Francesca, iii. 200.
Bennett, Rev. T. J. Filmer, vi. 237, 242.
---- Hon. Frederick, ii. 268-269.
---- Hon. George, ii. 268-269.
Bennigsen, Countess Marie Paul von, v. 91.
Bentinck, Penelope Leslie, Mrs. Cavendish, v. 70, 191, 275.
Bentley, Harriet, iii. 406, 412
Benzoni, the sculptor, iii. 83.
Berchtesgaden, iii. 231.
Bergeret, Madame, story of, iii. 177-182.
Berkeley Castle, i. 287; v. 304.
Berlin, v. 91-94.
Bernabo, Cardinal, iv. 172.
Bernhardt, Sarah, the actress, v. 198.
Berri, Caroline, Duchesse de, iii. 15-17, 43-44.
Berry, the Misses Mary and Agnes, i. 299-300; vi. 440.
Bestwood, vi. 475.
Betharram, iii. 487.
Beust, Frederick Ferdinand, Count von, iv. 145.
Biarritz, ii. 488; iv. 42.
Bidart, ii. 489.
Biddulph, Lady Elizabeth, v. 53. 221; vi. 302.
Bideford, vi. 524.
Birch, Sir Arthur, vi. 56.
Birtles, iii. 117.
Bishopthorpe Palace, vi. 256, 354, 356, 360, 444.
Bismarck, Count Herbert, vi. 236, 461.
Black, William, the novelist, v. 16.
Blackett, Sir Edward and Lady, of Matfen, ii. 266-267, 341, 346; iii.
170, 323; v. 19.
Blackmoor, iv. 131.
Blackwood, Sir Arthur, iii. 243.
Blaise Castle, vi. 447.
Blake, Edith Bernal Osborne, Lady, vi. 482.
---- Sir Francis, iii. 31.
Blake, Mrs. Jex, v. 237.
---- William, the artist, iii. 14.
Bland, Ven. Archdeacon, v. 424.
Blenkinsopp Castle, ii. 353.
Blessington, Harriet Power, Countess of, i. 20, 37; ii. 408.
Blickling, v. 452; vi. 105, 303.
Bligh, Hon. Arthur, iv. 237.
---- Hon. Ivo, iv. 237.
---- Lady Kathleen, iv. 426; vi. 105, 163, 164.
Blomfield, Charles James, Bishop of London, i. 470.
Blommart, Miss Elizabeth, ii. 489.
Bloomfield, Hon. Georgiana Liddell, Lady, iv. 305, 365; vi. 97, 184,
247.
---- John Arthur Douglas, Lord, v. 220.
Blyth, Miss Mary Popham, the authoress, vi. 275.
Bodley, G. F., the architect, iv. 476; vi. 448.
Bodryddan, iii. 123.
Boleyn, Anne, Queen of England, vi. 303, 315.
---- Lady Mary, vi. 317.
Bologna, i. 7-9; iii. 380; iv. 313.
Bolsover Castle, vi. 475.
Bolsover, Augusta Browne, Lady, v. 366.
Bolvilliers, Comtesse de, i. 343-351.
Bonaparte, Letizia Raimolino, Madame Mère, vi. 509.
---- Madame Jerome, v. 301.
Bonis, Madame Maria de, iii. 373, 378.
Bonnyrigg, ii. 341.
Bordighera, vi. 265.
Borghese, Adèle de Rochefoucauld, Princess, ii. 58.
---- Lady Guendolina Talbot, Princess, ii. 58, 59.
---- Marc-Antonio, Prince, ii. 58, 375.
---- Pauline Bonaparte, Princess, ii. 336.
Borghese, Teresa de Rochefoucauld, Princess, ii. 58; iii. 85, 194.
Bosanquet, Charles, of Rock, ii. 278.
---- Mrs., of Rock, ii 279.
Boscobel, iv. 440.
Bothwell Castle, iii. 48.
Boughton, v. 448.
Bourbon, Louis Henri Joseph, Duc de, iii. 21-23; vi. 122.
Bourges, ii. 310.
Bouverie, Hon. Stuart, vi. 318.
Bowes, Lady Anna, ii. 172, 173.
---- John, of Streatham, ii. 173, 178, 179, 274-276; v. 20.
---- Mrs. John, iii. 275.
Bowles, Miss, iii. 294, 298.
Boyle, Carolina Amelia Poyntz, Lady, i. 89, 291-292.
---- Hon. Carolina Courtenay, i. 289-294, 436-437, 508-509; ii. 381-384;
iv. 61.
---- Edmund Montagu, iv. 249; v. 412.
---- Hon. John, iv. 249.
---- Miss Mary, i. 293; iii. 368, 370; iv. 55, 214, 426.
---- Ella Gordon, Hon. Mrs. Richard, the authoress, iv. 60.
Boyne, Lady Katherine Scott, Viscountess, iv. 445; v. 457; vi. 411, 433.
Bozledene Wood, i. 361.
Bracciano, iii. 375.
Bradford-on-Avon, vi. 484.
Bradford, Orlando Bridgeman, Earl of, vi. 474.
Bradley Manor, in Devon, i. 287.
---- in Northumberland, ii. 320.
Bradley, Rev. Charles, i. 297-299, 303-315, 332-335, 368, 369, 390-393,
396-398, 408.
---- Mrs. Charles, i. 303, 307, 369.
Brainscleugh, ii. 358.
Bramham, vi. 356.
Bramshill, v. 340.
Brandling, Charles, v. 229; vi. 105.
Brassey, Albert, ii. 391; iv. 427.
Brassey, Annie Allnutt, Mrs. Thomas, afterwards Lady, iii. 416; v. 69.
---- Henry, ii. 391.
---- Thomas, afterwards Lord, ii. 25; iv. 379.
Braybrooke, Hon. Florence Maude, Lady, iv. 223.
Breamore, iv. 348.
Breadalbane, Lady Alma Graham, Marchioness of, vi. 80, 81.
Bremen, v. 129.
Bremer, Margaret, Countess, v. 15.
Bretton Park, iv. 64-69.
Bridges, Mrs., v. 449.
Bridgeman, Hon. Francis, vi. 474.
---- Gertrude Hanbury, Hon. Mrs. Francis, vi. 474.
---- Lady Selina, ii. 389.
Bright, Right Hon. John, the orator and statesman, v. 196; vi. 95.
Brimham Rocks, ii. 339.
Brinkburn Abbey, ii. 365.
Bristol, Geraldine Anson, Marchioness of, vi. 306.
Broadlands, iv. 340-341; v. 295.
Brodie, Sir Benjamin, i. 248.
Brogyntyn, vi. 433.
Bromley, Miss Caroline Davenport, iv. 476; v. 20, 32, 38, 310, 425.
Brontë, Branwell, iv. 69; vi. 394.
---- Charlotte, the novelist, iv. 69; vi. 394.
Brooke, Rev. Stopford, iv. 335; v. 209-210.
Brooks, Bishop, vi. 310.
Broughton, Miss Rhoda, the novelist, iv. 218-219, 326, 330, 383; vi.
253.
Brown, Dr., Professor at Aberdeen, i. 22.
---- Dr. John, the author of “Rab and his Friends,” vi. 438.
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, the poetess, ii. 91, 409; vi. 431, 510.
---- Robert, the poet, ii. 408; iv. 218-219; v. 24, 289; vi. 85, 96,
431, 463.
Brownlow, Lady Adelaide Talbot, Countess, v. 204, 212; vi. 242, 246,
367-368.
---- John, 2nd Earl, ii. 137.
---- Adelbert, 3rd Earl, v. 204; vi. 242, 243, 367-368.
Brougham, Henry, 1st Lord, the legal orator, iii. 143-144; iv. 472; v.
321.
Broussa, vi. 209-214.
Bruce, Rev. J. Collingwood, the antiquarian, ii. 318; iii. 49.
---- Lord Robert, vi. 297.
---- Hon. Mrs. Robert, iii. 203.
Brunnow, Baron and Baroness, iv. 129.
Bruschi, Countess, v. 143.
Brussels, vi. 191.
Bryan, Hugh, vi. 146, 148, 192, 222, 424.
Bryce, James, the historian, v. 196.
Brymer, Dr. (Archdeacon of Wells), i. 338.
---- Marianne Wilkinson, Mrs., i. 338.
Brympton, v. 73.
Buccleuch, Lady Elizabeth Montagu, Duchess of, v. 449.
Buchanan, Miss Helen, iii. 181.
Buckhurst, v. 455; vi. 17.
Buckland, Dr. William, v. 358.
Bufalo, The Venerable Gaspare del, ii. 425, 442.
Bulkeley, Anna Maria Hare, Mrs., i. 3, 494.
Buller, Right Hon. Charles, the politician, vi. 442.
---- Sir Redvers and Lady Audrey, vi. 182, 379.
Bulman, Mrs., ii. 346.
Bülow, Madame de, v. 200.
Bulstrode, vi. 486.
Bulwer, Sir Henry, iv. 76.
Bunsen, Charles de, ii. 109; v. 85, 86, 155.
Bunsen, Isabel Waddington, Mrs. Charles de, v. 85, 155.
---- Christian, Chevalier, afterwards Baron, i. 162-163, 164, 465, 504;
vi. 373.
---- Emilia de, iii. 109; v. 1, 76, 78; vi. 412.
----Frances Waddington, Madame, afterwards Baroness de, i. 465; ii. 293;
iii. 333-336; iv. 321-323; v. 1, 3, 54, 130, 157.
----Frances de, ii. 293; iii. 109; iv. 322; v. 1, 76, 87.
---- George de, i. 481; v. 91.
---- Rev. Henry de, ii. 328; iv. 440.
---- Mary Battersby, Mrs. Henry de, v. 33.
---- Matilda de, ii. 293.
---- Theodora de, i. 464; ii. 294.
---- Theodore de, i. 163; v. 86.
Buntingsdale, i. 144, 208; ii. 326-327; v. 217; vi. 381.
Burford, Charles de Vere, Earl of.,, vi. 475.
Burghley House, v. 51.
Burne-Jones, Sir Edward, the artist, vi. 423-424.
Burney, Miss, the authoress, ii. 436.
Burns, Robert, the poet, ii. 164.
Burr, Mrs. Higford, ii. 220.
Burrell, Sir Raymond and Lady, vi. 323.
Burton, Isabel Arundel, Lady, vi. 460.
---- Sir Richard Francis, the traveller, vi. 357-358, 461.
Burwarton, v. 457; vi. 411.
Butcher, Miss, iv. 33.
Bute, John Patrick Stuart, 1st Marquis of, iv. 269-271, 400; v. 197,
225.
---- Gwendoline Howard, Marchioness of, iv. 270.
Butler, Rev. W. J., Vicar of Wantage, afterwards Dean of Lincoln, ii.
222-224.
Butler, Mrs., i. 501.
---- story of Mrs., vi. 365-367.
Buxton, Catharine Gurney, Lady, vi. 263, 339.
---- Miss Richenda, v. 99.
Byng, Hon. and Rev. Francis, iv. 475.
C.
Cadenabbia, vi. 293.
Cadiz, iv. 33.
Cadland, vi. 155.
Cadogan, Lady Augusta, v. 351.
---- Lady Beatrix Craven, Countess, vi. 372.
---- George Henry, 5th Earl, vi. 372.
Cadouin, v. 437.
Caen, i. 319.
Caerlaverock Castle, ii. 164.
Caiëtani, Don Filippo, ii. 58.
---- Don Onorato, iii. 87.
Cairns, Mary Harriet M’Neile, Countess, v. 205, 212.
Caister Castle, vi. 103.
Caithness, Marie de Mariategni, Countess of, iv. 325.
Calotkin, Count, i. 15.
Cambo, ii. 490.
Cambrai, vi. 44.
Cambridge, H. R. H. Adolphus, Duke of, iv. 455.
Cameron, Lady Margaret, v. 362.
---- Lady Vere, ii. 8, 481, 482.
Campbell, Janey Callander, Lady Archibald, v. 289, 290.
---- Charlotte Malcolm, Lady, i. 88.
---- Colin, i. 309, 310, 313.
---- Lady Constance, vi. 135.
---- Gertrude Blood, Lady Colin, vi. 31.
---- Lady Evelyn, vi. 17.
---- Mary Meredith, Lady Frederick, iv. 236.
---- Lord and Lady George, vi. 4.
Campbell, Kenneth, of Ardpatrick, vi. 454.
Campsea Ashe, v. 444; vi. 23, 186, 258, 499, 519.
Canevari, G. B., the portrait painter, ii. 75.
Cannes, iii. 136-156; iv. 163-165; vi. 264.
Canning, Charlotte Stuart, Countess, ii. 360; iii. 324; vi. 334,
349-350.
Canons Ashby, v. 405.
Canossa, iv. 313.
Canterbury, i. 357-366; ii. 23-25; iii. 331-332, 394.
---- Edward White Benson, Archbishop of, vi. 97, 182, 456.
---- Archibald Tait, Archbishop of, iii 35-36, 39; v. 205, 383.
Capel, Monsignor, ii. 486.
Capheaton, ii. 350.
Caprarola, Palace of, iv. 108-113.
Capri, ii. 81.
Carcolo, Marchese, iv. 101.
Cardwell, Edward Viscount, and Viscountess, iv. 362-363, 401.
Carew, Frances Anne Buller, Mrs. Pole, iii. 375, 425; iv. 244.
---- Miss Julia Pole, iii. 372; iv. 246.
---- William Henry Pole, iv. 243; v. 71.
Carham, iii. 326.
Carlandi, Onorato, vi. 468.
Carlisle, vi. 134.
Carlo Borromeo, St., iv. 112.
Carlsruhe, i. 6; iii. 109, 333.
Carlyle, Jane Baillie Welsh, Mrs., v. 7, 314; vi. 441.
---- Thomas, the author, i. 166; iv. 71, 81, 123, 154-155, 305, 367,
383; v. 274, 310, 310, 313-314, 319, 384; vi. 96, 442, 488.
Carmichael, Sir William, iii. 46.
Carnac, vi. 345.
Carnarvon, Lady Evelyn Stanhope, Countess of, iv. 126, 149, 222, 223,
228, 300; vi. 253, 474.
Carnarvon, Henrietta Howard, Countess of, iv. 228.
Caroline, Empress of Austria, ii. 42.
---- of Brunswick, Queen of England, iii. 14-15.
Carpenter, Hon. Walter Talbot, Admiral, vi. 494.
Carr of Hedgeley, family of, ii. 280.
Carrington, Charles Robert Wynn, Earl, vi. 399.
Carysfort, Charlotte Heathcote, Countess of, v. 196; vi. 376, 455.
---- William Proby, 5th Earl of, vi. 376.
Cator, John, vi. 367.
---- Mary Mohun-Harris, Mrs., vi. 225.
---- the Misses, vi. 280.
Castagnuolo, iv. 194, 319-320.
Castel Fusano, ii. 390; iv. 100.
---- del Monte, v. 270.
---- Toblino, vi. 510.
Castlecombe, vi. 525.
Castlecraig, iii. 46.
Castletown of Upper Ossory, Augusta Douglas, Lady, iv. 171, 173, 174,
218, 220, 224, 231, 232; v. 209.
---- of Upper Ossory, John FitzPatrick, Lord, iv. 232-233.
Castro, Don Alessandro del, iii. 194.
Cavaillon, vi. 38.
Cavendish, Admiral and Mrs. George, ii. 94, 97.
---- Lady Beatrice, v. 229.
---- Hon. Compton, v. 229.
---- Mr. and Lady Harriet, vi. 175.
---- Louisa Lascelles, Hon. Mrs., i. 212.
---- Lord Richard, i. 212.
Cavoni, Marchesa, v. 154.
Cecchi, Cardinal, iii. 68.
Cecil, Lord Eustace, i. 241; v. 195; vi. 22-23, 81.
Cecinelli, Lucia, i. 53.
Cenci, Count Bolognetti, iii. 49, 85, 87.
Chaise Dieu, La, iii. 150.
Chalfield Manor, Great, vi. 485.
Chalus, v. 434.
Challinor, Mrs. Hannah, i. 151.
Chambers, Theodore, vi. 343.
Chambord, Henri, Comte de, iii. 16-18.
Champlatreux, vi. 100.
Chantrey, Sir Francis, the sculptor, vi. 331.
Charlemont, Hon. Elizabeth Somerville, Countess of, iv. 483; v. 8, 11,
12, 285.
Charles II., King of England, vi. 439.
Charles X., King of France, iii. 43.
Charlotte of Mecklenbourg-Strelitz, Queen of England, ii. 436-437; vi.
105.
---- Princess, of Belgium, ii. 36, 37.
Charlton Hall, iv. 390.
---- House, near Greenwich, v. 280.
Charltons of Hesleyside, the. ii. 343.
Charteris, Lady Caroline, iv. 213.
Chartwell, i. 507; ii. 321.
Chatterton, Henrietta Georgiana, Lady, vi. 497.
Chawton, vi. 477.
Cheddar Cliff, vi. 320-321.
Cheney, Edward, of Badger, iv. 128, 325, 395.
Chequers, ii. 8.
Chesham, Henrietta Lascelles, Lady, iv. 145.
Chesterfield, Anne-Elizabeth Forester, Countess of, iv. 228.
Chesters, ii. 341; iii 49; vi. 435.
Chetwode, Mrs. George, i. 157.
Chetwynd, Harriet Johanna Camphill, Viscountess, vi. 382, 477.
Chevening, iv. 126, 235-237; vi. 295, 476.
Chevreuse, ii. 125.
Chewton, William Frederick, Viscount, iv. 240.
Chichester, vi. 19.
Chichester, Miss Catherine, ii. 94, 286.
---- Richard Durnford, Bishop of, vi. 19-20, 324.
---- Henry Thomas Pelham, 3rd Earl of, iv. 90, 348; vi. 260.
Childe, Frances Christina Leighton, Mrs., vi. 302.
Chillingham, ii. 267-271, 364; iii. 33.
Chingford, i. 312, 400.
Chipchase, ii. 343.
Chiswick, v. 24.
Cholmondeley, Miss Mary, the novelist, vi. 383.
---- Mary Heber, Mrs., i. 143.
Christ-Church, Hants, iv. 211.
Christian, H. R. H. the Princess, vi. 87.
Christina, Queen of Spain, ii. 57.
Church, Richard William, Dean of St. Paul’s, iv. 245.
Churchill, Jane Conyngham, Lady, vi. 478.
Chute, Challoner, of the Vyne, vi. 156.
Cimies, iv. 165.
“Cities of Northern and Central Italy,” iv. 352-356, 375.
Civita Castellana, ii. 53; iv. 107.
Clairvaux, vi. 17.
Clanricarde, Hon. Harriet Canning, Marchioness of, iv. 64.
Clarence, H. R. H. William, Duke of, iv. 144.
Clarendon, Lady Caroline Agar, wife of the 5th Earl of, ii. 139.
Clarke, Miss Freeman, the authoress, iv. 90.
Clayton, Mrs. Anne, ii. 318-319.
---- George Nathaniel, ii. 318, 353: vi. 435.
---- Isabel, Mrs. G. Nathaniel, ii. 318; vi. 435.
Clayton, John, of Chesters, ii. 318, 343.
---- Miss, ii. 274, 318, 341-344.
---- Mr. Matthew, ii. 318-319.
Clemens, Mr. Samuel (Mark Twain), vi. 281-283.
Clermont-Tonnerre, Comte and Comtesse de, iv. 85.
Cleveland, Lady Caroline Lowther, Duchess of, iv. 412, 417, 419-424,
468-469, 482; v. 19, 229-230, 285; vi. 79.
---- Elizabeth Russell, Duchess of, v. 230-231.
---- Harry George Powlett, 4th Duke of, iv, 83; v. 68; vi. 120-123.
---- Lady Wilhelmina Stanhope, Duchess of, iv. 83, 145, 279, 334, 338,
376; v. 210; vi. 82, 120, 128-129, 140, 459.
---- William Henry, 1st Duke of, iii. 46.
Clifford, Captain, ii. 81.
---- Edward, the artist, iv. 72; vi. 243.
Clinton, Elizabeth Grant, Lady Charles, ii. 477; iv. 328; v. 205.
---- Lady Louisa, i. 383.
---- Miss Louisa, i. 59, 210, 257, 387-388.
Clisson, vi. 147.
Clive, Mrs. Archer, the novelist, i. 453.
---- Lady Catherine, v. 308.
---- Charles Meysey, of Whitfield, v. 16.
---- Lady Mary, v. 459.
Cliveden, v. 229; vi. 478, 479, 525.
Close, Mr. and Mrs., of Nottingham, vi. 58.
Cluny, iii. 383.
Clutterbuck, Marianne Lyon, Mrs., of Warkworth, ii. 17, 284, 352.
Clyde, Falls of the, iii. 49.
Clyde, Colin Campbell, Lord, General and hero, iv. 211-212.
Cobbold, Felix, vi. 259.
Cobham, Claude Delawal, iii. 152-153.
Cobham Hall, Kent, iv. 237-238, 356-357, 411-412; v. 16, 31; vi. 141,
254, 295, 503.
Cockerton, George, vi. 347.
Coigny, Augustin, Duc de, iii. 18-19.
Colchester, v. 446.
Cole, Miss Florence, ii. 45, 54; iv. 129.
---- Miss Louisa, ii. 46; iv. 129.
---- Sir Henry, Director of South Kensington Museum, iv. 157.
Colegrave, Mrs. Francis, ii. 94, 286.
Coleman, Miss Sarah, i. 173.
Coleridge, John Duke Coleridge, Baron, iv. 77, 78.
Collatia, ii. 390.
Collet, Susanna, vi. 376-377.
Collins, Staunton, i. 154, 190.
Colonna, Isabella de Toledo, Princess, iii. 191.
Colquhoun, J. A., i. 507; ii. 322.
---- Archibald, iv. 6.
Combermere, Mary Gibbings, Countess of, v. 22, 315.
Compton, Florence Anderson, Lady Alwyne, iv. 336, 399; vi. 456.
---- Mrs., iii. 326.
Condé, Louis Philippe d’Orléans, Prince de, vi. 109.
Condover, vi. 383.
Conington Castle, iv. 424.
Conington, John, Professor of Latin, ii. 4.
Conques, v. 442.
Consolo, the musician, v. 176.
Constantinople, vi. 193-209.
Conwy, Shipley, iii. 129.
---- Colonel Shipley, iii. 130.
Cookson, Francis, vi. 375.
Coomb Bank, iv. 236.
Copeland Castle, ii. 364.
Copenhagen, v. 99-101.
Copley, Lady Charlotte, v. 419.
Corbet, Hester Cotton, Lady, of Adderley, iii. 401; iv. 133.
Cordova, iv. 30.
Cori, iv. 104.
Cork and Orrery, Edmund, 8th Earl of, i. 293.
---- Lady Emily De Burgh, Countess of, iv. 125, 410; vi. 335.
---- Isabella Poyntz, Countess of, v. 301.
Cornford, Joseph, vi. 189.
Corry, Montagu Lowrie, afterwards Lord Rowton, v. 47, 48.
Cortachy, vi. 438.
Costa le Cerda, Vicomte, ii. 115-116, 121.
Cotehele, iv. 248.
Cottrell Dormer, Mr. and Mrs., of Rousham, ii. 150.
---- Mrs. Upton, vi. 183.
Coulson, Colonel, ii. 354.
---- Mary-Anne Byron, Hon. Mrs., ii. 354.
---- Misses Mary and Arabella, of Blenkinsopp, ii. 176, 272.
Courmayeur, i. 458; ii. 409.
Courtenay, Hon. and Rev. Charles and Lady Caroline, vi. 257.
---- Lady Agnes, iii. 320.
---- Edward Baldwin, Lord, iv. 385.
---- “Sir William” (Nichols Tom), i. 361-365.
---- Miss, vi. 431.
Cousin, M. Victor, iii. 146.
Coutts, Angela Georgina, Baroness Burdett, the philanthropist, iv. 71,
396; vi. 77, 172.
Coventry, Miss Augusta, iv. 231.
Cowburne, Mrs., i. 128, 209.
Cowdray, vi. 20.
Cowell, Sir J., v. 70.
Cowley, Henry Richard Wellesley, 1st Lord, the Ambassador, iv. 81.
---- Olivia de Ros, Countess, iv. 81, 394.
Cowling Castle, v. 32.
Cowper, Lady Anne Florence de Grey, Countess, iv. 414-416.
---- Hon. Henry, iv. 145, 308, 416; vi. 95.
Cowper-Temple, Hon. William, iv. 341.
Coxe, Rev. Henry Octavius, Bodleian Librarian, ii. 157; v. 202.
Cracroft, Colonel and Mrs., iii. 382.
Cradock, Hon. Harriet Lister, Mrs., i. 512; ii. 137-138.
Cranborne, Lady Alice Cicely Gore, Viscountess, vi. 422.
Craster, family of, ii. 279.
Craven, Lady Emily Grimston, Countess, v. 47, 296.
---- Pauline de la Ferronays, Mrs. Augustus, v. 22.
Crawford, Misses Annie and Mimoli, iv. 106.
----Frank Marion, the novelist, iv. 106; v. 177.
---- James Ludovic Lindsay, 9th Earl of, vi. 120.
---- Emily Florence Wilbraham, Countess of, vi. 224, 443.
Crealock, Lieutenant-General Henry Hope, iv. 66.
Crecy, ii. 380.
Creslow Pastures, ii. 220.
Cresswell, Sir Cresswell, the judge, ii. 353.
Crewe, John, 3rd Lord, v. 13, 63.
Crewe Hall, v. 62.
Crichton, Colonel and Lady Madeleine, iv. 94.
Crichton Castle, ii. 172.
Crockett, Samuel Rutherford, the novelist, vi. 434-435.
Croglin Grange, story of, iv. 203-208.
Croisic, Le, vi. 147, 152.
Croker, James, vi. 325.
---- John Wilson, vi. 255.
Cromer, v. 449; vi. 262-263.
Crowcombe, vi. 233.
Croyland, iii. 164.
Crozant, Le, v. 433.
Crum, Mr. and Mrs., vi. 231.
Cuffe, Sir Charles, ii. 358.
Cullum, Gery Milner Gibson, vi. 24, 508.
Cummings, Mr. and Mrs. E. C., iii. 380; vi. 310-311, 394-397.
Cunliffe, Sir Robert, iv. 486.
Curran, John Philpot, vi. 359.
Curzon, Hon. George Nathaniel, afterwards Viceroy of India, v. 284, 296;
vi. 421.
Cushman, Miss Charlotte, the actress, iii. 204-207, 386.
Cust, Hon. Archdeacon Arthur, afterwards Dean of York, iv. 411.
---- Lady Caroline, iv. 58-59.
Cuvier, Frederic, the naturalist, vi. 363.
D.
Daldy and Isbister, Messrs., v. 241-243.
Dalison, Charles Burrell, iv. 17, 89, 316; vi. 294.
Dallas, Mrs., iii. 380.
Dalton Hall, iii. 131; iv. 63.
Dalzel, Mrs. Allen, iii. 172.
---- Aventina Macmurdo, Mrs., ii. 17-19, 172, 357; iii. 172, 174-176.
Dampierre, ii. 125.
Darley, George, i. 164.
Darling, Mr., of Bamborough, ii. 272.
Darnley, John Stuart Bligh, 6th Earl of, vi. 164.
---- Lady Harriet Pelham, Countess of, iv. 223, 237, 426; v. 31, 199.
Dasent, Sir George, the author, i. 67, 449; v. 339, 341; vi. 31, 61-63,
75-77.
Dashwood, Anna Maria Shipley, Mrs., i. 17, 26, 158; iii. 125, 127-128.
Dashwood, Bertha Abercromby, Lady, ii. 466, 477; v. 193.
---- Sir Edwin, ii. 466.
----Florence Norton, Lady, vi. 299.
---- Sir Francis, iv. 445.
D’Aubigné, M. Merle, the historian, i. 453.
Davenport, Augusta Campbell, Mrs. Bromley, v. 216.
---- Edward, of Capesthorne, ii. 142.
---- Miss Evelyn Bromley, v. 289.
Davidoff, Adèle, Madame, i. 351; ii. 65-67, 76, 115, 416.
Davidson, Susan Jessop, Mrs., of Ridley Hall, ii. 172-177, 266, 272-274;
iii. 322-323; iv. 272, 458; v. 20.
Davy, Jane, Lady, v. 56-57.
Dawkins, Mrs. Francis, ii. 297; iii. 71-75, 315.
Daylesford, iv. 435.
Days near Rome, iv. 84-85, 162.
De Capel Brooke, Mr. and Mrs., vi. 238.
Decies, John Beresford, Lord, iv. 290.
Deimling, Herr Otto, i. 162.
De Jarnac, Hon. Geraldine Foley, Comtesse, iv. 300.
Delamere, Hugh Cholmondeley, 2nd Lord, v. 195.
Delawarr, Constance Baillie-Cochrane, Countess, v. 455; vi. 143, 452.
De L’Isle, Philip Sidney, Lord, iv. 459.
Dempster, Mr. and Mrs., of Ormistoun, iv. 267-268.
Denbigh, Rudolph Feilding, 8th Earl of, iv. 427, 465; v. 281.
---- Mary Berkeley, Countess of, iv. 427, 465; v. 195.
Denfenella, ii. 168.
Denison, Alfred, iv. 465; v. 316.
Denison, Lady Charlotte, iii. 42.
---- Rev. George Anthony, v. 278.
---- Mr. Stephen, ii. 272.
Denman, George, Judge, iv. 283.
Dent, Emma Brocklehurst, Mrs., iv. 439.
Deramore, Sir R. W. de Yarburgh Bateson, Lord, vi. 425.
Derby, Edward Smith Stanley, 13th Earl of, iii. 131.
Dereham, vi. 363.
Dering, Edward Heneage, vi. 34, 497.
---- Rebecca Dulcibella Orpen, Mrs., vi. 497.
Derwentwater, James Radcliffe, Earl of, ii. 266, 351.
De Ros, Georgiana Lennox, Lady, vi. 190-191.
De Selby, Mrs., iii. 71, 73.
---- Mrs. Robert, iii. 192.
Des Voeux, Miss Georgiana, ii. 371-372; iii. 139.
De Vesci, Hon. Evelyn Charteris, Viscountess, vi. 329, 351.
Devon, William Reginald Courtenay, 12th Earl of, iv. 240, 385, 387; v.
461.
Devonshire, Lady Georgiana Spencer, wife of the 5th Duke of, i. 5, 6.
Dickens, Charles, ii. 275.
---- Lady Elizabeth, v. 20.
Dictionary of National Biography, vi. 223.
Dilston, ii. 266, 320.
Dino, Duc de, v. 155.
Dixon, Louisa Simpkinson, Mrs., iii. 397.
Dixon-Browne, Mr. and Mrs., of Unthank, iii. 170.
Dodd, Mr. Wolley, the botanist, vi. 231.
Dolceacqua, ii. 253.
Dolgorouki, Prince Nicol, iii. 68, 84.
---- Princess, the story of, iv. 293-299.
Domremy, vi. 44.
Doncaster, ii. 261.
Donington, Charles Abney-Hastings, Lord, vi. 230.
Donoughmore, Thomasine Steele, Countess of, v. 383; vi. 97.
Dorchester, Dudley Carleton, 4th Lord, v. 205.
Doria, Donna Guendolina, ii. 71.
---- Prince Filippo, ii. 424.
---- Donna Olimpia, ii. 72.
---- Donna Teresa, ii. 70.
D’Orsay, Count Alfred, artist and dandy, i. 18, 20, 29, 37; ii. 408; v.
299.
Dorset, John Frederick Sackville, 3rd Duke of, vi. 121.
Douglas, Lady Agnes, v. 138, 145, 150.
Dowdeswell, Miss, iii. 76, 82.
Downshire, Caroline Frances Cotton, Marchioness of, v. 223.
Doyle, Sir Francis, the poet, v. 16, 55.
---- Percy, iv. 360.
---- Richard, the artist, iv. 67, 325; v. 46.
Draycot, iv. 394.
Drayton House, v. 447.
Drummond, Augusta Charlotte Fraser, Mrs. Robert, vi. 12, 26.
----Frances Jemima Oswald, Mrs., of Megginch, vi. 410.
---- George, of Swaylands, vi. 456.
---- Elizabeth Norman, Mrs. George, vi. 456, 500.
---- Henry, founder of the Irvingites vi. 136.
---- William [1585-1649], of Hawthornden, the poet, vi. 444.
Dublin, Richard Chevenix Trench, Archbishop of, iv. 90, 328.
Dubois, Madame, iv. 163.
Ducie, Henry John Moreton, 3rd Earl of, iv. 381, 397; v. 298.
Ducie, Julia Langston, Countess of, iv. 219, 435; v. 30, 273, 281.
Duckworth, Sir John and Lady, iv. 245.
---- Robinson, afterwards tutor to Prince Leopold and Canon of
Westminster, i. 446, 472; ii. 4, 33.
Dudley, 1st Earl of, i. 20; iv. 421.
Dufferin, Helen Selina Sheridan, Baroness, vi. 475.
Dugdale, Alice Trevelyan, Mrs. Stratford, v. 13.
Dumbleton, Miss Harriet, i. 269.
Dumfries, ii. 163.
Dundas, Hon. Alice Wood, Mrs. John, iv. 369; v. 422; vi. 484.
Dunlop, Harriet, Mrs., iii. 258, 260, 281-282, 288, 290, 292, 298, 304,
306, 317.
Dunraven, Anne, Countess of, v. 148, 151.
Dunottar, ii. 166.
Dunstanborough Castle, ii. 269-270, 364; iii. 35, 36.
Dunster Castle, vi. 235.
Duntrune, ii. 165.
Dupanloup, Felix Antoine Philibert, Bishop of Orleans, iii. 360.
Du Quaire, Fanny Blackett, Madame, iv. 200, 219, 220; v. 198, 311, 386;
vi. 28-31.
Durham, ii. 262.
Durham, Beatrix, Countess of, ii. 364-366; iii. 35-39.
---- George Frederick, 2nd Earl of, ii, 364-365; iii. 35-36; iv. 124.
---- Sir Philip, v. 15.
Dutton, Hon. Julia, iv. 466.
---- Hon. Ralph and Mrs., iv. 71, 331. 397; v. 287.
Dyrham Park, i. 315.
Dysart, Elizabeth Tollemache, Countess of, v. 235.
E.
Eardley, Sir Culling, ii. 289.
Earle, Theresa Villiers, Mrs., the authoress, vi. 254.
Eastbourne, i. 63, 210, 256, 376, 505.
East Hendred, 11. 230.
Eastlake, Elizabeth Rigby, Lady, iii. 154-155, 418; v. 308, 311.
Ebury, Robert, 1st Lord, iv. 400; vi. 89.
Eccles Greig, ii. 168.
Eddis, E. V., the portrait-painter, vi. 324-326, 330-333.
Edgecumbe, Fanny-Lucy Shelley, Hon. Mrs. George, iv. 247-248.
---- Lady Ernestine, vi. 257.
---- Hon. George, iv. 247.
---- Sir Richard, iv. 248.
Edgeworth, Life and Letters of Maria, vi. 370.
Edinburgh, iv. 449.
Edinburgh, H.R.H. Duke and Duchess of, v. 210.
---- H.R.H. the Duchess of, vi. 261.
Edwardstone, vi. 519.
Egerton, Lady Blanche, iii. 32.
---- Rev. Charles, i. 137.
---- Elizabeth Sykes, Mrs., iv. 460.
---- Miss Mary, vi. 97.
---- Lady Mary, iv. 348, 464.
---- of Tatton, Lady Charlotte Loftus, Lady, iv. 460-462; v. 65.
---- of Tatton, Lady Mary Amherst, Lady, vi. 229-239, 305.
---- of Tatton, William Egerton, William, 1st Lord, iv. 382; v. 18.
Elcho, Lady Anne Anson, Lady, ii. 356; iii 42; v. 206.
Eldon, John Scott, 1st Earl of, vi. 333.
Eliot, William, Lord, iv. 245.
Elizabeth, Queen of England, iv. 77, 337; v. 332.
Ellice, Lady Jane, iv. 9, 51, 136, 209, 213, 254, 338, 405, 406, 408; v.
214; vi. 21.
---- Mr. William, iv. 51, 405; v. 214.
Elliot, Lady Harriet, iv. 447.
---- Miss Margaret, iv. 324.
Ellis, Hon. Harriet, iv. 182, 189.
Ellisland, ii. 164.
Ellison, Mr. Cuthbert, i. 50.
---- Mrs. of Sugbrooke, iii. 169.
Elphinstone, Sir Howard, iv. 230; vi. 152, 181.
Elsdon, ii. 345.
Elton Hall, v. 271; vi. 376, 455.
Eltz, vi. 223.
Elvedon, vi. 400.
Ely, iii. 8.
Embrun, vi. 46.
Enfield, Lady Alice Egerton, Viscountess, v. 363.
Enniskillen, William Willoughby, 3rd Earl of, iv. 382.
Ensleigh, vi. 181.
Erskine, Emmeline Adeane, Mrs. Thomas, novelist, iii. 201; v. 278.
---- Thomas, of Linlathen, essayist, ii. 165, 278.
Escrick, ii. 437.
Escurial, Palace of the, iv. 42.
Eslington, ii. 320, 364.
Este, iii. 229.
Eugène Beauharnais, Prince, i. 20.
Eugénie de Montijos, Empress of the French, i. 492; iii. 392; iv. 225,
434; v. 205, 210-211, 417-418; vi. 350-351.
Eulenborg, Count, v. 96, 98.
Evans, Rev., iii. 3.
Eversley, Charles Shaw-Lefevre, Viscount, ii. 217; iv. 343; v. 221, 340.
Evreux, i. 326.
Ewart, Herbert and Lady Mary, vi. 517.
Exeter, Lady Georgina Pakenham, Marchioness of, v. 47.
Exeter, Henry Phillpotts, Bishop of, ii. 264; iv. 249.
---- William Alleyne Cecil, 3rd Marquis of, v. 47, 52.
F.
Faa, Esther, Queen of the Gipsies, iv. 250-252.
Facchini, Giacinta, “the Saint of St. Peter’s,” ii. 429-430; iii.
253-254.
Fairholme, Grace Palliser, Mrs., iv. 133, 135, 136, 139, 143.
Falconnet, Mademoiselle Judith, ii. 59.
Falk, Paul Ludwig, the politician, v. 92.
Falkirk Tryst, iii. 48.
Falkland, Byron Plantagenet Cary, 12th Viscount, vi. 445.
Fane, Captain, iv. 288.
Farfa, iv. 190.
Farley Hungerford, i. 271-272.
Farnese, Cardinal Alessandro, iv. 112.
Farquharson, Miss, of Invercauld, v. 456.
Favart, Madame, v. 176.
Fawsley, v. 404.
Feilden, Mr. and Mrs. Arbuthnot, iii. 78-80; iv. 106.
Feilding, Lord and Lady, i. 340.
Felbrigge, v. 451.
Felixstowe, vi. 259.
Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn and Mrs., vi. 241.
---- Susan Lyon, Mrs., ii. 272, 317.
Fénélon, Chateau de, v. 437.
Fergusson, Sir James, v. 8.
Ferney Voltaire, i. 453.
Ferrar, Nicholas, of Little Gidding, vi. 376-378.
Ferrara, ii. 47; iii. 345.
Ferrers, Sir Edward, vi. 498.
---- Laurence, 4th Earl, iv. 236.
---- Marmion Edward, vi. 497.
Ferronays, M. de la, ii. 68.
Fersen, John Axel, Comte de, iv. 273-279.
Feuchères, Sophia Dawes, Madame de, iii. 21-23; iv. 338-339; vi. 122.
Feuchtwanger, the Misses, vi. 285.
Fiano, Don Marco, Duke of, ii. 59, 424.
---- Donna Giulia Boncompagni, Duchess of, ii. 59.
Fielding, Copley, the artist, i. 165, 505.
Filiol, Sybil, i. 157.
Fina, S., iii. 344.
Finucane, Miss Anastasia, iii. 209, 378.
Firle, v. 407.
Fisher, Captain Edward, iv. 201, 203, 307.
----Frederick, iii. 67, 414.
FitzClarence, Lady Frederick, iii. 29-30.
Fitzhardinge, Georgina Sumner, Lady, v. 304, 306.
FitzGerald, Edward Fox, i. 29.
---- Jane Paul, Mrs. Edward, i. 29; iii. 267, 269, 271, 272; iv. 243.
---- Pamela Sims, Lady Edward, i. 28; iv. 243; v. 413.
---- Percy, the author, vi. 259.
Fitzherbert, Mrs., iii. 324.
Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond, v. 14.
---- Mrs., iii. 226.
Fitzwilliam, Lady Albreda, iv. 282.
---- Hon. Charles, vi. 378.
---- Lady Frances Douglas, Countess, iv. 269, 281-282.
---- William, 6th Earl, iv. 269, 281.
Flahault, Margaret, Baroness Keith, Comtesse de, iv. 61.
Fletcher, Miss, of Saltoun, ii. 355; iii. 40, 42, 43.
---- Lady Charlotte, ii. 356; iii. 43-45.
Flint, Professor Robert, theologian, v. 323.
Flodden Field, ii. 281.
Florence, ii. 84; iii. 315; iv. 193; vi. 510.
Florence, Henry, iii. 363.
Flower, Constance de Rothschild, Mrs. Cyril, afterwards Lady Battersea,
vi. 90.
---- Professor (Sir) William Henry, vi. 81.
Foley, Henry Thom, 5th Lord, v. 284.
---- Lady Mary Howard, Lady, v. 413.
---- Miss Margaret, the sculptress, iv. 90.
Folkestone, Matilda Chaplin, Viscountess, v. 15.
Fontainebleau, i. 451.
Fontaines, iii. 183.
Fontarabia, ii. 493.
Fontenay, iii. 385.
Ford Abbey, vi. 296.
Ford Castle, ii. 280-282, 360-363; iii. 323-326; iv. 51, 133-144; vi.
158-161, 244-249.
---- Mary Molesworth, Mrs., of Pencarrow, vi. 95.
Forester, Hon. Eleanor Fraser, Mrs. Henry, vi. 123.
Forli, iv. 315-318.
Forster, Harry, vi. 156.
---- Professor, iv. 326.
Fortescue, Elizabeth Geale, Countess, iv. 249.
---- Hugh, Earl, iv. 249.
Foscolo, Ugo, iv. 346.
Foster, Dr., Bishop of Kilmore, ii. 233.
---- Miss, ii. 234.
---- Mrs. Johnston, vi. 301.
Fotheringham, Mrs., of Fotheringham, ii. 165.
Fotheringhay, v. 272.
Fox, Charles James, the politician, vi. 401.
---- George Lane, of Bramham, vi. 357.
---- St. George Lane, v. 416.
Framlingham, v. 445.
France, publication of volumes on, vi. 238.
Francesca Romana, St., iii. 225-226.
Francesco d’Assise, King Consort of Spain, iv. 35-37.
Francesco II., King of Naples, iii. 85, 96-97.
Francheschi, Signor, v. 22.
Franklin, Lady, iii. 2.
Franzoni, Madame, iv. 166-167.
Fraser, Mrs., v. 323.
Fray, Miss, i. 268.
Frederick the Great of Prussia, ii. 148; v. 92.
---- Crown Prince of Prussia, afterwards Emperor of Germany, ii. 374; v.
96, 97; vi. 69.
Freeman, Edward Augustus, the historian, iv. 354-356. 424; vi. 380.
Frere, G. E., v. 331.
Fribourg, in Breisgau, iii. 109.
---- in Switzerland, ii. 112.
Fritwell Manor, ii. 151.
Froude, James Anthony, the historian, iv. 397; v. 18, 197, 289.
Fry, Elizabeth Gurney, Mrs., i. 229; ii. 437.
---- Mrs., of Clifton, iv. 78-80.
Fryston, iv. 69.
Fullerton, Lady Georgiana, ii. 400, 403; iii. 270, 287.
Fuseli, Henry, R.A., vi. 330.
Fyler, Rev. J., Vicar of Cornhill, iv. 264, 266.
---- Gabet, M., ii. 421.
G.
Gabriac, Marquis de, ii. 115.
---- Marquise de, ii. 67.
Gabrielli, Augusta Bonaparte, Princess, v. 140.
Gaebler, M. Bernard, i. 161.
Gage, Henry, 5th Viscount, v. 407.
Galicano, the Hermitage of, ii. 98.
Galloway, Lady Mary Cecil, Countess of, vi. 224.
Galway, Henrietta Eliza Milnes, Viscountess, vi. 421.
---- Rev. Father, ii. 398-404, 427; iii. 263, 287.
Garden, Miss Henrietta, i. 108; iii. 193, 213, 220; v. 135, 345; vi.
264, 275, 279, 415, 505, 509.
Gargilesse, v. 433.
Garrowby, vi. 389.
Gaskell, Charles Milnes, vi. 28.
---- Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson, Mrs., the novelist, ii. 224; iii.
117.
Gasperoni, the robber chieftain, ii. 54.
Gatton Park, v. 33.
Gaussen, M., i. 453.
Gayford, Mrs., i. 53, 369.
Gemmi, adventure on the, i. 462.
Geneva, i. 452; ii. 379.
Genoa, ii. 253; iii. 187.
George III., King of England, ii. 434-436.
George IV., King of England, iii. 14, 15, 176, 324; iv. 308; v. 335; vi.
359.
Germany, H.R.H. Frederick, Crown Prince of, ii. 374; v. 96, 97; vi. 69.
----Frederick William II., Emperor of, vi. 253.
---- H.R.H. Victoria, the Crown Princess of, v. 75, 96-98; vi. 69, 70.
Ghizza, Ancilla, iii. 234.
Giacinta, the “Saint of St. Peter’s,” ii. 429-430; iii. 253-254.
Gibraltar, iv. 34-37.
Gibside, ii. 180.
Gibson, John, the sculptor, iii. 76-78.
Gidding, Little, vi. 376-378.
Gidman, John, i. 131; ii. 33, 83, 386; iii. 232, 406, 412; iv. 46; v.
378.
---- Mary Lea, Mrs., i. 205-207, 210; ii. 33, 468, 489; iii. 195, 316,
399, 403, 409, 412, 413, 414; iv. 46, 299, 373-375; v. 315, 325, 352,
369-381.
Gilbertson, Rev. Lewis, Minor Canon of St. Paul’s, vi. 375, 464.
Gilling Castle, vi. 256.
Gioberti, Signor, iii. 167.
Girgenti, v. 251.
Gladstone, Catherine Glynne, Mrs., ii. 381; iv. 397, 462; v. 210.
---- Rt. Hon. William Ewart, the statesman, iv. 397, 461-462; v. 210;
vi. 235-236, 325, 408, 483.
Glamis Castle, i. 22; v. 44, 217-218.
Glamis, John Lyon, 6th Lord, i. 23.
---- John Lyon, 7th Lord, i. 23.
---- John Lyon, 8th Lord, i. 23.
Glassenbury, vi. 55.
Glastonbury, i. 98.
Gleichen, Countess Valda, vi. 499.
Glemham, v. 445.
Gloucester and Bristol, Charles John Ellicott, Bishop of, iv. 401.
Glyn, Hon. and Rev. Edward Carr, afterwards Bishop of Peterborough, iv.
283, 284.
Glynde Place, v. 407.
Goldschmidt, Jenny Lind, Madame, i. 236; iii. 146-149; iv. 80; v. 200;
vi. 260-262, 406.
Goldsmid, Nathaniel, ii. 68; iii. 168.
---- Mrs. Nathaniel, iii. 69, 71-75, 93.
Goldstone Farm, i. 150, 208.
Gondi, Count, iii. 252.
Gontaut, Duchesse de, Governess of the Children of France, vi. 321.
Gordon, Alexander, v. 319-320.
---- Hon. Sir Arthur, afterwards Lord Stanmore, v. 203, 208.
---- Hon. Canon Douglas, iv. 347; vi. 105, 414.
Gordon, Lady E., vi. 405, 414.
---- Hon. John, iii. 43.
---- Misses Duff, iv. 370.
---- Isabella Grant, Lady Francis, iv. 66, 67, 410.
Gore, Lady, i. 278.
Gorhambury, v. 47.
Gosau, Lakes of, 11, 41.
Gosford, ii. 356.
Gower, vi. 101.
---- Granville Leveson, vi. 305.
---- Lord Ronald, iv. 61; v. 228, 275, 340, 372, 374; vi. 341.
Grammont, Antoine, Duc de, vi. 29.
Granada, iv. 37-39.
Grande Chartreuse, La, ii. 258.
Grant, Dr., Bishop of Southwark, ii. 442.
----Frederick Forsyth, i. 440; ii. 151, 168.
---- General, the American, v. 97.
---- Miss Katherine, v. 429.
---- Lady Lucy, v. 281.
---- Miss Mary, the sculptress, iv. 397; v. 281.
---- Owen, v. 279; vi. 96.
---- Duff, Sir Mountstuart and Lady, vi. 520.
Granville, Castalia Campbell, Countess, vi. 301.
---- Mr. Court, and Lady Charlotte, ii. 353.
Gravetye, vi. 227.
Gray, Dr. Asa, the botanist, v. 300-301.
Great Oakley Hall, vi. 238.
Greenwell, Rev. Canon William, the archaeologist, v. 424.
Greenwood, John, of Swancliffe, v. 425.
Gregory, Pearson, of Harlaxton, vi. 501.
---- Mrs., ii. 482-486; iv. 200.
Gregory XVI., Pope, iii. 74.
Grenfell, Alethea Adeane, Mrs. Henry, v. 326.
Grenoble, vi. 51.
Gresford, i. 96; ii. 448.
Grey, Albert, vi. 18.
---- Anna Sophia Ryder, Lady, of Falloden, ii. 279, 363.
---- Charles, 2nd Earl, the Prime Minister, iii. 36; iv. 286.
---- Charlotte Des Voeux, Lady, ii. 251, 371, 377; iii. 139, 154; iv.
327.
---- Lady Elizabeth, ii. 276, 366.
---- Hon. and Rev. Francis, ii. 276-278, 366; v. 231, 461.
---- Hon. Sir Frederick, iv. 283.
---- George, of Falloden, iv. 290.
---- Right Hon. Sir George, of Falloden, statesman, ii. 279, 363; iii.
36; iv. 99; v. 2.
---- Sir George, of New Zealand, ii. 214-217; iii. 330.
---- Rev. Harry, i. 253.
---- Henry George, 3rd Earl, the politician, iii. 35, 36; iv. 62.
---- Lady Georgiana, ii. 332, 334-335, 337-339.
---- John, of Dilston, ii. 266.
---- Maria Copley, Countess, iii. 35-36; iv. 62.
---- Mrs. William, iv. 473.
Greystoke, vi. 354.
Greville, Hon. Alwyn, v. 214.
---- Mrs., _née_ Locke, ii. 94.
---- Sabine Thellusson, Mrs., iv. 370, 484; v. 38-41, 289-290.
---- William Fulke, v. 223.
Grignan, Chateau de, vi. 37.
Grigor, Dr., of Nairn, iii. 373; iv. 89.
Grimaldi, ii. 250.
---- the Marchesa, ii. 320.
Grimston, Lady Anne, vi. 374-375.
---- Lady Jane, v. 48.
Groombridge Place, vi. 322-323.
Grosvenor, Hon. Mrs. Norman, vi. 367.
---- Lady Sybil Lumley, Countess, vi. 353.
Grosvenor, Hon. Victoria, vi. 77.
Grote, Harriet Lewin, Mrs., ii. 26-29, 218; iv. 480; v. 307-308,
310-312; vi. 253.
Grove, Elizabeth Hill, Mrs. Thomas, iii. 394; v. 291.
Guerande, La, vi. 152.
Guildford, the trial at, iii. 294.
Guiness, Adelaide Maria Guiness, Mrs. Edward, v. 204.
Guizot, M. François Pierre Guillaume, Prime Minister, i. 320.
Gunnora, Duchess of Normandy, i. 319.
Gurdon, story of Father, vi. 130.
Gurney, Miss Anna, i. 230.
---- Mrs. Catherine, i. 229.
Gurneys of Earlham, the, vi. 337-339, 370-371, 384.
H.
Haddington, Helen Warrender, Countess of, iv. 445.
Hadleigh in Essex, vi. 518.
Haig of Bemerside, the Misses, iii. 378.
Hailes Abbey, iv. 438.
Hailstone, Mr. and Mrs., of Walton, iv. 68.
Hale, Dr. Douglas, ii. 369, 497.
---- Mrs., ii. 497; iii. 414.
Halifax, Lady Agnes Courtenay, Viscountess, iv. 290; vi. 353, 424.
---- Miss Caroline, i. 284.
---- Sir Charles Wood, Viscount, the statesman, iv. 290, 325, 362; v.
421.
---- Charles Lindley Wood, Viscount, President of the Church Union, v.
461; vi. 64, 97, 181-182, 257-258, 353, 424.
---- Lady Mary Grey, Viscountess, iv. 290, 475.
Hall, Mrs. Richard, iii. 159, 196, 198.
Hallam, Arthur, i. 509.
Hallein, mines of, ii. 42.
Hallingbury, iii. 7.
Hallstadt, ii. 40.
Halsbury, Hardinge Stanley Giffard, Lord Chancellor, vi. 478.
Hamilton, Alexander, 10th Duke of, ii. 336, 359.
---- Hon. Emma Elizabeth Proby, Lady Claude, vi. 376.
---- Lady Emily, iii. 48.
---- Hon. Frances Scott, Mrs. Baillie, iv. 259.
---- Rev. Henry Parr, Dean of Salisbury, iv. 346.
---- Hon. Margaret Dillon, Mrs., i. 382.
---- Princess Mary of Baden, Duchess of, ii. 358.
---- Mary Grove, Mrs. Cospatrick Baillie, iii. 395.
---- Lady Margaret, vi. 97.
---- Hamilton, Mrs., iv. 211-212, 215, 338-340, 404, 408.
Ham House, v. 231; vi. 225.
Hampden, Great, ii. 8.
---- Eliza Ellice, Viscountess, v. 407.
Hams, vi. 406.
Hanbury, Cecil, of La Murtola, vi. 341, 347.
Hanover, H.R.H. Princess Frederika of, v. 195.
---- H.R.H. Princess Mary of, iv. 429; v. 351, 429.
---- H.M. Queen Mary of, iv. 431-434; v. 351.
---- H.M. King George of, ii. 152, 153; iv. 431; v. 307.
Harcourt, Archbishop, iii. 157.
---- House, vi. 80.
---- Right Hon. Sir William, the statesman, v. 273.
Hardwick Hall, Suffolk, vi. 24, 102-103.
Hardwicke, Lady Elizabeth Lindsay, Countess of, iii. 24-27, 324; iv.
139-140.
Hardwicke, Hon. Susan Liddell, Countess of, ii. 403; iv. 409; v. 222.
Hardy, Thomas, the novelist, vi. 398.
Hare, Anna-Maria Clementina, i. 11, 13.
---- Anne Frances Maria Louisa, i. 39, 161, 338-357, 370; ii. 55-57, 70,
72, 114-115, 182-213, 284, 400, 409-432, 499-517; iii. 68, 89, 232,
233-272.
---- Augustus John Cuthbert: birth of, i. 42;
baptism, 50;
adoption, 51;
is sent to England, 53;
childhood of, 54-166;
sent to school at Harnish, 167;
private school life of, 170;
at Harrow, 214-246;
at Lyncombe, 247-296;
at Southgate, 297-401;
tour in Normandy, 318-331;
tour in Belgium, Germany, and France, 377-387;
goes to University College, Oxford, 402;
second tour in Germany and France, 422-436;
in France and Switzerland, 450-465;
in Wales, 501-503;
in Scotland, ii. 17-23;
leaves Oxford, 31;
in Switzerland and Austria, 33-44;
first journey to Rome and Naples, 45-84;
summer at Florence and Lucca, 84-103;
autumn in Northern Italy and Paris, 103-128;
writes Murray’s Handbook for Berks, Bucks, and Oxfordshire, 133-241;
second summer in Scotland, 162-172;
has to leave Hurstmonceaux, 227;
leaves Lime, 243;
settles at Holmhurst, 244;
spends the winter at Mentone, 246-258;
writes Murray’s Handbook for Durham and Northumberland, 260-366;
spends the spring at Nice and early summer in Switzerland, 370-380;
second winter at Rome, 384-409;
visit to Escrick, 433;
spring at Pau and Biarritz, 462-497;
summer in Northumberland, iii. 8-49;
third winter at Rome, 50-109;
winter at Cannes, 134-152;
fourth winter at Rome, 183-232;
death of his sister, 232;
is attacked by a Roman Catholic conspiracy, 272-312;
fifth winter at Rome and dangerous illness, 314-320;
sixth winter at Rome, 333-386;
death of his adopted mother, 400;
writes “Memorials of a Quiet Life” under great opposition, iv. 1-9;
visits at Penzance and Bournemouth and Highcliffe, 6-14;
lawsuit about a portrait by Sir J. Reynolds, 17-24;
travels in Spain with Miss Wright, 24-44;
autumn of 1872 in Northumberland and Yorkshire, 51-71;
visit at Hatfield, 72-82;
publication of “Wanderings in Spain,” 83-84;
seventh winter at Rome, 85-123;
autumn of 1873 in the North of England, 132-148;
work in 1874 on “Cities of Northern and Central Italy,” 162-197;
becomes a member of the Athenaeum, 198-199;
publishes a third volume of “The Memorials,” 309-311;
tour for work in 1875 in Northern and Central Italy, 312-323;
visits in London and the country, 323-351;
publishes “Cities of Northern and Central Italy,” 352;
is attacked by Mr. John Murray, 353;
by Mr. Edward Freeman, 354;
attends Lady Augusta Stanley’s funeral, 366;
visit at Powdenham, 385;
at Charlton, 388;
at Highcliffe, 404;
at Cobham, 411;
at Ampthill, 412;
at Conington, 424;
at Sarsden, 426;
at Donington, 440;
at Raby, 442;
at Whitburn, 443;
at Winton, 447;
at Ravensworth, 451;
at Kinmel, 458;
at Tatton, 459;
at Sherborne, 465;
at Osterley, 467;
at Hinchinbroke, 470;
writes the Memoirs of Baroness Bunsen, v. 1;
visit at Llanover, 3;
at Milford, 38;
at Babworth, 41;
at Thoresby, 43;
at Glamis, 44;
at Gorhambury, 47;
at Goldings, 53;
at Ampthill, 55;
at Crewe, 62;
at Battle Abbey, 66;
meets the Crown Princess of Germany, 75;
visits the Princess of Wied, 77;
visits and tour in Germany, 85-99;
in Denmark, 99-102;
in Sweden, 102-108;
in Norway, 108-118;
visit to the King and Queen of Sweden and Norway, 118-129;
undertakes to be with the Crown Prince at Rome, 132;
is overtaken by an avalanche on the Mont Cenis, 134;
at Rome with the Crown Prince, 135-177;
speech before the Roman Archaeological Society, 179-190;
in London with the Crown Prince, 195-213;
visits with the Crown Prince, 213-217;
at Llanover with the Hereditary Grand Duke of Baden, 225-228;
suffers from the bankruptcy of his publishers, 241;
makes a tour in Sicily and Apulia in 1879-80, 245-271;
edits the Life of Amelie von Lassaulx, 292;
goes to Holyrood as equerry to the High Commissioner, 318-324;
visits Rome, Capri, Calabria, and Venice in 1882, 344-352;
tour in Holland in 1882, 363-365;
death of his old nurse, 369-381;
travels in Russia in 1883, 391-401;
tour in Picardy and Switzerland in 1884, 408-411;
loss of fortune, 416;
first journey in France for literary purposes in 1885, 430-442;
his failures in trying to help young men, 462-470;
reaches middle life, vi. 1-3;
travels in France and Italy in 1886, 8-17;
travels in France in 1887, 35-54;
is arrested at Vizille, 48;
publishes “Paris,” and “Days near Paris,” 114-117;
travels again in France in 1888, 146-152;
last visit to Ford, 158;
spring on the Riviera and at Rome and Venice in 1889, 165-170;
loss from books, 165;
illness at Holmhurst in 1889, 187-188;
journey to Constantinople, Broussa, and Oberammergau in 1890, 192-225;
last visit to Highcliffe, 228-229;
his loss in Lady Waterford, 241-251;
spring on the Riviera and at Rome and Venice in 1892, 263-294;
serious illness at Holmhurst in 1892, 299-301;
loss of Miss Leycester, 318-319;
writes a volume on Sussex, 322;
publishes “Two Noble Lives,” 333-336;
writes the “Gurney Memoirs,” 337-339;
travels in Normandy and Brittany in 1894, 342-346;
publishes “Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth,” 370-371;
publishes “The Gurneys of Earlham,” 384-385;
publishes “North-Western France” and “Biographical Sketches,” 392;
spring on the Rivieras and at Rome and Venice in 1896, 411-421;
visits at Reigate, Hatfield, and Osterley, 421-424;
visit at Wollaton, 425;
visits at Oswestry, Lutwyche, Chesters, North Berwick, Airlie Castle,
Bishopthorpe, 434-436;
publishes the first three volumes of “The Story of my Life,” 446;
visits at Lockinge, Blaise Castle, Hewell, Elton, Madresfield, Painswick,
Hereford, 447-463;
visits at Maiden-Bradley, Burwarton, Teversal, Thoresby, Cliveden, 473-480;
builds at Holmhurst, 491;
visits at Shrivenham, Oxton, Streatlam, Kiplin, Baddesley-Clinton, Sonning,
and Belvoir, 494-502;
at Rome in the spring of 1899, 505-510;
at Florence and Arco, 510;
attends the deathbed of Mrs. C. Vaughan, 513-516;
is at Swaylands with the Duchess of York, 410;
visits in Suffolk, 517-521;
undergoes the Nauheim treatment, 521;
tour in Devon and Cornwall, 522-524;
visits at Corsham and Cliveden, 525;
visit to the King and Queen of Sweden, 525.
Hare, Augustus William, Rector of Alton-Barnes, i. 6, 13, 14, 43-49.
---- Mrs. Augustus (Maria Leycester), i. 43, 54-80, 98-171, 187-196,
200-201, 210-212, 240, 254, 259, 262, 365, 376-377, 437-438, 442-444,
450, 454, 464, 466, 469, 487-492; ii. 14-17, 44-49, 76, 80, 85, 97, 109,
130, 227-229, 243, 246-247, 259, 326-328, 367-372, 392-393, 460-497;
iii. 3, 84, 103, 107, 110, 141, 183, 187-190, 202-232, 320-322, 331,
337-419; vi. 489.
---- Miss Caroline, i. 4, 89, 94, 291.
---- Caroline, daughter of Francis and Anne, i. 33, 35.
----Francis, Dean of St. Paul’s and Bishop of St. Asaph and Chichester,
i. 1, 2; ii. 156.
Hare, Francis George (the elder), i. 6-21, 26, 29-42, 49-53, 84-85, 95,
157-159; ii. 57;
portrait by Sir J. Reynolds of, iv. 17-24.
----Francis George (the younger), i. 35, 92-94, 160, 373-375; ii.
400-402, 408; iii. 240, 248, 257-259, 276, 278, 282-313.
---- Anne Frances Paul, Mrs., i. 33-42, 51, 53, 95, 160, 260-261, 276,
339-355, 370-376; ii. 55-57, 114, 212-213, 397-406; iii. 53, 54; iv. 18.
---- Charlotte Fuller, Mrs. Robert, iv. 50.
---- George, i. 91-94.
---- Georgiana, afterwards Mrs. Frederick Maurice, i. 13, 16, 82-83,
280.
---- Gustavus Cockburn, i. 13, 123, 287, 481.
---- Annie Wright, Mrs. Gustavus, i. 123.
---- Mrs. Henckel, i. 3, 4, 89, 90.
---- Henry, i. 91.
---- Julius Charles, Rector of Hurstmonceaux and Archdeacon of Lewes, i.
6, 10, 14, 49, 50, 59, 67-68, 77, 80-81, 99, 104-107, 109-111, 122, 156,
159, 176, 179, 251-253, 261-262, 357, 466-469, 476, 478, 480-484; iv.
18; vi. 6.
---- Marcus Augustus Stanley, i. 74, 86; ii. 366, 370; iv. 51, 164, 249;
v. 69-70.
---- Marcus Theodore, i. 6, 11, 85, 96, 175, 190, 192, 194-196; iv. 18;
vi. 6.
---- Lucy Anne Stanley, Hon. Mrs. Marcus, i. 49, 74, 166, 175, 178, 192,
194-196, 201-204; iii. 318-319.
---- Miss Marianne, i. 4, 10, 89, 95, 291.
---- Mary Margaret Alston, Mrs. i. 2, 494; ii. 156; vi. 518, 519.
---- Mary Hargreaves, Mrs. Theodore, vi. 297.
---- Reginald John, i. 13.
---- Rev. Robert, Rector of Hurstmonceaux, i. 4, 5; vi. 5.
---- Rev. Robert, Canon of Winchester, i. 2, 6, 494.
---- Theodore Julius, i. 160, 204.
---- William Robert, i. 18, 160, 373-375; ii. 401-402, 411, 452-453,
514; iii. 241-250.
Hare-Naylor, Anna Maria Mealey, Mrs., i. 13, 82, 83; vi. 6.
----Francis, i. 5, 11, 12, 13; vi. 5.
---- Georgiana Shipley, Mrs., i. 5-12; vi. 6.
Harewood, Lady Florence Bridgeman, Countess of, vi. 402.
Harford, Mary de Bunsen, Mrs., iv. 165; v. 2.
Harlaxton, vi. 501.
Harlech, William Richard Ormsby Gore, 2nd Lord, vi. 434.
Harnham, ii. 351.
Harnish, i. 170; vi. 525.
Harraden, Miss, the novelist, vi. 340.
Harrington, Elizabeth Green, Countess of, v. 198.
Harris, Hon. Charles, vi. 459.
---- George Robert Canning, Lord, iv. 357.
---- Hon. Reginald Temple, i. 264, 277, 282.
Harrison, Archdeacon Benjamin and Mrs., iii. 331-332.
Harrow, i. 214.
Harte, Bret, the poet, vi. 319.
Harvey, Annie Tennant, Mrs., of Ickwellbury, iv. 335, 363; v. 406.
Hastings, i. 122.
Hastings, Francis, 1st Marquis of, iv. 285-286.
---- Warren, the statesman, iv. 435.
Hatfield House, i. 307, 313; iv. 72-82, 223, 224; vi. 372-375. 422-423,
482.
Hatherley, Lord and Lady, iv. 379.
Haweis, Rev. Hugh Reginald, the author, iv. 307.
Hawker, Misses Jane and Adelaide, iii. 106-107, 146.
Hawkestone, i. 148, 208; ii. 327.
Haworth, iv. 68-69; vi. 394.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, the novelist, v. 19.
Hawtrey, Dr. Edward Craven, Provost of Eton, ii. 230; iv. 198.
Hay, Adam, of King’s Meadows, ii. 137; iii. 46, 146.
---- Sir Adam, ii. 357; iii. 146.
---- Miss Ida, ii. 372.
---- Sir John, v. 51.
Haygarth, Mrs., afterwards Lady Blanche, iv. 83, 240; v. 276; vi. 257.
---- Colonel Francis, iv. 83, 240; v. 276; vi. 257.
Hayward, Abraham, the essayist, iv. 226, 395.
Heber, Rev. Reginald, Rector of Hodnet and Bishop of Calcutta, i. 44.
---- Emilia Shipley, Mrs. Reginald, i. 44; iii. 125.
Heckfield Place, iv. 343.
Hedley, Rev. W., Dean of University College, afterwards Rector of
Beckley, i. 405.
Heidelberg, i. 380.
Heiligenkreutz, ii. 38.
Helbig, Professor Wolfgang, the antiquarian, v. 142.
Helmingham, v. 445.
Helston, vi. 522.
Hely-Hutchinson, Lady Margaret, v. 320.
Henckel, Mrs., i. 90.
Henderson, Colonel, iv. 155-156.
Hendre, the, vi. 502.
Henniker, Miss Edith, vi. 456.
Herbert, E., the artist, v. 191-192.
---- Rev. George, the poet, vi. 108.
---- Hon. George, Dean of Hereford, vi. 302.
---- Lady Gladys, iv. 406.
---- Lady Gwendolen, vi. 474.
---- Lady Margaret, vi. 474.
---- Lady Winifred, iv. 149; v. 11.
---- of Lea, Elizabeth A’Court, Lady, the authoress, iv. 51-55, 406.
---- of Llanarth, Arthur, v. 6.
---- of Llanarth, Hon. Augusta Hall, Mrs., v. 6, 228.
Hereford, vi. 302.
Herkomer, Hubert, the artist, v. 429.
Herrenalb, iv. 322-323; v. 86, 87.
Herries, Marcia Vavasour, Lady, iii. 237.
Hervey, Lord Arthur, Bishop of Bath and Wells, vi. 320-321.
---- Lord Francis, iv. 153.
Hesleyside, ii. 343.
Hesse, H.R.H. Princess Alice of, iv. 102; v. 147.
---- H.R.H. Prince Louis of, iv. 102.
Hewell, vi. 351, 448.
Hewitt, Sir Prescott, the great surgeon, vi. 4.
Hibbert, Caroline Cholmondeley, Mrs., iii. 117.
---- Miss Letitia, vi. 9.
Hickleton, ii. 283; iv. 290; v. 418; vi. 257-258, 371-372.
Higginson, Miss Adelaide, i. 478.
---- Lady Frances, i. 478; iv. 132; vi. 94.
---- General Sir George, v. 279; vi. 86, 94, 299.
Highclere, iv. 148.
Highcliffe, iii. 427; iv. 8-14, 208-217, 404-409; vi. 21, 108, 228-229.
High Force, the, ii. 340.
Hill, Anne Clegg, Viscountess, i. 148.
---- Miss Octavia, vi. 319.
---- Sir Roger, the philanthropist, vi. 183.
---- Sir Rowland, i. 147.
---- Rowland, 1st Viscount, i. 145.
Hills-Johnes, Lady, vi. 142-143.
Hinchinbroke, iv. 425, 470.
Hirsel, the, iv. 258.
Hoare, Mrs. R., v. 452.
Hobart, Vere Henry, Lord, and Mary Catherine Carr, Lady, ii. 389.
Hodnet, i. 143; ii. 327.
Hogg, James, the Ettrick Shepherd, ii. 314-315; iv. 55.
---- Mary Magniac, Mrs., vi. 247.
Hohenzollern, Prince Friedrich of, v. 98.
Holcombe, vi. 401.
Holford, Miss Evelyn, vi. 78.
---- George, vi. 448.
Holland, Mary-Augusta Coventry, Lady, iv. 226, 231, 325, 331, 395, 474.
---- Miss Caroline, v. 99, 109, 112, 245, 316, 390; vi. 92.
---- Miss Gertrude, v. 99, 245, 255, 316, 390
---- Mary Sibylia, Mrs. Frank, vi. 490.
Holland House, iv. 226-228, 231, 325, 331, 335, 395, 398; v. 21, 212;
vi. 329.
Holmbury, vi. 225.
Holmesdale, Lady Julia Cornwallis, Viscountess, v. 45.
Holmhurst, ii. 241-246, 259, 368; iii. 320; iv. 46, 49, 229, 311, 404;
v. 30-31, 352, 462; vi. 4, 139, 170, 173-174, 342, 393, 428-429, 476,
480, 491, 503.
Holtermann, Baron, v. 119, 117, 138.
Holy Island, ii. 271-272.
Home, Cospatrick Alexander, 11th Earl of, iv. 258.
Honingham Hall, vi. 241.
Hood, Henry, iii. 152.
Hope, Adrian, vi. 101.
---- Aldena Kingscote, Lady, iv. 454.
---- Alexander James Beresford, iv. 290-291.
---- Miss Louisa, v. 321
---- Lady Mildred, ii. 14.
Hopton, vi. 103.
Hornby Castle, vi. 402.
Hornby, Mrs., of Dalton, iii. 80, 131, 329-330.
Horsley, Bishop, iii. 332.
Hosmer, Miss Harriet, the sculptress, iii. 76, 368; iv. 124; v. 66; vi.
268-273; 284-285, 287-290, 311-312.
Hos Tendis, i. 4; vi. 103.
Houblon, Mr. and Mrs. Archer, ii. 390; iii. 7.
Houghton Hall, vi. 104.
Houghton, Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron, iii. 229, 360; iv. 69-71,
140, 143, 226, 307-308, 370, 383, 422, 478, 481; v. 14, 16, 17, 23, 63,
64, 66, 67, 68, 209, 272-273, 274, 287, 314; vi. 84, 253, 275, 373, 442,
483, 488.
Hour, the Holy, ii. 499.
Housesteads, ii. 343.
Hovingham Hall, vi. 256.
Howard, Edward Henry, Monsignor, afterwards Cardinal, ii. 67; vi. 297.
---- Miss Elizabeth, iv. 99; v. 245, 255.
---- Hon. Hubert George Lyulph, vi. 422.
---- Lady Victoria, iii. 145; iv. 391.
---- of Glossop, Clara Louisa Greenwood, Lady, v. 60.
---- of Greystoke, Charlotte Long, Mrs., vi. 162, 354.
---- de Walden, Lady Lucy Bentinck, Lady, iv. 101.
Howden, vi. 361.
Howe, Mrs. Julia Ward, the poetess, v. 16.
Howick, iii. 35, 36.
Howitt, Miss Margaret, v. 163, 175.
---- William and Mary, author and authoress, v. 163-164, 175-176.
Hughan, Miss Janetta, ii 284.
Hughes, Hugh, of Kinmel, iv. 362.
---- Lady Florentia, vi. 77, 164.
---- Miss, “Sister Marion,” i. 473-474.
Hull, Henry Winstanley, i. 164, 196-197, 501.
Hulne Abbey, iii. 33.
Hulse, Sir Edward, iv. 249, 348.
Hungerford, Mrs., iv. 202.
Hunt, Holman, the artist, vi 511.
---- Leigh, v. 384.
---- Sir J., iii. 31.
Huntingtower, Katherine Burke, Lady, v. 234, 359; vi. 225.
---- William, Lord, v. 234.
Hurstmonceaux, i. 4, 9-12, 54-60, 92-94, 156, 157, 159, 164-165,
187-189, 258-260, 437-438, 475-478, 504-507; ii. 14, 227-228; iii.
410-411, 413-416; iv. 49-50; v. 380-381, 387; vi. 429, 470, 487-490.
Husband, story of Mr., vi. 102.
Hussey, Edward, of Scotney, iv. 301, 355-358. v. 408.
Hutt, William, M.P. for Gateshead, ii. 180.
---- Hon. Henrietta Clive, Mrs., iv. 330; v. 355, 359, 408.
Hyères, ii. 370.
I.
Ickwellbury, vi. 27.
Ightham Mote, iv. 66; vi. 516.
Ignatieff, Madame, vi. 422.
Ignatius, Brother (Rev. Leycester Lyne), iii. 81, 83; v. 306-307.
Imperial, Napoléon Victor Jerome Frederic, the Prince, iv. 396, 398; v.
122, 123, 126-129, 204-205, 210-211; vi. 350.
Indelicati, the family of the, v. 254-258.
Ingilby, Elizabeth Macdowall, Lady, of Ripley, ii. 283, 337; iv. 287.
---- Miss, ii. 332; iv. 287.
Inglefield, Admiral, iv. 422.
Ingmire, vi. 183.
Ingram, Hon. Emily Wood, Mrs. Meynell, iv. 283.
Inverurie, Ian, Lord, vi. 343, 468.
---- Lady Sydney, v. 217-218.
Iona, v. 220.
Ipswich, v. 442.
Irongray Church, the, ii. 164.
Irving, Washington, the author, v. 385.
---- Henry, the actor, iv. 383, 484-486; v. 10-11.
Italy, H.M. Margherita di Savoia, Queen of, v. 135-136, 158.
---- H.M. Umberto II., King of, v. 158; vi. 278.
Iveagh, Edward Guinness, Lord, and Maria Guinness, Lady, vi. 372, 398.
J.
Jackson, Dean of Christ Church, i. 15.
Jagherds, v. 53.
James, Henry, the novelist, iv. 481; v. 16.
---- of Hereford, Lord, vi. 447.
Janin, Jules, iii. 6.
Jarnac, Hon. Geraldine Foley, Comtesse de, iv. 474.
Jedburgh, Lord, vi. 459.
Jekyll, Walter, iv. 100.
Jelf, Dr., Canon of Christ Church, ii. 152-153.
Jenkin, Mrs. Fleeming, v. 289, 323.
Jersey, Frances Twysden, Countess of, iv. 308; vi. 369.
---- Julia Peel, Countess of, v. 229, 297; vi. 105.
---- Hon. Margaret Leigh, Countess of, authoress, vi. 79-80, 182,
224-225, 367, 369.
---- Lady Sarah Fane, Countess of, iii. 8-9; vi. 369.
---- Victor Child-Villiers, 7th Earl of, vi. 182, 224-225, 369.
Jerusalem, Bishopric of, i. 163.
Jeune, Dr. Francis, Master of Pembroke, Oxford, afterwards Bishop of
Peterborough, ii. 6; iii. 161-168; iv. 425.
Jewsbury, Miss Geraldine, the authoress, v. 6-7.
Jocelyn, Lady Frances Cowper, Viscountess, iii. 140; iv. 166, 415.
Johnes, Miss, v. 225, 326.
Johnson, G. H. Sacheverell, Dean of Wells, iv. 355.
---- Mr., of Akeley Heads, ii. 265.
Jolliffe, Hon. Agatha, vi. 6.
---- Colonel Hylton, i. 25.
---- Hon. George Hylton, v. 151, 175: vi. 97, 192, 194, 209, 264, 429.
Jones, Anna Maria Shipley, Lady, i. 6, 13, 16; ii. 144; vi. 5.
---- Sir Edward Burne, the artist, vi. 423.
---- Rev. Herbert, vi. 104.
---- Sir Laurence, vi. 103.
---- Rev. Robert, of Branxton, ii. 280.
---- Sir William, the orientalist, i. 6.
---- Miss Whitmore, vi. 430.
Josselin, vi. 345.
Jowett, Dr. Benjamin, tutor and Master of Balliol, i. 399, 402, 404,
420, 439, 472; ii. 220, 222, vi. 372.
Joyce, Miss, iii. 95.
Jubilee, ceremonies of the First Victorian, vi. 65-75, 81, 83;
of the Second, vi. 463-465.
K.
Keate, Dr. John, Headmaster of Eton, iv. 232.
Keith, Lady, iii. 26.
Kellie Castle, vi. 443.
Kemble, Mrs. Fanny, the authoress, iv. 87; v. 360-361, 453, 455; vi.
309-312.
Kendal, Mr. and Mrs., v. 359.
Kenmare, Gertrude Harriet Thynne, Countess of, vi. 415, 420.
Kenyon, Matilda Cotton, Mrs. Orlando, v. 223.
Keppel, Hon. Derek, vi. 99.
---- Hon. Admiral Sir Henry, vi. 401.
Kerrison, Sir Edward, v. 330.
Kershaw, Rev. E. E., ii. 388.
Kerslake, Mr., iv. 77.
Kestner, Christian William, physician and author, vi. 275.
Keudel, M. and Mme. de, v. 158.
Kieff, v. 398.
Kielder, ii. 342.
Kildare, Lady Hermione Duncombe, Marchioness of, v. 409.
Kilmarnock, Mary Caroline L’Estrange, Lady, vi. 134, 184.
Kilmorey, Francis Jack, 1st Earl of, v. 279.
Kilvert, Rev. Robert, i. 167, 172, 213.
---- Thermuthis Coleman, Mrs. Robert, i. 167.
King, Edward, Bishop of Lincoln, vi. 362.
Kinglake, Alexander William, the historian, v. 359.
Kings Meadows, ii. 357.
Kinlet, vi. 474.
Kiplin, vi. 494.
Kirk-Newton, ii. 362.
Knaresborough, ii. 322.
Knebel, Mademoiselle, ii. 387.
Knebworth, v. 415.
Knepp Castle, vi. 323.
Knightley, Louisa-Mary Bowater, Lady, v. 404-405, 407; vi. 372.
---- Sir Rainald, afterwards Lord, v. 404-405, 407; vi. 372.
Knowles, James, the editor, iv. 478; vi. 220, 225-226, 482.
Knowsley, iv. 63.
Knox, Mrs. John, ii. 274.
Königsfelden, iii. 108.
Krohn, M. de, v. 167, 214.
Kuper, Mrs. and Miss, iii. 338, 339.
Kynance Cove, vi. 524.
Kyre, vi. 302.
L.
Labouchere, Henry, M.P., vi. 85.
Labre, the Venerable, ii. 443.
Lacaita, Sir James, iv. 119-123, 332-334, 397, 400; v. 155; vi. 88.
Laire, M., the antiquary, i. 324.
Lajatico, Marchesa, v. 154.
Lamarre, M., ii. 404-405.
Lambert, Lady Mary, iv. 209, 213.
Lamington, Annabella Drummond, Lady, vi. 91.
Lanciani, Rudolfo, the archaeologist, vi. 509.
Landor, Julia Thuillier, Mrs., ii. 92, 407.
---- Walter Savage, the poet, i. 16, 18, 26, 37, 265-268, 270, 277, 289,
292, 510; ii. 111-112, 407-409; iv. 155; vi. 145.
Landseer, Sir Edwin, the artist, vi. 325-326.
Lanerton, Diana Ponsonby, Lady, vi. 297-298.
Langford, Elizabeth, Viscountess, iii. 129.
Langy, M. de, iv. 255.
Lansdowne, Henry Fitz-Maurice, 5th Marquis of, v. 199.
Larmignac, Mademoiselle Martine de, ii. 193, 505.
Large, Mrs., iii. 309, 310.
Lassaulx, Amalie von, v. 292.
Laughton Place, v. 407.
Lavalette, Marquis de, iv. 81, 279.
Lawford Hall, vi. 518.
Lawley, Hon. and Rev. Stephen, ii. 433; iv. 6.
Lawrence, Sir Thomas, the artist, i. 22; vi. 360-361.
Layard, Mr., afterwards Sir Henry, explorer and ambassador, iv. 35.
Layer Marney, vi. 520.
Lea, Mary, i. 50, 54, 60, 78, 117, 122, 124, 140, 171, 205, 487.
Lear, Edward, the artist, iv. 428.
Lecky, Elizabeth de Dedem, Mrs., v. 199.
Ledbury, vi. 302.
Ledstone, vi. 354.
Lee, Henry Hives, v. 32, 363.
Leeds, Fanny Georgiana Pitt, Duchess of, vi. 402, 404.
---- Louisa Catherine Caton, Duchess of, vi. 404.
Lefevre, Miss Emily Shaw, iv. 378.
---- Hon. Emma Shaw, v. 221.
---- Right Hon. George Shaw, the politician, iv. 397; v. 19; vi. 320.
---- Sir John Shaw, ii. 213, 454; iv. 157, 239, 356, 371-373, 400, 471;
v. 62, 196, 220-221.
---- Miss Madeleine Shaw, iv. 23, 219, 229, 231.
---- Miss Maria Shaw, ii. 392.
---- Miss Mary Shaw, ii. 392; iv. 217, 231.
---- Miss Rachel Shaw, iv. 372.
Legh, Emily Wodehouse, Mrs., of Lyme, afterwards Lady Newton, iii. 113,
116; v. 216; vi. 183.
Lehmann, Hon. Chandos and Mrs., iv. 149.
---- Miss Theodosia, i. 178.
----Frances Butler, Hon. Mrs. James, vi. 457-458.
---- Hon. James Wentworth, Dean of Hereford, vi. 457.
---- William Henry, Lord, vi. 408.
---- Dr., i. 9, 11.
Leighton, Sir Frederick, R.A., i. 294; vi. 357-358, 512.
---- Sir Baldwin, iv. 484.
Leinster, Lady Caroline Grosvenor, Duchess of, v. 218.
Leitrim, Robert Clements, 4th Earl of, v. 416.
---- Lady Winifred Coke, Countess of, v. 416.
Lennox, Adelaide Campbell, Lady Arthur, ii. 354.
---- Miss Ethel, ii. 354.
Leo XIII., Pope, vi. 277-278.
Le Puy, iii. 149.
L’Estelle, ii. 480, 487.
Leslie, Constance Dawson-Damer, Mrs., afterwards Lady Constance, iv.
323; v. 14; vi. 511.
---- Hon. George Waldegrave, v. 44.
---- Lady, story of, ii. 322-324.
Le Strange, Emmeline Austin, Mrs., vi. 25.
---- Hamon Styleman, of Hunstanton, ii. 137.
Letton, vi. 362.
Leuk, Baths of, i. 460.
Leven and Melville, Sophia Thornton, Countess of, iv. 219.
Levett, Basil, vi. 97, 420.
---- Lady Margaret, vi. 87, 97, 420.
Leycester, Miss Emma Theodosia, i. 114, 500; ii. 477-481.
---- Miss Charlotte, i. 114, 317, 376, 450, 454-458, 480, 487, 499; ii.
161, 289, 479; iii. 199, 208-221, 322, 397, 398; iv. 49, 129, 160, 230,
329, 404; v. 291; vi. 111-114, 255, 318-319.
Leycester, Miss Georgiana, iii. 200.
---- Mr. and Mrs. Henry, of White Place, ii. 156-157.
---- Judge Hugh, i. 141.
---- Maria, youngest daughter of Rev. Oswald, i. 33.
---- Elizabeth White, Mrs. Oswald, i. 102, 126-141, 209, 272-274,
228-229.
---- Rev. Oswald, Rector of Stoke-upon-Terne, i. 44, 61, 126, 207-208.
---- Ralph, of Toft, i. 317.
---- Susannah Leigh, Mrs. Ralph, i. 66.
---- Emily Tyrwhitt Jones, Mrs. Ralph, iv. 307.
Licenza, iv. 174.
Lichfield, ii. 330; v. 403.
---- John Hacket, Bishop of, v. 403.
---- William Maclagan, Bishop of, v. 402.
---- George Augustus Selwyn, Bishop of, v. 404.
Lichtenstein, Marie Fox, Princess, iv. 228.
Liddell, Miss Amelia, ii. 264, 271.
---- Hon. Colonel Augustus, iii. 367.
---- Cecil Elizabeth Wellesley, Hon. Mrs. Augustus, iii. 367.
---- Miss Charlotte, ii. 264, 271.
---- Charlotte Lyon, Mrs. Henry, i. 283; ii. 263, 271; iii. 8, 171.
---- Christina Fraser Tytler, Mrs. Edward, the novelist, iv. 51, 444,
446.
---- Edward, afterwards Rev., iii. 365-368; iv. 51, 444, 446.
---- Hon. George, ii. 262, 263, 318; iv. 447; v. 292.
---- Louisa Meade, Hon. Mrs. George, ii. 263, 318.
---- Hon. Hedworth, ii. 364.
---- Henry, Headmaster of Westminster and Dean of Christ Church, i. 283;
ii. 9, 157.
Liddell, Rev. Henry, Rector of Easington, and trustee of Bamborough Castle,
i. 283; ii. 263; iii. 8-10, 171;
death of, iv. 39.
---- Lorena Reeve, Mrs., vi. 89.
---- Maria Susanna Simpson, Lady, i. 25.
---- Hon. Thomas, ii. 139.
---- Rev. William, ii. 264.
---- Lady Victoria, iv. 201, 232.
Lieven, Princesse de, iv. 308.
Lievenhaupt, Count and Countess, v. 150.
Lilford, Emma Brandling, Lady, iv. 395.
Lillieköök, M. de, v. 214.
Lime, at Hurstmonceaux, in Sussex, i. 57, 60; 66-75.
Limosin, Madame Flora, iii. 311, 339, 349.
Lincluden Abbey, ii. 164.
Lincoln, vi. 361.
Lincoln, Abraham, the American statesman and President, v. 451.
Lind, Mademoiselle Jenny, i. 236; vi. 260, 261.
Lindertis, vi. 439.
Lindsay, Hon. Colonel Hugh, v. 426.
---- Lady Margaret, iii. 27.
---- Miss Maude, iv. 133, 137, 209, 213, 250, 260, 264, 404; v. 214; vi.
246, 249.
---- Lady Sarah, iv. 222, 250, 360, 370; v. 426-427.
---- Miss Violet, iv. 332.
Liskeard, vi. 522.
Liszt, Franz, ii. 389.
Littlecote Hall, vi. 161.
Llanarth, v. 226.
Llandaff, vi. 101, 240, 476.
Llangattock, John Rolls, Lord, vi. 505.
Llanover, v. 2-6, 225-228.
Llanover, Augusta Waddington, Lady, v. 2-6, 226-228.
Llanover, Benjamin Hall, Lord, v. 6; vi. 410.
Loch, Sir Henry, afterwards Lord, Colonial Governor, v. 336.
---- Elizabeth Villiers, Lady, v. 336.
Locke, Selina Tollemache, Mrs., iv. 226.
Locker-Lampson, Frederick, the poet, v. 449; vi. 263.
Lockhart, John Gibson, novelist and biographer, vi.
Lockinge, vi. 447.
Lockwood, Lady Julia, iv. 472.
London, Frederick Temple, Bishop of, vi. 320.
London dinners, vi. 252.
Londonderry, Frances Anne Vane Tempest, Marchioness of, iii. 9; v. 428.
---- Mary Cornelia Edwards, Marchioness of, iii. 270.
Longford Castle, vi. 312.
Longland, John, Dean of Salisbury and Bishop of Lincoln, vi. 314-316.
Longley, Charles Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, v. 340.
Loraine, Sir Lambton, v. 13.
Lorne, John George Campbell, Marquis of, v. 22; vi. 341.
Loseley, iv. 307.
Lothian, Lady Cecil Talbot, widow of the 7th Marquis of, i. 339, 356;
ii. 398-404, 409, 444; iii. 153, 270, 287, 294, 298.
---- Lady Constance Talbot, Marchioness of, iii. 47; v. 452; vi. 105,
243, 303-304, 367-368.
---- William Schomberg, 8th Marquis of, iii. 47.
Louis, King of Bavaria, ii. 374.
---- XVIII., King of France, vi. 113.
---- Philippe d’Orleans, King of the French, iv. 339.
Louisa, Queen of Prussia, v. 95, 97.
Louise, H.R.H. the Princess, v. 16, 22, 316; vi. 341.
Lourdes, v. 432.
Lovat, Simon, Lord, ii. 351.
Lovelace, Jane Jenkins, Countess of, vi. 183.
Lowe, Mrs., iv. 401-403, 479.
---- Right Hon. Robert, the statesman, iv. 402-403; vi. 119.
Lowell, James Russell, Minister and poet, v. 305; vi. 129.
Löwenjelm, Count Carl, iv. 278-279.
Löwenstein Wertheim, Lady Anne Saville, Princess, vi. 478.
Lowther, Hon. Alice Parke, Hon. Mrs. William, iv. 67, 124, 224, 331; v.
444.; vi. 175-176, 186, 215, 222, 225, 241, 258, 262, 326, 353, 499,
510, 518.
---- James, v. 444.
---- Gerard Augustus, vi. 201.
---- Miss Mabel, vi. 510.
---- Miss Mary, iv. 416; v. 445; vi. 175.
---- Hon. William, iv. 416; v. 59, 297; vi. 23, 187, 353, 499.
Loyd, Frances Irby, Mrs. Lewis, iv. 359.
---- Graham, vi. 101.
---- Henry, of Langleybury, vi. 97.
Lubbock, Sir John, afterwards Lord Avebury, natural historian and
antiquarian, vi. 298.
Lübeck, v. 98.
Lucca, Bagni di, ii. 93; iv. 318.
Lucchesi, Marchese, iii. 17.
Lucerne, ii. 33.
Lucy, Mrs., of Charlcote, ii. 14.
Ludlow, v. 459.
Lullingstone Castle, vi. 476.
Lulworth, vi. 22.
Lumley, Aldred, Viscount, v. 41.
---- Augustus Savile, vi. 119.
Lumley, Sir John, afterwards Lord Savile, vi. 9.
Lurgan, Hon. Emily Browne, Lady, vi. 163.
Lushington, Dr., ii. 298-309.
Luttrell, Henry, the wit, iv. 421.
Lützow, Harriet Seymour, Countess, iv. 171, 182; v. 350; vi. 169, 192.
----Francis, Count von, iv. 171, 182.
Lyall, William Rowe, Dean of Canterbury, i. 359.
Lychett Heath, vi. 22.
Lygon, Lady Mary, vi. 459.
Lyme Hall, iii. 113; v. 216; vi. 183, 386.
Lyncombe, i. 261.
Lyndhurst, Georgiana Goldsmith, Lady, v. 66, 292, 336-339, 341; vi. 92.
---- John Singleton Copley, Lord, v. 336-339.
Lyne, Rev. Leycester, iii. 81.
Lynn-Linton, Mrs., i. 268.
Lyon, Lady Anne (Crawford), vi. 433.
---- Hon. Francis, vi. 433.
---- Sir John, of Glamis, i. 23.
---- Sir John, 1st Baron Kinghorn, i. 22.
---- Hon. Thomas, of Hetton, ii. 317.
---- Mary Wren, Hon. Mrs. Thomas, ii. 317.
Lyons, i. 452.
Lyons, Richard, Lord, Ambassador at Paris, iv. 44-45; vi. 484.
Lyte, Frances Somerville, Mrs., afterwards Lady Maxwell, iv. 377.
---- Henry Maxwell, Deputy Keeper of the Records, vi. 163, 341, 465.
Lyttleton, Hon. Mrs. Robert, vi. 34.
---- Hon. Spencer, iv. 469; v. 231.
Lytton, Edward Robert Lytton, 1st Earl of, iv. 365; v. 415.
---- Edward Bulwer Lytton, Lord, vi. 142-143.
---- Edith Villiers, Countess of, iv. 365; v. 415; vi. 236.
---- Rosina Doyle Wheeler, Lady, v. 57-58.
Lyveden, v. 448.
Lyveden, Emma Mary Fitzpatrick, Lady, v. 310, 314.
M.
Maberly, General, iv. 406.
Macaulay, Thomas Babington, Lord, the historian, i. 515; ii. 218; iv.
129; vi. 86.
Macchi, Cardinal, Governor of the Romagna, iv. 257.
Macdonald, Hon. Flora, iv. 222.
---- General Jem, v. 341.
---- George, the novelist, v. 30; vi. 265-266.
Mackenzie, Dr. Morel, the famous surgeon, vi. 90.
Maclagan, Hon. Augusta Barrington, Mrs., v. 402-403; vi. 99, 294,
356-360.
Maclaren, Ian, the author, vi. 434.
M’Neile, Lady Emma, vi. 135.
---- Sir John, v. 70.
Macmurdo, General, iii. 176.
Macon, iii. 383.
Macpherson, of Glen Truim, Mr., iv. 201.
Macsween, Alexander, i. 171.
Madraza, Don Juan de, iv. 40.
Madresfield Court, vi. 301, 458-459.
Madrid, iv. 39.
Magee, William Connor, Bishop of Peterborough, vi. 241, 451.
Magnusson, Eric, the Icelandic scholar, v. 107.
Maiden Bradley, vi. 473.
Maine, Sir Henry, the authority on Law, and Lady, iv. 73.
Mainsforth, ii. 309.
Maintenon, vi. 345.
Maitland, Rev. Charles, v. 357.
Makrina, La Madre, of Minsk, ii. 72-74.
Malaga, iv. 37.
Malcolm, Miss Ann-Emilia, i. 435; iv. 119.
---- Lady, i. 435.
---- Miss Kate, i. 435; iv. 119.
Malet, Sir Edward, the ambassador, v. 427.
Mallock, W. H., the novelist, v. 16.
Malmesbury, James Edward. 2nd Earl of, iv. 12.
Malpas, vi. 232.
Malshanger, vi. 156.
Manchester Exhibition, vi. 97.
Manners, Lady Adeliza, vi. 501.
---- Lord Edward, vi. 308.
---- Jannetta Hughan, Lady John, ii. 284.
---- Lord John, iv. 334.
---- Lydia Sophia Dashwood, Lady, v. 19; vi. 60.
---- Lord Robert, vi. 308.
Manners-Sutton, Archbishop of York, iii. 157.
Mannheim, i. 53, 383.
Manning, Henry Edward, Archdeacon of Chichester, afterwards Cardinal, i.
98, 339; ii. 395; iii. 308, 360; iv. 332, 333; vi. 260, 451, 483.
Mannington, vi. 104.
Mantua, iii. 337.
Manvers, Charles Herbert Pierrepont, 2nd Earl, v. 43; vi. 119.
---- Georgine de Franquetot, Countess, v. 43.
---- Sydney Pierrepont, 3rd Earl, v. 43.
Marbourg, i. 425.
Margherita, H.R.H. Princess of Savoy, iv. 102.
Maria, Angelo, the famous brigand, vi. 167.
Marie Antoinette d’Autriche, Queen of France, ii. 298; vi. 121;
prison of, ii. 125.
---- Amelie, Queen of the French, i. 274; iv. 339-340.
---- Anne, Sœur, ii. 443.
Marino, Teresa Caraccioli, Duchess of, v. 149.
Mariott, Lady Smith, v. 357.
Marjoribanks, Sir Dudley, v. 210.
---- Sir John and Lady, of Lees, iv. 258-259.
Marlborough, John, 1st Duke of, i. 1.
---- Sarah Jennings, Duchess of, v. 61.
Marple, vi. 183.
Marsh, Miss Catherine, the philanthropist, i. 407; ii. 289; iii.
245-247, 250.
Marsham, Hon. Mr. and Mrs. Townshend, vi. 349-350.
Martin, Baron, the judge, iii. 297.
---- Mr., afterwards Sir Theodore, the biographer, iv. 304.
---- Helen Faucit, Mrs. Theodore, afterwards Lady, the actress, iv. 304.
Martineau, Harriet, the novelist, iv. 481-482.
Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, iv. 75-76.
Masham, Mrs., ii. 309.
Massereene, Clotworthy, Viscount, iv. 363.
Massie, Hester Townsend, Mrs., iii. 113.
Massimo, Marie-Gabrielle de Savoie Carignan, Princess, v. 173.
Mastai-Ferretti, Conte, ii. 236.
Matfen, ii. 266, 346.
Matheson, Sir Kenneth, vi. 187.
Mathews, E., vi. 478.
Matthias, Marie de, Foundress of the “Order of the Precious Blood,” ii.
426, 438-442; iii. 86, 238-239; iv. 103.
Maurice, Annie Barton, Mrs. Frederick, i. 70.
---- Esther Jane, i. 73-112, 176-178.
---- Rev. Frederick Denison, i. 70-72; iii. 280; iv. 21.
---- Georgiana Hare, Mrs. Frederick, iii. 412.
---- Harriet, i. 179.
---- Mary, i. 179, 182.
---- Priscilla, i. 70-73, 112, 181-182, 410.
Maximilian, Archduke and Emperor, ii. 36.
Maxwell, Sir John, vi. 88.
May, Sir T. Erskine, afterwards Lord Farnborough, v. 340.
Mayo, Dermot, 7th Earl of, iv. 370.
Mecklenbourg, Duchess Paul of, vi. 143-144.
Mecklenbourg-Strelitz, H.R.H. Augusta, of Cambridge, Grand Duchess of,
v. 212; vi. 68, 82.
----Frederic William, Grand Duke of, iv. 338.
Medine, Count Battistino, iii. 338.
Mela, Padre, iv. 333.
Melbourne, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount, v. 23.
Melchet, v. 294.
Mellor, Judge, iv. 22, 23.
Melun, M., Protestant Pasteur at Caen, i. 321.
Melville, Major G. J. Whyte, the novelist, iv. 363.
“Memorials of a Quiet Life,” publication of, iv. 62, 63, 309-310.
Mentone, ii. 246-258; iii. 185; vi. 164.
Mère, Marie Letitia Raimolino, Madame, iv. 260; vi. 509.
Merimée, Prosper, the author, iv. 330; v. 417.
Merivale, Mr. Herman, the historian, iv. 149, 150.
Merlini, Don Giovanni, Father-General of the Precious Blood, ii. 425,
427, 442.
Merode, Monsignor de, iii. 70.
Messina, v. 246.
Mexborough, Mary Anne Yorke, Countess of, vi. 360.
Meyer, M. Carl Friedrich, i. 382.
Mezzofanti, Cardinal, i. 9; iv. 303.
Middleton Park, vi. 369.
Middleton, Digby Wentworth Bayard Willoughby, 9th Lord, vi. 425.
---- Eliza Maria Gordon, Lady, vi. 61.
Milbank, Sir Frederick and (Alexina Don) Lady, vi. 405.
Mildmay, Mary Baillie, Mrs. George St. John, v. 18.
Miles, Frank, the artist, v. 275.
Millais, Sir John, the artist, v. 274.
Miller, Joaquin, the author, iv. 308.
Milligan, Misses Christina and Mary, vi. 494.
---- William Henry, i. 416, 420, 422, 493, 499; ii. 1, 2, 131; v. 20;
vi. 494.
Mills, Mr. Charles, vi. 145.
Milman, Henry Hart, Dean of St. Paul’s, poet and historian, i. 394; ii.
231.
Milner, Elizabeth Mordaunt, Lady, i. 96.
Milton Court, vi. 227.
Minghetti, Madame, v. 160.
Mitford, Hon. Emily Egerton, Mrs. Percy, vi. 183.
Moberly, George, Bishop of Salisbury, iv. 347.
Mocenigo, Countess, vi. 291.
Modjeska, Madame, the actress, v. 359.
Mohl, M. Julius, ii. 118.
----Frewen, Madame, ii. 118-121; iii. 5-7; vi. 253.
Mohun, Arthur, Lord, and Evelyn, Lady, iv. 126, 235, 351.
Moissac, v. 439.
Mommsen, Theodore, the historian, v. 92.
Monan, St., vi. 442.
Monceaux, Château de, iii. 383.
Monk, Miss Emily, iii. 203; iv. 398.
Monk’s Orchard, iv. 359.
Monreale, v. 262.
Monserrat, iv. 26.
Mont Blanc, the tour of, i. 458.
Mont S. Michel, vi. 344.
Monte Cassino, ii. 78; iv. 182.
Monte Vergine, iv. 183.
Montacute, v. 74; vi. 296, 320.
Montagu, Lady Elizabeth, ii. 437.
---- Lord and Lady, vi. 119.
Montalba, Misses Clara and Hilda, the artists, vi. 420.
Montbard, iii. 383; vi. 15.
Montefiore, Sir Moses, the philanthropist, v. 412; vi. 407.
Monteith, Robert, of Carstairs, iii. 95, 288, 293, 295.
---- Wilhelmina Mellish, Mrs., ii. 427; iii. 289, 290, 294.
Montgolfier, Madame de, iii. 385; vi. 16.
Montgomery, Hon. Fanny Wyndham, Mrs. Alfred, iii. 71, 96, 239, 280, 282,
284, 289, 294, 301.
---- Miss Florence, vi. 33, 449.
Montmajour, vi. 40.
Montpensier, Marie Louise de Bourbon, Duchess of, iv. 31.
Moody and Sankey, Messrs., the revivalists, iv. 306, 331.
Moor Park, vi. 301.
Moore, Henry, Archdeacon of Stafford, theologian, i. 164; ii. 132; iv.
440.
Mordaunt, Lady Mary, v. 447.
Morgan, Mrs. Mary, iv. 210.
---- Sydney Owenson, Lady, v. 301.
Morini, Padre Agostino, the orator, iii. 256.
Morley, Margaret Holford, Countess of, v. 212.
---- Harriet Sophia Parker, Countess of, iii. 139; iv. 221, 241; v. 212;
vi. 181.
---- Albert-Edmund, 3rd Earl of, iii. 145; iv. 241.
Morlot, Cardinal-Archbishop of Paris, ii. 121-122.
Morpeth, ii. 277, 365.
Morton, Lady Alice Lambton, Countess of, vi. 257.
----Frances Rose, Countess of, v. 140, 148, 160.
Moscow, v. 394.
Moseley, Rev. Herbert Henry, Rector of Holt, vi. 484.
Mostyn, Mary Monk, Hon. Mrs., iv. 398.
---- Hon. Ranulph, vi. 493.
Motley, John Lothrop, the historian, iv. 147-148.
---- Miss Susan, iv. 148.
Mount Edgcumbe, Caroline Augusta Feilding, Countess of, ii. 356.
---- Lady Katherine Hamilton, Countess of, iii. 138.
---- Lady Sophia Hobart, Countess of, iv. 247.
---- Ernest Augustus Edgcumbe, 3rd Earl of, iv. 247.
---- William Henry Edgcumbe, 4th Earl of, iii. 137, 145.
Mount Temple, Georgiana Tollemache, Lady, v. 295.
---- William Cowper Temple, Lord, v. 295.
Müller, Professor Max, vi. 462.
Muncaster Castle, vi. 133, 184.
Muncaster, Constance L’Estrange, Countess of, vi. 79, 134, 184.
---- Sir Josslyn Pennington, 5th Lord, v. 212; vi. 134.
Munich, iii. 336.
Munn, Rev. John Reade, iii. 415.
Munro, Henrietta Drummond, Mrs. Campbell, vi. 439.
Murcia, iv. 30.
Murray, Sir Digby and Lady, v. 154.
---- John, the 3rd, publisher, ii. 133, 134, 260; iv. 352-353, 379.
---- John, the 4th, publisher, vi. 468.
Musgrave, Thomas, Archbishop of York, vi. 360.
---- Hon. Catherine Cavendish, Mrs., vi. 360.
Musset, Alfred de, v. 299.
N.
Napier and Ettrick, Francis, Lord, iv. 332, 334.
---- Hon. Mark, v. 62.
---- Hon. William, Master of, iv. 224.
Naples, ii. 80.
----Francesco II., King of, iii. 96-97.
---- Marie of Bavaria, Queen of, iii. 86, 94, 97.
---- Marie Therèse Isabelle, Queen of, iii. 86, 190.
---- Victor Emmanuel, Prince of, vi. 253.
Napoleon I., Emperor of the French, i. 91.
Napoleon III., Emperor of the French, ii. 508; iv. 225-226.
Narni, iii. 100.
Naworth, ii. 354.
Naylor, Anna Maria Mealey, Mrs. Hare, i. 13, 82-83, 280, 287.
---- Bethaia, i. 4.
----Francis, i. 1; vi. 517.
----Francis Hare, i. 5, 11.
---- Georgiana Shipley, Mrs. Hare, i. 5-12.
---- Miss Grace, i. 1, 260.
---- Robert Hare, i. 2.
Necker, Madame, vi. 123.
Neri, S. Filippo, iii. 201.
Nesselrode, Count, iv. 301.
Netherlands, Sophie of Wurtemburg, Queen of the, iv. 326, 335.
Nettlecombe, vi. 234.
Neuchatel, ii. 113.
Nevill, Lady Dorothy, v. 277; vi. 4, 61.
Neville, Rev. W., vi. 234.
---- Rev. Hastings Mackelcan, vi. 159, 246.
Nevin, Rev. Dr., v. 164.
New Abbey, ii. 164.
New Hailes, iv. 451.
Newbattle Abbey, iii. 47.
Newburgh Hall, v. 423.
Newcastle-on-Tyne, ii. 318.
Newman, Rev. John Henry, afterwards Cardinal, iii. 1-2.
Newton, Mr., afterwards Sir Charles, iv. 83, 348; v. 363.
Nice, ii. 370; vi. 412.
Nicholas I., Emperor of Russia, ii. 74, 506; v. 68.
Nicholson, Miss, iii. 372.
Nilsson, Mademoiselle Christine, v. 200, 206.
Ninfa, iv. 105.
Noailles, Henriette Anne de, Duchesse d’Ayen, vi. 100.
Noel, Lady Augusta, iv. 467.
---- Ernest, iv. 467.
Norfolk, Lady Flora Hastings, Duchess of, v. 281.
---- Lady Mary Mordaunt, Duchess of, v. 447.
Normanby, George Augustus Constantine Phipps, 2nd Marquis of, vi. 77.
---- Maria Liddell, Marchioness of, ii. 93, 204, 211.
Normanton, Hon. Caroline Barrington, Countess of, vi. 72, 73.
Northampton, Charles Compton, 3rd Marquis of, iv. 336.
North Berwick, ii. 357; vi. 484.
Northbrook, Sir James Baring, 1st Earl of, vi. 164.
Northcote, Miss Agnes, v. 11.
---- Captain and Mrs., ii. 364.
---- Sir Stafford, the statesman, iv. 149, 371.
Northumberland, Algernon Percy, 4th Duke of, ii. 353; iii. 331.
---- Algernon George Percy, 6th Duke of, vi. 135.
---- Lady Eleanor Grosvenor, Duchess of, ii. 353; iii. 331; vi. 135-136.
---- Louisa Drummond, Duchess of, vi. 135-138.
Norton, Charles Bowyer Adderley, Lord, vi. 406-409.
Norwich, i. 116-120, 229; v. 330.
---- Hon. John Thomas Pelham, Bishop of, vi. 259-262.
---- Edward Stanley, Bishop of, i. 44, 62, 66, 69, 117-118, 133,
231-236, 280.
Nostell, v. 297.
Nottingham Castle, vi. 424.
Nova Scotia, Bishop of, vi. 286.
Novgorod the Great, v. 393.
Noyon, v. 409.
Nunnington Hall, ii. 16.
Nuremberg, i. 435; vi. 405.
O.
Oakly Park, v. 459.
Ober-Ammergau, the Passion-Play of, vi. 214-222.
Oberlin, ii. 109.
Oberwesel, iii. 231.
Ockwells, vi. 26.
Ogilvy, Lady Clementine, vi. 438, 439.
---- Lady Griselda, vi. 97, 135.
Ogle, Miss Annie, the authoress, vi. 434.
Olevano, iv. 105.
Oliphant, Lawrence, the mystic, v. 275.
Onslow, Hon. Florence Gardner, Countess of, vi. 90.
---- William Hillier Onslow, 4th Earl of, v. 16.
Ordelaffi, Barbara, tomb of, iv. 317.
Orford, Horatio William Walpole, 4th Earl of, vi. 304.
Orkeröd, v. 119-127.
Ormistoun, iv. 267.
Orsi, Carlo, the artist, v. 277.
Orvieto, ii. 84, 385; iv. 116-118; vi. 13.
Ossington, Lady Charlotte Bentinck, Viscountess, v. 363.
Ossulston, Charles Bennet, Lord, ii. 268-269; v. 209.
Osterley, iv. 467; v. 19, 231; vi. 79, 224-225, 423, 482.
Otterburn, ii. 344.
Ouseley, Sir Frederick Gore, v. 316-317.
Overstone, Lord, iv. 362, 482.
Owen, Professor Richard, iv. 265, 317.
Oxenham, Rev. W., i. 236.
Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of, iii. 153.
---- Jane Elizabeth Scott, Countess of, i. 18.
Oxton Hall, vi. 424.
P.
Padua, iii. 338-339.
Paestum, ii. 83.
Page, Miss, vi. 283.
Paget, Right Hon. Sir Augustus Berkeley, v. 291; vi. 422-423.
---- Miss Ruth, v. 385.
---- Walpurga de Hohenlohe, Lady, iv. 171; v. 160, 324, 415; vi. 351.
Palermo, v. 260.
Pallavicini, Carolina Boncompagni Ludovisi, Princess, ii. 59.
Palmer, Edward, vi. 233.
Palmer, William, ii. 207.
Palmerston, H. Temple, 1st Earl of, i. 12.
Panizzi, Sir Antonio, the great librarian, ii. 132; iii. 142; iv. 333.
Pantaleoni, Dr., ii. 374-376.
Paolucci di Calboli, Marchese Annibale, ii. 388.
---- Marchese Raniero, ii. 388.
Papillon, Rev. Henry, iii. 412.
---- Mrs. Henry, iii. 414.
Paraclete, The, vi. 17.
Paray le Monial, ii. 445, 499; iv. 197.
Parham Hall in Suffolk, vi. 23.
---- in Sussex, vi. 296.
Paris, i. 318-319, 327; ii. 114-128; iv. 24, 44; vi. 17.
---- Book upon, vi. 34, 112, 114.
---- Days near, vi. 114-116.
Parisani, Palazzo, i. 261, 340, 373; ii. 55-56; iii. 190.
Parker, John Henry, the publisher, ii. 9; iii. 319; vi. 380.
---- Mrs. John Henry, i. 473.
---- Lady Katherine, iii. 145; iv. 222, 241; vi. 181, 182.
Parnell, Hon. Victor, iv. 486.
Parr, Queen Katherine, iv. 438-439.
---- Dr. Samuel, iv. 347; vi. 498.
Parry, Catherine Hankinson, Lady, i. 279.
---- Sir Edward, the Arctic voyager, i. 114, 279.
---- Edward, Bishop of Dover, i. 279.
---- Hon. Isabella Stanley, 1st wife of Sir Edward, i. 114.
---- Serjeant, iii. 298, 299, 303.
Paterson, Rev. George J. Mapletoft, v. 295, 329.
Patmore, Coventry Kearsey Deighton, the poet, vi. 429-431.
Patrizi, Francesco Saverio Patrizi-Naro-Montoro, Cardinal, iii. 76.
Pattenden, Deborah, i. 211.
Pau, ii. 465; iv. 25.
Paul, Anne Frances, i. 25, 26, 30.
---- Eleanor Maria, i. 42, 95, 351-352; ii. 69-70, 94, 103-106, 206,
411-415; iii. 262, 266, 315; iv. 17, 22; v. 273.
---- Elizabeth Halifax, Lady, i. 284, 295.
----Frances Eleanor Simpson, Lady, i. 21, 26.
---- Jane, i. 28, 295.
---- Sir John Dean, 1st Bart., i. 21, 30, 50, 84, 284, 295; iv. 17, 19.
---- Sir John Dean, 2nd Bart., i. 495.
---- Maria Horatia, i. 27, 296.
---- Mary Napier of Pennard, Lady, i. 84.
---- William Wentworth, i. 295.
---- Marie Marcia, Countess Benningsen, widow of W. Wentworth, v. 91.
Paulet, Lady Lilian, v. 50.
Payne, Mrs., iii. 87.
Payson, Miss Louisa, the authoress, vi. 397.
Peabody, Mr. George, ii. 372-374.
---- Robert, iii. 341, 344, 360, 370.
Peakirk, iii. 165.
Pearse, Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey, iv. 220.
Pearson, Rev. Hugh, Rector of Sonning and Canon of Windsor, i. 120, 411,
470; ii. 221; iv. 131, 153, 351; v. 235-237, 328, 340, 352-355.
---- his grave, vi. 498-499.
Pease, Mary Fox, Mrs., afterwards Lady, iv. 269, 279-280; v. 44.
Peate, Dr., iv. 347.
Peebles, ii. 357.
Peel, William Robert Wellesley, vi. 83.
Peglia, ii. 253.
Peglione, ii. 253, 255, 372.
Pelham, Elizabeth Mary Bligh, Lady, iv. 356; v. 16.
---- Hon. John Thomas, Bishop of Norwich, vi. 259-262.
Pellerin, Monsignor, ii. 68-69.
Pellew, Hon. George, Dean of Norwich, i. 231.
Pembroke, George Herbert, 13th Earl of, vi. 243.
---- Lady Gertrude Talbot, Countess of, vi. 107, 243.
Pencaitland, ii. 356.
Pennant, Hon. Alice, vi. 384.
Penrhyn, Lady Charlotte, i. 48, 142-143, 408-409.
---- Edward Leycester, i. 48, 69, 208, 408, 464, 514; ii. 259-260.
---- Emma Charlotte Leycester, i. 383-384, 408, 464; iii. 377, 414; vi.
493.
---- Edward-Gordon, Lord, v. 334-335.
---- Gertrude Glynne, Lady, vi. 383.
---- Mr. and Mrs. Leycester, iii. 414.
---- Lady Mary-Louisa FitzRoy, v. 334.
Penrhyn Castle, v. 384; vi. 381, 433.
Percy, Lady Edith Campbell, Countess, iv. 398; v. 208; vi. 137.
---- Emily Heber, Mrs. Heber, ii. 159.
---- Henry George Percy, Earl, vi. 139.
---- Lord Henry, iii. 145.
---- Hugh Heber, iii. 159.
---- Dr. Hugh, Bishop of Carlisle, ii. 160.
Perkins, Mrs. Mary Ridge, vi. 292-293.
Persia, Nasr-ed-Din, Shah of, vi, 171.
Perugia, vi. 12.
Peruzzi, Edith Story, Marchesa, vi. 510.
Pescitelli, Abbot of Farfa, v. 141.
Petit, Miss Emma, ii. 256, 328.
---- Rev. J. L., the ecclesiologist, ii. 256-258, 330.
Petworth, vi. 297.
Phelips, Constance Ponsonby-Fane, Mrs., vi. 296, 320.
Phillimore, Admiral and Mrs. Augustus, iv. 37.
---- Sir Robert, the ecclesiastical lawyer, iv. 360-361.
Pierrepont, Lady Mary, vi. 119.
Pietra Santa, ii. 102.
Pile, Mr. Robert, i. 60; iii. 112; iv. 49-50.
---- Mary Miller, Mrs. Robert, i. 60, 171, 192, 278; iv. 49-50.
Pine, Miss, iv. 76.
Pinkie, iv. 451.
Piombino, Prince and Princess, ii. 428.
Piper, Count, the Minister, iv. 193; v. 199.
---- Mrs., i. 103, 260.
Pisa, ii. 101; iii. 52, 190, 310-312, 338-358; v. 155.
Pitcairn, Mrs., ii. 289.
Pitchford Hall, vi. 383.
Pius IX., Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, Pope, i. 341; ii. 61-64, 289,
428; iii. 70, 71, 80, 93, 167, 190, 319, 360; iv. 97-98, 99, 333; vi.
288.
Planché, Mr., the Somerset Herald, iv. 83.
---- James Robinson, the dramatist, V. 11-12.
Playfair, Sir Hugh Lyon, Provost of St. Andrews, ii. 170.
---- Right Hon. Sir Lyon, politician and scientist, iv. 427.
Plumptre, Rev. Edward, afterwards Dean of Wells, i. 179; iv. 21.
---- Rev. Dr. Frederick Charles, Master of University College, i. 405,
441, 474.
Plumptre, Harriet Maurice, Mrs. E., i. 179.
Pole, Lady Louisa, i. 354.
---- Miss Marguerite, i. 352-357; iii. 249.
---- Sir Peter Van Notten, i. 352.
Polignac, Duc de, iii. 43.
Pollock, Mr., afterwards Sir Frederick, iv. 19.
Ponsonby, Hon. Ashley, v. 302.
---- Mary Bulteel, Lady, v. 229.
---- Miss Melita, ii. 358.
Popham, Francis, of Littlecote, vi. 162.
Porson, Dr. Richard, ii. 376.
Port Eliot, iv. 245.
Port Royal, ii. 125.
Portal, Mrs. George, v. 420-421.
---- Mr. and Mrs. Wyndham, vi. 156.
Portland, William Bentinck, 5th Duke of, v. 366.
---- Winifred Yorke, Duchess of, vi. 475, 476.
Portman, Mary Selina Fitzwilliam, Mrs., afterwards Lady, vi. 86.
---- Hon. Walter, i. 306, 308, 332, 452.
Porto d’Anzio, iv. 104.
----Fino, ii. 254.
---- Venere, ii. 102.
Portsmouth, Lady Evelina Herbert, Countess of, v. 193.
---- John Vertue, Bishop of, vi. 495, 496, 498.
Potocka, Count and Countess, v. 41-43.
Potsdam, v. 95-98.
Poulevey, Père de, ii. 416.
Powderham Castle, iv. 239, 249, 385; v. 461.
Powell, Lucilla Maurice, Mrs., i. 179.
Powers, Carolyn S., Mrs., vi. 284.
Poynter, Sir Edward, President of the Royal Academy, vi. 474.
Prague, i. 432.
Praslin, Charles Laure, Duc de, vi. 29.
---- Duchesse de, i. 245; iii. 19-20.
Prât, Marquis and Marquise du, ii. 115.
Pregnier, Marquise du, ii. 118.
Prentiss, Mr., i. 164.
Preston, Georgiana Campbell, Mrs., iv. 219.
Price, Lady Maria Barrington, vi. 35.
Primoli, Charlotte Bonaparte, Countess, v. 140, 176.
Primrose, Hon. Everard, iv. 42, 208, 228, 325, 370; vi. 140.
Prinzsköld, M. de, v. 139, 150, 155, 214.
Probyn, Sir Dighton, v. 14.
Procter, Anne Montagu, Mrs., v. 287-288, 406-407; vi. 84-85, 462-463.
Prosperi, Monsignor, iii. 70; v. 137.
Purbeck, Isle of, vi. 398.
Pusey, Dr. Edward Bouverie, the Church leader, iii. 70.
Q.
Quin, Georgiana Boyle, Mrs., iv. 249; v. 412, 428.
R.
Raasloff, General von, iv. 188, 192.
---- Mademoiselle von, iv. 183.
Raby Castle, iv. 145-147, 269, 272; vi. 120.
Rachel, Madame, the actress, v. 359.
Radicofani, iv. 274-279.
Radnor, Helen Matilda Chaplin, Countess of, vi. 313-318.
Radnor, William Bouverie, 5th Earl of, vi. 313-318.
Radowitz, General, iv. 141.
Raeburn, portraits by Sir Henry, iv. 450.
Raglan, Richard, 2nd Lord, v. 227.
---- Mary Blanche Farquhar, Lady, v. 227.
Ramsay, Claudia Garden, Mrs., the authoress, iii. 193, 198; vi. 276,
279, 505.
---- Sir James and Lady, v. 217.
Ramsden, Lady Guendolen, vi. 486.
Rate, Mary Mackintosh, Mrs., vi. 227.
Rathdonnel, Lady, iii. 83.
Ratisbon, Le Père, ii. 68.
Ravenna, ii. 48.
Ravenstone, vi. 354.
Ravensworth, Henry Liddell, politician and poet, 1st Earl of, ii. 453;
iv. 124, 201, 273, 279; v. 69.
Ravignan, Le Père de, i. 353, 355.
Rayleigh, John William Strutt, Lord, vi. 99, 128.
---- Evelyn Balfour, Lady, vi. 99.
Reay, Fanny Hasler, Lady, v. 200.
Recamier, Madame, v. 305.
Redesdale, John Thomas Mitford, politician and controversialist, Earl
of, iv. 306.
Reedswire, the, ii. 345.
Reeve, Henry, the editor and essayist, iv. 449; v. 360; vi. 89.
Reisach, Cardinal de, iii. 96.
Repton, Lady Jane, v. 413, 427.
Revesby, vi. 386.
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, R.A., iv. 18; vi. 360.
Riaño, Emilia de Guyangos, Madame de, iv. 40, 41, 400; v. 277, 281.
Rianzares, Duc de, ii. 57.
Ricardo, Mrs. David, iv. 213.
---- Wilfred, vi. 306.
Rice, Captain Ernest, iv. 244.
Richelieu, Duc de, iv. 227.
Richmond, Elizabeth Liddell, Mrs. Brook, ii. 208, 209, 213.
---- George, R.A., ii. 214; iv. 72, 80; v. 279.
---- Rev. Canon Thomas Knyvett, vi. 134.
Richmond, in Yorkshire, vi. 495.
Ridley, Alice Bromley-Davenport, Mrs. Edward, afterwards Lady, vi. 222.
Ridley Hall, ii. 172-178, 266, 272, 341; iii. 170; vi. 433.
Riez, vi. 36.
Rignano, Emilio Massimo, Duke of, ii. 70.
Rimini, ii. 49.
Ripley Castle, ii. 283, 332-336; iv. 285-288.
Ripon, George Robinson, 1st Marquis of, vi. 293.
---- William Boyd Carpenter, Bishop of, vi. 172.
Ritchie, Annie Thackeray, Mrs., the authoress, v. 453.
Rivieras, book on the, vi. 411.
Robertson, Miss Erica, v. 45.
Robinson, William, the botanist, vi. 227.
---- Miss, ii. 310-317.
Rocamadour, v. 435.
Rochers, Chateau de les, vi. 346.
Rockend, i. 85-87, 251; v. 215.
Rockingham Castle, vi. 239, 256.
Rodd, Rennell, author, iv. 359.
Roddam, Mr. and Mrs., of Roddam, ii. 280, 282, 364.
Roemer, Baron and Baroness von, vi. 470.
Rogers, Samuel, the poet, iv. 421; v. 449; vi. 86.
Rogerson, Christina Stewart, Mrs., v. 10, 13, 15, 443.
Rohan, Princess Charlotte de, vi. 122.
Roleston, Mary Pierina, Abbess of the Precious Blood, ii. 425, 438-442;
iii. 238, 266-268, 270, 274, 275, 287, 295, 298, 305, 306.
Rolle, Mr. and Lady Gertrude, iv. 258.
Rome, ii. 54-76, 387-391, 422-432; iii. 65-100, 313-319, 359-378; iv.
86-101, 170-172; v. 135; vi. 165-168, 268-290, 412-415, 505.
Romilly, Helen Denison, Lady, v. 333.
---- Sir Samuel, the famous lawyer, iv. 286-287.
---- William, Lord, v. 333.
Romney, Charles Marsham, 4th Earl of, iv. 258.
Rosam, Miss, i. 504.
Roscia, Capolo, the brigand, vi. 167.
Rosen, Countess Ebba von, v. 84, 119, 120, 122, 124, 132, 144, 238-241.
Rosny, vi. 113.
Ross, Janet Duff-Gordon, Mrs., the authoress, iv. 194-196, 320; v. 155;
vi. 290.
---- Lady Mary, iv. 201.
Rossetti, Madame, iv. 326.
Rossini, Goachino Antonio, the composer, iv. 257.
Rothbury, ii. 365.
Rothenburg, vi. 222.
Rothes, Henrietta Leslie, Countess of, v. 45, 46.
Rousham, ii. 150.
Routh, Dr. Joseph Martin, President of Magdalen, i. 447-450.
Routing Lynn, iv. 143.
Rowe, Lady Victoria, vi. 324, 326.
Rowley, Charlotte Shipley, Hon. Mrs., iii. 129.
Rowton, Montagu Corrie, Lord, the philanthropist, vi. 373, 400.
Roxburghe, Lady Anne Spencer Churchill, Duchess of, vi. 478.
Royat, Baths of, iii. 151.
Rudolstadt, v. 89.
Rufford, vi. 119.
Rumbold, Louisa Anne Crampton, Lady, v. 277.
Rushbrooke Hall, vi. 25.
Rushmore, v. 293.
Rushton Hall, vi. 239.
Ruskin, John, the author, ii. 107-109, 277, 484; v. 295.
Russell, Lady Agatha, v. 197.
---- Lord Arthur, iv. 308.
---- Sir Charles, iv. 149, 151.
---- Elizabeth Rawdon, Lady William, iv. 285-286.
---- Lady Ermyntrude, v. 417.
---- Lady Frances Elliot, Countess, v. 197.
---- Lady Frankland, ii. 8, 240.
---- George W. E., v. 193, 284-285.
---- John, Earl, the statesman, iv. 250, 403.
---- Sir John, of Chequers, ii. 240.
---- Hon. Odo and Lady Emily, iii. 368.
---- Hon. Rollo, v. 197; vi. 105.
Rutherford, of Ettington, Mr. and Mrs., ii. 322-324.
Ruthven, Mary, Baroness, ii. 335-337, 354-356; iii. 39, 42-43. 47; iv.
267-269, 447-449; v. 322.
Rutland, Lady Elizabeth Howard, Duchess of, vi. 500.
---- Janetta Manners, Duchess of, vi. 306-308, 500.
---- John Manners, 7th Duke of, vi. 306-309, 341-342, 500.
---- Lady Mary Isabella Somerset, Duchess of, vi. 501.
Rutson, Albert O., ii. 7, 13, 16.
Rycroft, Edith Berners, Mrs., of Everlands, vi. 267, 295.
Rye, Miss, iv. 360.
Rye House, the, i. 314; v. 19.
Ryton, ii. 320.
S.
Sackville, S. Stopford, of Drayton, ii. 137; iv. 87, 96.
---- Caroline Harriet Sackville, Mrs. Stopford, v. 447; vi. 351.
---- Lady Margaret, v. 457; vi. 452.
---- Lady Mary, vi. 452, 453.
Saffi, Count Aurelio, the triumvir, iv. 315.
St. Alban’s Head, vi. 153-154.
S. Aldegonde, Madame, iii. 71.
St. Andrews, ii. 19, 170.
St. Ann’s Hill, iv. 474.
S. Arpino, Augusta Selina Locke, Duchess of, iv. 101.
St. Audries, vi. 233-235.
S. Bernard, Le Grand, i. 459.
S. Cloud, iv. 44.
St. Davids, v. 333.
S. Denis, i. 327.
S. Emilion, ii. 494.
S. Flour, vi. 150.
S. Gemignano, iii. 342-344.
St. Germans, Edward Granville, 3rd Earl of, iv. 246.
S. Giorgio, Lady Anne, ii. 86-90; iii. 192-193, 358.
---- Contessa Carolina di, ii. 90-91; iii. 191.
S. Jean du Doigt, vi. 345.
St. Levan, Sir John St. Aubyn, 1st Lord, vi. 175.
S. Martino, vi. 418.
S. Maxime, vi. 411.
St. Michael’s Mount, vi. 175-180.
S. Michele, iv. 312.
S. Nectaire, vi. 151.
St. Paul, Sir Horace, iv. 264, 265.
St. Petersburg, v. 391.
S. Pierre, Le Curé de, ii. 420.
S. Remo, ii. 377; vi. 110, 266.
S. Wandrille, vi. 344.
Salamanca, iv. 42.
Salette, La, ii. 512; vi. 42.
Salisbury, Georgina Alderson, Marchioness of, iv. 68; 72-82, 324, 325,
328; v. 14, 195, 196; vi. 237, 373-374, 423, 521.
Salisbury, James Cecil, 2nd Marquis of, iv. 74.
---- Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquis of, the statesman, iv. 68, 72-77, 125,
324; vi. 237, 374, 423.
---- Lady Amelia Hill, Marchioness of, iv. 73-74.
Salm-Reiffersheid, Princess of, v. 161.
Salt, Miss Harriet, ii. 328.
---- Miss Sarah, ii, 256-258, 328.
---- Sir Titus, iv. 157.
Salzburg, ii. 40; iii. 231.
Sand, Madame George, the novelist, v. 299, 433.
Sandwich, Lady Blanche Egerton, Countess of, iv. 425.
---- John William Montagu, 7th Earl of, iv. 470; v. 206.
Sandwich Islands, Emma, Queen Dowager of the, iii. 2-3, 109.
Santa-Croce, Catherine Scully, Princess of, ii. 59-61.
---- Donna Vincenza, iii. 91.
Sarlat, v. 436.
Sartines, M. de, ii. 145.
Sartoris, Adelaide Kemble, Mrs., v. 360-361; vi. 310-357.
Sauchiehall, Mrs., story of, vi. 123.
Savile, Lady Mary, vi. 483.
---- Sir John Savile, Lord, the ambassador, vi. 9.
Savona, iii. 186.
Saxe-Altenbourg, Duke Josef of, v. 90.
---- Princess Therèse of, v. 90.
Saxe-Weimar, Charles Auguste, Hereditary Grand Duke of, v. 174.
---- Pauline of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach, Hereditary Grand Duchess of, v.
174, 176.
Saxon Switzerland, i. 430.
Saye and Sele, 14th Baron, ii. 152.
Scarborough, Richard George Lumley, 6th Earl of, v. 41.
Schenk, General, iv. 348.
Schleswig, v. 99.
Schleswig-Holstein, Princess Amalie of, iv. 398; v. 193.
Schouvaloff, Count, ii. 65.
Schulenberg, Countess, v. 148, 151.
Scotney Castle, v. 355; vi. 54.
Scott, Lord Henry, iv. 381.
---- Sir Walter, the poet and novelist, ii. 166, 309, 312-314; iv. 135,
258.
---- Alicia-Anne Spottiswoode, Lady John, v. 238.
Sculthorpe, i. 4; vi. 103.
Sebright, Guy, vi. 90.
---- Hon. Olivia Fitz-Patrick, Lady, v. 315.
Sedgwick, Professor Adam, i. 120, 164.
Segni, vi. 415.
Segovia, iv. 41.
Selborne, iv. 132.
Selborne, Lady Laura Waldegrave, Countess of, iv. 343.
---- Roundell Palmer, Earl of, the Lord Chancellor, iv. 73, 131, 343;
vi. 237.
Selby, vi. 361.
Selby, Lady, of the Mote, iv. 66-67.
Selman, Sarah, i. 3.
Senior, John Nassau, iv. 472.
Sepolti Vivi, the, iii. 73-76.
Serafina della Croce, iii. 234-235, 287.
Sergisson, the Misses, v. 225.
Serlupi, Marchese, iii. 191, 198.
Sermoneta, Hon. Harriet Ellis, Duchess of, v. 141, 148, 160, 177; vi.
8-9, 290, 510.
---- Margherita Knight, Duchess of, ii. 58.
---- Michelangelo Caiëtani, Duke of, ii. 58; iii. 87; v. 141, 160, 174,
177, 178, 345.
Servites, Order of the, ii, 445.
Sestri, iii. 187.
Seville, iv. 32.
Seymour, Miss Charlotte, iv. 171, 182, 189.
---- Elizabeth Baillie-Hamilton, Mrs. Hamilton, iii. 395; v. 292.
---- Miss Emma, iv. 171, 182, 189: vi. 28-29.
---- Sir Francis, v. 362.
Shavington, iv. 132.
Sheffield, George, i. 421, 446, 493; ii. 5-8, 33-38, 132, 156; iv. 44,
45, 85, 159.
---- Sir Robert and Lady, v. 285.
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mrs., i. 39.
---- Jane Gibson, Lady, ii. 278.
Sherborne, James Dalton, 3rd Lord, iv. 465.
---- Susan Block, Lady, iv. 403; v. 274; vi. 97, 162.
Sherbrooke, Miss Violet, vi. 424.
Shipley, Anna Maria, i. 13.
---- Anna Maria Mordaunt, Mrs., i. 5.
---- Emilia, i. 84.
---- Jonathan, Bishop of St. Asaph, i. 5; iv. 18.
---- Mrs. Louisa, i. 20, 84, 95, 96; iv. 18.
---- Penelope, ii. 144; vi. 5.
---- William, Dean of St. Asaph, iii. 123-129; vi. 5.
Shrewsbury, Anna Theresa Cockerell, Countess of, vi. 290.
---- John, 16th Earl, and Maria Theresa Talbot, Countess of, i. 230.
Shropshire, book on, vi. 499.
Siddons, Mrs., i. 134; ii. 316.
Siena, iii. 342; vi. 13.
Silchester, iv. 345.
Simpkinson, Miss Emma, iii. 50, 208, 220, 228, 397.
---- Rev. John Nassau, i. 122, 214, 243.
---- Miss Louisa, i. 122, 123, 214.
Simpson, Lady Anne, i. 22-26, 351; ii. 320.
----Frances Emily Baring, Mrs. Bridgeman, v. 41.
---- John, of Bradley, i. 22.
---- Palgrave, the novelist, v. 282-284.
Singh, Prince Duleep, vi. 400.
Skelton Castle, vi. 443.
Skiddaw, ascent of, ii. 163.
Sligo, Isabelle de Peyronnet, Marchioness of, vi. 332.
Sloper, Rev. John, i. 84.
Smith, Dudley, v. 304.
---- Goldwin, i. 415, 448.
---- Isabel Adeane, Mrs. Robert, v. 414.
---- John Abel, iv. 330.
---- the Misses Horace, iv. 293.
---- “Sir Hugh,” i. 437.
---- Miss Leigh, vi. 283-284.
---- Mr. and Mrs. Spencer, iii. 395; vi. 152.
---- Rev. Sydney, the wit, i. 515; ii. 316, 317; iv. 80; v. 62; vi.
325-326.
---- Miss Virginia, iv. 396.
Soame, Stephen and Anne, vi. 517.
Somers, Charles, 3rd Earl, iv. 253.
---- Virginia Pattle, Countess, iv. 222.
Somerset, Algernon Seymour, 15th Duke of, vi. 473.
---- Jane Georgiana Sheridan, Duchess of, vi. 473, 486.
---- Susan Mackinnon, Duchess of, vi. 473.
---- Lady Isabella Somers Cocks, Lady Henry, vi. 421, 459.
---- Raglan, G. H., iv. 223; vi. 99.
Somerton, Hon. Caroline Barington, Viscountess, ii. 139.
Somerville, Mrs. Mary, the authoress, iv. 303-304.
Sonning, i. 411, 470; vi. 498.
Sora, Agnese Borghese, Duchess of, ii. 59, 405, 424, 428; iii. 95, 253.
Sora, Rodolfo Boncompagni, Duke of, ii. 59, 428; iii. 95.
Soracte, ascent of, iv. 107.
Sorrento, ii. 81, 396.
South Wraxhall Manor, i. 272; vi. 485.
Southam, v. 224.
Southgate, i. 297.
Souvigny, iii. 152.
Soveral, Mr. and Madame de, iii. 198.
Speke, iv. 63.
Spencer, Adelaide Seymour, Countess, iv. 475.
---- 5th Earl, and Charlotte Seymour, Countess, ii. 213.
Spilsby, vi. 387.
Spinola, Marchese and Marchesa, iv. 169.
Splugen, Passage of the, iii. 107.
Spoleto, iii. 101.
Spottiswoode, William, iv. 236-237, 379.
Spurgeon, Rev. Charles Haddon, v. 324; vi. 431.
Spy, the Family, i. 370-376.
Squires, Dr., iii. 262-264, 298.
Staël, Auguste de, vi. 122.
---- Anne Louise Necker, Madame de, iii. 416; vi. 428.
Staffa, v. 219-220.
Stanhope, Arthur Philip, 6th Earl, vi. 478.
---- Dorothea Hay, Lady Scudamore, v. 222.
---- Hon. Edward, ii. 137; vi. 386.
---- Emily Harriet Kerrison, Countess, iv. 81, 126, 235, 350.
---- Evelyn Pennefather, Countess, vi. 476, 478.
---- Lucy Constance Egerton, Hon. Mrs. Edward, vi. 386.
---- Hon. Harry, iv. 83.
---- Sir Henry Edwyn Scudamore, v. 222-223.
---- Philip Henry, 4th Earl, iv. 330; v. 357.
---- Philip Henry, 5th Earl, the historian, iv. 81, 99, 126-128, 235,
238, 300-301, 325, 330, 350-351.
---- General Philip, iv. 451.
Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn, Dean of Westminster, i. 67, 118-120, 230, 236,
238, 264, 284, 357-366, 383, 393, 402, 439, 471, 481, 483, 491; ii.
122-126, 132, 135-137, 153-155, 158-159, 220-222, 290, 380-381, 390,
497-498; iii. 110, 153, 158-159, 414-415; iv. 2, 63, 153, 324, 365, 367;
v. 196, 208, 326-329, 331.
---- Lady Augusta, ii. 390, 497-498; iii. 110, 153, 158, 414; iv.
365-369; vi. 410.
---- Catherine Maria, afterwards Mrs. C. Vaughan, i. 66, 69, 118, 210,
281, 291.
---- Miss Cecilia, vi. 439.
---- Captain Charles Edward, i. 156, 281.
---- Eliza Clayton, Mrs. Charles Edward, ii. 45.
---- Rev. Edward, Rector of Alderley, and afterwards Bishop of Norwich,
i. 44, 62, 66, 69, 117-118, 132, 231-236, 280.
---- Catherine Leycester, Mrs. Edward, i. 44, 62, 102, 118, 124, 208,
257, 281, 299-301, 360, 383, 399, 407, 471, 514-515; ii. 122-124, 132,
290-292.
---- Hon. Emmeline, ii. 133.
---- of Alderley, Fabia, Lady, iv. 324, 383.
---- Edward John, 2nd Lord, vi. 440.
---- Hon. Henrietta, Dillon, Lady, vi. 440.
---- Hon. Louisa, i. 412; ii. 140-141.
---- Maria Joseph Holroyd, Lady Stanley of Alderley, i. 114, 140-143,
411-412.
---- Hon. Maria Margaret, i. 412; ii. 140.
---- Mary, i. 69, 118, 210, 331, 383, 471; ii. 8, 9, 10, 11; iii. 4,
281, 287, 289, 304, 414; iv. 2, 63; v. 243-244.
---- Captain Owen, i. 281.
---- Hon. William Owen, antiquarian author, i. 502; v. 334.
---- Ellen Williams, Mr. William Owen, i. 502.
Stapleton, Lady, iii. 124.
Star, Thomas, i. 164.
Stephanie, Grand Duchess of Baden, i. 383, 385.
Sterling, John, i. 70.
Sternberg, Baron Reinhold von Ungern, v. 87.
Stewart, Harriet Everilda Gore, Mrs. Duncan, iv. 428-438, 480-481; v.
13, 190, 198-199, 200, 204, 272, 273, 274, 277, 288, 289, 298-309,
315-316, 342-344, 358-359, 384-386, 406.
---- Lady Helen, vi. 94.
---- Robert Shaw, iii. 48, 49; iv. 449; vi. 434.
Stichill, iv. 252.
Stirling, Mrs., of Glenbervie, iii. 48.
---- Mrs., of Kippenross, iii. 40-42.
---- Mrs., of Linlathan, ii. 165.
Stirling-Graham, Miss Clementina, of Duntrune, ii. 165.
Stisted, Mrs., of the Bagni di Lucca, ii. 94.
Stockholm, v. 102-108.
Stoke-upon-Terne, i. 61, 64, 124-151; ii. 160, 327.
Stokesay Castle, vi. 382.
Stonebyres, ii. 360.
Stonehenge, ii. 155; v. 293.
Stoney, Mr. Robinson, i. 24.
Story, Miss Amelia, ii. 466.
---- William Wetmore, the author and sculptor, vi. 77, 90, 273-274.
Stover, Mr., of Biddick, iv. 280.
Stowe, Mrs. Beecher, i. 515.
Stradbroke, Augusta-Sophia Musgrave, Countess of, vi. 77.
Stratford de Redcliffe, Stratford Canning, Viscount, the statesman, iv.
302-304, 308-309.
Strathfieldsaye, iv. 343-345.
Strathmore, Charles, 6th Earl of, i. 23.
---- Claude Bowes Lyon, 13th Earl of, iv. 365; v. 45, 217.
---- Hon. Charlotte Barrington, Countess of, vi. 438.
----Frances Dora Smith, Countess of, vi. 87.
---- John, 5th Earl of, i. 23.
---- John, 9th Earl of, ii. 172.
---- John, 10th Earl of, ii. 173, 178.
---- Mary Eleanor Bowes, Countess of, i. 24; ii. 172, 275; iv. 210, 416;
vi. 494.
---- Mary Milner, Countess of, i. 53; ii. 178, 274.
Strawberry Hill, iv. 328.
Streatlam Castle, ii. 178, 274; vi. 494.
Streletski, Count, iv. 332, 423.
Strettel, Mr. and Mrs., ii. 254.
Strickland, Mr., of Cokethorp, ii. 151
Stuart, Charles Edward, ii. 515.
---- Sir J., of Allenbank, iv. 266.
---- General Charles, v. 138.
---- Lady Euphemia, i. 23.
---- Lady Jane, i. 22.
---- John Sobieski Stolberg, ii. 515.
---- Lady Louisa, i. 301.
Stuart de Rothesay, Lady Elizabeth Yorke, ii. 280-282, 360; iv. 255,
407, 408.
Stuart Wortley, Hon. Jane Lawley, Mrs. James, iv. 224.
Stucley, Marion Elizabeth Fane, Mrs., vi. 235.
Stufa, Marchese Lotteria Lotharingo della, iv. 194, 319; v. 155; vi. 9.
Stuttgart, iii. 336.
Subiaco, iv. 173.
Sudeley Castle, iv. 438.
Sudeley, Ada Tollemache, Lady, v. 233, 275
Suffolk, Hon. Isabella Howard, Countess of, iii. 139, 149; iv. 390-391.
---- Charles John, 17th Earl of, iii. 139, 145.
Sullivan, Sir Arthur, vi. 478.
Sulmona, Prince and Princess, v. 148.
Sumner, John Bird, Archbishop of Canterbury, i. 407.
Surtees, Robert, of Mainsforth, the historian and poet, ii. 309, 313.
---- Anne Robinson, Mrs., of Mainsforth, ii. 309-317.
Sussex, book upon, vi. 322.
Sutherland, Anna Hay-Mackenzie, Duchess of, iii. 245; iv. 331; v. 212.
---- George, iv. 165.
Sutri, iv. 108; vi. 508.
Sutton Place, ii. 217; iv. 239.
Swaylands, vi. 510.
Sweden, J. B. J. Bernadotte, Charles XIV., King of, vi. 359.
Sweden and Norway, Gustaf, Crown Prince of, v. 119, 123, 124-125, 128,
132, 137-174, 195-200, 202-208, 210, 213-217, 238-240, 410-411; vi. 68,
80-81, 525.
---- Louisa, Queen of, vi. 76.
---- Oscar, King of, v. 106, 119-128; vi. 525.
---- Sophie of Nassau, Queen of, v. 79-85, 106, 119-127, 132, 144, 147,
239-240, 310-325 vi. 525.
---- Victoria of Baden, Crown Princess of, v. 410-411; vi. 415, 509.
Swete, F. H. Buller, of Oswestry, vi. 433, 486.
Swillerton, vi. 354.
Swinburne, Algernon Charles, the poet, v. 16; vi. 357.
---- Sir John, ii. 350.
Sydenham, vi. 180.
Sydney, Lady Emily Paget, Countess, vi. 349-350.
---- John Robert Townshend, Earl, iv. 224; vi. 350.
Symonds, John Addington, the author, iv. 427.
Syon House, iv. 397.
Syracuse, v. 248.
T.
Tabley, the old house of, vi. 98.
Taddini, Conte Luigi, iii. 83.
Tadema, Alma, the artist, v. 277.
Taglioni, Madame, iv. 483.
Tailetti, Don Pietro, v. 141.
Tait, Archibald Campbell, Bishop of London, afterwards Archbishop of
Canterbury, iii. 35-36, 39; iv. 219; v. 383.
---- Catherine Spooner, Mrs. J. Archibald, iii. 35-36, 39; iv. 219; vi.
354.
---- Crawford, iii. 39.
Talbot, Lady Gertrude, iv. 133.
---- Monsignor, ii. 67; iii. 190, 238, 252, 307.
Talleyrand, Baron de, v. 154.
Tambroni, Clotilda, Professor of Greek at Bologna, i. 6-9.
Tanjore, the Princess, vi. 275.
Tankerville, Charles Bennet, 6th Earl of, ii. 267-271, 365; iv. 226.
---- Corisande de Gramont, Countess of, iv. 139.
---- Lady Olivia Montagu, Countess of, ii. 267-272; iii. 32, 33.
Taormina, v. 247, 266.
Tatton, Miss Fanny, iii. 401; iv. 129, 230.
Tatton Park, iv. 459, 463; vi. 97, 182-183, 229.
Taranto, v. 269.
Taunton, Lady Mary Howard, Lady, iv. 133, 357.
Tayler, Frederick, the artist, v. 44.
Tayleur, Miss Harriet, i. 143-144, 502; ii. 326; iii. 113; v. 217.
---- Miss Mary, i. 143-144. 502; ii. 326; v. 217.
---- Mr. John and Mrs., of Buntingsdale, i. 143.
---- William, of Buntingsdale, ii. 326.
Taylor, Sir Charles, iv. 132.
---- Colonel Philip Meadows, iv. 363.
---- Rowland, the martyr, vi. 519.
---- Tom, editor of _Punch_, iv. 307, 370.
Teano, Ada Wilbraham, Princess of, iii. 194; v. 151, 160.
Teck, Prince Adolphus of, vi. 353.
---- H.S.H. Francis, Duke of, iv. 224, 325-327.
---- H.R.H. Princess Mary, Duchess of, iv. 222, 224; v. 14, 312; vi.
320, 465.
Teesdale, ii. 340.
Tellemarken, v. 109-113.
Temple, Right Rev. Frederick, Bishop of London, and afterwards
Archbishop of Canterbury, vi. 320.
---- W. S. Gore-Langton, Lord, vi. 240.
---- Harry, i. 12.
---- Hon. William Cowper, iv. 71.
Temple Newsam, iv. 283-285; vi. 353-354.
Tenby, v. 333.
Tennyson, Alfred, the Poet Laureate, i. 258; iv. 478; v. 38-41, 314,
453; vi. 96, 226, 397, 429-431.
Tenterden steeple, iii. 332.
Terry, Mrs., iii. 375, 376; vi. 415.
Thackeray, Miss Annie, the novelist, iv. 155, 224, 305, 306.
Thellusson, Maria Macnaughton, Mrs., iv. 376, 483.
Thiers, Louis Adolphe, President of the French Republic, vi. 121.
Thirlwall, Connop, Bishop of St. Davids, i. 164, 437, 482.
Thomas, John, Bishop of Peterborough, ii. 338.
---- William Brodrick, the landscape gardener, iv. 239.
Thoresby, v. 43; vi. 118, 473.
Thorncombe, iv. 307.
Thornton, Harriet Heber, Mrs. John, ii. 144-149.
---- Miss, iv. 419.
Thorneycroft, ii. 161.
---- Blanche Swete, Mrs., vi. 502, 522.
Thorp Perrow, vi. 405.
Thorpe, Mrs., iii. 237, 262.
Throndtjem, v. 108.
Thun, i. 464, v. 408.
Thurlow, Edward, Lord High Chancellor, v. 286-287.
---- Mr. and Mrs. Thomas, of Baynards, vi. 162.
Thurlow, Great, vi. 517.
---- Little, vi. 507.
Thynne, Lord John, iv. 418, 479.
Tilt, Georgiana Hibbert, Mrs., vi. 9, 465.
Timsbury, iv. 71.
Tintagel, vi. 524.
Tittenhanger, v. 50; vi. 109.
Tivoli, iii. 370; iv. 175; vi. 507.
Tollemache, Hon. Algernon, v. 233.
Tollemache, John, 1st Baron, v. 445.
---- Marguerite Hume-Purves, Hon. Mrs. Augustus, iv. 307.
---- Mary Stuart Hamilton, Lady, vi. 376.
---- Colonel Thomas, v. 445.
Tong Church, iv. 441.
Torcello, iii. 230.
Torchio, iii. 236-237.
Torlonia, Duke of, ii. 295-297.
---- origin of the family of, iv. 349-350.
Torre, Contessa della, ii. 448-449.
Torrigiani, Marchesa Cristina, v. 154; vi. 9.
---- Marchesa Elisabetta, v. 154; vi. 8, 290.
---- Don Filippo, v. 154.
---- Marchese Pietro, v. 154.
---- Marchesa Margherita, vi. 8.
Tortworth, v. 298.
Toscanella, vi. 416.
Tosti, the Abbate, iv. 182.
Toul, iii. 333.
Tours, ii. 464.
Tower, Mr. and Mrs., of the Weald, vi. 380.
Towneley, Colonel, iv. 346.
Townley, Walter, vi. 420.
Townshend, Lady Anne, v. 421.
---- Lady Agnes, vi. 175.
---- Dorothy Walpole, Lady, vi. 104.
Trafford, Edward William, of Wroxham, ii. 193, 406, 506.
---- Martine Larmignac, Madame de, ii. 186-200, 406, 412-415, 500-513;
iii. 53-64, 251-254, 260, 265.
Trani, Mathilde of Bavaria, Countess of, iii. 86.
Trebeck, Rev. Canon, James John and Mrs., vi. 119.
Tregastel, vi. 345.
Tremayne, Hon. Mary Vivian Mrs., vi. 180.
Trenca, M. and Madame, ii. 247.
Trench, Mrs. R. C., ii. 434; iv. 90.
Trent, iii. 231.
Trevanion, Lady Frances, vi. 494.
Trevelyan, Sir Alfred, vi. 234.
---- Sir Charles, Governor of Madras, ii. 348; iv. 379.
---- Sir George Otto, politician and author, iv. 401.
---- Paulina Jermyn, Lady, ii. 277, 348-50.
---- Mrs. Spencer, ii. 351.
---- Mrs. Raleigh, ii. 351.
---- Sir Walter, ii. 277, 348-351.
Treves, i. 385.
Trisulti, iv. 192.
Trollope, Adolphus, the novelist, iv. 171; v. 300.
---- Mrs. Anthony, v. 16.
---- Miss Beatrice, iv. 171; v. 151.
Tronchin, Colonel, the philanthropist, i. 453.
Trotter, Captain, i. 313.
---- Hon. Charlotte Liddell, Mrs., i. 315.
Troubridge, Miss Laura, vi. 104.
Troutbeck, John, afterwards Minor Canon of Westminster, i. 414, 417,
419, 446.
Truro, Edward White Benson, Bishop of, v. 71.
Tucker, Rev. Alfred Robert, Bishop of Uganda, vi. 453.
Tufton, i. 278.
Tullgarn, Gustaf, Comte de, v. 153.
Turin, ii. 106.
Turner, J. M. W., the artist, vi. 330-331.
---- Miss, iii. 114-115.
---- Pamela FitzGerald, Mrs., vi. 502.
Turnour, Algernon, vi. 28.
Tusculum, ii. 391; v. 150.
Twain, Mark (Mr. Samuel Clemens), the author, vi. 281-283.
“Two Noble Lives, the Story of,” vi. 333-336.
Tytler, Christina Fraser, the authoress, iii. 368.
U.
Ugolini, Cardinal, iii. 71.
Umberto II., King of Italy, v. 135, 158; vi. 278.
Ungern Sternberg, Theodora v. Bunsen, Baroness von, ii. 294; iii. 109.
Unthank, iii. 170.
Upsala, v. 105.
Upton, General, v. 64.
Upton Court, vi. 26.
Usedom, Baron von, i. 435; iii. 104-106.
---- Olympia Malcolm, Baroness, afterwards Countess von, i. 435; iii.
104-106; v. 349-350.
V.
Val Anzasca, ii. 109.
Valdagno, iv. 321.
Vallombrosa, ii. 84; iii. 381; vi. 273.
Val Richer, i. 320.
Valsamachi, Emily Shipley, Countess, ii. 145, 159, 160, 327.
Van de Weyer, Madame, ii. 232.
---- M. Sylvain, ii. 231-232.
Vane, Lady Katherine, afterwards Lady Barnard, vi. 79.
---- Margaret Gladstone, Lady, vi. 32.
---- Sir Henry, vi. 33, 354.
Vatche, the, in Buckinghamshire, i. 2, 3, 493; ii. 156.
Vaucher, Mademoiselle, ii. 379.
Vaudois, the, ii. 109.
Vaughan, Cardinal, vi. 483.
---- Catherine Maria Stanley, Mrs. Charles, i. 281, 311, 336; ii. 213,
261; iii. 170; iv. 360, 366; v. 225, 316, 327; vi. 102, 476, 505;
death of, vi. 513-515.
---- Dr. Charles, afterwards Dean of Llandaff, i. 214, 218, 281, 336;
ii. 213, 260, iii. 414;
death of, vi. 476.
---- Herbert, of Llangoedmore, vi. 347.
Vauriol, Vicomte de, iii. 354.
Veii, ii. 391; iv. 95-96.
Venables, Rev. Edmund, afterwards Canon and Precentor of Lincoln, i.
240; vi. 361-362.
---- George Stovin, vi. 99.
Venice, vi. 168-170, 290-293.
Vernon, Augustus Henry, 6th Lord, iii. 140.
Verona, iii. 230, 337.
Verulam, Elizabeth Weyland, Countess of, iii. 139; v. 47.
---- James Walter Grimston, 2nd Earl of, v. 47, 49.
Vetturino travelling, ii. 46-49.
Vicenza, iii. 338; vi. 420.
Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy, ii. 376; iv. 96, 222.
Victoria, Queen of England, ii. 286-288; iv. 224, 366, 368; vi. 69-75,
82-83, 228, 264, 307, 464, 465.
Victorine, Madame, iii. 89-90.
Vienna, ii. 36.
Vigne, Père la, i. 338.
Villari, Professor Pasquale, the historian, v. 155.
Villiers, Hon. Francis, iv. 396.
Vine’s Gate, iii. 393.
Vitelleschi, Francesco Nobile, Marchese, politician, iv. 332-343.
Vivian, William Graham, vi. 101, 486.
Vivian, Amabel Beaumont, Lady Hussey, vi. 101.
Vivier, M., the actor, iv. 220-221, 225.
Vizille, vi. 48.
Voight, the artist, iv. 86.
Vyne, the, vi. 156.
W.
Waddington, Dean of Durham, ii. 265.
---- Mary Port, Mrs., v. 2, 5, 6.
---- William Henry, the statesman and ambassador, i. 319; ii. 109; v.
94-95.
Wagner, Rev. George, i. 79, 80.
---- Mrs., i. 79; ii. 427; iii. 397.
Wagstaff, Mrs., the clairvoyant, iv. 392.
Wake, Sir Baldwin, ii. 151.
Waldegrave, Frances Braham, Countess, iv. 328; v. 209.
---- Sarah Milward, Countess, iii. 397.
Wales, H.R.H. Albert Edward, Prince of, ii. 381; iv. 222, 223, 331, 379;
v. 24, 212, 213; vi. 34.
---- H.R.H. Alexandra, Princess of, ii. 381; iv. 222, 223, 328, 331,
334, 396; v. 212.
---- H.R.H. Prince George of, v. 24.
Walker, Frederick J., i. 309, 332, 398; vi. 264.
---- Mrs. Frederick, v. 166; vi. 264.
----Frederick, the artist, iv. 357-358.
“Walks in Rome,” iii. 388, 397, 408; vi. 416.
Wallace, Sir Richard, v. 208.
Wallington, ii. 277, 347-352.
Wallop, Hon. John, v. 296.
Walpole, Catherine Shorter, Lady, vi. 104-105.
---- George, Lord, vi. 104.
---- Sir Robert, i. 2; vi. 104.
Walsh, Hon. Christopher, vi. 156.
Waltham Abbey, i. 311.
Walton, in Yorkshire, iv. 67.
“Wanderings in Spain,” iv. 83.
Wantage, ii. 222.
Wantage, Hon. Robert James Loyd Lindsay, Lord, vi. 433, 447.
---- Hon. Harriet Loyd, Lady, vi. 433, 447.
Warbleton Priory, vi. 470.
Warburton, Egerton, of Arley, iv. 461.
---- Matilda Grove, Mrs. Eliot, i. 510, 511-513; ii. 12.
---- Miss Sydney, the authoress, i. 510.
---- Miss Jane, iv. 216.
Ward, Hon. Elizabeth Blackwood, Mrs., v. 428.
---- Miss Geneviève, iv. 436; v. 276.
---- Herbert, vi. 240.
---- Mrs. Humphry, vi. 164.
Ward-Howe, Mrs. Julia, the poetess, v. 174.
Wardour Castle, v. 293.
Warkworth, ii. 278, 352.
Warkworth, Henry Algernon George, Lord, vi. 373.
Warner, Charles, the Trinidad philanthropist, vi. 434.
Warre, the Misses Florence and Margaret, vi. 510.
Warren, Miss Anna, ii. 144.
---- Penelope Shipley, Mrs., i. 165-166; ii. 143-144; iii. 125.
Warsaw, v. 401.
Warwick, George Guy Greville, 3rd Earl of, iv. 253-254, 261.
---- Lady Anne Charteris, Countess of, iv. 261, 267; vi. 33.
Warwick Castle, vi. 33.
Waterford, Christina Leslie, Marchioness of, vi 21.
---- John, Marquis of, ii. 280.
---- Henry Beresford, 3rd Marquis of, ii. 362; iv. 291-292; v. 358.
---- Hon. Louisa Stuart, Marchioness of, ii. 280-282, 360-363; iii.
10-13, 23-31, 323-327; iv. 51, 60-61, 133-143, 208-217, 251-265,
340-343, 376, 404-409; v. 15, 213-214, 290-291; vi. 108-110, 158-161,
241-251, 326, 327, 333.
Watson, Sir Thomas, physician (1792-1882), v. 184.
---- Mr. and Mrs., of Rockingham, vi. 256.
---- the author, vi. 434.
Watts, G. F., R.A., vi. 326-330.
---- Theodore, the author, v. 289-290.
Way, Albert, i. 503; ii. 133.
---- Rev. John, vi. 183.
Wayland Smith’s cave, ii. 230.
Webster, Charlotte Adamson, Lady, iii. 177; iv. 301.
Weeping Cross, ii. 328.
Weimar, Pauline of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach, Grand Duchess of, v. 87.
Welbeck Abbey, v. 366; vi. 475.
Weld, Thomas, Cardinal, vi. 22-23.
Weling, Fräulein von, the authoress, v. 77, 292.
Wellesley, Rev. Dr. Henry, Principal of New Inn Hall and Rector of
Hurstmonceaux, i. 16; ii. 213, 244, 294-297.
Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of, i. 393; iv. 345; v. 276; vi.
190-191, 373.
---- Arthur Richard Wellesley, 2nd Duke of, iv. 81, 344; v. 11-12, 29,
276.
Wells, i. 308; v. 291; vi. 320.
Wells, Lady Louisa, ii. 356; iii. 140.
Wemyss, Francis, 8th Earl of, iii. 44.
---- Lady Louisa Bingham, Countess of, ii. 356; iv. 267.
Wenlock Abbey, vi. 382.
Wenlock, Hon. Caroline Neville, Lady, ii. 389; iii. 154.
Wensleydale, Cecilia Barlow, Lady, iv. 124, 414; v. 62.
Wentworth, Lady Harriet, v. 298.
Wentworth Castle, v. 297.
---- Wodehouse, iv. 281-283.
Wesselow, Mr. and Mrs. Simpkinson de, iv. 163-165; vi. 264.
Westenberg, M. and Mme. de, v. 152, 160; vi. 509.
Westminster, Lady Constance Gower, Duchess of, v. 229.
---- Lady Elizabeth Leveson-Gower, Marchioness of, v. 366.
Westmoreland, Anne Child, Countess of, iv. 468.
West Woodhay, i. 84, 95.
West Wycombe, vi. 299.
Weyland, Lady Catherine, iv. 69; v. 47.
Weymouth, ii. 229.
Wharncliffe, Lady Susan Lascelles, Countess of, iv. 327.
Whately, Richard, Archbishop of Dublin, i. 228, 283.
Whewell, Dr. William, Master of Trinity, i. 164; iii. 158; vi. 526.
Whistler, James, the artist, iv. 376; v. 190.
Whitburn, ii. 206-213; iv. 272; v. 423.
White, Lady Maude, vi. 436.
Whiteway, vi. 181.
Whitford, Mrs. Mary, vi. 174.
Wickham, Agnes Gladstone, Mrs., vi. 362.
---- William of Binstead-Wyck, afterwards M.P., ii. 217; iv. 131.
Wied, Marie of Nassau, Dowager Princess of, v. 78-84.
Wigan, Mrs., iv. 219.
Wilberforce, Rev. Canon Basil, vi. 520.
---- Samuel, Bishop of Oxford, afterwards of Winchester, i. 470; iii.
153; iv. 125; v. 218-219.
Wilbraham, Charles, v. 17.
Wilcot House, i. 278.
Wilde, Oscar, the play-writer, v. 386.
Wilkinson, Rev. George Howard, iv. 342.
William IV., King of England, i. 69, 294.
Williams, Captain, iii. 28, 32.
---- Sir Fenwick, iv. 35.
---- Sir John and Lady Sarah, i. 503.
Williamson, Hon. Anne Liddell, Lady, ii. 207, 208, 211, 212, 400, 403.
---- Captain Charles, ii. 210, 212; iv. 248.
---- Lady Elizabeth, iv. 272, 365, 456; v. 423.
---- Sir Hedworth, iv. 272, 365, 459
---- Victor A., ii. 137, 210, 214, 403; iv. 232; v. 208.
Willmer, Bishop of Louisiana, vi. 354-356.
Willoughby, Sir Hugh, the Arctic voyager, vi. 425.
Wilson, Miss Fanny Fleetwood, vi. 280, 483.
---- Georgiana Sumner, Mrs., i. 407.
---- Sir Thomas Maryon, v. 280.
Wimbledon Camp, iv. 219.
Wimpole, iv. 252.
Winchelsea, Fanny Rice, Countess, iv. 411.
Winchester, John Paulet, 14th Marquis of, iv. 482.
Windham, Rt. Hon. William, the statesman, v. 451.
Windsor, Alberta Victoria Paget, Lady, vi. 351, 448.
---- Robert George Clive, Lord, v. 359; vi. 351, 448.
Wingfield, Miss Katherine, vi. 313.
---- Hon. Cecilia FitzPatrick, Hon. Mrs. Lewis, iv. 173, 227, 228, 231;
v. 209.
Winkworth, Mrs. Stephen, v. 289.
Winslow, Dr., iii. 313, 359, 366, 370.
Winton Castle, ii. 354; iv. 267, 447.
Wiseman, Nicholas Patrick, Cardinal, ii. 486; vi. 162.
Wishaw House, ii. 358.
Woburn Abbey, v. 60-61; vi. 77.
Wodehouse, Miss Emily, i. 120.
---- Canon and Lady Jane, i. 120.
Wolff, Rev. Joseph, v. 278.
Wollaton Hall, vi. 424.
Wolseley, Sir Garnet, afterwards Viscount, iv. 305, 465.
---- Louisa Erskine, Viscountess, iv. 305, 465.
Wombwell, Lady Julia, v. 423.
Wood, Lady Agnes, iv. 240-243, 249, 293, 385.
---- Alderman, iii. 15.
---- Rt. Hon. Sir Charles, ii. 283; iv. 286.
---- Hon. Charles Lindley, ii. 137-138, 214, 251-253, 283, 325; iii.
320; iv. 239-243, 249, 290-293, 363, 385; v. 419-421.
---- Hon. Frederick, iv. 283.
---- Misses Isabel and Lorraine, vi. 12.
---- Lady Mary, ii. 251.
---- Mrs. Shakespeare, iii. 191, 204.
Woodbastwick Hall, vi. 225, 262.
Woodlands, vi. 99.
Woodward, Fanny Finucane, Mrs., iii. 209, 211, 213, 318, 364, 365, 374,
378.
Woolbeding, vi. 297.
Wordsworth, William, the poet, i. 177, 499.
Worsley Sir William, Bart., vi. 256.
Worth Park, vi. 27, 227.
Worting House, near Basingstoke, i. 13; ii. 143, 144.
Wortley, Hon. Mrs. James Stuart, iv. 82.
Wraxhall Manor, South, i. 272; vi. 485.
Wright, Miss Sophia of Mapperley, ii. 392; iii. 140, 183, 318; iv. 24,
25, 28, 48, 95, 99, 106, 304; v. 17, 130-131, 147.
Wynford, Caroline Baillie, Lady, iv. 398; v. 45, 195.
Wynne, Sir Watkin, v. 65, 202.
Wythenshawe, iv. 463.
Y.
Yates, Edmund Hodgson, the novelist, v. 16.
Yeatman, Mr. and Mrs. Morgan, iii. 414.
Yetholm, iii. 31.
York, H.R.H. George, Duke of, vi. 353, 399.
---- William Maclagan, Archbishop of, vi. 256-257, 294, 356, 443.
---- William Markham, Archbishop of, vi. 360.
---- Thomas Musgrave, Archbishop of, vi. 262.
---- William Thompson, Archbishop of, iv. 473.
---- Edward Vernon Harcourt, Archbishop of, vi. 360.
---- H. R. H. Victoria Mary, Duchess of, vi. 353, 516.
Yorke, Hon. Alexander, iv. 250, 251; v. 222.
----Frances Graham, Mrs. Dallas, vi. 475.
---- Hon. Eliot, iv. 288-290, 410.
Yorke, Annie de Rothschild, Hon. Mrs. Eliot, iv. 410.
Z.
Zanzibar, the Sultan of, iv. 328.
Zermatt, i. 460.
Zouche, Robert Curzon, Lord de la, vi. 296.
THE END
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] J. Greenleaf Whittier, “Letters.”
[2] I had to pay a duty of 10 per cent, even on all my own money and
savings, as it had been unfortunately invested in her name.
[3] Archibald, eldest son of John Archibald Colquhoun of Killermont,
N.B., and Chartwell, near Westerham, in Kent.
[4] Archie Colquhoun died at Nice in the following spring.
[5] From “The Story of Two Noble Lives.”
[6] These rooms have been entirely altered since Lady Waterford’s death.
[7] Mary Amelia, widow of the first Marquis.
[8] Daughter of the 5th Earl of Balcarres.
[9] James Edward, 2nd Earl.
[10] Afterwards Dean of Wells.
[11] The picture was exhibited in the spring of 1845, and was sent
straight to Hurstmonceaux from the Exhibition.
[12] Our cousins Sir Alexander and Lady Taylor. See vol. iii.
[13] The Rev. Henry Liddell, brother of my great-uncle Ravensworth, and
whose wife, Charlotte Lyon, was niece of my great-grandmother, Lady Anne
Simpson.
[14] Don Juan died in 1880, leaving his last great work, the restoration
of Leon Cathedral, unfinished.
[15] This was my first meeting with Everard Primrose, afterwards for
many years one of my most intimate friends. He had a cold manner, which
was repellant to those who did not know him well, and in conversation he
was tantalising, for nothing came out of him at all comparable to what
one knew was within. But no young man’s life was more noble, stainless,
and full of highest hopes and purposes. He died--to my lasting
sorrow--of fever during the African campaign of 1885. His mother printed
a memoir afterwards, which was a beautiful and simple portrait of his
life--a very model of biographical truth.
[16] It has since been entirely destroyed.
[17] From “Paris.”
[18] W. S. Landor.
[19] Dr. Chalmers.
[20] Wordsworth.
[21] For these old friends of my mother, _vide_ vols. i. and iii.
[22] This dear old lady (widow of a first cousin of my father’s) lived
in uncomplaining poverty till 1891, and was a great pleasure to me. I
was glad to be able to contribute to the support of her small
establishment at Norbiton.
[23] Since this was written the pictures have all been dispersed.
[24] From “The Story of Two Noble Lives.”
[25] Mrs. T. Erskine’s novel.
[26] George Macdonald.
[27] Lady Margaret Beaumont, whom I afterwards knew very intimately, and
learnt to regard with ever-increasing esteem and affection, died, to my
great sorrow, March 31, 1888.
[28] Afterwards Lieutenant-General Henry Hope Crealock. He died May
1891.
[29] The Mote has since been sold and its contents dispersed.
[30] Mr. Hailstone of Walton Hall died 1890, his wife some years
earlier. He bequeathed his topographical collections to the Chapter at
York, where they are preserved as the “Hailstone Yorkshire Library.”
[31] This church, the most interesting memorial of the Brontë life at
Haworth, was wantonly destroyed in 1880-81.
[32] Lady Salisbury’s description.
[33] Told me by Lord Houghton.
[34] _Note added 1890._--Authorities now decide that this picture does
not represent Mary at all, and it is certainly not, as formerly stated,
by Zucchero, for Zucchero, who was never in England till the Queen was
in captivity, never painted her.
[35] Afterwards Lady Sherbrooke.
[36] This was so for a long time. Then in about ten years several more
editions were called for in rapid succession. One can never anticipate
how it will be with books.
[37] 1890.--This was so for many years: then the sale of “Days near
Rome” suddenly and unaccountably stopped.
[38] From “Days near Rome”
[39] Miss Margaret Foley died Dec. 1877.
[40] Afterwards Lady Compton.
[41] From “Days near Rome.”
[42] From “Days near Rome.”
[43] Perhaps the interest of these details is of the past, but I insert
them because the conduct of the Sardinian Government is being rapidly
forgotten, and I was at great pains in obtaining accurate statistics and
verifying the facts mentioned.
[44] From “Days near Rome.”
[45] Afterwards Duchess of Marino.
[46] Mother of the Duchess S. Arpino.
[47] Shortly before this my publishers had given me a magnificently
bound copy of “Walks in Rome,” with the desire that I would present it
to Princess Margherita. I demurred to doing this, because, owing to the
strictures which the book contains on the “Sardinian Government,” I
thought it might be considered little less than an impertinence; but I
told the Duchess S. Arpino, who was in waiting at the time, and she
repeated it. The amiable Princess said, “I am sorry Mr. Hare does not
appreciate us, but I should like my present all the same,” and the book
was sent to her.
[48] From “Days near Rome.”
[49] From “Days near Rome.”
[50] This quaint journey is described in the introductory chapter of
“Days near Rome.”
[51] From “Days near Rome.”
[52] From “Days near Rome.”
[53] From “Days near Rome.”
[54] From “Days near Rome.”
[55] From “Days near Rome.”
[56] From “Days near Rome.”
[57] From “Days near Rome.”
[58] Miss Kate Malcolm, the last of her family, died, universally
beloved, in May 1891.
[59] From “Northern Italy.”
[60] From “Northern Italy.”
[61] Samuel Wilberforce.
[62] Rev. Hugh Pearson, Rector of Sonning.
[63] The house of William Wickham, who married my cousin Sophia Lefevre.
[64] In 1884 this fine old property of the Needhams was sold to A. P.
Heywood Lonsdale, Esq. (now Heywood), who is also owner of the
neighbouring estate of Cloverly.
[65] This old friend of my childhood died Dec. 1890, in her 99th year.
[66]
“Andrew, she has a face looks like a story,
The story of the heavens looks very like her.”
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, _The Elder Brother_.
[67] From “The Story of Two Noble Lives.”
[67] Afterwards Lady Harcourt.
[69] This is much like the epitaph which Ruskin has placed on the grave
of his father.
[70] A rich farmer, the landlord of our Lime farm at Hurstmonceaux.
[71] Mrs. Harford of Blaise Castle, third daughter of Baron de Bunsen.
[72] From “Northern Italy.”
[73] From “Northern Italy.”
[74] From “Northern Italy.”
[75] Beatrice, afterwards the first wife of Charles Stuart Wortley.
[76] From “Days near Rome.”
[77] From “Days near Rome.”
[78] From “Days near Rome.”
[79] From “Days near Rome.”
[80] From “Days near Rome.”
[81] From “Days near Rome.”
[82] From “Days near Rome.”
[83] From “Days near Rome.”
[84] From “Days near Rome.”
[85] From “Days near Rome.”
[86] Daughter of Lord Howard de Walden, afterwards Duchess of Sermoneta.
[87] From “Days near Rome.”
[88] This excellent old Abbot was afterwards cruelly murdered at Rome.
[89] From “Days near Rome.”
[90] From “Days near Rome.”
[91] From “Florence.”
[92] _All_ the women have fainted.
[93] Sermon on Ezekiel.
[94] From “Northern Italy.”
[95] From “North-Eastern France.”
[96] Afterwards known as “Sunday Hill.”
[97] Fanny Blackett, Vicomtesse du Quaire, who died, universally beloved
and regretted, in the spring of 1895.
[98] Feb. 8, 1814.
[99] Hon. E. Primrose, second son of the Duchess of Cleveland by her
first marriage with Lord Dalmeny.
[100] Cambry.
[101] From “The Story of Two Noble Lives.”
[102] From “The Story of Two Noble Lives.”
[103] Eighth daughter of the 7th Earl of Wemyss. She died, deeply
mourned and beloved, in 1891.
[104] Author of “Rab and his Friends.”
[105] Daughter of the 8th Earl of Cavan, afterwards Baroness von Essen.
[106] From “The Story of Two Noble Lives.”
[107] From “The Story of Two Noble Lives.”
[108] John, second Duke of Argyll, immortalised by Pope.
[109] Author of “Music and Morals,” &c.
[110] From “Walks in London.”
[111] From “Walks in London.”
[112] From “Days near Paris.”
[113] This was my first sight of the contentious and arbitrary essayist
Abraham Hayward, whom I often saw afterwards. He was always interesting
to meet, if only on account of his perverse acerbity. Constantly invited
by a world which feared him, he was always determined to be listened to,
and generally said something worth hearing.
[114] From “Walks in London.”
[115] From “Walks in London.”
[116] Lady Victoria Liddell married Captain Edward Fisher, now Rowe.
[117] John FitzPatrick, Baron Castletown of Upper Ossory.
[118] From “Walks in London.”
[119] Emily, wife of the 5th Earl Stanhope, died Dec. 31, 1873.
[120] Evelyn Henrietta, daughter of R. Pennefather, Esq., afterwards 6th
Countess Stanhope.
[121] Daughter of Amos Meredith, Esq. She married, secondly, a son of
the 4th Duke of Argyll.
[122] Lady Harriet Pelham, daughter of the 3rd Earl of Chichester, wife
of the 6th Earl of Darnley.
[123] Tasso.
[124] My real mother’s youngest sister Jane (see vol. i.). She married
Edward, only son of the famous Lord Edward FitzGerald and of the
beautiful Pamela. She lived till November 1891.
[125] The family circle was broken up by the death of Mr. Carew in 1888,
a few months after that of his eldest daughter.
[126] I learnt to value Dean Church very much afterwards. The story of
his beautiful and noble life is told in a wonderfully interesting
“Memoir.”
[127] William, afterwards 4th Earl of St. Germans, died Oct. 7, 1877.
[128] Edward Granville, 3rd Earl of St. Germans, died 1877.
[129] George, second son of the 2nd Earl of Mount Edgcumbe, married
Fanny Lucy, eldest daughter of Sir John Shelley.
[130] Sophia, daughter of the 2nd Earl of Buckinghamshire.
[131] Hugh, 3rd Earl Fortescue.
[132] The Queen of the Gipsies died in July 1883, at the age of
eighty-six.
[133] Her mother, Lady Stuart de Rothesay, was daughter of the 3rd Earl
of Hardwicke.
[134] Charles, 3rd Earl of Somers.
[135] George Guy Greville, 4th Earl of Warwick, died Dec. 2, 1893.
[136] I afterwards heard the same story, almost in the same words, from
Lord Warwick himself.
[137] from “The Story of Two Noble Lives.”
[138] From “The Story of Two Noble Lives.”
[139] Bk. vi. 73, 74.
[140] Anne, wife of the 4th Earl of Warwick, daughter of Francis, 8th
Earl of Wemyss and March.
[141] My mother’s first cousin, Georgiana Liddell, had married Lord
Bloomfield, formerly ambassador at Berlin and Vienna.
[142] From “The Story of Two Noble Lives.”
[143] I have heard Professor Owen tell this story himself.
[144] Louisa, fourth daughter of 2nd Earl of Lucan.
[145] John Patrick, 3rd Marquis of Bute.
[146] Gwendoline Mary-Anne, eldest daughter of Lord Howard of Glossop.
[147] Prior.
[148] Sir Hedworth and Lady Elizabeth Williamson. The parents of both
were first cousins of my mother.
[149] My mother’s first cousin, Henry Liddell, 1st Earl of Ravensworth.
[150] John Axel Fersen, making the tour of France at nineteen, was
presented to the Dauphine, herself nineteen, in 1774. Throughout his
friendship with her, the perfect reserve of a great gentleman and great
lady was never broken.
[151] In 1879 I told this story to the Crown Prince of Sweden and
Norway, who took the trouble to verify facts and dates as to the
Löwenjelms, &c., and found everything coincide.
[152] Mrs., then Lady Pease, died, universally beloved and regretted, in
1892.
[153] The 6th Earl of Fitzwilliam.
[154] Lady Frances Douglas, daughter of the 18th Earl of Morton.
[155] Eldest daughter and youngest son of Viscount Halifax.
[156] Edward Carr Glyn, afterwards Vicar of Kensington, son of the 1st
Baron Wolverton.
[157] Mother of the 9th Duke of Bedford, a most charming and hospitable
person. She died August 1874.
[158] Lord Moira was created Marquis of Hastings 1816, and died at
Malta, November 26, 1826.
[159] “In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth
upon men, in slumberings upon the bed; then He openeth the ears of men,
and sealeth their instruction.”--_Elihu in Job._
[160] Charles, 2nd Earl Grey.
[161] I have since heard this story as told by a Captain Campbell, and
as having happened in Ireland near the Curragh. A similar story is told
of two officers invited to the house of a Mr. T. near Dorchester. The
appearance of the hostess at dinner was excused on plea of illness, and
the younger guest, staring at the place where she would have sat,
implored his elder friend to get him away from this devil-haunted place.
An excuse of early parade was made, and as they were returning over the
hills, the young man described the figure of “a lady with dripping hair
wringing her hands.” Soon afterwards her body was found in the moat of
the house. It was Mrs. T.
[162] My old schoolfellow, George, Equerry to the Prince of Wales, only
son of the Right Hon. Sir George Grey.
[163] Anthony Lionel Ashley, died Jan. 14, 1836.
[164] I afterwards heard this story confirmed in every particular by
Lord Waterford’s widow.
[165] From “Central Italy.”
[166] Miss Wright
[167] Whose real name is Cincinnatus.
[168] From “Northern Italy.”
[169] From “Northern Italy.”
[170] From “Central Italy.”
[171] From “Central Italy.”
[172] From “Florence.”
[173] From “Florence.”
[174] From “Northern Italy.”
[175] From “Northern Italy.”
[176] From “Walks in London.”
[177] He died March 1888.
[178] Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
[179] Professor Forster has since assured me that this was impossible,
for that hair will only continue to grow for a few hours after death.
[180] Daughter of the famous English tenor, John Braham.
[181] From “Walks in London.”
[182] From “Walks in London.”
[183] From “The Story of Two Noble Lives.”
[184] From “The Story of Two Noble Lives.”
[185] Story told me by Sir J. Shaw Lefevre.
[186] Afterwards Sir Charles Newton. He died Nov. 28, 1894.
[187] I need scarcely say that, as soon as possible thereafter, I
eliminated all reference to Mr. Freeman, and all quotations from his
works, from my books.
[188] From “Walks in London.”
[189] From “Walks in London.”
[190] Tom Taylor, editor of _Punch_, died 1880.
[191] _Née_ Sabine Thellusson.
[192] Chancellor of the Exchequer.
[193] From “Walks in London.”
[194] From “Walks in London.”
[195] From “Walks in London.”
[196] From “Walks in London.”
[197] From “Walks in London.”
[198] From “Walks in London.”
[199] From “Walks in London.”
[200] William Reginald Courtenay, 12th Earl of Devon.
[201] Sir Samuel Baker died Dec. 1893.
[202] This picture was sold to the National Gallery in 1880 for £9000,
and is probably the cheapest purchase the Gallery ever made.
[203] Isabella, second daughter of Lord Henry Howard.
[204] Mr. Abraham Hayward, the well-known critic and essayist, who had
been articled in early life to an obscure country attorney, always
seemed to consider it the _summum-bonum_ of life to dwell amongst the
aristocracy as a man of letters: and in this he succeeded admirably, and
was always witty and well-informed, usually satirical, and often very
coarse.
[205] Fourth son of the 4th Earl of Clarendon.
[206] Eldest sister of Prince Christian.
[207] From “Walks in London.”
[208] Many years afterwards I saw her again: her name was Mrs. Macnabb.
[209] Lord Russell died May 28, 1878.
[210] Lady Gladys afterwards married the 4th Earl of Lonsdale.
[211] My mother’s first cousin, Susan, sixth daughter of the 1st Lord
Ravensworth.
[212] Eliot Yorke died Dec. 21, 1878--a bitter family sorrow.
[213] From “Walks in London.”
[214] Anne-Florence, Baroness Lucas, Dowager Countess Cowper, elder
daughter and co-heir of Thomas Philip, Earl De Grey. She died in 1880.
[215] _P.S._--The unpublished letters of Lady Mary Cooke show that this
local tradition is incorrect. Lord Tavistock’s accident occurred far
away, and he lingered afterwards for three weeks; but it is true that
the family never lived at Houghton after his death.
[216] Lord Hinton afterwards used to play a barrel-organ in the streets
of London, with an inscription over it in large letters, “I am the only
Viscount Hinton.” He would play it for hours opposite the windows of
Lord Powlett in Berkeley Square.
[217] Mr. E. A. Freeman--whose lengthy and disproportionate writings
were never wholly without interest--died March 1892.
[218] Blanche, Countess of Sandwich, died March 1894.
[219] Letters of Alexis de Tocqueville to Mrs. Grote.
[220] Sir John Acton was commander-in-chief of the land and sea forces
of Naples, and was for several years Neapolitan Prime Minister. His wife
was the daughter of his brother, General Acton, and he had by her two
sons (the younger of whom became Cardinal), and a daughter, afterwards
Lady Throckmorton.
[221] At Sudeley Castle, where “the Mother of the English Reformation”
is buried, I wrote for Mrs. Dent:--
“Here, within the chapel’s shade,
Reverent hands have gently laid,
From the suffering of her life,
From its storminess and strife,
All that rests of one who shone
For a time on England’s throne,
Ever gentle, ever kind,
Seeking human souls to bind
In a Christian’s fetters fast,
Heavenward leading at the last:
And their watch two angels keep
Over Katherine’s gentle sleep.
Oh! amid this world of ours,
With its sunshine and its flowers,
Glad with light and blest with love,
Let us still so live above
All earth’s jealousies and snares,
All its fretfulness and cares,
Ever faithful, ever true,
With the noblest end in view,
Seeking human souls to raise
By the simplest, purest ways;
Then their ward will angels keep
When we too are hush’d to sleep.”
[222] Emma, daughter of John Brocklehurst, Esq., of Hurdsfield, the
authoress of an admirable work on the “Annals of Winchcombe and
Sudeley.”
[223] The great feature in views from Stoke Rectory.
[224] The name is thus spelt in the epitaph on the tomb of Richard
Pendrill at St. Giles in the Fields.
[225] Henry Strutt, who succeeded his father as 2nd Lord Belper in 1880,
married Lady Margaret, sixth daughter of the 2nd Earl of Leicester.
[226] Frederick Arthur, second son of the 14th Earl of Derby, married
Constance, eldest daughter of the 4th Earl of Clarendon.
[227] He succeeded his grandfather as 5th Viscount Gage in 1877.
[228] Frederick, third son of the 6th Earl of Tankerville. See vol. ii.
[229] Eldest son of the Hon. Colonel Augustus Liddell, married Christina
Catherine, daughter of C. E. Fraser Tytler, Esq., of Sanquhar, the
authoress of “Mistress Judith,” “Jonathan,” &c. See vol. iii.
[230] Helen, daughter of Sir John Warrender, wife of the 11th Earl of
Haddington.
[231] Katherine, third daughter of the 2nd Earl of Eldon.
[232] Coleridge.
[233] Lady Harriet Elliot, sixth daughter of the 1st Earl of
Ravensworth.
[234] E. Waller.
[235] Aldena (Kingscote), wife of Sir Archibald Hope.
[236] General Philip Stanhope, fifth son of Walter Spencer Stanhope of
Cannon Hall, celebrated for his kindly nature and pleasant conversation.
Died 1879.
[237] Charles Nevison, Viscount Andover, son of the 15th Earl of
Suffolk, died January 11, 1800.
[238] Lord Eslington, afterwards 2nd Earl of Ravensworth.
[239] See my visit in 1866.
[240] Afterwards Mrs. C. Warren.
[241] Lady Charlotte Loftus, eldest daughter of John, 2nd Marquis of
Ely.
[242] Eldest daughter of William Pitt, Earl Amherst.
[243] Elizabeth, second daughter of Sir Christopher Sykes, died 1853.
[244] Eldest sister of the 1st Earl of Lathom.
[245] Egerton Warburton, Esq.
[246] A family home. In 1807 Thomas Tatton of Wythenshawe married my
mother’s first cousin, Emma, daughter of the Hon. John Grey.
[247] Harriet Susan, eldest daughter of Robert Townley Parker of Cuerden
Hall.
[248] Fourth daughter of the 6th Earl of Albemarle.
[249] Second son of the 3rd Lord Lyttelton and Lady Sarah Spencer.
[250] Lady Agneta Montagu was one of the daughters of Susan, Countess of
Hardwicke, my mother’s first cousin.
[251] Pascal.
[252] Sotherton Peckham Branthwayt Micklethwait.
[253] Third daughter of the 2nd Earl of Arran by his third wife,
Elizabeth Underwood.
[254] Dr. William Thompson, Archbishop of York, married Miss Zoë Skene,
a beautiful Greek.
[255] Adelaide Horatia Seymour, Countess Spencer, who died October 1877.
[256] The well-known architect.
[257] From “Walks in London.”
[258] Mr. J. Cordy Jeaffreson (“Book of Recollections”) gives a most
attractive account of this lady, which may be summed up in his dictum
“It is impossible for a daughter of Eve to be a better woman than
Geraldine Jewsbury.”
[259] Elizabeth Jane, daughter of the first Lord Athlumney.
[260] From “Walks in London.”
[261] Helen Matilda, daughter of Rev. Henry Chaplin, afterwards 5th
Countess of Radnor.
[262] Mr. Froude died Oct. 1894.
[263] Mrs. Davidson of Ridley Hall. See vols. ii. and iii.
[264] From “Walks in London.”
[265] I have frequently seen Mrs. L.’s pictures in the Academy. I had
often been told of the strange likeness between Napoleon III. and
myself.
[266] Author of “Unspoken Sermons,” “David Elginbrod,” &c.
[267] Died June 20, 1889.
[268] The house of Joseph Pease, M.P., afterwards Sir Joseph Pease.
[269] Afterwards Lord Rowton.
[270] From “The Story of Two Noble Lives.”
[271] All the best pictures at Burghley have since been sold at
Christie’s.
[272] The same amusement was in vogue during the parties of the second
Empire at Compiègne, where the worst of the many bad organ-grinders was
the Emperor himself.
[273] Francis-Charles, 9th Duke, a great archaeologist.
[274] Hungerford Crewe, Lord Crewe, died Jan. 1894.
[275] The Roman sculptress, Gibson’s favourite pupil. See vol. iii.
[276] Widow of John Singleton Copley, three times Lord Chancellor.
[277] Told me by Mrs. Henry Forester.
[278] Afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury.
[279] See Macpherson’s “Memorials of Mrs. Jameson.”
[280] Fräulein von Weling afterwards translated my “Life and Letters of
Baroness Bunsen” into German, and it has thus had a wide circulation in
Germany.
[281] Afterwards “Carmen Sylva,” the poet-queen of Roumania.
[282] Widow of my cousin Marcus, lost in the _Eurydice_.
[283] The epitaph of Prince Otto, by his mother, is--
“Made perfect through Suffering and patient in Hope,
Of a fearless Spirit and strong in Faith,
His mind turned towards heavenly things,
He searched for truth and a knowledge of God.
What he humbly sought in Life,
He, being set free, has now found in Light.”
[284] _Née_ Isabel Waddington, sister of the ambassador from France to
England.
[285] Younger son of my real mother’s youngest brother Wentworth.
[286] My real mother’s younger brother, Wentworth Paul, had married
Countess Marie Marcia von Benningsen, lady-in-waiting to the Queen of
Hanover.
[287] Afterwards ambassador in England.
[288] From “Sketches in Holland and Scandinavia.”
[289] Longfellow.
[290] Carlyle.
[291] Their grandmother was a Mademoiselle Clary, sister of Queen
Desirée of Sweden.
[292] From “Days near Rome,” vol. ii.
[293] From “Days near Rome,” vol. ii.
[294] From “Central Italy.”
[295] From “Central Italy.”
[296] See vol. iii.
[297] Wife of a north-country baronet.
[298] Mary Howitt, aged 89, fulfilled her heart’s desire by also dying
at Rome, Jan. 30, 1888, and, though a Catholic, was permitted to rest by
her husband’s side in the Protestant cemetery. She never recovered the
fatigue of a visit to the Pope. It was all made as easy as possible for
her, on account of her great age, and the Duke of Norfolk was allowed to
bring her in separately. “Adieu! we shall meet again in heaven,” said
Leo XIII., on taking leave of her: a fortnight after she was dead.
[299] I have not been able to do this, as there is a prohibition in
England against wearing foreign orders, dating from Elizabeth, who said,
“My dogs shall wear nothing but my own collars.”
[300] I little thought at the time that Frank Crawford would turn out a
distinguished and popular novelist: it was at Bombay that he met the
original of “Mr. Isaacs.”
[301] The Misses Monk, daughters of the Bishop of Gloucester and
Bristol.
[302] Miss Clarke.
[303] From “South-Eastern France.”
[304] Of very humble origin himself, to court great personages had been
the ruling passion of his life, and it had been a subject of extravagant
pride to him that he had occasionally entertained this good-natured
Princess at dinner at Pau.
[305] From “Walks in London.”
[306] I often saw Mademoiselle Bernhardt act afterwards, and was far
less impressed by her, feeling the truth of the expression “Une
tragédienne du Boulevard.”
[307] With whom afterwards I became great friends.
[308] The story of Count Piper is curious and highly honourable to him.
He discovered that the late King Carl XV. was going to make a most
unworthy and disgraceful marriage, and he wrote to him most strongly
upon the subject. The king never forgave him, and made it impossible for
him to stay in Sweden, but the cause of his disgrace was unknown, till
the present king, Oscar, found the letter among his brother’s papers
after his death. Count Piper was at once recalled, and given first-rate
diplomatic posts.
[309] From “Walks in London.”
[310] From “Walks in London.”
[311] Daughter of John Braham, the singer. She married (1) John James
Waldegrave, Esq.; (2) George-Edward, 7th Earl Waldegrave; (3) George
Granville Harcourt, Esq., of Nuneham; (4) Chichester Fortescue, Lord
Carlingford. When she was a child a gipsy foretold that she would marry
first to please her parents, secondly for rank, thirdly for wealth, and
fourthly to please herself.
[312] Eldest son of the Earl of Tankerville. See vol. iii.
[313] Lady Waterford, Lady Jane Ellice, and Lady Marian Alford.
[314] See vol. i.
[315] Joaquin Miller.
[316] See vol. i.
[317] Sir John Shaw Lefevre died at Margate.
[318] My cousin, Lady Elizabeth Adeane, _née_ Yorke, had married Michael
Biddulph, Esq., of Ledbury.
[319] See vol. iii.
[320] Constance-Gertrude, youngest daughter of the 2nd Duke of
Sutherland.
[321] Maria, youngest daughter of Hon. Charles Tollemache, second wife
(1833) of Charles Bruce, 2nd Earl of Ailesbury.
[322] Ada Maria Katherine, daughter of Hon. Frederick Tollemache,
married (1868) Charles Hanbury Tracy, Baron Sudeley.
[323] Ham House has been greatly, perhaps too much restored since this,
by the 8th Earl of Dysart.
[324] Feb. 17, 1671-2.
[325] Afterwards Dean of Winchester.
[326] Two thousand pounds and its interests for many years have (1900)
never been repaid.
[327] Archbishop Trench.
[328] From “Southern Italy.”
[329] From “Southern Italy.”
[330] From “Southern Italy.”
[331] From “Southern Italy.”
[332] From “Southern Italy.”
[333] From “Southern Italy.”
[334] From “Southern Italy.”
[335] From “Southern Italy.”
[336] From “Southern Italy.”
[337] From “Southern Italy.”
[338] This story was told to me by Susan, Lady Sherborne, who heard it
from Lord Clanwilliam.
[339] From “Southern Italy.”
[340] From “Southern Italy.”
[341] From “Southern Italy.”
[342] From “Southern Italy.”
[343] Eleanor Paul, who had lived with my sister, and who afterwards
lived with her brother, George Paul.
[344] Frank Miles died July 1891.
[345] Marquis de Sade.
[346] Afterwards Lady Rumbold.
[347] Rev. Joseph Wolff, missionary to Palestine, died 1862.
[348] Doña Emilia de Guyangos. See vol. iv.
[349] Mrs. Thellusson died January 23, 1881, leaving a most loving
memory behind. Swinburne wrote a pretty poem on her death.
[350] Afterwards married to Robert-George, Lord Windsor.
[351] See vol. ii.
[352] Dr. Grey died, aged 77, January 1888.
[353] Isabella Henrietta Poyntz, 8th Countess of Cork.
[354]
“No wonder, Mary, that thy story
Touches all hearts--for there we see
The soul’s corruption, and its glory,
Its death and life combin’d in thee.
* * * * *
No wonder, Mary, that thy face,
In all its touching light of tears,
Should meet us in each holy place,
When man before his God appears,
Hopeless--were he not taught to see
All hope in Him who pardoned thee.”
[355] Yet, M. Vivier told Madame du Quaire that, when he first went to
see Mrs. Grote, he found her sitting high aloft in a tree, dressed in a
coachman’s brown greatcoat with capes, playing on the violoncello.
[356] Mr. Grote was ever imperturbably placid. When Jenny Lind was asked
what she thought of Mr. Grote, she said he was “like a fine old bust in
a corner which one longed to dust.” Mrs. Grote dusted him.
[357] This was my last sight of Lady Ruthven, who died April 5, 1885,
aged 96.
[358] “Pensées Philosophiques,” 1747.
[359] Since republished in “Biographical Sketches.”
[360] The Stanleys’ dear old nurse.
[361] From “Biographical Sketches.”
[362] Lord Romilly perished in his burning house in Egerton Gardens,
London, in May 1891, having never recovered the death of his most sweet
wife several years before.
[363] Hon. W. Owen Stanley, brother of the 2nd Lord Stanley of Alderley,
and of my aunt Mrs. Marcus Hare.
[364] Mary Louisa, daughter of Henry, 5th Duke of Grafton.
[365] Edward Gordon Douglas Pennant, Baron Penrhyn, who had succeeded to
Penrhyn Castle in right of his first wife, Miss Dawkins Pennant.
[366] Her grandmother, Lady Ravensworth, was my grandmother’s only
sister.
[367] From “Southern Italy.”
[368] From “Southern Italy.”
[369] From “Southern Italy.”
[370] Olympia, Countess von Usedom, eldest daughter of Sir John Malcolm.
See vols. i. and iii.
[371] This Patriarch died of the influenza in 1892.
[372] From “Venice.”
[373] Dr. Walter Smith on Robertson of Irvine.
[374] Philip-Henry, 4th Earl Stanhope, died 1855.
[375] Dr. Buckland afterwards told Lady Lyndhurst that there was one
thing even worse than a mole, and that was a blue-bottle fly.
[376] From “Walks in London.”
[377] From “Holland.”
[378] From “Holland.”
[379] The results of this tour appeared in the first part of my little
volume, “Sketches in Holland and Scandinavia.”
[380] Second daughter of the 1st Duke of Sutherland, born 1797; she
wrote to me several times after this, and showed me great kindness, but
we never met again. She died November 11, 1891.
[381] Lowell.
[382] Gray’s “Enigmas of Life.”
[383] John Gidman, her most unworthy husband, the cloud and scourge and
sorrow of her life. He had (fortunately for me) kept away during her
illness, and did not wish to have anything to do with her funeral, or
even to attend it. Immediately after, he removed all her possessions to
Cheshire, and soon married again, dying six years after.
[384] Madame de Staël.
[385] Princess Elizabeth of Wied; translated by Sir Edwin Arnold.
[386] Thomasine Jocelyn, widow of the 4th Earl of Donoughmore.
[387] From “Studies in Russia.”
[388] From “Studies in Russia.”
[389] From “Studies in Russia.”
[390] From “Studies in Russia.”
[391] From “Studies in Russia.”
[392] From “Studies in Russia.”
[393] From “Studies in Russia.”
[394] I published some articles on Mrs. Duncan Stewart and her
remarkable life in _Good Words_ for 1892. They have been republished in
“Biographical Sketches.”
[395] From “North-Eastern France.”
[396] From “North-Eastern France.”
[397] From “North-Eastern France.”
[398] The third boy, Henry Wood, died in London, June 6, 1886. The
second son, Francis, died at Eton, March 17, 1889. The beloved eldest
son, Charlie, died at Hickledon, September 1890.
[399] My second-cousin, Lady Elizabeth Williamson, daughter of the 1st
Earl of Ravensworth.
[400] Lady Elizabeth Lindsay, widow of Philip, 3rd Earl of Hardwicke[.]
Her eldest daughter, Lady Mexborough, was the mother of Lady Sarah
Savile, who married Hon. Sir James Lindsay.
[401] Frances-Anne, daughter and heiress of Sir Henry Vane Tempest, who
(1819) became the second wife of the 3rd Marquis of Londonderry.
[402] From “Walks in London.”
[403] From “South-Western France.”
[404] From “South-Western France.”
[405] From “South-Western France.”
[406] From “South-Western France.”
[407] From “South-Western France.”
[408] From “South-Western France.”
[409] From “South-Western France.”
[410] William Schomberg, 8th Marquis of Lothian, died 1870, aged 38.
[411] From “Sussex.”
[412] Very soon after I was at Ludlow, gentle Lady Mary Clive lost all
her powers by a paralytic seizure, and she died in the summer of 1889
[413] William Reginald Courtenay, 12th Earl of Devon.
[414] Clough.
[415] W. H. Smith, 1844.
[416] Dante, _Purg._ III.
[417] “Le Lys dans la Vallée.”
[418] Ben Jonson.
[419] Monckton Milnes.
[420] From “Sussex.”
[421] This was my last visit to the kind and excellent Lotteringo della
Stufa, who died at Castagnolo, Feb. 26, 1889, after a long and painful
illness.
[422] From “Days near Rome.”
[423] From “Days near Rome.”
[424] From “Days near Rome.”
[425] From “Central Italy.”
[426] From “Central Italy.”
[427] From “South-Eastern France.”
[428] From “North-Eastern France.”
[429] Lady Gage died a few months after, and left Hengrave to Lord
Kenmare, who sold it.
[430] Ockwells was afterwards bought by my friend Stephen Leech, who
restored it thoroughly and then sold it again.
[431] Frances Mary, daughter of Christopher Blackett of Wylam, widow of
the Vicomte du Quaire.
[432] Emma, sister of Sir Francis Seymour.
[433] Margaret, daughter of T. Steuart Gladstone, Esq., of Capenoch.
[434] Anne, daughter of the Earl of Wemyss and March, wife of the 4th
Earl of Warwick.
[435] Edward Heneage Dering was the author of several books. His last, a
novel--“The Ban of Maplethorpe”--was only completed the day before his
sudden death in November 1892. His grandmother, Lady Maria Harrington
Price, and my grandmother. Lady Paul, were first cousins.
[436] From “South-Eastern France.”
[437] From “South-Eastern France.”
[438] From “South-Eastern France.”
[439] From “South-Eastern France.”
[440] From “South-Eastern France.”
[441] From “South-Eastern France.”
[442] From “South-Eastern France.”
[443] From “South-Eastern France.”
[444] From “South-Eastern France.”
[445] From “South-Eastern France.”
[446] From “South-Eastern France.”
[447] From “South-Eastern France.”
[448] From “Sussex.”
[449] He had been sub-editor of the _Times_.
[450] From “Walks in London.”
[451] Prince Abu’n Nasr Mir Hissanum, Sultanah of Persia; Devawongse
Varspraker of Siam; and Komatsu of Japan.
[452] Princess “Liliuokalani.” Queen Liliuokalani was deposed January
1893, after a reign of only two years.
[453] Bertram, 4th Earl of Ashburnham.
[454] Fourth daughter of the 3rd Marquis of Exeter, afterwards Lady
Barnard.
[455] Lady Alma Graham, youngest daughter of the 4th Duke of Montrose.
[456] I never saw Mrs. Procter again; she died March 5, 1888. She liked
to see people to the last. Every Sunday and Tuesday she admitted all who
came to her as long as she could; then she saw a portion: up to the last
few weeks she saw one or two. As Landor says, “She warmed both hands
before the fire of life, and when it sank she was ready to depart.”
One day a young man remonstrated with Mrs. Procter for not going to see
an exhibition of Sir Joshuas which was open at that time. “I have seen
them all,” she said. “Why, Mrs. Procter, there has never been such an
exhibition before.”--“I beg your pardon; there has been.”--“Why,
when?”--“In 1808, and--_where were you then_?”
Mrs. Procter used to tell how she had been at the jubilee of George
III., and would add that if she could see the jubilee of Queen Victoria
she would say her “Nunc Dimittis;” and she did see it, and the Queen
expressed a wish that Mrs. Procter, who was invited to her garden-party,
should be especially presented to her.
Mrs. Procter--Anne Benson Procter--was born Sept. 11, 1799, being the
daughter of Mr. Skepper, a small Yorkshire squire. Her mother, a Benson,
who was aunt of the Archbishop of Canterbury of that name, married, as
her second husband, Basil Montagu, Q.C. In 1823, Miss Skepper married
Bryan Waller Procter, known as Barry Cornwall, described by Patmore as a
“simple, sincere, shy, and delicate soul,” well known to his
contemporaries by his songs set to music by popular composers. He died
in 1874.
[457] _Née_ Janet Duff Gordon.
[458] Second daughter of the 1st Earl of Kilmorey, aged 95.
[459] Henry Cowper, than whom no one was a more universal favourite, or
more deservedly so, died a few months after this.
[460] Afterwards Lady Swansea.
[461] Third son of the 4th Earl of Aberdeen, married Ellen, 2nd daughter
of the 19th Earl of Morton.
[462] Lady Gertrude Talbot, daughter of the 18th Earl of Shrewsbury.
[463] Esquire being written as well as Reverend, is supposed to have
been intended to indicate the son of a baronet.
[464] In 1890 Mr. Pigott died, and the new Rector destroyed the
character of Bemerton by adding largely to the rectory in red brick.
[465] The Earl of Caledon’s place in Hertfordshire.
[466] The 16th Earl, father of the Princesses Doria and Borghese.
[467] Browning.
[468] From “North-Western France.”
[469] Sir John Saville’s.
[470] Harry George Powlett, 4th Duke of Cleveland, who died August 21,
1891.
[471] Afterwards Duchess of Portland.
[472] Louisa, daughter of Henry Drummond, Esq., died 1890.
[473] Algernon-George, 6th Duke of Northumberland.
[474] How well I remember, when somebody remonstrated with Lady Marian
for “burning the candle at both ends,” the quickness with which she
answered--“Why, I thought that was the very way to make two ends meet.”
[475] Her father, Benjamin Bathurst (third son of Henry Bathurst, Bishop
of Norwich), travelling as envoy from the British Government to the
Emperor Francis, was about to enter his carriage at the door of the Swan
Inn at Perleberg, between Berlin and Hamburg, when he disappeared and
was _never heard of again_. Her brother was killed by a fall from his
horse in a race at Rome. Her sister, Emmeline, who married (1830) Lord
Castle Stuart, and afterwards (1867) Signor Pistocchi, I have often seen
at Rome.
[476] From “South-Eastern France.”
[477] From “South-Western France.”
[478] From “South-Eastern France.”
[479] From “South-Western France.”
[480] Mr. Challoner Chute, of the Vyne, died, deeply regretted, May 30,
1892.
[481] The picture belongs to Mr. Morison.
[482] From “South-Eastern France.”
[483] From “Venice.”
[484] A few months after this happy visit to my dear friend Sir Howard
Elphinstone came the terrible news of his sudden death at sea.
[485] Georgiana, third daughter of Charles, 4th Duke of Richmond.
[486] The four seraphim are recognised by the Moslems as Michael,
Raphael, Gabriel, and Israel. Before the birth of the Prophet they were
supposed to speak, and to give warning of coming catastrophes. Thus they
have been permitted to survive the other ancient mosaics of St. Sophia.
[487] Marion Crawford’s novel.
[488] Joseph Maier, the eminent wood-sculptor.
[489] “Die Früchte der Passionbetrachtung.”
[490] “I know no guilt like that of incontinent speech. How long Christ
was silent before He spoke, and how little He then said.”--_Carlyle, in
Reid’s Life of Lord Houghton._
[491] A passage in Richard Kurd’s Sermons (vol. ii.), which I had read
long ago, would come back to me during this terrible hour. “In this
awfully stupendous manner, at which Reason stands aghast, and Faith
herself is half-confounded, was the grace of God to man at length
manifested.”
[492] John Inglesant.
[493] Paul Verlaine.
[494] The birth of John, Henry, and Thomas Palmer is perhaps the only
well-authenticated instance of a fortnight intervening between the
eldest and the youngest child produced at a birth. It is described by
Fuller. Their mother was Alice, daughter of John Clement. Sir Henry lost
his life in the defence of Guisnes, of which he was governor. Sir Thomas
was beheaded for the part which he took for Lady Jane Grey.
[495] Née Magniac.
[496] Austin Dobson, “Angiola in Heaven.”
[497] From “Biographical Sketches.”
[498] From “Northern Italy.”
[499] Onions and lettuces. The lower classes in Rome call all the
smaller vegetables fruit.
[500] “Yes, lady; it is enough for me to think of that shoemaker who
made me pay seven francs instead of five, and I cry directly.”
[501] A mineral fountain near Rome.
[502] William Wetmore Story died--deeply loved by children, friends,
indeed by all who came within his genial and invigorating influence--at
Vallombrosa, Oct. 7, 1895, aged 77. His excellent wife had passed away
before him.
[503] From “Days near Rome.”
[504] Planted by S. Dominic, and supposed to flourish or fail with the
fortunes of the Dominican Order.
[505] From “Days near Rome.”
[506] From “Venice.”
[507] Lady Emily Pierrepont, daughter of Earl Manvers, widow of
Frederick Lygon, 6th Earl Beauchamp.
[508] Horatio William Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford.
[509] I have since heard that this was Louise de Rohan Chabot, whom his
father forbade Lord Orford to marry, because she was a Roman Catholic.
She was the love of his life, which was wrecked, and he became a Roman
Catholic himself--such is Nemesis!
[510] This was the man who one day went up to the great, the beloved
Bishop Brooks, the most popular man in America since Washington, and
said, “And do you really believe all that you say?” “I wanted to knock
him down, the little moth-eaten angel,” said the Bishop in recounting it
afterwards.
[511] At Lincoln he had “a fair tomb of marble,” with the punning
legend, “Longa terra mansura ejus, Dominus dedit.” The reference is to
the Vulgate--Job xi. 9. At Eton he had an epitaph on brass.
[512] I never saw the beloved Lord Arthur Hervey again: he died June
1894.
[513] From “Sussex.”
[514] From “Sussex.”
[515] Lord John George Beresford.
[516] G. V. Watts, R.A.
[517] Henry Fuseli or Fuessli, an Anglo-Swiss.
[518] The famous J. M. W. Turner.
[519] The Marquises of Sligo are Earls of Altamont.
[520] From “The Gurneys of Earlham.”
[521] Carlyle.
[522] Chateaubriand.
[523] From “North-Western France.”
[524] From “North-Western France.”
[525] From “North-Western France.”
[526] From “North-Western France.”
[527] From “Biographical Sketches.”
[528] Alas! this was actually the case a very few months afterwards. The
dear Canon Venables died of influenza on the 5th of March 1895, and his
gentle loving wife only survived him _one day_.
[529] She was daughter of an Earl of Thanet.
[530] Shakspeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
[531] “Whose voice seemed faint through long disuse of speech.”
[532] Of “Diana Tempest,” &c.
[533] In “The High Tide in Lincolnshire.”
[534] Philip Henry, 4th Earl.
[535] Jerome K. Jerome.
[536] Memoires de “Madame.”
[537] “John Inglesant.”
[538] Henri Frederic Amiel.
[539] Louisa May, daughter of Amos Bronson Alcott.
[540] In three years the sale amounted to 87,000 copies.
[541] Daughter of Rev. Edward Payson, afterwards Mrs. Hopkins.
[542] Thomas Hardy, the novelist, resides at Max Gale, near Dorchester,
amid the scenery of his Wessex novels and stories.
[543] Mrs. Beecher Stowe in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
[544] The others were Lady Wellesley, Lady Stafford, and Mrs. M’Tavish.
[545] Bought out of a cart in Paris, died 1753.
[546] The second saying, ‘I have been here three months, and have seen a
little;’--the third, ‘I have been here three years, and am only
beginning to understand it.’
[547] Alfred Tennyson in 1892.
[548] George Eliot’s Letters.
[549] This very popular and promising son of Lord Carlisle was killed at
the battle of Omdurman, September 2, 1898.
[550] Wordsworth.
[551] Coleridge, ‘Fears in Solitude.’
[552] “Arridet placidum radiis crispantibus aequor.”--_Rutilius._
[553] Lady Winchelsea’s “Reverie.”
[554] Eccl. vii. 29.
[555] De Musset.
[556] Author of “A Lilac Sun-Bonnet,” &c.
[557] Author of “A Window in Thrums,” which brought him £4000.
[558] Madame de Staël.
[559] Afterwards bought by his descendant for £8000.
[560] Killed, alas! in the South African War of 1900.
[561] Died 1839.
[562] The American edition, omitting nothing and doing full justice to
the woodcuts, is in two rather thin volumes.
[563] Washington Irving’s Letters.
[564] Anthony Hope in “Mr. Witt’s Widow.”
[565] _Née_ De Bunsen.
[566] Said by Wasisewski of Catherine II. of Russia.
[567] Florence Montgomery in “Colonel Norton.”
[568] “Colonel Norton.”
[569] See Vol. i.
[570] Elisée Reclus.
[571] Carlyle.
[572] Rev. Joseph Parker.
[573] Burns.
[574] John Bright.
[575] Purg. v. 13-15.
[576] Browning.
[577] Of 60 Grosvenor Street.
[578] Tennyson.
[579] Pierre Loti.
[580] Frances, daughter of Pierce Butler of Philadelphia by Fanny
Kemble, his wife, married to the Hon. James Wentworth Leigh, Dean of
Hereford.
[581] Politian.
[582] Henry Taylor, “The Eve of the Conquest.”
[583] Catherine Stanley--Mrs. C. Vaughan.
[584] S. Simon.
[585] Trans. by Lowell.
[586] “Von dem Fesseln geistiger Berniertheit.”--_Goethe._
[587] Gabrielle d’Annunzio.
[588] Tennyson.
[589] Margaret L. Woods.
[590] “Nich. Brome slew ye minister of Baddesley church, findynge him in
his pier (parlour) chockinge his wife under ye chinne, and to expiate
these bloody offences and crimes, he built ye steeple and raysed ye
church body 10 foote higher, as is seene at this day in ye churche, and
boughte 3 belles for ye same churche. In his epitaph in ye churche, ye
building of ye churche and steeple was expressed; he died ye 29 daye of
August, ano 1517. I have seen ye king’s pdon for itt, and ye Pope’s
pdon, and the penance there enjoined him.”--_MS. of Henry Ferrers,
quoted by Dugdale_. (Nich. Brome really died October 1517.)
[591] “Quiet Hours.”
[592] Johnson on Levett.
[593] Shakspeare, ‘King Lear.’
[594] See vol. i. p. 186.
[595] Lowell.
[596] Whittier.
[597] S. T. Coleridge, Letter to Thomas Poole.
[598] Old Play.
[599] George Eliot.
[600] J. Greenleaf Whittier, Letters, 1867.
[601] “Roderick.”
[602] Blake.
[603] Henri Frédéric Amiel.
[604] From the Introduction to the Bùstàn of Shaikh Mushlihu-d-dín Sa’di
Shírází. Translated by Sir E. Strachey.
[605] E. Spenser.
* * * * *
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
Cosa e questo?=> Cosa è questo? {pg 88}
Le Notre=> Le Nôtre {pg 414}
insufficently=> insufficiently {pg 415}
Pius IX., Giovanni Maria Mastai-Feretti, Pope=> Pius IX., Giovanni Maria
Mastai-Ferretti, Pope {index}
Eugéne Beauharnais, Prince, i. 20.=> Eugène Beauharnais, Prince, i. 20.
{index}
Lubeck, v. 98.=> Lübeck, v. 98. {index}
Le Notre=> Le Nôtre {pg 414}
Riano, Emilia de Guyangos, Madame de, iv. 40, 41, 400; v. 277, 281.=>
Riaño, Emilia de Guyangos, Madame de, iv. 40, 41, 400; v. 277, 281.
{index}
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