Title: The Story of My Life, volumes 1-3
Author: Augustus J. C. Hare
Release date: March 16, 2011 [eBook #35589]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of
public domain material from the Internet Archive.)
VOLUMES 1-3
Georgiana Hare NaylorBY
AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE
AUTHOR OF "MEMORIALS OF A QUIET LIFE,"
"THE STORY OF TWO NOBLE LIVES,"
ETC. ETC.
LONDON
GEORGE ALLEN, 156, CHARING CROSS ROAD
1896
[All rights reserved]
Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
At the Ballantyne Press
TABLE OF CONTENTS
| Contents of Volume 1 List of Illustrations Volume 1 Contents of Volume 2 List of Illustrations Volume 2 Contents of Volume 3 List of Illustrations Volume 3 Index to Volumes 1-3 Footnotes |
VOLUME 1
IN the autumn of 1878, the desire to comfort and amuse one of my kindest friends during hours of wearing pain and sickness induced me to begin writing down some of the reminiscences of my life. As almost all those who shared my earlier interests and affections had passed away, I fancied at first that it would be impossible to rescue anything like a connected story from "the great shipwreck of Time." But solitude helps remembrance; and as I went on opening old letters and journals with the view of retracing my past life, it seemed to unfold itself to memory, and I found a wonderful interest in following once more the old track, with its almost forgotten pleasures and sorrows, though often reminded of the story of the old man who, when he heard for the first time the well-known adage, "Hell is paved with good intentions," added promptly, "Yes, and roofed with lost opportunities."
Many will think mine has been a sad life. But, as A. H. Mackonochie said, "No doubt our walk through this little world is through much fog and darkness and many alarms, but it is wonderful, when one looks back, to see how little the evils of life have been allowed to leave real marks upon our course, or upon our present state."
And besides this, Time is always apt to paint the long-ago in fresh colours, making what was nothing less than anguish at the time quite light and trivial in the retrospect; sweeping over and effacing the greater number of griefs, joys, and friendships; though ever and anon picking out some unexpected point as a fixed and lasting landmark. "Le Temps, vieillard divin, honore et blanchit tout."
Many, doubtless, who read these pages, may themselves recollect, or may remember having heard others give, a very different impression of the persons described. But, as the old Italian proverb says, "Every bird sings its own note," and I only give my own opinion. Pope reminds us that—
"'Tis with our judgments as our watches—none
Go just alike—yet each believes his own."
And after all, "De mortuis omnia" is perhaps a wholesomer motto than "Nil nisi bonum," and if people believed it would be acted upon, their lives would often be different. While one is just, however, one ought to remember that nothing can be more touching or pathetic than the helplessness of the dead. "Speak of me as I am," says Othello, "nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice."
Since I have latterly seen more of what is usually called "the world"—the little world which considers the great world its satellite—and of the different people who compose it, the later years I have described will probably be the most interesting to such as care to read what I have written. I have myself, I think, gradually learnt what an "immense folio life is, requiring the utmost attention to be read and understood as it ought to be."[1] But to me, my earlier years will always seem far the most important, the years throughout which my dearest mother had a share in every thought and was the object of every act. To many, my up-bringing will probably appear very odd, and I often feel myself how unsuited it was to my character, and how little that character or my own tastes and possible powers were consulted in considerations of my future. Still, when from middle life one overlooks one's youth as one would a plain divided into different fields from a hill-top, when "la vérité s'est fait jour," one can discern the faulty lines and trace the mistakes which led to them, but one cannot even then see the difficulties and perplexities which caused inevitable errors of judgment in those who could not see the end when they were thinking about the beginning. Therefore, though there is much in the earlier part of my life which I should wish to rearrange if I could plan it over again, I am sure that the little which may be good in me is due to the loving influence which watched over my childhood, whilst my faults are only my own. In the latter years of her life, my dear adopted mother and I became constantly more closely united. The long period of sickness and suffering, which others may have fancied to be trying, only endeared her to me a thousandfold, and since the sweet eyes closed and the gentle voice was hushed for ever in November 1870, each solitary year has only seemed like another page in an unfinished appendix.
I once heard a lady say that "biographies are either lives or stuffed animals," and there is always a danger of their being only the latter. But, as Carlyle tells us, "a true delineation of the smallest man and the scene of his pilgrimage through life is capable of interesting the greatest man, and human portraits, faithfully drawn, are of all pictures the welcomest on human walls." It is certainly in proportion as a biography is human or individual that it can have any lasting interest. Also, "Those relations are commonly of the most value in which the writer tells his own story."[2]
I have allowed this story to tell itself when it was possible by means of contemporary letters and journals, convinced that they at least express the feeling of the moment to which they narrate, and that they cannot possibly be biassed by the after-thoughts under the influence of which most autobiographies are written, and in which "la mémoire se plie aux fantasies de l'amour propre."
My story is a very long one, and though only, as Sir C. Bowen would have called it, "a ponderous biography of nobody," is told in great—most people will say in far too much—detail. But to me it seems as if it were in the petty details, not in the great results, that the real interest of every existence lies. I think, also, though it may be considered a strange thing to say, that the true picture of a whole life—at least an English life—has never yet been painted, and certainly all the truth of such a picture must come from its delicate touches. Then, though most readers of this story will only read parts of it, they are sure to be different parts.
The book doubtless contains a great deal of esprit des autres, for I have a helpless memory for sentences read or heard long ago, and put away somewhere in my senses, but not of when or where they were read or heard.
Many of the persons described were very important to those of their own time who might have had a serrement de cœur in reading about them. Therefore, if their contemporaries had been living, much must have remained unwritten; but, as Sydney Smith said, "We are all dead now."
Still, in looking over my MS., I have always carefully cut out everything which could hurt the feelings of living persons: and I believe very little remains which can even ruffle their sensibilities.
| PAGE | |
| ANTECEDENTS | 1 |
| CHILDHOOD | 43 |
| BOYHOOD | 170 |
| LYNCOMBE | 247 |
| SOUTHGATE | 297 |
| OXFORD LIFE | 402 |
| The illustrations may be viewed enlarged by clicking on them.
In order to ease the flow of reading, some of the illustrations have been moved to before or after the paragraph in which they appeared in the book. (note of etext transcriber) |
| GEORGIANA, MRS. HARE NAYLOR. (Photogravure) | Frontispiece |
| PAGE | |
| HURSTMONCEAUX CASTLE. (Full-page woodcut) | To face 4 |
| GLAMIS CASTLE | 22 |
| AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE WITH LUCIA CECINELLI. (Photogravure) | To face 50 |
| HURSTMONCEAUX RECTORY | 55 |
| LIME | 58 |
| FRANCIS G. HARE. (Photogravure) | To face 84 |
| HURSTMONCEAUX CASTLE | 93 |
| THE DRAWING-ROOM AT LIME | 101 |
| RUIN IN THE PALACE GARDEN, NORWICH | 117 |
| THE CHAPEL DOOR, NORWICH | 119 |
| STOKE RECTORY—THE APPROACH | 126 |
| REV. O. LEYCESTER. (Photogravure) | To face 128 |
| PETSEY | 132 |
| STOKE CHURCH | 136 |
| STOKE RECTORY—THE GARDEN SIDE | 141 |
| HURSTMONCEAUX | 165 |
| THE VESTRY, HURSTMONCEAUX | 188 |
| LEWES | 195 |
| AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE. From S. Lawrence. (Photogravure) | To face 202 |
| REV. O. LEYCESTER'S GRAVE, STOKE CHURCHYARD | 208 |
| EDWARD STANLEY, BISHOP OF NORWICH. (Photogravure) | To face 232 |
| THE TOWER AT ROCKEND, TORQUAY | 252 |
| WILMINGTON PRIORY | 257 |
| FLOWERS GREEN, HURSTMONCEAUX | 259 |
| THE RYE GATE, WINCHELSEA | 290 |
| IN ST. HELEN'S, BISHOPSGATE | 336 |
| LE TOMBEAU NAPOLEON | 349 |
| CANON STANLEY'S HOUSE, CANTERBURY | 358 |
| SITE OF BECKET'S SHRINE, CANTERBURY | 361 |
| STEPS AT LIME | 367 |
| LIME, THE APPROACH | 410 |
| ARCHDEACON HARE'S STUDY, HURSTMONCEAUX RECTORY | 466 |
| JULIUS C. HARE. From Richmond. (Photogravure) | To face 468 |
| HURSTMONCEAUX CHURCH | 483 |
| LIME, FROM THE GARDEN | 491 |
| ALFRISTON | 506 |
"Time doth consecrate;
And what is grey with age becomes religion."—SCHILLER.
"I hope I may be able to tell the truth always, and to see it aright, according to the eyes which God Almighty gives me."—THACKERAY.
IN 1727, the year of George the First's death, Miss Grace Naylor of Hurstmonceaux, though she was beloved, charming, and beautiful, died very mysteriously in her twenty-first year, in the immense and weird old castle of which she had been the heiress. She was affirmed to have been starved by her former governess, who lived alone with her, but the fact was never proved. Her property passed to her first cousin Francis Hare (son of her aunt Bethaia), who forthwith assumed the name of Naylor.
The new owner of Hurstmonceaux was the only child of the first marriage of that Francis Hare, who, through the influence first of the Duke of Marlborough (by whose side, then a chaplain, he had ridden on the battle-fields of Blenheim and Ramilies), and afterwards of his family connections the Pelhams and Walpoles, rose to become one of the richest and most popular pluralists of his age. Yet he had to be contented at last with the bishoprics of St. Asaph and Chichester, with each of which he held the Deanery of St. Paul's, the Archbishopric of Canterbury having twice just escaped him.
The Bishop's eldest son Francis was "un facheux détail de notre famille," as the grandfather of Madame de Maintenon said of his son. He died after a life of the wildest dissipation, without leaving any children by his wife Carlotta Alston, who was his stepmother's sister. So the property of Hurstmonceaux went to his half-brother Robert, son of the Bishop's second marriage with Mary-Margaret Alston, heiress of the Vatche in Buckinghamshire, and of several other places besides. Sir Robert Walpole had been the godfather of Robert Hare-Naylor, and presented him with a valuable sinecure office as a christening present, and he further made the Bishop urge the Church as the profession in which father and godfather could best aid the boy's advancement. Accordingly Robert took orders, obtained a living, and was made a Canon of Winchester. While he was still very young, his father had further secured his fortunes by marrying him to the heiress who lived nearest to his mother's property of the Vatche, and, by the beautiful Sarah Selman (daughter of the owner of Chalfont St. Peter's, and sister of Mrs. Lefevre), he had two sons—Francis and Robert, and an only daughter Anna Maria, afterwards Mrs. Bulkeley. In the zenith of her youth and loveliness, however, Sarah Hare died very suddenly from eating ices when overheated at a ball, and soon afterwards Robert married a second wife—the rich Henrietta Henckel, who pulled down Hurstmonceaux Castle. She did this because she was jealous of the sons of her predecessor, and wished to build a large new house, which she persuaded her husband to settle upon her own children, who were numerous, though only two daughters lived to any great age. But she was justly punished, for when Robert Hare died, it was discovered that the great house which Wyatt had built for Mrs. Hare, and which is now known as Hurstmonceaux Place, was erected upon entailed land, so that the house stripped of furniture, and the property shorn of its most valuable farms, passed to Francis Hare-Naylor, son of Miss Selman. Mrs. Henckel Hare lived on to a great age, and when "the burden of her years came on her" she repented of her avarice and injustice, and coming back to Hurstmonceaux in childish senility, would wander round and round the castle ruins in the early morning and late evening, wringing her hands and saying—"Who could have done such a wicked thing: oh! who could have done such a wicked thing, as to pull down this beautiful old place?" Then her daughters, Caroline and Marianne, walking beside her, would say—"Oh dear mamma, it was you who did it, it was you yourself who did it, you know"—and she would despairingly resume—"Oh no, that is impossible: it could not have been me. I could not have done such a wicked thing: it could not have been me that did it." My cousin Marcus Hare had at Abbots Kerswell a picture of Mrs. Henckel Hare, which was always surrounded with crape bows.
The second Francis Hare-Naylor and his brother Robert had a most unhappy home in their boyhood. Their stepmother ruled their weak-minded father with a rod of iron. She ostentatiously burnt the portrait of their beautiful mother. Every year she sold a farm from his paternal inheritance and spent the money in extravagance. In 1784 she parted with the ancient property of Hos Tendis, at Sculthorpe in Norfolk, though its sale was a deathblow to the Bishop's aged widow, Mary-Margaret Alston. Yet, while accumulating riches for herself, she prevented her husband from allowing his unfortunate elder sons more than £100 a year apiece. With this income, Robert, the younger of the two, was sent to Oriel College at Oxford, and when he unavoidably incurred debts there, the money for their repayment was stopped even from his humble pittance.
Goaded to fury by his stepmother, the eldest son, Francis, became reckless and recklessly extravagant. He raised money at an enormous rate of interest upon his prospects from the Hurstmonceaux estates, and he would have been utterly ruined, morally as well as outwardly, if he had not fallen in with Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, who was captivated by his good looks, charmed by his boldness and wit, and who made him the hero of a living romance. By the Duchess he was introduced to her cousin, another even more beautiful Georgiana, daughter of Jonathan Shipley, Bishop of St. Asaph, and his wife Anna Maria Mordaunt, niece of the famous Earl of Peterborough; and though Bishop Shipley did everything he could to separate them, meetings were perpetually connived at by the Duchess, till eventually the pair eloped in 1785. The families on both sides renounced them with fury. The Canon of Winchester never saw his son again, and I believe that Bishop Shipley never saw his daughter. Our grandparents went to Carlsruhe, and then to Italy, where in those days it was quite possible to live upon the £200 a year which was allowed them by the Duchess of Devonshire, and where their four sons—Francis, Augustus, Julius, and Marcus—were born.
The story of Mrs. Hare-Naylor's struggling life in Italy is told in "Memorials of a Quiet Life," and how, when the Canon of Winchester died, and she hurried home with her husband to take possession of Hurstmonceaux Place, she brought only her little Augustus with her, placing him under the care of her eldest sister Anna Maria, widow of the celebrated Sir William Jones, whom he ever afterwards regarded as a second mother.
The choice of guardians which Mrs. Hare-Naylor made for the children whom she left at Bologna would be deemed a very strange one by many: but gifted, beautiful, and accomplished, our grandmother was never accustomed either to seek or to take advice: she always acted upon her own impulses, guided by her own observation. An aged Spanish Jesuit was living in Bologna, who, when his order was suppressed in Spain, had come to reside in Italy upon his little pension, and, being skilled in languages, particularly in Greek, had taken great pains to revive the love of it in Bologna. Amongst his pupils were two brothers named Tambroni, one of whom, discouraged by the difficulties he met with, complained to his sister Clotilda, who, by way of assisting him, volunteered to learn the same lessons. The old Jesuit was delighted with the girl, and spared no pains to make her a proficient. Female professors were not unknown in Bologna, and in process of time Clotilda Tambroni succeeded to the chair of the Professor of Greek, once occupied by the famous Laura Bassi, whom she was rendered worthy to succeed by her beauty as well as by her acquirements. The compositions of Clotilda Tambroni both in Greek and Italian were published, and universally admired; her poems surprised every one by their fire and genius, and her public orations were considered unrivalled in her age. Adored by all, her reputation was always unblemished. When the French became masters of Bologna, the University was suppressed, and to avoid insult and danger, Clotilda Tambroni retired into private life and lived in great seclusion. Some time after, she received an appointment in Spain, but, just as she arrived there, accompanied by her monk-preceptor Dom Emmanuele Aponte, the French had overturned everything. The pair returned to Bologna, where Aponte would have been in the greatest distress, if his grateful pupil had not insisted upon receiving him into her own house, and not only maintained him, but devoted herself as a daughter to his wants. After the Austrians had re-established the University on the old system, Clotilda Tambroni was invited to resume her chair, but as her health and spirits were then quite broken, she declined accepting it, upon which the Government very handsomely settled a small pension upon her, sufficient to ensure her the comforts of life.
With Clotilda Tambroni and her aged friend, our grandmother Mrs. Hare-Naylor, who wrote and spoke Greek as perfectly as her native language, and who taught her children to converse in it at the family repasts, naturally found more congenial companionship than with any other members of the Bolognese society; and, when she was recalled with her husband to England, she had no hesitation in intrusting three of her sons to their care. Julius and Marcus were then only very beautiful and engaging little children, but Francis, my father, was already eleven years old, and a boy of extraordinary acquirements, in whom an almost unnatural amount of learning had been implanted and fostered by his gifted mother. The strange life which he then led at Bologna with the old monk and the beautiful sibyl (for such she is represented in her portrait) who attended him, only served to ripen the seed which had been sown already, and the great Mezzofanti, who was charmed at seeing a repetition of his own marvellous powers in one so young, voluntarily took him as a pupil and devoted much of his time to him. To the year which Francis Hare passed with Clotilda Tambroni at Bologna, in her humble rooms with their tiled floors and scanty furniture, he always felt that he owed that intense love of learning for learning's sake which was the leading characteristic of his after life, and he always looked back upon the Tambroni as the person to whom, next to his mother, he was most deeply indebted. When he rejoined his parents at Hurstmonceaux, he continued, under his new tutor, Dr. Lehmann, to make such amazing progress as astonished all who knew him and was an intense delight to his mother.
Hurstmonceaux Place was then, and is still, a large but ugly house. It forms a massy square, with projecting circular bows at the corners, the appearance of which (due to Wyatt) produces a frightful effect outside, but is exceedingly comfortable within. The staircase, the floors, and the handsome doors, were brought from the castle. The west side of the house, decorated with some Ionic columns, is part of an older manor-house, which existed before the castle was dismantled. In this part of the building is a small old panelled hall, hung round with stags' horns from the ancient deer-park. The house is surrounded by spacious pleasure-grounds. Facing the east front were, till a few years ago, three very fine trees, a cedar, a tulip-tree, and a huge silver fir. In my childhood it often used to be a question which of these trees should be removed, as they were crowding and spoiling each other, and it ended in their all being left, as no one could decide which was the least valuable of the three. The wind has since that time carried away the cedar. The tulip-tree was planted by our great-aunt Marianne, daughter of Mrs. Henckel Hare, and I remember that my uncle Julius used to say that its gay flowers were typical of her and her dress.
For several years our grandparents carried on a most laborious contest of dignity with poverty on their ruined estate of Hurstmonceaux, where their only daughter Anna Maria Clementina was born in 1799. Finding no congenial associates in the neighbourhood, Mrs. Hare-Naylor consoled herself by keeping up an animated correspondence with all the learned men of Europe, while her husband wrote dull plays and duller histories, which have all been published, but which few people read then and nobody reads now. The long-confirmed habits of Italian life, with its peculiar hours and utter disregard of appearances, were continued in Sussex; and it is still remembered at Hurstmonceaux how our grandmother rode on an ass to drink at the mineral springs which abound in the park, how she always wore white, and how a beautiful white doe always accompanied her in her walks, and even to church, standing, during the service, at her pew door.
Upon the return of Lehmann to Germany in 1802, Francis Hare was sent to the tutorship of Dr. Brown, an eminent professor in Marischal College at Aberdeen, where he remained for two years, working with the utmost enthusiasm. He seems to have shrunk at this time from any friendships with boys of his own age, except with Harry Temple (afterwards celebrated as Lord Palmerston), who had been his earliest acquaintance in England, and with whom he long continued to be intimate. Meanwhile his mother formed the design of leaving to her children a perfect series of large finished water-colour drawings, representing all the different parts of Hurstmonceaux Castle, interior as well as exterior, before its destruction. She never relaxed her labour and care till the whole were finished, but the minute application, for so long a period, seriously affected her health and produced disease of the optic nerve, which ended in total blindness. She removed to Weimar, where the friendship of the Grand Duchess and the society of Goethe, Schiller, and the other learned men who formed the brilliantly intellectual circle of the little court did all that was possible to mitigate her affliction. But her health continued to fail, and her favourite son Francis was summoned to her side, arriving in time to accompany her to Lausanne, where she expired, full of faith, hope, and resignation, on Easter Sunday, 1806.
After his wife's death, Mr. Hare-Naylor could never bear to return to Hurstmonceaux, and sold the remnant of his ancestral estate for £60,000, to the great sorrow of his children. They were almost more distressed, however, by his second marriage to a Mrs. Mealey, a left-handed connection of the Shipley family—the Mrs. Hare-Naylor of my own childhood, who was less and less liked by her stepsons as years went on. She became the mother of three children, Georgiana, Gustavus, and Reginald—my half aunt and uncles. In 1815, Mr. Hare-Naylor died at Tours, and was buried at Hurstmonceaux.
The breaking up of their home, the loss of their beloved mother, and still more their father's second marriage, made the four Hare brothers turn henceforward for all that they sought of sympathy or affection to their Shipley relations. The house of their mother's eldest sister, Lady Jones, was henceforward the only home they knew. Little Anna Hare was adopted by Lady Jones, and lived entirely with her till her early death in 1813: Augustus was educated at her expense and passed his holidays at her house of Worting, her care and anxiety for his welfare proving that she considered him scarcely less her child than Anna; and Francis and Julius looked up to her in everything, and consulted her on all points, finding in her "a second mother, a monitress wise and loving, both in encouragement and reproof."[3] While Augustus was pursuing his education at Winchester and New College, and Marcus was acting as midshipman and lieutenant in various ships on foreign service; and while Julius (who already, during his residence with his mother at Weimar, had imbibed that passion for Germany and German literature which characterised his after life) was carrying off prizes at Tunbridge, the Charter House, and Trinity College, Cambridge; Francis, after his mother's death, was singularly left to his own devices. Mr. Hare-Naylor was too apathetic, and his stepmother did not dare to interfere with him: Lady Jones was bewildered by him. After leaving Aberdeen he studied vigorously, even furiously, with a Mr. Michell at Buckland. From time to time he went abroad, travelling where he pleased and seeing whom he pleased. At the Universities of Leipsic and Göttingen the report which Lehmann gave of his extraordinary abilities procured him an enthusiastic reception, and he soon formed intimacies with the most distinguished professors of both seats of learning. At the little court of Weimar he was adored. Yet the vagaries of his character led him with equal ardour to seek the friendship and share the follies of Count Calotkin, of whom he wrote as "the Lord Chesterfield of the time, who had had more princesses in love with him and perhaps more children on the throne than there are weeks in the year." At twenty, he had not only all the knowledge, but more than all the experiences, of most men of forty. Such training was not a good preparation for his late entrance at an English University. The pupil of Mezzofanti and Lehmann also went to Christ Church at Oxford knowing far too much. He was so far ahead of his companions, and felt such a profound contempt for the learning of Oxford compared with that to which he had been accustomed at the Italian and German universities, that he neglected the Oxford course of study altogether, and did little except hunt whilst he was at college. In spite of this, he was so naturally talented, that he could not help adding, in spite of himself, to his vast store of information. Jackson, Dean of Christ Church in his time, used to say that "Francis Hare was the only rolling stone he knew that ever gathered any moss." That which he did gather was always made the most of for his favourite brother Julius, for whose instruction he was never weary of writing essays, and in whose progress he took the greatest interest and delight. But through all the changes of life the tie between each of the four brothers continued undiminished—"the most brotherly of brothers," their common friend Landor always used to call them.
After leaving Oxford, my father lived principally at his rooms in the Albany. Old Dr. Wellesley[4] used often to tell me stories of these pleasant chambers (the end house in the court), and of the parties which used to meet in them, including all that was most refined and intellectual in the young life of London. For, in his conversational powers, Francis Hare had the reputation of being perfectly unrivalled, and it was thus, not in writing, that his vast amount of information on all possible subjects became known to his contemporaries. In 1811, Lady Jones writes of him "at Stowe" as "keeping all the talk to himself, which does not please the old Marquis much."
Francis Hare sold his father's fine library at Christie's soon after his death, yet almost immediately began to form a new collection of books, which soon surrounded all the walls of his Albany chambers. But his half-sister Mrs. Maurice remembered going to visit him at the Albany, and her surprise at not seeing his books. "Oh, Francis, what have you done with your library?" she exclaimed. "Look under the sofa and you will see it," he replied. She looked, and saw a pile of Sir William Jones's works: he had again sold all the rest. And through life it was always the same. He never could resist collecting valuable books, and then either sold them, or had them packed up, left them behind, and forgot all about them. Three of his collections of books have been sold within my remembrance, one at Newbury in July 1858; one at Florence in the spring of 1859; and one at Sotheby & Wilkinson's rooms in the following November.
Careful as to his personal appearance, Francis Hare was always dressed in the height of the fashion. It is remembered how he would retire and change his dress three times in the course of a single ball! In everything he followed the foibles of the day. "Francis leads a rambling life of pleasure and idleness," wrote his cousin Anna Maria Dashwood; "he must have read, but who can tell at what time?—for wherever there is dissipation, there is Francis in its wake and its most ardent pursuer. Yet, in spite of this, let any subject be named in society, and Francis will know more of it than nineteen out of twenty."
In 1816-17, Francis Hare kept horses and resided much at Melton Mowbray, losing an immense amount of money there. After this time he lived almost entirely upon the Continent. Lord Desart, Lord Bristol and Count d'Orsay were his constant companions and friends, so that it is not to be wondered at that attractions of a less reputable kind enchained him to Florence and Rome. He had, however, a really good friend in John Nicholas Fazakerley, with whom his intimacy was never broken, and in 1814, whilst watching his dying father at Tours, he began a friendship with Walter Savage Landor, with whom he ever afterwards kept up an affectionate correspondence. Other friends of whom he saw much in the next few years were Lady Oxford (then separated from her husband, and living entirely abroad) and her four daughters. In the romantic interference of Lady Oxford in behalf of Caroline Murat, queen of Naples, and in the extraordinary adventures of her daughters, my father took the deepest interest, and he was always ready to help or advise them. On one occasion, when they arrived suddenly in Florence, he gave a ball in their honour, the brilliancy of which I have heard described by the older Florentine residents of my own time. Twice every week, even in his bachelor days, he was accustomed to give large dinner-parties, and he then first acquired that character for hospitality for which he was afterwards famous at Rome and Pisa. Spa was one of the places which attracted him most at this period of his life, and he frequently passed part of the summer there. It was on one of these occasions (1816) that he proceeded to Holland and visited Amsterdam. "I am delighted and disgusted with this mercantile capital," he wrote to his brother Augustus. "Magnificent establishments and penurious economy—ostentatious generosity and niggardly suspicion—constitute the centrifugal and centripetal focus of Holland's mechanism. The rage for roots still continues. The gardener at the Hortus Medicus showed me an Amaryllis (alas! it does not flower till October), for which King Lewis paid one thousand guelders (a guelder is about 2 francs and 2 sous). Here, in the sanctuary of Calvinism, organs are everywhere introduced—though the more orthodox, or puerile, discipline of Scotland has rejected their intrusion. But, in return, the sternness of republican demeanour refuses the outward token of submission—even to Almighty power: a Dutchman always remains in church with his hat unmoved from his head."
The year 1818 was chiefly passed by Francis Hare in Bavaria, where he became very intimate with the King and Prince Eugene. The latter gave him the miniature of himself which I still have at Holmhurst. For the next seven years he was almost entirely in Italy—chiefly at Florence or Pisa. Sometimes Lord Dudley was with him, often he lived for months in the constant society of Count d'Orsay and Lady Blessington. He was fêted and invited everywhere. "On disait de M. Hare," said one who knew him intimately, "non seulement qu'il était original, mais qu'il était original sans copie." "In these years at Florence," said the same person, "there were many ladies who were aspirants for his hand, he was si aimable, pas dans le sens vulgaire, mais il avait tant d'empressement pour tout le sexe feminin." His aunts Lady Jones and her sister Louisa Shipley constantly implored him to return to England and settle there, but in vain: he was too much accustomed to a roving life. Occasionally he wrote for Reviews, but I have never been able to trace the articles. He had an immense correspondence, and his letters were very amusing, when their recipients could read his almost impossible hand. We find Count d'Orsay writing, apropos of a debt which he was paying—"Employez cette somme à prendre un maître d'écriture: si vous saviez quel service vous renderiez à vos amis!"
The English family of which Francis Hare saw most at Florence was that of Lady Paul, who had brought her four daughters to spend several years in Italy, partly for the sake of completing their education, partly to escape with dignity from the discords of a most uncongenial home. To the close of her life Frances Eleanor, first wife of Sir John Dean Paul of Rodborough, was one of those rare individuals who are never seen without being loved, and who never fail to have a good influence over those with whom they are thrown in contact. That she was as attractive as she was good is still shown in a lovely portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence. Landor adored her, and rejoiced to bring his friend Francis Hare into her society. The daughters were clever, lively and animated; but the mother was the great attraction to the house.
Defoe says that "people who boast of their ancestors are like potatoes, in that their best part is in underground." Still I will explain that Lady Paul was the daughter of John Simpson of Bradley in the county of Durham, and his wife Lady Anne Lyon, second daughter of the 8th Earl of Strathmore, who quartered the royal arms and claimed royal descent from Robert II. king of Scotland, grandson of the famous Robert Bruce: the king's youngest daughter Lady Jane Stuart having married Sir John Lyon, first Baron Kinghorn, and the king's grand-daughter Elizabeth Graham (through Euphemia Stuart, Countess of Strathern) having married his son Sir John Lyon of Glamis. Eight barons and eight earls of Kinghorn and Strathmore (which title was added 1677) lived in Glamis Castle before Lady Anne was born. The family history had been of the most eventful kind. The widow of John, 6th Lord Glamis, was burnt as a witch on the Castle Hill at Edinburgh, for attempting to poison King James V., and her second husband, Archibald Campbell, was dashed to pieces while trying to escape down the rocks which form the foundation of the castle. Her son, the 7th Lord Glamis, was spared, and restored to his honours upon the confession of the accusers of the family that the whole story was a forgery, after it had already cost the lives of two innocent persons. John, 8th Lord Glamis, was killed in a Border fray with the followers of the Earl of Crawford: John, 5th Earl, fell in rebellion at the battle of Sheriffmuir: Charles, 6th Earl, was killed in a quarrel. The haunted castle of Glamis itself, the most picturesque building in Scotland, girdled with quaint pepper-box turrets, is full of the most romantic interest. A winding stair in the thickness of the wall leads to the principal apartments. The weird chamber is still shown in which, as Shakspeare narrates, Duncan, king of Scotland, was murdered by Macbeth, the "thane of Glamis." In the depth of the walls is another chamber more ghastly still, with a secret, transmitted from the fourteenth century, which is always known to three persons. When one of the triumvirate dies, the survivors are compelled by a terrible oath to elect a successor. Every succeeding Lady Strathmore, Fatima-like, has spent her time in tapping at the walls, taking up the boards, and otherwise attempting to discover the secret chamber, but all have failed. One tradition of the place says that "Old Beardie"[5] sits for ever in that chamber playing with dice and drinking punch at a stone table, and that at midnight a second and terrible person joins him.
More fearful than these traditions were the scenes through which Lady Anne had lived and in which she herself bore a share. Nothing is more extraordinary than the history of her eldest brother's widow, Mary-Eleanor Bowes, 9th Countess of Strathmore, who, in her second marriage with Mr. Stoney, underwent sufferings which have scarcely ever been surpassed, and whose marvellous escapes and adventures are still the subject of a hundred story-books.
The vicissitudes of her eventful life, and her own charm and cleverness, combined to make Lady Anne Simpson one of the most interesting women of her age, and her society was eagerly sought and appreciated. Both her daughters had married young, and in her solitude, she took the eldest daughter of Lady Paul to live with her and brought her up as her own child. In her house, Anne Paul saw all the most remarkable Englishmen of the time. She was provided with the best masters, and in her home life she had generally the companionship of the daughters of her mother's sister Lady Liddell, afterwards Lady Ravensworth, infinitely preferring their companionship to that of her own brothers and sisters. Lady Anne Simpson resided chiefly at a house belonging to Colonel Jolliffe at Merstham in Surrey, where the persons she wished to see could frequently come down to her from London. The royal dukes, sons of George III., constantly visited her in this way, and delighted in the society of the pretty old lady, who had so much to tell, and who always told it in the most interesting way.
It was a severe trial for Anne Paul, when, in her twentieth year (1821), she lost her grandmother, and had to return to her father's house. Not only did the blank left by the affection she had received cause her constant suffering, but the change from being mistress of a considerable house and establishment to becoming an insignificant unit in a large party of brothers and sisters was most disagreeable, and she felt it bitterly.
Very welcome therefore was the change when Lady Paul determined to go abroad with her daughters, and the society of Florence, in which Anne Paul's great musical talents made her a general favourite, was the more delightful from being contrasted with the confinement of Sir John Paul's house over his bank in the Strand. During her Italian travels also, Anne Paul made three friends whose intimacy influenced all her after life. These were our cousin, the clever widowed Anna Maria Dashwood, daughter of Dean Shipley; Walter Savage Landor; and Francis Hare; and the two first united in desiring the same thing—her marriage with the last.
Meantime, two other marriages occupied the attention of the Paul family. One of Lady Paul's objects in coming abroad had been the hope of breaking through an attachment which her third daughter Maria had formed for Charles Bankhead, an exceedingly handsome and fascinating, but penniless young attaché, with whom she had fallen in love at first sight, declaring that nothing should ever induce her to marry any one else. Unfortunately, the first place to which Lady Paul took her daughters was Geneva, and Mr. Bankhead, finding out where they were, came thither (from Frankfort, where he was attaché) dressed in a long cloak and with false hair and beard. In this disguise, he climbed up and looked into a room where Maria Paul was writing, with her face towards the window. She recognised him at once, but thought it was his double, and fainted away. On her recovery, finding her family still inexorable, she one day, when her mother and sisters were out, tried to make away with herself. Her room faced the stairs, and as Prince Lardoria, an old friend of the family, was coming up, she threw open the door and exclaimed—"Je meurs, Prince, je meurs, je me suis empoisonné."—"Oh Miladi, Miladi," screamed the Prince, but Miladi was not there, so he rushed into the kitchen, and seizing a large bottle of oil, dashed upstairs with it, and, throwing Maria Paul upon the ground, poured the contents of it down her throat. After this, Lady Paul looked upon the marriage as inevitable, and sent Maria to England to her aunt Lady Ravensworth, from whose house she was married to Charles Bankhead, neither her mother or sisters being present. Shortly afterwards Mr. Bankhead was appointed minister in Mexico, and his wife, accompanying him thither, remained there for many years, and had many extraordinary adventures, especially during a great earthquake, in which she was saved by her presence of mind in swinging upon a door, while "the cathedral rocked like a wave on the sea" and the town was laid in ruins.
While Maria Paul's marriage was pending, her youngest sister Jane had also become engaged, without the will of her parents, to Edward, only son of the attainted Lord Edward Fitz Gerald, son of the 1st Duke of Leinster. His mother was the famous Pamela,[6] once the beautiful and fascinating little fairy produced at eight years old by the Chevalier de Grave as the companion of Mademoiselle d'Orleans; over whose birth a mystery has always prevailed; whose name Madame de Genlis declared to be Sims, but whom her royal companions called Seymour. To her daughter Jane's engagement Lady Paul rather withheld than refused her consent, and it was hoped that during their travels abroad the intimacy might be broken off. It had begun by Jane Paul, in a ball-room, hearing a peculiarly hearty and ringing laugh from a man she could not see, and in her high spirits imprudently saying—"I will marry the man who can laugh in that way and no one else,"—a remark which was repeated to Edward Fitz Gerald, who insisted upon being immediately introduced. Jane Paul was covered with confusion, but as she was exceedingly pretty, this only added to her attractions, and the adventure led to a proposal, and eventually, through the friendship and intercession of Francis Hare, to a marriage.[7]
Already, in 1826, we find Count d'Orsay writing to Francis Hare in August—"Quel diable vous possede de rester à Florence, sans Pauls, sans rien enfin, excepté un rhume imaginaire pour excuse?" But it was not till the following year that Miss Paul began to believe he was seriously paying court to her. They had long corresponded, and his clever letters are most indescribably eccentric. They became more eccentric still in 1828, when, before making a formal proposal, he expended two sheets in proving to her how hateful the word must always had been and always would be to his nature. She evidently accepted this exordium very amiably, for on receiving her answer, he sent his banker's book to Sir John Paul, begging him to examine and see if, after all his extravagancies, he still possessed at least "fifteen hundred a year, clear of every possible deduction and charge, to spend withal, that is, four pounds a day," and to consider, if the examination proved satisfactory, that he begged to propose for the hand of his eldest daughter! Equally strange was his announcement of his engagement to his brother Augustus at Rome, casually observing, in the midst of antiquarian queries about the temples—"Apropos of columns, I am going to rest my old age on a column. Anne Paul and I are to be married on the 28th of April,"—and proceeding at once, as if he had said nothing unusual—"Have you made acquaintance yet with my excellent friend Luigi Vescovali," &c. At the same time Mrs. Dashwood wrote to Miss Paul that Francis had "too much feeling and principle to marry without feeling that he could make the woman who was sincerely attached to him happy," and that "though he has a great many faults, still, when one considers the sort of wild education he had, that he has been a sort of pet pupil of the famous or infamous Lord Bristol, one feels very certain that he must have a more than commonly large amount of original goodness (not sin, though it is the fashion to say so much on that head) to save him from having many more."
It was just before the marriage that "Victoire" (often afterwards mentioned in these volumes) came to live with Miss Paul. She had lost her parents in childhood, and had been brought up by her grandmother, who, while she was still very young, "pour assurer son avenir," sent her to England to be with Madame Girardôt, who kept a famous shop for ladies' dress in Albemarle Street. Three days after her arrival, Lady Paul came there to ask Madame Girardôt to recommend a maid for her daughter, who was going to be married, and Victoire was suggested, but she begged to remain where she was for some weeks, as she felt so lonely in a strange country, and did not like to leave the young Frenchwomen with whom she was at work. During this time Miss Paul often came to see her, and they became great friends. At last a day was fixed on which Victoire was summoned to the house "seulement pour voir," and then she first saw Lady Paul. Miss Paul insisted that when her mother asked Victoire her age, she should say twenty-two at least, as Lady Paul objected to her having any maid under twenty-eight. "Therefore," said Victoire, "when Miladi asked 'Quelle age avez vous?' j'ai répondu 'Vingt-deux ans, mais je suis devenu toute rouge, oh comme je suis devenu rouge'—et Miladi a répondu avec son doux sourire—'Ah vous n'avez pas l'habitude des mensonges?'—Oh comme cà m'a tellement frappé."[8]
My father was married to Anne Frances Paul at the church in the Strand on the 28th of April 1828. "Oh comme il y avait du monde!" said Victoire, when she described the ceremony to me. A few days afterwards a breakfast was given at the Star and Garter at Richmond, at which all the relations on both sides were present, Maria Leycester, the future bride of Augustus Hare, being also amongst the guests.
Soon after, the newly-married pair left for Holland, where they began the fine collection of old glass for which Mrs. Hare was afterwards almost famous, and then to Dresden and Carlsbad. In the autumn they returned to England, and took a London house—5 Gloucester Place, where my sister Caroline was born in 1829. The house was chiefly furnished by the contents of my father's old rooms at the Albany.
"Victoire" has given many notes of my father's character at this time. "M. Hare était sevère, mais il était juste. Il ne pouvait souffrir la moindre injustice. Il pardonnait une fois—deux fois, et puis il ne pardonnait plus, il faudrait s'en aller; il ne voudrait plus de celui qui l'avait offensé. C'était ainsi avec François, son valet à Gloucester Place, qui l'accompagnait partout et qui avait tout sous la main. Un jour M. Hare me priait, avec cette intonation de courtoisie qu'il avail, que je mettrais son linge dans les tiroirs. 'Mais, très volontiers, monsieur,' j'ai dit. Il avait beaucoup des choses—des chemises, des foulards, de tout. Eh bien! quelques jours après il me dit—'Il me manque quelques foulards—deux foulards de cette espèce'—en tirant une de sa poche, parcequ'il faisait attention à tout. 'Ah, monsieur,' j'ai dit, 'c'est très probable, en sortant peut-être dans la ville.' 'Non,' il me dit, 'ce n'est pas ça—je suis volé, et c'est François qui les a pris, et ça n'est pas la première fois,' ainsi enfin il faut que je le renvoie." It was not till long after that Victoire found out that my father had known for years that François had been robbing him, and yet had retained him in his service. He said that it was always his plan to weigh the good qualities of any of his dependants against their defects. If the defects outweighed the virtues, "il faudrait les renvoyer de suite—si non, il faudrait les laisser aller." When he was in his "colère" he never allowed his wife to come near him—"il avait peur de lui faire aucun mal."
The christening of Caroline was celebrated with great festivities, but it was like a fairy story, in that the old aunt Louisa Shipley, who was expected to make her nephew Francis her heir, then took an offence—something about being godmother, which was never quite got over. The poor little babe itself was very pretty and terribly precocious, and before she was a year old she died of water on the brain. Victoire, who doated upon her, held her in her arms for the last four-and-twenty hours, and there she died. Mrs. Hare was very much blamed for having neglected her child for society, yet, when she was dead, says Victoire, "Madame Hare avait tellement chagrin, que Lady Paul qui venait tous les jours, priait M. Hare de l'ammener tout de suite. Nous sommes allés à Bruxelles, parceque là M. FitzGerald avait une maison,—mais de là, nous sommes retournés bien vite en Angleterre à cause de la grossesse de Madame Hare, parceque M. Hare ne voulut pas que son fils soil né à l'étranger, parcequ'il disait, que, étant le troisième, il perdrait ses droits de l'héritage.[9] C'est selon la loi anglaise—et c'était vraiment temps, car, de suite en arrivant à Londres, François naquit."
The family finally left Gloucester Place and went abroad in consequence of Lady Jones's death. After that they never had a settled home again. When the household in London was broken up, Victoire was to have left. She had long been engaged to be married to Félix Ackermann, who had been a soldier, and was in receipt of a pension for his services in the Moscow campaign. But, when it came to the parting, "Monsieur et Madame" would not let her go, saying that they could not let her travel, until they could find a family to send her with. "It was an excuse," said Victoire, "for I waited two years, and the family was never found. Then I had to consigner all the things, then I could not leave Madame—and so it went on for two years more, till, when the family were at Pisa, Félix insisted that I should come to a decision. Then M. Hare sent for Félix, who had been acting as a courier for some time, and begged him to come to Florence to go with us as a courier to Baden. Félix arrived on the Jeudi Saint. M. Hare came in soon after (it was in my little room) and talked to him as if they were old friends. He brought a bottle of champagne, and poured out glasses for us all, and faisait clinquer les verres. On the Monday we all left for Milan, and there I was married to Félix, and, after the season at Baden, Félix and I were to return to Paris, but when the time came M. Hare would not let us."
"Wherever," said Victoire, "M. Hare était en passage—soit à Florence, soit à Rome, n'importe où, il faudrait toujours des diners, et des fêtes, pour recevoir M. Hare, surtout dans les ambassades, pas seulement dans l'ambassade d'Angleterre, mais dans celles de France, d'Allemagne, etc. Et quand M. Hare ne voyageait plus, et qu'il était établi dans quelque ville, il donnait à son tour des diners à lui."
"Il s'occupait toujours à lire,—pas des romans, mais des anciens livres, dans lesquelles il fouillait toujours. Quand nous voyageons, c'était toujours pour visiter les bibliothèques, ça c'était la première chose, et il emporta énormément des livres dans la voiture avec lui.... Quand il y'avait une personne qui lui avait été recommandée, il fallait toujours lui faire voir tout ce qu'il avait, soit à Rome, soit à Bologne,—et comme il savait un peu de tout, son avis était demandé pour la valeur des tableaux, et n'importe de quoi."
On first going abroad, my father had taken his wife to make acquaintance with his old friends Lady Blessington and Count d'Orsay, with whom they afterwards had frequent meetings. Lady Blessington thus describes to Landor her first impressions of Mrs. Hare:—
"Paris, Feb. 1829.—Among the partial gleams of sunshine which have illumined our winter, a fortnight's sojourn which Francis Hare and his excellent wife made here, is remembered with most pleasure. She is indeed a treasure—well-informed, clever, sensible, well-mannered, kind, lady-like, and, above all, truly feminine; the having chosen such a woman reflects credit and distinction on our friend, and the community with her has had a visible effect on him, as, without losing any of his gaiety, it has become softened down to a more mellow tone, and he appears not only a more happy man, but more deserving of happiness than before."
My second brother, William Robert, was born September 20, 1831, at the Bagni di Lucca, where the family was spending the summer. Mrs. Louisa Shipley meanwhile never ceased to urge their return to England.
"Jan. 25, 1831.—I am glad to hear so good an account of my two little great-nephews, but I should be still more glad to see them. I do hope the next may be a girl. If Francis liked England for the sake of being with old friends, he might live here very comfortably, but if he will live as those who can afford to make a show, for one year of parade in England he must be a banished man for many years. I wish he would be as 'domestic' at home as he is abroad!"
In the summer of 1832 all the family went to Baden-Baden, to meet Lady Paul and her daughter Eleanor, Sir John, the FitzGeralds, and the Bankheads. All the branches of Mrs. Hare's family lived in different houses, but they met daily for dinner, and were very merry. Before the autumn, my father returned to Italy, to the Villa Cittadella near Lucca, which was taken for two months for Mrs. Hare's confinement, and there, on the 9th of October, my sister was born. She received the names of "Anne Frances Maria Louisa." "Do you mean your πολνὡνμος daughter to rival Venus in all her other qualities as well as in the multitude of her names? or has your motive been rather to recommend her to a greater number of patron saints?" wrote my uncle Julius on hearing of her birth. Just before this, Mrs. Shelley (widow of the poet and one of her most intimate friends) had written to Mrs. Hare:—
"Your accounts of your child (Francis) give me very great pleasure. Dear little fellow, what an amusement and delight he must be to you. You do indeed understand a Paradisaical life. Well do I remember the dear Lucca baths, where we spent morning and evening in riding about the country—the most prolific place in the world for all manner of reptiles. Take care of yourself, dearest friend.... Choose Naples for your winter residence. Naples, with its climate, its scenery, its opera, its galleries, its natural and ancient wonders, surpasses every other place in the world. Go thither, and live on the Chiaja. Happy one, how I envy you. Percy is in brilliant health and promises better and better.
"Have you plenty of storms at dear beautiful Lucca? Almost every day when I was there, vast white clouds peeped out from above the hills—rising higher and higher till they overshadowed us, and spent themselves in rain and tempest: the thunder, re-echoed again and again by the hills, is indescribably terrific.... Love me, and return to us—Ah! return to us! for it is all very stupid and unamiable without you. For are not you—
'That cordial drop Heaven in our cup had thrown,
To make the nauseous draught of life go down.'"
After a pleasant winter at Naples, my father and his family went to pass the summer of 1833 at Castellamare. "C'était à Castellamare" (says a note by Madame Victoire) "que Madame Hare apprit la mort de Lady Paul. Elle était sur le balcon, quand elle la lut dans le journal. J'étais dans une partie de la maison très éloignée, mais j'ai entendu un cri si fort, si aigu, que je suis arrivée de suite, et je trouvais Madame Hare toute étendue sur le parquet. J'appellais—'Au secours, au secours,' et Félix, qui était très fort, prenait Madame Hare dans ses bras, et l'apportait à mettre sur son lit, et nous l'avons donné tant des choses, mais elle n'est pas revenue, et elle restait pendant deux heures en cet état. Quand M. Hare est entré, il pensait que c'était à cause de sa grossesse. Il s'est agenouillé tout en pleurs à coté de son lit. Il demandait si je lui avais donné des lettres. 'Mais, non, monsieur; je ne l'ai pas donné qu'un journal.' On cherchait longtemps ce journal, parcequ'elle l'avait laissé tomber du balcon, mais quand il était trouvé, monsieur s'est aperçu tout de suite de ce qu'elle avait." The death of Lady Paul was very sudden; her sister Lady Ravensworth first heard of it when calling to inquire at the door in the Strand in her carriage. After expressing her sympathy in the loss of such a mother, Mrs. Louisa Shipley at this time wrote to Mrs. Hare:—
"I will now venture to call your attention to the blessings you possess in your husband and children, and more particularly to the occupation of your thoughts in the education of the latter. They are now at an age when it depends on a mother to lay the foundation of principles which they will carry with them through life. The responsibility is great, and if you feel it such, there cannot be a better means of withdrawing your mind from unavailing sorrow, than the hope of seeing them beloved and respected, and feeling that your own watchfulness of their early years, has, by the blessing of God, caused them to be so. Truth is the cornerstone of all virtues: never let a child think it can deceive you; they are cunning little creatures, and reason before they can speak; secure this, and the chief part of your work is done, and so ends my sermon."
It was in the summer of 1833, following upon her mother's death, that a plan was first arranged by which my aunt Eleanor Paul became an inmate of my father's household—the kind and excellent aunt whose devotion in all times of trouble was afterwards such a blessing to her sister and her children. Neither at first or ever afterwards was the residence of Eleanor Paul any expense in her sister's household: quite the contrary, as she had a handsome allowance from her father, and afterwards inherited a considerable fortune from an aunt.
In the autumn of 1833 my father rented the beautiful Villa Strozzi at Rome, then standing in large gardens of its own facing the grounds of the noble old Villa Negroni, which occupied the slope of the Viminal Hill looking towards the Esquiline. Here on the 13th of March 1834 I was born—the youngest child of the family, and a most unwelcome addition to the population of this troublesome world, as both my father and Mrs. Hare were greatly annoyed at the birth of another child, and beyond measure disgusted that it was another son.
"Sweete home, where meane estate
In safe assurance, without strife or hate,
Findes all things needfull for contentment meeke."—SPENSER.
"Is there not in the bosoms of the wisest and best some of the child's heart left to respond to its earliest enchantments?"—C. LAMB.
"I cannot paint to Memory's eye
The scene, the glance, I dearest love;
Unchanged themselves, in me they die,
Or faint, or false, their shadows prove."—KEBLE.
"Ce sont là les séjours, les sites, les rivages,
Dont mon âme attendrie évoque les images,
Et dont, pendant les nuits, mes songes les plus beaux
Pour enchanter mes yeux composent leurs tableaux."—LAMARTINE.
MARIA LEYCESTER had been married to my uncle Augustus Hare in June 1829. In their every thought and feeling they were united, and all early associations had combined to fit them more entirely for each other's companionship. A descendant of one of the oldest families in Cheshire, Miss Leycester's childhood and youth had been spent almost entirely in country rectories, but in such rectories as are rarely to be found, and which prove that the utmost intellectual refinement and an interest in all that is remarkable and beautiful in this world are not incompatible with the highest aspirations after a Christian and a heavenly life. Her father, Oswald Leycester, Rector of Stoke-upon-Terne in Shropshire, was a finished scholar, had travelled much, and was the most agreeable of companions. Her only sister, seven years older than herself, was married when very young to Edward Stanley, Rector of Alderley, and afterwards Bishop of Norwich, well known for the picturesqueness of his imaginative powers, for his researches in Natural History, and for that sympathy with all things bright and pleasant which preserved in him the spirit of youth quite to the close of life. Her most intimate friend, and the voluntary preceptor of her girlhood, had been the gifted Reginald Heber, who, before his acceptance of the Bishopric of Calcutta, had lived as Rector of Hodnet—the poet-rector—within two miles of her home.
One of the happy circle which constantly met at Hodnet Rectory, she had known Augustus Hare (first-cousin of Mrs. Heber, who was a daughter of Dean Shipley) since she was eighteen. Later interests and their common sorrow in Heber's death had thrown them closely together, and it would scarcely have been possible for two persons to have proved each other's characters more thoroughly than they had done, before the time of their marriage, which was not till Maria Leycester was in her thirty-first year.
Four years of perfect happiness were permitted them—years spent almost entirely in the quiet of their little rectory in the singularly small parish of Alton Barnes amid the Wiltshire downs, where the inhabitants, less than two hundred in number, living close at each other's doors, around two or three small pastures, grew to regard Augustus Hare and his wife with the affection of children for their parents. So close was the tie which united them, that, when the rich family living of Hurstmonceaux fell vacant on the death of our great-uncle Robert, Augustus Hare could not bear to leave his little Alton, and implored my father to persuade his brother Julius to give up his fellowship at Trinity and to take it instead.
"Having lived but little in the country, and his attention having been engrossed by other subjects, Augustus Hare was, from education and habits of life, unacquainted with the character and wants of the poor. The poverty of their minds, their inability to follow a train of reasoning, their prejudices and superstitions, were quite unknown to him. All the usual hindrances to dealing with them, that are commonly ascribed to a college life, were his in full force. But his want of experience and knowledge touching the minds and habits of the poor were overcome by the love he felt towards all his fellow-creatures, and his sympathy in all their concerns. In earlier days this Christ-like mind had manifested itself towards his friends, towards servants, towards all with whom he was brought in contact. It now taught him to talk to his poor parishioners and enter into their interests with the feeling of a father and a friend.... He had the power of throwing himself out of himself into the interests and feelings of others; nor did he less draw out their sympathies into his own, and make them sharers in his pleasures and his concerns. It was not only the condescension of a superior to those over whom he was placed, it was far more the mutual interchange of feeling of one who loved to forget the difference of station to which each was called, and to bring forward the brotherly union as members of one family in Christ, children of the same Heavenly Father, in which blessed equality all distinctions are done away. Often would he ask their counsel in matters of which he was ignorant, and call upon their sympathy in his thankful rejoicing. His garden, his hayfield, his house, were as it were thrown open to them, as he made them partakers of his enjoyment, or sought for their assistance in his need.... The one pattern ever before his eyes was his Lord and Master Jesus Christ; the first question he asked himself, 'What would Jesus Christ have me to do? What would He have done in my place?'
"Perfect contentedness with what was appointed for him, and deep thankfulness for all the good things given him, marked his whole being. In deciding what should be done, or where he should go, or how he should act, the question of how far it might suit his own convenience, or be agreeable to his own feelings, was kept entirely in the background till all other claims were satisfied. It was not apparently at the dictate of duty and reason that these thoughts were suppressed and made secondary: it seemed to be the first, the natural feeling in him, to seek first the things of others and to do the will of God, and to look at his own interest in the matter as having comparatively nothing to do with it. And so great a dread had he of being led to any selfish or interested views, that he would find consolation in having no family to include in the consideration—'Had I had children I might have fancied it an excuse for worldly-mindedness and covetousness.' His children truly were his fellow-men, those who were partakers of the same flesh and blood, redeemed by the same Saviour, heirs of the same heavenly inheritance. For them he was willing to spend and be spent, for them he was covetous of all the good that might be obtained.... He was never weary in well-doing, never thought he had done enough, never feared doing too much. Those small things, which by so many are esteemed as unnecessary, as not worth while, these were the very things he took care not to leave undone. It was not rendering a service when it came in his way, when it occurred in the natural course of things that he should do it; it was going out of the way to help others, taking every degree of trouble and incurring personal inconvenience for the sake of doing good, of giving pleasure even in slight things, that distinguished his benevolent activity from the common form of it. The love that dwelt in him was ready to be poured forth on whomsoever needed it, and being a free-will offering, it looked for no return, and felt no obligation conferred."
I have copied these fragments from the portrait which Augustus Hare's widow drew of his ministerial life,[10] because they afford the best clue to the way in which that life influenced hers, drawing her away from earth and setting her affections in heavenly places. And yet, though in one sense the life of Augustus Hare and his wife at Alton was one of complete seclusion, in another sense there were few who lived more for, or who had more real communion with, the scattered members of their family. Mrs. Stanley and her children, with her brother Mr. Penrhyn[11] and his wife, were sharers by letter in every trifling incident which affected their sister's life; and with his favourite brother Julius, Augustus Hare never slackened his intellectual intercourse and companionship. But even more than these was Lucy Anne Stanley,[12] the life-long friend of Maria Hare, till, in the summer of 1833, the tie of sisterhood, which had always existed in feeling, became a reality, through her marriage with Marcus Hare, the youngest of the four brothers.
A chill which Augustus Hare caught when he was in Cheshire for his brother's marriage, was the first cause of his fatal illness. It was soon after considered necessary that he should spend the winter abroad with his wife, and it was decided that they should accompany Marcus and Lucy Hare to Rome. At Genoa the illness of Augustus became alarming, but he reached Rome, and there he expired on the 14th of February 1834, full of faith and hope, and comforting those who surrounded him to the last.
My father felt his brother's loss deeply. They had little in common on many points, yet the close tie of brotherhood, which had existed between them from early days at Bologna, was such as no difference of opinion could alter, no time or absence weaken. When Augustus was laid to rest at the foot of the pyramid of Caius Cestius, my father's most earnest wish was to comfort his widowed sister-in-law, and in the hope of arousing an interest which might still give some semblance of an earthly tie to one who seemed then upon the very borderland of heaven, he entreated, when I was born in the following month, that she would become my godmother, promising that she should be permitted to influence my future in any way she pleased, and wishing that I should be called Augustus after him she had lost.
I was baptized on the 1st of April in the Villa Strozzi, by Mr. Burgess. The widow of Augustus held me in her arms, and I received the names of "Augustus John Cuthbert," the two last from my godfathers (the old Sir John Paul and Mr. Cuthbert Ellison), who never did anything for me, the first from my godmother, to whom I owe everything in the world.
Augustus J. C. Hare.Soon afterwards, my godmother returned to England, with her faithful maid Mary Lea, accompanied by the Marcus Hares. She had already decided to fix her future home in the parish of Julius, who, more than any other, was a fellow-mourner with her. As regarded me, nothing more than the tie of a godmother had to that time been thought of; but in the quiet hours of her long return journey to England, while sadly looking forward to the solitary future before her, it occurred to Augustus Hare's widow as just possible that my parents might be induced to give me up to her altogether, to live with her as her own child. In July she wrote her petition, and was almost surprised at the glad acceptance it met with. Mrs. Hare's answer was very brief—"My dear Maria, how very kind of you! Yes, certainly, the baby shall be sent as soon as it is weaned; and, if any one else would like one, would you kindly recollect that we have others."
Yet my adopting mother had stipulated that I was to be altogether hers; that my own relations were henceforward to have no claim over me whatever; that her parents were to be regarded as my grandparents, her brother and sister as my uncle and aunt.
Meantime my father took his family for the hot summer months to one of the lovely villas on the high spurs of volcanic hill, which surround picturesque romantic Siena. They had none of the English society to which they had been accustomed at Lucca Baths and at Castellamare, but the Siennese are celebrated for their hospitality, and my father's talents, famous then throughout Italy, ensured him a cordial welcome amongst the really cultivated circle which met every evening in the old mediæval palaces of the native nobility. Of English, they had the society of Mr. and Mrs. Bulwer, who were introduced by Landor, while constant intercourse with Landor himself was one of the chief pleasures which the family enjoyed during this and many succeeding years. With Francis Hare he laid the plan of many of his writings, and in his judgment and criticism he had the greatest confidence. To this he alludes in his little poem of "Sermonis Propriora:"—
"Little do they who glibly talk of vrese
Know what they talk about, and what is worse,
Think they are judges if they dare to pass
Sentence on higher heads.
The mule and ass
Know who have made them what they are, and heed
Far from the neighing of the generous steed.
Gell, Drummond, Hare, and wise and witty Ward
Knew at first sight and sound the genuine bard,
But the street hackneys, fed on nosebag bran,
Assail the poet, and defame the man."
After another winter at Rome, the family went to Lausanne, and thence my father, with my beautiful Albanese nurse, Lucia Cecinelli, took me to meet Mrs. Gayford, the English nurse sent out to fetch me by my adopted mother from Mannheim on the Rhine. There the formal exchange took place which gave me a happy and loving home. I saw my father afterwards, but he seldom noticed me. Many years afterwards I knew Mrs. Hare well and had much to do with her; but I have never at any time spoken to her or of her as a "mother," and I have never in any way regarded her as such. She gave me up wholly and entirely. She renounced every claim upon me, either of affection or interest. I was sent over to England with a little green carpet-bag containing two little white night-shirts and a red coral necklace—my whole trousseau and patrimony. At the same time it was indicated that if the Marcus Hares should also wish to adopt a child, my parents had another to dispose of: my second brother William had never at any time any share in their affections.
On reaching England I was sent first to my cousin the Dowager Countess of Strathmore, and from her house was taken (in the coach) by Mrs. Gayford to my mother—my real only mother from henceforth—at Hurstmonceaux Rectory, which at that time was as much a palace of art, from its fine collection of pictures and books, as a country rectory could be.
My adopted mother always used to say that the story of Hannah reminded her of the way in which I was given to her. She believed it was in answer to a prayer of my uncle Augustus in the cathedral at Chalons, when he dropped some money into a box "pour les femmes enceintes," because he knew how much she wished to have a child. His eldest brother's wife was then enceinte, and I was born soon afterwards.
From MY MOTHER'S JOURNAL.
"On Tuesday, August 26, 1835, my little Augustus came to me. It was about four o'clock when I heard a cry from upstairs and ran up. There was the dear child seated on Mary's (Mary Lea's) knee, without a frock. He smiled most sweetly and with a peculiar archness of expression as I went up to him, and there was no shyness. When dressed, I brought him down into the drawing-room: he looked with great delight at the pictures, the busts, and especially the bronze wolf—pointed at them, then looked round at Jule and me. When set down, he strutted along the passage, went into every room, surveyed all things in it with an air of admiration and importance, and nothing seemed to escape observation. The novelty of all around and the amusement he found at first seemed to make him forget our being strangers. The next day he was a little less at home. His features are much formed and an uncommon intelligence of countenance gives him an older look than his age: his dark eyes and eyelashes, well-formed nose and expressive mouth make his face a very pretty one; but he has at present but little hair and that very straight and light. His limbs are small and he is very thin and light, but holds himself very erect. He can run about very readily, and within a week after coming could get upstairs by himself. In talking, he seems to be backward, and except a few words and noises of animals, nothing is intelligible. Number seems to be a great charm to him—a great many apples, and acorns to be put in and out of a basket. He has great delight in flowers, but is good in only smelling at those in the garden, gathers all he can pick up in the fields, and generally has his hands full of sticks or weeds when he is out. He wants to be taught obedience, and if his way is thwarted or he cannot immediately have what he wants, he goes into a violent fit of passion. Sometimes it is soon over and he laughs again directly, but if it goes on he will roll and scream on the floor for half-an-hour together. In these cases we leave him without speaking, as everything adds to the irritation, and he must find out it is useless. But if by prevention such a fit may be avoided it is better, and Mary Lea is very ingenious in her preventing."
"Oct. 3.—Augustus improves in obedience already. His great delight is in throwing his playthings into a jug or tub of water. Having been told not to do so in my room, he will walk round the tub when full, look at Mary, then at me, and then at the tub with a most comical expression, but if called away before too long will resist the temptation. He is very impatient, but sooner quiet than at first: and a tear in one eye and a smile in the other is usually to be seen. His great delight lately has been picking up mushrooms in the fields and filling his basket."
It was in October that my mother moved from the Rectory to Lime—our own dear home for the next five-and-twenty years. Those who visit Hurstmonceaux now can hardly imagine Lime as it then was, all is so changed. The old white gabled house, with clustered chimneys and roofs rich in colour, rose in a brilliant flower-garden sheltered on every side by trees, and separated in each direction by several fields from the highroad or the lanes. On the side towards the Rectory, a drive between close walls of laurel led to the old-fashioned porch which opened into a small low double hall. The double drawing-room and the dining-room, admirably proportioned, though small, looked across the lawn, and one of the great glistening pools which belonged to an old monastery (once on the site of the house), and which lay at the foot of a very steep bank carpeted with primroses in spring. Beyond the pool was our high field, over which the stumpy spire of the church could be seen, at about a mile and a half distant, cutting the silver line of the sea. The castle was in a hollow farther still and not visible. On the right of the lawn a grass walk behind a shrubbery looked out upon the wide expanse of Pevensey Level with its ever-varying lights and shadows, and was sheltered by the immensely tall abele trees, known as "the Five Sisters of Lime," which tossed their weird arms, gleaming silver-white, far into the sky, and were a feature in all distant views of Hurstmonceaux. On the left were the offices, and a sort of enclosed court, where the dogs and cats used to play and some silver pheasants were kept, and where my dear nurse Mary Lea used to receive the endless poor applicants for charity and help, bringing in their many complaints to my mother with inimitable patience, though they were too exclusively self-contained to be ever the least grateful to her, always regarding and speaking of her and John Gidman, the butler, as "furriners, folk from the shires."
No description can give an idea of the complete seclusion of the life at Lime, of the silence which was only broken by the cackling of the poultry or the distant threshing in the barn, for the flail, as well as the sickle and scythe, were then in constant use at Hurstmonceaux, where oxen—for all agricultural purposes—occupied the position which horses hold now. No sound from the "world," in its usually accepted sense, would ever have penetrated, if it had not been for the variety of literary guests who frequented the Rectory, and one or other of whom constantly accompanied my uncle Julius when he came down, as he did every day of his life, to his sister-in-law's quiet six-o'clock dinner, returning at about eight. Of guests in our house itself there were very few, and always the same—the Norwich Stanleys; Miss Clinton, a dear friend of my mother; after a time the Maurices, and Mr. and Mrs. Pile—an Alton farmer of the better class, and his excellent wife: but there was never any variety. Yet in my boyhood I never thought it dull, and loved Lime with passionate devotion. Even in earliest childhood my dearest mother treated me completely as her companion, creating interests and amusements for me in all the natural things around, and making me so far a sharer in her own spiritual thoughts, that I have always felt a peculiar truthfulness in Wordsworth's line—
"Heaven lies about us in our infancy."
If my mother was occupied, there was always my dear "Lea" at hand, with plenty of farmhouse interests to supply, and endless homely stories of country life.
From MY MOTHER'S JOURNAL.
"Lime, Oct. 23, 1835.—My little Augustus was much astonished by the change of house, and clung to me at first as if afraid of moving away. The first evening he kissed me over and over again, as if to comfort and assure me of his affection."
"Nov. 21.—Augustus has grown much more obedient, and is ready to give his food or playthings to others. Some time ago he was much delighted with the sight of the moon, and called out 'moon, moon,' quite as if he could not help it. Next day he ran to the window to look for it, and has ever since talked of it repeatedly. At Brighton he called the lamps in the streets 'moon,' and the reflection of the candles or fire on the window he does the same. He is always merriest and most amiable when without playthings: his mind is then free to act for itself and finds its own amusement; and in proportion as his playthings are artificial and leave him nothing to do, he quarrels or gets tired of them. He takes great notice of anything of art—the flowers on the china and plates, and all kinds of pictures."
"Stoke Rectory, Jan. 7, 1836.—During our stay with the Penrhyns at Sheen, Baby was so much amused by the variety of persons and things to attract attention, that he grew very impatient and fretful if contradicted. Since we have been at Stoke he has been much more gentle and obedient, scarcely ever cries and amuses himself on the floor. He is greatly amused by his Grandpapa's playful motions and comical faces, and tries to imitate them. When the school children are singing below, he puts up his forefinger when listening and begins singing with his little voice, which is very sweet. He will sit on the bed and talk in his own way for a long time, telling about what he has seen if he has been out: his little mind seems to be working without any visible thing before it, on what is absent."
"Alderley, March 13.—My dear boy's birthday, two years old. He has soon become acquainted with his Alderley relations,[13] and learnt to call them by name. He has grown very fond of 'Aunt Titty,' and the instant she goes to her room follows her and asks for the brush to brush the rocking-horse and corn to feed it. His fits of passion are as violent, but not so long in duration, as ever. When he was roaring and kicking with all his might and I could scarcely hold him, I said—'It makes Mama very sorry to see Baby so naughty.' He instantly stopped, threw his arms round my neck, and sobbed out—'Baby lub Mama—good.' When I have once had a struggle with him to do a thing, he always recollects, and does it next time."
"Lime, June 13.—On the journey from Stoke to London, Baby was very much delighted with the primroses in the hedgerows, and his delight in the fields when we got home was excessive. He knows the name of every flower both in garden and field, and never forgets any he has once seen.... When he sees me hold my hand to my head, he says, 'Mama tired—head bad—Baby play self.'"
"July 9.—Baby can now find his way all over the house, goes up and down stairs alone and about the lawn and garden quite independently, and enjoys the liberty of going in and out of the windows: runs after butterflies or to catch his own shadow: picks up flowers or leaves, and is the picture of enjoyment and happiness. Tumbling out of the window yesterday, when the fright was over, he looked up—'Down comes Baby and cradle and all.' He tells the kitten 'not touch this or that,' and me 'not make noise, Pussy's head bad.'"
"Sept. 28.—The sea-bathing at Eastbourne always frightened Baby before he went in. He would cling to Mary and be very nervous till the women had dipped him, and then, in the midst of his sobs from the shock, would sing 'Little Bo Peep,' to their great amusement. He was very happy throwing stones in the water and picking up shells; but above all he enjoyed himself on Beachy Head, the fresh air and turf seemed to exhilarate him as much as any one, and the picking purple thistles and other down flowers was a great delight.... His pleasure in returning home and seeing the flowers he had left was very great. He talks of them as if they were his playmates, realising Keble's—'In childhood's sports, companions gay.'"
"Oct. 17.—After dinner to-day, on being told to thank God for his good dinner, he would not do it, though usually he does it the first thing on having finished. I would not let him get out of his chair, which enraged him, and he burst into a violent passion. Twice, when this abated, I went to him and tried, partly by encouragement, partly by positively insisting on it, to bring him to obedience. Each time I took him up from the floor, he writhed on the floor again with passion, screaming as loud as he could. After a while, when I had left him and gone into the drawing-room, he came along the walk and went back again two or three times as if not having courage to come in, then at last came and hid his face in my lap. I carried him back to the dining-room and put him in his chair and talked to him about his dinner, did not he love God for giving him so many good things, and I knelt by him and prayed God to forgive him for being so naughty and to take away the naughty spirit. All the time he was struggling within himself, half-sobbing, half-smiling with effort—'I can't say it'—and then, after a time, 'Mama thanks God for Baby's good dinner.' 'No,' I said, 'Baby must do it for himself.' Still he resisted. At length on getting down from the chair he said, 'Kneel down under table'—and there at last he said, 'Thank God for Baby's good dinner,' and in a minute all the clouds were gone and sunshine returned to his face. The whole struggle lasted I suppose half-an-hour. In a few minutes after he was calling me 'Mama dear' and as merry as ever."
"Stoke Rectory, Nov. 26.—Baby asks 'Who made the dirt? Jesus Christ?' It is evident that he has not the slightest notion of any difference between the nature of God and any man, or between Heaven and London or any name of a place. Perhaps in this simplicity and literality of belief he comes nearer the truth than we in the sophistications and subtilties of our reasonings on such things: but the great difficulty is to impress awe and reverence for a holy and powerful Being, and to give the dread and serious sense of being under His eye, without a slavish fear and distance.
"He always asks when he sees my Bible—'Mama reading about Adam and Eve and Jesus Christ?'—a union of the two grand subjects, very unconsciously coming to the truth."
"Jan. 16, 1837.—Time is as yet a very indistinct impression on Baby's mind. Going round the field, he gathered some buttercups. I said, 'Leave the rest till to-morrow.' When we returned the same way, he asked, 'Is it to-morrow now?' ... After a violent passion the other day he looked up—'Will Jesus Christ be shocked?' He comes often and says—'Will 'ou pray God to make little Augustus good?' and asks to 'pray with Mama.'
"The other day he said—'My eyes are pretty.' 'Oh yes,' I said, 'they are, and so are Mama's and Na's.'—'And Grandpapa's and Grannie's too?'—'Yes, they are all pretty, nothing so pretty as eyes.' And I have heard no more of it.
"'Look, Mama,' he says, 'there is a bird flying up to God.'—'Where have you been to, Baby?'—'To a great many wheres.' He visits all the flowers in Grannie's garden, quite as anxiously as if they were living beings, and that quite without any hope of possessing them, as he is never allowed to gather any. He puts the different flowers together—and invents names for them—Hep—poly—primrose, &c. He also talks to animals and flowers as if they were conscious, and in this way creates constant amusement for himself: but the illusion is so strong he hardly seems to separate it from fact, and it becomes increasingly necessary to guard against the confusion of truth and error."
Children are said seldom to remember things which happen when they are three years old; but I have a distinct recollection of being at my mother's early home of Toft in Cheshire during this spring of 1837, and of the charm, of which children are so conscious, of the Mrs. Leycester ("Toft Grannie"—my mother's first cousin) who lived there. I also recollect the great dog at Alderley, and being whipped by "Uncle Ned" (Edward Stanley) at the gate of the Dutch garden for breaking off a branch of mezereon when I was told not to touch it. Indeed I am not sure whether these recollections are not of a year before, in which I distinctly remember a terrible storm at Lime, when Kate Stanley was with us, seeing a great acacia-tree torn up by the roots and hurled against the drawing-room window, smashing all before it, and the general panic and flight that ensued. Otherwise my earliest impressions of Hurstmonceaux are all of the primroses on the Lime bank—the sheets of golden stars everywhere, and the tufts of pure white primroses which grew in one particular spot, where the bank was broken away under an old apple-tree. Then of my intense delight in being taken in a punt to the three islets on the pond—Mimulus Island, Tiny and Wee; and of the excessive severity of Uncle Julius, who had the very sharpest possible way of speaking to children, even when he meant to be kind to them. Every evening, like clockwork, he appeared at six to dine with my mother, and walked home after coffee at eight. How many of their conversations, which I was supposed neither to hear or understand, have come back to me since like echoes: strange things for a child to remember—about the Fathers, and Tract XC., and a great deal about hymns and hymn-tunes—"Martyrdom," "Irish," "Abridge," &c.; for an organ was now put into the church, in place of the band, in which the violin never could keep time with the other instruments. Sir George Dasent has told me how he was at Hurstmonceaux then, staying with the Simpkinsons. Arthur Stanley was at the Rectory as a pupil, and he asked Arthur how he liked this new organ. "Well," he said, "it is not so bad as most organs, for it does not make so much sound." Uncle Julius preached about it, altering a text into "What went ye out for to hear."
A child who lives much with its elders is almost certain to find out what it is most intended to conceal from it. If possible it had better be confided in. I knew exactly what whispers referred to a certain dark passage in the history of the Rectory before Uncle Julius's time—"il y avait un crime"—and I never rested till I found it out. It was about this time that I remember Uncle Julius going into one of his violently demonstrative furies over what he considered the folly of "Montgomery's Poems," and his flinging the book to the other end of the room in his rage with it, and my wondering what would be done to me if I ever dared to be "as naughty as Uncle Jule."
From MY MOTHER'S JOURNAL.
"Lime, June 20, 1837.—Augustus was very ill in coming through London.... Seeing Punch one day from the window, he was greatly amused by it, and laughed heartily. Next day I told him I had seen Punch and Judy again. 'No, Mama, you can't have seen Judy, for she was killed yesterday.' On getting home he was much pleased, and remembered every place perfectly. Great is his delight over every new flower as it comes out, and his face was crimsoned over as he called to me to see 'little Cistus come out.' At night, in his prayers he said—'Bless daisies, bluebells,' &c.... I have found speaking of the power exercised by Jesus Christ in calming the wind a means of leading him to view Christ as God, which I felt the want of in telling him of Christ's childhood and human kindness,—showing how miraculous demonstration is adapted to childhood."
I have a vivid recollection of my long illness in Park Street, and of the miserable confinement in London. It was just at that time that my Uncle Edward Stanley was offered the Bishopric of Norwich. His family were all "in a terrible taking," as they used to call that sort of emotion, as to whether it should be accepted or not, and when the matter was settled they were almost worse—not my aunt, nothing ever agitated her, but the rest of them. Mary and Kate came, with floods of tears, to tell my mother they were to leave Alderley. My Uncle Penrhyn met Mary Stanley coming down our staircase, quite convulsed with weeping, and thought that I was dead.
When I was better, in the spring, we went to my Uncle Penrhyn's at East Sheen. One day I went into Mortlake with my nurse Mary Lea. In returning, a somewhat shabby carriage passed us, with one or two outriders, and an old gentleman inside. When we reached the house, Lea asked old Mills, the butler, who it was. "Only 'Silly Billy,'" he said. It was King William IV., who died in the following June. He had succeeded to the sobriquet which had been applied to his cousin and brother-in-law, William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, who died in 1834.
John Sterling had been living at Hurstmonceaux for several years as my uncle's curate, and was constantly at Lime or the Rectory. I vividly recollect how pleasant (and handsome) he was. My mother used to talk to him for hours together and he was very fond of her. With Mrs. Sterling lived her sister Annie Barton, whom I remember as a very sweet and winning person. During this summer, Frederick Maurice, a Cambridge pupil of my uncle's, came to visit him, and confessed his attachment to her. There were many obstacles to their marriage, of which I am ignorant; but my mother was always in favour of it, and did much to bring it about. I recollect Annie Barton as often sitting on a stool at my mother's feet.
On our way to Stoke in the preceding autumn, we had diverged to visit Frederick Maurice at his tiny curacy of Bubnell near Leamington. With him lived his sister Priscilla, for whom my mother formed a great friendship, which, beginning chiefly on religious grounds, was often a great trial to her, as Priscilla Maurice, with many fine qualities and great cleverness, was one of the most exacting persons I have ever known. I am conscious of course now of what fretted me unconsciously then, the entire difference of class, and consequent difference in the measurement of people and things, between the Maurices and those my mother had been accustomed to associate with, and of their injurious effect upon my mother herself, in inducing her to adopt their peculiar phraseology, especially with regard to religious things. They persuaded her to join in their tireless search after the motes in their brother's eyes, and urged a more intensified life of contemplative rather than active piety, which abstracted her more than ever from earthly interests, and really marred for a time her influence and usefulness. The Maurice sisters were the first of the many so-called "religious" people I have known, who did not seem to realise that Christianity is rather action than thought; not a system, but a life.
It must have been soon after this that Frederick Maurice moved to London, and our visits to London were henceforth for several years generally paid to his stuffy chaplain's house at Guy's, where, as I could not then appreciate my host, I was always intensely miserable, and, though a truly good man, Frederick Maurice was not, as I thought, an attractive one. What books have since called "the noble and pathetic monotone"[14] of his life, which was "like the burden of a Gregorian chaunt," describes him exactly, but was extremely depressing. He maundered over his own humility in a way which—even to a child—did not seem humble, and he was constantly lost mentally in the labyrinth of religious mysticisms which he was ever creating for himself. In all he said, as in all he wrote, there was a nebulous vagueness. "I sometimes fancy," "I almost incline to believe," "I seem to think," were the phrases most frequently on his lips. When he preached before the University of Cambridge to a church crowded with dons and undergraduates, they asked one another as they came out, "What was it all about?" He may have sown ideas, but, if they bore any fruits, other people reaped them.[15] Still his innate goodness brought him great devotion from his friends. Amongst those whom I recollect constantly seeing at Guy's, a man in whose society my mother found much pleasure, was John Alexander Scott, whom Mrs. Kemble describes as being mentally one of the most influential persons she had ever known.
Priscilla Maurice henceforward generally came to Lime soon after our annual return from Shropshire, and usually spent several months there, arriving armed with plans for the "reformation of the parish," and a number of blank books, some ruled in columns for parochial visitation, and others in which the names of all communicants were entered and preserved, so as to make the reprobation of absentees more easy at Hurstmonceaux.
As she established her footing, she frequently brought one of her many sisters with her: amongst them Esther Maurice, who at that time kept a ladies' school at Reading. Priscilla, I believe, afterwards regretted the introduction of Esther, who was much more attractive than herself, and in course of time entirely displaced her in my mother's affections. "Priscilla is like silver, but Esther is like gold," I remember my mother saying to Uncle Julius. Of the two, I personally preferred Priscilla, but both were a fearful scourge to my childhood, and so completely poisoned my life at Hurstmonceaux, that I looked to the winters spent at Stoke for everything that was not aggressively unpleasant.
Little child as I was, my feeling about the Maurices was a great bond between me and my aunt Lucy Hare, who, I am now certain, most cordially shared my opinion at this time, though it was unexpressed by either. Otherwise my Aunt Lucy was also already a frequent trial to my child-life, as she was jealous for her little Marcus (born in 1836) of any attention shown to me or any kindness I received. I felt in those early days, and on looking back from middle life I know that I felt justly, that my mother would often pretend to care for me less than she did, and punish me far more frequently for very slight offences, in order not to offend Aunt Lucy, and this caused me many bitter moments, and outbursts of passionate weeping, little understood at the time. In very early childhood, however, one pleasurable idea was connected with my Aunt Lucy. In her letters she would desire that "Baby" might be allowed to gather three flowers in the garden, any three he liked: the extreme felicity of which permission that Baby recollects still—and the anxious questionings with himself as to which the flowers should be.
From MY MOTHER'S JOURNAL.
"Lime, July 24, 1837.—Augustus continually asks 'Why,' 'What is the reason.' If it be in reference to something he has been told to do, I never at the time give him any other reason than simply that it is my will that he should do it. If it refers to something unconnected with practical obedience, it is right to satisfy his desire of knowledge as far as he can understand. Implicit faith and consequent obedience is the first duty to instil, and it behoves a parent to take care that a child may find full satisfaction for its instinctive moral sense of justice, in the consistency of conduct observed towards him; in the sure performance of every promise; in the firm but mild adherence to every command.
"He asks, 'Is God blue?'—having heard that He lived above the sky."
"Stoke Rectory, Jan. 1, 1838.—On Christmas Day Augustus went to church for the first time with me. He was perfectly good and kept a chrysanthemum in his hand the whole time, keeping his eyes fixed on it when sitting down. Afterwards he said, 'Grandpapa looked just like Uncle Jule: he had his shirt (surplice) on.'
"He has got on wonderfully in reading since I began to teach him words instead of syllables, and also learns German very quickly.
"Having been much indulged by Mrs. Feilden (Mrs. Leycester's sister), he has become lately what Mary (Lea) calls rather 'independent.' He is, however, easily knocked out of this self-importance by a little forbearance on my part not to indulge or amuse him, or allow him to have anything till he asks rightly.... There is a strong spirit of expecting to know the reason of a thing before he will obey or believe. This I am anxious to guard against, and often am reminded in dealing with him how analogous it is to God's dealing with us—'What thou knowest not now, thou shalt know hereafter.' Now he is to walk by faith, not by sight, not by reason."
"Lime, May 14, 1838.—Yesterday being Good Friday, I read to Augustus all he could understand about the Crucifixion. He was a little naughty, and I told him of it afterwards. 'But I was good all yesterday, won't that goodness do?' His delight over the flowers is as excessive as ever, but it is very necessary to guard against greediness in this."
"August 10.—Being told that he was never alone, God and Jesus Christ saw him, he said, 'God sees me, but Jesus Christ does not.'—'But they are both one.'—'Then how did John the Baptist pour water on His head, and how could He be crucified?' How difficult to a child's simple faith is the union of the two natures![16]
"Two days ago at prayers he asked what I read to the servants, and being told the meaning of the Lord's Prayer, he said, 'I know what "Amen" means. It means, "It is done."'
"June 11.—Having knocked off a flower on a plant in the nursery, Lea asked how he could have done such a thing—'What tempted you to do such a thing?' He whispered—'I suppose it was Satan.'
"Yesterday he told us his dream, that a beast had come out of a wood and eat him and Lea up; and Susan came to look for them and could not find them; then Mama prayed to God to open the beast's mouth, and He opened it, and they both came out safe.
"One night, after being over-tired and excited by the Sterlings, he went to bed very naughty and screamed himself asleep. Next morning he woke crying, and being asked why he did so, sobbed out, 'Lea put me in bed and I could not finish last night: so I was obliged to finish this morning.'
"Going up to London he saw the Thames. 'It can't be a river, it must be a pond, it is so large.' He called the sun in the midst of the London fog 'a swimming sun:' asked if the soldiers in the Park were 'looking out for the enemy.' 'Does God look through the keyhole?'
"Two days ago, having been told to ask God to take away the naughtiness out of him, he said, "May I ask Jesus Christ to take away the naughtiness out of Satan? then (colouring he said it, and whispering) perhaps He will take him out of hell.'
"On my birthday he told Lea at night, 'They all drank her health but Uncle Jule, and he loved her so much he could not say it.'"
I was now four years old, and I have a vivid recollection of all that happened from this time—often a clearer remembrance than of things which occurred last year. From this time I never had any playthings, they were all banished to the loft, and, as I had no companions, I never recollect a game of any kind or ever having played at anything. There was a little boy of my own age called Philip Hunnisett, son of a respectable poor woman who lived close to our gate, and whom my mother often visited. I remember always longing to play with him, and once trying to do so in a hayfield, to Lea's supreme indignation, and my being punished for it, and never trying again. My mother now took me with her every day when she went to visit the cottages, in which she was ever a welcome guest, for it was not the lady, it was the woman who was dear to their inmates, and, when listening to their interminable histories and complaints, no one entered more into George Herbert's feeling that "it is some relief to a poor body to be heard with patience." Forty years afterwards a poor woman in Hurstmonceaux was recalling to me the sweetness of my mother's sympathy, and told the whole story when she said, "Yes, many other people have tried to be kind to us; but then, you know, Mrs. Hare loved us." Truly it was as if—
"Christ had took in this piece of ground,
And made a garden there for those
Who want herbs for their wound."[17]
Whilst my mother was in the cottages, I remained outside and played with the flowers in the ditches. There were three places whither I was always most anxious that she should go—to Mrs. Siggery, the potter's widow, where I had the delight of seeing all the different kinds of pots, and the wet clay of which they were made: to "old Dame Cornford of the river," by which name a tiny stream called "the Five Bells" was dignified: and to a poor woman at "Foul Mile," where there was a ruined arch (the top of a drain, I believe!) which I thought most romantic. We had scarcely any visitors ("callers"), for there were scarcely any neighbours, but our old family home of Hurstmonceaux Place was let to Mr. Wagner (brother of the well-known "Vicar of Brighton"), and his wife was always very kind to me, and gave me two little china mice, to which I was quite devoted. His daughters, Annie and Emily, were very clever, and played beautifully on the pianoforte and harp. The eldest son, George, whose Memoirs have since been written, was a pale ascetic youth, with the character of a mediæval saint, who used to have long religious conversations with my mother, and—being very really in earnest—was much and justly beloved by her. He was afterwards a most devoted clergyman, being one of those who really have a "vocation," and probably accomplished more practical good in his brief life than any other five hundred parish priests taken at random. Of him truly Chaucer might have said—
"This noble sample to his sheep he gave,
That first he wrought, and afterwards he taught."
From the earliest age I heartily detested Hurstmonceaux Rectory, because it took me away from Lime, to which I was devoted, and brought me into the presence of Uncle Julius, who frightened me out of my wits; but to all rational and unprejudiced people the Rectory was at this time a very delightful place. It is situated on a hill in a lonely situation two miles from the church and castle, and more than a mile from any of the five villages which were then included in the parish of Hurstmonceaux; but it was surrounded by large gardens with fine trees, had a wide distant view over levels and sea, and was in all respects externally more like the house of a squire than a clergyman. Inside it was lined with books from top to bottom: not only the living rooms, but the passages and every available space in the bedrooms were walled with bookcases from floor to ceiling, containing more than 14,000 works. Most of these were German, but there were many very beautiful books upon art in all languages, and many which, even as a child, I thought it very delightful to look at. The only spaces not filled by books were occupied by the beautiful pictures which my uncle had collected in Italy, including a most exquisite Perugino, and fine works of Giorgione, Luini, Giovanni da Udine, &c. I was especially attached to a large and glorious picture by Paris Bordone of the Madonna and Child throned in a sort of court of saints. I think my first intense love of colour came from the study of that picture, which is now in the Museum at Cambridge; but my uncle and mother did not care for this, preferring severer art. Uncle Julius used to say that he constantly entertained in his drawing-room seven Virgins, almost all of them more than three hundred years old. All the pictures were to me as intimate friends, and I studied every detail of their backgrounds, even of the dresses of the figures they portrayed: they were also my constant comforters in the many miserable hours I even then spent at the Rectory, where I was always utterly ignored, whilst taken away from all my home employments and interests.
Most unpleasant figures who held a prominent place in these childish years were my step-grandmother, Mrs. Hare Naylor, and her daughter Georgiana. Mrs. H. Naylor had been beautiful in her youth, and still, with snowwhite hair, was an extremely pretty petite old lady. She was suspicious, exacting, and jealous to a degree. If she once took an impression of any one, it was impossible to eradicate, however utterly false it might be. She was very deaf, and only heard through a long trumpet. She would make the most frightful tirades against people, especially my mother and other members of the family, bring the most unpleasant accusations against them, and the instant they attempted to defend themselves, she took down her trumpet. Thus she retired into a social fortress, and heard no opinion but her own. I never recollect her taking the wisest turn—that of making the best of us all. I have been told that her daughter Georgiana was once a very pretty lively girl. I only remember her a sickly discontented petulant woman. When she was young, she was very fond of dancing, and once, at Bonn, she undertook to dance the clock round. She performed her feat, but it ruined her health, and she had to lie on her back for a year. From this time she defied the Italian proverb, "Let well alone," and dosed herself incessantly. She had acquired "l'habitude d'être malade;" she liked the sympathy she excited, and henceforth preferred being ill. Once or twice every year she was dying, the family were summoned, every one was in tears, they knelt around her bed; it was the most delicious excitement.
Mrs. Hare Naylor had a house at St. Leonards, on Maize Hill, where there were only three houses then. We went annually to visit her for a day, and she and "Aunt Georgiana" generally spent several months every year at Hurstmonceaux Rectory—employing themselves in general abuse of all the family. I offended Aunt Georgiana (who wore her hair down her back in two long plaits) mortally, at a very early age, by saying "Chelu (the Rectory dog) has only one tail, but Aunt Georgie has two."[18]
On the 28th of June 1838, the Coronation of Queen Victoria took place, when a great fête was given in the ruins of Hurstmonceaux Castle, at which every person in the parish was provided with a dinner. It was in this summer that my father brought his family to England to visit Sir John Paul, who had then married his second wife, Mrs. Napier, and was living with her at her own place, Pennard House, in Somersetshire. In the autumn my father came alone to Hurstmonceaux Rectory. I remember him then—tall and thin, and lying upon a sofa. Illness had made him very restless, and he would wander perpetually about the rooms, opening and shutting windows, and taking down one volume after another from the bookcase, but never reading anything consecutively. It was long debated whether his winter should be passed at Hastings or Torquay, but it was eventually decided to spend it economically at West Woodhay House, near Newbury, which Mr. John Sloper (nephew of our great-uncle—the husband of Emilia Shipley) offered to lend for the purpose. At this time my father's health was already exciting serious apprehensions. Mrs. Louisa Shipley was especially alarmed about him, and wrote:—
"Dr. Chambers says your lungs are not now in diseased state, but it will require great care and caution for a long time to keep them free, though with that he hopes that they may recover their usual tone and become as stout as you represent them; so remember that it depends on yourself and Ann's watchfulness and care of you, whether you are to get quite well, or be sickly for the remainder of your life, and also that the former becomes a duty, when you think of your children."
Francis G. Hare.
My father never once noticed my existence during his long stay at the Rectory. On the last day before he left, my mother said laughingly, "Really, Francis, I don't think you have ever found out that such a little being as Augustus is in existence here." He was amused, and said, "Oh no, really!" and he called me to him and patted my head, saying, "Good little Wolf: good little Wolf!" It was the only notice he ever took of me.
Instead of going as usual direct to Stoke, we spent part of the winter of 1838-39 with the Marcus Hares at Torquay. Their home was a most beautiful one—Rockend, at the point of the bay, with very large grounds and endless delightful walks winding amongst rocks and flowers, or terraces overhanging the natural cliffs which there stride out seawards over the magnificent natural arch known as London Bridge. Nevertheless I recollect this time as one of the utmost misery. My Aunt Lucy, having heard some one say that I was more intelligent than little Marcus, had conceived the most violent jealousy of me, and I was cowed and snubbed by her in every possible way. Little Marcus himself was encouraged not only to carry off my little properties—shells, fossils, &c.—but to slap, bite, and otherwise ill-treat me as much as he liked, and when, the first day, I ventured, boylike, to retaliate, and cuff him again, I was shut up for two days on bread and water—"to break my spirit"—and most utterly miserable I became, especially as my dear mother treated it as wholesome discipline, and wondered that I was not devoted to little Marcus, whereas, on looking back, I wonder how—even in a modified way—I ever endured him.
From MY MOTHER'S JOURNAL.
"Torquay, January 7, 1839.—Augustus was very good on the journey, full of spirits and merriment. He was much delighted in passing through the New Forest to see the place where Rufus was shot, of which he has a picture he is fond of. At Mr. Trench's[19] he enjoyed, more than I ever saw him, playing with the children, and the two elder ones were good friends with him directly. They joined together and had all kinds of games. At Exmouth the shells were a great delight while they were embarking the carriage that we might cross the ferry.
"It has been a trial to him on coming here to find himself quite a secondary object of attention. At first he was so cowed by it that he seemed to have lost all his gaiety, instead of being pleased to play with little Marcus. In taking his playthings, little Marcus excited a great desire to defend his own property, and though he gives up to him in most things, he shows a feeling of trying to keep his own things to himself, rather than any willingness to share them. By degrees they have learnt to play together more freely, and on the whole agree well. But I see strongly brought out the self-seeking of my dear child, the desire of being first, together with a want of true hearty love for his little companion, and endeavour to please him."
"Stoke, February 26.—All the time of our stay at Rockend, Augustus was under an unnatural constraint, and though he played for the most part good-humouredly with little Marcus, it was evident he had no great pleasure in him, and instead of being willing to give him anything, he seemed to shut up all his generous feelings, and to begin to think only of how he might secure his own property from invasion: in short, all the selfishness of his nature seemed thus to be drawn out. For the most part he was good and obedient, but the influence of reward and dread of punishment seemed to cause it. He has gained much greater self-command, and will stop his screams on being threatened with the loss of any pleasure immediately, and I fear the greater part of his kindness to little Marcus arose from fear of his Aunt Lucy if he failed to show it. Only once did he return a blow, and knock little Marcus down. He was two days kept upstairs for it, and afterwards bore patiently all the scratches he received; but it worked inwardly and gave a dislike to his feeling towards his cousin.... He seemed relieved when we left Torquay."
"March 13, 1839.—My little Augustus is now five years old. Strong personal identity, reference of everything to himself, greediness of pleasures and possessions, are I fear prominent features in his disposition. May I be taught how best to correct these his sinful propensities with judgment, and to draw him out of self to live for others."
On leaving Torquay we went to Exeter to visit Lady Campbell, the eldest daughter of Sir John Malcolm, who had been a great friend of my Uncle Julius. She had became a Plymouth sister, the chief result of which was that all her servants sate with her at meals. She had given up all the luxuries, almost all the comforts, of life, and lived just as her servants did, except that one silver fork and spoon were kept for Lady Campbell. Thence we proceeded to Bath, to the house of "the Bath Aunts," Caroline and Marianne Hare, daughters of that Henrietta Henckel who pulled down Hurstmonceaux Castle. The aunts were very rich. Mrs. Henckel Hare had a sister, Mrs. Pollen, who left £60,000 to Marianne, who was her god-daughter, so that Caroline was the principal heiress of her mother. After they left Hurstmonceaux, they rented a place in the west of Sussex, but in 1820 took a place called Millard's Hill near Frome, belonging to Lord Cork, and very near Marston, where he lived. I was there many years after, on a visit to our distant cousin Lady Boyle, who lived there after the Bath Aunts left it, and then found the recollection still fresh in the neighbourhood of the Miss Hares, their fine horses, their smart dress, their splendid jewels, and their quarrelsome tempers. Their disputes had reference chiefly to my Uncle Marcus, to whom they were both perfectly devoted, and furious if he paid more attention to one than the other. Neither of them could ever praise him enough. Caroline, who always wrote of him as her "treasure," was positively in love with him. Whenever he returned from sea, to which he had been sent as soon as he was old enough, the aunts grudged every day which he did not spend with them. But their affection for him was finally rivetted in 1826, when he was accidentally on a visit to them at the time of their mother's sudden death, and was a great help and comfort. Mrs. Henckel Hare had been failing for many years, and even in 1820 letters describe her as asking for salt when she meant bread, and water when she meant wine; but her daughters, who had never left her, mourned her loss bitterly. Augustus wrote to Lady Jones in 1827, that the most difficult task his aunts had ever imposed upon him was that of writing an epitaph for their mother, there was "so remarkably little to say." However, with Julius's assistance, he did accomplish an inscription, which, though perfectly truthful, is strikingly beautiful. Besides her country house, Mrs. Henckel Hare had a large house in the Crescent at Bath, where her old mother, Mrs. Henckel, lived with her to an immense age. Old Mrs. Hare was of a very sharp disposition. Her niece, Lady Taylor, has told me how she went to visit her at Eastbourne as a child, and one day left her work upon the table when she went out. When she came in, she missed it, and Mrs. Hare quietly observed, "You left your work about, my dear, so I've thrown it all out of the window;" and sure enough, on the beach her thimble, scissors, &c., were all still lying, no one having picked them up!
In their youth "the Bath Aunts" had been a great deal abroad with their mother, and had been very intimate with the First Consul. It is always said that he proposed to Marianne before his marriage with Josephine, and that she refused him, and bitterly regretted it afterwards. Certainly he showed her and her sister the most extraordinary attentions when they afterwards visited Milan while he was there in his power.
The Bath Aunts had two brothers (our great-uncles) who lived to grow up. The eldest of these was Henry (born 1778). He was sent abroad, and was said to be drowned, but the fact was never well established. Lady Taylor remembered that, in their later life, a beggar once came to the door of the aunts at Bath, and declared he was their brother Henry. The aunts came down and looked at him, but not recognising any likeness to their brother, they sent him away with a few shillings. The next brother, George (born 1781), grew up, and went to India, whence he wrote constantly, and most prosperously, to his family. After some years, they heard that he was dead. He had always been supposed to be very rich, but when he died nothing was forthcoming, and it was asserted by those on the spot, that he had left no money behind him; yet this is very doubtful, and it is possible that a fortune left by George Hare may still transpire. Some people have thought that the account of George Hare's death itself was fictitious; but at that time India was considered perfectly inaccessible; there was no member of the family who was able to go and look after him or his fortunes, and the subject gradually dropped.
Before leaving George Hare, perhaps it is worth while to introduce here a story of later days, one of the many strange things that have happened to us. It was some time after our great family misfortunes in 1859, which will be described by-and-by, that I chanced to pass through London, where I saw my eldest brother, Francis, who asked me if we had any ancestor or relation who had gone to India and had died there. I said "No," for at that time I had never heard of George Hare or of the Bishop's youngest son, Francis, who likewise died in India. But my brother insisted that we must have had an Indian relation who died there; and on my inquiring "why," he told me the following story. He assured me, that being resolved once more to visit the old family home, he had gone down to Hurstmonceaux, and had determined to pass the night in the castle. That in the high tower by the gateway he had fallen asleep, and that in a vision he had seen an extraordinary figure approaching him, a figure attired in the dress of the end of the last century and with a pig-tail, who assured him that he was a near relation of his, and was come to tell him that though he was supposed to have died in India and insolvent, he had really died very rich, and that if his relations chose to make inquiries, they might inherit his fortune! At the time I declared that the story could not be true, as we never had any relation who had anything to do with India, but Francis persisted steadfastly in affirming what he had seen and heard, and some time afterwards I was told of the existence of George Hare.
At the time we were at Bath, Aunt Caroline was no longer living there; she had become so furiously jealous of Mrs. Marcus Hare, that she had to be kept under restraint, and though not actually mad, she lived alone with an attendant in a cottage at Burnet near Corsham. There she died some years after, very unhappy, poor thing, to the last. Her companion was a Mrs. Barbara, with whom Aunt Caroline was most furious at times. She had a large pension after her death. It used to be said that the reason why Mrs. Barbara had only one arm and part of another was that Aunt Caroline had eaten the rest.[20]
It was when we were staying with Aunt Marianne in 1839 that I first saw my real mother. "On est mère, ou on ne l'est pas," says the Madame Cardinal of Ludovic Halévy. In my case "on ne l'était pas." I watched Mrs. Hare's arrival, and, through the banisters of the staircase, saw her cross the hall, and was on the tiptoe of expectation; but she displayed no interest about seeing me, and did not ask for me at all till late in the evening, when all enthusiasm had died away. "I hope the Wolf answered your expectations, or still better surpassed them," wrote my father to his wife from West Woodhay. He was in the habit of calling all his children by the names of beasts. "Bring some cold-cream for the Tigress" (my sister), he wrote at the same time, and "the Owl (Eleanor Paul) and the Beast (William) are going to dine out." Francis he generally called "Ping," and his wife "Mrs. Pook."
Aunt Marianne, wishing to flatter Uncle Julius's love of learning, proudly announced to him that she had given me a book—a present I was perfectly enchanted with—when, to my intense dismay, he insisted upon exchanging it for a skipping-rope! which I could never be persuaded to use.
In the autumn of 1839 my father again returned with his family to Pisa, to the bitter grief of old Mrs. Louisa Shipley, who refused altogether to take leave of Mrs. Hare, though she afterwards wrote (Oct. 16), "I hope Anne has forgiven my rudeness her last day. I was too sorry to part with you to admit any third person." She was already rapidly failing, but she still wrote, "Your letters always give me pleasure, when I can read them, but to be sure they take a long time in deciphering." In the course of the following winter Mrs. Louisa Shipley died, without seeing her favourite nephew again. It was found then that she had never forgiven the last emigration to Italy against her wishes. Except a legacy to my Uncle Marcus, she left all she possessed to her next neighbour and cousin, Mrs. Townshend (daughter of Lady Milner—half-sister of Mrs. Shipley)—a will which caused terrible heartburnings amongst her more immediate relations, especially as many precious relics of Lady Jones and of Mrs. Hare Naylor were included in the property thus bequeathed. At the same time the estate of Gresford in Flintshire, which Bishop Shipley had left to each of his daughters in turn, now, on the death of the last of them, descended to my father, as the eldest son of the eldest daughter who had left children.
Victoire remembered the arrival of the letter, sealed with black, which announced the death of Mrs. Shipley, whilst the Hare family were at Florence. Félix was with his master when he opened the letter, and came in afterwards to his wife, exclaiming, "Oh mon pauvre M. Hare a eu bien de malheur." Francis Hare had thrown up his hands and said, "Félix, nous sommes perdus." All that day he would not dress, and he walked up and down the room in his dressing-gown, quite pale. He never was the same person again. Up to that time he had always been "si gai"—he was always smiling. He was "si recherché." "Avec les grands il était si franc, si charmant, mais avec les personnes de basse condition il était encore plus aimable que avec les grands personnages. Oh! comme il était aimé.... Jusque là il était invité partout, et il donnait toujours à diner et ses fêtes, et son introduction était comme un passeport partout. Mais depuis là il ne faisait pas le même—et c'était juste: il faudrait penser à ses enfants."[21]
But I am digressing from my own story, and must return to the intensely happy time of escaping from Rockend and going to Stoke. It was during this journey that I first saw any ruin of importance beyond Hurstmonceaux and Pevensey. This was Glastonbury Abbey, and it made a great impression upon me. I also saw the famous Christmas-blooming thorn, which is said to have grown from St. Joseph of Arimathea's staff, in the abbot's garden, bright with hepaticas. I remember at Stoke this year having for the first time a sense of how much the pleasantness of religious things depends upon the person who expresses them. During the winter my mother saw much of the voluminous author Mr. Charles Tayler, who was then acting as curate at Hodnet. He was very frank and sincere, and his "religious talking" I did not mind at all; whereas when the Maurices "talked," I thought it quite loathsome. In the following summer I used often to listen to conversations between Mr. Manning (afterwards Archdeacon, then Cardinal) and my mother, as he then first fell into the habit of coming constantly to Hurstmonceaux and being very intimate with my mother and uncle. He was very lovable and one of the most perfectly gentle gentle-men I have ever known; my real mother used to call him "l'harmonie de la poésie religieuse." My mother was very unhappy when he became a Roman Catholic in 1851.
How many happy recollections I have of hot summer days in the unbroken tranquillity of these summers at Lime. My mother was then the object of my uncle's exclusive devotion. He consulted her on every subject, and he thought every day a blank in which they had no meeting. We constantly drove up to the Rectory in the afternoon, when he had always some new plant to show her and to talk about. I well remember his enchantment over some of the new flowers which were being "invented" then—especially Salpiglossis (so exceedingly admired at first, but now forgotten), Salvia patens and Fuchsia fulgens, of which we brought back from Wood's Nursery a little plant, which was looked upon as a perfect marvel of nature.
Often when awake in the night now, I recall, out of the multiplicity of pretty, even valuable things, with which my house of Holmhurst is filled, how few of them belonged to our dear simple home in these early days. The small double hall had nothing in it, I think, except a few chairs, and some cloaks hanging on pegs against the wall, and the simple furniture of the double drawing-room consisted chiefly of the gifts made to my mother by her family when she went to Alton. One wall—the longest—was, however, occupied by a great bookcase, filled with handsomely bound books, chiefly divinity, many of them German. On the other walls hung a very few valuable engravings, mostly from Raffaelle, and all framed according to Uncle Julius's fancy, which would have driven print-collectors frantic, for he cut off all margins, even of proofs before letters. The only point of colour in the room, not given by flowers, came from a large panel picture presented by Landor—a Madonna and Child by Raffaellino da Colle, in a fine old Italian frame. The few china ornaments on the chimney-piece beneath were many of them broken, but they were infinitely precious to us. In the dining-room were only a few prints of Reginald Heber, my Uncle Norwich, my grandfather Leycester, and others. Simpler still were the bedrooms, where the curtains of the windows and beds were of white dimity. In my mother's room, however, were some beautiful sketches of the older family by Flaxman. The "pantry," which was Lea's especial sitting-room, where the walls were covered with pictures and the mantel-piece laden with china, had more the look of rooms of the present time. I believe, however, that the almost spiritualised aspect of my mother's rooms at Lime were as characteristic of her at this time, as the more mundane rooms of my after home of Holmhurst are characteristic of myself!
My mother and I breakfasted every morning at eight (as far as I can remember, I never had any meal in the so-called nursery) in the dining-room, which, as well as the drawing-room, had wide glass doors always open to the little terrace of the garden, from which the smell of new-mown grass or dewy pinks and syringa was wafted into the room. If it was very hot too, our breakfast took place on the terrace, in the deep shadow of the house, outside the little drawing-room window. After breakfast I began my lessons, which, though my mother and uncle always considered me a dunce, I now think to have been rather advanced for a child of five years old, as besides English reading, writing and spelling, history, arithmetic and geography, I had to do German reading and writing, and a little Latin. Botany and drawing I was also taught, but they were an intense delight. Through plans, maps, and raised models, I was made perfectly familiar with the topography of Jerusalem and the architecture of the Temple, though utterly ignorant of the topography of Rome or London and of the architecture of St. Peter's or St. Paul's. But indeed I never recollect the moment of (indoor) childhood in which I was not undergoing education of some kind, and generally of an unwelcome kind. There was often a good deal of screaming and crying over the writing and arithmetic, and I never got on satisfactorily with the former till my Aunt Kitty (Mrs. Stanley) or my grandmother (Mrs. Leycester) took it in hand, sitting over me with a ruler, and by a succession of hearty bangs on the knuckles, forced my fingers to go the right way. At twelve o'clock I went out with my mother, sometimes to Lime Cross (village) and to the fields behind it, where I used to make nosegays of "robin's-eye and ground-ivy,"—my love of flowers being always encouraged by mother, whose interest in Nature had a freshness like the poetry of Burns, observing everything as it came out—
"The rustling corn, the freited thorn,
And every happy creature."
Generally, however, we went to the girls' school at "Flowers Green," about half a mile off on the way to the church, where Mrs. Piper was the mistress, a dear old woman who recollected the destruction of the castle, and had known all my uncles in their childhood at Hurstmonceaux Place. At the school was a courtyard, overhung with laburnums, where I remember my mother in her lilac muslin dress sitting and teaching the children under a bower of golden rain.
I wonder what would be thought of dear old Mrs. Piper, in these days of board-schools and examinations for certificates. "Now, Mr. Simpikins," she said one day to Mr. Simpkinson the curate, whose name she never could master—"Now Mr. Simpikins, do tell me, was that Joseph who they sold into Egypt the same as that Joseph who was married to the Virgin Mary?"—"Oh no, they were hundreds of years apart."—"Well, they both went down into Egypt anyway." Yet Mrs. Piper was admirably suited to her position, and the girls of her tuition were taught to sew and keep house and "mind their manners and morals," and there were many good women at Hurstmonceaux till her pupils became extinct. The universal respect with which the devil is still spoken of at Hurstmonceaux is probably due to Mrs. Piper's peculiar teaching.
But, to return to our own life, at one we had dinner—almost always roast-mutton and rice-pudding—and then I read aloud—Josephus at a very early age, and then Froissart's Chronicles. At three we went out in the carriage to distant cottages, often ending at the Rectory. At five I was allowed to "amuse myself," which generally meant nursing the cat for half-an-hour and "hearing it its lessons." All the day I had been with my mother, and now generally went to my dear nurse Lea for half-an-hour, when I had tea in the cool "servants' hall" (where, however, the servants never sat—preferring the kitchen), after which I returned to find Uncle Julius arrived, who stayed till my bedtime.
As Uncle Julius was never captivating to children, it is a great pity that he was turned into an additional bugbear, by being always sent for to whip me when I was naughty! These executions generally took place with a riding-whip, and looking back dispassionately through the distance of years, I am conscious that, for a delicate child, they were a great deal too severe. I always screamed dreadfully in the anticipation of them, but bore them without a sound or a tear. I remember one very hot summer's day, when I had been very naughty over my lessons, Froissart's Chronicles having been particularly uninteresting, and having produced the very effect which Ahasuerus desired to obtain from the reading of the book of the records of the chronicles, that Uncle Julius was summoned. He arrived, and I was sent upstairs to "prepare." Then, as I knew I was going to be whipped anyway, I thought I might as well do something horrible to be whipped for, and, as soon as I reached the head of the stairs, gave three of the most awful, appalling and eldrich shrieks that ever were heard in Hurstmonceaux. Then I fled for my life. Through the nursery was a small bedroom, in which Lea slept, and here I knew that a large black travelling "imperial" was kept under the bed. Under the bed I crawled, and wedged myself into the narrow space behind the imperial, between it and the wall. I was only just in time. In an instant all the household—mother, uncle, servants—were in motion, and a search was on foot all over the house. I turn cold still when I remember the agony of fright with which I heard Uncle Julius enter the nursery, and then, with which, through a chink, I could see his large feet moving about the very room in which I was. He looked under the bed, but he saw only a large black box. I held my breath, motionless, and he turned away. Others looked under the bed too; but my concealment was effectual.
I lay under the bed for an hour—stifling—agonised. Then all sounds died away, and I knew that the search in the house was over, and that they were searching the garden. At last my curiosity would no longer allow me to be still, and I crept from under the bed and crawled to the window of my mother's bedroom, whence I could overlook the garden without being seen. Every dark shrub, every odd corner was being ransacked. The whole household and the gardeners were engaged in the pursuit. At last I could see by their actions—for I could not hear words—that a dreadful idea had presented itself. In my paroxysms I had rushed down the steep bank, and tumbled or thrown myself into the pond! I saw my mother look very wretched and Uncle Julius try to calm her. At last they sent for people to drag the pond. Then I could bear my dear mother's expression no longer, and, from my high window, I gave a little hoot. Instantly all was changed; Lea rushed upstairs to embrace me; there was great talking and excitement, and while it was going on, Uncle Julius was called away, and every one ... forgot that I had not been whipped! That, however, was the only time I ever escaped.
In the most literal sense, and in every other, I was "brought up at the point of the rod." My dearest mother was so afraid of over-indulgence that she always went into the opposite extreme: and her constant habits of self-examination made her detect the slightest act of especial kindness into which she had been betrayed, and instantly determine not to repeat it. Nevertheless, I loved her most passionately, and many tearful fits, for which I was severely punished as fits of naughtiness, were really caused by anguish at the thought that I had displeased her or been a trouble to her. From never daring to express my wishes in words, which she would have thought it a duty to meet by an immediate refusal, I early became a coward as to concealing what I really desired. I remember once, in my longing for childish companionship, so intensely desiring that the little Coshams—a family of children who lived in the parish—might come to play with me, that I entreated that they might come to have tea in the summer-house on my Hurstmonceaux birthday (the day of my adoption), and that the mere request was not only refused, but so punished that I never dared to express a wish to play with any child again. At the same time I was expected to play with little Marcus, then an indulged disagreeable child whom I could not endure, and because I was not fond of him, was thought intensely selfish and self-seeking.
As an example of the severe discipline which was maintained with regard to me, I remember that one day when we went to visit the curate, a lady (Miss Garden) very innocently gave me a lollypop, which I ate. This crime was discovered when we came home by the smell of peppermint, and a large dose of rhubarb and soda was at once administered with a forcing-spoon, though I was in robust health at the time, to teach me to avoid such carnal indulgences as lollypops for the future. For two years, also, I was obliged to swallow a dose of rhubarb every morning and every evening because—according to old-fashioned ideas—it was supposed to "strengthen the stomach!" I am sure it did me a great deal of harm, and had much to do with accounting for my after sickliness. Sometimes I believe the medicine itself induced fits of fretfulness; but if I cried more than usual, it was supposed to be from want of additional medicine, and the next morning senna-tea was added to the rhubarb. I remember the misery of sitting on the back-stairs in the morning and having it in a tea-cup, with milk and sugar.
At a very early age I was made to go to church—once, which very soon grew into twice, on a Sunday. Uncle Julius's endless sermons were my detestation. I remember some one speaking of him to an old man in the parish, and being surprised by the statement that he was "not a good winter parson," which was explained to mean that he kept the people so long with his sermons, that they could not get home before dark.
With the utmost real kindness of heart, Uncle Julius had often the sharpest and most insulting manner I have ever known in speaking to those who disagreed with him. I remember an instance of this when Mr. Simpkinson had lately come to Hurstmonceaux as my uncle's curate. His sister, then a very handsome young lady, had come down from London to visit him, and my mother took her to church in the carriage. That Sunday happened to be Michaelmas Day. As we were driving slowly away from church through the crowd of those who had formed the congregation, Uncle Julius holding the reins, something was said about the day. Without a suspicion of giving offence, Miss Simpkinson, who was sitting behind with me, said, in a careless way, "As for me, my chief association with Michaelmas Day is a roast goose." Then Uncle Julius turned round, and, in a voice of thunder, audible to every one on the road, exclaimed, "Ignorant and presumptuous young woman!" He had never seen her till that day. As she said to me years after, when she was a wife and mother, "That the Archdeacon should call me ignorant and presumptuous was trying, still I could bear that very well; but that he should dare to call me a young woman was not to be endured." However, her only alternative was to bear the affront and be driven two miles home, or to insist upon getting out of the carriage and walking home through the mud, and she chose the former course, and afterwards my uncle, when he knew her good qualities, both admired and liked her.
It must have been about this time that Uncle Julius delivered his sermons on "the Mission of the Comforter" at Cambridge, and many of his friends used to amuse my mother by describing them. The church was crowded, but the congregation was prepared for sermons of ordinary length. The Halls then "went in" at three, and when that hour came, and there was no sign of a conclusion, great was the shuffling of feet. This was especially the case during the sermon on "The Church the Light of the World," but Uncle Julius did not care a bit, and went on till 3.20 quite composedly.
At this time it used to be said that Uncle Julius had five popes—Wordsworth, Niebuhr, Bunsen, Frederick Maurice, and Manning.[22] They were very different certainly, but he was equally up in arms if any of these were attacked.
I was not six years old before my mother—under the influence of the Maurices—began to follow out a code of penance with regard to me which was worthy of the ascetics of the desert. Hitherto I had never been allowed anything but roast-mutton and rice-pudding for dinner. Now all was changed. The most delicious puddings were talked of—dilated on—until I became, not greedy, but exceedingly curious about them. At length "le grand moment" arrived. They were put on the table before me, and then, just as I was going to eat some of them, they were snatched away, and I was told to get up and carry them off to some poor person in the village. I remember that, though I did not really in the least care about the dainties, I cared excessively about Lea's wrath at the fate of her nice puddings, of which, after all, I was most innocent. We used at this time to read a great deal about the saints, and the names of Polycarp, Athanasius, &c., became as familiar to me as those of our own household. Perhaps my mother, through Esther Maurice's influence, was just a little High Church at this time, and always fasted to a certain extent on Wednesdays and Fridays, on which days I was never allowed to eat butter or to have any pudding. Priscilla Maurice also even persuaded Uncle Julius to have a service in the schoolroom at (the principal village) Gardner Street on saints' days, which was attended by one old woman and ourselves. My mother, who always appropriated to charities all money she received for the sale of my Uncle Augustus's sermons, also now spent part of it in the so-called "restoration" of Hurstmonceaux Church, when all the old pews were swept away and very hideous varnished benches put in their place. Uncle Julius, as soon as he became Archdeacon, used to preach a perfect crusade against pews, and often went, saw and hammer in hand, to begin the work in the village churches with his own hands.
Our own life through these years continued to be of the most primitive and simple kind. A new book or a new flower was its greatest event—an event to be chronicled and which only came once or twice a year. Many little luxuries, most common now, were not invented then, steel-pens and wax-matches for instance, and, amongst a thousand other unobserved deficiencies, there were no night-lights, except of a most rudimentary kind. No one ever thought of having baths in their rooms then, even in the most comfortable houses: a footpan or a "bidet" was the utmost luxury attempted.
It was in the spring of 1839 that I had my first associations with death. Often, in my earliest childish days, had I seen the sweet and charming Lady Parry, who, as Bella Stanley, had been one of the dearest friends of my mother's youth. While our dear cousins Charlotte and Emma Leycester were at Lime, the news came of her death, and I remember how they and my mother sate over the fire crying, and of gradually understanding the cause, and of tears being renewed for several mornings afterwards, when details were received from Sir Edward Parry and old Lady Stanley.
From MY MOTHER'S JOURNAL.
"Lime, June 18, 1839.—During a week spent in London, Augustus was part of every day with his brothers and sister. Their first meeting was at Sheen. Augustus was much excited before they came, and when he saw his brothers, threw himself on my neck and kissed me passionately. They were soon intimate, and he was very much delighted at playing with them, and was not made fretful by it. There seemed to be a strong feeling of affection awakened towards them, unlike anything he has shown to other children. I have begun to teach Augustus to draw, but it is wearisome work from his inattention.... His delight in flowers and knowledge of their names is greater than ever, and it is equally necessary to control his gratification in this as in other pleasures. The usual punishment for his impatience over dressing is to have no garden flowers.
"In all the books of education I do not find what I believe is the useful view taken of the actual labour of learning to read—that of forcing the child's attention to a thing irksome to it and without interest. The task is commonly spoken of as a means to an end, necessary because the information in books cannot otherwise be obtained, and it is to be put off till the child's interest in the information is excited and so made a pleasure to him. Now it seems to me to be an excellent discipline whereby daily some self-denial and command may be acquired in overcoming the repugnance to doing from duty that which has in itself no attraction. In the first struggle to fix the attention and learn that which is without interest, but which must be done, a habit is gained of great importance. And in this way nothing is better suited to the purpose than the lesson of reading, even though little progress may be made for a long time.
"I find in giving any order to a child, it is always better not to look to see if he obeys, but to take it for granted it will be done. If one appears to doubt the obedience, there is occasion given for the child to hesitate, 'Shall I do it or no?' If you seem not to question the possibility of non-compliance, he feels a trust committed to him to keep and fulfils it. It is best never to repeat a command, never to answer the oft-asked question 'why?'
"Augustus would, I believe, always do a thing if reasoned with about it, but the necessity of obedience without reasoning is specially necessary in such a disposition as his. The will is the thing that needs being brought into subjection.
"The withholding a pleasure is a safe punishment for naughtiness, more safe, I think, than giving a reward for goodness. 'If you are naughty I must punish you,' is often a necessary threat: but it is not good to hold out a bribe for goodness—'If you are good I will give you such a thing.'"
In the autumn of 1839 we went for the first time to Norwich and spent Christmas there, which was most enchanting to me. The old buildings of Norwich gave me, even at five years old, the intense and passionate pleasure with which I have ever since regarded them. No others are the same. No others come back to me constantly in dreams in the same way.
How I revelled in the old Palace of that time, with its immensely long rambling passages and carved furniture; in the great dining-room with the pictures of the Christian Virtues, and the broad damp matted staircase with heavy banisters which led through it towards the cathedral, which it entered after passing the mysterious chapel-door with its wrought-iron grille, and a quaint little court, in which a raven and a seagull, two of the many pets of my uncle the Bishop, usually disported themselves! Then, in the garden were the old gateway and the beautiful ruin of the first bishop's palace, and, beyond the ruin, broad walks in the kitchen-garden, ending in a summer-house, and a grand old mulberry-tree in a corner. Outside the grounds of the Palace, it was a joy to go with Lea by the old gate-house over the Ferry to Mousehold Heath, where delightful pebbles were to be picked up, and to the Cow Tower by the river Wensum: and sometimes Aunt Kitty took me in the carriage to Bramerton, where my kind old uncle taught me the names of all the different fossils, which I have never forgotten to this day.
My Aunt Kitty was deeply interesting, but also very awful to me. I could always tell when she thought I was silly by her looks, just as if she said it in words. I was dreadfully afraid of her, but irresistibly attracted to her. Like my mother, I never differed from her opinion or rebelled against her word. She was pleased with my attempts to draw, and tried to teach me, drawing before me from very simple objects, and then leaving me her outlines to copy, before attempting to imitate the reality.
My cousins, Mary and Kate, had two rooms filled with pictures and other treasures, which were approached by a very steep staircase of their own. I soon began to be especially devoted to Kate, but I thought it perfect rapture to pay both of them visits in their rooms and "make waxworks" with the little bits of coloured wax off the taper-candles which they collected for me. Besides, in her room Kate kept a wonderful little live owl. My cousin Arthur Stanley was also very attractive to me. He was quite young at this time—had not taken his Oxford degree, I think—and had a very charming and expressive countenance. If it had not been for this, and his winning smile, I suppose that in manners (certainly in dress) he would have been thought very wanting. He scarcely ever spoke to strangers, and coloured violently when spoken to. His father he was most piteously afraid of. I do not think he was quite comfortable and at home with any one except his two sisters. But he noticed me a good deal as a child, and told me stories out of the History of England, which I liked immensely. Hugh Pearson, afterwards my dear friend, recollected how, on overhearing him and Arthur in the chapel talking about the inscription on the tomb of Bishop Sparrow, who wrote the "Rationale," I exclaimed, "Oh cousin Arthur, do tell me about Bishop Sparrow and the Russian lady." I used to play with the children of Canon Wodehouse, who, with his charming wife, Lady Jane, lived close to the Palace. With their two youngest daughters, Emily and Alice, I was great friends, and long kept up a childish correspondence with them, on the tiniest possible sheets of paper. Emily had bright red hair, but it toned down, and after she grew up she was very much admired as Mrs. Legh of Lyme. On the way to the Ferry lived Professor Sedgwick, who was always very kind to me. He once took me with him to a shop and presented me with a great illustrated "Robinson Crusoe."
From MY MOTHER'S JOURNAL.
"Stoke, Feb. 12, 1840.—Augustus's chief delight of late has been stories out of the History of England, and the 'Chapter of Kings' is a continual source of interest and pleasure. His memory in these things is very strong and his quick apprehension of times and circumstances. I should say the historical organ was very decided in him, and he seems to have it to the exclusion of the simple childlike view of everything common to his age. In reading the account of the flood yesterday he asked, 'What books did Noah take into the Ark? he must have taken a Bible.'—'No—the people lived after his time.'—'Then he must have had one of Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel.'—'How dreadful it must have been for Noah to see all the dead bodies when he came out of the Ark.'
"'How much ground there will be when we all die!'—'Why so?'—'Because we shall all turn to dust.'
"There is a strong predominance of the intellectual over the moral feeling in him, I fear, and it must be my endeavour always to draw out and encourage the love of what is good and noble in character and action. His eyes, however, always fill with tears on hearing any trait of this kind, and he readily melts at any act of self-denial or affection, so that his talking little of these things must not perhaps be dwelt upon as a sure sign of not estimating them."
"August 5.—There is just the same greediness in Augustus now about books that there used to be about flowers, and I have to restrain the taste for novelty and excitement. Reading of a little girl who was fond of her Bible, he said, 'I should not have been so. I like my fat Yellow Book much better, but I like the Bible far better than the Prayer-Book: I do not like that at all.'"
In this year of 1840, Uncle Julius accepted the Archdeaconry of Lewes, which wrought a change in our quiet life from the great number of clergy who were now constant guests at the Rectory and the greater frequency of clerical subjects of discussion at Lime. Once a year also, we went regularly to Hastings for a night before my uncle gave his charge to the clergy, driving back late afterwards through the hot lanes. I always liked this expedition and scrambling about with Lea on the mile of open common which then intervened between St. Leonards and Hastings: but it was dreadfully tantalising, when I was longing to go to the sea on the second day, that I was expected to remain for hours in the hot St. Clement's Church, while the sermon and charge were going on, and that the charge, of which I understood nothing except that I hated it, sometimes lasted three hours!
Mr. John Nassau Simpkinson[23] was now curate to my uncle, and lived in "the Curatage" at Gardner Street with his sister Louisa and her friend Miss Dixon, whom we saw constantly. They persuaded my mother to have weekly "parish tea-parties," at which all the so-called "ladies of the parish" came to spend the evening, drink tea, and work for the poor, while one of them read aloud from a Missionary Report. I think it was also at the suggestion of Miss Simpkinson that my mother adopted a little Hindoo girl (whom of course she never saw), putting her to school, paying for her, and otherwise providing for her.
A little excitement of our quiet summer was the marriage, in our old church, of my half-uncle Gustavus Hare, then a handsome young officer, to a pretty penniless Miss Annie Wright. It was a most imprudent marriage, and would probably have been broken off at the last moment, if my mother had not been melted by their distress into settling something (£1200 I think) upon them. I remember that it was thought a good omen that a firefly (one had never been seen at Hurstmonceaux before) perched, with its little lamp, upon the bride on the evening before the marriage. Mrs. Gustavus Hare proved an admirable wife and a good mother to her army of children. They lived for some time in Devonshire, and then in Ireland: whence, in 1868, they went to Australia, and afterwards passed entirely out of the family horizon, though I believe many of the children are still living.
In the autumn, a great enjoyment was driving in our own little carriage, with "Dull," the old horse (mother, Uncle Julius, Lea, and I), to spend a few days with the Penrhyns at Sheen, sleeping at Godstone and passing through Ashdown Forest. In those days, however, by starting early and posting, the journey from Lime to London could be accomplished in one day, but our annual journey from London to Stoke (in Shropshire) occupied three days. My mother and I used to play at "gates and stiles," counting them, through the whole journey. Unluckily the swinging motion of our great travelling chariot always made me so sick that I had a horror of these journeys; but we had pleasant hours in the evenings at the old posting-inns, with their civil old-fashioned servants and comfortable sitting-rooms with the heavy mahogany furniture which one so seldom sees now, and sometimes we arrived early enough for a walk, which had all the interest of an expedition into an unknown territory. Well do I remember certain fields near the comfortable old inn of Chapel House, and the daisies which Lea and I used to pick there. After my Aunt Kitty gave me my first taste for antiquities when showing me, at Stoke, the picture of Old Time in the frontispiece of Grose's "Antiquities," these journeys had a fresh interest, and greatly did I delight in the glimpse of Brambletye House, as we passed through Ashdown Forest, and the little tower of Stafford Castle at the top of its wooded hill. Once also we slept at Peterborough and saw its cathedral, and on the way to Norwich it was always an ecstasy to see and draw Thetford Abbey.
On the third day from London, when evening was drawing to a close, we began to reach familiar scenes—the inn of "the Loggerheads," with the sign of the two heads and the motto—
"We three
Loggerheads be."
Market-Drayton, paved with round pebbles, over which the carriage jolted violently, the few lamps being lighted against the black and white houses at the dark street corners: Little Drayton shabbier still, with the gaudy sign of the Lord Hill public-house, then of "The Conquering Hero," with the same intention: Stoke Heath, at that time a wild pine-wood carpeted with heather: some narrow lanes between high hedgerows: a white gate in a hollow with river-watered meadows: a drive between steep mossy banks with beech-trees, and a glimpse of an old church and tufted islands rising from the river in the flat meadows beyond: then the long windows and projecting porch of a white house with two gables. As we drove up, we could see through the windows two figures rising hastily from their red armchairs on either side the fire—an ancient lady in a rather smart cap, and an old gentleman with snow-white hair and the dearest face in the world—Grannie and Grandpapa.
The happiest days of my childish years were all condensed in the five months which we annually spent at Stoke (away from Uncle Julius, Aunt Georgiana, and the Maurices). Grandpapa did not take much notice of my existence, but when he did it was always in kindness, though I believe he had rather resented my adoption. Grannie (who was only my mother's stepmother but married to Grandpapa when she was quite a child) was tremendously severe, but also very good to me: she never "kept me at a distance," so, though she often punished me, I was never afraid of her—"Better a little chiding than a great deal of heart-break."[24]
The quaint old house was also suited to my imaginative disposition, and I thought the winding passage in the older part quite charming, and never observed that my bedroom had no carpet, and that the fender, which was the whole height of the mantel-piece, shut in all the warmth of the fire. A dark back-staircase with a swing door and a heavy bolt, which I thought most romantic, led hence to the offices.
In memory I can still see dear Grannie coming downstairs in the morning, with her little fat red and white spaniel Rose (it had belonged to her sister Rosamund) barking before her. She used to make Grandpapa read prayers in the study, a little long room close to the offices, which had a white bookcase along one side full of old books in white paper covers, and on the other a number of quaint old pictures of Switzerland. Square green baize cushions were put down in front of each of the "quality" for them to kneel upon, and were taken away as soon as the performance was over. I had my breakfast in the little room of Mrs. Cowbourne, my Grannie's dear old maid, which was through the kitchen, and deliciously warm and comfortable. I always remember the three glazed green flower-pots which stood in the window of that room, and which held respectively a double geranium, a trailing hop, and a very peculiar kind of small fuchsia, which one never sees now, with very small flowers. Sometimes I went in to see the men and maids have their breakfast at the long table in the servants' hall: the maids had only great bowls of bread and milk; tea and bread and butter were never thought of below the housekeeper's room.
Rev. Oswald LeycesterI did my lessons in my mother's room upstairs, which, as she always brought with her a picture of the four Hare brothers, and certain books from home in familiar covers, suggested a salutary reminiscence of Uncle Julius. Spelling and geography were always trials, the latter because the geography book was so dreadfully uninteresting: it told us how many inhabitants there were in the States of Lucca and Modena. I never had any playthings at Stoke: my amusement was to draw on all the bits of paper I could get hold of; but I only drew two subjects, over and over again—the Day of Judgment, and Adam and Eve being turned out of Paradise: these were of inexhaustible interest. Sometimes I was allowed to have the little volumes of "Voyages and Travels" to look at (I have them now), with the enchanting woodcuts of the adventures of Columbus, Cortes, and Pizarro: and there were certain little books of Natural History, almost equally delightful, which lived on the same shelf of the great bookcase in the drawing-room, and were got down by a little flight of red steps.
I scarcely ever remember Grannie as going out, except sometimes to church. She was generally in one extreme or other of inflammation or cold; but it never went beyond a certain point, and when she was thought to be most ill, she suddenly got well. Grandpapa used to walk with my mother in the high "rope-walk" at the top of the field, and I used to frisk away from them and find amusement in the names which my mother and her companions had cut on the beech-trees in their youth: in the queer dark corners of rock-work and shrubbery: in the deliciously high sweet box hedge at the bottom of the kitchen-garden; and most of all in the pretty little river Clarence, which flowed to join the Terne under a wooden bridge in a further garden which also belonged to the Rectory. But, if Grandpapa was not with us, we used to go to the islands in the Terne, reached by straight paths along the edge of wide ditches in the meadows. Two wooden bridges in succession led to the principal island, which was covered with fine old willow-trees, beneath which perfect masses of snowdrops came up in spring. At the end was a little bathing-house, painted white inside, and surrounded with cupboards, where I used to conceal various treasures, and find them again the following year. I also buried a bird near the bathing-house, and used to dig it up every year to see how the skeleton was getting on. My mother had always delightful stories to tell of this island in her own childhood, and of her having twice tumbled into the river: I was never tired of hearing them.
Another great enjoyment was to find skeleton-leaves, chiefly lime-leaves. There was a damp meadow which we called "the skeleton-ground" from the number we found there. I have never seen any since my childhood, but I learnt a way then of filling up the fibres with gum, after which one could paint upon them. Our man-servant, John Gidman, used to make beautiful arrows for me with the reeds which grew in the marshy meadows or by "Jackson's Pool" (a delightful place near which snowdrops grew wild), and I used to "go out shooting" with a bow. Also, in one of the lumber-rooms I found an old spinning-wheel, upon which I used to spin all the wool I could pick off the hedges: and there was a little churn in which it was enchanting to make butter, but this was only allowed as a great treat.
I always found the Shropshire lanes infinitely more amusing than those at Hurstmonceaux. Beyond the dirty village where we used to go to visit "Molly Latham and Hannah Berry" was a picturesque old water-mill, of which Grandpapa had many sketches. Then out of the hedge came two streamlets through pipes, which to me had all the beauty of waterfalls. Close to the Terne stood a beautiful old black and white farmhouse called Petsey. The Hodnet Lane (delightfully productive of wool), which ran in front of it, led also to Cotton, a farmhouse on a hill, whither my mother often went to visit "Anne Beacoll," and which was infinitely amusing to me. At the corner of the farmyard was a gigantic stone, of which I wonder to this day how it got there, which Grandpapa always told me to put in my pocket. But I liked best of all to beguile my mother in another direction through a muddy lane, in which we were half swamped, to Helshore, for there, on a promontory above the little river, where she remembered an old house in her childhood, the crocuses and polyanthuses of the deserted garden were still to be found in spring under the moss-grown apple-trees.
My grandparents and my mother dined at six. The dining-room had two pillars, and I was allowed to remain in the room and play behind them noiselessly: generally acting knights and heroes out of my ballad-books. At Hurstmonceaux I should have been punished at once if I ever made a noise, but at Stoke, if I was betrayed into doing so, which was not very often, Grannie would say, "Never mind the child, Maria, it is only innocent play." I can hear her tone now. Sometimes when "Uncle Ned" (the Bishop of Norwich) came, he used to tell me the story of Mrs. Yellowly, cutting an orange like an old lady's face, and "how Mrs. Yellowly went to sea," with results quite shocking—which may be better imagined than described. In the dining-room were two framed prints of the death of Lord Chatham (from Copley's picture) and of Lord Nelson, in which the multitude of figures always left something to be discovered. At the end of the room was a "horse"—a sort of stilted chair on high springs, for exercise on wet days.
In the evenings my mother used to read aloud to her old parents. Miss Strickland's "Queens of England" came out then, and were all read aloud in turn. If I found the book beyond my comprehension, I was allowed, till about six years old, to amuse myself with some ivory fish, which I believe were intended for card-markers. Occasionally Margaret, the housemaid, read aloud, and very well too. She also sang beautifully, having been thoroughly well trained by Mrs. Leycester, and I never hear the Collect "Lord of all power and might" without thinking of her. Grannie was herself celebrated for reading aloud, having been taught by Mrs. Siddons, with whom her family were very intimate, and she gave me the lessons she had received, making me repeat the single line, "The quality of Mercy is not strained," fifty or sixty times over, till I had exactly the right amount of intonation on each syllable, her delicate ear detecting the slightest fault. Afterwards I was allowed to read—to devour—an old brown copy of "Percy's Reliques," and much have I learnt from those noble old ballads. How cordially I agree with Professor Shairp, who said that if any one made serious study of only two books—Percy's "Reliques" and Scott's "Minstrelsy"—he would "give himself the finest, freshest, most inspiring poetic education that is possible in our age."
My mother's "religion" made her think reading any novel, or any kind of work of fiction, absolutely wicked at this time, but Grannie took in "Pickwick," which was coming out in numbers. She read it by her dressing-room fire with closed doors, and her old maid, Cowbourne, well on the watch against intruders—"elle prenait la peine de s'en divertir avec tout le respect du monde;" and I used to pick the fragments out of the waste-paper basket, piece them together, and read them too.
Sundays were far less horrid at Stoke than at home, for Grannie generally found something for me to do. Most primitive were the church services, very different indeed from the ritualism which has reigned at Stoke since, and which is sufficient to bring the old grandparents out of their graves. In our day the Rectory-pew bore a carved inscription—
God prosper ye Kynge long in thys lande
And grant that Papystrie never have ye vper hande,
but the present Rector has removed it.
I can see the congregation still in imagination, the old women in their red cloaks and large black bonnets; the old men with their glistening brass buttons, and each with his bunch of southern-wood—"old man"—to snuff at. In my childhood the tunes of the hymns were always given with a pitch-pipe. "Dame Dutton's School" used to be ranged round the altar, and the grand old alabaster tomb of Sir Reginald Corbet, and if any of the children behaved ill during the service, they were turned up and soundly whipped then and there, their outcries mingling oddly with the responses of the congregation. But in those days, now considered so benighted, there was sometimes real devotion. People sometimes said real prayers even in church, before the times since which the poor in village churches are so frequently compelled to say their prayers to music. The curates always came to luncheon at the Rectory on Sundays. They were always compelled to come in ignominiously at the back door, lest they should dirty the entrance: only Mr. Egerton was allowed to come in at the front door, because he was "a gentleman born." How Grannie used to bully the curates! They were expected not to talk at luncheon, if they did they were soon put down. "Tea-table theology" was unknown in those days. As soon as the curates had swallowed a proper amount of cold veal, they were called upon to "give an account to Mrs. Leycester" of all that they had done in the week in the four quarters of the parish—Eton, Ollerton, Wistanswick, and Stoke—and soundly were they rated if their actions did not correspond with her intentions. After the curates, came the school-girls to practise their singing, and my mother was set down to strum the piano by the hour together as an accompaniment, while Grannie occupied herself in seeing that they opened their mouths wide enough, dragging the mouths open by force, and, if they would not sing properly, putting her fingers so far down their throats that she made them sick. One day, when she was doing this, Margaret Beeston bit her violently. Mr. Egerton was desired to talk to her afterwards about the wickedness of her conduct. "How could you be such a naughty girl, Margaret, as to bite Mrs. Leycester?"—"What'n her put her fingers down my throat for? oi'll boite she harder next time," replied the impenitent Margaret.
Grannie used to talk of chaney (china), laylocks (lilacs), and gould (gold): of the Prooshians and the Rooshians: of things being "plaguey dear" or "plaguey bad." In my childhood, however, half my elders used such expressions, which now seem to be almost extinct. "Obleege me by passing the cowcumber," Uncle Julius always used to say.
There were always three especial sources of turmoil at Stoke—the curates, the butlers, and the gardeners. Grannie was very severe to all her dependants, but to no one more than to three young lady protégées who lived with her in turn—Eliza Lathom, Emma Hunt, and Charlotte Atkinson—whom she fed on skim-milk and dry bread, and treated so harshly that the most adventurous and youngest of them, Charlotte Atkinson,[25] ran away altogether, joined a party of strolling players, and eventually married an actor (Mr. Tweedie). I remember Grannie going down into the kitchen one day and scolding the cook till she could bear it no longer, when she seized the dinner-bell from the shelf and rang it in her ears till she ran out of the kitchen. When there was "a wash" at Stoke, which was about every third week, it was a rule with Grannie that, summer or winter, it must always begin at one A.M. At that hour old Hannah Berry used to arrive from the village, the coppers were heated and the maids at work. The ladies-maids, who were expected to do all the fine muslins, &c., themselves, had also always to be at the washtubs at three A.M.—by candlelight. If any one was late, the housekeeper reported to Mrs. Leycester, who was soon down upon them pretty sharply. Generally, however, her real practical kindness and generosity prevented any one minding Mrs. Leycester's severity: it was looked upon as only "her way;" for people were not so tender in those days as they are now, and certainly no servant would have thought of giving up a place which was essentially a good one because they were a little roughly handled by their mistress. In those days servants were as liable to personal chastisement as the children of the house, and would as little have thought of resenting it. "You don't suppose I'm going to hurt my fingers in boxing your ears," said Grannie, when about to chastise the school children she was teaching, and she would take up a book from the table and use it soundly, and then say, "Now, we mustn't let the other ear be jealous," and turn the child round and lay on again on the other side. Grannie constantly boxed her housemaids' ears, and alas! when he grew very old, she used to box dear Grandpapa's, though she loved him dearly, the great source of offence being that he would sometimes slyly give the servant's elbow a tip when his daily table-spoonful of brandy was being poured out.
As I have said, Grannie was quite devoted to Grandpapa, yet as she was twenty years younger, his great age could not but accustom her to the thought of his death, and she constantly talked before him, to his great amusement, of what she should do as a widow. Judge Leycester ("Uncle Hugh"), my grandfather's brother, had left her a house in New Street, Spring Gardens, and whenever Mary Stanley went to Stoke, she used to make her write down the different stages and distances to London to be ready for her removal. Frequently the family used to be startled by a tremendous "rat-a-tat-tat-tat," on the dining-room door. Grannie had ordered Richard, the young footman, up, and was teaching him how to give "a London knock"—it was well he should be prepared. One day the party sitting in the drawing-room were astonished to see the family carriage drive up to the door, with Spragg the butler on the box. "I was only seeing how Spragg will look as coachman when your Grandpapa is dead," said Grannie, and Grandpapa looked on at the arrangements and enjoyed them heartily.
As for dear Grandpapa himself, he was always happy. He would amuse himself for hours in touching up in grey or brown his own (very feeble) sketches in Switzerland or France. Being a great classical scholar, he also read a great deal of Italian and Latin poetry, and addressed a Latin ode to his daughter-in-law Lady Charlotte Penrhyn when he was in his ninety-second year! This kind aunt of my childhood—"Aunt Nin," as I always called her—was a very simple person, utterly without pretension, but because she was Lord Derby's daughter, Grannie always treated her as the great person of the family. When we went to Stoke, no difference whatever was made in the house, the stair-carpets were not laid down, and though the drawing-room was constantly lived in, its furniture was all swathed in brown holland after the fashion of an uninhabited London house. When the Stanleys or Leycesters of Toft came to Stoke, the stair-carpet was put down and the covers-covers were taken off; but on the rare occasions when Aunt Penrhyn came to Stoke—oh sublime moment!—the covers themselves were taken off.
From our constant winter walk—"the Rope Walk"—my mother and I could see Hodnet Tower, of which Grandpapa had at one time been Rector as well as of Stoke. Bishop Heber had been Rector before him, and in his time my mother had found much of her chief happiness at Hodnet, from sources which I did not understand, when I used so often to walk up and down with her on Sundays, listening to the beautiful Hodnet bells. In my childhood, Mrs. Cholmondeley was living at Hodnet Hall, having been Mary Heber, the Bishop's sister. She was very kind to me, writing for my instruction in English history a "Chapter of Kings," of which I can only remember the two last lines, which were rather irreverent:
"William the Fourth was a long time sick,
And then was succeeded by little Queen Vick."
It was a great event at Stoke when my mother was allowed to have the carriage, though what John Minshull the coachman generally did no one could ever find out. If we drove, it was generally to Buntingsdale, a fine old brick house of the last century standing at the end of a terraced garden, with lime avenues above the Terne, near Market Drayton. Here Mr. and Mrs. Tayleur lived with their four daughters—Mary, Harriet, Lucy, and Emma, who were very severely brought up, though their father was immensely rich. The old fashion was kept up at Buntingsdale of all the daughters being expected to spend the whole morning with their mother in the morning-room at work round a round table, and formality in everything was the rule. Yet many of my childish pleasures came from Buntingsdale, and I was always glad when we turned out of the road and across some turnip-fields, which were then the odd approach to the lime avenue on the steep bank above the shining Terne, and to see the brilliant border of crocuses under the old garden wall as we drove up to the house. The eldest daughter, Mary, who looked then like a delicate china figure and always smelt of lavender and rose-leaves, used to show me her shell cabinet and her butterflies, and teach me to collect snail-shells! The bright energetic second daughter, Harriet, drew capitally and encouraged my early interest in art. The other two daughters, Lucy and Emma, died young, almost at the same time: my chief recollection is of their bending over their eternal worsted-work, very pale and fragile, and their passing away is one of my earliest impressions of death.
The other neighbours whom we saw most of were the Hills of Hawkestone, then a very numerous family. Five of the brothers—Sir Rowland (afterwards Lord Hill), Sir Robert, Sir Francis, Sir Noel, and Colonel Clement Hill, were in the battle of Waterloo, and my mother has often described to me the sickening suspense in watching for the postman after the first news of the engagement had come, with the almost certainty that at least some of the brothers must be killed. Miss Emma was deputed to receive the news, as the sister of strongest nerve, but when she heard that all her brothers were safe (only Sir Robert being slightly wounded), she fainted away. Lord Hill used to ride to see my Grandfather upon the charger he rode at Waterloo, which horse had such a reputation, that people would come from great distances more even to see the horse than Lord Hill himself. In earlier days, the family at Hawkestone used to be likened to that of the Osbaldistons in "Rob Roy"—and had all the same elements—the chaplain, the soldiers, the sportsmen, the fox-hunter, the fisherman, and in Rachel (daughter of the Colonel Hill who was killed by a fall from his horse) a very handsome Diana Vernon, with frank natural manners: people called her "the Rose of Hawkestone." My mother often used to recall how remarkable it was that though, when gathered at home, the family seemed to have no other purpose than to pursue the amusements of a country life, when called on by their country to go forth in her service, none of her sons were so brave, none more self-devoted, than the Hill brothers.
When all the family were at Hawkestone, they dined early and had a hot supper at nine o'clock. As the family interests were confined to sporting, the conversation was not very lively, and was relieved by the uncles endeavouring to provoke each other and the young ones—to yawn! no very difficult task, seeing they had nothing to do. The eldest Miss Hill (Maria) was a very primitive-looking person, with hair cut short, and always insisted upon sitting alone at a side-table that no one might see her eat; but I cannot remember whether she was alive in my time, or whether I have only heard of her. Even in the days of a comparative inattention to those niceties of feminine attire now universally attended to, the extraordinary head-gear worn by the Misses Hill, their tight gowns, and homely appearance, were matter for general remark. But if they lacked in these points, they vied with their brothers in the possession of brave hearts and loving sympathies—"Every eye blessed them: every tongue gave witness" to their active benevolence.
In true patriarchal style, the six children of the eldest of the Hill brothers were brought up with the uncles and aunts at Hawkestone Hall, nor was any change made when the father's sudden death left a young widow to be tended with all the kindness of real brethren in the old family home. At length the grandfather died, and Sir Rowland, then about eighteen, succeeded. But when his affairs were inquired into, it was found, that in consequence of very serious losses in a county bankruptcy and from mismanagement of the estate, there was a heavy debt upon the property, which, at best, it would take years to liquidate. A plan of rescue presented itself to Mrs. Hill, the young baronet's mother, who was a clever and kind-hearted woman, but lacked the simplicity of her sisters-in-law. A rich merchant, a Mr. Clegg from Manchester, had bought the estate adjoining Hawkestone. His only grand-daughter was then scarcely more than a child; but it was as great an object of desire to old Mr. Clegg to ally his child with an ancient and respected family and to procure for her the rank and station which his gold could not obtain, as it was to Mrs. Hill to replenish her son's empty treasury, and enable him to keep up the family place. A compact for the future was soon settled. In a few years, however, the fatal illness of Mr. Clegg obliged Mrs. Hill to hurry matters, and over her grandfather's deathbed Sir Rowland was married to the girl of fifteen. Immediately after the ceremony Mr. Clegg died. Mrs. Hill then took the girl-bride home, and educated her with her own niece, no one suspecting her secret. Sir Rowland went abroad. When two years had elapsed, Mrs. Hill also went abroad with "Miss Clegg"—who returned as the wife of Sir Rowland, received with great festivities. The marriage was a most happy one. The unassuming gentleness of the lady was as great as if she had been born in the station to which she was called: and in the charities of social and domestic life and the exercise of the widest-hearted benevolence to all around her, she long reigned at Hawkestone.[26] Her son Rowland was only a year older than myself, and was the nearest approach to a boy-acquaintance that I had quite as a child.
Hawkestone was and is one of the most enchanting places in England. There, the commonplace hedges and fields of Shropshire are broken by a ridge of high red sandstone cliffs most picturesque in form and colour, and overgrown by old trees with a deep valley between them, where great herds of deer feed in the shadow. On one side is a grotto, and a marvellous cavern—"the Druid's Cave"—in which I used to think a live Druid, a guide dressed up in white with a wreath, appearing through the yellow light, most bewildering and mysterious. On the other side of the valley rise some castellated ruins called "the Red Castle." There was a book at Stoke Rectory about the history of this castle in the reign of King Arthur, which made it the most interesting place in the world to me, and I should no more have thought of questioning the fight of Sir Ewaine and Sir Hue in the valley, and the reception of the former by "the Lady of the Rock," and the rescue of Sir Gawaine from the gigantic Carados by Sir Lancelot, than I should have thought of attacking—well, the divine legation of Moses. But even if the earlier stories of the Red Castle are contradicted, the associations with Lord Audley and the battle of Blore Heath would always give it a historic interest.
Over one of the deep ravines which ran through the cliff near the Red Castle was "the Swiss Bridge"—Aunt Kitty painted it in oils. Beneath it, in a conical summer-house—"the Temple of Health"—an old woman used to sit and sell packets of ginger-bread—"Drayton ginger-bread"—of which I have often bought a packet since for association's sake.
But the most charming expedition of all from Stoke was when, once every year, I was sent to pay a visit to the Goldstone Farm, where the mother of my dear nurse Mary Lea lived. It was an old-fashioned farmhouse of the better class, black and white, with a large house-place and a cool parlour beyond it, with old pictures and furniture. In front, on the green, under an old cherry-tree, stood a grotto of shells, and beyond the green an open common on the hillside covered with heath and gorse, and where cranberries were abundant in their season. Behind, was a large garden, with grass walks and abundance of common flowers and fruit. Dear old Mrs. Lea was charming, and full of quaint proverbs and sayings, all, as far as I remember them, of a very ennobling nature. With her lived her married daughter, Hannah Challinor, a very fat good-natured farmeress. Words cannot describe the fuss these good people made over me, or my own dear Lea's pride in helping to do the honours of her home, or the excellent tea, with cream and cakes and jam, which was provided. After Mrs. Lea's death, poor Mrs. Challinor fell into impoverished circumstances, and was obliged to leave Goldstone, though the pain of doing so almost cost her her life. I was then able for many years to return in a measure the kindness shown me so long before.
Long after the railway was made which passed by Whitmore (within a long drive of Stoke), we continued to go in our own carriage, posting, to Shropshire. Gradually my mother consented to go in her own carriage, on a truck, by rail as far as Birmingham; farther she could not endure it. Later still, nearly the whole journey was effected by rail, but in our own chariot. At last we came to use the ordinary railway carriages, but then, for a long time, we used to have post-horses to meet us at some station near London: my mother would not be known to enter London in a railway carriage—"it was so excessively improper" (the sitting opposite strangers in the same carriage); so we entered the metropolis "by land," as it was called in those early days of railway travelling.
On returning to Lime in the spring of 1841, I was sent to Mr. Green's school, a commercial school at Windmill Hill, about a mile off. I used to ride to the school on my little pony "Gentle," much to the envy of the schoolboys; and in every way a most invidious distinction was made between me and them, which I daresay would have been thoroughly avenged upon me had I remained with them during play-hours; but I was only there from nine to twelve, doing my lessons at one of the great oak desks in the old-fashioned schoolroom. I chiefly remember of the school the abominable cases of favouritism that there were, and that if one of the ushers took a dislike to a boy, he was liable to be most unmercifully caned for faults for which another boy was scarcely reproved. In the autumn, when we went to Rockend, I was sent to another school at Torquay, a Mr. Walker's, where I was much more roughly handled, the master being a regular tartar. I remember a pleasant, handsome boy called Ray, who sat by me in school and helped me out of many a scrape, but Mr. Walker was very violent, and as he was not allowed to beat me as much as he did the other boys, he soon declined teaching me at all.
The railway from London to Brighton was now just opened, and we took advantage of it. As we reached Merstham (by the first morning train) the train stopped, and we were all made to get out, for the embankment had fallen in in front of us. It was pouring in torrents of rain, and the line muddy and slippery to a degree. We all had to climb the slippery bank through the yellow mud. I was separated from my mother and Lea and Uncle Julius, who was with us, but found them again in a desolate house, totally unfurnished, where all the passengers by the train were permitted to take refuge. It was the place whither I have gone in later days to visit Lord Hylton. Here we sat on the boarded floor, with very little food, in a great room looking upon some dripping portugal-laurels, all through the long weary day till four in the afternoon, when omnibuses arrived to take us to another station beyond the broken line. We did not reach Brighton till nine P.M., and when we arrived at the station and inquired after our carriages, which were to have met us at mid-day and taken us home, we heard that a bad accident had taken place; one of the horses had run away, one of the carriages been overturned down a steep bank, and one of the servants had his arm broken. We remained at Brighton in some anxiety till Monday, when we found that it was my uncle's horse "Steady" which had run away, and his faithful old servant Collins who was injured.
When my uncle was driving himself, these accidents were so frequent that we scarcely thought anything of them, as he drove so carelessly and talked vehemently or composed his sermons or charges all the way. But if the family had an accident on their way to church, they always returned thanks for their preservation, which made quite a little excitement in the service. I remember one occasion on which my mother and aunt did not appear as usual, when a note was handed to Uncle Julius as he came out of the vestry, upon which thanks were returned for the "merciful preservation of Lucy and Maria Hare and Staunton Collins" (the coachman)—and all the Rectory servants and all the Lime servants immediately walked out of church to look after the wounded or—because they were too excited to stay! The horse had taken fright at a gipsy encampment in the marsh lane and the family had been precipitated into the ditch.
At this time Uncle Julius had been made one of the Poor Law Guardians and had to visit at the workhouse, and there was the most ceaseless ferment and outcry against him. All sorts of stories were got up. One was that he was going to put all the children into a boat and take them out to sink them in Pevensey Bay! One day old Betty Lusted went up to the Rectory and asked to see the Archdeacon. He went out to her: "Well, Betty, and what do you want?"—"I want to know, zur, if you do know the Scripture."—"Well, Betty, I hope I do, but why do you ask?"—"Because if you do know the Scripture, how coomes it that you doona zee—'them whom God hath joined together let na man put asunder'?" (apropos of the separation of husbands and wives in the workhouse); and though she was a poor half-witted body, she brought the tears into his eyes. I remember his asking her daughter Polly once what she prayed for every night and morning. "Well, zur, I do pray for a new pair of shoes," replied Polly, without the slightest hesitation.
Uncle Julius would have given the world to have been able to talk easily and sympathetically to his people, but he could not get the words out. Sick people in the parish used to say, "The Archdeacon he do come to us, and he do sit by the bed and hold our hands, and he do growl a little, but he do zay nowt."
One day he heard that a family named Woodhams were in great affliction. It was just after poor Haydon had committed suicide, and he took down Wordsworth's sonnet on Haydon, and read it to them by way of comfort. Of course they had never heard of Haydon, and had not an idea what it was all about.[27]
It was on our way from Norwich to Stoke in the autumn of 1841 that I made my first sketch from nature. We slept at Bedford, to meet Charles Stanley there, and I drew Bedford Bridge out of the window—a view made by candlelight of a bridge seen by moonlight—but it was thought promising and I was encouraged to proceed. My mother, who drew admirably herself, gave me capital simple lessons, and in every way fostered my love of the picturesque. Indeed Hurstmonceaux itself did this, with its weird views across the levels to the faint blue downs, and its noble ruined castle. Of the stories connected with this castle I could never hear enough, and Uncle Julius told them delightfully. But the one I cared for most was of our remote ancestress Sybil Filiol, who lived at Old Court Manor in the reign of Edward II., I think. Uncle Julius used to describe how, after her marriage in Wartling Church, she went to take leave of her dead father's garden (before riding away upon a pillion behind her husband), and, whilst there, was carried off by gipsies. Her husband and other members of her family pursued them, but in those days locomotion was difficult, escape in the Cheviot Hills easy, and she was never heard of again.[28] How well I remember the pictorial description of a strange funeral seen approaching over the hills—"the gipsies of the north" bringing back the body of Sybil Filiol to be buried with her ancestors at Wartling, and the story of how her husband devoted her dowry to making "Sybil Filiol's Way," a sort of stone causeway to Hurstmonceaux Church, of which I delighted to trace the old grey stones near Boreham Street and in the Church Lane.
Our cousin Anna Maria Shipley, who had been cruelly married by her father against her will to the savage paralytic Mr. Dashwood, and who had been very many years a widow, had, in 1838, made a second marriage with an old neighbour, Mr. Jones, who, however, lived only a year. In 1840, she married as her third husband the Rev. George Chetwode, and died herself in the year following. Up to the time of her death, it was believed and generally understood that the heirs of her large fortune were the children of her cousin Francis,[29] but it was then discovered that two days before she expired, she had made a will in pencil in favour of Mr. Chetwode, leaving all she possessed in his power. This news was an additional shock to my father, who had never recovered the will of Mrs. Louisa Shipley, and he passed the winter of 1841 at Palermo in the utmost melancholy. When he first arrived, he gave a few dinners, but after that, says Victoire, he seemed to have a presentiment of his end, though the doctors declared that he was not dangerously ill. For several nights in February Félix sate up with him. Mr. Hare wished to send him to bed, "mais Félix repondit, 'Rappelez-vous, monsieur, que je suis ancien militaire, et que quand j'ai une consigne, je ne la quitte jamais;'" and then he opposed Félix no longer. "One morning at five o'clock A.M.," said Madame Victoire, "he asked Félix what o'clock it was. Félix told him. Then he said, 'Dans une demi-heure j'aurais mon lait d'ânesse,' parceque l'ânesse venait à six heures.... Puis il commence à faire jour, et Félix se met à arranger un peu la chambre. Se trouvant à la fenêtre, il entend M. Hare faire un mouvement dans le lit: Félix regarde de près, il écoute, il touche: M. Hare venait de finir."
My father was buried in the English Cemetery at Palermo, where there is a plain sarcophagus over his grave. The English Consul sent the following certificate to Mrs. Hare:—
"On Saturday, the 15th January, 1842, the remains of the late Francis George Hare, Esquire, were interred in the Protestant Burial Ground at the Lazzaret of Palermo, in the presence of a large concourse of Sicilian noblemen, and of the British, French, and American residents. The service of the church was read by the Rev. W. F. Holt, and the pall was supported by the Principino of Lardoria, the Prince of Radali, the American Consul, and Mr. J. F. Turner. As a token of respect to the memory of the deceased, the flags of the British, French, and American vessels were hoisted half-mast high during the forenoon."
The summer was spent by the Marcus Hares at the Rectory—one of those intensely hot summers which I never remember since my childhood, when we gasped through the day, and lay at night under bowers of ash-boughs to keep off the torment of gnats, which used then to be as bad at Hurstmonceaux as I have since known mosquitoes in Italy. Of my cousins I preferred Theodore, who was a very engaging little child. I remember Uncle Julius coming out with tears streaming down his cheeks, and an open letter in his hand, one day when all the family were sitting under the trees. It was the news of the death of Dr. Arnold of Rugby.
In the autumn Mrs. Hare came with her children to spend some time at Hurstmonceaux Rectory. It was then arranged that I should call her "Italima" (being a corruption of "Italian Mama"), and by that name I will henceforth speak of her in these memoirs, but this must not be taken to imply any greater intimacy, as she never treated me familiarly or with affection. I remember the party arriving in their black dress—Italima, Francis, William, Esmeralda, Mr. Gaebler—the admirable tutor, Félix, Victoire, and Clémence—my sister's maid. My sister, as a little child, was always called "the Tigress," but as she grew older, her cousin Lord Normanby remonstrated at this. "Then give her another name," said Italima. "Esmeralda,"—and Esmeralda she was now always called.
Italima must have found it intensely dull at the Rectory. She used to walk daily to Gardner Street, where the sight of "somebody" and the village shops was a consolation to her. She used to make my sister practise on the pianoforte for hours, and if she did not play well she shut her up for the rest of the day in a dressing-room, and I used to go and push fairy-stories to her under the door. Though she was so severe to my sister, she resented exceedingly any scoldings which Uncle Julius gave to Francis, who richly deserved them, and was terribly spoilt. He was, however, as beautiful as a boy as my sister was as a girl, and a wonderfully graceful pair they made when they danced the tarantella together in the evenings. Altogether my own brothers and sister being as children infinitely more attractive than the Marcus Hares', I was much happier with them, which was terribly resented in the family, and any sign I gave of real enjoyment was always followed by some privation, for fear I should be over-excited by it. Mr. Gaebler was a most pleasant and skilful tutor, and I found it delightful to do lessons with him, and made immense progress in a few weeks: but because his teaching was pleasant, it was supposed that the "discipline" of lessons was wanting, and I was not long allowed to go on learning from him. In the afternoons we were all made to go to the school and practise ridiculous Hullah singing, which we loathed.
The Bunsens were now living at Hurstmonceaux Place. Bunsen had been Minister for Prussia at Rome at the time of my birth and the death of my uncle Augustus Hare, and had then become very intimate with my mother, as he had previously been with my uncle. Therefore, when he became Minister in London and wanted a country-house, Hurstmonceaux Place, which was then to let, seemed wonderfully suited to his requirements. The great distance from London, however (the railway then coming no nearer than Brighton, twenty-four miles off) prevented the Bunsens from remaining more than two years at Hurstmonceaux; but during this time they added much to our happiness, and, child as I was, I was conscious of the vivifying influence which their refinement, their liberal views, and hightoned conversation brought into the narrow circle at Hurstmonceaux, which being so much and so often cut off from outer influences, was becoming more and more of a Mutual Admiration Society. In the many loving daughters of the house, my mother found willing helpers in all her work amongst the poor, while the cheerful wisdom and unfailing spirit of Madame Bunsen made her the most delightful of companions. For several months I went every morning to Hurstmonceaux Place, and did all my lessons with Theodore Bunsen, who was almost my own age, under the care of his German tutor, Herr Deimling.
It must have been in 1841, I think, that Bunsen inoculated my uncle and mother with the most enthusiastic interest in the foundation of the Bishopric of Jerusalem, being himself perfectly convinced that it would be the Church thus founded which would meet the Saviour at his second coming. Esther Maurice, by a subscription amongst the ladies of Reading, provided the robes of the new Bishop.
In the spring of 1843 I was dreadfully ill with the whooping-cough, which I caught (as I had done the chicken-pox before) from my mother's numerous parochial godchildren, when they came to Lime for their lessons. When I was better we went for three days in our own carriage to the Mount Ephraim Hotel at Tunbridge Wells. It was my first "tour," and it was with rapture that I saw Mayfield Palace, Bayham Abbey, and the High Rocks, on our way to which Lea and I were run away with by our donkeys.
When the Marcus Hares were not at the Rectory, Uncle Julius in these years had a wonderfully varied society there, of whom we always saw more or less—German philosophers, American philologists, English astronomers, politicians, poets. Amongst those I particularly disliked were Whewell and Thirlwall—so icily cold were their manners. Bunsen, Star, Archdeacon Moore, Prentiss the American, Darley, Hull, I liked; but Professor Sedgwick I was quite devoted to.[30] He "threw a mantle of love over every one;"[31] and nothing could be more charming than his stories, more attractive and interesting than his conversation, especially with children, with whom he took pains to "be agreeable." I saw so many people of this kind, that I used to think that what I heard called "society" was all like these specimens: I was very much mistaken. A visit from the gentle and amiable Copley Fielding early encouraged my love of art. He greatly admired the peculiar scenery of Hurstmonceaux—the views from the churchyard, so like the descent upon the marshes of Ostia; the burnt uplands of the old deer-park; the long flat reaches of blue-green level; and the hazy distant downs, which were especially after his own heart. There was one view of the castle towers seen from behind, and embossed against the delicate hues of the level, which he used to make a frequent study of, and which my mother and uncle ever after called "Copley Fielding's view."
Amongst other visitors of this year, I must mention our cousin Penelope, Mrs. Warren (eldest daughter of Dean Shipley and sister of Mrs. Dashwood and Mrs. Heber), who spent some days at the Rectory with her daughters, because under her protection I had my only sight of the upper part of Hurstmonceaux Castle. One of the staircases remained then, and the timbers of many of the upper rooms were left, though the floors were gone. One day we were with my mother and uncle in the ruins, and they were saying how no one would ever see the upper floor again, when, to their horror, Mrs. Warren seized me in her arms and darted up the staircase. "Look, child, look!" she said, "for no one will ever see this again," and she leapt with me from beam to beam. I recollect the old chimney-pieces, the falling look of everything. It was wonderful that we came down safe; the staircase was removed immediately after, that no one might follow in our footsteps.
I remember Carlyle coming to stay at the Rectory, where they did not like him much. He came in a high hat—every one wore high hats then. The day he arrived, the wind blew his hat off into a ditch as he was getting over a stile: and he went off at once into one of his unbounded furies against "the most absurd outrageous head-covering in the world, which the vanity of the Prince Regent had caused people to adopt."
Aunt Lucy and the Maurices had long urged my mother to send me to school, and perhaps in many ways my terrible fits of naughtiness made it desirable, though they chiefly arose from nervousness, caused by the incessant "nagging" I received at home from every one except my mother and Lea. But the choice of the school to which I was sent at nine years old was very unfortunate. When illness had obliged my Uncle Augustus Hare to leave his beloved little parish of Alton Barnes for Italy, a Rev. Robert Kilvert came thither as his temporary curate—a very religious man, deeply learned in ultra "evangelical" divinity, but strangely unpractical and with no knowledge whatever of the world—still less of the boyish part of it. As Dr. John Brown once said—"The grace of God can do muckle, but it canna gie a man common-sense." Mr. Kilvert was a good scholar, but in the dryest, hardest sense; of literature he knew nothing, and he was entirely without originality or cleverness, so that his knowledge was of the most untempting description. Still his letters to my mother in her early widowhood had been a great comfort to her, and there was no doubt of his having been a thoroughly good parish-priest. He had lately married a Miss Coleman, who derived the strange name of Thermuthis from the daughter of Pharaoh who saved Moses out of the bulrushes, and he had opened a small school at his tiny Rectory of Hardenhuish, or, as it was generally called, Harnish, the estate of the Clutterbucks, near Chippenham in Wiltshire; so my mother, thinking it of far more importance to select "a good man" than "a good master," determined to send me there. How often since have I seen the terrible mistake of parents in "packing off" children to a distant school, to be entirely in the hands of masters of whose practical influence and social competence for their duties they know nothing whatever!
My own experience of Harnish is one of the many instances I have known of how little the character of the head of an establishment affects the members of it, unless his spirituality is backed up by a thorough knowledge of the world. The greater portion of Mr. Kilvert's scholars—his "little flock of lambs in Christ's fold"—were a set of little monsters. All infantine immoralities were highly popular, and—in such close quarters—it would have been difficult for the most pure and high-minded boy to escape from them. The first evening I was there, at nine years old, I was compelled to eat Eve's apple quite up—indeed, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was stripped absolutely bare: there was no fruit left to gather.
I wonder if children often go through the intense agony of anguish which I went through when I was separated from my mother. Perhaps not, as few children are brought up so entirely by and with their parents in such close companionship. It was leaving my mother that I minded, not the going to school, to which my misery was put down: though, as I had never had any companions, the idea of being left suddenly amongst a horde of young savages was anything but comforting. But my nervous temperament was tortured with the idea that my mother would die before I saw her again (I had read a story of this kind), that our life was over, that my aunts would persuade her to cease to care for me,—indeed, the anguish was so great and so little understood, that though it is more than fifty years ago, as I write this, I can scarcely bear to think of it.
| "The more we live, more brief appear |
| Our life's returning stages: |
| A day to childhood seems an year, |
| And years like passing ages." |
| —Thomas Campbell. |
| "Oh if, in time of sacred youth, |
| We learned at home to love and pray, |
| Pray Heaven that early Love and Truth |
| May never wholly pass away." |
| —Thackeray. |
MY mother took me to Harnish Rectory on July 28, 1843. The aspect of Mr. Kilvert, his tall figure, and red hair encircling a high bald forehead, was not reassuring, nor were any temptations offered by my companions (who were almost entirely of a rich middle class), or by the playground, which was a little gravelled courtyard—the stable-yard, in fact—at the back of the house. The Rectory itself was a small house, pleasantly situated on a hill, near an odd little Wrenian church which stood in a well-kept churchyard. We were met at Harnish by Mrs. Pile, who, as daughter of an Alton farmer, was connected with the happiest period of my mother's life, and while I was a prey to the utmost anguish, talking to her prevented my mother from thinking much about parting with me.
One miserable morning Mr. Kilvert, Mrs. Pile, and I went with my mother and Lea to the station at Chippenham. Terrible indeed was the moment when the train came up and I flung myself first into Lea's arms and then into my mother's. Mrs. Pile did her best to comfort me—but ... there was no comfort.
Several boys slept in a room together at Harnish. In mine there was at first only one other, who was one of the greatest boy-blackguards I ever came across—wicked, malicious, and hypocritical. He made my life indescribably miserable. One day, however, whilst we were wearily plodding through our morning lessons, I saw a pleasant gentleman-like boy come through the gate, who was introduced to us as Alick MacSween. He was thirteen, so much older than any of the others, and he was very good-looking, at least we thought so then, and we used to apply to him the line in our Syntax—
"Ingenui vultus puer ingenuique pudoris."
It was a great joy to find myself transferred to his room, and he soon became a hero in my eyes. Imagination endowed him with every grace, and I am sure, on looking back, that he really was a very nice boy. Gradually I had the delight of feeling assured that Alick liked me as much as I liked him. We became everything to each other, and shared our "lockers" in school, and our little gardens in play-hours. Our affection made sunshine in the dreariness. My one dread was that Alick would some day like another boy better than he liked me. It happened. Then, at ten years old, life was a blank. Soon afterwards Alick left the school, and a little later, before he was fifteen, I heard that he was dead. It was a dumb sorrow, which I could speak to no one, for no one would have understood it, not even my mother. It is all in the dim distance of the long ago. I could not realise what Alick would be if he was alive, but my mind's eye sees him now as he was then, as if it were yesterday: I mourn him still.
Mr. Kilvert, as I have said, was deeply "religious," but he was very hot-tempered, and slashed our hands with a ruler and our bodies with a cane most unmercifully for exceedingly slight offences. So intense, so abject was our terror of him, that we used to look forward as to an oasis to the one afternoon when he went to his parish duties, and Mrs. Kilvert or her sister Miss Sarah Coleman attended to the school, for, as the eldest boy was not thirteen, we were well within their capacities. The greater part of each day was spent in lessons, and oh! what trash we were wearisomely taught; but from twelve to one we were taken out for a walk, when we employed the time in collecting all kinds of rubbish—bits of old tobacco-pipe, &c.—to make "museums."
To MY MOTHER.
"DARLING MAMA,—I like it rather better than I expected. They have killed a large snake by stoning it, and Gumbleton has skinned it, such nasty work, and peged it on a board covered with butter and pepper, and layed it out in the sun to dry. It is going to be stuffed. Do you know I have been in the vault under the church. It is so dark. There are great big coffins there. The boy's chief game is robbers. Give love and 8 thousand kisses to Lea and love to the Grannies. Good-bye darling Mama."
"Frederick Leuis has been very ill of crop. Do you know what that is? I have been to the school-feast at Mr. Clutterbuck's. It was so beautifull. All the girls were seated round little round tables amongst beds of geraniums, heltrope, verbenas, and balm of Gilead. We carried the tea and were called in to grapes and gooseberries, and we played at thread-the-needle and went in a swing and in a flying boat. Good-bye Mamma."
"MY DEAR MAMMA,—The boys have got two dear little rabbits. They had two wood-pigeons, but they died a shocking death, being eaten of worms, and there was a large vault made in which was interred their bodies, and that of a dear little mouse who died too. All went into mourning for it."
"MY DEAR MAMMA,—We have been a picknick at a beautiful place called Castlecomb. When we got there we went to see the dungeon. Then we saw a high tower half covered with ivy. You must know that Castlecomb is on the top of an emense hill, so that you have to climb hands and knees. When we sate down to tea, our things rolled down the hill. We rambled about and gathered nuts, for the trees were loaded. In the town there is a most beautiful old carved cross and a church. Good-bye darling Mamma."
"Nov. 11.—I will tell you a day at Mr. Kilvert's. I get up at half-past six and do lessons for the morning. Then at eight breakfast. Then go out till half-past nine. Then lessons till eleven. Then go out till a quarter-past eleven. Then lessons till 12, go a walk till 2 dinner. Lessons from half-past three, writing, sums, or dictation. From 5 till 6 play. Tea. Lessons from 7 to 8. Bed. I have collected two thousand stamps since I was here. Do you ever take your pudding to the poor women on Fridays now? Goodbye darling Mamma."
As the holidays approached, I became ill with excitement and joy, but all through the half years at Harnish I always kept a sort of map on which every day was represented as a square to be filled up when lived through. Oh, the dreary sight of these spaces on the first days: the ecstasy when only one or two squares remained white!
From MY MOTHER'S JOURNAL.
"When I arrived at Harnish, Augustus was looking sadly ill. As the Rectory door was opened, the dear boy stood there, and when he saw us, he could not speak, but the tears flowed down his cheeks. After a while he began to show his joy at seeing us."
The Marcus Hares were at Hurstmonceaux all the winter, and a terrible trial it was to me, as my Aunt Lucy was more jealous than ever of any kind word being spoken to me. But I had some little pleasures when I was at Hurstmonceaux Place with the large merry family of the Bunsens, who had a beautiful Christmas-tree.
There is nothing to tell of my school-life during the next year, though my mind dwells drearily on the long days of uninstructive lessons in the close hot schoolroom when so hopelessly "nous suyons à grosses gouttes," as Mme. de Sévigné says; or on the monotonous confinement in the narrow court which was our usual playground; and my recollection shrinks from the reign of terror under which we lived. In the summer I was delivered from Hurstmonceaux, going first with my mother to our dear Stoke home, which I had never seen before in all its wealth of summer flowers, and proceeding thence to the English lakes, where the delight of the flowers and the sketching was intense. But our pleasure was not unalloyed, for, though Uncle Julius accompanied us, my mother took Esther Maurice with her, wishing to give her a holiday after her hard work in school-teaching at Reading, and never foreseeing, what every one else foresaw, that Uncle Julius, who had always a passion for governesses, would certainly propose to her. Bitter were the tears which my mother shed when this result—to her alone unexpected—actually took place. It was the most dismal of betrothals: Esther sobbed and cried, my mother sobbed and cried, Uncle Julius sobbed and cried daily. I used to see them sitting holding each other's hands and crying on the banks of the Rotha.
These scenes for the most part took place at Foxhow, where we paid a long visit to Mrs. Arnold, whose children were delightful companions to me. Afterwards we rented a small damp house near Ambleside—Rotha Cottage—for some weeks, but I was very ill from its unhealthiness, and terribly ill afterwards at Patterdale from the damp of the place. Matthew Arnold, then a very handsome young man, was always excessively kind to me, and I often had great fun with him and his brothers, but he was not considered then to give any promise of the intellectual powers he showed afterwards. From Foxhow and Rotha Cottage we constantly visited Wordsworth and his dear old wife at Rydal Mount, and we walked with him to the Rydal Falls. He always talked a good deal about himself and his own poems, and I have a sense of his being not vain, but conceited. I have been told since, in confirmation of this, that when Milton's watch—preserved somewhere—was shown to him, he instantly and involuntarily drew out his own watch, and compared, not the watches, but the poets. The "severe creator of immortal things," as Landor called him, read us some of his verses admirably,[32] but I was too young at this time to be interested in much of his conversation, unless it was about the wild-flowers, to which he was devoted, as I was. I think that at Keswick we also saw Southey, but I do not remember him, though I remember his (very ugly) house very well. In returning south we saw Chester, and paid a visit to an old cousin of my mother's—"Dosey (Theodosia) Leigh," who had many quaint sayings. In allusion to her own maiden state, she would often complacently quote the old Cheshire proverb—"Bout's bare but it's yezzy."[33] While at Chester, though I forget how, I first became conscious how difficult the having Esther Maurice for an aunt would make everything in life to me. I was, however, at her wedding in November at Reading.
The winter of 1844-45 was the first of many which were made unutterably wretched by "Aunt Esther." Aunt Lucy had chastised me with rods, Aunt Esther did indeed chastise me with scorpions. Aunt Lucy was a very refined person, and a very charming and delightful companion to those she loved, and, had she loved me, I should have been devoted to her. Aunt Esther was, from her own personal characteristics, a person I never could have loved. Yet my uncle was now entirely ruled by her, and my gentle mother considered her interference in everything as a cross which was "sent to her" to be meekly endured. The society at the Rectory was now entirely changed: all the relations of the Hare family, except the Marcus Hares, were given to understand that their visits were unwelcome, and the house was entirely filled with the relations of Aunt Esther—old Mr. and Mrs. Maurice; their married daughter Lucilla Powell, with her husband and children; their unmarried daughters—Mary, Priscilla, and Harriet[34]—Priscilla, who now never left her bed, and who was violently sick after everything she ate (yet with the most enormous appetite), often for many months together.
With the inmates of the house, the whole "tone" of the Rectory society was changed. It was impossible entirely to silence Uncle Julius, yet at times even he was subdued by his new surroundings, the circle around him being incessantly occupied with the trivialities of domestic or parochial detail, varied by the gossip of such a tenth-rate provincial town as Reading, or reminiscences of the boarding-school which had been their occupation and pride for so many years. Frequently also the spare rooms were filled by former pupils—"young ladies" of a kind who would announce their engagement by "The infinite grace of God has put it into the heart of his servant Edmund to propose to me," or "I have been led by the mysterious workings of God's providence to accept the hand of Edgar,"[35]—expressions which Aunt Esther, who wrote good and simple English herself, would describe as touching evidences of a Christian spirit in her younger friends.
But what was far more trying to me was, that in order to prove that her marriage had made no difference in the sisterly and brotherly relations which existed between my mother and Uncle Julius, Aunt Esther insisted that my mother should dine at the Rectory every night, and as, in winter, the late return in an open carriage was impossible, this involved our sleeping at the Rectory and returning home every morning in the bitter cold before breakfast. The hours after five o'clock in every day of the much-longed-for, eagerly counted holidays, were now absolute purgatory. Once landed at the Rectory, I was generally left in a dark room till dinner at seven o'clock, for candles were never allowed in winter in the room where I was left alone. After dinner I was never permitted to amuse myself, or to do anything, except occasionally to net. If I spoke, Aunt Esther would say with a satirical smile, "As if you ever could say anything worth hearing, as if it was ever possible that any one could want to hear what you have to say." If I took up a book, I was told instantly to put it down again, it was "disrespect to my Uncle." If I murmured, Aunt Esther, whose temper was absolutely unexcitable, quelled it by her icy rigidity. Thus gradually I got into the habit of absolute silence at the Rectory—a habit which it took me years to break through: and I often still suffer from the want of self-confidence engendered by reproaches and taunts which never ceased: for a day—for a week—for a year they would have been nothing: but for always, with no escape but my own death or that of my tormentor! Water dripping for ever on a stone wears through the stone at last.
The cruelty which I received from my new aunt was repeated in various forms by her sisters, one or other of whom was always at the Rectory. Only Priscilla, touched by the recollection of many long visits during my childhood at Lime, occasionally sent a kindly message or spoke a kindly word to me from her sick-bed, which I repaid by constant offerings of flowers. Most of all, however, did I feel the conduct of Mary Maurice, who, by pretended sympathy and affection, wormed from me all my little secrets—how miserable my uncle's marriage had made my home-life, how I never was alone with my mother now, &c.—and repeated the whole to Aunt Esther.
From this time Aunt Esther resolutely set herself to subdue me thoroughly—to make me feel that any remission of misery at home, any comparative comfort, was as a gift from her. But to make me feel this thoroughly, it was necessary that all pleasure and comfort in my home should first be annihilated. I was a very delicate child, and suffered absolute agonies from chilblains, which were often large open wounds on my feet. Therefore I was put to sleep in "the Barracks"—two dismal unfurnished, uncarpeted north rooms, without fireplaces, looking into a damp courtyard, with a well and a howling dog. My only bed was a rough deal trestle, my only bedding a straw palliasse, with a single coarse blanket. The only other furniture in the room was a deal chair, and a washing-basin on a tripod. No one was allowed to bring me any hot water; and as the water in my room always froze with the intense cold, I had to break the ice with a brass candlestick, or, if that were taken away, with my wounded hands. If, when I came down in the morning, as was often the case, I was almost speechless from sickness and misery, it was always declared to be "temper." I was given "saur-kraut" to eat because the very smell of it made me sick.
When Aunt Esther discovered the comfort that I found in getting away to my dear old Lea, she persuaded my mother that Lea's influence over me was a very bad one, and obliged her to keep me away from her.
A favourite torment was reviling all my own relations before me—my sister, &c.—and there was no end to the insulting things Aunt Esther said of them.
People may wonder, and oh! how often have I wondered that my mother did not put an end to it all. But, inexplicable as it may seem, it was her extraordinary religious opinions which prevented her doing so. She literally believed and taught that when a person struck you on the right cheek you were to invite them to strike you on the left also, and therefore if Aunt Esther injured or insulted me in one way, it was right that I should give her the opportunity of injuring or insulting me in another! I do not think that my misery cost her nothing, she felt it acutely; but because she felt it thus, she welcomed it, as a fiery trial to be endured. Lea, however, was less patient, and openly expressed her abhorrence of her own trial in having to come up to the Rectory daily to dress my mother for dinner, and walk back to Lime through the dark night, coming again, shine or shower, in the early morning, before my mother was up.
I would not have any one suppose that, on looking back through the elucidation of years, I can see no merits in my Aunt Esther Hare. The austerities which she enforced upon my mother with regard to me she fully carried out as regarded herself. "Elle vivait avec elle-même comme sa victime," as Mme. de Staël would describe it. She was the Inquisition in person. She probed and analysed herself and the motive of her every action quite as bitterly and mercilessly as she probed and analysed others. If any pleasure, any even which resulted from affection for others, had drawn her for an instant from what she believed to be the path—and it was always the thorniest path—of self-sacrifice, she would remorselessly denounce that pleasure, and even tear out that affection from her heart. She fasted and denied herself in everything; indeed, I remember that when she was once very ill, and it was necessary for her to see a doctor, she never could be persuaded to consent to it, till the happy idea occurred of inducing her to do so on a Friday, by way of a penance! To such of the poor as accepted her absolute authority, Aunt Esther was unboundedly kind, generous, and considerate. To the wife of the curate, who leant confidingly upon her, she was an unselfish and heroic nurse, equally judicious and tender, in every crisis of a perplexing and dangerous illness. To her own sisters and other members of her family her heart and home were ever open, with unvarying affection. To her husband, to whom her severe creed taught her to show the same inflexible obedience she exacted from others, she was utterly devoted. His requirement that she should receive his old friend, Mrs. Alexander, as a permanent inmate, almost on an equality with herself in the family home, and surround her with loving attentions, she bowed to without a murmur. But to a little boy who was, to a certain degree, independent of her, and who had from the first somewhat resented her interference, she knew how to be—oh! she was—most cruel.
Open war was declared at length between Aunt Esther and myself. I had a favourite cat called Selma, which I adored, and which followed me about at Lime wherever I went. Aunt Esther saw this, and at once insisted that the cat must be given up to her. I wept over it in agonies of grief: but Aunt Esther insisted. My mother was relentless in saying that I must be taught to give up my own way and pleasure to others; and forced to give it up if I would not do so willingly, and with many tears, I took Selma in a basket to the Rectory. For some days it almost comforted me for going to the Rectory, because then I possibly saw my idolised Selma. But soon there came a day when Selma was missing: Aunt Esther had ordered her to be ... hung!
From this time I never attempted to conceal that I loathed Aunt Esther. I constantly gave her the presents which my mother made me save up all my money to buy for her—for her birthday, Christmas, New Year, &c.—but I never spoke to her unnecessarily. On these occasions I always received a present from her in return—"The Rudiments of Architecture," price ninepence, in a red cover. It was always the same, which not only saved expense, but also the trouble of thinking. I have a number of copies of "The Rudiments of Architecture" now, of which I thus became the possessor.
Only from Saturday till Monday we had a reprieve. The nearness of Lime to the school which my mother undertook to teach on Sundays was the excuse, but, as I see from her journal, only the excuse, which she made to give me one happy day in the week. How well I remember still the ecstasy of these Saturday evenings, when I was once more alone with the mother of my childhood, who was all the world to me, and she was almost as happy as I was in playing with my kittens or my little black spaniel "Lewes," and when she would sing to me all her old songs—"Hohenlinden," "Lord Ullin's Daughter," &c. &c.—and dear Lea was able to come in and out undisturbed, in the old familiar way.
Even the pleasures of this home-Sunday, however, were marred in the summer, when my mother gave in to a suggestion of Aunt Esther that I should be locked into the vestry of the church between the services. Miserable indeed were the three hours which—provided with a sandwich for dinner—I had weekly to spend there; and though I did not expect to see ghosts, the utter isolation of Hurstmonceaux Church, far away from all haunts of men, gave my imprisonment an unusual eeriness. Sometimes I used to clamber over the tomb of the Lords Dacre, which rises like a screen against one side of the vestry, and be stricken with vague terrors by the two grim white figures lying upon it in the silent desolation, in which the scamper of a rat across the floor seemed to make a noise like a whirlwind. At that time two grinning skulls (of the founder and foundress of the church, it was believed) lay on the ledge of the tomb; but soon after this Uncle Julius and Aunt Esther made a weird excursion to the churchyard with a spade, and buried them in the dusk with their own hands. In the winter holidays, the intense cold of the unwarmed church made me so ill, that it led to my miserable penance being remitted. James II. used to say that "Our Saviour flogged people to make them go out of the temple, but that he never punished them to make them go in."[36] But in my childhood no similar abstinence was observed.
It was a sort of comfort to me, in the real church-time, to repeat vigorously all the worst curses in the Psalms, those in which David showed his most appalling degree of malice (Psalm xxxv. 7-16, Psalm lix., Psalm lxix. 22-29, Psalm cxl. 9, 10, for instance), and apply them to Aunt Esther & Co. As all the Psalms were extolled as beatific, and the Church of England used them constantly for edification, their sentiments were all right, I supposed.
A great delight to me at this time was a cabinet with many drawers which my mother gave me to keep my minerals and shells in, and above which was a little bookcase filled with all my own books. The aunts in vain tried to persuade her to take away "some of the drawers," so that I might "never have the feeling that the cabinet was wholly mine." When I returned to school, it was some amusement in my walks to collect for this cabinet the small fossils which abound in the Wiltshire limestone about Harnish, especially at Kellaway's quarry, a point which it was always our especial ambition to reach on holidays. At eleven years old I was quite learned about Pentacrinites, Bellemnites, Ammonites, &c.
It was often a sort of vague comfort to me at home that there was always one person at Hurstmonceaux Rectory whom Aunt Esther was thoroughly afraid of. It was the faithful old servant Collins, who had kept his master in order for many years. I remember that my Uncle Marcus, when he came to the Rectory, complained dreadfully of the tea, that the water with which it was made was never "on the boil," &c.—"they really must speak to Collins about it." But neither Uncle Julius nor Aunt Esther would venture to do it; they really couldn't: he must do it himself. And he did it, and very ill it was received.
The summer holidays were less miserable than those in the winter, because then, at least for a time, we got away from Hurstmonceaux. In the summer of 1845, I went with my mother to her old home of Alton for the first time. How well I remember her burst of tears as we came in sight of the White Horse, and the church-bells ringing, and the many simple cordial poor people coming out to meet her, and blessing her. She visited every cottage and every person in them, and gave feasts in a barn to all the people. One day the school-children all sang a sort of ode which a farmer's daughter had composed to her. Never was my sweet mother more charming than in her intercourse with her humble friends at Alton, and I delighted in threading with her the narrow muddy foot-lanes of the village to the different cottages, of old and young Mary Doust, of Lizzie Hams, Avis Wootton, Betty Perry, &c.
Alton was, and is, quite the most primitive place I have ever seen, isolated—an oasis of verdure—in the midst of the great Wiltshire corn-plain, which is bare ploughed land for so many months of the year; its two tiny churches within a stone-throw of each other, and its thatched mud cottages peeping out of the elms which surround its few grass pastures. A muddy chalky lane leads from the village up to "Old Adam," the nearest point on the chain of downs, and close by is a White Horse, not the famous beast of Danish celebrity, but something much more like the real animal. I was never tired during this visit of hearing from his loving people what "Uncle Augustus" had said to them, and truly his words and his image seemed indelibly impressed upon their hearts. Mrs. Pile, with whose father or sister we stayed when at Alton, and who always came to meet us there, was one of those rare characters in middle life who are really ennobled by the ceaseless action of a true, practical, humble Christianity. I have known many of those persons whom the world calls "great ladies" in later times, but I have never known any one who was more truly "a lady" in every best and highest sense, than Mrs. Pile.
On leaving Alton, we went to join the Marcus Hares in the express train at Swindon. Uncle Marcus, Aunt Lucy, her maid Griffiths, and my mother were in one compartment of the carriage; my little cousin Lucebella, Lea, an elderly peer (Lord Saye and Sele, I think), and I were in the other, for carriages on the Great Western were then divided by a door. As we neared Windsor, my little cousin begged to be held up that she might see if the flag were flying on the castle. At that moment there was a frightful crash, and the carriage dashed violently from side to side. In an instant the dust was so intense that all became pitch darkness. "For God's sake put up your feet and press backwards; I've been in this before," cried Lord S., and we did so. In the other compartment all the inmates were thrown violently on the floor, and jerked upwards with every lurch of the train. If the darkness cleared for an instant, I saw Lea's set teeth and livid face opposite. I learned then for the first time that to put hand-bags in the net along the top of the carriage is most alarming in case of accident. They are dashed hither and thither like so many cannon-balls. A dressing-case must be fatal.
After what seemed an endless time, the train suddenly stopped with a crash. We had really, I believe, been three minutes off the line. Instantly a number of men surrounded the carriage. "There is not an instant to lose, another train is upon you, they may not be able to stop it,"—and we were all dragged out and up the steep bank of the railway cutting. Most strange, I remember, was the appearance of our ruined train beneath, lying quite across the line. The wheels of the luggage van at the end had come off, and the rest of the train had been dragged off the line gradually, the last carriages first. Soon two trains were waiting (stopped) on the blocked line behind. We had to wait on the top of the bank till a new train came to fetch us from Slough, and when we arrived there, we found the platform full of anxious inquirers, and much sympathy we excited, quite black and blue with bruises, though none of us seriously hurt.
Soon after we reached Hurstmonceaux, my Uncle Marcus became seriously ill at the Rectory. I went with my mother, Aunt Esther, and Uncle Julius to his "charge" at Lewes, and, as we came back in the hot evening, we were met by a messenger desiring us not to drive up to the house, as Uncle Marcus must not be disturbed by the sound of wheels. Then his children were sent to Lime, and my mother was almost constantly at the Rectory. I used to go secretly to see her there, creeping in through the garden so as not to be observed by the aunts, for Aunt Lucy could scarcely bear her to be out of sight. At last one morning I was summoned to go up to the Rectory with all the three children. Marcus went in first alone to his father's room and was spoken to: then I went in with the younger ones. Lucebella was lifted on to the pillow, I stood at the side of the bed with Theodore; my mother, Uncle Julius, and Aunt Esther were at the foot. I remember the scene as a picture, and Aunt Lucy sitting stonily at the bed's-head in a violet silk dress. My dying uncle had a most terrible look and manner, which haunted me long afterwards, but he spoke to us, and I think gave us his blessing. I was told that after we left the room he became more tranquil. In the night my mother and Uncle Julius said the "Te Deum" aloud, and, as they reached the last verse, he died.
Aunt Lucy never saw him again. She insisted upon being brought away immediately to Lime, and shut herself up there. She was very peculiar at this time and for a year afterwards, one of her odd fancies being that her maid Griffiths was always to breakfast and have luncheon with the family and be waited on as a lady. We children all went to the funeral, driving in the family chariot. I had no real affection for Uncle Marcus, but felt unusually solemnised by the tears around me. When, however, a peacock butterfly, for which I had always longed, actually perched upon my prayer-book as I was standing by the open grave in the most solemn moment, I could not resist closing the book upon it, and my prayer-book still has the marks of the butterfly's death. I returned to school in August under the care of Mr. Hull, a very old friend of the family, who had come to the funeral.
To MY MOTHER.
"Harnish, August 8.—When we got to London we got a cab and went, passing the Guildhall where Gog and Magog live, the great Post-Office, the New Royal Exchange and the Lord Mayor's, to Tavistock Square, where three young men rushed down-stairs, who Mr. Hull told me were his three sons—John, Henry, and Frank. I had my tea when they had their dinner. After tea I looked at Miss Hull's drawings. Mr. Hull gave me a book called 'The Shadowless Man.' I stayed up to see a balloon, for which we had to go upon the top of the house. The balloon looked like a ball of fire. It scattered all kinds of lights, but it did not stay up very long. We also saw a house on fire, the flames burst out and the sky was all red. Do give the kitten and the kitten's kitten some nice bits from your tea for my sake."
"August 30.—We have been a picknick to Slaughterford. We all went in a van till the woods of Slaughterford came in sight. Then we walked up a hill, carrying baskets and cloaks between us till we came to the place where we encamped. The dinner was unpacked, and the cloth laid, and all sate round. When the dishes were uncovered, there appeared cold beef, bread, cheese, and jam, which were quickly conveyed to the mouths of the longing multitude. We then plunged into the woods and caught the nuts by handfuls. Then I got flowers and did a sketch, and when the van was ready we all went home. Goodbye darling Mamma. I have written a poem, which I send you—
"O Chippenham station thy music is sweet
When the up and down trains thy neighbourhood greet.
The up train to London directeth our path
And the down train will land us quite safely at Bath."
"October the I don't know what.—O dearest Mamma, what do you think! Mr. Dalby asked me to go to Compton Bassett with Mr. and Mrs. Kilvert and Freddie Sheppard.... When we got to the gate of a lovely rectory near Calne, Mrs. Sheppard flew to the door to receive her son, as you would me, with two beautiful little girls his sisters. After dinner I went with Freddie into the garden, and to the church, and saw the peacocks and silver pheasants, and made a sketch of the rectory. On Sunday we had prayers with singing and went to church twice, and saw a beautiful avenue where the ground was covered with beech-nuts. On Monday the Dalbys' carriage brought us to Chippenham to the Angel, where we got out and walked to Harnish. Mr. Dalby told me to tell you that having known Uncle Augustus so well, he had taken the liberty to invite me to Compton."
"Oct. 6.—It is now only ten weeks and six days to the holidays. Last night I had a pan of hot water for my feet and a warm bed, and, what was worse, two horrible pills! and this morning when I came down I was presented with a large breakfast-cup of senna-tea, and was very sick indeed and had a very bad stomach-ache. But to comfort me I got your dear letter with a sermon, but who is to preach it?"
"Nov. 6.—Dearest Mamma, as soon as we came down yesterday all our dresses for the fifth of November were laid out. After breakfast the procession was dressed, and as soon as the sentinel proclaimed that the clock struck ten, the grand procession set out: first Gumbleton and Sheppard dressed up with straps, cocked hats, and rosettes, carrying between them, on a chair, Samuel dressed as Guy Fawkes in a large cocked hat and short cloak and with a lanthorn in his hand. Then came Proby carrying a Union Jack, and Walter (Arnold) with him, with rosettes and bands. Then King Alick with a crown turned up with ermine, and round his leg a blue garter. Behind him walked the Queen (Deacon Coles) with a purple crown and long yellow robe and train, and Princess Elizabeth (me) in a robe and train of pink and green. After the procession had moved round the garden, singing—
'Remember, remember,
The fifth of November, &c.,'
the sentinel of the guard announced that the cart of faggots was coming up the hill ... and in the evening was a beautiful bonfire and fireworks.
"What a pity it is that the new railway does not turn aside to save Lewes Priory. I shall like very much to see the skeletons, but I had much rather that Gundrada and her husband lay still in their coffins, and that the Priory had not been disturbed.... It is only five weeks now to the holidays."
"Nov. 28.—Counting to the 19th, and not counting the day of breaking up, it is now only three weeks to the holidays. I will give you a history of getting home. From Lewes I shall look out for the castle and the Visitation church. Then I shall pass Ringmer, the Green Man Inn, Laughton, the Bat and Ball; then the Dicker, Horsebridge, the Workhouse, the turnpike, the turn to Carter's Corner, the turn to Magham Down, Woodham's Farm, the Deaf and Dumb House, the Rectory on the hill, the Mile Post—'15 miles to Lewes,' Lime Wood, the gate (oh! when shall I be there!)—then turn in, the Flower Field, the Beaney Field, the gate—oh! the garden—two figures—John and Lea, perhaps you—perhaps even the kittens will come to welcome their master. Oh my Lime! in little more than three weeks I shall be there!"
"Hurrah for Dec. 1.—On Wednesday it will be, not counting breaking-up day, two weeks, and oh! the Wednesday after we shall say 'one week.' This month we break up! I dream of nothing, think of nothing, but coming home. To-day we went with Mr. Walker (the usher) to Chippenham, and saw where Lea and I used to go to sit on the wooden bridge.... Not many more letters! not many more sums!"
How vividly, how acutely, I recollect that—in my passionate devotion to my mother—I used, as the holidays approached, to conjure up the most vivid mental pictures of my return to her, and appease my longing with the thought of how she would rush out to meet me, of her ecstatic delight, &c.; and then how terrible was the bathos of the reality, when I drove up to the silent door of Lime, and nobody but Lea took any notice of my coming; and of the awful chill of going into the drawing-room and seeing my longed-for and pined-for mother sit still in her chair by the fire till I went up and kissed her. To her, who had been taught always to curtsey not only to her father, but even to her father's chair, it was only natural; but I often sobbed myself to sleep in a little-understood agony of anguish—an anguish that she could not really care for me.
"Oh, the little more, and how much it is!
And the little less, and what worlds away!"[37]
In the winter of 1845-46, "Aunt Lucy" let Rockend to Lord Beverley, and came to live at Lime for six months with her three children, a governess, and two, sometimes three, servants. As she fancied herself poor, and this plan was economical, it was frequently repeated afterwards. On the whole, the arrangement was satisfactory to me, as though Aunt Lucy was excessively unkind to me, and often did not speak a single word to me for many weeks together, and though the children were most tormenting, Aunt Esther—a far greater enemy—was at least kept at bay, for Aunt Lucy detested her influence and going to the Rectory quite as cordially as I did.
How often I remember my ever-impatient rebellion against the doctrine I was always taught as fundamental—that my uncles and aunts must be always right, and that to question the absolute wisdom and justice of their every act—to me so utterly selfish—was typical of the meanest and vilest nature. How odd it is that parents, and still more uncles and aunts, never will understand, that whilst they are criticising and scrutinising their children or nephews, the latter are also scrutinising and criticising them. Yet so it is: investigation and judgment of character is usually mutual. During this winter, however, I imagine that the aunts were especially amiable, as in the child's play which I wrote, and which we all acted—"The Hope of the Katzekoffs"—they, with my mother, represented the three fairies—"Brigida, Rigida, and Frigida"—Aunt Lucy, I need hardly say, being Frigida, and Aunt Esther Rigida.
Augustus J. C. HareBeing very ill with the measles kept me at home till the middle of February. Aunt Lucy's three children also had the measles, and were very ill; and it is well remembered as characteristic of Aunt Esther, that she said when they were at the worst—"I am very glad they are so ill: it is a well-deserved punishment because their mother would not let them go to church for fear they should catch it there." Church and a love of church was the standard by which Aunt Esther measured everything. In all things she had the inflexible cruelty of a Dominican. She would willingly and proudly undergo martyrdom herself for her own principles, but she would torture without remorse those who differed from her.
When we were recovering, Aunt Lucy read "Guy Mannering" aloud to us. It was enchanting. I had always longed beyond words to read Scott's novels, but had never been allowed to do so—"they were too exciting for a boy!" But usually, as Aunt Lucy and my mother sat together, their conversation was almost entirely about the spiritual things in which their hearts, their mental powers, their whole being were absorbed. The doctrine of Pascal was always before their minds—"La vie humaine n'est qu'une illusion perpetuelle," and their treasure was truly set in heavenly places. They would talk of heaven in detail just as worldly people would talk of the place where they were going for change of air. At this time, I remember, they both wished—no, I suppose they only thought they wished—to die: they talked of longing, pining for "the coming of the kingdom," but when they grew really old, when the time which they had wished for before was in all probability really near, and when they were, I believe, far more really prepared for it, they ceased to wish for it. "By-and-by" would do. I imagine it is always thus.
Aunt Lucy loved her second boy Theodore much the best of her three children, and made the greatest possible difference between him and the others. I remember this being very harshly criticised at the time; but now it seems to me only natural that in any family there must be favourites. It is with earthly parents as Dr. Foxe said in a sermon about God, that "though he may love all his children, he must have an especial feeling for his saints."
To MY MOTHER.
"March 13.—My dearest, dearest Mamma, to-day is my 12th birthday. How well I remember many happy birthdays at Stoke, when before breakfast I had a wreath of snowdrops, and at dinner a little pudding with my name in plums.... I will try this new year to throw away self and think less how to please it. Good-bye dear Mamma."
In March the news that my dear (Mary) Lea was going to marry our man-servant John Gidman was an awful shock to me. My mother might easily have prevented this (most unequal) marriage, which, as far as Mrs. Leycester was concerned, was an elopement. It was productive of great trouble to us afterwards, and obliged me to endure John Gidman, to wear him like a hair-shirt, for forty years. Certainly no ascetic torments can be so severe as those which Providence occasionally ordains for us. As for our dear Lea herself, her marriage brought her misery enough, but her troubles always stayed in her heart and never filtered through. As I once read in an American novel, "There ain't so much difference in the troubles on this earth, as there is in the folks that have to bear them."
To MY MOTHER.
"March 20.—O my very dearest Mamma. What news! what news! I cannot believe it! and yet sometimes I have thought it might happen, for one night a long time ago when I was sitting on Lea's lap—O what shall I call her now? may I still call her Lea? Well, one night a long time ago, I said that Lea would never marry, and she asked why she shouldn't, and said something about—'Suppose I marry John.' ... I was sure she could never leave us. I put your letter away for some time till Mrs. Kilvert sent me upstairs for my gloves. Then I opened it, and the first words I saw were 'Lea—married.' I was so surprised I could not speak or move.... How very odd it will be for Lea to be a bride. Why, John is not half so old as Lea, is he?... Tell me all about the wedding—every smallest weeest thing—What news! what news!"
MARY (LEA) GIDMAN to A. J. C. H.
"Stoke, March 29, 1846.—My darling child, a thousand thanks for your dear little letter. I hope the step I have taken will not displease you. If there is anything in it you don't like, I must humbly beg your pardon. I will give you what account I can of the wedding. Your dear Mamma has told you that she took me to Goldstone. Then on Saturday morning a little after nine my mother's carriage and a saddle-horse were brought to the gate to take us to Cheswardine. My sister Hannah and her husband and George Bentley went with me to church. I wished you had been with me so very much, but I think it was better that your dear Mamma was not there, for very likely it would have given her a bad headache and have made me more nervous than I was, but I got through all of it better than I expected I should. As soon as it was over the bells began to ring. We came back to Goldstone, stayed about ten minutes, then went to Drayton, took the coach for Whitmore, went by rail to Chelford, and then we got a one-horse fly which took us to Thornycroft to John's grandfather's, where we were received with much joy. We stayed there till Wednesday, then went for one night to Macclesfield, and came back to Goldstone on Thursday and stayed there till Friday evening. Then we came back to Stoke. The servants received us very joyfully, and your dear Mamma showed me such tender feelings and kindness, it is more than I can tell you now. My dear child, I hope you will always call me Lea. I cannot bear the thought of your changing my name, for the love I have for you nothing can ever change. My mother and Hannah wish you had been in the garden with me gathering their flowers, there is such a quantity of them.... We leave Stoke to-morrow, and on Friday reach your and our dear Lime. I shall write to you as soon as we get back, and now goodbye, my darling child, from your old affectionate nurse Lea."
The great age of my dear Grandfather Leycester, ninety-five, had always made his life seem to us to hang upon a thread, and very soon after I returned home for my summer holidays, we were summoned to Stoke by the news of his death. This was a great grief to me, not only because I was truly attached to the kind old man, but because it involved the parting with the happiest scenes of my childhood, the only home in which I had ever been really happy. The dear Grandfather's funeral was very different from that which I had attended last year, and I shed many tears by his grave in the churchyard looking out upon the willows and the shining Terne. Afterwards came many sad partings, last visits to Hawkestone, Buntingsdale, Goldstone; last rambles to Helshore, Jackson's Pool, and the Islands; and then we all came away—my Uncle Penrhyn first, then Aunt Kitty, then my mother and Lea and I, and lastly Grannie, who drove in her own carriage all the way to her house in New Street, Spring Gardens, the posting journey, so often talked of, actually taking place at last. Henceforward Stoke seemed to be transferred to New Street, which was filled with relics of the old Shropshire Rectory, and where Mrs. Cowbourne, Margaret Beeston, Anne Tudor, and Richard the footman, with Rose the little red and white spaniel, were household inmates as before.
I thought the house in New Street charming—the cool, old-fashioned, bow-windowed rooms, which we should now think very scantily furnished, and like those of many a country inn; the dining-room opening upon wide leads, which Grannie soon turned into a garden; the drawing-room, which had a view through the trees of the Admiralty Garden to the Tilting Yard, with the Horse Guards and the towers of Westminster Abbey.
The grief of leaving Stoke made me miserably unwell, and a doctor was sent for as soon as I arrived at the Stanleys' house, 38 Lower Brook Street, who came to me straight from a patient ill with the scarlatina, and gave me the disorder. For three weeks I was very seriously ill in hot summer weather, in stifling rooms, looking on the little black garden and chimney-pots at the back of the house. Mary and Kate Stanley were sent away from the infection, and no one came near me except my faithful friend Miss Clinton, who brought me eau-de-Cologne and flowers. It was long foolishly concealed from me that I had the scarlatina, and therefore, as I felt day after day of the precious holidays ebbing away, while I was pining for coolness and fresh country air, my mental fever added much to my bodily ailments, whereas, when once told that I was seriously ill, I was quite contented to lie still. Before I quite recovered, my dear nurse Lea became worn-out with attending to me, and we had scarcely reached Lime before she became most dangerously ill with a brain-fever. For many days and nights she lay on the brink of the grave, and great was my agony while this precious life was in danger. Aunt Esther, who on great occasions generally behaved kindly, was very good at this time, ceased to persecute me, and took a very active part in the nursing.
At length our dear Lea was better, and as I was still very fragile, I went with my mother and Anne Brooke, our cook, to Eastbourne—then a single row of little old-fashioned houses by the sea—where we inhabited, I should think, the very smallest and humblest lodging that ever was seen. I have often been reminded of it since in reading the account of Peggotty's cottage in "David Copperfield." It was a tiny house built of flints, amongst the boats, at the then primitive end of Eastbourne, towards the marshes, and its miniature rooms were filled with Indian curiosities, brought to the poor widow to whom it belonged by a sailor son. The Misses Thomas of Wratton came to see us here, and could hardly suppress their astonishment at finding us in such a place—and when the three tall smart ladies had once got into our room, no one was able to move, and all had to go out in the order in which they were nearest the door. But my mother always enjoyed exceedingly these primitive places, and would sit for hours on the beach with her Taylor's "Holy Living" or her "Christian Year," and had soon made many friends amongst the neighbouring cottagers, whose houses were quite as fine as her own, and who were certainly more cordial to the lady who had not minded settling down as one of themselves, than they would have been to a smart visitor in a carriage. The most remarkable of these people was an excellent old woman called Deborah Pattenden, who lived in the half of a boat turned upside down, and had had the most extraordinary adventures. My first literary work was her biography, which told how she had suffered the pains of drowning, burning (having been enveloped in flames while struck by lightning), and how she had lain for twenty-one days in a rigid trance (from "the plague," she described it) without food or sign of life, and was near being buried alive. We found a transition from our cottage life in frequent visits to Compton Place, where Mrs. Cavendish, mother of the 7th Duke of Devonshire, lived then, with her son Mr. Cavendish, afterwards Lord Richard. She was a charming old lady, who always wore white, and had very simple and very timid manners. But she was fond of my mother, who was quite adored by Lord Richard, by whom we were kept supplied with the most beautiful fruits and flowers of the Compton Gardens. He was very kind to me also, and would sometimes take me to his bookcases and tell me to choose any book I liked for my own. We seldom afterwards passed a summer without going for a few days to Compton Place as long as Mrs. Cavendish lived there. It was there that I made my first acquaintance with the existence of many simple luxuries to which, in our primitive life, we were quite unaccustomed, but which in great houses are considered almost as necessaries. The Cavendishes treated us as distant relations, in consequence of the marriage of my Grandmother's cousin, Georgiana Spencer, with the 5th Duke of Devonshire.
When I returned to Harnish I was still wretchedly ill, and the constant sickness under which I suffered, with the extreme and often unjust severity of Mr. Kilvert, made the next half year a very miserable one. In the three years and a half which I had spent at Harnish, I had been taught next to nothing—all our time having been frittered in learning Psalms by heart, and the Articles of the Church of England (I could say the whole thirty-nine straight off when eleven years old), &c. Our history was what Arrowsmith's Atlas used to describe Central Africa to be—"a barren country only productive of dates." I could scarcely construe even the easiest passages of Cæsar. Still less had I learned to play at any ordinary boys' games; for, as we had no playground, we had naturally never had a chance of any. I was glad of any change. It was delightful to leave Harnish for good at Christmas, 1846, and the prospect of Harrow was that of a voyage of adventure.
In January 1847 my mother took me to Harrow. Dr. Vaughan was then headmaster, and Mr. Simpkinson, who had been long a curate of Hurstmonceaux, and who had been consequently one of the most familiar figures of my childhood, was a master under him, and, with his handsome, good-humoured sister Louisa, kept the large house for boys beyond the church, which is still called "The Grove." It was a wonderfully new life upon which I entered; but though a public school was a very much rougher thing then than it is now, and though the fagging for little boys was almost ceaseless, it would not have been an unpleasant life if I had not been so dreadfully weak and sickly, which sometimes unfitted me for enduring the roughness to which I was subjected. As a general rule, however, I looked upon what was intended for bullying as an additional "adventure," which several of the big boys thought so comic, that they were usually friendly to me and ready to help me: one who especially stood my friend was a young giant—Twisleton, son of Lord Saye and Sele. One who went to Harrow at the same time with me was my connection Harry Adeane,[38] whose mother was Aunt Lucy's sister, Maude Stanley of Alderley. I liked Harry very much, but though he was in the same house, his room was so distant that we saw little of each other; besides, my intense ignorance gave me a very low place in the school, in the Lower Fourth Form. It was a great amusement to write to my mother all that occurred. In reading it, people might imagine my narration was intended for complaint, but it was nothing of the kind: indeed, had I wished to complain, I should have known my mother far too well to complain to her.
To MY MOTHER.
"Harrow, Jan. 29, 1847.—When I left you, I went to school and came back to pupil room, and in the afternoon had a solitary walk to the skating pond covered with boys.... In the evening two big boys rushed up, and seizing Buller (another new boy) and me, dragged us into a room where a number of boys were assembled. I was led into the midst. Bob Smith[39] whispered to me to do as I was bid and I should not be hurt. On the other side of the room were cold chickens, cake, fruit, &c., and in a corner were a number of boys holding open little Dirom's mouth, and pouring something horrible stirred up with a tallow-candle down his throat. A great boy came up to me and told me to sing or to drink some of this dreadful mixture. I did sing—at least I made a noise—and the boys were pleased because I made no fuss, and loaded me with oranges and cakes.
"This morning being what is called a whole holiday, I have had to stay in three hours more than many of the others because of my slowness in making Latin verses. This evening Abel Smith sent for me to his room, and asked me if I was comfortable, and all sorts of things."
"Jan. 21.—What do you think happened last night? Before prayers I was desired to go into the fifth form room, as they were having some game there. A boy met me at the door, ushered me in, and told me to make my salaam to the Emperor of Morocco, who was seated cross-legged in the middle of a large counterpane, surrounded by twenty or more boys as his serving-men. I was directed to sit down by the Emperor, and in the same way. He made me sing, and then jumped off the counterpane, as he said, to get me some cake. Instantly all the boys seized the counterpane and tossed away. Up to the ceiling I went and down again, but they had no mercy, and it was up and down, head over heels, topsy-turvy, till some one called out 'Satus'—and I was let out, very sick and giddy at first, but soon all right again.... I am not much bullied except by Davenport, who sleeps in my room."
"Jan. 22.—To-day it has snowed so hard that there has been nothing but snow-balling, and as I was coming out of school, hit by a shower of snowballs, I tumbled the whole way down the two flights of stairs headlong from the top to the bottom."
"Jan. 23.—Yesterday I was in my room, delighted to be alone for once, and very much interested in the book I was reading, when D. came in and found the fire out, so I got a good licking. He makes me his fag to go errands, and do all he bids me, and if I don't do it, he beats me, but I don't mind much. However, I have got some friends, for when I refused to do my week-day lessons on a Sunday, and was being very much laughed at for it, some one came in and said, 'No, Hare, you're quite right; never mind being laughed at.' However I am rather lonely still with no one to speak to or care about me. Sometimes I take refuge in Burroughs' study, but I cannot do that often, or he would soon get tired of me. I think I shall like Waldegrave,[40] a new boy who has come, but all the others hate him. Blomfield[41] is a nice boy, but his room is very far away. Indeed, our room is so secluded, that it would be a very delightful place if D. did not live in it. In playtime I go here, there, and everywhere, but with no one and doing nothing. Yet I like Harrow very much, though I am much teased even in my form by one big boy, who takes me for a drum, and hammers on my two sides all lesson-time with doubled fists. However, Miss Simmy says, if you could see my roses you would be satisfied."
"Jan. 30.—There are certain fellows here who read my last letter to you, and gave me a great lecture for mentioning boys' names; but you must never repeat what I say: it could only get me into trouble. The other night I did a desperate thing. I appealed to the other boys in the house against D. Stapleton was moved by my story, and Hankey and other boys listened. Then a boy called Sturt was very much enraged at D., and threatened him greatly, and finally D., after heaping all the abuse he could think of upon me, got so frightened that he begged me to be friends with him. I cannot tell you how I have suffered and do suffer from my chilblains, which have become so dreadfully bad from going out so early and in all weathers."
"Feb. 2.—To-day, after half-past one Bill, I went down the town with Buller and met two boys called Bocket and Lory. Lory and I, having made acquaintance, went for a walk. This is only the second walk I have had since I came to Harrow. I am perpetually 'Boy in the House.'"
"Feb. 10.—To-day at 5 minutes to 11, we were all told to go into the Speech-room (do you remember it?), a large room with raised benches all round and a platform in the middle and places for the monitors. I sat nearly at the top of one of these long ranges. Then Dr. Vaughan made a speech about snow-balling at the Railway Station (a forbidden place), where the engine-drivers and conductors had been snow-balled, and he said that the next time, if he could not find out the names of the guilty individuals, the whole school should be punished. To-day the snow-balling, or rather ice-balling (for the balls are so hard you can hardly cut them with a knife), has been terrific: some fellows almost have their arms broken with them."
"Feb. 12.—I am in the hospital with dreadful pains in my stomach. The hospital is a large room, very quiet, with a window looking out into the garden, and two beds in it. Burroughs is in the other bed, laid up with a bad leg.... Yesterday, contrary to rule, Dr. Vaughan called Bill, and then told all the school to stay in their places, and said that he had found the keyhole of the cupboard in which the rods were kept stopped up, and that if he did not find out before one o'clock who did it, he would daily give the whole school, from the sixth form downwards, a new pun, of the severest kind.... There never was anything like the waste of bread here, whole bushels are thrown about every day, but the bits are given to the poor people.... I like Valletort[42] very much, and I like Twisleton,[43] who is one of the biggest boys in this house."
"Feb. 20.—To-day I went to the Harrisites' steeplechase. Nearly all the school were there, pouring over hedges and ditches in a general rush. The Harrisites were distinguished by their white or striped pink and white jackets and Scotch caps, and all bore flags."
"Feb. 21.—I have been out jumping and hare-and-hounds, have hard work now to escape from the slave-drivers for racket-fagging. Sometimes we do, by one fellow sacrificing himself and shutting up the others head downwards in the turn-up bedsteads, where they are quite hidden; and sometimes I get the old woman at the church to hide me in the little room over the porch till the slave-drivers have passed."
"March 1.—I have just come back from Sheen, where I have had a very happy Exeat. Uncle Norwich gave me five shillings, and Uncle Penrhyn ten."
Mrs. Stanley to
her Sister Mrs. A. Hare.
"Sheen, March 1.—I never saw Augustus look anything like so well—and it is the look of health, ruddy and firm, and his face rounder. The only thing is that he stoops, as if there were weakness in the back, but perhaps it is partly shyness, for I observed he did it more at first. He did look very shy the first day—hung his head like a snowdrop, crouched out of sight, and was with difficulty drawn out; but I do not think it is at all because he is cowed, and he talked more yesterday. The Bishop was very much pleased with him, and thought him much improved.... He came without either greatcoat or handkerchief, but did not appear to want the one, and had lost the other. He said most decidedly that he was happy, far happier than at Mr. Kilvert's, happier than he expected to be; and, though I felt all the time what an uncongenial element it must be, he could not be in it under better circumstances."
To MY MOTHER.
"March 4.—As you are ill, I will tell you my adventure of yesterday to amuse you. I went out with a party of friends to play at hare-and-hounds. I was hare, and ran away over hedges and ditches. At last, just as I jumped over a hedge, Macphail caught me, and we sat down to take breath. Just then Hoare ran up breathless and panting, and threw himself into the hedge crying out, 'We are pursued by navvies.' The next minute, before I could climb back over the hedge, I found myself clutched by the arm, and turning round, saw that a great fellow had seized me, and that another had got Macphail and another Hodgson Junior. They dragged us a good way, and then stopped and demanded our money, or they would have us down and one should suffer for all. Macphail and Hoare were so frightened that they gave up all their money at once, but I would not give up mine. At last they grew perfectly furious and declared they would have our money to buy beer. I then gave them a shilling, but hid the half-sovereign I had in my pocket, and after we had declared we would not give them any more, they went away.
"To cut the story short, I got Hodgson Junior (for the others were afraid) to go with me to the farmer on whose land the men were working, and told what had happened. He went straight to the field where the navvies were and made them give up all our money, turned one out of his service, and threatened the other two, and we came back to Harrow quite safe, very glad to have got off so well.
"What do you think! the fever has broken out in Vaughan's, and if any other house catches it, we are to go—home!"
"March 9.—All the school is in an uproar, for all Vaughan's house went down yesterday. Two boys have the fever, and if any one else catches it, we shall all go home. What fun it will be. The fever came straight from Eton with some velocipedes. Everybody now thinks everybody else has the fever. I am shunned by all because I have a sore throat, and half-a-yard is left on each side of me in form. Boys suck camphor in school. Endless are the reports. 'Pember's got the fever.'—'No, he hasn't.'—'Yes, he has, for it's broke out in Harris's.'—'Then we shall all go home. Hurrah!'—'No, it's all a gull!'"
"My adventure with the navvies has been a very good thing for me, as some fellows say 'that little Hare has really got some pluck.'"
"March 10.—Hurrah! Vaughan has caught the fever. The Vaughanites are all gone. Valletort is gone. Waldegrave is gone. But the great news is we all go home the day after to-morrow. Now if you don't write the instant you get this you will delay my return home. So pray, Mamma, do—do—do—do. I cannot write much, for the school is so hurry-scurry. There will be no Trial—oh hip! hip! Oh pray do write directly! I shall see you soon. Hurrah!"
(After Easter holidays), "April 14.—When I got here, I found Davenport was gone and Dirom come into our room. The bells rang all night for the return of the school. We are busy at our Trial, which we do with our masters in form. We did Ovid this morning, and I knew much more about it than many other fellows."
"Saturday.—To-day has been a whole holiday, as it always is at the end of Trial. I have got off very well, and learnt eighty lines more than I need have done, for we need only have learnt fifty lines, and I knew more of other things than many others.
"To-day was 'Election Day'—commonly called Squash Day (oh, how glad I am it is over), the day most dreaded of all others by the little boys, when they get squashed black and blue, and almost turned inside out. But you won't understand this, so I will tell you. Platt, horrid Platt, stands at one side of Vaughan's desk in school, and Hewlett at the other, and read the names. As they are read, you go up and say who you vote for as cricket-keeper, and as you come out, the party you vote against squash you, while your party try to rescue you. Sometimes this lasts a whole hour (without exaggeration it's no fun), but to-day at breakfast the joyful news came that the fourth form was let off squash. It was such a delight. The fifth form were determined that we should have something though, for as we came out of Bill, they tried to knock our hats to pieces, and ourselves to pieces too."
"April 24.—The boys have all begun to wear strawhats and to buy insect-nets, for many are very fond of collecting insects, and to my delight I found, when I came up, that they did not at all despise picking primroses and violets."
"April 28.—The other day, as Sturt was staying out, I had to fag in his place. I had to go to that horrid Platt at Ben's. At the door of Ben's was P——. I asked him which was Platt's room, and he took me upstairs and pushed me into a little dark closet, and when I got out of that, into a room where a number of fellows were at tea, and then to another. At last I came to some stairs where two boys were sitting cross-legged before a door. They were the tea-fags. I went in, and there were Platt and his brother, very angry at my being late, but at last they let me go, or rather I was kicked out of the house.
"To-day we went to hear a man read the 'Merchant of Venice' in Speech-room. Such fun: I liked it so much."
"May 1.—Yesterday I was in a predicament. Hewlett, the head of our house, sent me with a note to Sporling, the head of the school, in Vaughan's new house. I asked a boy which was Sporling's. He told me that I should find him upstairs, so I went up stairs after stairs, and at the top were two monitors, and as I looked bewildered by the long passages, they told me which was Sporling's room. When I came out with an answer to the note, they called after me, and ordered me to give Hewlett their compliments, and tell him not to be in too great a hurry to get into Sporling's shoes. You must obey a monitor's orders, and if you don't you get a wapping; but I was pretty sure to get a wapping anyway—from the monitors if I did not deliver the message, and from Hewlett for its impertinence. I asked a great many boys, and they all said I must tell Hewlett directly. At last I did: he was in a great rage, but said I might go.
"I have 7s. 6d. owed me, for as soon as the boys have any money they are almost obliged to lend it; at least you never have any peace till it is all gone. Some of the boys keep rabbits in the wells of their studies, but to-night Simmy has forbidden this."
"June.—On Sunday in the middle of the Commandments it was so hot in chapel that Kindersley fell down in a fit. He was seized head and foot and carried out, struggling terribly, by Smith and Vernon and others: and the boys say that in his fit he seized hold of Mr. Middlemist's (the Mathematical Master's) nose and gave it a very hard tweak; but how far this is true I cannot tell. However, the whole chapel rose up in great consternation, some thinking one thing and some another, and some not knowing what to think, while others perhaps thought as I did, that the roof was coming down. Dr. Vaughan went on reading the prayers, and Kindersley shrieking, but at last all was quiet. Soon, however, there was another row, for Miles fainted, and he was carried out, and then several others followed his example. That night was so hot that many of the boys slept on the bare floor, and had no bedclothes on, but the next day it rained and got quite cold, and last night we were glad of counterpanes and blankets again."
"The Bishop's Holiday.—The cricket-fagging, the dreadful, horrible cricket-fagging comes upon me to-day. I am Boy in the House on the extra whole holiday, and shall have cricket-fagging in the evening at the end of a hard day's other fagging."
"Saturday.—I must write about the awful storm of last night. I had been very ill all day, and was made to take a powder in marmalade—Ah-h—bah!—and went to sleep about twelve with the window wide open because of the heat. At half-past two I awoke sick, when to my astonishment, it being quite dark, flash after flash of lightning illuminated the room and showed how the rain was pouring in floods through the open window. The wind raged so that we thought it would blow the house down. We heard the boys downstairs screaming out and running about, and Simmy and Hewlett trying to keep order. I never saw such a storm. All of a sudden, a long loud clap of thunder shook the house, and hail like great stones mingled with the rain came crashing in at the skylights. Another flash of lightning illuminated the room, and continued there (I suppose it must have struck something) in one broad flame of light, bursting out like flames behind the window: I called out 'Fire, fire, the window's on fire.' This woke Buller, who had been sleeping soundly all this time, and he rushed to the window and forced it down with the lightning full in his eyes. Again all was darkness, and then another flash showed what a state the room was in—the books literally washed off the table, and Forster and Dirom armed with foot-pans of water. Then I threw myself on my bed in agonies of sickness: not a drop of water was to be had to drink: at last Buller found a little dirty rain-water, and in an instant I was dreadfully sick.... You cannot think what the heat was, or what agonies of sickness I was in."[44]
"June 13.—I have cricket-fagged. Maude, my secret helper in everything, came and told me what to do. But one ball came and I missed it, then another, and I heard every one say, 'Now did you see that fool; he let a ball pass. Look. Won't he get wapped!' I had more than thirty balls and missed all but one—yet the catapulta was not used. I had not to throw up to any monitors; Platt did not come down for some time, and I had the easiest place on the cricket-field, so it will be much worse next time. Oh, how glad I was when half-past eight came! and when I went to take my jacket up, though I found it wringing wet with dew.
"The next day was Speech-day, but, with my usual misfortune, I was Boy in the House. However I got off after one o'clock. All the boys were obliged to wear straw-coloured or lavender kid-gloves and to be dressed very smart.... When the people came out of Speeches, I looked in vain for Aunt Kitty, but Aunt Kitty never came; so, when we had cheered everybody of consequence, I went back with the others to eat up the remains of Simmy's fine luncheon, and you may guess how we revelled in jellies and fruit.
"The boys in our house now play at cricket in the corridor."
"June.—I have been cricket-fagging all evening, and it was dreadful; Platt was down, the catapulta was used, and there were very few fags, so I had very hard fagging.... Platt bellowed at me for my stupidity, and Platt's word is an oracle, and Platt's nod strikes terror into all around."
"June 16.—I have been for my Exeat to Brook Street.... At breakfast the Archbishop of Dublin came in. He is a very funny old man[45] and says such funny things. He gave us proverbs, and everybody a piece of good advice."
"July.—I have found a beautiful old house called Essingham standing in a moat full of clear water. It is said to have been inhabited once by Cardinal Wolsey.
"Last night I cricket-fagged, very hard work, and I made Platt very angry; but when I told him my name, he quite changed, and said I must practise and learn to throw up better, and when the other monitors said I ought to be wapped, Platt (!!) said, 'I will take compassion upon him, because when I first came to Harrow I could do no better.'"
If it had not been for constant sickness, the summer holidays of 1847 would have been very happy ones. I found my dear old Grandmother Mrs. Oswald Leycester at Lime, which prevented our going to the Rectory, and it was the greatest happiness to read to her, to lead her about, and in every way to show my gratitude for past kindnesses at Stoke. When she left us, we went for the rest of the holidays to the Palace at Norwich, which was always enchanting to me—from the grand old library with its secret room behind the bookcase, to the little room down a staircase of its own, where the old nurse Mrs. Burgess lived—one of the thinnest and dearest old women ever seen—surrounded by relics of her former charges. Aunt Kitty was pleased with my improvement in drawing, and she and Kate Stanley encouraged me very much in the endless sketches I made of the old buildings in Norwich. "Honour the beginner, even if the follower does better," is a good old Arabic proverb which they thoroughly understood and practised. We spent the day with the Gurneys at Earlham, where I saw the heavenly-minded Mrs. Catherine Gurney ("Aunt Catherine") and also Mrs. Fry, in her long dark dress and close white cap, and we went to visit the Palgraves at Yarmouth in a wonderful old house which once belonged to Ireton the regicide. But a greater delight was a visit of several days which we paid to the Barings at Cromer Hall, driving the whole way with the Stanleys through Blickling and Aylsham, a journey which Arthur Stanley made most charming by the books which he read to us about the places we passed through. We lingered on the way with Miss Anna Gurney, a little old lady, who was paralysed at a very early age, yet had devoted her whole life to the good of those around her, and who, while never free from suffering herself, seemed utterly unconscious of her own trials in thinking of those of others. She lived in a beautiful little cottage at Northrepps, full of fossils and other treasures, close to the sea-coast.
Lord and Lady Shrewsbury[46] (the father and mother of the Princesses Doria and Borghese) came to meet my mother at Cromer Hall, perfectly full of the miraculous powers of "L'Estatica" and "L'Addolorata," which they had witnessed in Italy, and of which they gave most extraordinary accounts.
The kindness of "Uncle Norwich" caused me to love him as much as I dreaded Uncle Julius. In his dealings with his diocese I have heard that he was apt as a bishop to be tremendously impetuous; but my aunt knew how to calm him, and managed him admirably. He wonderfully wakened up clerical life in Norfolk. Well remembered is the sharpness with which he said to Dean Pellew, who objected to a cross being erected on the outside of the cathedral, "Never be ashamed of the cross, Mr. Dean, never be ashamed of the cross." It was his custom to pay surprise visits to all Norwich churches on Sunday afternoons. On one of these occasions, an old clergyman—fellow of his college for forty years—who had lately taken a small living in the town, was the preacher. High and dry was the discourse. Going into the vestry afterwards, "A very old-fashioned sermon, Mr. H.," said the Bishop. "A very good-fashioned sermon I think, my lord," answered the vicar.
Edward StanleyIn those days a very primitive state of things prevailed in the Norwich churches. A clergyman, newly ordained, provided for by a title at St. George's, Colegate, was exercised by finding the large well-thumbed folio Prayer-book in the church marked with certain hieroglyphics. Amongst these O and OP frequently recurred. On the curate making inquiry of the clerk if there were any instructions he ought to follow during the service, he was informed that his active predecessor had established a choir and had reopened an organ closed from time immemorial. He had done this without any reference to the incumbent, who was so deaf that he could hear neither organ nor choir. Thus it happened that when they came to the "Venite," the incumbent read, as usual, the first verse. From long usage and habit he knew, to a second, the moment when the clerk would cease reading verse two, and then commenced reading the third verse, the clerk below him making frantic signs with his hand, which were quite incomprehensible: and it was not until the reading of the fifth verse that he understood he had better be silent altogether, and leave the field to the organ and choir, of whose performances he had not heard one single sound. He was determined not to be taken aback again, so, consulting with the clerk, he elicited when the performances of the organ would take place, and marked these for his guidance with a large O or OP—organ plays.
When the curate of whom I have spoken was first ordained, the incumbent gave him instructions as to what he was to do. Afterwards he found him visiting and over-zealous for the age, and said, "Now don't do too much in the parish, and never give anything away." The curate expressed surprise, when he added, "If you want to give, always come to me"—a suggestion the curate never failed to carry out. The rector had a very poor opinion of clergymen who wrote fresh sermons every week. "I've only got two sermons for every Sunday in the year, and I preach them all every year. I don't see why I should trouble myself to write any more, for when I preach them, I find I don't recollect them myself, so it's quite impossible the congregation should." As reminiscences of a type of clergyman very common at this time, but nearly extinct now, these notes seem worth recording.
Most of the Norfolk clergy were then old-fashionedtives of the first water. One day at a clerical dinner-party at the Palace, the Bishop, probably with the view of improving the taste of his guests, said, "When I first came into this diocese, I found the clergy would drink nothing but port. I used every means I could think of to alter a taste I could not myself enter into. All failed. At last I hit upon something which I thought was sure to be successful. I told my wine-merchant to send me the best of all other wines and the nastiest of port. But the clergy still insisted upon drinking the nasty port. So, when I felt my plan had failed, I wrote to my wine-merchant again, and told him to let them have it good."
The Bishop used to be greatly amused by an epitaph in Bergh Apton Church, which said that the man commemorated was "very free of his port," meaning that he was very hospitable (from portcullis), but the common people always thought it meant that he drank a great deal of port.
My dear old uncle was a capital bishop, and his clergy gradually learnt to think him so. But it was a sailor he had wished to be. He had been better fitted for that profession originally. Indeed, when he was a very little child he had such a passion for the sea, that once when he was missed from his cot, he was found asleep on the high shelf of a wardrobe, having climbed up there because he thought it was like a berth. Through life he was one of those men who never want presence of mind, and this often stood him in good stead. One Advent Sunday it was the Bishop's turn to preach in the cathedral, where the soldiers in the barracks usually attend the service: but it was terrible weather, and, with due regard to their pipe-clay, they were all absent that morning. The Bishop had prepared his sermon especially for the soldiers he expected to hear it, and he had no other. But he was quite equal to the occasion, for, after he had given out the text, he began—"Now this is the sermon I should have preached if the soldiers had been here," and went on, without concerning himself further about their absence.
On another occasion he fell fast asleep in the cathedral during the sermon. At the end, when the choir broke out into the "Amen," he suddenly awoke. In that moment he could not collect himself to remember the words of the blessing, but, "Peace be with you" he exclaimed very solemnly, and it did quite well.
"Uncle Norwich," with his snow-white hair and black eyebrows, and his eager impetuous manner, was a somewhat startling figure to come upon suddenly. There was a private door in the wall in a remote corner of the palace-garden. A rather nervous clergyman who lived close by had passed it for years, and had never seen it open. His curiosity was greatly excited about it. One day when he was passing, he could not resist the impulse, and looking up and down the road, and seeing neither the Bishop nor any of the Stanley family about, though very shy, he stooped down to peep in at the keyhole. At that moment the Bishop's key entered the lock on the other side, the door flew open, and he found himself confronted by the Bishop in person!
It was soon after we left Norwich that Jenny Lind, then at the height of her fame, went to stay at the Palace, and great was the family enthusiasm about her. My aunt conceived an affection for her which was almost maternal. Arthur Stanley admired her exceedingly, in spite of his hatred of music, but amused her when he said, "I think you would be most delightful if you had no voice."
At the end of August I returned to Harrow.
To MY MOTHER.
"Harrow, Sept. 10.—Alas! our form is under Mr. Oxenham. He has the power of flogging, and does flog very often for the least fault, for he really enjoys it. He is such an old man, very old, very sharp, very indolent, very preachy. Sometimes he falls asleep when we are in form, and the boys stick curl-papers through his hair, and he never finds it out. He always calls his boys 'stupid little fools,' without meaning anything particular by it. This morning he said to me, 'Stuff and nonsense, stupid little fool; don't make yourself a stupider little fool than you are.' He is always called 'Billy.'"
"Sept.—I have been racket-fagging all afternoon. It is such dismal work. You have to stand in one corner of the square court and throw all the balls that come that way to the 'feeders,' who throw them to the players when they are wanted. The great amusement of P., one of those I fag for, is to hit the racket-balls with all his might at the fags, and he tried to cut me off a great many times, but missed. At last P. said, 'I'll go and get another fag instead of that young beast Hare,' and he went, but he never came back, or the fag either.
"One day our room bought a pipkin, saucepan, and frying-pan to cook things in, but Mrs. Collins (the matron) took away the frying-pan, and the others were bagged. But we got another pipkin, and one night as we were cooking some potatoes, in little slices as we have them at home, they made such a smell that Mrs. Collins came up, and told Simmy, and he was very angry, and would not let us have fires for a week, and said we should all have extra pupil-room; but fortunately he forgot about that."
A. P. Stanley to A. J. C. H.
"University College, Oxford, Oct. 16.—The Goblin presents his compliments to the Ghost, and will give him a leaf of a bay-tree from Delphi, a piece of marble from Athens, and a bit of tin from the Cassiterides, on condition that the Ghost can tell him where those places are, and where the Goblin shall send these treasures."
A. J. C. H. to A. P. Stanley.
"Delphi is the capital of Phocis and the seat of the oracle in Greece. Athens is capital of Attica in Greece, and the Cassiterides are islands in the Western Ocean. The Ghost presents his compliments to the Goblin, thanks him very much, tells him where the places are, and begs him to send the things from those places to the usual haunt of the Ghost. The Ghost has communicated the Goblin's stories of the beautiful Hesketh and Mrs. Fox to the boys at night. The Ghost flitted up Harrow church-steeple yesterday, and was locked up inside. Farewell, Goblin, from your most grateful cousin—the Ghost."
This letter reminds me how I used to tell stories to the boys in our room after we had gone to bed: it was by them that I was first asked to "tell stories."
The winter of 1847-48 was one of those which were rendered quite miserable to me by the way in which I was driven to the Rectory, where Aunt Esther made me more wretched than ever, and by being scarcely ever permitted to remain in my own dear home. I fear that in later days I should have acted a part, and pretended to like going to the Rectory, when it would instantly have been considered unnecessary, the one thought in the mind of all the family being that it was a duty to force me to do what I disliked; but at that time I was too ingenuous to indulge in even the most innocent kinds of deception. My own brothers, Francis and William, who were now at Eton, came to the Rectory for part of their holidays, but their upbringing and their characters had so little in common with my own, that we were never very intimate, though I rather liked them than otherwise. They hated the Rectory, and got away from it whenever they could.
Of all the miserable days in the year, Christmas was the worst. I regarded it with loathing unutterable. The presents of the quintessence of rubbish which I had to receive from my aunts with outward grace and gratitude. The finding all my usual avocations and interests cleared away. The having to sit for hours and hours pretending to be deeply interested in the six huge volumes of Foxe's "Book of Martyrs," one of which was always doled out for my mental sustenance. The being compelled—usually with agonising chilblains—to walk twice to church, eight miles through the snow or piercing marsh winds, and sit for hours in mute anguish of congelation, with one of Uncle Julius's interminable sermons in the afternoon, about which at that time I heartily agreed with a poor woman, Philadelphia Isted, who declared that they were "the biggest of nonsense." Then, far the worst of all, the Rectory and its sneerings and snubbings in the evening.
My mother took little or no notice of all this—her thoughts, her heart, were far away. To her Christmas was simply "the festival of the birth of Christ." Her whole spiritual being was absorbed in it: earth did not signify: she did not and could not understand why it was not always the same with her little boy.
I was not allowed to have any holidays this year, and was obliged to do lessons all morning with Mr. Venables, the curate.[47] At this I wonder now, as every day my health was growing worse. I was constantly sick, and grew so thin that I was almost a skeleton, which I really believe now to have been entirely caused by the way in which the miseries of my home life preyed upon my excessively sensitive nervous disposition. And, instead of my mind being braced, I was continually talked to about death and hell, and urged to meditate upon them. Towards the close of the holidays I was so ill that at last my mother was alarmed, and took me to a Mr. Bigg, who declared that I had distinct curvature of the spine, and put my poor little back into a terrible iron frame, into which my shoulders were fastened as into a vice. Of course, with this, I ought never to have been sent back to Harrow, but this was not understood. Then, as hundreds of times afterwards, when I saw that my mother was really unhappy about me, I bore any amount of suffering without a word rather than add to her distress, and I see now that my letters are full of allusions to the ease with which I was bearing "my armour" at school, while my own recollection is one of intolerable anguish, stooping being almost impossible.
That I got on tolerably well at Harrow, even with my "armour" on, is a proof that I never was ill-treated there. I have often, however, with Lord Eustace Cecil (who was at Harrow with me), recalled since how terrible the bullying was in our time—of the constant cruelty at "Harris's," where the little boys were always made to come down and box in the evening for the delectation of the fifth form:—of how little boys were constantly sent in the evening to Famish's—half-way to the cricket-ground, to bring back porter under their greatcoats, certain to be flogged by the head-master if they were caught, and to be "wapped" by the sixth form boys if they did not go, and infinitely preferring the former:—of how, if the boys did not "keep up" at football, they were made to cut large thorn sticks out of the hedges, and flogged with them till the blood poured down outside their jerseys. Indeed, what with fagging and bullying, servility was as much inculcated at Harrow in those days as if it was likely to be a desirable acquirement in after life.
I may truly say that I never learnt anything useful at Harrow, and had little chance of learning anything. Hours and hours were wasted daily on useless Latin verses with sickening monotony. A boy's school education at this time, except in the highest forms, was hopelessly inane.
In some ways, however, this "quarter" at Harrow was much pleasanter than the preceding ones. I had a more established place in the school, and was on more friendly terms with all the boys in my own house; also, with my "armour," the hated racket-fagging was an impossibility. I had many scrambles about the country with Buller[48] in search of eggs and flowers, which we painted afterwards most carefully and perseveringly; and, assisted by Buller, I got up a sort of private theatricals on a very primitive scale, turning Grimm's fairy stories into little plays, which were exceedingly popular with the house, but strictly forbidden by the tutor, Mr. Simpkinson or "Simmy." Thus I was constantly in hot water about them. One day when we had got up a magnificent scene, in which I, as "Snowdrop," lay locked in a magic sleep in an imaginary cave, watched by dwarfs and fairies, Simmy came in and stood quietly amongst the spectators, and I was suddenly awakened from my trance by the sauve qui peut which followed the discovery. Great punishments were the result. Yet, not long after, we could not resist a play on a grander scale—something about the "Fairy Tilburina" out of the "Man in the Moon," for which we learnt our parts and had regular dresses made. It was to take place in the fifth form room on the ground-floor between the two divisions of the house, and just as Tilburina (Buller) was descending one staircase in full bridal attire, followed by her bridesmaids, of whom I was one, Simmy himself suddenly appeared on the opposite staircase and caught us.
These enormities now made my monthly "reports," when they were sent home, anything but favourable; but I believe my mother was intensely diverted by them: I am sure that the Stanleys were. A worse crime, however, was our passion for cooking, in which we became exceedingly expert. Very soon after a tremendous punishment for having been caught for the second time frying potato chips, we formed the audacious project of cooking a hare! The hare was bought, and the dreadful inside was disposed of with much the same difficulty and secrecy, and in much the same manner, in which the Richmond murderess disposed of her victims; but we had never calculated how long the creature would take to roast even with a good fire, much more by our wretched embers: and long before it was accomplished, Mrs. Collins, the matron, was down upon us, and we and the hare were taken into ignominious custody.
Another great amusement was making sulphur casts and electrotypes, and we really made some very good ones.
My great love for anything of historic romance, however, rendered the Louis Philippe revolution the overwhelming interest of this quarter, and put everything else into the shade. In the preceding autumn the murder of the Duchesse de Praslin had occupied every one, and we boys used to lie on the floor for hours poring over the horrible map of the murder-room which appeared in the "Illustrated," in which all the pools of blood were indicated. But that was nothing to the enthusiastic interest over the sack of the Tuileries and the escape of the Royal Family: I have never known anything like it in after life.
I have often heard since much of the immoralities of a public-school life, but I can truly say that when I was there, I saw nothing of them. A very few boys, however, can change the whole character of a school, especially in a wrong direction. "A little worm-wood can pollute a hive of honey," was one of the wise sayings of Pius II. I do not think that my morals were a bit the worse for Harrow, but from what I have heard since of all that went on there even in my time, I can only conclude it was because—at that time certainly—"je n'avais pas le goût du peché," as I once read in a French novel.
At Easter, 1848, I left Harrow for the holidays, little imagining that I should never return there. I should have been very sorry had I known it. On the whole, the pleasurable "adventures" of a public-school life had always outweighed its disagreeables; though I was never in strong enough health for any real benefit or enjoyment.
"Les longues maladies usent la douleur, et les longues espérances usent la joie."—Mme. de Sévigné.
"One adequate support
For the calamities of mortal life
Exists, one only—an assured belief
That the procession of our fate, however
Sad or disturbed, is ordered by a Being
Of infinite benevolence and power,
Whose everlasting purposes embrace
All accidents, converting them to good."
—WORDSWORTH.
"Condemned to Hope's delusive mire,
As we toil on from day to day
By sudden stroke or slow decline
Our means of comfort drop away."
—JOHNSON.
"It is well we cannot see into the future. There are few boys
of fourteen who would not be ashamed of themselves at forty."
—Jerome K. Jerome.
OF all the unhappy summers of my boyhood, that of 1848 was the most miserable. When I left Harrow at Easter, I was very really ill. The iron frame which had been made for my back had seriously injured the spine which it was intended to cure, and a bad fall down the school steps at Harrow had increased the malady. When Sir Benjamin Brodie saw me, he said that I must lie down for at least the greater part of many months, and that a return to Harrow was quite out of the question. This, however, was concealed from me at first, and when I knew it, I was too ill to have any regrets. We went first to Torquay, stopping on the way to visit Mrs. Alexander, a person who afterwards, for some years, bore a large share in our life. In her youth, as Miss Mary Manning, she had been a governess in the family of Sir John Malcolm, and, while living with the Malcolms at Hyde Hall near Cambridge, had been the most intimate early friend of my Uncle Julius. People generally thought that he had been engaged to her, but this, I believe, was never the case. She had married a Mr. Alexander, a physician at Edinburgh, who soon left her a widow, and since that time she had possessed no settled home. She was very tall, serene, and had a beautiful countenance, and her old-fashioned dress was always wonderfully refined and in keeping with her appearance. She seemed to have the power of imposing her own personality upon her surroundings, and subduing the life and movement around her into an intellectual as well as a physical calm. She had a melodious low voice, a delicate Scotch accent, a perfectly self-possessed manner, and a sweet and gentle dignity. In conversation she was witty and genial, but never rude. With wonderful power of narration, she had the art of throwing unspeakable interest and charm over the most commonplace things: yet she never exaggerated. All the clever men who came in contact with her were bound under her spell. Whewell, Worsley, Landor, Bunsen, Sedgwick adored her, and did not wonder at my uncle's adoration. Saint-Amand's description of Mme. de Maintenon might have been written for her—"Elle garda, dans sa vieillesse, cette supériorité de style et de langage, cette distinction de manières, ce tact exquis, cette finesse, cette douceur et cette fermeté de caractère, ce charme et cette élévation d'esprit qui, à toutes les époques de son existence, lui valurent tant d'éloges et lui attirèrent tant d'amitié."
This is one view of Mrs. Alexander, and, as far as it goes, it is perfectly true. But scarcely any characters are all of one piece. She was also boundlessly subtle, and when she had an object in view she spared no means to attain it. For her own ends, with her sweetness unruffled, she would remorselessly sacrifice her best friends. The most egotistical woman in the world, she expected every one to fall under her spell, and calmly and gently but consistently hated any one who escaped. Whilst she almost imperceptibly flattered her superiors in rank and position, she ruthlessly and often heartlessly trampled upon those whom she (sometimes wrongly) considered her inferiors. She demanded sovereignty in every house she entered, and she could always find a way to punish rebellion. She made herself friends that "men might receive her into their houses," and when she had once entered them she never relaxed her foothold.
There is a description in the Life of George Sand which might be well applied to this view of Mrs. Alexander—"Elle était une personne glacée autant que glaciale.... Ce n'était pas qu'elle ne fut aimable, elle était gracieuse à la surface, un grand savoir-vivre lui tenant lieu de grace véritable. Mais elle n'aimait réellement personne et ne s'intéressait à rien qu'à elle-même."
When we first saw Mrs. Alexander, she was living in a small lodging at Heavitree near Exeter. In the following year she came to Hurstmonceaux Rectory for three days and stayed three weeks. The year after she came for three weeks and stayed five years. From the first she was supreme at the Rectory, ruling even Aunt Esther with unswerving and ever-increasing power; but on the whole her presence was an advantage. Her education and strong understanding enabled her to enter into all my uncle's pursuits and interests as his wife could never have done, and to outsiders she was usually suave, courteous, and full of agreeable conversation.
Uncle Julius and Aunt Esther visited Rockend when we were there, and as my aunts when together generally acted as foils to each other, I should have been at liberty to enjoy the really beautiful place—its delightful gardens, storm-beaten rocks, and the tower where Aunt Lucy "made her meditations"—if I had been well enough; but I had generally to spend the greater part of the day lying upon the floor on a hard backboard and in a state of great suffering. It was often an interest at this time to listen to Uncle Julius as he read aloud in the family circle passages connected with the French Revolution, Kingsley's "Saint's Tragedy," which had then recently appeared, or the papers which my uncle and his friends were then contributing to the Magazine for the People which Kingsley was getting up. No one read so well as Uncle Julius—a whole whirlwind of tragedy, an unutterable depth of anguish and pathos could be expressed in the mere tone of his voice; and it was not merely tone; he really thus felt what he read, and so carried away his listeners, that all their actual surroundings were invisible or forgotten. Those who never heard Julius Hare read the Communion Service can have no idea of the depths of humility and passion in those sublime prayers.
In everything Uncle Julius was as unsuited to the nineteenth century as he well could be. He used to declare that he never would read a book which he knew would interest him, till the exact mood of his mind was fitted for it, till the sun happened to be shining where it ought, and till weather and time and situation all combined to suit the subject and give its full effect, and he usually had numbers of books by him waiting for this happy conjunction, but, when it arrived, he did the books full justice.
I never saw any one so violent, so unmitigated in his likes and dislikes as Uncle Julius, so furious in his approval or condemnation. "Il avait une grande hardiesse, pour ne pas dire effronterie," as Bassompierre wrote of the Duke of Buckingham. In his despotic imperiousness he had no sympathy with the feelings and weaknesses of others, though inexpressible pity for all their greater misfortunes or sorrows.
Another person of whom we saw much at this time was the really saint-like Harry Grey, my mother's first cousin, who was living at Babbicombe. He was heir to the Earldom of Stamford (to which his son afterwards succeeded), but a clergyman, and very poor.
I was so ill when we returned home, almost everything I ate producing violent sickness, that it is astonishing my health should not have been considered a primary object. A few weeks of healthy life on moors or by the sea-side, with freedom from the gnawing mental misery and depression under which I suffered, would probably have restored me; a visit to German baths might have cured me, and saved years of ill-health. Had the family only had any practical common-sense! But, on religious grounds, it was thought wrong to contend against "the wonderful leadings of God's Providence"—pain was "sent" to be endured, sickness as a tractor to draw its victims to heaven; and all simple and rational means of restoration to a healthy and healthful life were disregarded. Sago with brandy in it was provided instead of meat for my physical, and an inexhaustible supply of tracts, hymns, and little sermons for my mental digestion. Patient endurance of suffering, the following of the most unpleasant path which duty could be thought to point out, and that without hope of either reward or release, were the virtues which even my mother most inculcated at this time.
Then a private tutor was sought for—not by knowledge, not by inquiry at the Universities, not by careful investigation of attainments for teaching, but by an advertisement. The inquiry as to all the letters which answered it was whether they appeared to be "those of truly pious men"—i.e., whether they were written in the peculiar phraseology then supposed to denote such a character. At last one was accepted, and a tutor arrived, who was—well, I will not describe him further than as certainly the most unprepossessing of human beings: Nature had been so terribly hard upon him.
With this truly unfortunate man I was shut up every morning in the hope that he would teach me something, a task he was wholly unequal to; and then I had to walk out with him. Naturally there were scenes and recriminations on both sides, in which I was by no means blameless. But daily my health grew worse, and scarcely a morning passed without my having an agonising fit of suffocation, from contraction of the muscles of the throat, gasping for breath in misery unutterable. The aunts said it was all nervous. I have no doubt it was: I have had plenty of experience of hysteria since, and it is the most dreadful disorder that exists.
At last my sufferings were such, from the relaxing air of Hurstmonceaux, that I was taken to Eastbourne, but an attempt was still made to chain me down for six or eight hours a day in a stuffy lodging at lessons with my tutor, who had not an idea of teaching and knew nothing to teach. Poor man! he was at least quite as wretched as I was, and I know that he thirsted quite as much for the fresh air of the downs. Aunt Esther came over, and used cruelly to talk, in my presence, of the fatigue and trouble which my ill-health caused my mother, and of the burden which she had thus brought upon herself by adopting me. It is only by God's mercy that I did not commit suicide. I was often on the point of throwing myself over the cliffs, when all would have been over in an instant, and was only restrained by my intense love for my mother, and the feeling that her apparently dormant affection would be awakened by such a catastrophe, and that she would always be miserable in such an event. Twenty-two years afterwards, when we were as closely united as it was possible for any mother and son to be, my darling mother reverted of her own accord to this terrible time: she could never die happy, she said, unless she knew that her after love had quite effaced the recollection of it.
Yet, even in these wretched months at Eastbourne there were oases of comfort—days when my "Aunt Kitty and Lou Clinton" came down, and, with "le cœur haut placé" and sound common-sense, seemed to set everything right; and other days when I made excursions alone with my mother to Jevington in the Downs, or to Wilmington with its old ruin and yew-tree, where we used to be kindly entertained by the primitive old Rector, Mr. Cooper, and his wife.
When I went, in 1877, to visit Alfred Tennyson the poet, he asked me to give him a subject for "A Domestic Village Tragedy." The story which I told him occurred at Hurstmonceaux this summer. Mrs. Coleman, who kept the "dame's school" at Flowers Green, had a niece, Caroline Crowhurst, a very pretty girl, the belle of the parish, and as amiable and good as she was pretty, so that every one was friends with her. She became engaged, rather against the will of her family, to a commercial traveller from a distance. He wrote to her, and she wrote to him, maidenly letters, but full of deep affection. One day they had a little quarrel, and the man, the fiend, took the most intimate, the most caressing of these letters and nailed it up against the Brewery in the centre of Gardner Street, where all the village might read it and scoff at it. As the people knew Caroline, no one scoffed, and all pitied her. But Caroline herself came to the village shop that afternoon; she saw her letter hanging there, and it broke her heart. She said nothing about it to any one, and she did not shed a tear, but she went home and kissed her aunt and her mother more tenderly than usual; she gathered the prettiest flowers in her little garden and put them in her bosom, and then she opened the lid of the draw-well close to her home and let herself in. The lid closed upon her.
I remember the news coming to Lime one evening that Caroline Crowhurst was missing, and the dreadful shock the next morning when we heard that the poor girl had been found in the well. My mother, who had known her from her birth, felt it very deeply, for at Hurstmonceaux we were on the most intimate terms with the poor people, and Philadelphia Isted, Mercy Butler, dear old Mrs. Piper the schoolmistress, Ansley Vine of the shop, grumbling old Mrs. Holloway (who always said she should be so glad when she was dead because then people would believe she had been ill), the crippled Louisa Wood, the saint-like bedridden Mrs. Wisham, and gentle Mrs. Medhurst, who lived amongst the primroses of "the lower road"—all these, and many more, were as familiar to me as my own nearest relations. To many of them, when well enough, I went regularly, and to Mrs. Piper, who had lived in the time of the castle, and known my father and his brothers from babyhood, almost every day. Her death was a real affliction. My mother walked behind her coffin at her funeral. In her will she left me a box which had belonged to my unhappy little ancestress, Grace Naylor.
At the end of July my real mother, "Italima," with my sister, came to stay at the Rectory. The visit was arranged to last a month, but unhappily on the second day of her stay, Italima went out with Aunt Esther. They came home walking on different sides of the road, and as soon as she entered the house Italima sent for post-horses to her carriage and drove away. I have never heard what happened, but Italima never came to the Rectory again. Soon afterwards she fixed her residence at Rome, in the Palazzo Parisani, which then occupied two sides of the Piazza S. Claudio.
In August it was decided to send me away to a private tutor's, and my mother and Uncle Julius went with me to Lyncombe, near Bath. My tutor was the Rev. H. S. R., son of a well-known evangelical writer, but by no means of the same spiritual grace: indeed I never could discover that he had any grace whatever; neither had he any mental acquirements, or the slightest power of teaching. He was "un homme absolument nul," and though paid a very large salary, he grossly and systematically neglected all his duties as a tutor. Uncle Julius must have been perfectly aware how inefficient the education at Lyncombe would be, but he was probably not to blame for sending me there. Because I did not "get on" (really because I was never taught), he regarded me as the slave of indolence—"putrescent indolence" he would have called it, like Mr. Carlyle. He considered me, however, to be harmless, though fit for nothing, and therefore one to be sent where I should probably get no harm, though certainly no good either. It was the system he went upon with my brothers also, and in their case he had all the responsibility, being their guardian. But, indeed, Uncle Julius's view was always much that of Rogers—"God sends sons, but the devil sends nephews," and he shunted them accordingly.
"Les grands esprits, d'ailleurs très estimables,
Ont très peu de talent pour former leurs semblables."
I went to Lyncombe with the utmost curiosity. The house was a large villa, oddly built upon arches in the hollow of a wooded valley about a mile from Bath, behind the well-known Beechen Cliff. At the back of it was a lawn with very steep wooded banks at the sides, and a fountain and pool, showing that the place had once been of some importance, and behind the lawn, meadows with steep banks led towards the heights of Combe Down. We all had rooms to ourselves at Lyncombe, scantily furnished, and with barely a strip of carpet, but we could decorate them with pictures, &c., if we liked. We did our lessons, when we were supposed to do them, at regular hours, in the dining-room, where we had our meals, and after work was finished in the evening, and eight o'clock tea, we were expected to sit with Mrs. R. in the drawing-room.
But we had an immense deal of time to ourselves—the whole afternoon we were free to go where we liked; we were not expected to give any account of what we did, and might get into as much mischief as we chose. Also, we too frequently had whole holidays, which Mr. R.'s idle habits made him only too glad to bestow, but which I often did not in the least know what to do with.
Eagerly did I survey my new companions, who were much older than myself, and with whom I was likely to live exclusively, with none of the chances of making other friendships which a public school affords. Three of them were quiet youths of no especial character: the fourth was Temple Harris,[49] at once the friend, enlivener, and torment of the following year.
On the whole, at first I was not unhappy at Lyncombe. I liked the almost unlimited time for roaming over the country, and the fresh air did much to strengthen me. But gradually, when I had seen all the places within reach, this freedom palled, and I felt with disgust that, terribly ignorant as I was, I was learning nothing, and that I had no chance of learning anything except what I could teach myself. Whilst Temple Harris stayed at Lyncombe, we spent a great deal of time in writing stories, ballads, &c., for a MS. magazine which we used to produce once a week; and this was not wholly useless, from the facility of composition which it gave me. But after Temple Harris left, the utter waste of life at Lyncombe palled upon me terribly, and I made, in desperation, great efforts to instruct myself, which, with no books and with every possible hindrance from without, was difficult enough. After a fashion, however, I succeeded in teaching myself French, stumbling through an interesting story-book with Grammar and Dictionary, till I had learnt to read with ease; of the pronunciation I naturally knew nothing. Two miserable years and a half of life were utterly wasted at Lyncombe, before Arthur Stanley came to visit me there, and rescued me by his representation of the utter neglect and stagnation in which I was living. It had been so hammered into my mind by my aunts that I was a burden to my mother, and that she was worn out with the trouble I had given her in finding my first private tutor, that I should never of myself have ventured to try to persuade her to look out for a second.
My earlier letters to my mother from Lyncombe are filled with nothing but descriptions of the scenery round Bath, of which I formed a most exaggerated estimate, as I had seen so little with which I could compare it. Once a week at least I used to go into Bath itself, to dine with my father's old friend Walter Savage Landor, who had been driven away from his Florentine home by his wife's violent temper. Mr. Landor's rooms (in Catherine Place, and afterwards at 2 Rivers Street) were entirely covered with pictures, the frames fitting close to one another, leaving not the smallest space of wall visible. One or two of these pictures were real works of art, but as a rule he had bought them at Bath, quite willing to imagine that the little shops of the Bath dealers could be storehouses of Titians, Giorgiones, and Vandycks. The Bath picture-dealers never had such a time; for some years almost all their wares made their way to Mr. Landor's walls. Mr. Landor lived alone with his beautiful white Spitz dog Pomero, which he allowed to do whatever it liked, and frequently to sit in the oddest way on the bald top of his head. He would talk to Pomero by the hour together, poetry, philosophy, whatever he was thinking of, all of it imbued with his own powerful personality, and would often roar with laughter till the whole house seemed to shake. I have never heard a laugh like that of Mr. Landor—"deep-mouthed Beotian Savage Landor," as Byron called him—such a regular cannonade.[50] He was "the sanest madman and the maddest reasonable man in the world," as Cervantes says of Don Quixote. In the evenings he would sit for hours in impassioned contemplation: in the mornings he wrote incessantly, to fling off sheet after sheet for the Examiner, seldom looking them over afterwards. He scarcely ever read, for he only possessed one shelf of books. If any one gave him a volume, he mastered it and gave it away, and this he did because he believed that if he knew he was to keep the book and be able to refer to it, he should not be able to absorb its contents so as to retain them. When he left Florence, he had made over all he possessed to his wife, retaining only £200 a year—afterwards increased to £400—for himself, and this sufficed for his simple needs. He never bought any new clothes, and a chimney-sweep would have been ashamed to wear his coat, which was always the same as long as I knew him, though it in no way detracted from his majestic and lion-like appearance. But he was very particular about his little dinners, and it was about these that his violent explosions of passion usually took place. I have seen him take a pheasant up by the legs when it was brought to table and throw it into the back of the fire over the head of the servant in attendance. This was always a failing, and, in later days, I have heard Mr. Browning describe how in his fury at being kept waiting for dinner at Siena, he shouted: "I will not eat it now, I will not eat it if it comes," and, when it came, threw it all out of the window.
At the same time nothing could be more nobly courteous than his manner to his guests, and this was as marked towards an ignorant schoolboy as towards his most distinguished visitor; and his conversation, whilst calculated to put all his visitors at their ease and draw out their best points, was always wise, chivalrous, pure, and witty.
At one time Mr. Landor's son Walter came to stay with him, but he was an ignorant rough youth, and never got on well with his father. I believe Mr. Landor preferred me at this time to any of his own children, and liked better to have me with him; yet he must often have been grievously disappointed that I could so little reciprocate about the Latin verses of which he so constantly talked to me, and that indeed I could seldom understand them, though he was so generous and high-bred that he never would allow me to feel mortified. Mrs. Lynn Linton, then Miss Lynn, was by her almost filial attentions a great comfort to Landor during the earlier years of his exile at Bath. Another person, whom he liked, was a pretty young Bath lady, Miss Fray, who often came to dine with him when I was there. After dinner Mr. Landor generally had a nap, and would say, "Now, Augustus, I'm going to sleep, so make love to Miss Fray"—which was rather awkward.[51]
These were the best friends of Lander's solitude; most of his other visitors were sycophants and flatterers, and though he despised the persons, he did not always dislike the flattery. Swift says truly—
"'Tis an old maxim in the schools,
That flattery's the food of fools;
Yet now and then your men of wit
Will condescend to take a bit."
Another resident of whom I saw much at Bath was my mother's cousin, Miss Harriet Dumbleton (her mother was a Leycester)—an old maiden lady, who lived in the most primitive manner, really scarcely allowing herself enough to eat, because, like St. Elizabeth, though she had a very good fortune, she had given everything she had to the poor. She would even sell her furniture, books, and pictures, to give away the money they realised. But she was a most agreeable, witty, lively person, and it was always a great pleasure to go to her.
To MY MOTHER.
"Lyncombe, Sept. 12.—I have been here four days, but only to-day did Mr. R. begin to attempt any lessons with me. He was very impatient, and I got so puzzled and confused, I could scarcely do anything at all; all my sums and everything else were wrong. Warriner and Hebden were very kind, and did all they could to help me. I like Warriner very much. To-day I have done much better, and I really do try to do well, dearest Mamma."
"Sept. 14.—Yesterday morning, as there was again no work whatever to be done, I went off by myself to Charterhouse Hinton to see the Abbey. I was told it was not shown, but insisted upon going up to the house, where I rang the bell, and was allowed to look at the ruin in the garden. There I found an old gentleman, to whom I told who I was, where I was, and all about myself, and he told me in return that he had been at school with Uncle Jule and knew the Bath aunts, and not only showed me the best place to sketch the Abbey from, but gave me a lesson in perspective. Then he took me into the house and told me all the stories of the pictures there.
"Mr. Landor has been here, and, thinking to do me honour, called upon the R.'s. Whilst Pomero danced about, he told numbers of stories, beginning at once about the Dukes of Brandenburg and Orleans, and in defence of the Danes. 'Hare may say what he likes, but that King of Prussia is a regular old scoundrel.'
"Whenever we are supposed to do any work, Mr. R. sits at the small table in the dining-room while we are at the large one; but no one takes any notice of him, and all talk slang and laugh as if he was out of the room; and if Harris gets bored with his supposed work, he rings for a plate and glass of water and paints."
"Sept. 22.—You need not grudge my long walks and being away from the others, for I should not be with them if at home, as Hebden goes to play on the Abbey organ, and the rest have their own occupations. To-day I went over hill and dale to Wellow, where there is a noble old church, and a Holy Well of St. Julian, at which a white lady used to appear on St. Julian's Eve, whenever any misfortune was about to happen to the family of Hungerford, the former possessors of the soil. As I was drawing the village, a farmer came riding by, and, after looking at my sketch, went back with me to show me his house, once a manor of the Hungerfords, with a splendid old carved chimney-piece.
"These are very long dreary half-years. At Harrow I used to rejoice that I should never more have to endure those horrible long private-school half-years, yet here they are again. Oh! what would I not give to be back with you, and able to take care of you when you are poorly!"
"Oct. 9.—Yesterday, as there were no lessons whatever again, I made a great expedition to Farley Castle, but was very miserable all the way in thinking that I had not been better to you all the summer, dearest, dearest Mamma. I used to think, when I knew that I should be at home such a long time, what a comfort I should be to you, and that you would see how good I was grown; but instead of that, how bad I was all the time! Oh! if I had only a little of it over again! Well, it is a long walk, but at last I arrived at Farley, a pretty ruin on a height, with four towers at the angles and a chapel in the centre. I persuaded the woman to lock me in here, and was in ecstasies. The walls are covered with armour of the Hungerfords for centuries, and in a corner are Cromwell's boots and saddle. At the other end is the ancient high altar with a Bible of ages mouldering away beneath a carved crucifix and stained window, and the surrounding walls are emblazoned with Hungerford arms. Old banners wave from the ceiling, old furniture lines the aisle, and in St. Anne's Chantry are two splendid altar-tombs, of Lady Joanna Hungerford and her husband, and Sir Edward and his wife.
"How am I to get any money to pay for having my hair cut, and for some gloves, for mine are quite worn out?"
"Oct. 20.—No work at all, so I have had a grand expedition to the beautiful old deserted house of the Longs at South Wraxhall, and have been writing ballads and stories about it ever since."
"Oct. 26.—No lessons. Mr. R. will not have them. So we have all been together to Farley, and went into the vault where the Hungerfords lie in leaden coffins, melted to fit their bodies and faces, their real features in deep relief. They look most extraordinary, especially two babies, whom, at first sight, you would take for a pair of shoes.... When I am alone with Harris, I like him very much. He writes poetry and draws beautifully, and can read French and Italian for his own amusement. I wish I could. Oh, I am so tired of having nothing to do!"
My dear Grandmother, Mrs. Leycester, had been failing all the autumn, and my mother was much with her at her house in New Street. Towards the end of October she seemed better, and my mother returned to Lime, but on the 3rd of November she was suddenly recalled. As so often happens in serious cases, for the only time in her life she missed the train, and when she arrived, after many hours' delay, she found that dear Grannie had died an hour before, wishing and longing for her to the last. To my intense thankfulness, I was allowed to go to my mother in New Street, once more to behold the beloved aged features in the deep repose of death, and to see the familiar inanimate objects connected with my childhood, and the dear old servants. Grannie was buried in the vaults of St. Martin's Church, Trafalgar Square, her coffin being laid upon that of Uncle Hugh (Judge Leycester). The vaults were a very awful place—coffins piled upon one another up to the ceiling, and often in a very bad state of preservation,[52]—and the funeral was a very ghastly one, all the ladies being enveloped in huge black hooded mantles, which covered them from head to foot like pillars of crape. Grannie is one of the few persons whose memory is always evergreen to me, and for whom I have a most lasting affection. Everything connected with her has an interest. Many pieces of furniture and other memorials of my grandmother's house in New Street and, before that, of Stoke Rectory, have been cherished by us at Hurstmonceaux and Holmhurst, and others it has always been a pleasure to see again when I have visited my Penrhyn cousins at Sheen—objects of still life which long survive those to whom they were once important.
In the winter of 1848-49 I saw at St. Leonards the venerable Queen Marie Amélie, and am always glad to have seen that noble and long-suffering lady, the niece of Marie Antoinette.
During the autumn at Lyncombe I was almost constantly ill, and very often ill in the winter at home, which the Marcus Hares all spent at Lime. It was a miserable trial to me that, in her anxiety lest I should miss an hour of a school where I was taught nothing, my mother sent me back a week too early—and I was for that time alone in the prison of my abomination, in unutterable dreariness, with nothing in the world to do. This term, a most disagreeable vulgar boy called W—— was added to the establishment at Lyncombe, who was my detested companion for the next two years; and from this time in every way life at Lyncombe became indescribably wretched—chiefly from the utter waste of time—and, as I constantly wrote to my mother, I was always wishing that I were dead. My only consolation, and that a most dismal and solitary one, was in the long excursions which I made; but I look back upon these as times of acute suffering from poverty and hunger, as I never had any allowance, and was always sent back to my tutor's with only five shillings in my pocket. Thus, though I walked sometimes twenty-four miles in a day, and was out for eight or ten hours, I never had a penny with which to buy even a bit of bread, and many a time sank down by the wayside from the faintness of sheer starvation, often most gratefully accepting some of their food from the common working people I met. If I went out with my companions, the utmost mortification was added to the actual suffering of hunger, because, when they went into the village inns to have a good well-earned luncheon, I was always left starving outside, as I never had the means of paying for any food. I believe my companions were very sorry for me, but they never allowed their pity to be any expense to them, and then "E meglio essere odiato che compatito" is an Italian proverb which means a great deal, especially to a boy. After a time, too, the food at Lyncombe itself became extremely stinted and of the very worst quality—a suet dumpling filled with coarse odds and ends of meat being our dinner on at least five days out of the seven, which of course was very bad for an extremely delicate rapidly-growing youth—and, if I was ill from want of food, which was frequently the case, I was given nothing but rice.
What indescribably miserable years those were! I still feel, in passing Bath by railway, sick at heart from the recollection, and I long in this volume to hurry over a portion of life so filled with wretched recollections, and which had scarcely a redeeming feature, except Mr. Landor's constant kindness and friendship. It was also a terrible disappointment that my mother never would consent to my going for a few days to see "Italima" and my brothers, who were then living at Torquay, and who vainly begged for it. My endless letters to my mother (for I wrote several sheets daily) are so crushed and disconsolate that I find little to select.
To MY MOTHER.
"Easter Sunday, 1849.—Yesterday Mr. Landor asked me to dine with him. First we went out to order the dinner, accompanied by Pomero in high spirits. As we went through the streets, he held forth upon their beauties, especially those of the Circus, to which he declares that nothing in Rome or in the world was ever equal. We stopped first at the fishmonger's, where, after much bargaining, some turbot was procured; then, at the vegetable shop, we bought broccoli, potatoes, and oranges; then some veal to roast; and finally a currant-tart and biscuits. Mr. Landor generally orders his own little dinners, but almost all this was for me, as he will dine himself on a little fish. He has actually got a new hat, he says because all the ladies declared they would never walk with him again unless he had one, and he has a hideous pair of new brown trousers. Pomero was put out of the room for jumping on them, but when he was heard crying outside the door, Mr. Landor declared he could not let his dear child be unhappy, and was obliged to let it in; upon which the creature was so delighted, that it instantly jumped on the top of its master's head, where it sate demurely, looking out of the window.
"Harris has just written an account of my home life which he says he believes to be exact, i.e., that I live with two maiden aunts, 'Gidman and Lear'—that they have a dog called 'Paul against the Gentiles,' who runs after them, carrying muffins and apples to the poor and destitute inhabitants of the parish of Chalk-cum-Chilblains—that his kennel is inscribed with texts of Scripture, and when a heretic is near he can smell him five miles off—that his food consists of tracts, and that he drinks a dilution of hymn-books and camphor-ice."
In my summer holidays of 1849 my mother took me for the second time to Alton. It was very hot weather, and we lived entirely amongst the affectionate primitive cottagers, going afterwards to stay with Lady Gore at Wilcot House—an old haunted house, with a tower where a tailor (I forget how he got there) committed suicide. With Mrs. Pile we drove through the open Wiltshire country to her farmhouse home of Tufton, where we spent several days very pleasantly, in a quiet place on the glistening little river Teste, close to Hurstborne Park. On the day of our leaving Tufton we visited Winchester, and as we were going thence to Portsmouth by rail, we had an adventure which might have ended seriously.
The train was already in motion, and my mother and I were alone in the carriage, when three men came running along the platform and attempted to enter it. Only one succeeded, for before the others could follow him, the train had left the platform. In a minute we saw that the man who was alone in the carriage with us was a maniac, and that those left behind were his keepers. He uttered a shrill hoot and glared at us. Fortunately, as the door banged to, the tassel of the window was thrown up, and this attracted him, and he yelled with laughter. We sat motionless at the other side of the carriage opposite each other. He seized the tassel and kept throwing it up and down, hooting and roaring with laughter. Once or twice we fancied he was about to pounce upon us, but then the tassel attracted him again. After about eight minutes the train stopped. His keepers had succeeded in getting upon the guard's box as the train left the station, and hearing his shouts, stopped the train, and he was removed by force.
We went to stay at Haslar with Sir Edward Parry, the Arctic voyager, whose first wife had been my mother's early friend Bella Stanley. He was now married again, and had three more children, and his wife had two daughters by her first husband, Mr. Hoare. The three families lived together, and in the most wonderful harmony. The eldest son, Edward, afterwards Bishop of Dover, was several years older than I, yet not too old for companionship. But I never could feel the slightest interest in the dockyards or the ships at Spithead. My only pleasure was a happy tourette round the Isle of Wight—the mother, Lea, and I, in a little carriage. During the latter part of our stay at Haslar, cholera broke out in the hospital, and our departure was like a flight.
While I was at Lyncombe in the autumn, my step-grandmother Mrs. Hare Naylor died, very soon after the marriage of her daughter Georgiana to Mr. Frederick D. Maurice, whose first wife had been her intimate friend. She was married during what was supposed to be her last illness, but was so pleased with her nuptials that she recovered after the ceremony and lived for nearly half a century afterwards.
My dear old uncle Edward Stanley had always said, while making his summer tour in Scotland, that he should return to Norwich when the first case of cholera appeared. He died at Brahan Castle, and his body was brought back to Norwich just as the cholera appeared there. Tens of thousands of people went to his funeral—for, in the wild Chartist times of his episcopate, he had been a true "chevalier sans peur et sans reproche," and had become beloved by people of every phase of creed and character. My mother met Aunt Kitty in London as she came from Scotland, and went with her to Norwich. It was perfect anguish to me not to see once more the place which I had most delighted in, but that was not permitted. Only two days after leaving her home in the old palace, my aunt heard of the death of her youngest son, Captain Charles Edward Stanley, at Hobart Town in Van Diemen's Land. He left a young widow, who, in her desolation, derived her chief comfort from the thought of joining her husband's eldest brother, Captain Owen Stanley, at Sydney, and returning to England in his ship, the Rattlesnake. When she reached the ship, she learned that he had been found dead in his cabin only a few days after receiving the tidings of his father's death. The news of this third loss reached Lime just after Aunt Kitty and Kate Stanley had left it to take possession of their new London home—6 Grosvenor Crescent. I remember my mother's piercing shriek when she opened the letter: it was the only time I ever heard her scream. It was only a few months after this that Kate was married to Dr. Vaughan, her brother's friend and my late head-master.
In 1850 I detested my life at Lyncombe more than ever. Mr. R. was increasingly neglectful in teaching, and the food and everything else was increasingly bad. Temple Harris and my other elder companions went away, and their places were taken by a boy "with flaxen hair and spectacles, like a young curate," but inoffensive, and "an atrociously vulgar little snob;" while the ill-tempered rathunter, who had been at Lyncombe with the old set, was the only one of them that remained. I was now, however, more anxious than ever to learn something, and I made much progress by myself. Most of the external consolations of this year came from the residence in Bath of my maternal cousin Mrs. Russell Barrington, a rather gay young widow, and an eccentric person, but very kind to me at this time, incessant in her invitations, and really very useful in her constant lectures upon "good manners." She might truly have written to my mother in the words of Mme. de Sévigné—"Je me mêle d'apprendre à votre fils les manèges des conversations ordinaires, qu'il est important de savoir; il y a des choses qu'il ne faut pas ignorer. Il seroit ridicule de paraître étonné de certaines nouvelles de quoi on raisonne; je suis assez instruite de ces bagatelles."
Up to this time, as ever afterwards, no preparation for social life had ever been thought of as far as I was concerned. I was never encouraged to talk at home; indeed, if I ever spoke, I was instantly suppressed. I knew nothing of any game; I was never taught to ride or swim, and dancing was absolutely prohibited as an invention of the evil one. Other boys must have thought me a terrible ass, but it was really not quite my own fault. Oh! how heartily I agree with Archbishop Whately, who said that "the God of the Calvinists is the devil with 'God' written on his forehead."
There was another of my real relations with whom I made acquaintance this year, and with whom I was afterwards very intimate—namely, Henry Liddell, Rector of Easington, and one of the trustees of Bamborough Castle, who was the brother of my great-uncle Lord Ravensworth, and had married Charlotte Lyon of Hetton, daughter of the youngest brother of my great-grandmother Lady Anne Simpson. Mr. Liddell was one of the kindest of men, with all the genial courtesy of a race of country gentlemen now almost extinct, and his wife was a beautiful old lady, with much that was interesting to tell of past times and people. Their eldest son, who was afterwards Dean of Christ Church at Oxford, was at this time head-master of Westminster, and was a clever and cultivated person, though inferior to his parents in natural charm of character. In the summer my maternal grandfather, Sir John Paul, came to stay at a hotel at Bath and I saw him frequently, but never found anything in common with him, though he was an exceedingly clever artist. In my daily letters to my mother, I see that I described his first reception of me with "How do you do, sir"—just like any distant acquaintance. He was at this time married to his third wife, who was a daughter of Bishop Halifax, and presented a very youthful appearance. Her step-children, who never liked her, declared that on the day after her marriage one of her eyebrows fell off into her soup. But to me she was always very kind, and I was fond of her, in spite of her many ancient frivolities. With Lady Paul lived her sister Caroline Halifax, a very pretty pleasant old lady, who adored her, and thought "my sister Bessy" the most beautiful, illustrious, and cultivated woman in the world.
It was in April 1850 that a happy missing of his train at Bath produced a visit at Lyncombe from Arthur Stanley, who was horrified at my ignorance, and at the absence, which he discovered, of all pains in teaching me. His representations to my mother at last induced her to promise to remove me, for which I shall be eternally grateful to him in recollection. Nevertheless I was unaccountably left at Lyncombe till Christmas, nine wretched and utterly useless months; for when he knew I was going to leave, after my return in the summer, Mr. R. dropped even the pretence of attempting to teach me, so that I often remained in total neglect, without any work whatever, for several weeks. In their anger at the distant prospect of my escaping them, the R.'s now never spoke to me, and my life was passed in total and miserable silence, even at meal-times. If it had not been for the neighbourhood of Bath, I should often have been many weeks together without speaking a single word. My mother in vain remonstrated over my sickeningly doleful letters, and told me to "catch all the sunbeams within reach;" I could only reply there were no sunbeams to catch—that "you would think at meals that you were in the Inquisition from the cold, morose, joyless, motionless faces around the table." Then Aunt Esther would make my mother urge me to accept all these small trials, these "guidings," in a more Christian spirit, which made me furious: I could not express religious sentiments when such sentiments were quite unborn. Besides, I might have answered that "when St. Paul said we were to put off the old man, he did not mean we were to put on the old woman."[53] I also wrote to my mother—
"We are in the last extremities as regards food. I will give you a perfectly correct account of the last few days. Saturday, dinner, boiled beef. Sunday, breakfast, ditto cold with bread and butter. Luncheon, a very small portion of ditto with dry bread and part of the rind of a decayed cheese. Dinner, a little of ditto with a doughy plum-tart. Monday, breakfast, ditto with two very small square pieces of bread. Luncheon, ditto with bread and ... butter! Dinner, ditto and a rice-pudding. Tuesday, breakfast, ditto; luncheon, a very small fragment of ditto and one potato apiece doled round. Dinner, ditto. Wednesday, breakfast, scraps of ditto; luncheon, fat and parings of ditto. We all have to sit and do our work now by the light of a single bed-candle. Oh! I am more thankful every day that you will at last let me leave this place. Any change must be for the better, and I should not mind if it was to the centre of the desert, if I could only feel I should learn something, for I am learning nothing here, and never have learnt anything.... Would you very much mind giving me an umbrella, for I have got wet through almost every day: on Sundays it is especially inconvenient. Mr. R. asked me the other day how I liked the thoughts of going away!—but I was very good, and only said 'I should not mind it very much!'"
My only reprieve from the misery of Lyncombe in 1850 was in a three days' visit to my half-uncle Gustavus Hare at Exmouth. I describe to my mother the extraordinary sermon which I heard there from the Dean of Exeter, on the theory that the object of St. Paul's visit to Jerusalem, as described in the Acts of the Apostles, was to attend the deathbed of the "most blessed Virgin." I was greatly delighted with sketching the then ruined sanctuary of St. John in the Wilderness—an old grey tower covered with moss and lichen and a huge yew-tree, in a solitary opening amid woods. Another day we saw Bradley Manor, near Newton, "with its chapel used as a hen-roost and a peacock perched upon the altar," and the second Mrs. Hare Naylor's grave at Highweek, "overlooking the beautiful wooded hills and the still blue waters of Teignmouth harbour."
Whilst at my tutor's, I had saved up every penny I could—actually by pennies—to go to Berkeley Castle, and at last, by going without food the whole day (as I had no money for that), I accomplished the excursion. To me, it was well worth all the suffering it cost, and I wrote seven sheets to my mother about the great hall with its stained windows, the terraces with peacocks sunning themselves on the carved balustrades, the dark picture-hung staircase, the tapestried bedrooms, and above all, the unspeakably ghastly chamber of Edward the Second's murder, approached through the leads of the roof by a wooden bridge between the towers—"dim and dark, with a floor of unplaned oak, and the light falling from two stained windows upon a white head of Edward in a niche, and an old bed with a sword lying upon it in the position in which it was found after the murder." Then in the park were "the descendants of the stags which were harnessed to the king's bier, and which, for want of horses, drew him to his grave at Gloucester."
In the dreary solitude of my life at Lyncombe (as how often since!) drawing was a great resource, and much practice gave me facility in sketching. At this time I was very conceited about it, thought my drawings beautiful, and, as an inevitable consequence, fell violently into "the black stage," in which they were—abominable! In the holidays, however, my pride was well taken down by my mother, who herself drew with great taste and delicacy. She would look at my drawing carefully, and then say, "And what does this line mean?"—"Oh, I thought ... it looked well."—"Then, if you do not know exactly what it means, take it out at once." This was the best of all possible lessons.
The chief variety of our summer was spending two days in the little inn at Penshurst—seeing and drawing the fine old house there and Hever Castle, and a day at Winchelsea, where we slept at the primitive little public-house, and sketched from breakfast to sunset.
In the autumn, at Mr. Landor's house, I first met Miss Carolina Courtenay Boyle,[54] Queen Adelaide's ex-maid of honour, with whom, partly through my love of drawing, I made a great friendship. Accustomed as I was to the inferior twaddle which formed the conversation of the Maurice sisters, or the harsh judgments of those who considered everything pleasant to be sinful, Miss Boyle was a revelation to me. I was as one mesmerised by her. Hitherto my acquaintance with women had been chiefly with the kind who thought ample compensation for having treated me with inordinate unkindness and selfishness to be contained in the information that they would not fail to remember me in their prayers. It was a new experience, not only that a beautiful and clever lady should try to make herself agreeable, but that she should think it worth while to make herself agreeable to me. No wonder I adored her. She was then living with her mother Lady Boyle in the same house of Millard's Hill, near Frome, in which my great-aunts Caroline and Marianne Hare had lived before; and, to my great surprise and delight, I was allowed to go by the coach to spend two days with her there. It was on this occasion that I first wore a morning-coat instead of a jacket, and very proud I was of it. Apropos of dress, at this time and for many years afterwards, all young gentlemen wore straps to their trousers, not only when riding, but always: it was considered the ne plus ultra of snobbism to appear without them. The said trousers also always had stripes at the sides, which, beginning like those of soldiers, grew broader and broader, till they recalled the parti-coloured hose of Pinturicchio: then they disappeared altogether.
The house of Millard's Hill, when the Boyles inhabited it, was quite enchanting, so filled with pictures, carvings, and china; and Miss Boyle herself was a more beautiful picture than any of those upon her walls—still wonderfully striking in appearance, with delicately chiselled features and an unrivalled complexion, while her golden-grey hair, brushed back and cut short like a boy's (owing to a coup de soleil long before), added a marvellous picturesqueness. A greater contrast to the pinched and precise evangelical women whom alone I was usually permitted to visit could at this time scarcely be imagined. Wonderful were the stories which she had to tell me, and delighted to tell me, of her past life and sufferings, "through which only God and religion" had helped her, with the moral attached that since the few whom she had idolised were taken away, she must now live for all. She talked much also of her great anxiety about dear old Landor, "that God would change and rebuild his soul." Lady Boyle, a sweet and beautiful old lady,[55] was now quite paralysed, and her daughter would sit for hours at her feet, soothing her and holding her hands. I remember as especially touching, that when Miss Boyle sang hymns to her mother, she would purposely make a mistake, in order that her sick mother might have "the pleasure of correcting her."
When we went out, Miss Boyle's dress—a large Marie Antoinette hat and feathers and a scarlet cloak—at that time considered most extraordinary—excited great sensation. With her I went to Longleat; to Vallis, of which I have often been reminded in seeing Poussin's pictures; and to Marston, where old Lord Cork was still living, with his daughter-in-law Lady Dungarvan and her children. An immense number of the Boyles—"the illustrious family" by whom, our Dr. Johnson said, "almost every art had been encouraged or improved"—were at this time residing at or around Marston, and none of them on terms with one another, though they were all, individually, very kind to me. I now first made acquaintance with Miss Boyle's younger sister Mary, whom I knew better many years after, when I learned to value her wonderful sympathy with all the pathos of life, as much as to admire her quick wit and inimitable acting.[56] Landor used to say of her, "Mary Boyle is more than clever, she is profound;" but it is her quickness that remains by one. Of her lively answers it is difficult to give specimens, but I remember how one day when she neglected something, Lady Marion Alford said to her, "What a baby you are, Mary," and she answered, "Well, I can't help it; I was born so."
Another day Sir Frederic Leighton had promised to go to her, and, after keeping her waiting a long time, had disappointed her. She met him at the Academy party that evening, and he made a feint of kneeling down to beg her pardon—"Oh, pray rise up," she exclaimed; "people might think I was forgiving you."
But to return to Millard's Hill. In the evenings Miss Boyle took a guitar and played and sang—strange wild Spanish songs, which seemed perfectly in accordance with her floating hair and inspired mien. King William IV. desired her to play to him, which she dreaded so much, that when she was sent to fetch her guitar, she cut every string and then frizzled them up, and came back into the royal presence saying that her guitar was quite broken and she could not play. To her terror, the King sent for the guitar to see if it was true, but he was deceived. Queen Adelaide's death had made a great change in Miss Boyle's life, but she received the greatest kindness from the Queen's sister, Duchess Ida of Saxe-Weimar. When I was with her, she was looking forward to a homeless life after her mother's death, which could not be far distant, but was trusting in the family motto—"God's providence is my inheritance."
Soon after my return from Millard's Hill, I went to my grandfather Sir John Paul at the Hill House near Stroud—a much-dreaded visit, as I had never before seen most of the near relations amongst whom I so suddenly found myself.
From the Hill House I wrote to my mother—
"Dec. 19, 1850.—Lyncombe is done with! my own Mother, and oh! I cannot say how delightful it was, in parting with so many persons terribly familiar through two years and a half of misery, to know that I should never see them again.
"At Stroud Lady Paul's pony-carriage was waiting, and we drove swiftly through some deep valleys, the old coachman, twenty-five years in the family, telling me how he had seen and nursed me when a baby, and how glad he was that I was come to see my grandfather. We turned up by a house which he said was my 'Aunt Jane's,'[57] through a steep lane overhung by magnificent beech-trees, and then round a drive to this hill-set mansion, which has a fine view over wood and valley on one side, and on the other a garden with conservatories and fountains.
"As the bell rang, a good-natured, foreign-looking man came out to welcome me, and told me he was my Uncle Wentworth,[58] introduced me to his boy Johnnie, and took me into a large cheerful room (like the chintz room at Eridge), where the bright-eyed old Sir John was sitting with Lady Paul and my aunt Minnie Bankhead. Lady Paul kissed me, and it was not half so formidable as I expected.... Aunt Minnie is very handsome, and amuses everybody with her stories. She has just brought back His Excellency her husband from Mexico, where she has had the most wonderful adventures."
| "Stern lawgiver, yet thou dost wear |
| The Godhead's most benignant grace; |
| Nor know we anything so fair |
| As is the smile upon thy face." |
| —WORDSWORTH, Ode to Duty. |
| "Duties bring blessings with them." |
| —SOUTHEY, Roderick. |
"In the acquisition of more or less useless knowledge, soon happily to be forgotten, boyhood passes away. The schoolhouse fades from view, and we turn into the world's high-road."—J. K. Jerome.
MY new tutor, the Rev. Charles Bradley, was selected by Arthur Stanley, who had been acquainted with his brother, afterwards Master of University College at Oxford. I went over from Lime to see him at Hastings, and at once felt certain that, though he was very eccentric, his energy and vivacity were just what would be most helpful to me. His house was an ugly brick villa standing a little way back from the road in the pretty village of Southgate, about ten miles from London, and he had so many pupils that going there was like returning to school. The life at Southgate for the next two years was certainly the reverse of luxurious, and I did not get on well with my tutor owing to his extraordinary peculiarities, and probably to my many faults also; but I feel that mentally I owe everything to Mr. Bradley. "Vita sine proposito languida et vaga est"[59] was the first principle he inculcated. He was the only person who ever taught me anything, and that he did not teach me more than he did was entirely my own fault. He had a natural enthusiasm for knowledge himself, and imparted it to his pupils; and the energy and interest of the lessons at Southgate were perfectly delightful—every hour filled, not a moment wasted, and a constant excitement about examinations going on. I am sure that the manly vigour of my surroundings soon began to tell on my character as much as my mind, and at Southgate I soon learned to acquire more openness in matters of feeling, and a complete indifference to foolish sneers. Mr. R. for two years and a half had totally, systematically, and most cruelly neglected me: Mr. Bradley fully did his duty by me—to a degree of which I have only in after years learned the full value.
When we had a holiday at Southgate, it was the well-earned reward of hard work on the part of the pupils, not the result of idleness on the part of the tutor, and our holidays were intensely enjoyable. As he found he could trust me, Mr. Bradley let me make long excursions on these holidays—to Hatfield, St. Albans, Epping Forest, and often to London, where my happy hunts after old buildings and historic recollections laid the foundation of a work which I at that time little looked forward to.[60] Sometimes also I went to the Stanleys', ever becoming increasingly attracted by the charm, intelligence, and wisdom of my "Aunt Kitty." She was very alarming with her
"Strong sovereign will, and some desire to chide."[61]
But the acuteness of her observation, the crispness of her conversation, and the minute and inflexible justice of her daily conduct, ever showed the most rare union of masculine vigour with feminine delicacy.
My aunt was very intimate with the Miss Berrys, who both died in 1852, Agnes in January, Mary in November. Their celebrity began with their great intimacy at Devonshire House and Lansdowne House: the old Duchess of Devonshire was their great friend. I believe they were not clever in themselves, but they had a peculiar power of drawing clever people around them. They had both been engaged, Mary to the O'Hara, Agnes to the Mr. Ferguson who married Lady Elgin. They were very kind-hearted, and were, as it were, privileged to say rude things, which nobody minded, at their parties. Often, when a fresh person arrived towards the end of the evening, Miss Berry would say before all the other guests, "You see I've been able to get no one to meet you—no one at all." She would go out of the room whilst she was pouring out the tea, and call out over the stairs, "Murrell, no more women, no more women;" and Murrell, the butler, understood perfectly, and put out the lamp over the door. A few very intimate friends would still come in, but, when they saw the lamp was out, ladies generally drove away. Latterly, the Miss Berrys tried to draw in a good deal. A sort of jeu d'esprit went round to their friends, thanking them for past favours, and asking for a continuance on a smaller scale. It was never quite understood, but was supposed to mean that they did not wish to see quite so many. The death of Miss Agnes was like that of the wife. She had always been touching in that she could never understand how any one could like her better than her sister. She was the housekeeper, and she did what other housekeepers seldom do—she had the soup brought up to her every day whilst she was dressing, and tasted it, and would say, "There must be a little more sugar," or "There is too much salt," so that it was always perfect and always the same.
I think it must have been at this time also that I was taken to see the venerable Lady Louisa Stuart, who died soon afterwards.[62] I am glad that I can thus always retain a vivid recollection of the daughter of the famous Lord Bute and grand-daughter of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu as a very old lady of ninety-four, in a large cap, sitting in an old-fashioned high-backed chair covered with white stuff, in a room of extreme bareness.
Great was my excitement, on first going to Southgate. I stayed on the way with the Stanleys, to see the Exhibition (of 1851) which was then in full preparation, and the procession at the opening of Parliament.
To MY MOTHER.
"6 Grosvenor Crescent, Feb. 3, 1851.—The exterior of the Crystal Palace is disappointing, I had imagined it so much higher, but the interior is and looks gigantic. The most striking feature is the great tree: it is wonderful to see its huge branches enclosed quite to the topmost twigs, and the details of the building are beautiful."
"Feb. 4.—I went to the Bunsens' house to see the procession. There was a crowd of people on the terrace when the great gun announced that the Queen had left the palace, and already from distant parts of the avenue cries of 'God save the Queen' and 'Hurrah!' The procession of Lifeguards in their panoply of glittering helmets and breastplates was beautiful. Then came the six gorgeous carriages with the household, and lastly the eight cream-coloured horses drawing the great glass coach. Prince Albert in his great boots sat on the side nearest to us, opposite the Duchess of Sutherland in a diamond tiara; and on the other, the Queen, in a crown and glistening dress of embroidered silver, kept bowing to the shouts of her subjects—so much indeed that I heard a poor Irish-woman exclaim—'Och indeed, and mustn't the poor thing get tired of nodding her head about so.' ... There were forty people at luncheon with the Bunsens afterwards."
"Southgate, Feb. 8, 1851.—My own dearest mother, at last I am writing from my own room at Southgate. I joined the omnibus at a public-house at the bottom of Snow Hill,[63] and drove here through the moonlight, arriving at 10 P.M. We stopped at a large gate in a wall, which was opened by a stable-boy, who led the way across a grass-plat with trees. Mr. Bradley met me in the hall, and took me to see Mrs. Bradley, and then to my room, which at first seemed most dreary, cold, and comfortless."
"Feb. 9.—I have already seen enough of the life here to know a good deal about it. Mr. Bradley is an excellent tutor, though I could never like him as a man. He is much too familiar with his pupils, pulls their hair or hits them on the toes with the poker when they make mistakes: he will peer into their rooms, and if he finds a coat, &c., lying about, will fine them a penny, and there is a similar fine if you do not put the chair you have sat upon at dinner close up against the wall when you have done with it. The tradespeople are allowed to put in their bills, 'Pane of glass broken by Portman or Brooke,' &c. When I asked him to lend me a pen, he said, 'Oh, I don't provide my pupils with pens.' When he wanted to send a parcel to Miss Jason, he told her brother he should come upon him for the postage. The first thing he said to me after I entered the house was—pointing to the sideboard—'Mind you never take either of those two candles; those are Mrs. Bradley's and mine' (we have sickly-smelling farthing dips in dirty japanned candlesticks). These are instances to give you an idea of the man.
"If you have three indifferent marks from the mathematical master, you have either to stay in all the next half-holiday, or to receive three severe boxes on the ear!—a thing which I imagine would not be borne at any other private tutor's, but Bradley seems to have magic power. His inquisitiveness about trifles is boundless. If I bring down a book—'What is that book? Was it a present? Who from? Where was it bought? How much did it cost?'
"When I came down to prayers this morning (at eight, being Sunday), I found all the pupils assembled. I am the smallest but one, and look up at the gigantic Portman, who is only thirteen. Then we had breakfast. Cold beef and ham were on the table, a huge loaf, and two little glasses of butter. Mrs. Bradley poured out the tea, while Bradley threw to each pupil an immense hunch off the loaf, saying with mine, that I 'must not leave any, or any fat at dinner, that was never allowed; and that I must always say first what I wanted, much or little, fat or not.' After breakfast the pupils all gathered round the fire and talked. Soon Bradley made us sit down to work, myself at Greek Testament, till it was time to go to church, whither we went, not quite in a schoolboy procession, but very nearly. The church was 'Weld Chapel,' a barn-like building, with round windows and high galleries. At dinner there was cold roast and boiled beef, and plum and custard pudding, good and plain, but with severe regulations. We did not have any time to ourselves except three-quarters of an hour after afternoon church, after which we went down to a sort of Scripture examination, with such questions as, 'How do we know that Salome was the mother of Zebedee's children?' I wrote what I thought an excellent set of answers, but they proved sadly deficient, and I am afraid I am a dunce.... I am writing now after prayers, in forbidden time, and in danger of having my fire put out for a month! Do not think from my letter that I dislike being here. Oh, no! work, work, is the one thing I need, and which I must and will have, and, if I have it, all petty troubles will be forgotten. Good-night, my own dear blessed mother."
"Feb. 10.—Half my first work-day is over, and I have just washed my hands, sooty with lighting my own fire, to write before dinner. At half-past nine we all sat down to work at the long table in the dining-room. I was directed to do Euripides while the 'schemes' (tables of work) of the others were prepared, and we went on till half-past twelve, when Bradley said, 'You've done enough.' Then Campbell asked me to walk with him and Walker to the station.... All my companions seem very old."
"Feb. 12.—On Wednesday afternoon I went a long walk with Campbell. The country looks most dreary now, and mostly hidden by London fog, still I think there are bits which I could draw.... When we came home I ached with cold and my fire was out. Mrs. Bradley is certainly most good-natured; for happening to pass and see my plight, she insisted on going down herself to get sticks, laying it, and lighting it again. When I was going to bed, too, the servant came up with a little bason of arrowroot, steaming hot, and some biscuits, which 'Missis thought would do my cold good.'
"Bradley improves greatly on acquaintance, and is very kind to me, though I am sorry to say he finds me far more backward and stupid than he expected, especially in grammar. He has a wonderfully pleasant way of teaching, and instead of only telling us we are dunces and blockheads, like Mr. R., he helps us not to remain so.
"He was exceedingly indignant yesterday at receiving a letter from Lord Portman to say that his son had complained of the dreadful damp of the house, that his shirts put out at night were always wet before morning. After expatiating for a long time upon the unkindness and impropriety of Portman's conduct in writing to complain instead of asking for a fire, he ended good-humouredly by insisting on his going out into a laurel bush in the garden with Forbes, to receive advice as to improved conduct for the future! All this every pupil in the house was called down to witness: indeed, if any one does wrong, it is Bradley's great delight to make him a looking-glass to the others. Sometimes he holds up their actual persons to be looked at. If they are awkward, he makes them help the others at meals, &c., and all his little penances are made as public as possible."
"Feb. 14.—The days go quickly by in a succession of lessons, one after the other. I am much happier already at Southgate than I ever was anywhere else, for Bradley's whole aim, the whole thought of his soul, is to teach us, and he makes his lessons as interesting as Arthur (Stanley) himself would. I like all my companions very much, but Walker best; and, though I am the smallest, thinnest, weakest fellow here, I do not think they like me the worse for it."
"Feb. 16.—Yesterday, after work, I went by train to Hatfield House, provided with a large piece of cake for luncheon by Mrs. Bradley.... You may imagine my delight, as I expected something like Penshurst at best, to see tower after tower, and pile after pile of the most glorious old building, equally splendid in colour and outline—far the most beautiful house I ever saw. It was a perfect day, the sun lighting up the glorious building, and making deep shadows upon it, and glinting through the old oaks in the park upon the herds of deer.... The train was forty minutes late, and it was quite dark when I got back, but Mrs. Bradley's good-nature gave me a welcome and a hot meat tea, whereas with Mrs. R. there would indeed have been cold behaviour and cold tea—if any.
"The only way of getting on with Bradley is the most entire openness, and answering all his questions as shortly and simply as possible.... After Cicero he always gives us a composition to translate into Latin out of his own head, most extraordinary sometimes, though in the style of what we have been reading. I am already beginning to find Cicero quite easy, and am beginning at last even to make some little sense of Euripides."
"Feb. 21.—At half-past six I hear knocking without intermission at my door, which it is generally a long time before I am sufficiently awake to think other than a dream. Presently I jump up, brush my own clothes, seize my Cicero, and look it over while I dress, and at half-past seven rush downstairs to the dining-room. For some minutes the stairs are in a continual clatter. Meantime I retire into a window in agonies of agitation about my Cicero, till Bradley comes in rubbing his hands, and sits down in an arm-chair by the fire: I sit down by him, and Hill on the other side of me, like a great long giant. I generally do this lesson very ill, partly from want of presence of mind, partly from inattention, and partly because I am scarcely awake: however, Bradley makes it not only instructive but interesting, always giving us funny sentences out of his own head to construe into the sort of Latin we are doing. I quite enjoy my lessons with him, only he must think me such a dunce. After the lesson is construed, I sometimes have to do it all through by myself, or the others do it and I correct them (if I can). Sometimes the poker is held over their toes, when, without exception, they do it worse than before, and down it comes. Then we parse.
"Then a little bell tinkles. Portman cuts the bread, Bradley the ham, and I help to set chairs in two rows from the fire, while the others hang over it, very grim and cold. Two maidens and a stable-boy come in, we sit in two rows confronting each other, and Bradley in the oddest possible tone reads a chapter in 'Proverbs' and a prayer. Then the chairs are put to the table: I sit next but Hill to Mrs. Bradley, which means I am fourth eldest, Walker on the other side of me, Forbes and Campbell opposite. At breakfast every one talks of plans for the day, Forbes and Portman of hounds, races, and steeplechases, Campbell of church windows; it is very different from the silent meals at Lyncombe.
"We do not begin regular work again till half-past nine, though I generally prepare mine, but sometimes Forbes persuades me to come out and give them a chase, that is, to run away as hard as I can, with all the others yelping like hounds at my heels; but the scene of these chases is only a square walled garden and orchard, and there are no places for concealment. We come in very dirty, and Buchan is sometimes made to wear his dirty shoes round his neck, or to have them under his nose all worktime.
"I work in my room till ten, when I come in with Walker for the second Cicero lesson, which is even pleasanter than the other. Afterwards we write Latin compositions out of our own heads! Then I sometimes say Greek grammar, or else work in my own room again till twelve, when I go down to the young Cambridge wrangler, who is teaching some one all worktime, but with whom I do nothing except for this half-hour. He looks very young and delicate and is childish in manner, and generally gets into a fix over a fraction, and so do I, but we fumble and whisper together over arithmetic till half-past twelve. Meanwhile my letters have generally come, books are clapped together, and I run upstairs to write to you.
"A dinner-bell rings at half-past one, and the others come in from the drawing-room, whither they adjourn before dinner, with the penalty of a penny if they lean against the mantelpiece, as they might injure the ornaments. We have the same places at dinner, an excellent dinner always—variety of food and abundance of it. Afterwards I generally read, while the others play at quoits, and at half-past two I go out walking with Campbell, coming in to begin work at five. At half-past five Walker and I come in with Euripides, which is the last repetition: then I work in my own room till six, when we have tea, with bread and butter and cake. After tea the drawing-room is open to the public till half-past seven, when we all begin to prepare work for the next day, and write Latin exercises till nine, when prayers are read. Afterwards the younger ones generally go to bed, but some of us sit up talking or playing chess, &c., till nearly eleven.
"I like the sort of life excessively—the hardly having a moment to one's self, as the general working 'subject' takes up all leisure time—the hardly having time even to make acquaintance with one's companions from the succession of all that has to be done. No one thinks it odd if you do any amount of work in your own room; of course they laugh at you as 'a bookworm,' but what does that signify?
"I have forgotten to tell you that between breakfast and the chase, Hill and I are examined in three chapters of the Bible which we prepare beforehand. Bradley asks the most capital questions, which one would never think of, and we have to know the geography perfectly. I am astonished to find how indescribably ignorant I am."
"Feb. 23.—I daily feel how much happier I am with the Bradleys than I have ever been before. Compared to Lyncombe, Southgate is absolute paradise, the meals are so merry and the little congregations round the fire afterwards, and work is carried on with such zest and made so interesting.
"Yesterday, after work, I went to Waltham Abbey—a long walk to Edmonton, and then by rail to Waltham. I was very anxious to see what a place so long thought of would be like—a tall white tower rising above trees, a long rambling village street, and then the moss-grown walls of the church. The inside is glorious, with twisted Norman pillars, &c., but choked with pews and galleries. The old man who showed it said he was 'quite tired of hearing of church reform and restoration, though the pillars certainly did want whitewashing again sadly.' ... There is an old gothic gateway on the brink of the river Lea."
"March 9, Harrow.—Having got through 'the subject'—Cicero and Greek grammar—yesterday morning, with much trembling but favourable results, I set off to come here. With a bundle like a tramp, I passed through Colney Hatch, Finchley, and Hendon, keeping Harrow steeple and hill well in view, and two miles from Harrow met Kate in her carriage. This morning we have been to church, and I have since been to Mrs. Brush, the Pauls' old servant, whom I knew so well when at school here, and who came out exclaiming, 'O my dear good little soul, how glad I be to see ye!'"
"Southgate, March 14.—I must tell my mother of my birthday yesterday. Mr. and Mrs. Bradley made me order the meals, and do very much what I liked. The tutor, who can be as savage as a lion during work, relapses into a sucking-lamb when it is over. My health was drunk all round at dinner, and 'a truce' given afterwards, which I employed in going with little Fitzherbert Brooke to the old church at Chingford, close to Epping Forest—a picturesque, deserted, ivy-covered building, looking down over the flat country which I think so infinitely interesting, with the churches and towers of London in the distance.
"To-day there has been a great fuss, and it will probably have some dreadful ending. In the middle of work we were all suddenly called down, and Bradley, with his gravest face, headed a procession into the garden, where all across one of the flower-beds were seen footmarks, evidently left by some one in the chases yesterday. The gardener was called, and said he saw one of the party run across yesterday, but he was not allowed to say a word more. Then Bradley said he should allow a day in which the culprit might come forward and confess, in which case he would be forgiven and no one told his name, otherwise the shoes of yesterday, which have been locked up, would be measured with the footprints, and the offender sent away."
"March 15.—The plan has quite answered. In the evening, Bradley told me the offender had given himself up. No one knows who it is, and all goes on as before. Some of the others are given a tremendous punishment for running through some forbidden laurel bushes—the whole of 'Southey's Life of Nelson' to get up with the geography, and not to leave the house till it is done, no second course, no beer, and ... to take a pill every night."
"April 2.—The other day I was very careless in my work, and was asked where my mind was, and as I could not tell, Campbell was sent upstairs to fetch—my mind! and came down bearing two little pots of wild anemones, which were moved about with me as my 'mind,' to the great amusement of the others.... If I should ever seem to complain of anything here in my letters, mind you never allude to it to the Bradleys, as there is only one thing which Bradley never forgives a pupil, and that is having caused him to write a letter."
"April 7.—Yesterday I went with Campbell and Edgecombe to Hatfield, whence we ran all the way to St. Albans, an effort, but quite worth while, though we had only an hour there."
"(After the Easter vacation), April 27.—When I opened my eyes this morning on the wintry wilderness here, what a change it was from Lime—withered sooty evergreens, leafless trees, trampled grass, and thick London fog—I think the angels driven out of Paradise must have felt as I do, only I have a bad headache besides.... All here is the same as when we left, to the drawling sermon of Mr. Staunton about faith, grace, and redemption, sighing and groaning and hugging the pulpit-cushion the while. It is bitterly cold, but the law of the house allows no more fires.... Even Fausty's white hair, which still clings to my coat, has its value now."
"April 29.—Bradley has now taken a notion that I am dreadfully self-conceited, so I am made to sit on a high chair before him at lessons like a little school-boy, and yesterday, for mistakes in my Latin exercise, I was made to wear my coat and waistcoat inside out till dinner-time."
"May 11.—Yesterday, I went by train to Broxbourne, and walked thence by Hoddesdon across the bleak district called the Rye, till I saw an oasis of poplars and willows by the river Lea, and a red brick tower with terra-cotta ornaments, twisted chimney, flag-staff, and a grey arched door below. I had not expected it, so you may imagine how enchanted I was to find that it was the tower of the Rye-House. In that road Charles and James were to have been murdered on their return from Newmarket, and for the plot conceived in that tower Algernon Sidney and William Lord Russell died!
"Bradley is now alternately very good-natured and very provoking. He continually asks me if I do not think him the most annoying, tiresome man I ever met, and I always say, 'Yes, I do think so.' In return, he says that I am sapping his vitals and wearing him out by my ingratitude and exaggerations, but he does not think so at all."
"May 18.—I have been to Harrow. Mr. Bradley lent me a horse, to be sent back by the stable-boy after the first six miles, so I easily got through the rest.... I had many hours with Kate, and came away immediately after dinner, arriving at exactly ten minutes to ten—the fatal limit; so Bradley was pleased, and welcomed me, and I did not go supperless to bed."
"June 8, 1851.—Yesterday I walked to Dyrham Park near Barnet, to pay a visit to the Trotters. It is a handsome place.... I wrote upon my card, 'Will you see an unknown cousin?' and sending it in, was admitted at once. I found Mrs. Trotter[64] in the garden. She welcomed me very kindly, and seven of her nine children came trooping up to see 'the unknown cousin.' Captain Trotter is peculiar and peculiarly religious. I had not been there a minute before he gathered some leaves to dilate to me upon 'the beauty of the creation and the wonderful glory of the Creator,' with his magnifying-glass. He builds churches, gives the fourth of his income to the poor, and spends all his time in good works. I stayed to tea with all the children. The gardens are lovely, and the children have three houses in the shrubberies—one with a fireplace, cooking apparatus, and oven, where they can bake; another, a pretty thatched cottage with Robinson Crusoe's tree near it, with steps cut in it to the top."
"June 11.—The first day of our great examination is over, and I have written seventy-three answers, some of them occupying a whole sheet."
"June 12.—To-day has been ten hours and a half of hard writing. I was not plucked yesterday!"
"June 15.—I reached Harrow by one, through the hot lanes peopled with haymakers. I was delayed in returning, yet by tearing along the lanes arrived at ten exactly by my watch, but by the hall-clock it was half-past ten. Bradley was frigidly cold in consequence, and has been ever since. To-day at breakfast he said, 'Forbes may always be depended upon, but that is not the case with every one.'"
"June 20.—I have had an interesting day!—examinations all morning—the finale of Virgil, and then, as a reward, and because neither of my preceptors could attend to me, Bradley said I might go where I liked; so I fixed on Hertford, and, having walked to Ponder's End, took the train thither.... From Hertford, I walked to Panshanger, Lord Cowper's, which is shown, and in the most delightful way, as you are taken to the picture-gallery, supplied with a catalogue, and left to your own devices. The pictures are glorious and the gardens are quaint, in the old style. At Ware I saw the great bed, but the owners would not let me draw it on any account, because they were sure I was going to do it for the Pantomime. The bed is twelve feet square and is said to have belonged to Queen Elizabeth.
"In the Bible examination I am second, in spite of having said that Ishmael married an Egyptian, and having left out 'They drank of that rock which followed them' in answer to the question 'What were the miracles ordained to supply the temporal wants of the Israelites in the wilderness?'"
"June 25.—I am enchanted—quite enchanted that we are really going to Normandy.... I feel satisfied, now the end of the quarter is come, that I never was happier anywhere in my life than I have been here, and that I have done more, learned more, and thought more in the few months at Southgate than in all the rest of my life put together."
While I was away, my mother's life at Hurstmonceaux had flowed on in a quiet routine between Lime and the Rectory. She had, however, been much affected by the sudden death of Ralph Leycester, the young head of her family,[65] and cheerful, genial owner of Toft, her old family home. Chiefly, however, did she feel this from her share in the terrible sorrow of Ralph's eldest sister, her sister-like cousin Charlotte Leycester; and the hope of persuading her to have the change and of benefiting her by it, proved an incentive to make a short tour in Normandy—a plan with which I was intensely delighted. To go abroad was positively enchanting. But anything would have been better than staying at Hurstmonceaux, so overrun was it with Maurices. I suppose they sometimes meant well, but what appalling bores they were! "La bonne intention n'est de rien en fait d'esprit."[66]
We crossed to Boulogne on a sea which was perfectly calm at starting, but on the way there came on one of the most frightful thunderstorms I ever remember, and the sea rose immediately as under a hurricane. A lady who sate by us was dreadfully terrified, and I have no doubt remembers now the way in which (as the waves swept the deck) my mother repeated to her the hymn—"Oh, Jesus once rocked on the breast of the billow." I have often seen in dreams since, our first entrance into a French harbour, brilliant sunshine after the storm, perfectly still water after the raging waves, and the fishwomen, in high white caps like towers (universal then) and huge glittering golden earrings, lining the railing of the pier.
We saw Amiens and had a rapid glimpse of Paris, where we were all chiefly impressed by the Chapelle St. Ferdinand and the tomb of the Duke of Orleans, about whom there was still much enthusiasm. During this visit I also saw three phases of old Paris which I am especially glad to remember, and which I should have had no other opportunity of seeing. I saw houses still standing in the Place du Carrousel between the Tuileries and the then unfinished Louvre: I saw the Fontaine des Innocents in the middle of the market, uncovered as it then was: and I saw the Tour de S. Jacques rising in the midst of a crowd of old houses, which pressed close against it, and made it look much more picturesque than it has done since it has been freed from its surroundings. On leaving Paris, we spent delightful days at Rouen, and visited, at Darnetal, the parents of M. Waddington, who became well known as Minister of Foreign Affairs at Paris, and ambassador in England. From Havre we went by sea to Caen, arriving full of the study of Norman history and determined to find out, in her native place, all we could about Gunnora, Duchess of Normandy (grandmother of William the Conqueror), from whose second marriage both my mother and Charlotte Leycester were directly descended.
Very delightful were the excursions we made from Caen—to Bayeux with its grand cathedral and the strange strip of royal needlework known as "the Bayeux Tapestry:" and to the quaint little church of Thaon and Château Fontaine Henri, a wonderfully preserved great house of other days. Ever since I have had a strong sense of the charm of the wide upland Normandy plains of golden corn, alive with ever-changing cloud shadows, and of the sudden dips into wooded valleys, fresh with streams, where some little village of thatched cottages has a noble church with a great spire, and an area wide enough to contain all the people in the village and all their houses too. The most beautiful of all the breaks in the cornland occurs at Falaise, where the great castle of Robert the Devil rises on a precipice above a wooded rift with river and watermills and tanners' huts, in one of which Arlette, the mother of the Conqueror, and daughter of the tanner Verpray, was born.
From Falaise we went to Lisieux, which was then one of the most beautiful old towns in France, almost entirely of black and white timber houses. It was only a few miles thence to Val Richer, where we spent the afternoon with M. Guizot—"grave and austere, but brilliantly intellectual," as Princess Lieven has described him. His château was full of relics of Louis Philippe and his court, and the garden set with stately orange-trees in large tubs like those at the Tuileries. My mother and cousin returned to England from hence, but I was left for some weeks at Caen to study French at the house of M. Melun, a Protestant pasteur, in a quiet side-street close to the great Abbaye aux Dames, where Matilda of Flanders is buried.
To MY MOTHER.
"Caen, July 26, 1851.—It was very desolate, my own mother, being left alone in that square of Lisieux, and the old houses seemed to lose their beauty, the trees and cathedral to grow colourless, after you were all gone, so that I was glad when the diligence came to take me away. It was a long drive, passing through 'Coupe Gorge,' a ravine where Napoleon, hearing diligences were often robbed there, made one man settle, saying that others would soon follow, and now there is quite a village.
"I have a pleasant room here, with a clean wooden floor, and a view of S. Pierre from the window. Its only drawback is opening into the sitting-room where Mr. T., my fellow-pensionnaire, smokes his pipes. He is a heavy young man, very anxious to impress me with the honour and glory of his proficiency as a shot and cricketer, and of the Frenchmen he has knocked down and 'rather surprised.' We had prayers in Madame Melun's bedroom, she being dressed, but 'le petit' snoring in bed. The whole family, including les petits, have a great meat breakfast with wine, followed by bowls of sour milk.... Such a touching funeral procession has just passed up the Rue des Chanoines, a young girl carried on a bier by six of her companions in white dresses and wreaths."
"Sunday, July 27.—Yesterday I went a walk with M. Melun to the Prairie, where the races are going on. This morning he preached about them and the evils of the world with the most violent action I ever saw—stamping, kicking, spreading out his arms like the wings of a bird, and jumping as if about to descend upon the altar, which, in the Temple, is just under the pulpit. This afternoon I have been again to the service, but there was no congregation; all the world was gone to the races, and, M. Melun says, to perdition also."
"July 28.—It is such a burning day that I can hardly hold my head up. Everything seems lifeless with heat, and not a breath of air. I never missed a green tree so much: if you go out, except to the Prairie, there is not one to be seen, and even the streets are cool and refreshing compared with the barren country. Tens of thousands of people collected in the Prairie this morning, half to see the races, half the eclipse of the sun, for they both began at the same moment, and the many coloured dresses and high Norman caps were most picturesque."
"July 30.—It is like the deadly motionless heat of 'The Ancient Mariner;' I suppose the eclipse brings it ... the baking is absolute pain.... It is tiresome that the whole Melun family think it necessary to say 'bon jour' and to shake hands every time one goes in and out of the house, a ceremony which it makes one hotter to think of."
"July 31.—The heat is still terrific, but thinking anything better than the streets, I have been to Thaon—a scorching walk across the shadeless cornfields. The church and valley were the same, but seemed to have lost their charm since I last saw them with my mother. I have my French lesson now in the little carnation-garden on the other side of the street."
"August 1.—I have been by the diligence to Notre Dame de la Deliverande, a strange place, full of legends. In the little square an image of the Virgin is said to have fallen down from heaven: it was hidden for many years in the earth, and was at length discovered by the scratching of a lamb. Placed in the church, the Virgin every night returned to the place where she was disinterred, and at last the people were obliged to build her a shrine upon the spot. It is an old Norman chapel surrounded by booths of relics, and shouts of 'Achetez donc une Sainte Vierge' resound on all sides. Latterly, to please the fishermen, the worship of the Virgin has been combined with that of St. Nicholas, and they appear on the same medal, &c. When a crew is saved from shipwreck on this coast, it instantly starts in procession, barefoot, to 'La Deliverande,' and all the lame who visit the chapel are declared to go away healed.... In a blaze of gold and silver tinsel, surrounded by the bouquets of the faithful and the crutches of the healed, is the image which 'fell down from heaven,'—its mouldering form is arrayed in a silver robe, and, though very old, it looks unlikely to last long. I went on with M. Melun to Bernières, where there is a grand old church, to visit a poor Protestant family, the only one in this ultra-Catholic neighbourhood. They had begged the minister to come because one of the sisters was dead, and the whole party collected while he prayed with them, and they wept bitterly. Afterwards we asked where we could get some food. 'Chez nous, chez nous,' they exclaimed, and lighting a fire in their little mud room with some dried hemp, they boiled us some milk, and one of the sisters, who was a baker, brought in a long hot roll of sour bread, for which they persistently refused any payment.... I have had an English invitation from Madame de Lignerole in these words—'Will you be so very kind as to allow me to take the liberty of entreating you to have the kindness to confer the favour upon me of giving me the happiness of your company on Friday.'"
"August 2.—We went to-day to see M. Laire, an old antiquary who has lived all his life upon vegetables. His house is very attractive; the court, full of flowers mixed with carvings and Celtic remnants, borders on the willows which fringe the Odon, and the rooms are crammed with curiosities and pictures relating to Caen history. The old man himself is charming, and spends his life in collecting and giving away. He gave me a medallion of Malesherbes, and many other things."
"August 2.—I have been to dine with the Consul, Mr. Barrow. Under his garden is the quarry whence the stone was taken which built Westminster Abbey. It undermines all the grounds, and once, when a part fell in, the hot air which came out made it quite hot in winter. Mr. Barrow has built a conservatory over the spot, which needs no other heat, and plants flourish amazingly, though only camellias and smooth-leaved plants will do, as others are too much affected by the damp."
Want of money was still always the great trouble of my boyhood, as my dear mother never could be persuaded to see the necessity of my having any, and after she had made a minute calculation of the necessary pennies that came into her head, always gave me just that sum and no more, never allowing anything for the ever-recurring incidents and exigencies of daily life. When I was sixteen she was persuaded to allow me £10 a year, but out of this I was expected to buy all the smaller articles of dress, boots, hats, gloves, &c., so, as may be imagined, my annual allowance was almost nil; and my excursions at Southgate had been only possible by starvation, and because the third-class ticket to London cost only fourpence. When I was left at Caen, just the absolutely needful sum for my return journey was given me, and no allowance made for any personal expenses of my stay—for washer-woman servants, or payments for the many purchases which my mother wrote to desire me to make for her. Thus, when the time came for setting out homewards, with the nine packages which were to be taken to my mother, I was in the greatest embarrassment, and many were my adventures; yet my dread of a sea-voyage still made me refuse altogether to go by Havre and Southampton, and my longing to see a historical spot which I had long read and heard of made me determine if possible—if I half died for it on the way—to visit St. Denis, a place I had always had a special longing after. The journey entailed a singular chapter of accidents.
During the whole of the first long day—twelve hours' diligence journey—I had nothing whatever to eat but a brioche and some plums; but at seventeen starvation is not one of the worst things in life, and when I arrived at Evreux, the fair of St. Taurinus, the patron saint of the place, was going on, and I was in ecstasies the next morning over the costumes which it brought into the town, as well as over the old Bishop's Palace and the beautiful cathedral with its lace-work architecture.
From Evreux the diligence had to be taken again to Bonnières, where I joined the railway to Paris, and in the evening reached St. Denis. I had no money to go to a hotel, but spent the night in a wretched café which was open for carters under the walls of the cathedral, where I got some sour bread and eggs, having had no food all day. At five in the morning the doors of the Abbey were opened, and in my raptures over the monuments of Dagobert, Francis I., &c., I forgot all my miseries—especially in the crypt, full then of royal tombs and statues. At half-past twelve, when I was ready to leave, I found that no more trains for Boulogne would stop at St. Denis that day, and that I must return to Paris. I went in the omnibus, but owing to my ignorance of French, was carried far beyond my point, and had to be dropped, with all my packages, in a strange street, whence with some difficulty I got a porter to drag my things to the station, but arrived when the train was just gone, and no other till half-past seven, and it was then two. Hungry and forlorn, I made my way, losing it often, on foot, to the Tuileries gardens, where I felt that the beauty of the flowers repaid me for the immense walk, though I was disconcerted when I found that sitting down on a chair cost the two sous I had saved to buy bread with. In my return walk, ignorance and mistakes brought me to the railway for Rouen (Gare S. Lazare), instead of that for Boulogne (Gare du Nord). However, in time I reached the right place.
As we were half-way to the coast in the express, a strong smell of burning was borne on the wind, and the carriage soon filled with smoke. Looking out, we saw a line of screaming faces, and the roof of one of the front carriages in flames. Pieces of burning stuff rushed flaming past. A young lady in our carriage—"Gabrielle"—fell on her knees and said her prayers to the Virgin. Suddenly we stopped, and heard the rush of water above us. The engine-driver, to save the train, had, with terrible risk to the passengers, pushed on at a frightful speed to the pompe d'incendie of Pontoise.
At half-past one in the morning we reached Boulogne. I was told that the steamer for Folkestone would not start for an hour. An official in blue with silver lace said that he would call for me then. At the time, but rather late, he came. A cab was ready, and we were only just in time to catch the steamer. The official, as I was going on board, desired that I would pay my fare. I supposed it was all right, and gave up almost all my few remaining shillings. I was assured the packet was the one for Folkestone, and, though surprised at having no ticket, supposed it was because most of the passengers had through tickets from Paris to London, and because my going on was an afterthought.
The steamer started, but, before leaving the harbour, concussed with another vessel, which broke one of the paddle-boxes and delayed us an hour. Meantime it began to pour in torrents, the deck swam with water, and before we got out to sea the wind had risen and the sea was very rough. The vessel was fearfully crowded with three hundred and fifty people going to the Hyde Park Exhibition, and more than half of them were sea-sick.
At last day broke, and with it the English coast came in sight. But it was very odd; it was not a coast I knew, and Dover Castle seemed to be on the wrong side. Then a man came for the tickets, and said I must have had one if I had paid: as I had not one, I could not have paid. It was in vain that I protested I had paid already. "When I get to Folkestone," I said, "I should see some one who could prove my identity," &c. The man grinned. "It will be a long time before you get to Folkestone," he said, and he went away. Then I saw Dover Castle fade away, and we still coasted on, and I saw a little town which looked strangely like the pictures of Deal. At last a man next to me, recovering from a paroxysm of sea-sickness, said, "You think you're in the boat for Folkestone, but you are in the boat for London!" I had been swindled at Boulogne by a notorious rogue. Some weeks afterwards I saw in the papers that he had been arrested, after a similar case.
I was in despair, not so much because of the long voyage, as because to pay for it was impossible. We were not to reach London till four in the afternoon. I implored the captain to set me down, we were so near the coast. "No," he said, "go to London you must."
At last, as we passed Margate, he said I might perhaps get out, but it was rather too much to sacrifice the comfort of three hundred and fifty passengers to one. However, the three hundred and fifty seemed very glad of a break in the monotony of their voyage, and as there was another passenger anxious to land, a boat was hailed and reached the vessel. All my packages were thrown overboard and I after them, with injunctions to sit perfectly still and hold fast, as it was so frightfully rough. The injunctions were unnecessary, since, exhausted as I was, I very soon became unconscious, as I have so often done since in a rough sea.
It was too rough to land at the pier, so we were landed on a ridge of rocks at some distance from the shore. Seeing all my packages, the coastguardsmen naturally took us for smugglers, and were soon on the spot to seize our goods and carry them to the custom-house. Here I had to pay away all that remained to me except sixpence.
With that sixpence I reached Ramsgate.
There were four hours to wait for a train, and I spent it in observing the directions on the luggage of all arriving passengers, to see if there was any one I could beg of. But no help came; so eventually I told my story to the station-master, who kindly gave me a railway pass. At Ashford I had four hours more to wait, and I lay almost unconscious (from want of food) upon the floor of the waiting-room. Lying thus, I looked up, and saw the astonished face of my cousin Mary Stanley gazing in through the window at me. She was leaving in two minutes for France, but had time to give me a sovereign; with that sovereign, late in the night, I reached home in a gig from Hastings.
To MY MOTHER (after returning to Southgate).
"August 27, 1851.—I have just got your dear letter to refresh me after the first morning's work. It is strange to have to give oneself to Latin again after having thought of nothing but French for so long."
"August 28.—When I hear of all you are doing, I cannot but long to be with you, and yet I am very happy here in finding it so much less disagreeable than I expected, the Bradleys perfection, Walker very nice, and Portman delightful."
"Sept. 12, 1851.—I have just been to the old chapel in Ely Place and to the Savoy.... One may study architecture just as well in London as abroad: I had no idea before what beautiful bits are there."
"Oct. 18.—I have had an unfortunate trouble with Bradley lately. I am sure I have done right, but it is very unfortunate indeed. I will tell you all about it. In my Latin exercise I put 'quo velis' for 'go your way,' meaning 'go where you like,' which I thought was the meaning of that English sentence. Bradley scratched it out, and I said, 'But "go your way" does mean go where you like.' He thought I contradicted him and was very angry, and appealed to the opinion of every one at the table. They said it meant 'go away.' He said I was very obstinate, and wrote down, '"I have a bad headache, go your way"—what does that mean?' I wrote, 'Go wherever you like.' I thought no more was going to happen, but, to my astonishment, heard him send for Mrs. Bradley, who wisely refused to come. Then, in a voice in which he never spoke to me before, he ordered me to go into the drawing-room. I did, and asked Mrs. Bradley her opinion (not able to believe he could really mind being differed from). He followed in a moment, very angry, and said, 'Walk up to your room, if you please, Mr. Hare, this instant.' I prepared to obey, but he posted himself in the doorway and pushed me back into a chair. He then asked me again to explain the sentence. I said of course he was the only judge about the Latin passage, but that in English 'go your way' might certainly be taken to mean 'go where you like.' He said, 'If you are going to differ from me in this way, I shall not attempt to teach you any more.' All that day, morning, afternoon, and evening, I laboured or twaddled at arithmetic with Mr. Howse. Late in the evening Bradley took me for a whole hour by myself and tried to persuade me to say 'go your way' never meant 'go where you like.' I said if I did, it would not be true, but that I was very sorry to have differed from him, and had never meant in the least to contradict him. But it is no use; he quotes from the Bible—'"The house divided against itself falleth," therefore I cannot teach you any more.' I went to him again and said 'if I had seemed the least ill-tempered I begged his pardon.' He said I had not seemed at all ill-tempered, I had only differed from him. You need not be alarmed, however, for he will never send away for such a trifle the pupil who loves him best in spite of all his eccentricities: I have only told you all this in case anything more should happen. As I called on the B.'s to-day, I asked, without explanation, what they thought 'go your way' meant. They said at once, 'Go where you like.'"
"Oct. 21.—Dearest mother, the dispute with Bradley has now assumed so much more serious an aspect that I am afraid it cannot end well. For two days he said nothing more about it, so I did not volunteer anything: he was only very unpleasant in his manner to and about me.
"This morning he called me into his dressing-room and talked. He said that now he must write to you. But now he harps upon my setting up my opinion, and having said in the first moment, 'I always have thought so, and always shall think so.' In vain have I acknowledged that this was a very improper speech, that I only said such a thing hastily in a moment of annoyance, and in vain have I begged his pardon repeatedly, and offered to do so, if he wished it, before all his pupils. He says mine has been a successful instance of open rebellion. I have in vain tried to convince him how foolish a thing it will sound if I am sent away or go away merely because my opinion has differed from his: he now says it will be because I have 'rebelled against him'—though it would be strange indeed if I had wished to 'rebel' against the only tutor I have ever liked, from whom I have received so much kindness and learnt so much. I did not think it would come to this, and even now I cannot think I have done wrong, except in one hasty speech, which I am very sorry for.
"I am so sorry you should be troubled by this, dear mother, and even now I think Bradley will not be so infatuated—so really infatuated as to send away the only one of his pupils who likes him much, or would be really sorry to go."
"Oct. 22.—Only a few words, my own dear mother, to say we are all going now very much as if nothing had happened. I thought yesterday morning I should certainly have to go away, as Bradley repeatedly declared he would never hear me another word again, because I had differed from him before all his pupils. But at Cicero time he called me down and asked, 'Why did you not come down to your Cicero?' I said, 'Because I was packing up, as you said you would never hear me another word again.' He said, 'Oh, you may put whatever qualification on my words you like: whatever you like.' So I came down, and he took no notice, and I have come down ever since, and he treats me as if nothing had happened. He must have thought better of it.
"Mrs. Bradley sent me a beautiful myrtle branch from the nursery-garden, as a sign that all was right, I suppose: and I have expressed all penitence that can possibly be expressed."
"Nov. 13.—Yesterday I even let Bradley use his stick over the Virgil to put him into a good humour, and then asked for leave to go to the Temple Church ... and afterwards, brimful of the descriptions in Knight's 'London,' I went to Crosby Hall and to St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, full of delightful tombs. My coats are in holes and my shoes have no soles, so will you please give me some money to mend them?"
"Nov. 23.—To-day I have seen Smithfield, and St. Bartholomew's, and the Clerk's Well of Clerkenwell. I wonder if my 'kind good Mama,' as Mrs. Barrington calls her in writing, will let me go to see my cousins the Brymers at Wells before Christmas: old Mr. Liddell has given me some money to take me there."
"Harrow, Nov. 25, Sunday.—Yesterday I walked here with my bundle, meeting Kate at the foot of the hill.... To-day we have been to the Chapel Royal at St. James's, where Dr. Vaughan had to preach a funeral sermon for the King of Hanover.[67] The old Duke of Cambridge was there, and startled people by the cordiality of his loud assent—'By all means!' to the invitation 'Let us pray.' I must leave early to-morrow morning, as I have promised to be at Southgate at 9 A.M."
"Nov. 28.—We are in the depth of examinations. Some of the fellows are so excited about them, that they do not go to bed at all, only lie down on the rug at 5 A.M. for a short rest before dawn. To-morrow is the 'great Napoleon stakes, when all the horses are to run.' I think we shall have a pretty jumble, as we are to go to sleep on Napoleon and wake on Charles V.—such a confusion of campaigns (fifteen of Napoleon's) and places, and the passage and flow of all the rivers the two heroes ever crossed."
"Dec. 15.—On Thursday evening all the other fellows rushed up to my room shouting 'Ichabod! Hare is plucked in Charles V.' They were enchanted, because they thought it so conceited of me to take up the additional subject; but their triumph was a short one, for it was soon discovered that only half the marks had been added up.
"Friday was a very long examination in the Bible. Amongst the questions were—'Give the size, population, and government of Nineveh; the route of Jonah to Nineveh from Joppa; the religions of the sailors; where you suppose Tarshish to be, and the reason of your supposition; who were Tirshakeh, Adoram, &c.' It was a most interesting examination to get up. Yesterday was Euclid. It was much easier than I expected, and finished by twelve, so Bradley sent me to London on a commission. I had also time to go to the Bunsens, who were at luncheon, but when I sent in my card, they sent for me into the dining-room. Several gentlemen were there: I believe one of them was the Duke of Nassau. Madame Bunsen is always most kind in her welcome."
My visit to Wells took place, and was most delightful. Mrs. Brymer was the eldest granddaughter of John Lyon of Hetton, youngest brother of my great-grandmother Lady Anne Simpson, and she and her husband Archdeacon Brymer were most kind, genial, benevolent people, who had no children, but lived very luxuriously in a charming house in "the Liberty" at Wells. I had made their acquaintance at Bath when I was with Mrs. Barrington. Though it was bitterly cold weather, I made many drawings of Wells, which I have always thought the most perfectly beautiful cathedral town in England, with its clear rushing water, old palace and gateways, grand cathedral, and luxuriant surrounding orchards. It was a visit I looked forward to repeating very often, but the kind Archdeacon and his wife died—almost at the same time—very soon afterwards.
All through the year 1851 the Père La Vigne had been preaching constantly at Rome at the Church of S. Luigi dei Francesi. "Italima" had gone to hear him, with many other Protestant ladies. One evening she said to her faithful Victoire that she wished to be dressed very early the next morning—in black, with a veil, as if for the Sistine. Victoire did her bidding, and she went out early, and returned in the course of the morning, when she called Victoire to her, and said, embracing her, "A présent nous sommes vraiment sœurs; nous avons été toujours sœurs; à présent nous le sommes doublement."—"Qu'est que cela veut dire?" said Victoire to herself.—"Je suis devenue catholique," continued Italima; "je l'ai été toujours au fond du cœur, à présent je le suis en réalité." She then called Félix and took him by the hand—"Victoire vous expliquera tout," she said. Lady Lothian had been the "marraine," and, added to the influence of the Père La Vigne, had been that of Manning, himself a recent convert to the Catholic Church. That evening Italima said to Victoire, "Nous allons avoir la guerre dans la maison," and so it was. My sister discovered (at a ball, I believe) the next day what had happened, and she was quite furious—"en vraie tigresse." "Il n'y avait pas de reproches qu'elle ne faisait à sa mère" (records Victoire); "elle disait à sa mère qu'elle ne voulait plus de elle. Elle se renferma avec sa tante. Cela dura plus que deux ans." To Victoire herself she never spoke at all for several months.
For two whole years my sister deserted the drawing-room of Palazzo Parisani, and lived shut up with her aunt in her boudoir. Their chief occupation was drawing in charcoal, in which singular art they both attained a great proficiency. Esmeralda never spoke to her mother unless it was necessary. Italima must have led rather a dreary life at this time, as other events had already weakened her connection with the members of her own family and most of her old friends, and her change of religion widened the breach for ever.
Lord and Lady Feilding[68] had been most active in urging and assisting Italima's change of religion, and they now turned to my sister, leaving no means untried by which they might make her dissatisfied with the Protestant faith. As they left Rome, Lord Feilding put into her hand a long controversial letter, imploring her to study it. That very spring his own faith had been strengthened by a supposed miracle in his family. Lady Feilding had long been ill, and had partly lost the use of her limbs from sciatica. She had to be carried everywhere. All kinds of baths and doctors had been tried in vain. The case was almost given up, when Pope Pius IX. advised him to apply to a family of peasants living in the mountains above Foligno, who possessed a miraculous gift of healing. St. Peter, it was said, had passed by that way and had lodged with them, and, on taking leave, had said that of silver and gold he had none to give them, but that he left with them his miraculous gift of healing, to be perpetuated amongst their descendants. A messenger was despatched to this favoured family, and returned with a venerable old peasant, respectably dressed, who went up to Lady Feilding, and, after reciting the Lord's Prayer, Hail Mary, and Apostles' Creed, said, "Per l'intercessione dei Sti. Apostoli S. Pietro e S. Paolo siete guarita da tutti i mali come speriamo." He passed his hand rapidly over her limbs, and making the sign of the cross, said, "In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti"—and added, "E finito." Then Lady Feilding felt her limbs suddenly strengthened, and rising, walked upstairs like other people, which she had not done for many months, and the same afternoon went to St. Peter's to return thanks, walking all over that enormous basilica without pain.[69][70] Her illness returned slightly, however, in the following winter, and in the summer of 1853 she died of consumption at Naples. Her death was a great grief to Italima.
It was in the Carnival of 1852, immediately after her mother's change of religion, that my sister, after the then fashion of Roman ladies, was seated in one of the carriages which in a long line were proceeding slowly up the Corso, and whose inmates were employed in pelting those of the carriages which met them with bouquets and bonbons. As she was eagerly watching for her friends amongst those who passed, my sister observed in one of the carriages, dressed in deep mourning among the gay maskers, a lady who clasped her hands and looked at her fixedly. The expression of the lady was so peculiar, that when her carriage reached the end of the Corso and turned round at the Ripresa dei Barberi, my sister watched carefully for her reappearance in the opposite line of carriages which she was now again to meet. Again she saw the lady, who again looked at her with an expression of anguish and then burst into tears. The third time they met, the lady laid upon my sister's lap a splendid nosegay of azaleas and camellias, &c., quite different from the common bouquets which are usually thrown about in the Carnival.
When my sister went home, she told her little adventure to her aunt and mother while they were at dinner, but it did not make any great impression, as at Rome such little adventures are not uncommon, and do not create the surprise they would in England.
The next morning at breakfast the family were again speaking of what had happened, when the door opened, and Félix came in. He said that there was a lady in the passage, a lady in deep mourning, who gave her name as the Comtesse de Bolvilliers, who wished to speak to Italima at once on important business. At that time there were a great many lady quêteuses going about for the different charities, and most of them especially anxious to take advantage of the new convert to their Church. Therefore Italima answered that she was unable to receive Madame de Bolvilliers, and that she knew no such person. In a minute Félix returned saying that Madame de Bolvilliers could not leave the house without seeing Mrs. Hare, for that her errand involved a question of life and death. She was then admitted.
The lady who came into the room at Palazzo Parisani was not the lady my sister had seen in the Corso. She said she was come to tell a very sad story, and besought Italima to have patience with her while she told it, as she was the one person who had the power of assisting her. She said that she had a sister-in-law, another Countess de Bolvilliers, who was then living at the Palazzo Lovati in the Piazza del Popolo: that at the beginning of the winter her sister-in-law had come to Rome accompanied by her only daughter, in whom her whole life and love were bound up: that her daughter was of the exact age and appearance of my sister, and that she (the aunt) felt this so strongly, that it seemed to her, in looking upon my sister, as if her own niece was present before her: that soon after they came to Rome her niece had taken the Roman fever, and died after a very short illness: that her sister-in-law had been almost paralysed by grief, and had fallen into a state of mental apathy, from which nothing seemed able to rouse her. At last fears were entertained that, if her body recovered, her mind would never be roused again, and, two days before, the doctors had advised resorting to the expedient of a violent mental transition, and had urged that as Madame de Bolvilliers had remained for several months in her room, in silence and darkness, seeing no one, she should suddenly be taken out into the full blaze of the Carnival, when the shock of the change might have the effect of re-awakening her perceptions. At first the experiment had seemed to succeed; she had taken notice and recovered a certain degree of animation; but then, in the Carnival, she had seen what she believed to be her daughter returned from the grave; upon her return home, she had fallen into the most fearful state of anguish, and they had passed the most terrible night, the unhappy mother declaring that her lost daughter had returned to life, but was in the hands of others. The sister-in-law implored that Italima would allow her daughter to return home with her to the Palazzo Lovati, in order to prove that she was a living reality, and not what she was believed to be.
My sister at once put on her bonnet and walked back with the second Countess de Bolvilliers to the Palazzo Lovati, where the family rented the small apartment at the back of the courtyard. When they entered her room, the unhappy mother jumped up, and throwing her arms round my sister, declared that she was her daughter, her lost daughter, come back to her from the dead. Gradually, but very gradually, she was induced to believe in my sister's separate identity. When she became convinced of this, she declared her conviction that a person who so entirely resembled her daughter in appearance and manners must resemble her in character also; that she was herself very rich (her husband had been a Russian), and that if my sister would only come to live with her and be a daughter to her in the place of the one she had lost, she would devote her whole life to making her happy, and leave all her fortune to her when she died. My sister declared that this was impossible; that she had a mother of her own, whom she could not leave; that it was impossible for her to live with Madame de Bolvilliers. The Countess flung herself upon her knees, and implored and besought that my sister would reconsider her determination, but Esmeralda was inexorable. The Countess then said that she was of a very jealous disposition; that it was quite impossible that she could go on living in the world, and feeling that her daughter's living representative was the child of another,—that she should leave the world and go into a convent. My sister, whose antagonism to Roman Catholicism was just then at its height, besought her to reconsider this, urged the many opportunities which were still left to her of being useful in the world, and the folly of throwing away a life which might be devoted to the highest aims and purposes. But Madame de Bolvilliers, on her part, was now firm in her determination. Esmeralda then begged that she might sometimes be allowed to hear from her, and said that she should be glad to write to her; that, though she could not live with her and be her daughter, she could never lose the interest she already felt about her. But Madame de Bolvilliers said, "No! she could not have half love; she must either have my sister altogether, or she must never hear from her; that would try her and tantalise her too much." My sister then begged that she might at any rate be allowed to hear of her once—of her well-being and happiness, and, after much entreaty, Madame de Bolvilliers said, "Yes, after a year has expired, if you inquire at a certain house in the Rue S. Dominique at Paris, you shall hear of me, but not till then." She then went into the next room, and she came back with a number of jewels in her hands. "These," she said, "were the jewels my daughter wore when she was with me. I must have one last pleasure—one last consolation in this world, in fastening them upon the person of my daughter's living representative upon earth." And so saying, she fastened the necklace, bracelets, &c., upon my sister, who possessed these, the Bolvilliers jewels, till the day of her death. More than a year elapsed and nothing whatever was heard of the Countess.
In 1854, Italima and my sister were passing through Paris. They drove to see the Tombeau Napoleon, which was then newly erected at the Invalides. As they returned, and as they were turning a corner, the name "Rue S. Dominique" caught my sister's eyes. "Oh," she said, "the year has expired, and this is the place where we were to inquire after the Countess de Bolvilliers;" and in spite of her mother's assurance that it was useless to look for her, she insisted upon driving to the number the Countess had indicated; but the portress declared that she knew of no such person as Madame de Bolvilliers. Upon this Italima said, "Well, now you see how it is; I always told you she gave you a false direction, because she did not wish you to find her out, and you will never discover her." "But to find her I am perfectly determined," said my sister, and she insisted on getting out of the carriage and knocking at every door down the long extent of the Rue S. Dominique to make inquiries, but without any result. Her mother followed in the carriage, very angry, but quite vainly urging her to get in. Having done one side of the street, Esmeralda insisted upon going up the other, and inquiring at every door in the same way. Her mother stormed to no purpose. She then insisted upon going back to the first house and inquiring who did live there. "Oh," said the portress, "it is a convent of the Sacré Cœur." When my sister heard this, she asked for the Superior, and said, "Is there any one here whose real name it may generally be thought better to conceal, but who was once known in the world as the Countess de Bolvilliers?" And the Superior said, "You then are the lady who was to come from Rome in a year's time: you are exactly the person who has been described to me. Yes, Sister Marie Adelaïde was once known in the world as Madame de Bolvilliers."
When my sister saw the Countess in her nun's dress, she found her perfectly calm and satisfied. She no longer reproached my sister for not having consented to live with her. She did not regret the step she had taken; she was perfectly happy in her convent life with its regular duties and occupations. She was also pleased that my sister should frequently go again to see her. My sister went very often, and, while visiting her, was introduced to the famous controversialist nun Madame Davidoff, by whose teaching and arguments she was converted to the Roman Catholic Church.
The last thing Italima wished was that her daughter should become a Roman Catholic, for my sister was at that time a considerable heiress, the whole of her aunt's fortune being settled upon her, as well as that which Italima had derived from Lady Anne Simpson. And Italima knew that if my sister changed her religion, her aunt, a vehement Protestant, would at once disinherit her.
My sister said nothing to her mother of what was going on. It was supposed that Madame de Bolvilliers was the only cause of her visits to the Sacré Cœur. She also said nothing to her aunt, but her aunt suspected that all was not right. My sister had abstained from going to church on one pretext or another, for several Sundays. Easter was now approaching. "You will go to church with me on Good Friday, won't you, Esmeralda?" Aunt Eleanor kept saying.
At last Good Friday came. Aunt Eleanor, according to her habit, went in early to see my sister before she was up. My sister was more affectionate than usual. As soon as her aunt was gone, she got up and dressed very quickly and went off with her maid to the Sacré Cœur. In her room she left three letters—one to her mother, bidding her come to the church of the convent on a particular day, if she wished to see her received: one to her aunt, telling her that her determination was irrevocable, but breaking it to her as gently as she could: and one to her greatest friend, Marguerite Pole, begging her to go at once to her aunt to comfort her and be like a daughter in her place. "When Miss Paul read her letter," said Victoire, "her lips quivered and her face became pale as ashes. But she said no word to any one: it was quite awful, she was so terribly calm. She took up her bonnet from the place where it lay, and she walked straight downstairs and out of the house. We were so alarmed as to what she might do, that I followed her, but she walked quite firmly through the streets of Paris, till she reached Sir Peter Pole's house, and there she went in." Aunt Eleanor went straight up to Sir Peter Pole, and told him what had happened. Sir Peter was a very excitable man, and he immediately rang the bell and sent for his daughter Marguerite. When she came he said, "Esmeralda Hare is about to become a Roman Catholic; now remember that if you ever follow her example, I will turn you out of doors then and there with the clothes you have on, and will never either see you or hear of you again as long as you live." The result of this was that within a week Marguerite Pole had become a Roman Catholic. Of what happened at this time my sister has left some notes:—
"It was Madame Davidoff who led Marguerite Pole across the courtyard of the Sacré Cœur to the little room at the other side of it, where the Père de Ravignan was waiting for her. As she opened the door he looked up in an ecstasy. 'Voilà trois ans,' he said, 'que je prie pour votre arrivée, et vous voilà enfin.' She was quite overcome, and told him that for three years she had seen a figure constantly beckoning her forward, she knew not whither. The Père de Ravignan answered, 'I believe that you will see that figure for the last time on the day of your première communion;' and so it was: the figure stood by her then, and afterwards it disappeared for ever.
"At the first Sir Peter had said that he would turn Marguerite out of doors, and his fury knew no bounds. One evening Marguerite sent her maid privately to me with a note saying, 'To-morrow morning I shall declare myself: to-morrow my father will turn me out of doors, and what am I to do?' 'Oh,' I said, 'only have faith and watch what will happen, for it will all come right.' And sure enough, so it seemed at the time, for the next morning Sir Peter sent for his housekeeper and said to her, 'I've changed my mind; Miss Marguerite shall not go away; and I've changed my mind even so much that I shall send to Mrs. Hare and ask her to take me with her when she goes to see her daughter make her première communion.'
"It was quite a great function in the church of the Sacré Cœur. I was terrified out of my wits when I saw the crowd in the church, and in the chancel were the Bishop, the Papal Nuncio, and all the principal clergy of Paris, for it was quite an event. Marguerite and I were dressed in white, with white veils and wreaths of white roses. As the Papal Nuncio came forward to place his hands on our heads, in the very act of confirmation, there was a fearful crash, and Sir Peter fell forward over the bench just behind us, and was carried insensible out of the church. Mamma went with him, for she thought he was dying. When he came to himself his first words were—'Louisa, Louisa! I have seen Louisa.' He had seen Lady Louisa Pole.
"When Lady Louisa was dying she said to Marguerite, 'My child, there is one thing I regret; it is that I have had doubts about the Roman Catholic Church, and that I have never examined.'"
Of this time are the following notes by Victoire:—
"When your sister first insisted upon going to the Sacré Cœur, she said it was 'pour voir.' 'O comme c'est drôle,' I said to Madame Hare. But your sister was always obstinate in her own intentions. 'Je veux examiner la religion catholique au fond,' she said, 'ainsi que la religion protestante.' She got all the books. She read those on both sides. Then she went to the Sacré Cœur again. Her maid went to her three times a day. One day she took her a great many things. 'What is it you take to Mademoiselle?' I said. 'I take what she ordered me,' answered the maid, and I said no more: but it was really the white dress, the veil, and all that was required for the reception. The next day I had a note from Mademoiselle asking me to come to her at eight o'clock. I showed it to Madame. 'Eh bien, nous irons ensemble,' she said, and we went together in the carriage. When we reached the Sacré Cœur, we were shown at once to the chapel, and then I began to suspect. All the nuns were assembled. At last a door opened and your sister came in, all in white, with a long white veil on her head. She walked in firm and erect, and knelt down at a prie Dieu in the aisle. The Père de Ravignan made a most touching discourse. He bade her, if she still felt any doubts, to remember that there was still time; he urged her not to come forward without true faith. At the end of his discourse she walked firmly up to the altar and knelt on the steps. She remained there while mass was said. After it was over she was taken into the garden. There she embraced her mother and me. A collation was then served.... Nothing was said about her going away. 'Voulez vous amener votre fille?' said one of the nuns at last to Madame Hare. 'Je la laisse parfaitement libre maintenant et toujours,' she replied. 'Oh comme Mademoiselle était belle ce jour-là; elle était fraîche, elle allait si bien avec ce grand voile blanc, et ses beaux cheveux noirs, et ses grands yeux: elle avait du couleur, elle était vraiment ravissante! elle était radieuse!... Dans ce temps-là elle était la reine de tous les bals—à l'ambassade, à la cour, partout: mais elle n'était jamais plus ravissante de sa beauté que ce jour-là dans le couvent.'"
The Dowager Lady Lothian[71] once told me that in the letter of condolence which Madame Davidoff wrote to my sister after her mother's death she said, "The cross which you saw on the day of your first communion has been very heavy, but it has never crushed you." On the day of her first communion she saw a huge black cross between her and the altar. She lay on the ground, and it advanced to crush her, only it seemed as if an invisible power upheld it, and then she saw that the top was wreathed with flowers. Oh, how prophetic was this vision of the cross!
A few days after her reception, Sir Peter Pole fulfilled his word with regard to his daughter Marguerite. He turned her out of his house, and he never would allow her name to be mentioned again. Not only to her father, but to my sister, and to her own sister, Alice Pole, every trace of her was lost. How my sister met Marguerite Pole again, and of her extraordinary history in after years, will be told later in these volumes.
I have been anticipating greatly, but it seems impossible to break up a connected story into the different years in which their events occurred. Meantime, without any romantic excitement and far removed from religious controversy, our quiet existence flowed on; though I was always fond of my sister and deeply interested in the faint echoes which from time to time reached me from her life.
Mrs. Alexander was now settled at the Rectory at Hurstmonceaux, and she ruled as its queen. Uncle Julius consulted her even on the smallest details; she ordered everything in the house, she took the leading part with all the guests, everything gave way to her. And the odd thing was that Mrs. Julius Hare (Aunt Esther), instead of being jealous, worshipped with greater enthusiasm than any one else at the shrine of the domestic idol. I have met many perfectly holy and egotistical women, but Mrs. Alexander was the most characteristic specimen.
In the summer of 1851, Arthur Stanley had been appointed to a canonry at Canterbury, which was a great delight to me as well as to him. "One of my greatest pleasures in going to Canterbury is the thought of Augustus's raptures over the place and the cathedral," he wrote to my mother. And truly I did enjoy it, and so did he. The eight years he spent at Canterbury were certainly the happiest of his life. We spent part of my winter holidays there with him and his family. Mrs. Grote used to describe Arthur truly as "like a sausage, packed so full of information;" and, with many peculiarities, he was the most charming of hosts, while his enthusiastic interest peopled every chapel, every cloister, every garden, with historic memories. Arthur Stanley's was now the most stimulating companionship possible. He had lost all the excessive shyness which had characterised his youth, and talked on all subjects that interested him (ignoring those which did not) with an eloquence which "se moque de l'éloquence," as Pascal says. His canonry was situated in its own garden, reached by the narrow paved passage called "the Brick Walk," which then intersected the buildings on the north-east of the cathedral. Just behind was the Deanery, where the venerable Dean Lyall used to be seen walking up and down daily in the sun in the garden which contained the marvellous old mulberry tree, to preserve the life of which a bullock was actually killed that the tree might derive renewed youth from its blood. The fact that a huge bough rent asunder[72] from this old tree had taken root, and become even more flourishing than the parent stem, was adapted as an illustration by Arthur Stanley in a lecture in which he likened the two trees to the Churches of Rome and England.
Enchanting indeed were the many ancient surroundings of the mighty cathedral—the Baptistery with its open arches and conical roof half buried in ivy; the dark passage haunted by "Nell Cook;" the Norman staircase, so beautiful in colour; the Pilgrim's Inn, down a narrow entry from the street; the many tombs of the archbishops; and most of all the different points through which one could follow Thomas à Becket so vividly through his last hours from his palace to his martyrdom. I made many drawings, chiefly in pencil and sepia, for my mother and aunt deprecated colour. "Until you can draw perfectly you have no right to it. Do one thing well, and not two badly," they said. Of course they were right; and though often abashed and distressed by Aunt Kitty's dictum—"Crude, coarse, harsh, and vulgar," after looking at my sketches, I always felt the slight meed of praise just possible from her lips a prize well worth striving for. I owe much to her (as to my mother's) constant inquiry, after I had done a drawing I was conceitedly proud of, as to what each line meant, and unless I could give a good account of its intention, desiring me to rub it out; thus inculcating the pursuit of truth, which she urged in drawing as in all else, instead of striving after unattainable excellence.
One great interest of this winter was going with Arthur Stanley excursions to Bozledeane Wood and tracing out on the spot the curious history of the so-called Sir William Courtenay, which is so strangely at variance with the usually matter-of-fact character of the present century. Briefly, the story is that of John Nichols Tom, son of a maltster at Truro, who ran away from his wife, and, going to Canterbury, announced himself as Sir William Courtenay, and laid claim to the title and rights of the Earls of Devon. His dress was most extraordinary—a scarlet robe with a crimson hanger. He was taken up, tried for perjury, and confined in a lunatic asylum, but, while there, contrived to interest Sir Edward Knatchbull in his behalf, and obtained his release by Sir Edward's influence with Lord John Russell. On his return to Canterbury in 1838, he gave out that he was not only Sir William Courtenay, but Jesus Christ himself. It was not so much his dress, as his long flowing hair, his beard, his perfect proportions, his beauty and height, which lent themselves to his story, and his wonderful resemblance to the well-known pictures of the Saviour. The rustics and tradesmen welcomed him, and really believed in him. With forty of his most devoted disciples he took up his abode in a village near Canterbury. He was always preaching, and the chief part of his doctrine was faith—faith in himself. He formed a plan of storming Canterbury and seizing the cathedral on Whitsunday, when all the people were at the service there. But this plan was frustrated and he lived in comparative quietude till Michaelmas. Then a constable was sent to arrest him. The constable found Courtenay with his forty disciples at breakfast at a farmhouse near Bozledeane Wood, and when Courtenay saw him approach, he went out, shot him, and leaving him writhing in agony upon the ground, returned, perfectly unruffled, to finish his repast. After breakfast "Sir William Courtenay" led his disciples down the path, which still remains, into a hollow by a little stream in the heart of the wood. Here his followers, under Colonel Armstrong, a fanatical leader from Canterbury, threw up an earthwork, behind which they entrenched themselves, and here they were surrounded by a body of troops sent out in three bands to encompass them. Lieutenant Bennet, who was in command, was sent forward to parley with the impostor. Courtenay, who stood under a tree, waited till he came close up, and then shot him through the heart! The troops then rushed forwards, but the fanatics, though greatly astonished at the death of Courtenay, who, in spite of his professed invulnerability, fell in the first onset, fought with fury, and defended themselves with their bludgeons against the muskets of the soldiers. At last seven of them were killed and the rest taken prisoners.
Mr. Curteis, the Principal of St. Augustine's College, who went with us to Bozledeane Wood, described the scene after the battle, the pools of blood, the trees riddled with shot, the bodies lying in the public-house, and the beautiful hair of Courtenay being cut off and distributed amongst the people. It was fourteen years afterwards that we visited the spot. We went to the farmhouse where the last breakfast was held and the gate where the constable was shot. The view was beautiful over the Forest of Blean to the sea, with the line of the Isle of Sheppey breaking the blue waters. A boy guided us down the tangled path to the hollow where the battle took place by the little stream, said to be now frequented by the white squirrel and badger. The "stool" of the tree under which Courtenay stood had lately been grubbed up. The boy described Courtenay and his forty men lying on a green mossy bank talking, the evening before they were attacked, and his giving "bull's-eyes" to all the children on the morning of the battle. Courtenay had great powers of attracting all who came in contact with him. A girl belonging to the farmhouse (who on a previous occasion had knocked his arm aside when he would have shot a magistrate) rushed about during the engagement to give water and help to the dying, perfectly regardless of the bullets which were flying around her. And after his death his wife turned up, "Mrs. Tom" from Truro, most deeply afflicted, for "he was the best of husbands!"
I liked better being with the Stanleys at Canterbury than in London, where they talked—as people in London do talk, and where my dearest mother, who had lived only in the narrowest groove latterly, and especially as to religious things, often felt it necessary to "testify to her religious profession" in a way which was even more a mortification than a pain to me. After we began to go abroad, and she was removed from the "mutual admiration society" at Hurstmonceaux, she took a wider view of everything,[73] and had a far better and more general influence in consequence. But there was a time when my mother, so infinitely tender and gentle in her own nature, almost seemed to have lost her hold upon the liberality and gentleness of the Christian gospel in her eager espousal of the doctrine of fire and worms beyond the grave. I think it is St. Jerome who says, "Desire rather to act Scripture than to write about it, to do rather than to say holy things."
To MY MOTHER.
"Southgate, Feb. 10, 1852.—My own dearest mother, I am settled here again after my most happy holidays, with the old faces round me, and the old tiresome conversation about nothing but the comparative virtues of ruff pigeons and carriers.... The last part of the holidays at Canterbury was indeed perfectly delightful, and I enjoyed it—oh! so much. I shall work very hard, and tell Arthur I shall be quite ready for an examination on Pericles, Marathon, and Arbela when I see him again. I am afraid Aunt Kitty thought me awfully ignorant of Greek history, but I really never have had anything to do with it.[74] I think of you and your walk through the beautiful cloister when I plod through the muddy village to our hideous chapel. It is very smoky and dirty and misty, but—I will not be discontented."
"Feb. 14.—And now I think of my dearest mother at home again, sitting in the evening in her own arm-chair in Peace Corner, with her little table and her Testament, and John and my Fausty[75]—all white and clean—bringing in the supper, and, oh! how nice it must be!"
It was very soon after her return from Canterbury that my mother, going to visit a sick woman in the village, slipped down a turfy frostbound bank near some steps in the garden at Lime. Unable to make any one hear her cries for help, she contrived to crawl to the back part of the house, whence she was carried to a sofa, and a doctor was sent for, who found that her leg was broken. After very many weeks upon a sofa, all lameness was cured, but the confinement, to one used to an active life, told seriously upon her health, and my dearest mother was always liable to serious illness from this time, though her precious life was preserved to me for nineteen years to come. Henceforward I never left her without misery, and when with her was perhaps over-anxious about her. Mr. Bradley wisely sent me at once to her for a day that I might be reassured, and I feel still an echo of the pang with which I first saw her helpless—as I so often saw her afterwards. How I remember all the sheltered spots in which Lea and I found primroses for her in the one day I was at home in this bitterly early spring!
To MY MOTHER (after returning to Southgate).
"March 13, 1852.—Yesterday we had 'a truce,' so I hurried to see Gerard's Hall in Bow Lane before its demolition. It has latterly been an inn, with a statue of Gerard the Giant over the door. A wooden staircase leads into the wine-cellar, once Gerard's Crypt, possessing slender arches and pillars, most beautiful in colour, and forming wonderful subjects for pictures, with pewter pots and stone pitchers thrown about in confusion."
"April 29.—I have been to see Mrs. Gayford, the nurse who brought me over to England. She is very poor, and lives in an attic in the New Wharf Road, but was enchanted to see me. I sate upon the old seachest which has been often with her to India, and heard the history of her going to Mannheim and meeting my father with his 'weak baby—very passionate, you know, but then it's in the nature of such young gentlemen to be so.' And then she described the journey and voyage, and my ingratitude to a lady who had been very kind to me by slapping her in the face when she was sea-sick."
"June 15.—We are in the midst of an examination in Thierry's 'Norman Conquest.' At nine we all assemble in the dining-room, and the greatest anxiety is exhibited: the 'prophets' proclaim their views on the issue of the day, and the 'hunters' speculate upon the horses who are to 'run in the Thierry stakes.' Bradley comes in with the papers and gives one to each, and from that time we are in custody: no one can exchange a word, and two fellows may never go up to the table together. When we have done that set of questions, generally between one and three o'clock, we are at liberty till five, and then we are in custody again till we have done the next, at nine, ten, or eleven. Bradley is on guard all day, or, if he is obliged to go out, Mrs. B. mounts guard for him. They cannot employ themselves, as they have always to wander up and down the rows of writers with their eyes.... I like the life during these examinations, there is so much more excitement than over ordinary work, and one never has time to get stupid, but the others do nothing but bemoan themselves."
I think it must have been on leaving Southgate for the summer that I paid a visit of one day to "Italima" and my sister in a house which had been lent them in Grosvenor Square. It was then that my sister said, "Mamma, Augustus is only with us for one day. We ought to take the opportunity of telling him what may be of great importance to him: we ought to tell him the story of the 'Family Spy.'" What I then heard was as follows:—
For many years my sister had observed that she and her mother were followed and watched by a particular person. Wherever they went, or whatever they did, she was aware of the same tall thin man dressed in grey, who seemed to take a silent interest in all that happened to them. At last this surveillance became quite disagreeable and they tried to escape it. One spring they pretended that they were going to leave Rome on a particular day, announced it to their friends, and made secret preparations for quitting Rome a week earlier. They arrived in safety within a few miles of Florence, when, looking up at a tall tower by the side of the road, my sister saw the face of the Family Spy watching them from its battlements. Another time they heard that the Spy was ill and confined to his bed, and they took the opportunity of moving at once. As their vetturino carriage turned out of the piazza into the Via S. Claudio, in order to attain the Corso, which must be passed before reaching the gate of the city, the narrow street was almost blocked up by another carriage, in which my sister saw the emaciated form of the Family Spy propped on pillows and lying on a mattress, and which immediately followed them. Constant inquiries had long since elicited the fact that the Spy was a Sicilian Marquis who had been living at Palermo when my parents were there, and whose four children were exactly the same age as their four children. Soon afterwards his wife and all his children were swept away at one stroke by the cholera, and he was left utterly desolate. With characteristic Sicilian romance, he determined to create for himself a new family and a new interest in life by adopting the other family, which was exactly parallel to his own, and of which only the father had been removed—but adopting it by a mysterious bond, in which the difficulty of a constant surveillance should give entire occupation to his time and thought. When Italima heard this, after making inquiries about him which proved satisfactory, she sent to the Spy to say that she thought it much better this secret surveillance should end, but that she should be happy to admit him as a real friend, and allow him to see as much as he liked of the family in which he took so deep an interest. But, though expressing great gratitude for this proposal, the Spy utterly declined it. He said that he had so long accustomed himself to the constant excitement of his strange life, that it would be quite impossible for him to live without it; that if ever an opportunity occurred of rendering any great service to the family whose fortunes he followed, he would speak to them, but not till then.
When I had been told this story, my sister and Italima took me out in the afternoon to drive in the Park. As we were passing along the road by the Serpentine, my sister suddenly exclaimed, "There, look! there is the Family Spy," and, among those who walked by the water, I saw the tall thin grey figure she had described. We passed him several times, and he made such an impression upon me that I always knew him afterwards. My sister said, "If you look out at ten o'clock to-night, you will see him leaning against the railing of Grosvenor Square watching our windows,"—and so it was; there was the tall thin figure with his face uplifted in the moonlight.
In 1852 the extravagance of my two brothers Francis and William was already causing great anxiety to their mother. Francis, who had lately obtained his commission in the Life-Guards through old Lord Combermere, had begun to borrow money upon the Gresford estate. William, who was in the Blues, with scarcely any fortune at all, had plunged desperately into the London season. When winter approached, their letters caused even more anxiety on account of their health than their fortunes: both complaining of cough and other ailments. One day, in the late autumn of 1852, my sister, coming into the diningroom of the Palazzo Parisani, found her mother stretched insensible upon the hearth-rug, with a letter open in her hand. The letter was from the new Sir John Paul, who had not in the least got over his first anger at his sister's change of religion, and who wrote in the cruellest and harshest terms. He said, "Your eldest son is dying. It is quite impossible that you can arrive in time to see him alive. Your second son is also in a rapid decline, though if you set off at once and travel to England without stopping, you may still be in time to receive his last words."
Palazzo Parisani was at once thrown into the utmost confusion, and all its inmates occupied themselves in preparing for immediate departure. Owing to the great number of things to be stowed away, it was, however, utterly impossible that they should leave before the next morning. Italima's state of anguish baffles description, for Francis was her idol. In the afternoon my sister, hoping to give her quiet, persuaded her to go out for an hour and walk in the gardens of the Villa Medici, where she would not be likely to meet any one she knew. In the long arcaded bay-walks of the villa she saw a familiar figure approaching. It was the "Family Spy." He came up to her, and, to her amazement, he began to address her—he, the silent follower of so many years! He said, "The time has now come at which I can serve you, therefore I speak. This morning you received a letter." Italima started. "You are surprised that I know you have the letter, and yet I am going to tell you all that was in that letter," and he repeated it word for word. He continued—"I not only know all that was in your letter and the distress in which it has placed you, but I know all the circumstances under which that letter was written, and I know all that has happened to your sons since: I know all about your sons. Your son Francis was taken ill on such a day: he saw such and such doctors: he is already much better: there is no danger: you may be quite easy about him. Your son William is not in danger, but he is really much the more ill of the two. Dr. Fergusson has seen him, and a foreign winter is prescribed. It will not do for you to go to England yourself, but yet he is not well enough to travel alone. You have an old servant, Félix, who came to you in such a year, and who has been with you ever since. You must send him to fetch William, and here is a paper on which I have written down all the trains and steamers they are to travel by, both in going and returning." So saying, and having given the paper to Italima and bowing very low, the Family Spy retired. Italima went home. She acted entirely on the advice she had received. She unpacked her things and remained in her palazzo at Rome. She sent Félix, as the Spy had directed: he travelled according to the written programme, and in a fortnight he returned to Rome bringing William back with him. The Spy never spoke to any member of the family again.
It is anticipating, but I may mention here that when we went to Rome in 1857, I wondered if we should see the Family Spy. I spoke of it to my mother. As we passed through the Porta del Popolo, he was the first person who met us. I saw him very often that winter, and again when I was at Paris with my sister in October 1858. That winter my sister often saw him at Rome. The next year was marked by our great family misfortunes. My sister always expected that somehow or other he would come to the rescue of the lost fortunes, but he never did. Some time after she heard that he had died very suddenly about that time.
When I returned to my mother in the summer of 1852, she was at Eastbourne with Charlotte Leycester and very ill. It was the earliest phase of the strange hysteria with which I was afterwards so familiar—sudden flushings with a deathly chill over her face, and giddiness, sometimes followed by unconsciousness, occasionally by a complete apparent suspension of life, a death-like trance without breath or pulsation, lasting for hours, or even for many days together. It is a very rare illness, but it is known to doctors, and I believe it is called "Waking coma." In this summer I first began the anxious watchings of first symptoms—the swelling of my mother's fingers around her rings, and then by a kiss searched if the alarming chill had already taken possession of her face. Happily, the heavenly state of mind in which she always lived took away from her the terror of these illnesses; the visions which beset her waking and sleeping were of all things good and beautiful: the actual trances themselves were to her a translation into heavenly places and to the companionship of the blessed, and, for those who looked upon her, a transfiguration.
When my mother was able to move, it was decided that she must try foreign air, which then and often afterwards completely restored her to health for the time. It was settled that we should go to Heidelberg, and as her cousin Charlotte Leycester was to travel with her, I was able to precede her for a few days in the old Belgian towns, which, as I was then in the first enthusiasm about foreign travel, I looked upon as absolutely entrancing.
To MY MOTHER.
"St. Omer, July 15, 1852.—I shall never feel the day is properly over till it has been shared with my own dear mother. I have only left you a few hours, and yet, at an expense of one pound, how great is the change!... We embarked at Dover at one, with a cloudless sky and rippling waves, and an Irish lady near me was most amusing, telling anecdotes first in French to her neighbour on the other side and then in English to me. But half-way across the Channel the thickest of fogs came on, we made no way, and cries and whistles were kept up without cessation. Then it grew rough, the Irish lady's jokes became less vivacious, and at last she followed almost all the other passengers to the side of the vessel. At five o'clock sea and fog subsided and we went on, but then the tide had gone from the harbour, and when we were a mile and a half from Calais, all the passengers were transferred to open boats. As we were rowed in under the long pier, the beautiful fishing-nets were being drawn up out of the calm waters, and the old French faces with the high white caps and large gold earrings were looking down as last year.... The railway journey was delicious through the rich flat country, and the churches here, of the two missionary saints, Bertin and Omer, are most interesting."
"Bruges, July 17.—The heat is so intense that I am more inclined to watch the perfectly motionless branches of the acacia under the window than to do my duty by the sights. The old town and its people all seem lulled to sleep by the oppression. Yet the Dyver Canal is delightful, with its strange old towers and its poplar trees, and the market on its bank filled with Dutch fishwives in bright costumes.... My straw hat attracts much attention. 'Voilà le costume anglais,' I hear the people say.... The table d'hôte was very amusing, musicians playing the while on harp, guitar, and flute. To-night there is to be a procession which has had no equal for a hundred years.
"This morning I went to the Béguinage, a little village with walls of its own in the middle of the town. The sweet-faced Béguine nuns in long white veils were chanting the service in the church, ranged in the stalls of the choir. They wore long trains, which they took up when they came out of church. A priest was there, but the abbess seemed to take his part in officiating.[76] ... The streets are beautifully decorated for the procession, planted with living fir-trees, half the height of the houses, which, as they are very narrow, gives the effect of an avenue; but, behind, the houses are hung with flags and tapestry. In some streets altars are raised, surrounded with orange-trees and flowers.
"10 P.M.—The ceremonial was to celebrate 'the jubilee of the Carmelite tonsure.' ... The streets were all hung with flowers and tapestry, and garlands made a flower canopy across them, beneath which streamed crowds of peasants from every town in Belgium. Each pine-tree was a huge Christmas-tree with thousands of wax-lights blazing in the motionless air. Many hundreds of clergy formed the procession, and Capuchins and Carmelites and Franciscans, many with bare feet and flowing beards. There were also hundreds of torch-bearers and children swaying censers. Then came troops of young girls, 'brides of Christ,' in white, with garlands: then a beautiful little boy as St. John leading his lamb by a string; then Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—Mary crowned with a veil covered with golden stars, and endless winged cherubs in attendance; then abbots and canons; and lastly, under a crimson canopy, in a violet robe, the Bishop bearing the Host.
"The scene in the Grande Place was magnificent. Along the base of the halles burning torches rolled up their smoke around the belfry and the brilliant banners, and the sea of faces was motionless in expectation. It was a tremendous moment when the immense mass of clergy had sung a hymn around the altar in the square, and the Bishop took off his mitre and knelt upon the rushes before the Sacrament. Then, as he lifted the Host in his hands, the music ceased, and the whole multitude of people fell almost prostrate in silent prayer."
After visiting Ghent, Malines, Antwerp, and Louvain, I joined my mother and her companions at Brussels, and we proceeded by the Rhine and Frankfort to Heidelberg, where we found a charming apartment almost at the castle gate, at the back of a baker's shop, with a little oleander-fringed garden high on the hill-top, overlooking the town and river. Two sisters and their cousin waited upon us. The castle gardens were like our own, and delicious in their shade and freshness and the scent of their roses and lilacs; and the courtyards and towers were full of inexhaustible interest. We were never weary here of studying the history of the English Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, and finding out her connection with the different parts of the castle, and her little garden with its triumphal arch was our favourite resort. We seldom went down into the town except on Sundays, when the famous Dr. Schenkel preached in St. Peter's Church at the foot of our hill. In the evenings we used to walk along the edge of the hills, through flower-fringed lanes, to the clear springs of Wolfsbrunnen, where there was a sort of nursery of trout (florellen). The students shared the gardens with us, with their ridiculous dress and faces scarred for life in the silly duels at the Hirsch Gasse, which they looked upon as a distinction, and which generally arose from quarrels about giving way to each other in the street. They often, consequently, spent six hours a day in practising the sword-exercise, to the ruin of their studies. When we were at Heidelberg, all the clothes in the place used to be sent to be washed in the village of Spiegelhausen, because there the water was softer, and when its hills were covered with the linen of the whole town they produced the oddest effect. A large Heidelberg family considered it a great point of honour to have linen enough to last them six months, so as only to send it to be washed twice in the year, when it went in a great waggon to Spiegelhausen. A young lady always endeavoured to have this quantity at her marriage.
Lodging in the castle itself was M. Meyer,[77] afterwards a kind of secretary to the Empress Augusta of Germany, a most singular man, who was then employed upon an enormous poem, which he believed would throw Dante into the shade, though it has passed quite unnoticed. He delighted to read us some of its endless cantos in the castle gardens, and we tried to look as if we understood and appreciated. But he was really very kind to us, and was a most amusing companion in the long walks which he took us—to the Angel's Meadow, a small green space in the forests high on the mountains beyond the river, and elsewhere. I shared his admiration for Mrs. Hamilton (née Margaret Dillon, the maid of honour), who was at that time in the zenith of her beauty and attractiveness, and was living at Heidelberg with her husband and children.
We spent a day at Schwetzingen, where at that time was living the Grand Duchess Stephanie, the daughter of the Comte de Beauharnais and great-niece of the Empress Josephine, who had been adopted by Napoleon, and married against her will (1806) to the Prince of Baden. My aunt, Mrs. Stanley, was very intimate with her, and had much that was interesting to tell of her many trials.
It was during the latter part of our sojourn at Heidelberg that the Stanleys (Aunt Kitty, Arthur, and Mary), with Emmie Penrhyn, came to stay with us on their way to spend the winter at Rome, a journey which at that time was looked upon as a great family event. With them I went to Spires and its beautiful cathedral, and on the anniversary of my adoption we all went over to Mannheim, and dined at the hotel where, seventeen years before, I, being fourteen months old, was given away to my aunt, who was also my godmother, to live with her for ever as if I were her own child, and never to see my own parents, as such, any more. I dwell upon this because one of the strangest coincidences of my life—almost too strange for credence—happened that day at Mannheim.
When we returned to the station in the evening, we had a long time to wait for the train. On the platform was a poor woman, crying very bitterly, with a little child in her arms. Emmie Penrhyn, who was tender-hearted, went up to her, and said she was afraid she was in some great trouble. "Yes," she said, "it is about my little child. My little child, who is only fourteen months old, is going away from me for ever in the train which is coming. It is going away to be adopted by its aunt, who is also its godmother, and I shall never, never have anything to do with it any more."
It was of an adoption under exactly the same circumstances that we had been to Mannheim to keep the seventeenth anniversary!
After parting with the Stanleys, we left Heidelberg on the 26th of August and made a little tour.
To Mrs. Alexander.
"Coblentz, Sept. 1.—Here we are again at Coblentz, in a room looking on the friendly Rhine, with Ehrenbreitstein all new and yellow on the other side the water, and the older houses of the town below us.
"Our little tour has been most successful. We went first to Baden, and spent the afternoon in driving up through the forest to the Alte Schloss, coming down in a splendid sunset—the golden Rhine gleaming in a red valley through the dark pines. The next morning, as I was being shown over the Neue Schloss, I asked about the Grand Duchess Stephanie and the Princess Wasa, when the guide rushed to a window and said, 'Come quick, for the princesses are riding out of the courtyard upon their asses, as they do every morning before breakfast;' but I saw little more than their shadows flit across the court as their donkeys clattered through the gate. I was shown the circular opening through which prisoners bound in a chain used to be let down into the oubliettes and their subterranean judgment-hall, and the place where they had to give the baiser de la Vierge, when they fell through a trap-door upon wheels set round with knives which cut them to pieces.
"Next day we went to Strasbourg—so hot it was!—and then to Metz, where the cathedral is poor outside, but most glorious within—a vista of solid round pillars terminating in a blaze of stained glass. In one of the towers is 'Groggy,' a real dragon, dried.
"A diligence took us to Sierck on the Moselle, where we had a long time to wait, and mother sate and drew whilst I rambled about. It was evening before the churches of Treves appeared above the river-bank. We stayed at the charming Rothes Haus, with the little cross opposite commemorating the fiery vision of Constantine, which is supposed to have taken place there. Treves has a wonderful round of sights—the Roman baths, a beautiful ruin with tall brick arches, brilliant still in colour: thence up the vine-clad hill to where a gap between two ruined walls forms the entrance of the amphitheatre: back by the Porta Nigra, noblest of Roman gateways, with the hermitage whither S. Simeon was brought from Syracuse by Archbishop Poppo, and where he spent the rest of his life: finally to the cathedral, and the Liebfrauenkirche with lovely cloisters filled with flowers.
"We made great friends with the old sacristan at the cathedral, who gave us an extraordinary account of the last exhibition of its great relic, the 'Heilige Rock,' or seamless coat of the Saviour, when 30,000 persons passed through the church every day, weeping and sobbing, singing and praying as they went. The coat is only exhibited every twenty-five years, and awaits its next resurrection entombed in a treble coffin before the high altar. It has certainly done great things for Treves, as the cathedral has been restored, a capital hospital built, and all the fortunes of the citizens made by its exhibition. The sacristan was delighted to find that I also was a 'Romische Burgher,' but hoped that in a few years I should 'want some more cloth putting into my coat.'"
To MY MOTHER.
"Namur, Sept. 2.—Here I am, alone and dreary in the world once more.... It always seems as if I could have done a great deal more for you, and been more gentle and loving when I am gone, but I am sure my own darling mother will never really have thought me wanting in gratitude to her."
"Braine le Comte, Sept. 3.—I believe no one has such misfortunes as I have. I was at the Namur station at six this morning, and here by eight. Then the guard suggested my going into the waiting-room, as there was half-an-hour to wait before the train came up for Calais, for which I had a through ticket. I had no summons to the train: it came up on the opposite side of the station (concealed by another train) in five minutes, and I was left behind, and there is no train again till past seven o'clock this evening, and then only to Lille!—eleven hours to wait!"
"Southgate, Sept. 4.—As the dreary hours at Braine le Comte waned, two English families arrived from Namur, and with two ladies, 'Alice and Sybil,' and the boys of Sybil, I sallied out to see Braine le Comte, and then into the forest to pick bilberries for the luncheon which I had no money to buy. Then I arrived in the night at Lille, and being unable to find a hotel in the dark, and indeed having no money to pay for going to one, wandered about till at length I collapsed altogether on the doorstep of one of the houses. Here I was found by some of the old market-women when they arrived for the opening of the market at dawn, and they took me into the halles, and made me share their early breakfast. This was a kind of black broth in a huge wooden bowl, into which we all dipped a great spoon in turns, but it was most welcome, and the old women were very kind to me."
It was a great pleasure this autumn to pay a little visit to my mother's old friend Miss Clinton, whose frequent visits to Lime had counted as some of the happiest days of my childhood. She was essentially what the French call "bonne à vivre," so good-humoured and cheerful, and so indulgent to the faults of others. The crystal stream of her common-sense had always seemed to stir up the stagnant quagmire of religious inanities which the Maurice sisters had surrounded us with at Hurstmonceaux.
"Cokenach, Oct. 3.—I was so glad to come here for two days. The dear old Stoke carriage with Lou Clinton[78] in it met me at Royston. She took me first to see the antiquities—Lady Rohesia's chapel and Roysie's Cave, which gave the place its name, and a house where James I. stayed when he came hunting, in which his bedroom is preserved with its old furniture: in the garden is the first mulberry-tree planted in England. We reached Cokenach by the field roads.
"I was taken up at once to Lady Louisa,[79] who sate, as years ago, in her large chair by the blazing firelogs, with all her baskets of papers round her, and her table covered with things."
As it was considered a settled point that I was to take Orders when I was grown up (a point on which no single member of the family allowed any discussion or difference of opinion), and that I was then to have the rich family living of Hurstmonceaux, in the gift of my brother Francis, my whole education up to this time had been with that intention. My mother, therefore, was quite enchanted when my admiration of the Béguinages which I had seen in Belgium led me, in the autumn of 1852, to devote every spare moment to a sort of missionary work in the low wretched districts of Southgate. I had read in St. Vincent de Paul: "L'action bonne et parfaite est le véritable caractère de l'amour de Dieu ... c'est l'amour effectif qu'il faut à Dieu," and I determined to try to act upon it.
To MY MOTHER.
"Sept. 29, 1852.—I have now regularly entered on my parochial duties. There is a long strip of cottages in the village, yet out of Southgate parish, and which the clergyman of their own parish will have nothing to do with, as those of the inhabitants who go to church go to Southgate, so that he gets no marriage fees. The people would have been dreadfully neglected if Mrs. Bradley had not taken care of them, and as it is, they are in a very bad state, most of the men drunkards, and their wives and children starving. As the houses look out upon an open drain, they teem with illness for which there is no remedy. The children spend their days in making mud-pies upon the road.... I have now got all these cottages as my peculiar province.
"Most of the people cannot, or fancy they cannot, go to church, so I offered to have a sort of 'cottage reading' every Tuesday in the house of one of the better people—a Mrs. Perry. I was rather alarmed, though glad, to see how many came.... I tried to make the reading as interesting and easy as I could, and afterwards ventured upon a little 'discourse.'
"It was strange to find this really heathen colony—for they know nothing—close by, and I am glad to have a foretaste of what my life's work will be like."
"Southgate, October 12.—Mr. Bradley is in nothing so extraordinary as in the education of his children. All the moral lessons to his little daughter Jesse are taken from reminiscences of his 'poor dear first wife,' who never existed. I am used to it now, but was amazed when I first heard little Jesse ask something about 'your poor dear first wife, papa,' and he took out a handkerchief and covered over both their heads that no one might see them cry, which the little girl did abundantly over the touching story told her. Little Charlie's education was carried on in a similar way, only the model held up to him was a son of Mrs. Bradley's by an imaginary first husband, who 'died and is buried in Oxfordshire.' Little Moses's mamma, 'Mrs. Jochebed Amram,' is also held up as an effective example of Christian piety and patience, but Moses himself never touches their feelings at all. I must send you one of the allegories which I have heard Bradley tell his children; it is such a characteristic specimen:—
"'Now I will tell you a story about Hare. When Hare was a little child he lived at Rome: you know what we call it?—("Oh yes, papa, Babylon.")—Well, he lived at Babylon, and he was a very good little boy then, but he used to walk about dressed in scarlet, for they all wore scarlet there. One day a man was seen in the streets, very beautiful, a stranger with silver wings. And he said, "Are you little Hare, and would you like to go with me and learn how to be good?" for he was an angel. And little Hare said, "Oh yes, that is what I always like to be and try to be, and I shall like very much to go."
"'So the angel took little Hare up and carried him away on his back: and his poor mother went up and down the streets of Babylon crying and wringing her hands, for she did not know where her dear boy was gone.
"'But the angel carried Hare to the Happy Island, where all manner of little children were living—Ada and Angelina, and numbers of others. All these little children came to Hare and asked why he came there in his scarlet dress without getting it washed, because they all wore white robes, and they told him he must get his robes washed too. But he said he liked his scarlet clothes, and did not wish to have white robes like theirs, and he was very sullen and angry.
"'So then the angel and the children left him alone and took no notice of him. But after a time he observed that all the other children had little wings while he had none, and he felt sorry when the great angel passed by every day and took no notice of him, and at last he said, "How sorry I am to have spoken as I did, and how much I should like to have my robes washed and made white like those of the Happy Island children."
"'And the instant he said these words, his scarlet dress fell off, and he had beautiful white robes given him, and he felt a strange sensation in his shoulders, for little wings were growing there. And all the little children came up and kissed him, and cried, "Hosanna! hosanna! he is good; and he has got little wings like us."
"'So Hare lived on in the island, till, one day, the angel said, "Have you ever thought what your poor mother is doing now, and would you not like to go back to her?" And Hare said, "But can I always be good and have white robes and wings if I go back to Babylon?" And the angel said, "No, but you can try," and he took Hare on his back and flew off and off till he came to Babylon, where he set Hare down in the streets: and all the people looked at him, and when they saw his white robes and his wings, they said, "Why, there is a little angel come!"
"'And Hare went to his mother when she was asleep, and when she awoke she thought it was a dream, but he said, "No, mother, it is no dream. I have been in the Happy Island all this time, and I have come back good." Then his mother, when she saw his wings, said, "Oh, go on being good, and then your wings will grow larger and larger, till at last you will not only be able to go back yourself to the Happy Isle, but to take me with you." And Hare wished to do this, but nevertheless Babylon is a bad place, and as he went out in the streets his dress became soiled with their mud, and he mingled and played with its children till his wings grew smaller and smaller, and at last they fell off altogether.
"'Still, if you were to examine Hare on the bare shoulders when he is undressed, you would see the stumps where the wings were.'"
On the 17th of November I went up to London for the funeral of the Duke of Wellington on the following day. Very late at night Arthur Stanley arrived, having travelled day and night from Rome on purpose. We had to set off at four o'clock next morning to reach our reserved seats in St. Paul's, though I do not think the service began till twelve. We were four hours in the long chain of carriages wending at a foot's pace towards St. Paul's. A number of curious cases of robbery occurred then. I remember one, of an old gentleman in a carriage before us, who was leaning out of the carriage window with a pair of gold spectacles on his nose. A well-dressed man approached him between the two lines of carriages and said, "Sir, don't you know that you're very imprudent in leaning out of the carriage window on this occasion with such a very valuable pair of gold spectacles upon your nose? An ill-disposed person might come up and whip off your spectacles like this"—and, suiting the action to the word, he whipped them off, and escaped between the opposite line of carriages, leaving the old gentleman without any chance of redress.
The ceremony in St. Paul's was sublime beyond any power of words to describe. I recollect as one of the most striking features the figure of Dean Milman—bent almost double, with silver hair—who had been present at the funeral of Nelson in 1806, when he "heard, or seemed to hear, the low wail of the sailors who encircled their Admiral." My mother saw the procession from the Bunsens' house at Carlton Terrace.
In the winter of 1852-53 I passed through one of those phases of religious conviction which ultra-Evangelicals would call a "conversion"—an awakening at a distinct time which I can remember (January 11) of the strongest feeling of repentance for past sin and desire for improvement. "O amare! O ire! O sibi perire! O ad Deum pervenire," are words of St. Augustine which expressed my whole feeling at the time. I have no doubt that this feeling—exaggerated and violent as it was—was perfectly sincere at the time, and possibly in some way may have had a wholesome influence on my life. But I am quite sure that in other ways it had a very unwholesome influence, and that the habit of self-introspection and self-examination which I then felt a duty, and which many clergymen inculcate, is most injurious, as destroying simplicity of character, by leading an individual to dwell upon himself and his own doings, and thus causing him to invest that self and those doings with a most undue importance. I have always in later years, where I have had any influence, done all I could to discourage and repress these sudden religious "awakenings," producing unnatural mental sufferings at the time, and usually lapsing into an undesirable rebound. With an imaginary reality of conviction, young people are often led into hypocrisy, from a sense of the meritoriousness of that very hypocrisy itself in the eyes of many. I am quite sure that a simple Christian life of active benevolence and exertion for others, of bearing and forbearing, is the wholesome state—a life which is freed from all thoughts of self-introspection, and from all frantic efforts (really leading aside from simple faith in a Saviour) after self-salvation. I dwell upon this here for a moment, though I dislike to do so, because no narrative of my life could be true without it.
The last nine months of my stay at Southgate were less pleasant than the preceding ones, as Mr. Bradley had ceased to like me, and, though he fully did his duty by me in work-time, plainly showed, out of working hours, that he would be very glad when the time came for our final separation. This change arose entirely from my resistance, backed up by Dr. Vaughan at Harrow, to many of his absurd punishments. I was now nearly nineteen, and I offered to bear any amount of rational punishment he chose, but utterly refused to wear my coat inside out, and to run with a tin kettle tied to my coattail through the village, &c., which were the punishments he liked to impose.
But our final dispute came about in this way:—
My Latin prose was always the greatest stumbling-block in my work, and I was most trying, and inveterately careless over it, making the same mistake over and over again. At last Bradley decreed publicly, that for each of my commonest blunders, one of my companions should—kiss me! They thought it great fun, but I declared I would not submit. The decree had a good effect so far, that, for a very long time—a most unusually long time, the mistakes were evaded. At last, after about three weeks, a morning came when one of the mistakes occurred again. The fellow appointed to kiss me for this mistake was a big Scotchman named Buchan. Immediately the whole room was in motion, and Buchan in hot pursuit. I barricaded the way with chairs, jumped on the table, splashing right and left from all the inkstands, but eventually I was caught and—kissed.
In a blind fury, scarcely knowing what I did, I knocked Buchan's head against the sharp edge of the bookcase, and, seizing a great Liddell and Scott Lexicon, rushed upon Bradley, who was seated unsuspecting in a low chair by the fire, and, taking him unawares, banged him on the bald scalp with the lexicon till I could bang no longer. Bradley, after this, naturally said I must leave. I instantly fled over hedge and ditch fourteen miles to Harrow, and took refuge with the Vaughans, and after a day or two, Dr. Vaughan, by representing the fatal injury it would do me to be left tutorless just when I was going up to Oxford, persuaded Bradley to take me back and teach me as before. But this he consented to do only on condition that he was never expected to speak to me out of work-time, and he never did. My Southgate life henceforth was full of (in many ways well-deserved) petty hardships, though they were made endurable, because the time in which they had to be endured became every day more limited.
To MY MOTHER.
"Southgate, Feb. 6, 1853.—Bradley of course keeps aloof, but is not unkind to me, and it seems nothing to come back here, with Oxford as a bright guiding-star.... I now work all day as if it were the last day of preparation, and Walker and I question each other in the evening."
"Feb. 12.—I have been in my Southgate district all afternoon. The wretchedness and degradation of the people is such as only sight can give an idea of. In the last house in the upper alley live the Gudgeons, where two children were born a few days ago, and died a few hours after. I found Mrs. Gudgeon downstairs, for she had brought the thing she called a bed there, because, she said, if she was upstairs the children banging the doors maddened her. Two dirty shaggy children, never washed or combed since their mother was taken ill, were tugging at her; the eldest daughter, in tattered clothes and with dishevelled hair, was washing some rags, the fumes of which filled the room, while the floor was deep in dirt. Since the mother has been ill she has had the only blanket the family possess, so that she says the children howl with cold all night."
"Feb. 13.—To-day I found six of the Gudgeon children sitting on three-legged stools, huddled round a miserable fire, the door locked to prevent their running out into the snow. The mother said 'the Almighty knew what was good when He took the two babies; He knew I couldn't tell what in the world I was to do with them—though they were pretty babies, they were, every bit like little waxwork dolls. I sent for the doctor, but it was a cold night, and I was a poor woman, so he wouldn't come; if he had come, I should have known they wouldn't live, and should have had them baptized, and then I should have been happier about them.' I asked where the family all contrived to sleep. 'Why, sir,' she said, 'you know we have but two beds, and I sleep in the middle of one with Martha on one side and Polly on the other, and Lisa has her head out at the bottom, and sleeps at our feet; and father sleeps in the little bed, with Emma on one side and Tom on the other, and Georgie he lies at their feet, and Lu she lies with her grandmother.'"
"In another cottage I found that a good woman, Mrs. Caius, had just taken in a dwarf child who had been much ill-treated by the woman that took care of it. It had been dashed to and fro with convulsions for three hours, and now its limbs were quite rigid and stiff. It had not been stripped or washed for days, and its face was so begrimed with dirt that the features were scarcely discernible."
"February 19.—Aunt Kitty has done a most kind act in securing Mr. Jowett's protection for me at Oxford. I have had a kind note from him, in which his using my Christian name at once is very reassuring, though the fact that the seventeenth word he ever addressed to me is a Latin one looks rather formidable for future conversations."
Unfortunately, when I was just prepared to go up to Oxford for "Matriculation," I caught a violent chill while learning to skate, and, just when I should have started, became most seriously ill with inflammation of the lungs. As soon as I was able to be moved, I went to the Vaughans at Harrow, where I soon recovered under kind care and nursing. I always feel that I owe much in every way to the kindness and hospitality of my cousin Kate during these years of my life. As the authorities at the University were induced to give me a private examination later, in place of the one I had missed, I only remained at Southgate for a few days more.
To MY MOTHER.
"March 13.—My mother will like a letter on my nineteenth birthday—so very old the word makes it seem, and yet I feel just as if I were the dear mother's little child still; only now every year I may hope to be more of a comfort to her.
"Yesterday afternoon I went with Papillon to take leave of the (Epping) Forest. It was a perfect day; such picturesque lights and shades on the Edmonton levels. We went through Chingford churchyard, and then through the muddy forest to the old Hunting Lodge, which I had never reached before, and felt to be the one thing I must see. It is a small, gabled, weather-beaten house, near a group of magnificent oaks on a hill-top. Inside is the staircase up which Elizabeth rode to dinner in her first ecstasy over the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Afterwards, I suppose because she found it easy, she had a block put at the top from which she mounted to ride down again. To prove the tradition, a pony is now kept in the house, on which you may ride up and down the stairs in safety. The lodge is still inhabited by one of the oldest families of forest-rangers, who have been there for centuries: in a room upstairs are the portraits of their ancestors, and one bedroom is surrounded with tapestry which they declare was wrought by the Queen's own needle.
"And to-morrow I am going to Oxford—how exciting!"
| "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. |
"You are not bound to follow vulgar examples, nor to succeed—Fais ce que dois."—AMIEL.
"Study as if you would never reach the point you seek to attain, and hold on to all you have learnt as if you feared to lose it."—CONFUCIUS.
DURING a visit at Lime, Arthur Stanley had spent a whole evening in entertaining us with a most delightful description of the adventures of Messrs. Black, White, Blue, Green, and Yellow on their first arrival at Oxford, so that I was not wholly unprepared for what I had to encounter there. His kindness had also procured me a welcome from his most eccentric, but kind-hearted, friend Jowett, then a Fellow and tutor of Balliol,[80] which prevented any forlornness I might otherwise have experienced; but indeed so great was my longing for change and a freer life, that I had no need of consolation, even under the terrors of "Matriculation." At nineteen, I was just beginning to feel something of the self-confidence which boys usually experience at thirteen, and, as I emancipated myself gradually from the oppressors of my boyhood, to yearn with eager longings for and sudden inexplicable sympathies towards the friendship and confidence of companions of my own age. There was also a pleasure in feeling that henceforward, though I should always have to economise, I must have some money of my own, although a regular allowance was never granted at Oxford, or at any other time. It was partially the fact that I had no money to spend in my own way, and that my bills were always overlooked and commented upon, and partly that I had known no other young men except those whom I met at my private tutor's, which made me still very peculiar in dress as in voice and manner. I can see myself now—very shy and shrinking, arriving at Oxford in a rough "bear greatcoat," with a broad stripe down my trousers, such as was worn then, and can hear the shrill high tones in which I spoke.
To MY MOTHER.
"Balliol College, Oxford, March 14, 1853.—I cannot help writing to my own mother on this my first night in Oxford. I should not seem to have got through the day without it.
"I left Southgate with all good wishes and in pouring rain. When the domes and towers of Oxford rose over the levels, I was not much agitated at seeing them, and was very much disappointed at the look of them. A number of young men were at the station, but I jumped into an omnibus, and, in a tone as unlike a Freshman's as I could make it, exclaimed 'Balliol.' Dull streets brought us to an arched gateway, where I was set down, and asked the way to Mr. Jowett's rooms. Through one court with green grass and grey arches to another modern one, and upstairs to a door with 'Mr. Jowett' upon it. Having knocked some time in vain, I went in, and found two empty rooms, an uncomfortable external one evidently for lectures, and a pleasant inner sanctuary with books and prints and warm fire. My mother's letter was on the table, so she was the first person to welcome me to Oxford. Then Mr. Jowett came in, in cap and gown, with a pile of papers in his hand, and immediately hurried me out to visit a long succession of colleges and gardens, since which we have had dinner in his rooms and a pleasant evening. I like him thoroughly. It is a bright beginning of college life."
"March 16.—It is a member of the University who writes to my own mother.
"It was nervous work walking in the cold morning down the High Street to University. Mr. Jowett's last advice had been, 'Don't lose your presence of mind; it will be not only weak, but wrong.' Thus stimulated, I knocked at the Dean's (Mr. Hedley's) door. He took me to the Hall—a long hall, with long rows of men writing at a long table, at the end of which I was set down with pens, ink, and paper. Greek translation, Latin composition, and papers of arithmetic and Euclid were given me to do, and we were all locked in. I knew my work, and had done when we were let out, at half-past one, for twenty minutes. At the end of that time Mr. Hedley took me to the Master.[81] The old man sate in his study—very cold, very stern, and very tall. I thought the examination was over. Not a bit of it. The Master asked what books I had ever done, and took down the names on paper. Then he chose Herodotus. I knew with that old man a mistake would be fatal, and I did not make it. Then he asked me a number of odd questions—all the principal rivers in France and Spain, the towns they pass through, and the points where they enter the sea; all the prophecies in the Old Testament in their order relating to the coming of Christ; all the relationships of Abraham and all the places he lived in. These things fortunately I happened to know. Then the Master arose and solemnly made a little speech—'You have not read so many books, Mr. Hare, not nearly so many books as are generally required, but in consideration of the satisfactory way in which you have passed your general examination, and in which you have answered my questions, you will be allowed to matriculate, and this, I hope, will lead you,' &c. &c. But for me the moral lesson at the end is lost in the essential, and the hitherto cold countenance of Mr. Hedley now smiles pleasantly.
"Then a great book is brought out, and I am instructed to write—'Augustus Joannes Cuthbertus Hare, Armigeri filius.' Then there is a pause. The Master and Dean consult how 'born at Rome' is to be written. The Dean suggests, the Master does not approve; the Dean suggests again, the Master is irritated; the Dean consults a great folio volume, and I am told to write 'de urbe Roma civitate Italiæ.' When this is done, Mr. Hedley stands up, the Master looks vacant, I bow, and we go out.
"At five o'clock, having got a cap and gown at the tailor's, I return to Mr. Hedley, now very affable, who walks with me to Worcester, to the Vice-Chancellor. The servant at the door says, 'A gentleman is matriculating.' Mr. Hedley says he is going to matriculate me. So we go in, and I write again in a great book and sign the Articles. I swear to abjure the Pope and be devoted to the Queen, and kiss a Testament upon it. Then the Vice-Chancellor says, 'Now attend diligently,' and makes a little speech in Latin about obedience to the institutes of the University. Then I pay £3, 10s. and am free."
On my way back through London I went to my first evening party. It was at Lambeth Palace. Well do I remember my Aunt Kitty (Mrs. Stanley) looking me over before we set out, and then saying slowly, "Yes, you will do." At Lambeth I first heard on this occasion the beautiful singing of Mrs. Wilson, one of the three daughters of the Archbishop (Sumner). His other daughters, Miss Sumner and Mrs. Thomas and her children lived with him, and the household of united families dwelling harmoniously together was like that of Sir Thomas More. Another evening during this visit in London I made the acquaintance of the well-known Miss Marsh, and went with her to visit a refuge for reclaimed thieves in Westminster. As we were going over one of the rooms where they were at work, she began to speak to them, and warmed with her subject into a regular address, during which her bonnet fell off upon her shoulders, and, with her sparkling eyes and rippled hair, she looked quite inspired. It was on the same day—in the morning—that, under the auspices of Lea, who was a friend of the steward, I first saw Apsley House, where the sitting-room of the great Duke was then preserved just as he left it the year before, the pen lying by the dusty inkstand, and the litter of papers remaining as he had scattered them.
When I reached Southgate, Mr. Bradley received me with "How do, Hare? Your troubles are ended. No, perhaps they are begun." That was all, yet he had really been anxious about me. I was always so brimming with exaggerated sentiment myself at this time, that I had expected quite a demonstration of farewell from the poor people in the wretched Southgate district, to whom—after a sentimental fashion—I had devoted much time and trouble, and was greatly disappointed to receive little more than "Oh! be you?" when I informed them that I was going to leave them for ever. The parting with Mr. Bradley was also more than chilling, as his manner was so repellent; yet in after life I look back to him as a man to whom, with all his eccentricities, I am most deeply indebted.
During the greater part of the Easter vacation, my Uncle Penrhyn and his daughter Emmie were with us,—still filled with the first sorrow caused by Aunt Penrhyn's death a few weeks before. To me personally the death of this aunt made little difference, though she had always been kind to me—she had so long been ill, never recovering the birth of her immense number of children, chiefly still-born, and wornout besides with asthma. My uncle used to obtain for her a reprieve of sleep by mesmerising her, but in this state, though immovable and taking rest, she could be talked to, understood all that was said, and recollected it afterwards. I remember on one occasion her describing her agony when, in a mesmeric state, she knew a wasp had settled on her nose, and yet was unable to move. It was partly distress for her sorrowing relations acting on one in whom the mind so acutely affected the body, which made my dear mother very ill this spring, with the usual trying symptoms of trembling, confusion, giddiness, and sleeplessness. On such occasions I sincerely believe I never had any thought but for her. Not only for hours, but for weeks I would sit constantly beside her, chafing her cold hands and feet, watching every symptom, ready to read if she could bear it, or to bring my thoughts and words into almost baby-language, if—as was sometimes the case—she could bear nothing else. But when she was ill, the dead silence at Lime or the uncongenial society from the Rectory was certainly more than usually depressing, and I was glad when, as at this Easter, her doctor sent her to Hastings. Here, in her rare better moments, I had great enjoyment in beginning to colour from nature on the rocks. On the day before I returned to Oxford, we received the Sacrament kneeling by the sick-bed of Priscilla Maurice,[82] whose sick-room, which she then never left, was facing the sea in White Rock Place. At this time I had not only an enthusiasm for religion, which in itself was worth very little, but was just beginning to be filled with a steady anxiety to fulfil all the nobler aims of life; and to have a contempt for that life of much preaching and little practice in which I had latterly lived at Southgate, teaching others while I made no effort to improve myself. In going to Oxford, from the set I lived in, the so-called moral temptations of Oxford life not only did not assail, but were invisible to me. I believe the very fact that I was always ready—far too ready—to speak my mind, made base men avoid me. My chief difficulty was to do any work; not to see my acquaintance at all hours of the day; not to shut up Sophocles in utter weariness of what I had so often read before, that I might go out to talk and laugh with those I liked. In fact, probably I should have done little or nothing at first, if the Schools, like the sword of Damocles, had not been hanging over my head—the Schools, which, as I wrote in my journal-book, had, for hundreds of years, probably seen more continuous trouble and misery than any other rooms in the world.
On my way to Oxford, I paid a first visit to Hugh Pearson,[83] afterwards my very dear friend, at Sonning Rectory near Reading, and also visited the old Maria Josepha, Lady Stanley of Alderley,[84] at Holmwood. Old Lady Stanley was then, as always, most formidable; but her daughters Rianette and Louisa were not afraid of her, and in the one afternoon I was there they had a violent dispute and quarrel, with very high words, over which of their dogs barked loudest.
To MY MOTHER.
"University College, Oxford, April 9, 1853.—It is from my own rooms, 'No. 2, Kitchen Staircase,' that I write to my mother—in a room long and narrow, with yellow beams across the ceiling, and a tall window at one end admitting dingy light, with a view of straight gravel-walks, and beds of cabbages and rhubarb in the Master's kitchen-garden. Here, for £32, 16s. 6d. I have been forced to become the owner of the last proprietor's furniture—curtains which drip with dirt, a bed with a ragged counterpane, a bleared mirror in a gilt frame, and some ugly mahogany chairs and tables. 'Your rooms might be worse, but your servant could not,' said Mr. Hedley when he brought me here.... How shy I have just felt in Hall, sitting through a dinner with a whole set of men I did not know and who never spoke to me."
"March 10.—The chapel-clock is in my bedroom, and woke me with its vibration every time it struck the hour. However, I suppose I shall get used to it. But I was up long before the scout came to call me at seven, and was in such fear of being late for chapel, that I was ten minutes too early, and had to walk about in the cold and stare at the extraordinary stained windows—Jonah and the whale swimming about side by side; Abraham dragging Isaac to the sacrifice by his hair; Mary and Martha attending upon Christ, each with a brass ladle in her hand, only that Mary holds hers suspended, and Martha goes on dipping hers in the pot while He is talking. At last the Master entered statelily, and the troop of undergraduates in black gowns and scholars in white ones came clattering in; and Mr. Hedley read the service, and we all responded, and a scholar read the lessons; and then there was a general rush into Quad, and a great shaking of hands, at which I, having no hand to shake, felt very blank, and escaped to my rooms, and afterwards to breakfast with Mr. Jowett.... I am to go to him every night with a hundred lines of Sophocles, some Latin composition, and a piece of Cicero by heart—a great addition to my eighteen lectures a week, but the greatest advantage; and really he could not have done a more true kindness: I do not know how to say enough of it.
"I wish I knew some one in this college. It is most disagreeable being stared at wherever one goes, and having no one to speak to, and though the Hall, with its high roof and pictures, may seem picturesque at first, solitude in society becomes a bore. Expenses appear to be endless. This morning I held a levée. First a sooty man with a black face poked his head in at the door with 'Coalman's fee, if you please, sir,—half-a-crown.' The buttery, represented by a boy in a white apron, came up next, and then the college porter and scouts, though as yet all these officials have done for me—nothing! A man who declared himself sole agent of an important magazine, and also a vendor of flannels and 'dressing-robes,' has also just called—'supposed he had the honour of addressing Mr. Hare, and would I for a moment favour him with my approval,' which I declined to do, when he thanked me for 'my great condescension' and departed."
"March 17.—I have now been a whole week here. It seems a life to look back upon, and I am becoming quite used to it. My first visitor was a man called Troutbeck. This was our conversation:—
"'I suppose you're fond of boating: we must have you down to the river and see what you're made of.'
"'But I don't boat: you would find me utterly inefficient.'
"'Then you ride?'
"'No.'
"'Do you sing, then?'
"'No, not at all.'
"'Do you play rackets?'
"'No, I neither boat, nor ride, nor sing, nor play rackets; so you will never have been to call upon a more hopelessly stupid Freshman.'
"However, I have made plenty of acquaintances already, and I do not see much of either the temptations or difficulties of college life. In some ways a college repeats a public school. For instance, I have made rather friends with a Canadian called Hamilton, who all dinner-time has to answer, and does answer most good-naturedly, such questions as—'Pray, are you going to Canada for the long?—When did you hear last from the Bishop of the Red River?' &c."
"April 23.—Having been induced, or rather compelled, to give a two-guinea subscription to the cricket club, I have just been asked to a great wine given to show that Coleridge the undergraduate is not the same as Coleridge the cricket collector. I have now to prepare Latin prose for the cynical Goldwin Smith, but my principal lectures are with Mr. Shadforth, a man who has the character of being universally beloved and having no authority at all. The undergraduates knock at his door and walk in. He sits at a table in the middle, they on cane-chairs all round the room, and his lecture is a desultory conversation—questions addressed to each individual in turn. But he dawdles and twaddles so much over details, we have generally done very little before the hour ends, when he says, 'I will not detain you any longer.' I doubt if there is much good in any of the lectures one attends, or anything to be learnt from them except what one teaches oneself; still they are part of the college routine, and so have to be pottered through.
"There is a high Romanistic club here, called the Alfred, whose members spend their time in passing ridiculous votes of censure on different individuals. They are much tormented, but have a pleasant imagination of martyrdom, and believe they are suffering for their faith. When they met at Merton, the men of the college put slates on the top of the chimney of the room where they were, and they were almost suffocated with smoke. Here they met to pass a vote of censure on—St. Augustine, and the whole time of their sitting in conclave cayenne-pepper was burnt through the keyhole; and when it was over, every window in the Quad along which they passed was occupied by a man with a jug of water; so you may imagine they were well soused before they got out.
"The Schools are going on now. They seem less alarming since I have heard that the man passed satisfactorily who construed Ιησομς Χριστος—Julius Cæsar, and also the man who, when asked why they broke the legs of the two thieves, said he supposed it was to prevent their running away. It was all put down to nervousness. Christ Church walks are now green with chestnut buds, and a pear-tree is putting out some blossoms in the Master's arid garden under my windows."
"May 1.—I am writing at half-past six A.M., for at four o'clock I got up, roused Milligan[85] (now my chief friend and companion), and we went off to Magdalen. A number of undergraduates were already assembled, and when the door was opened, we were all let through one by one, and up the steep winding staircase to the platform amid the pinnacles on the top of the tower. Here stood the choristers and chaplains in a space railed off, with bare heads, and white surplices waving in the wind. It was a clear morning, and every spire in Oxford stood out against the sky, the bright young green of the trees mingling with them. Below was a vast crowd, but in the high air the silence seemed unbroken, till the clock struck five, and then, as every one took off their caps, the choristers began to sing the Latin hymn, a few voices softly at first, and then a full chorus bursting in. It was really beautiful, raised above the world on that great height, in the clear atmosphere of the sky. As the voices ceased, the bells began, and the tower rocked so that you could see it swaying backwards and forwards. Milligan and I walked round Magdalen walks afterwards, and when my scout found me dressed on coming to call me, he asked if I had been 'out a-Maying.' Yesterday afternoon I rowed with Milligan on the river to Godstowe. It was so shallow, that if we had upset, which was exceedingly probable, we could have walked to shore."
"May 4.—I have now become a regular visitor at the lodging-house of the Mendicity Society, which means taking my turn in going every evening for a week to receive the beggars who come with tickets, and reading prayers to them, besides giving them their supper, and noting any remarkable cases which need help. It is a strange congregation of wild haggard people, chiefly Irish, probably meeting for that one evening only on earth, and one feels anxious to do them some good.
"I went the other day with Troutbeck[86]—a friend of whom I see much—to Bagley Wood, where he sang old ballads under the trees upon a bank of bluebells and primroses. I have many friends now, and I never was happier in my life."
"May 22.—I am in the Schools to-morrow for Little-go, having insisted on going in, in spite of my tutors. I do not feel as if I minded much, but some of my friends are so alarmed about themselves that they can scarcely eat."
"May 23.—This morning the School-yard was full of men in white ties and Masters in hoods, friends catching friends for last words of advice, &c. Then the doors of the four Schools opened, and we poured in. The room where I was was full of little tables, and we each had one to ourselves. Then a Don walked about distributing the long printed papers to be filled up—arithmetic, chiefly decimals. At first I felt as if I understood nothing, and I saw several of my neighbours wringing their hands in the same despair which overwhelmed myself, but gradually ideas dawned upon me, and I wrote as fast as any one, and had only one question unanswered when we went out at twelve. In the afternoon was the Euclid school—very horrid, but I am certainly not plucked by to-day's work."
"May 30.—You will rejoice to hear I am safe. Just as I was preparing to decamp this morning, to be out of the way of the authorities, I was caught by the Dean's messenger, and was obliged to go to him. He began by saying he could not allow me to go into the Schools, both my friends and the college would suffer; but I so entreated, and declared, and exclaimed that I must go in, that I would be careful, &c., that at last, as his breakfast was getting quite cold, he gave in.
"I had translations of Sophocles and Virgil to do on paper, but it was not till the afternoon that 'Mr. Hare' was called for viva voce. I really did pretty well, and as one of the examiners considerately growled whenever I was turning down a wrong path, I was able to catch up my faults. Mr. Jowett was present amongst my friends, and as soon as all was over, carried me off to walk in New College Gardens; and when we came back, it was he who went in to ask my fate. He came back to me radiant with my testamur, and I am very happy in the restful feeling of its being over, and no other examination for so long.
"I have just been electro-biologised in the most marvellous manner by the power of Troutbeck's left eye! by which he is able to mesmerise friends far away in their own rooms, and can make a fellow called Barrow[87] clairvoyant, in which state he travels to Rugby, and other places where he has never been, and accurately describes all that is going on there."
"June 6.—Commemoration has been most amusing—concerts, flower-shows, &c. The procession of boats was really a beautiful sight—all the college boats, with their different flags and uniforms, moving slowly up between the banks crowded with people, and saluting the University barge by raising their oars and holding them straight up in the air as they passed."
All through my first year at Oxford, Mr. Jowett (afterwards Master of Balliol) continued to show me the utmost kindness, giving me extra work, and allowing me to bring the result to him in the evening. I had been so much neglected at Lyncombe, and so ill-grounded altogether in my boyhood, that my passing all my examinations successfully was probably owing to this generous action of his. Honours at Oxford, even in the History School, I never thought of. My mother would only have wondered what on earth I wanted them for, and, had I gained them, would have lamented them as terribly ensnaring. I was profoundly grateful to Mr. Jowett, but being constantly asked to breakfast alone with him was a terrible ordeal. Sometimes he never spoke at all, and would only walk round the room looking at me with unperceiving, absent eyes as I ate my bread and butter, in a way that, for a very nervous boy, was utterly terrific. Walking with this kind and silent friend was even worse: he scarcely ever spoke, and if, in my shyness, I said something at one milestone, he would make no response at all till we reached the next, when he would say abruptly, "Your last observation was singularly commonplace," and relapse into silence again. He was indeed truly "intermittent," as Swinburne has called him. His quaint brevity of speech was never more remarkable than when the Council, met in solemn conclave, summoned "the little heretic," as he used to be called, into its awful presence. Then, being asked, "Now, Mr. Jowett, answer the truth; can you sign the Thirty-nine Articles?" he dumbfoundered them with—"If you've a little ink!" He could be very satirical. I remember, in after years, when Jex Blake, afterwards Dean of Wells, had been talking very prosily, he said, "I have long known that Law comes from Lex, but I never knew till now that Jaw comes from Jex."
On looking back through the mists of years, I am often surprised at the acquaintance whose society I sought during my first terms at Oxford, few of whom, except my dear friends Willie Milligan and George Sheffield,[88] have had any share in my after life. This was partly owing to the fact that the men who were at University in my time for the most part belonged to so entirely different a station in life, that our after paths were not likely to cross; and partly to the fact that those who had any mental gifts—for most of my companions had none—were repulsive or disagreeable in their habits.
Milligan was the first real friend I had ever had; before that, if I had liked any one, they had never liked me, and vice versa. It was always "l'un qui baisse, et l'autre qui tend la joue."
Very odd and far less satisfactory were others of my early Oxford friendships. One was for a man who imposed upon those younger than himself by a sort of apathetic high-handed manner of his own, and whom, when he professed a great preference for me, I used to look up to as a sort of divinity. Many were the almost volumes of sentimental twaddle I wrote both to and about him, and I used to listen for his footstep on my staircase as the great event of the evening. But all this soon wore off, and when my idol was once dethroned from its pedestal, it became a contemptible object.
An odder friendship still, made in my early Oxford life, was that for a good-looking, sentimental, would-be poet. Of him I wrote home with heartfelt enthusiasm, and at length, though I had never before asked anything at home, took courage to persuade my mother to let me go abroad with him to Bohemia for part of the long vacation. Before we set out he came to stay with us at Hurstmonceaux, and greatly astonished my relations must have been to find my charming young man so utterly unlike what I had described him. But we had scarcely set out on our travels before I found it out for myself—the first discovery being made when he pronounced Cologne Cathedral "very pretty" and S. Aposteln "very nice."
To MY MOTHER.
"Andernach am Rhein, June 30, 1853.—I was delighted when we rounded the corner of the river below Rheinach, and the old tower of Andernach came in sight, with the cathedral, and the vineyard-clad hills behind. The whole place is delightful. In the evening we rambled up the rocks over carpets of thyme and stonecrop, and saw the last tinge of yellow pass away from the sky behind the cathedral and the light fade out of the river. All along the road are stone niches with sculptures of the 'Sept Douleurs,' and as we came in through the dark orchards a number of children were chaunting with lighted tapers before a gaudy image of a saint in a solitary place overshadowed by trees."
"July 2.—This morning we went out at five, meeting crowds of peasants coming in to market with their cheerful 'Guten Tag.' I sate to draw at the Convent of St. Thomas in a rose-garden, while A. read Hallam. At twelve, we drove through the volcanic hills, covered with the loveliest flowers—blue larkspur, marigolds, asphodels, campanulas, and great tufts of crimson pinks—to the Laacher See, a deep blue lake, once the crater of a volcano, in a wooded basin of the hills. It still sends forth such noxious vapours that no bird can fly across it and live, and dead bodies of small animals are constantly found along its shores. At one end of the lake, Kloster Laach rises out of the woods, with a little inn nestling in an orchard close under the walls of the church. The exterior of that old Norman church is most beautiful, mellowed with every tint of age, but internally it is disfigured by whitewash; only the canopied tomb of the Phaltzgraf Henry II. is very curious. We were so delighted with the place, that we sent away the carriage and spent the evening by the lake, which was all alive with fireflies, darting in and out with their little burdens of light amongst the trees. In the morning we walked back to Andernach, which was quite possible, as I had no luggage but a comb and a pair of scissors."
"Limbourg on Lahn, July 3.—What a tiresome diligence-drive we have had from Coblentz here through endless forests, but we were well repaid as we descended upon Limbourg. Our apathetic German fellow-travellers were roused to 'wunderschön,' 'wunderliebliche,' and even A. gave one glance and faintly emitted the word 'pretty.' The view from the bridge is glorious. A precipitous rock rises out of the flats, with the Lahn rushing beneath, and all up one side the picturesque old black and white houses of the town, while growing out of the bare rock, its front almost on the precipice, like Durham, towers the magnificent cathedral, one of the oldest in Germany, abounding in all those depths and contrasts of colour which make the old German churches so picturesque—each window having its different moulding of blue, yellow, and red stone: and reflected in the clear water beneath. In the evening we walked to the neighbouring village of Dietz—a long rambling street of old houses, with the castle of Oranienstein overhanging them; and a wonderful ruined bridge, with the river dashing triumphantly through broken arches and over towers which have fallen into the stream."
"Marbourg, July 6.—We came in the diligence from Limbourg with an emigrant family returning home from America, and words cannot describe their ecstasies as we drew near Weilbourg and they recognised every place as a scene of childhood. 'Oh, look! there is the school! there is the hedge under which we used to have our breakfast!' The noble old castle of Weilbourg, on a precipice above the grey bridge over the Lahn, is very striking. The German waiter at the inn asked with great gravity if we admired it more than 'the castled crag of Drachenfels.' The endless forest scenery afterwards was only varied by the huge castle of Braunfels, till a long avenue brought us into the town of Wetzlar, which has a great red sandstone and golden-lichened cathedral, with a grim and grand Norman door called the Heidenthurm. At Giessen we joined the railway for Marbourg, and the clock which is now striking nine A.M. is that of St. Elizabeth![89]
"The Church of St. Elizabeth is almost out of the town; a rambling street of old timber houses reaches down to it, but its golden-grey spires have nothing between them and the dark forest. Inside, the grove of red sandstone pillars is quite unspoilt by images or altars: one beautiful figure of St. Elizabeth stands in a niche against a pillar of the nave, and that is all. In the transept is the 'heilige Mausoleum.' Its red steps are worn away by the pilgrims: the tomb is covered with faded gold and vermilion; on its canopy are remains of fresco-painting, and within is a beautiful sleeping figure of Elizabeth. All around are grey monuments of the Landgraves, her predecessors, standing upright against the walls. The choir opens into the sacristy, where is the golden shrine of the saint. As we reached it, a pilgrim was just emerging, deeply solemnised by a tête-à-tête with her bones. In her daughter's tomb the face is quite worn away by the hands of the pilgrims. The tomb of Conrad, her confessor, is there also. The sacristan unlocked a great chest to show us Bible tapestry worked by the hands of the saint. Some of the old pictures in the church portrayed the flight from the Wartburg, and St. Elizabeth washing the feet of the lepers: all reminded me of the stories you used to read to me as a very little child out of the great book at the Rectory.
"We went from the grave of St. Elizabeth to her palace—the great castle of Marbourg, seen far and wide over the country and overhanging the town, with a vast view over the blue-green billows of Thuringian pine-forest. The castle is divided into two parts, and you may imagine its size on hearing that 276 soldiers are now quartered in one of them. A guide, who knew nothing of either Luther or St. Elizabeth, except that they were both 'ganz heilige,' let us into the chapel where Luther preached, and the Ritter Saale, an old vaulted chamber where he met Zwingli and discussed Transubstantiation."
"Erfurth, July 8.—It is a delightful walk to the Wartburg from Eisenach. A winding path through a fir-wood leads to an opening whence you look across a valley to a hill crowned with a worn gateway, something like one of the gates of Winchelsea. In the intervening hollow some stone steps lead to a dark gap in the wood, where is the fountain of St. Elizabeth under a grey archway with sculptured pillars and overgrown with ferns. The water here is excluded from the public as too holy for common use, but a little is let out for the people into a stone basin below. By the side is a stone seat, where it is said that Elizabeth used to wash herself.
"Again a narrow path edged with blue campanulas, and then the grey arch of the castle-gateway. You look down at the side, and half-way down the gorge you see a little plot of ground called 'Luther's Garden.'
"The Wartburg is much like an English farmhouse. If Priest's Hawse[90] was perched on the top of a mountain, it would resemble it. It has an irregular court, of which rugged rock is the pavement, surrounded with scattered buildings, some black and white, and some castellated. The latter, which have two rows of Norman arches and pillars and a kind of keep-tower at the end, were the palace of the Landgraves and Elizabeth. The whole was full of women and guides, geese, chickens, and dogs. We had some time to wait in a room, where we were refreshed with 'lemonade' made of raspberries, before we were shown over the castle—the most interesting points being the chapel with Luther's pulpit, and the room of his conflict with the devil, full of old pictures and furniture, but with nothing which can be relied upon as contemporary except his table and a stone which he used as a foot-stool. When he threw the inkstand at the devil, the ink made a tremendous splash upon the wall, but there is no trace of it now: the relic collectors have scraped the wall away down to the bare stones.
"At the last moment at Eisenach I could not resist rushing out to sketch 'Conrad Cotta's House,' where you have so often described how Ursula Cotta first found the little Martin Luther singing hymns.
"The heat here at Erfurth is so great that I have been in a state of perpetual dissolution. It is a dull town with a great cathedral, and another church raised high above the market-place and approached by long flights of steps. The Waisenhaus is an orphan institution occupying the Augustinian convent where Luther lived as a monk. All there is the same as in his time—the floors he used to sweep, the doors he had to open, and the courtyard filled with flowers and surrounded by wooden galleries. A passage lined with pictures from the Dance of Death leads to the cells. Luther's cell is a tiny chamber with a window full of octagonal glass, and walls covered with texts: two sides were written by himself. The furniture is the same, and even the inkstand from which I had to write my name, while the woman who showed me the place mentioned that the pens were not the same, for Luther's pens were worn out long ago! There is a portrait by Cranach and writing of the three friends, Luther, Bugenhagen, and Melancthon.
"A. cannot speak a word of German, and never knows what to do on the simplest occasion, loses everything, is always late for the train, cannot pack his things up, will not learn the money, and has left every necessary of life at home and brought the most preposterous things with him."
"Dresden, July 11.—We have seen a number of places on the way here. In the old cathedral of Naumbourg is a fine Cranach picture of St. Elizabeth, with the Wartbourg above her head and the Marbourg church at her feet. In the cathedral of Mersebourg is a most extraordinary picture of the Electoral family of Saxe-Mersebourg receiving the dead Christ and bearing him to the sepulchre. The family became extinct in 1738, and they all lie in the crypt under the church in the order in which they lived, in coffins covered with vermilion and gold, the little children in front and the grown people behind. Above, is the tomb of the Emperor Rudolph of Swabia, and in the sacristy they put into my hand a thing which I thought was a hand carved in oak, but found it was his own real hand, cut off in 1080!
"Dresden announces itself by four black-looking domes and towers above the flat horizon and then by the many arches of the long Elbe bridge. It is very like a little—a very little Paris; the same rows of tall white houses with green shutters: the same orange and lime trees filling the air with their sweetness: only the river is different, so gigantic and so bright. A broad flight of steps took us to the stately Bruhl terrace above the river—golden in the sunset. At the end an odd-looking building with a dome turned out to be a Jewish synagogue, and we went in. One old Jew in his hat dropped in after another, till at last one of them put on a white muslin shawl, and going up to a desk where the altar should be, began bobbing his head up and down and quacking like a duck. Then another in a corner, standing with his face close to the wall, quacked also at intervals, and then all the rest chimed in, till it was exactly like a farmyard. But no words can say how ridiculous it eventually became, when they all burst out into choruses which sounded like 'Cack a lack-lack-lack. Oh Jeremiah! Jeremiah! Oh Noah's ark, Noah's ark! Cack a lack-lack-lack, lack, lack: loo, loo, loo.' All the little black Wellington boots stamping on the floor together, and all the long white beards bobbing up and down, and giving an audible thump on the table at every bob.... And not the least absurd part was that they seemed to think our presence a compliment, at least they all bowed when we went out."
"Schona on Elbe, July 16.—We left Dresden by the steamer—the last view of the town very striking, with the broad flood of the Elbe sweeping through a line of palaces. At Pirna we left the boat, and a long walk through hot fields brought us to the entrance of the Ottowalder Gründ. A flight of steps leads into a chasm, with high rocks towering all round and the most brilliant and varied greens beneath. In one place the narrow path is crossed by a natural arch; then it winds up again through masses of forest and deep rocky glens, till it emerges on the top of the Bastei.
"I was disappointed with the Bastei, which is like a scene on the Wye rather exaggerated. You look over a precipice of seven hundred feet, and see all around rocks equally high shooting straight up skywards in every conceivable and inconceivable form—pillars, pyramids, cones: and up all of them fir-trees cling and scramble, and bright tufts of bilberries hang where no human hand can ever gather their fruit. There are bridges between some of the rocks, and they support fragments of castles of the robbers who used to infest the Elbe, and, beyond the river, all the distant hills rise in columnar masses of equal irregularity. After dining at the little inn, we walked on to Königstein, a fortress which has never been taken, large enough to hold the whole population of Dresden. Here a tremendous thunderstorm rolled with grand effect around the mountain. There is a terrible parapet overhanging the precipice, where a page fell asleep, and was awakened by one of the Electors firing a pistol close to his ear to break him of the habit. A long path through bilberry thickets brought us to the station, and we took the train to Schandau, where we slept—very glad to go to bed at ten, having been on foot since 4 A.M.
"This morning we took a carriage for the first eight miles up the valley of the Raven's Crag, and walked on to the Kuhl-stuhl. In the very top of the hill the rock has made a huge natural arch, which leads to an otherwise inaccessible platform overhanging the valleys. The peasants drove their cattle here for protection in the Thirty Years' War, whence the name of Kuhl-stuhl, and hither the Bohemian Protestants fled for refuge. There is a natural slit in the rock, with a staircase to an upper platform, which was the refuge of the women, but only a thin woman could reach this place of safety.
"Forest again, ever deeper and darker—and no human life but a few women gathering faggots with bare arms and legs, till we reached the Jagd-Haus on the promontory of the Lesser Winterberg, where Schiller's name is cut, with others, in the mossy stone. Forest and bilberries again to the hotel on the Greater Winterberg, where we dined on mountain florellen and strawberries and cranberries. Forest, ever the same, to the Prebischthor, a natural arch projecting over an abyss, splendid in light and shadow, and altogether the finest scene in the Saxon Switzerland ... then a descent to Schona. We found it easy to accomplish in a day and a half that for which Murray allots four days."
"Prague, July 17.—All through the night we travelled in a railway carriage with twenty-two windows and eighty inmates. Dawn broke on a flat country near the Moldau. At last a line of white wall crowned a distant hill. Then, while an Austrian official was collecting passports, railway and river alike made a turn, and a chain of towers, domes, and minarets appeared above the waving cornfields, one larger than the others—the citadel of Prague!
"What a poem the town is!—the old square of the Grosse Ring, where the beautiful delicately-sculptured Rathhaus and church look down upon a red marble fountain, ever surrounded by women with pitchers, in tall white caps: the streets of Bohemian palaces, with gigantic stone figures guarding the doors: the bridge, with statues of saints bending inwards from every pier, and the huge Hradschin palace on the hill beyond, with the cathedral in its midst: the gloomy precipice from which the Amazonian Queen Libessa hurled down her lovers one by one as she got tired of them: the glorious view from the terrace of the Hradschin, recalling pictures of the view from the Pincio at Rome: the wonderful tombs of the Bohemian kings, and the silver chandeliers and red lights before the shrine of St. John Nepomuck in the cathedral."
"July 18.—On Sunday afternoon we were at the Jewish synagogue, the oldest building here—older than Prague itself, and now only used on the Day of Atonement and other great occasions. It is quite in the midst of the Jews' quarter, which is entirely given up to them, and inside it is black with age, its gothic pillars looming out of a coating of soot and smoke, never allowed to be cleared away. The centre was spread with draperies of cloth of gold and silver. On the platform within them was the chief Rabbi, a venerable man with a white beard which swept over his brown robe as far as his waist. 'He is wonderfully learned,' whispered my neighbour to me. 'He understands every language in the whole world, and as for English he speaks it as well as an Englishman.' At last there was a bustle in the crowd, and a young woman made her way through, enveloped in a very curious ancient hood of worked gold, and several very smart ladies crowded up after her: we followed. Then the priest shouted in Hebrew so that the little building rang again, and the Rabbi took a little silver cup of oil and—I think—anointed the lady, and a service followed in which all the people responded electrically as if a bell were struck; but it was not till we came out that I found the lady in the golden hood had been—married.
"We went afterwards to the Jewish burial-ground—a wide rambling expanse in the heart of the town, literally crammed with tombstones, falling one over the other, and, between them, old gnarled elder-trees growing fantastically. The cemetery has been twice emptied!—and filled again. On one of the graves a young Jewess was lying, evidently very ill. 'You see,' said the old woman who let us into the cemetery, 'that the Rabbi who is buried there was so good when he was alive, that when all the other people were rooted up, they left him and his wife alone; and his good works live on so much, that sick persons are often brought here to lie upon his grave, in the hope of their being cured.'
"One of a knot of palaces in the Kleinsite was Wallenstein's. Here, one room is hung with artificial stalactites: in another are portraits of Wallenstein and his second wife, and the charger which was shot under him at Lützen, stuffed—but only the body remains of the original horse, the head and legs have been eaten up by moths and renewed! The garden is charming, with an aviary of peacocks.
"A. has been twice threatened with arrest for persisting in wearing a wide-awake in the streets, for at present it is a revolutionary emblem! At first he insisted on putting it on again, but the second attack has been too much for his fortitude. Just now I was roused by his shrieks, and reached his room just in time to see a large black sheep emerge from under his bed!—it had walked in from the market by the open galleries and had taken refuge there."
"Bamberg, July 23.—We came here by Dresden and Saxe-Altenberg, with its charming old castle. Near Hof the engine burst, doing us no harm, but keeping us for hours sitting on the grassy railway bank till another engine arrived, so that we did not get here till 3 A.M. The cathedral is glorious. Only imagine my having found Baron and Baroness von Usedom in the hotel, and the next morning Lady Malcolm and her two daughters arrived—most kind, most amusing—and Madame von Usedom most extraordinary. She received me with 'You're wonderfully like your sister, and she is very beautiful,' so that's a compliment!"
"July 28.—We have had another vision of loveliness at Nuremberg. One became quite weary of saying, 'Oh! how beautiful! how beautiful!' But no letter can give an idea of what Nuremberg is—'The German Venice' Madame d'Usedom called it. And Albert Dürer is a part of the place: whenever I see his woodcuts again at the Rectory, they will bring back the town to me—where his house is, and his pictures, his statue, and most of all his grave, in a cemetery full of hollyhocks and lilies."
We came home by Augsburg, Ulm, and Heidelberg, and then through France via Chalons and Rheims. In thinking of present expenses (1895), I often marvel at the cheapness of the long tour we had made. We had seen the greater part of Germany and much of France, had travelled for six weeks, and travelled in comfort, and, including journeys to and from the coast of England, we could each have spent only £25, for we had no more to spend. I joined my mother at Ashburton Vicarage, near Dartmoor, whence we saw "Wistman's Wood"—that wonderful stunted grove of immemorial oak-trees in the midst of the moors. On our way home we went to stay with Miss Boyle[91] at Portishead. It was my mother's first sight of her, and she was much struck by that extraordinary person, for whom at that time I had an almost passionate devotion, and who had unfortunately just become notorious through her appearance—being subpœnaed on the wrong side—at the trial of the false Sir Hugh Smith, the claimant of Ashton Court. This trial created a tremendous excitement at the time, and the decision was nearly given in favour of the claimant. His wife, a daughter of De Wint the artist, had already ordered the carriage in which she was to make a triumphal entry, when the cause suddenly collapsed through the evidence of a jeweller who had been employed to forge a brooch upon which much of importance depended.
The Bishop of St. David's, Thirlwall, was staying at the Rectory when I was at home. Excellent as he was, I was horribly afraid of him, for a more repellent, freezing manner than his I never saw. I hated the Rectory now more than ever, but was more than ever devoted to Lime. What a vision I have now of its quietude in those hot summer days, only the wind whispering in the old abele-trees and rippling the waves upon the pool, and of the fresh morning smell of the pinks and roses and syringa, bowed down by the heavy dew. Our intensely quiet life would have suited few young men, but when my dear mother was well, and the Rectory not too aggressive, I was always happy. Each day was a routine. Called by our fat John at seven, when Fausty's black nose was poked in my face, I woke to see the sun shining on the little pictures on the wall and the old-fashioned china ornaments, and to hear Joe Cornford whetting his scythe on the lawn under the windows. I was downstairs before my mother appeared in her lilac dress to breakfast and prayers. Then we walked on the terrace. I read—first aloud to her, then to myself—then went with her round the field and to the girls' school. At one was dinner; at half-past two we drove out—Fausty with us. Then my mother lay on the sofa and I read: then came our tea-supper, and I read aloud again, and mother sang such old songs as "Hohenlinden," "Lord Ullin's Daughter," "Auld Robin Gray," or the Russian "Pojalite." Then, after prayers, I helped her upstairs, and, at her little round table, she would say a little short prayer with or for me out of her own heart, and I came down to write till the melancholy sound of the mice in the wainscot drove me to bed also. On my return to Oxford in October, I published in "The Penny Post" my first story—"The Good Landgravine," about Elizabeth of Thuringia—quite as important to me then as the publication of one of my large books is now—and I obtained ten shillings for it with great pride! I had much pleasure in a visit from Arthur Stanley this term, and Mr. Jowett—"the great Balliol tutor"—continued his kindness and his voluntary lessons to me, though I must often sorely have tried his patience. I was, no doubt, a terrible little prig, and I have just found, amongst old letters, a very kind one from him, written in the vacation, urging me to make an effort to conquer "my conceit, which was not vanity, but a constant restlessness about myself."[92] Jowett was—tiresome perhaps, in some ways, but—one of the most unselfish persons I have ever known. By his own life, as in his sermons, he constantly inculcated disinterestedness, sympathy, and the love of God. The Christian doctrines of the Incarnation, Resurrection, &c., he utterly ignored, out of the pulpit as in it, and I believe Arthur Stanley quite agreed with him in his heart, though he had not quite "the courage of his opinions."
"Reading men" used to congratulate me upon my intimacy with Jowett, little knowing of how admonitory a nature were all his conversations with me. Amongst the freshmen of the term were two with whom I became great friends afterwards. One was Frederick Forsyth Grant,[93] whom we always called "Kyrie," because when he went to spend the long vacation at Athens (of all places in the world), he was called from his generosity "Kyrie Dora"—the lord of gifts. The other was a peculiarly boyish-looking fellow, with a remarkably lithe, graceful figure, and a little Skye-terrier to which he was devoted. I remember the shy longing I had to make friends with him, and my first visit after dinner—finding him drinking coffee with his little dog by his side: it was George Sheffield, my constant friend afterwards for very many years.
To MY MOTHER.
"University College, Nov. 18, 1853.—This morning I was asked to breakfast with the Master, whose courteous placidity is such that he looks as if turmoil, contradiction, and reform could never approach him. He received us kindly but very solemnly, with an old Miss Plumptre in a rich satin gown by his side. There was an awful pause at first, while we stood in a row, and the Master and his sister addressed an observation in turn to each of us, never going out of the regular line. At breakfast I thought they talked pleasantly, though the others pronounced it 'very flat.' When he considered we had stayed long enough, the Master[94] pulled out his watch and said, holding it in his hand, 'Good-bye, Mr. Gregson,' when Mr. Gregson felt he must get up and walk out, and we all followed. The Masters of colleges are really almost nonentities, but have an absurd idea of their own dignity. The Provost of Oriel the other day wrote—'The Provost of Oriel[95] presents his compliments to the Dean of Christ Church,[96] and wishes to know what time the examination will be;' and in answer was snubbed by 'Alexander the Great presents his compliments to Alexander the Coppersmith, and informs him that he knows nothing about it.'
"I breakfasted the other day at Wadham with a most extraordinary man called R., whose arms and legs all straggle away from his body, and who holds up his hands like a kangaroo. His oddities are a great amusement to his friends, who nevertheless esteem him. One day a man said to him, 'How do you do, R.?' and he answered, 'Quite well, thank you.' Imagine the man's astonishment at receiving next day a note—'Dear Sir, I am sorry to tell you that I have been acting a deceptive part. When I told you yesterday that I was quite well, I had really a headache: this has been upon my conscience ever since.' The man was extremely amused, and showed the letter to a friend, who, knowing R.'s frailties, said to him, 'Oh R., how could you act so wrongly as to call Mr. Burton "Dear Sir"—thereby giving him the impression that you liked him, when you know that you dislike him extremely?' So poor R. was sadly distressed, and a few days later Mr. Burton received the following:—'Burton, I am sorry to trouble you again, but I have been shown that, under the mask of friendship, I have been for the second time deceiving you: by calling you dear sir, I may have led you to suppose I liked you, which I never did, and never can do. I am, Burton, yours &c.!'"
The winter of 1853 was a very sad one. I found my dearest mother very feeble and tottering, and it was a constant grief to me to see the patient, worn look of illness in her forehead as she leant back in her chair. She would occupy herself, however, as usual in cutting out clothes for the poor, saying that her own sufferings from the cold forbade her not trying to prevent theirs. I scarcely ever ventured to leave her for a moment as long as we stayed at home, always inventing an excuse to walk behind her whenever she went upstairs, for fear she should suddenly fall. On the 20th of December, the Stanleys being absent at Canterbury, we went up to their empty house in Grosvenor Crescent. Here the winter was much preferable to that at Lime, and on the whole my mother suffered less; but my life was that of a constant sicknurse, scarcely ever away from her. When I was, I generally went in the dusk to the National Gallery—too late to see the pictures, but I liked to wander about in the almost empty rooms, and to feel that they were there, and knowing no one in London myself, to make imaginary histories about the one or two figures which still lingered, finding the same odd refuge as myself from the turmoil of the town. In reading my journal of this winter, I can recall the days of intense anguish I went through, seeing before me, as I thought, the realisation of Dr. Chapman's verdict that softening of the brain had definitely set in for my dearest mother. As the year closed in gloom, I looked forward with terror to what the next would bring, to the probability of not having another year to surround her with my love, to ward off every sorrow. Whilst conscious that my character had certainly expanded under the happier life I had been leading at Oxford, and that the interests of my friends there had become as near my heart as my own, I realised that all I could be and do for my own mother was no mere duty, it was the outpouring of my whole soul; for I did not entertain an angel unawares. At the New Year my mother's attacks increased; often she was unable to see and became almost unconscious. Yet by the 21st of January she had rallied so much that I was able to return in tolerable comfort to Oxford.
To MY MOTHER.
"University College, Jan. 22, 1854.—My dearest mother will often have thought of her child in his college home: and how often have I thought of my own mother, and longed to be by her to watch and take care of her still. I feel the blank on the staircase, now my hand has nothing to do in helping you. It is a comfort that you have plenty of nurses to take care of you; but the great comfort of all is that you now no longer want me.
"I have new rooms now in the 'New Buildings.' They are not very large, but the sitting-room has the charm of a beautiful oriel window overhanging the High Street, with a cushioned seat all round and a small writing-table in the middle: and the view is delightful."
I think it was during the Easter vacation of this year that a day of national humiliation was appointed on the outbreak of the Crimean War. Severely indeed was the fast-day observed at Hurstmonceaux. At Lime we had nothing to eat but bread, and for dinner some boiled sea-kale, a vegetable which I have ever since associated with that time; and I have a vivid remembrance of the serio-comic face of our butler, John Gidman, when we were ushered into the dining-room, with the table laid out as usual, and, when the covers were taken off, only that amount of food was displayed. In theory Aunt Esther was always urging the duty not only of a saintly, but of an ascetic life, and it was not her fault that the only cell where she could herself carry out in practice her austere views was an orange-scented library lined with rare folios or precious works of art.
This, the second year of my Oxford life, was very enjoyable. Not intending to read for honours, for which I had no ambition (as my mother, unlike many parents, would have had no pleasure whatever in my obtaining them, but, on the contrary, would have regarded them as a most undesirable "snare"), I had plenty of time for other things, and pursued those studies of French, Italian, History, and Archæology which have been far more really useful to me than any amount of Latin and Greek. My devotion to George Sheffield showed itself, amongst other ways, in writing a story every week, which was presented to him on Sunday. Many of these stories, though I forget them, must, I now believe, have been rather interesting. Lady Sheffield used to keep them, and, as they all referred to things and people long past, George and I used to make schemes of publishing them some day in a black cover adorned with a white skull and cross-bones, under the title of "Dead Dust,"—an idea which, I am thankful to say, was never carried out. With Troutbeck and Duckworth I used to attend and make copious notes of the lectures of Professor Philips on Geology, which sometimes assumed a peripatetic form.
To MY MOTHER.
"Oxford, June 9, 1854.—At half-past ten yesterday, Troutbeck, Duckworth, Bowden, and I, met the Professor and twenty-eight fellow-geologists at the station. The Professor was dressed in a queer old brown suit, and we were all armed with hammers, and baskets to carry provisions and bring back fossils. We took the train to Handbro', on the outskirts of Blenheim Park, and no sooner arrived there than the Professor, followed by his whole lecture, rushed up the railway bank, where he delivered a thrilling discourse on terrebratulæ, which are found in that place, and for which we all grubbed successfully immediately afterwards. And in that extraordinary manner we perambulated the country all day—getting on a few yards, and then stopping to hear a lecture on some stone the Professor had spied in the hedge, or which one of the party had picked up in the road. Greatly did we astonish the villages we passed through. 'What be's you all come professionising about, zur?' said one old man to me. We had luncheon in the remains of a Roman villa with mosaics."
"In the evening we went to the Professor's 'Soiree.' Here I found it much more amusing to listen to his sister's discourse about 'poor dear Buckland—my friends Whewell and Sedgwick—my dear friend Faraday—my very celebrated uncle, and my also celebrated brother,' than to attend to the Professor himself, who was exhibiting photographs of the scenery and geology of the moon."
Amongst the remarkable persons whom I frequently saw in my earlier Oxford life was the venerable Dr. (Martin Joseph) Routh, President of Magdalen, born 1755, who died in 1854, in his hundredth year. He would describe his mother as having known a lady who had met Charles II. walking round the parks at Oxford with his dogs. He had himself seen Dr. Johnson "scrambling up the steps of University." In him I myself saw a man of the type of Dr. Johnson, and of much the same dress, and even ponderous manner of speaking. I remember Goldwin Smith once asking him how he did, and his replying, "I am suffering, sir, from a catarrhal cold, which, however, sir, I take to be a kind provision of Nature to relieve the peccant humours of the system." His recollections of old Oxford extended naturally over the most immense period. Sir George Dasent has told me that the President once asked him, "Did you ever hear, sir, of Gownsman's Gallows?"—"No, Mr. President."—"What, sir, do you tell me, sir, that you never heard of Gownsman's Gallows? Why, I tell you, sir, that I have seen two undergraduates hanged on Gownsman's Gallows in Holywell—hanged, sir, for highway robbery."
A few years before the President's death, when he was at Ewelme, his living in the country, his butler became insane and had to be sent away. When he was leaving, he begged to see the President once more, "to ask his blessing," as he said. The President received him in the garden, where the man, stooping as if to kiss his hand, bit it—bit a piece out of it. "How did you feel, Mr. President," said Sir G. Dasent afterwards, "when the man bit your hand?"—"Why, at first, sir," said the President, "I felt considerably alarmed; for I was unaware, sir, what proportion of human virus might have been communicated by the bite; but in the interval of reaching the house, I was convinced that the proportion of virus must have been very small indeed: then I was at rest, but, sir, I had the bite cauterised." It was often observed of Dr. Routh that he never appeared on any occasion without his canonicals, which he wore constantly. Some ill-disposed undergraduates formed a plan which should force him to break this habit, and going under his window at midnight, they shouted "Fire." The President appeared immediately and in the most terrible state of alarm, but in full canonicals.
It was only forty-eight hours before Dr. Routh died that his powers began to fail. He ordered his servants to prepare rooms for a Mr. and Mrs. Cholmondeley, who had been long since dead, and then they felt sure the end was come. They tried to get him upstairs to bed, but he struggled with the banisters as with an imaginary enemy. He then spoke of pedigrees, and remarked that a Mr. Edwards was descended from two royal families: he just murmured something about the American war, and then he expired. He left his widow very ill provided for, but the college gave her a handsome income.
On reaching home in the summer of 1854, all the anxieties of the previous winter about my mother's health were renewed. She was utterly incapable of either any physical or any mental effort, and my every minute was occupied in an agony of watchfulness over her. I felt then, as so often since, that the only chance of her restoration was from the elasticity of foreign air, and then, as so often since, was my misery and anxiety increased by the cruel taunts of my aunts, who protested that I was only trying to drag her away from home, at a sacrifice to her comfort, from a most selfish desire for my own amusement. However, when a short stay at Southborough and Eastbourne seemed rather to increase than cure the malady, the absolute decision of her doctor caused the talked-of journey to be accomplished, and we set out for Switzerland, accompanied by Charlotte Leycester,—my mother, as usual, being quite delighted to go abroad, and saying, "I have no doubt as soon as I reach Boulogne I shall be quite well,"—a result which was very nearly obtained. We lingered first at Fontainebleau, with its pompous but then desolate château, and gardens brilliant with blue larkspurs and white feverfew—the commonest plants producing an effect I have seldom seen elsewhere. A pet trout, certainly of enormous age, and having its scales covered with a kind of fungus, was alive then, and came up for biscuit: it was said to have belonged to Marie Antoinette. At Chalons we took the steamer down the Saône, and a picture that dwells with me through life is that of the glorious effect, as we entered Lyons, of the sun suddenly bursting through the dark thunderclouds and lighting up every projection of roof and window in the tall houses which lined the quay and the bright figures beneath. I have often been at Lyons since, but have never cared for it as I did then, when we stayed long enough to enjoy S. Martin d'Ainay, and the picturesque ascent to the Fouvières and noble view from its terrace, and to marvel at the vast collection of votive offerings, memorials of those who prayed to the Virgin in danger and were protected by her, while we wondered where the memorials of those were who invoked her and whose prayers were not answered. My mother went straight from Lyons to Aix-les-Bains by voiturier, but I lingered to see the beauties of Vienne, and followed by steamer up the Rhone and Lac de Bourget with my Southgate friend Walter Portman.[97] We found Aix terribly hot, and generally spent the evenings by or on the lake, where one day my mother, Lea, and I were in some danger, being caught in a tremendous burrasco. Thence a most wearisome journey voiturier took us from Aix to Geneva, a place for which I conceived the most intense aversion, from its hot baking situation, and the illiberal and presumptuous "religion" of its inhabitants. While there, in a hotel facing the lake, I was called up in the middle of the night to Lea, who was very alarmingly ill, and while attending to and trying to calm her, was roused by shrieks of "Fire" in the street, and saw the opposite house burst into flame. Alarm-bells rang, engines were summoned, crowds arrived, and only a change in the wind saved us from destruction or flight. We moved afterwards to the Hôtel des Etrangers, a house in a damp garden near the lake. Here we were seated almost alone at the little table-d'hôte when we heard the most extraordinary hissing and rushing sound, like a clock being wound up, and a very little lady entered, who seemed to be impelled into the room, followed by her husband. On reaching her chair, several loud clicks resulted in her being lifted into it as by invisible power! It was Mrs. Archer Clive, the then celebrated authoress of "Paul Ferroll," who had no legs, and moved by clock-work.
While at Geneva, I saw many of its peculiar celebrities, especially M. Gaussen and M. Merle d'Aubigné, the historian of the Reformation, whose real name was only Merle, the sequence having been adopted from his former residence. He had a very striking appearance, his hair being quite grey, but his shaggy eyebrows deep black, with a fine forehead and expression. Another person we saw was M. Berthollet, with an enormous head. It was with difficulty that any of these persons could be convinced that our sole object in coming to Geneva was not to see a certain pasteur, of whom we had never even heard. We visited Ferney, which thrives upon the unpleasant memory of Voltaire, who had a villa there, in which we saw the tomb of—his heart! The inn has as its sign a portrait of him in his French wig.
We spent a pleasant afternoon at Colonel Tronchin's lovely villa. He was a most excellent man, and one could not help seeing how nobly and unostentatiously he employed his large fortune for the good of others. Yet one could not help seeing also how many of his followers put up their religious scruples like an umbrella to ward off whatever was not quite to their liking—how "No, I could not think of it; it would be against my conscience," became at Geneva, as elsewhere, very liable to be said in pure selfishness.
My mother's sufferings from the heat led to our going from Geneva to Chamounix. On the way we slept at St. Martin. As I was drawing there upon the bridge, a little girl came to beg, but beggars were so common that I paid no attention to her entreaties, till her queer expression attracted me, and a boy who came up at the same time described her as an "abandonnée," for her father was in prison, her sister dead, and her mother had deserted her and gone off to Paris. The child, who had scarcely an apology for being clothed, verified this in a touching and at the same time an elf-like way—grinning and bemoaning her sorrows in the same breath. Charlotte Leycester gave her four sous, with which she was so enchanted that she rushed away, throwing her hands into the air and making every demonstration of delight, and we thought we should see no more of her. However, in going home, we found her under a wall on the other side of the bridge, where she showed us with rapture the bread she had been able to buy with the money which had been given her. An old woman standing by told us about her—how wonderfully little the child lived on, sleeping from door to door, and how extraordinary her spirits still were. It was so odd a case, and there was something so interesting in the child, that we determined to follow her, and see where she really would go to sleep. To our surprise, instead of guiding us through the village, she took her way straight up the woods on the mountain-side, by a path which she assured us was frequented by wolves. It was very dark, and the place she led us to was most desolate—some châlets standing by themselves in the woods, almost at the foot of the mountain; the glass gone from the windows, which were filled up with straw and bits of wood. Meantime we had made out from the child that her name was Toinette, daughter of François Bernard, and that she once lived in the neighbouring village of Passy, where her home had been burnt to the ground, a scene which she described with marvellous gesticulations. She seemed to have conceived the greatest affection for Charlotte. When asked if she knew that it was wrong to lie and steal, she said, "Rather than steal, I would have my head cut off, like the people in the prisons. I pray every day, and my prayer shall be always for you, Madame."
A great dog flew out of the cottage at us, but Toinette drove it away, and called out a woman who was standing in the doorway. The woman said she knew nothing of Toinette, but that she had implored to sleep there about three weeks before, and that she had slept there ever since; and then the child, caressing her and stroking her cheeks, begged to be allowed to do the same again. The woman offered to go with us to another house, where the people knew the child better. On arriving, we heard the inmates at prayers inside, singing a simple litany in responses. Afterwards they came out to speak to us. They said it was but for a very small matter François Bernard was imprisoned, as he had only stolen some bread when he was starving, but that, if he came back, he could do nothing for Toinette, and as her uncles were idiots, there was nobody to take care of her: if we wished to do anything for her, we had better speak to the Syndic, who lived higher up the mountain; so thither we proceeded, with Toinette and all her female friends in our train.
It was a strange walk, by starlight through the woods, and a queer companionship of rough kind-hearted people. Toinette, only seven years old, laughed and skipped over the stones, holding Charlotte's gown, and declaring she would never leave her. We had expected to find the magistrate living in a better house than the others, but it was like its neighbours—a little brown châlet by the side of a torrent. The Syndic was already in bed, but Madame, his wife, speedily got him up, and we held a parley with him on the wooden staircase, all the other people standing below. He said that there were no workhouses, no orphan asylums, and that though it was a bad case, the commune had no funds; school did not open till October, and even if Toinette got work there was no lodging for her at night. However, when Charlotte promised to clothe her, he was so much enchanted with the "grandeur de sa charité," that he said he would consult with the commune about Toinette. Meantime, in the morning Charlotte bought her some clothes, and settled something for her future; but before we left we saw that she must not be too much indulged, as she asked Charlotte, who had given her a frock, shoes, and hat, to give her also some bonbons and a parasol!
We heard of Toinette Bernard for some years afterwards, and Charlotte Leycester sent annual remittances for her; but eventually she absconded, and utterly disappeared like a waif.
On the 1st of August I left my companions at Chamounix to make the circuit of Mont Blanc, but the weather was horrible, and most of the time the mountain-tops were hidden in swirl and mists; the paths were watercourses, and the châlets where I slept with my guide, Edouard Carrier, were piercingly cold and miserable—especially that of Motets, where there was nothing to eat but potatoes; no furniture whatever, nothing but some rotten straw to lie upon; no glass and no shutter to the window, through which an icy blast blew all night from the glacier, though the air of the filthy room was quite dense with fleas. Travelling in these parts is quite different now, but I have a most wretched recollection of the long walks in the cold mist, no sound but the cry of the marmots—yet one always had a wish to go on, not back.
Delightful was the change as we descended upon Courmayeur, with its valleys of chestnut-treesnoble view of Mont Blanc, and Aosta with its Roman ruins. In returning, I was overtaken by a tremendous snowstorm at the top of the St. Bernard, and detained the whole of a most tedious day in the company of the kind priests (monks they are not) and their dogs. During this time sixty travellers arrived in turn and took refuge. We all dined together, and saw the hospice and the Morgue, which is a very awful sight: the snow has so perfectly embalmed the bodies, that they retain all their features, though quite black; the hair also remains. In one corner was a woman hugging her baby to her breast as the death silence overtook her. We all went down through the snow in a regular caravan, and I joined my mother at Villeneuve and went with her to Clarens.
Railways make travelling in Switzerland, as elsewhere, so easy now, that it is difficult to realise how long and tedious the journey to Visp was when I next left my mother to go to Zermatt. On my way I visited the old mountain-perched cathedral of Sion, then one of the most entirely beautiful and romantic churches in the world, now utterly destroyed by a "restoration," from which one might have hoped its precipitous situation would have preserved it. I walked in one day from Visp to Zermatt, and thence made all the excursions, and always alone. The Gorner Grat is much the finest view, all the others being only bits of the same. It is a bleak rock, bare of vegetation, far from humanity. Thence you look down, first by a great precipice upon a wilderness of glaciers, and beyond, upon a still greater wilderness of mountains all covered with snow. They tell you one is Monte Rosa, another the Weiss Horn, and so on, but they all look very much alike, except the great awful Matterhorn, tossing back the clouds from its twisted peak. It is a grand view, but I could never care for it. The snow hides the forms of the mountains altogether, and none of them especially strike you except the Matterhorn. There is no beauty, as at Chamounix or Courmayeur: all is awful, bleak desolation. In memory I fully echo the sentiment I find in my journal—"I am very glad to have seen it, but, if I can help it, nothing shall ever induce me to see it again."
It was a long walk from the Riffel Berg to Visp (34 miles), whence I proceeded to the Baths of Leuk, where the immense tanks, in which a crowd of people, men, women, and children, lead an every-day life like ducks, up to their chins in water, were a most ridiculous sight. Sometimes you might find a sick and solitary old lady sitting alone in the water on a bench in the corner, with her hands and feet stretched out before her; but for the most part the patients were full of activity, laughter, and conversation. They held in the water the sort of society which once characterised the pump-room at Bath: the old people gossipped in groups, the young people flirted across their little tables. Each person possessed a tiny floating table, on which he or she placed handkerchief, gloves, flowers, smelling-bottle, newspaper, or breakfast. In one of the tanks some nuns were devoutly responding to a priest who was reciting the litany; but generally all the people were mingled together during their eight hours of daily simmering—sallow priests, fat young ladies, old men with grey beards, and young officers with jaunty little velvet caps stuck on the back of their heads. Generally they sate quite still, but sometimes there was a commotion as a whole family migrated to the other side of the bath, pushing their little tables before them; and sometimes introductions took place, and there was a great bowing and curtseying. The advent of strangers was a matter of great excitement, and you saw whole rows of heads in different head-dresses all uniformly staring at the new-comer: but woe betide him if he came upon the causeways between the tanks with his hat on his head. I had been warned of this, however, by the conducteur of the omnibus. "Oh! qu'ils crient! qu'ils crient! qu'ils crient!"
I left Leuk on the 18th of August to cross the Gemmi Pass, with a boy carrying my knapsack. It was very early morning. The Gemmi is a grass mountain with a perpendicular wall of rock overhanging it, up which the narrow path winds like a corkscrew, without railing or parapet—at least it had none then—and an appalling precipice below. On this path it is most unnecessary to take a false step, but a false step must be fatal. It was an exquisitely clear, beautiful morning, and high up on the mountain-side a large party might be seen descending towards us. I did not see them, but I believe the boy did. We had just reached the top of the grassy hill and were at the foot of the precipice when there was a prolonged shouting. The whole mountain seemed to have broken out into screams, which were echoed from the hills on every side. I said, "Is it a hunt?"—"Nein, nein," said the boy with great excitement, "es ist ein Pferd—ein Pferd muss übergefallen sein." But then, in a moment, came one long, bitter, appalling, agonising shriek, which could be uttered for no fall of a horse—there was a sudden flash—not more—of something between the light and the precipice, and a crash amid the stones and bushes beside us—and "Oh, ein Mensch—ein Mensch!" cried the boy, as he sank fainting on the ground.
Another moment, and a French gentleman rushed wildly past, his face white as a sheet, his expression fixed in voiceless horror. I eagerly asked what had happened (though I knew too well), but he rushed on as before. And directly afterwards came a number of peasants—guides probably. The two first looked bloodless, stricken aghast: it is the only time I ever saw a person's hair stand on end, but then I did, though they neither cried nor spoke. Then came one who sobbed, and another who wrung his hands, but who only said as he passed, "Ein Mensch—ein Mensch!" One of the peasants threw a cloak over the remains, and two guides cried bitterly over it. Strange to say, the body was that of a "garçon des bains" serving as a guide: he had jumped over a little stone in his descent, had jumped a little too far, and fallen over. For one awful moment he clung to the only fir-tree in the way—the moment of the screams—then the tree gave way, and all was ended.
I knew that if I did not go on at once the news would arrive at Thun before me and terrify my mother; but it was terrible, with the death-shriek ringing in one's ears, to follow the narrow unprotected path, and to pass the place where trampled turf and the broken fir-tree bore witness to the last struggle. An old German professor and his wife had left Leuk before us, and had heard nothing of what had happened. When I told them at the top of the mountain, they knelt on the grass, and touchingly and solemnly returned thanks for their safety. Then I met Theodora de Bunsen with Sir Fowell and Lady Buxton going down, and was obliged to tell them also. Awfully in sympathy with our sensations is the ghastly scenery at the top of the Gemmi—the black lake, which is frozen all the year round, and the dismal, miserable inn beside it, which is the scene of Werther's horrible tragedy, of which I have so often since told the foundation-story.
My Uncle Penrhyn paid us a visit at Thun, with his daughter Emmie and a cousin, and I afterwards joined them at Lucerne, and was their guest in a most happy excursion to Andermatt. Afterwards I went alone to Engelberg, the village and great Benedictine convent in the green Alps under the Tetlis mountains. Thence I made my way to Stanz, and penetrated into the valleys connected with the strange story of the Swiss pilgrim-saint, Nicholas von der Flue, ending in the great church of Sachselen, which contained his hideous skeleton, with diamond eyes and jewel-hung bones. Thence it was a very long walk over the Brunig (there was then no carriage-road) to Meyringen, and thence, the same day, over the Scheideck to Gründelwald; for my mother was expecting me there, and if I did not appear by the promised day, she might have been anxious; and in those days I was far too poor to have a mule: if I had money enough to pay for some luncheon, my utmost ambition was fulfilled.
In returning to England, we went to Freiburg in Breisgau, and visited the Bunsens at Heidelberg, greatly delighting in their beautifully situated villa of Charlottenberg, and the view of the castle and bridge from their terrace, with its oleanders and pomegranates. Afterwards we saw Meaux and its relics of Bossuet.
Uncle Julius, whose health was rapidly declining, received my mother with many tears on our return. I have a vivid recollection of that first evening. My mother read "Bless the Lord, O my soul," at evening prayers, and said she always read that after a journey, with "He healeth all thy diseases"—so true of her. We went to Hastings for Uncle Julius's Charge to the clergy, which produced much enthusiasm amongst them, very different from his lengthy sermons in Hurstmonceaux, under which the whole congregation used quietly to compose themselves to sleep, probably well aware that they would not understand a word, if they tried to attend. The effect was sometimes most ridiculous of the chancel filled with nodding heads, or of heads which had long since done nodding, and were resting on their elbows locked in fastest slumber. I believe Mrs. Sherwood describes a similar scene in one of her stories. Aunt Esther and the curate would try in vain to keep themselves awake with strong lavender lozenges during Uncle Julius's endless discourses. And then "There's Mrs. Hare asleep on one side of the Archdeacon and the curate on the other," the people would say, and he would go droning on with a sermon preached fifty times before. There were, however, days on which Uncle Julius would emerge from the vestry with clenched hands and his face full of pale enthusiasm, and then I would whisper to my mother: "Look, Uncle Julius is going to do Lady Macbeth!" There were no slumbers then, but rapt attention, as Uncle Julius in his most thrilling (and they were thrilling) tones went through the whole of the sleep-walking scene, wrung his hands over the pulpit-cushion, unable to wash out the "accursed spot" of sin. This was generally about once a year. Though Hurstmonceaux did not comprehend them, there are, however, many fragments, especially similes, in Uncle Julius's ordinary parish sermons which will always have an effect, especially that of grief at a death—the heavy plunge when the person goes down, and the circles vividly apparent at first, then gradually widening, till they are lost and disappear altogether. And though they did not understand him, his parishioners loved Uncle Julius, for he always acted up to his own answer to a question as to the value of a living—"Heaven or hell, according as the occupier does his duty."
Uncle Julius had published a versified edition of the Psalms. He thought his Psalter would be adopted by the whole Church, and it was never used in a single church except Hurstmonceaux. During the service, he had the oddest way of turning over the pages with his nose. "The sixteenth morning of the month," he gave out one day. "No, 'tain't," called the voice of Martin the clerk from below, "'tis the seventeenth." "Oh, the seventeenth morning of the month."
Julius Charles HareThere certainly was a curious absence of ritual in the services at Hurstmonceaux. Yet one felt that Uncle Julius's whole heart was in the way he read the prayers. What was wanting arose from his personal characteristics, the same which made him always hopelessly unpunctual, which caused him to waste his mornings in hopeless dawdling just when there was most to be done, which so often sent him off for his afternoon walk just as the dinner-bell rang.
I was more than usually tried during the weeks spent at home this autumn by the way in which Mrs. Alexander was set up on a pinnacle of worship by Uncle Julius and Aunt Esther—everything and everybody, especially my mother, being expected to give way to her. My journal, however, has many touching reminiscences of quiet evenings in our home life at this time—when I read aloud to my dearest mother, and she played and sang "Comfort ye," I sitting on the little sofa by her side, the light from the candles falling upon "the Reading Magdalen" over the pianoforte—and of her simple, earnest prayers aloud by the little round table in her own room that "the pleasures given us in this world might not draw us out of the simple way of God." Especially touching to me is the remembrance of our last evening together this summer, for it was then almost first that she began to allow the part my life bore in hers. "O God," she prayed, "be with us at our parting: and oh! prepare us to meet when parting will be at an end." As I kissed her afterwards she said, "You are a dear good child to me, darling. I may blame you sometimes, and find fault with your opinions, but you are a dear, good, dutiful child to me."
As I was returning to Oxford I paid a visit to Hugh Pearson at Sonning.
To MY MOTHER.
"Sonning, Oct. 21, 1854.—The thought that my mother is well now and does not need me enables me to bear having only paper-conversation again for a little while. But how I long to know each hour of the day what my dear mother is doing, and wish that she could see me—very happy here in this peaceful little spot.
"H. P. was dressing when I arrived, but came to my room to welcome me, most warmly, as he always does. There was a party at dinner, but they left early, and I had a long talk afterwards with my host over the fire. There is really no one I like so much. He gave an amusing description of his church-restoration, very gradual, not to shock people's prejudices. At last, when he put up a statuette of the patron saint—St. Andrew—over the entrance, Bishop Wilberforce came in high delight—'No other man in my diocese would have dared to do such a thing.'[98] Bishop Blomfield rather admired his stone pulpit, but said, 'I don't usually like a stone pulpit; I usually prefer a wooden one, something more suited to the preacher inside.'
"After breakfast we went out to pick up apples to feed H. P.'s pet donkey with. What a pretty place Sonning is! The river winding round, with old willows and a weir; the site of the palace of the Bishop of Sarum marked by an old ash-tree; and the church—'all as like naughty Rome as it dares,' says H. P., but very beautiful within.... 'What a rate you do write at, child,' he says as he is working tortoise-pace at his sermon by my side."
My mother was never given to being alarmed about me at any time, but I think she must have had some anxieties this autumn; Oxford was so dreadfully unhealthy—suffering from a perfect "wave of cholera," while typhus fever and small-pox were raging in the lower parts of the town. But the excitement of Aunt Kitty and Arthur about Mary Stanley, who had taken great part in preparing nurses for the victims of the Crimean War, and who eventually went out to Scutari herself as the unwelcomed assistant of Miss Nightingale, kept the family heart fixed in the East all through the autumn and winter.
To MY MOTHER.
"Oxford, Oct. 23, 1854.—There was a special cholera service last night. It is very bad still, and the cases very rapid. Those taken ill at five die at seven, and for fear of infection are buried at seven the next morning."
"Oct. 24.—Typhus fever has broken out in the lower town in addition to everything else, and there are 1000 cases of small-pox, besides cholera. This morning I met two men at breakfast at Mr. Jowett's. There was nothing to eat but cold mutton and some heavy bread called 'Balliol bricks,' but Mr. Jowett was in his best humour, and though he would not utter a word himself, he assisted us into uttering a good many. He is certainly at once the terror and the admiration of those he wishes to be kind to: as for myself, I love him, though I often feel I would go round three streets any day to avoid him."
"Nov. 1.—The usual Oxford rain is now varied by a yellow fog and stifling closeness, the consequence of which is that cholera has returned in all its force to the lower town, and in the upper almost every one is ill in one way or other. Duckworth and I walked to Headington Common yesterday, and thinking that such a high open place was sure to be free from illness, asked if there had been any cholera there, in a cottage where we often go to buy fossils. 'Yes,' said the young woman of the house, 'father died of it, and baby, and seven other people in this cottage and those joining—all those who seemed the healthiest and strongest. I saw them all seized with it in the morning, and before night they were all gone.'—'What,' I said, 'did you nurse them all?' The young woman turned away, but an old woman who came up and heard me said, 'Yes, she were a good creature. There were no one took but she went to them. She were afeard of nothing. I used to think as God wouldna' let the cholera come to her because she werena' afeard, and no more He did.'"
"Dec. 2.—Mrs. Parker[99] has just been telling me the beautiful story of 'Sister Marion's' labours in the cholera. Her real name was Miss Hughes. Mrs. P. was walking with her one day, when their notice was attracted by Greenford, the landlord of the Maidenhead inn, putting his beautiful little child on his great horse, while the child was laughing and shouting for joy. Next day they heard that the child was ill. Sister Marion went at once and nursed it till it died, and it was buried the same evening. Then came the rush of cholera. When any one was seized, they sent for Sister Marion—she rubbed them, watched them, prayed with them; no cases were too dreadful for her. She often had to put them in their coffins herself. When all were panic-stricken, she remembered everything. Mrs. Parker described one deathbed, where it required two men to hold a woman down in her agonies, and her shrieks and oaths were appalling. Little Miss Hughes came in, and taking both her hands, knelt down quietly by the side of the bed, and, though the doctors and others were standing round, began to pray aloud. Gradually the face of the woman relaxed, and her oaths ceased, though her groans were still fearful. At last Sister Marion said, 'Now your mind is easier, so you have more strength, and we can try to help your body;' and when she began the rubbings, &c., the woman took it quietly, and though she died that night, it was quite peacefully.
"Then the cholera camp was made. There was one house for the malignant cases, another for the convalescents, a third for the children of those taken or for those in whom there was reason to expect the disease to appear. Almost every nurse had to be dismissed for drunkenness; the people were almost alone, and the whole town seemed to depend on Sister Marion. Nine-tenths of those who took the cholera died. Mrs. P. took it herself, and was saved by constantly swallowing ice.
"I have just been to dine with the Master—a large party of undergraduates and very dull, the Master every now and then giving utterance to a solemn little proposition apropos of nothing at all—such as 'A beech-tree is a very remarkable tree, Mr. Hare'—'It is a very pleasant thing to ride in a fly, Mr. Bowden'—which no one attempted to contradict."
"Dec. 11.—Yesterday I went to the service at St. Thomas's, where three-fourths of the congregation were in mourning owing to the cholera. The sermon began with three strange propositions—1. That the reading of the Scriptures is not necessary to salvation. 2. That the Gospel consists not in the written Word, but in certain facts laid down and elucidated by the Church. 3. That the Scriptures ought not to be used as a means of converting the heathen. I suppose the sermon was directed against the Bible Society."
I insert a few paragraphs from my written winter-journal. They scarcely give an idea of the stagnation of our Hurstmonceaux life.
"Dec. 14.—A solemn tea-drinking of parish ladies at the Rectory. My mother very ailing with trembling, and almost deaf."
"Dec. 15.—A bitter drive to Hailsham through the bleak ugly lanes. Mother very poorly, and unable to show interest in or comprehension of anything. Entirely thrown on my own resources."
"Dec. 16.—Intense cold and misery at church. Ill with this, and felt the great usual Sunday want of anything to do, as I did not like even to open any book which might offend mother; but at last, finding 'Arnold's Life' would not be taken ill, settled to that. Mother not able to speak or hear; felt the great solitariness of loneliness not alone, and longed to have some friend who would enter into my odd little trials—surely singular at twenty—but I never have one."
"Dec. 17.—Bitter cold and a great gale. Siberia can scarcely be colder than Hurstmonceaux. Went by mother's wish to collect 'Missionary Pence' from the poor. No words can say how I hate this begging system, especially from the poor, who loathe it, but do not dare to refuse when 'the lady sends for their penny.' Sate a long time with Widow Hunnisett, and wondered how I shall ever endure it when I am in Orders, and have to sit daily in the cottages boring the people and myself."
At the end of December, partly probably in consequence of the cold to which I was constantly exposed, I became very ill with an agonising internal abscess, and though this eventually gave way to application of foxglove leaves (digitalis), just when a severe surgical operation was intended, I was long in entirely recovering. My mother's feeble powers, however, soon urged me to rouse myself, and, as soon as I could bring it about, to remove her to London, as Uncle Julius was failing daily, and I knew even then by experience how easily an invalid can bear a great sorrow which is unseen, while a great sorrow witnessed in all its harrowing incidents and details is often fatal to them.
JOURNAL.
"Jan. 1, 1855.—With mother to the Rectory this afternoon, wrapped up in the carriage. I went to Uncle Julius in his room. He does seem now most really ill: I have never seen him more so. He bemoaned his never being able to do anything now. Looking at his mother's picture[100] hanging opposite, he said what a treasure it was to him. His face quite lighted up when he saw my mother, but (naturally perhaps) he had not the slightest pleasure in seeing me, and his tone instantly altered as he turned to me from wishing her good-bye."
"Jan. 2.—Mother and I walked towards the school, but clouds gathering over the downs and level warned us home again. In the afternoon I was too ill to go out in the damp, but the crimson sunset cast beautiful gleams of light into the room, and mother went out to enjoy it in the garden."
"Jan. 3.—We accomplished a visit to the new school-mistress in the midst of her duties. A bright sunny spring morning, every little leaf looking up in gladness, and just that soft sighing breeze in the garden, with a freshness of newly-watered earth and dewy flowers, which is always associated with Lime in my mind. How beautiful—how peaceful—is our little home! Circumstances often prevent my enjoying it now, but if I left it, with what an intensity of longing love should I look back upon days spent here. In the afternoon I was very impatient of incessant small contradictions, and in the evening felt as if I had not been quite as loving or devoted to my mother as I might have been for the last few days—not throwing myself sufficiently into every little trivial interest of hers. Yet this I wish to do with all my heart; and as for her wishes, they ought to be not only fulfilled, but anticipated by me.... What I was reading in 'North and South' perhaps made me more sensitive, and caused me to watch my mother more intently this evening, and it struck me for the first time that she suffered when her cheek was so flushed and her eyes shut, and her hand moved nervously upwards. Perhaps it was only some painful thought, but it has often made me turn from my book to watch her anxiously when she was not looking."
"Jan. 4.—We drove along the Ninfield road, fresh and open, with the wind whistling through the oaktrees on the height, and then went to the Rectory. Mother went to Uncle Julius first, and then wished me to go. It was very difficult to find anything to say, for his illness had made him even more impatient than usual, at any word of mine, whatever it might be about."
When we went to the Stanleys' empty house in Grosvenor Crescent, we left Uncle Julius very feeble and ill at Hurstmonceaux. As soon as we reached London, my mother was attacked by severe bronchitis, and with this came one of her alarming phases of seeing endless processions passing before her, and addressing the individuals. Sometimes in the morning she was more worn than in the evening, having been what she called "maintaining conversation" all night long. In the hurry of after years, I have often looked back with surprise upon the stagnant lull of life in these winters, in which I scarcely ever left my mother, and, beyond chafing her limbs, reading to her, preparing remedies for all phases of her strange malady, scarcely did anything; yet always felt numb with fatigue when evening came, from the constant tension of an undivided anxiety. It was very severe weather, and if I was ever able to go out, it was for a rush up Piccadilly and Regent Street, where I always enjoyed even the sight of human movement amongst the shivering bluenosed people after the intensity of my solitude; for of visitors we had none except Lady Frances Higginson and her daughter Adelaide,[101] who came every morning to see my mother. At this time Henry Alford, afterwards Dean of Canterbury, was preaching at Quebec Chapel, and I used to go to hear him on Sundays.
JOURNAL.
"6 Grosvenor Crescent, Jan. 21.—The mother had fever again in the night, and told Lea in the morning that she had been in the Revelations, and she seemed indeed to have seen all that is there described. She has talked much since of the Holy City and the golden palace as of something she had looked upon. 'What a comfort it is,' she said, 'that my visions do not take me to Hurstmonceaux: I do not know how I could bear that.' It is indeed a comfort. She seems always only to see things most beautiful, and more of heaven than of earth.
"'After you left me last night,' she said, 'I heard on one side of my bed the most beautiful music. Oh, it was most beautiful! most grand!—a sort of military march it seemed—ebbing and rising and then dying softly and gently away. Then, on the other side of my bed, I saw an open cloister, and presently I saw that it was lined with charity-school children. By-and-by Charlotte came out amongst them. Now, I thought, I can see, by watching her, whether this is a picture or whether it is a reality: but, as my eyes followed her, she took out her handkerchief and did everything so exactly as Charlotte really does, that I felt sure it was a reality.'
"This morning, as I have been sitting by my mother, I have listened. As she lay dozing, she spoke in pauses—'I see the sea—It is a very misty morning, a very misty morning—There is a white boat tossing in the distance—It is getting black, it is so very misty—There is something coming—It is a great ship—They have put up a sail—It is very misty—Now I can scarcely see anything—Now it is all black.'"
"Jan. 23, 1855.—Before I was up, John came and said he thought there was a worse account from Hurstmonceaux. Soon Lea came, and I asked eagerly what it was. 'It is over. He is gone. The Archdeacon is dead!' One had always fancied one expected this, but the reality is a different thing—that he who had always in one way or another influenced daily thoughts and occupations had utterly passed out of one's life—would never influence it again.
"My mother was very calm. She had taken it quite quietly and laid down again to rest. When I went down, she cried, and also when Charlotte came, but she was calm beyond our hopes. It was a long painful day, in which it seemed almost sacrilegious to go about the ordinary work of life. Personally, however, I have only the regret for Uncle Julius which one feels for a familiar and honoured figure passing out of life. It is only 'a grief without a pang.'"[102]
"Jan. 29.—We reached home by midday. Mrs. Alexander came in the afternoon, and described his last words as 'Upwards—upwards.' In the evening Arthur Stanley and George Bunsen arrived."
"Jan. 30.—I went to the Rectory with Arthur at eleven.... In the midst of the library, amongst Uncle Julius's own books and papers, all that was mortal of him was once more present. It lay in a black coffin inscribed—'Julius Charles Hare. Born at Bologna. Died at Hurstmonceaux.' But his spirit?—how I wondered if it was present and saw us as we stood there.
"Through the open door of the drawing-room I saw all the bearers come in, in their white smock-frocks and crape bands, and go out again, carrying him for the last time over his own threshold. On, on they passed, into the snowy drive, with the full sunshine falling upon the pall, while the wind caught its white edges and waved them to and fro. Then some one called us, and I followed with Uncle Gustavus Hare immediately behind the coffin, six clergy who had been especially valued by Uncle Julius carrying the pall, and Arthur Stanley, Orby Shipley,[103] the Bishop of St. David's, and a number of other friends following, and then a long procession—clergy, schools, parishioners.
"On, down the shrubbery, with the snow still glittering on the evergreen leaves, to the gate, where many more people fell into the ranks behind. The wind was shrill and piercing, and, fresh from a sick-room, I felt numbed with the cold and fatigue. At Gardner Street all the shutters were shut, and the inmates of every house stood at their doors ready to join the procession. Amongst those waiting in front of the blacksmith's was old Edward Burchett. Strange to think that he should have known my great-grandfather, and lived in Hurstmonceaux Castle (where he was 'clock-winder') in its palmy days, and that he should be living still to see the last Hare 'of Hurstmonceaux' carried to his grave.
"More crowds of people joined from Windmill Hill and Lime Cross; it was as if by simultaneous movement the whole parish came forward to do honour to one who had certainly been as its father for twenty-two years. As the procession halted to change bearers at the bend of the road, I knew that my mother was looking out and could see it from her window. An immense body of clergy joined us at Hurstmonceaux Place, and many very old and familiar people—old Judith Coleman led by a little girl, old Pinnock on his crutches, and others. At the foot of the church hill three black-veiled figures—Aunt Esther and her sisters—were waiting.
"The effect was beautiful of passing through the churchyard with a pure covering of untrodden snow into the church lighted by full sunshine, and looking back and seeing the hill and the winding road filled with people as far as the eye could reach.
"The coffin was laid before the altar; the clergy and people thronged the church. I seemed to hear nothing but the voice of Arthur Stanley repeating the responses at my side.
"Then we went out to the grave. There, around the foot of the yew-tree, by the cross over the grave of Uncle Marcus, were grouped all the oldest people in the parish. Mr. Simpkinson read, the clergy standing around the open grave responded; and, as with one voice, all repeated the Lord's Prayer, which, broken as it was by sobs, had a peculiar solemnity, the words 'Thy will be done' bringing their own especial significance to many hearts."
The weeks which succeeded my uncle's funeral were occupied by hard work at the Rectory for his widow, chiefly making a catalogue of the fourteen thousand volumes in the library, which she gave for the most part to Trinity College. Uncle Julius had intended them as a provision for her, to whom he had very little money to bequeath; but she chose thus to dispose of them, and it was useless to contend with her. In the same way she decided upon giving away all the familiar pictures and sculptures, the former to the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge. My mother felt parting as I did with all these beautiful inanimate witnesses of our past lives—the first works of art I had known, the only ones which I then knew intimately. They have not been much valued at Cambridge, where the authorship of most of the pictures has been questioned; but whoever they were by, to us, who lived with them so much, they were always delightful.
JOURNAL.
"Feb. 14, 1855.—Mother and I were standing on the steps of the Rectory greenhouse when the carriage came to take me away (to return to Oxford). I shall always remember that last moment. The warm air fragrant with the flowers: the orange-trees laden with golden fruit: the long last look at the Roman senator and his wife sitting in their niche: at the Raffaelle, the Luini, the Giorgione—and then the place which had been the occasional interest and the constant misery of my childhood existed for me no longer."
To MY MOTHER (from Oxford).
"March 13.—Your letter was the first thing to greet the opening of my twenty-first year. Being of age is a great thing, I am told, but really it makes no difference to me. Only I hope that each year will help me to be more of a comfort and companion to you, and then there will be some good in growing old. In the evening my birthday was celebrated here by a 'wine,' at which there was a good deal of squabbling as to who should propose my health—the senior collegian, the senior scholar, or an old Harrovian; but it ended in the whole company doing it together, with great cheering and hurrahing, and then Coleridge proposed that they should give 'He's a jolly good fellow,' with musical honours—and a fine uproar there was. I had a number of charming presents from college friends—books, prints, and old china."
I was so anxious about my next public examination—"Moderations"—that, as my mother seemed then tolerably well, I had begged to be allowed to pass most of the Easter vacation in Oxford, studying uninterruptedly in the empty college. This examination was always the most alarming of all to me, as I had been so ill-grounded, owing to Mr. R.'s neglect, and grammar was the great requirement. Indeed, at more than double the age I was then, the tension and anxiety I was in often repeated itself to me in sleep, and I woke in an agony thinking that "Moderations" were coming on, and that I was not a bit prepared! One day, in the midst of our work, I went in a canoe down Godstowe river, accompanied by a friend (who had also "stayed up") in another canoe, as far as the ruin, and we dined at the little inn. The spring sun was peculiarly hot, and I remember feeling much oppressed with the smell of the weeds in the river, being very unwell at the inn, and reaching college with difficulty. Next day I was too ill to leave my bed, and when the doctor came he said I had the measles, which soon developed themselves (for the second time) with all violence. I was so ill, and so covered with measles, that the doctor said—the ground being deep in snow—that it was as much as my life was worth to get up or risk any exposure to cold. Ten minutes afterwards a telegram from Lime was given to me. It came from Mrs. Stanley (evidently already summoned), and bade me come directly—my mother was seriously ill.
My decision was made at once. If I exposed myself to the cold, I should perhaps die; but if I stayed still in the agony of anxiety I was in, I should certainly die. I sent for a friend, who helped me to dress and pack, summoned a fly and gave double fare to catch the next train. It was a dreadful journey. I remember how faint I was, but that I always sate bolt upright and determined not to give in.
I recollected that my mother had once said that if she were very ill, her cousin Charlotte Leycester must not be prevented coming to her. So as I passed through London I called for her, and we went on together. It was intensely cold, and my measles were all driven in; they never came out again—there was not time. There was too much to think of; I could not attend to myself, however ill I felt. I could only feel that my precious mother was in danger. John met me at the door of Lime—"You are still in time." Then Aunt Kitty and Lea came down, Lea very much overcome at seeing me—"I can bear anything now you are here."
My mother lay in still, deep stupor. She had not been well during the last days which Aunt Esther spent at the Rectory, feeling too acutely for her. When Aunt Esther left the Rectory finally and moved to Lime with Mrs. Alexander, my mother was ready to welcome them. But it was a last effort. An hour after they arrived she collapsed. From that time she had lain rigid for sixty hours: she seemed only to have an inner consciousness, all outward sense was gone. We knew afterwards that she would have spoken if she could—she would have screamed if she could, but she could not. Still Dr. Hale said, "Whilst that inner consciousness appears to last there is hope."
When I went to her, she lay quite still. Her face was drawn and much altered. There was no speculation in her eyes, which were glassy and fixed like stone. One cheek alone was flushed and red as vermilion. I went up. She did not notice me. There was no gleam, no significance, no movement, but when they asked if she knew I was come, she articulated "Yes."
I could not sleep at night and listened through the dressing-room wall. Suddenly I heard her cry out, and John Gidman stood by my bedside sobbing violently—"You must be told she is worse." I went into the room. She was in violent delirium. Aunt Kitty was trying to calm her with texts of Scripture; Lea was kneeling in her dressing-gown at the foot of the bed. I was determined she should not die. I felt as if I were wrestling for her life. I could not have spared her then. But God had mercy upon my agony. She became calmer. Suddenly, in the morning, as I was sitting by her, she said, "Augustus, fetch me a piece of bread." I did. She ate it. From that time gradually—very gradually—she dawned back into life from her sixty hours' trance, whilst I was watching over her every minute. Four days afterwards came Easter Eve. When I went in that morning, she was quite herself. "What a beautiful quiet morning," she said; "it is just such a day as Easter Eve ought to be. To me this is the most solemn day of all the year, for on it my Saviour was neither on earth nor in heaven, at least in his bodily form.... I am so glad that I learnt Wesley's hymn ("All blessing, glory, honour, praise") before I was ill: I can say it now." I see in my journal that on that afternoon of my darling mother's restoration I walked to the Rectory, and the garden was bright and smiling as ever, in the oak-walks it seemed as if the shadow of him who paced it so often must sometimes be walking still. There was no furniture left in the house except bookcases, and I was astonished then to realise for the first time how bare walls cannot speak to one; it is the objects which they have enclosed that have the human interest.
JOURNAL.
"April 8, 1855.—The mother has greeted me with 'A blessed Easter to you, darling—Christ is risen.' Last night tears came into her eyes as she remembered that Uncle Julius would never say those words to her again, but to-day she is bright and smiling, and the sunshine outside seems reflected from her. The others have been to church, so I have been alone most of the day in her sick-room."
"April 9.—In my mother's room most of the day. My Oxford work is sadly hindered; but that is not my first duty."
"April 14.—The dear mother came downstairs for the first time since her illness, and was delighted with the flowers—the heaths and cinerarias in the window recesses, and the masses of violets in the garden. There was much to be told that was new to her, of all that had happened since she went upstairs, but which had to be told very cautiously, for fear of over-excitement. Arthur Stanley, who has been here some days, examined me in my work, and in the afternoon we had a delightful walk through the woods to the farmhouse of the Hole."
"April 15.—Arthur preached in the church on the spies bringing back to the Israelites the fruits of the promised land—going on to describe how the fruits of our promised land were given us in the lives of those who were gone before—that these were the fruits of the Spirit spoken of in three verses of the Bible—verses better known perhaps and more loved than any others by the people of Hurstmonceaux. The first was written on the distant grave of one whom many of them had never seen, but whom all of them had heard of—Augustus, whose fruit was 'gentleness, and meekness, and long suffering.' The second was the verse inscribed on the older of the crosses under their own yew-tree: 'righteousness and truth' were the especial points which Marcus bore. The third was written on the latest and most loved cross: it told of 'wisdom'—that was Julius's fruit."
"April 16.—I left my darling mother to return to my work at Oxford. I remained with her till John tapped at the door to say the carriage was there. 'God bless you, my own darling—God bless you, dearest'—and I was gone, leaving my sweetest one looking after me with a smile upon her face. Oh, what a blessing it has been to leave her thus! How different this leaving Lime might have been, with no sense of home remaining, except in the shadow of the yew-tree and by the crosses in the churchyard!"
I might write of my mother as Chalmers of the Duchesse de Broglie: "Her prayers poured forth in her domestic circle, falling upon my ears like the music of Paradise, leave their fragrance behind them, and sweet is their remembrance."
On my way back to Oxford, I first saw the beautiful Empress Eugenie on her passage through London to Windsor with the Emperor Napoleon III. They had a most enthusiastic reception, the streets were thronged everywhere, and it was a very fine sight. Almost immediately after reaching college I was "in the Schools" for "Moderations," but did very well, as I had employed every available moment in preparing myself. Nevertheless, I was too anxious to go to fetch my own testamur, and vividly recall the feeling of ecstasy with which, from my high oriel window, I saw my friend Milligan come waving it round the corner of the High Street. A delightful feature of this term, which I always remember with pleasure, was an excursion by rail to Evesham and its abbey, just when the apple-orchards, with which the whole vale is filled, were in bloom like a great garden. As summer approached, we were frequently on the river. George Sheffield generally "punted" me, and Milligan floated alongside in a canoe. Another expedition of very great interest to me was that to Chalfont St. Giles in Buckinghamshire, where I saw the Vatche, the home of my great-great-grandfather, Bishop Hare, who married its heiress, a very attractive and charming place, which was sold by my great-grandfather. The "Hare Mausoleum," a hideous brick building, was then standing, attached to the church, and there Bishop Hare and many of his descendants were buried, the last funeral having been that (in 1820) of Anna-Maria Bulkeley, daughter of my grandfather's sister. The minute descriptions, with which I was familiar, in the letters of Bishop Hare and his widow, gave quite a historic charm to the scenes at Chalfont—the window where Mary Hare sate "in her great house, much too big and good for her, with as few servants as she could make shift with," and watched her "deare lord carried to church"—the steep lane down which the stately procession, in which "there were no bishops for pall-bearers because it was too cold for them to come into the country," passed with such difficulty—the manor pew, where Mary Margaret Hare complained over "Laurentia and all the troublesome little children"—the almshouses, built and endowed by the Robert Hare who married Miss Selman.
The installation of Lord Derby as Chancellor and the reception of Disraeli (then still a dandy in ringlets, velvet waistcoat, and prominent gold chains) made the "Commemoration" of this year especially exciting; though my pleasure in it was damped by the sudden news of the failure of Sir John Paul's[104] bank in the Strand, and fear for its effect upon my "real mother" and sister, who lost about two thousand a year by this catastrophe, though it was not this cause which involved them in the irretrievable ruin that afterwards befell them.
The longer I lived at Oxford, the more I learnt how little I could believe anything I heard there. Connected with a college of which many of the members belonged to the lower upper classes of society, I had peculiar opportunities for observing how often young men thought it worth while to pretend to a position and acquaintances which did not belong to them. One instance of this is too extraordinary to be omitted. From the very beginning of February, certain men in Hall (the great place for gossip and scandal) had spoken constantly of a certain Mrs. Fortescue, who had come to reside in Oxford, an exceedingly clever person and very highly connected. The subject did not interest me in the least, but still I heard of her so often, that I could not help being familiar with her name. Gradually her acquaintance seem to extend; men said, "I don't exactly know Mrs. Fortescue, but my family do"—or "my friend so and so means to introduce me," and so on. Mrs. Fortescue's witty sayings also were frequently repeated and commented upon. After some months it was said that Mrs. Fortescue was going to give a ball, for which there was anxiety to procure invitations—some men "had them, but did not mean to go,"—others were "sure to have them." As I did not wish to go, the subject was of very slight importance to me.
Within a week of the alleged date of Mrs. Fortescue's ball, my friend P. came late at night to see me. He said, "I have a dreadful thing to tell you. I have a secret to reveal at which you will be aghast.... I am Mrs. Fortescue!" Early in the year, observing how apt men were to assume intimacies which they did not possess, he and one or two other friends had agreed to talk incessantly of one person, a wholly imaginary person, and, while "making her the fashion," see if, very soon, a number of men would not pretend to be intimate with her. Dozens fell into the trap. In a certain class of men, every one was afraid of being behind his neighbour in boasting of an intimacy, &c., with one who was praised so highly. They even pretended to have received invitations to the imaginary ball. But the trick had assumed much greater dimensions than ever was intended at first; many people had been duped whose fury at the discovery would be a serious matter; many Oxford ladies had been asked to the ball, and, in fact, there was nothing to be done now but to go through with the whole drama to the end—the ball must take place! P. was quite prepared for the emergency of having to represent Mrs. Fortescue, but positively refused to go through it alone. His object was to implore me to help him out by appearing in some assumed character. This I for a long time refused, but at length assented to get up all the statistics of the neighbouring great house of Nuneham, and to arrive as Miss Harcourt, an imaginary niece of Lady Waldegrave, just come from thence. I was well acquainted with the best Oxford dressmaker, with whom one of my friends lodged, and she undertook to make my dress; while various styles of hair were tried by another person, who undertook that department, to see which produced the most complete disguise.
When the evening of the ball arrived, I took care to reach "Wyatt's Rooms" very early. Only a number of men and a very few ladies were there, when "Miss Harcourt—Miss Amy Leighton" were shouted up the staircase, and I sailed up (with another undergraduate, who represented my somewhat elderly companion) in a white tulle dress trimmed with a little gold lace and looped up with blue cornflowers, a wreath (wreaths were worn then) of the same, and a blue opera-cloak. Mrs. Fortescue, an elderly handsome woman, quite on the retour, dressed in crimson satin, came forward to meet me and kissed me on both cheeks, and I was introduced to a lady—a real lady—by whom I sate down. It is impossible to detail all the absurdities of the situation, all the awkward positions we were thrown into (Mrs. Fortescue had engaged her servants, being then in morning toilette, days before). Suffice it to say that the guests assembled, and the ball and the supper afterwards went off perfectly, and gave boundless satisfaction. I only refused to dance, pretending to have sprained my ankle in coming down in the train some days before; but I limped round the room on the arm of my own doctor (who never discovered me) between the dances, and examined the pictures on the walls. Mrs. Fortescue was inimitable. The trick was never discovered at the time, and would still be a secret, but that a friend, to whom I had revealed the story on promise of strict secrecy, repeated it long afterwards to P.'s elder brother. In June my mother visited me at Oxford, on her way to West Malvern, where we had delightful rooms overlooking the Herefordshire plains, in the house of "Phœbe Gale," who had long been a valued servant in the family. We much enjoyed delightful drives with the Leycesters in the neighbourhood; also frequently we went to see the Miss Ragsters, two remnants of one of the oldest families in Worcestershire, who, in a great age, were living, very poor, in a primitive farmhouse, with their one servant Betty—"the girl" they always called her, who still wore a pinafore, though she had been in their service forty-seven years. Their life had never varied: they had never seen a railway, and had never even been to Little Malvern. They gave a curious account of the poet Wordsworth coming to luncheon with them.
From Malvern I went to the Wye with Willie Milligan. "Never," as I wrote to my mother, "was there a companion so delightful, so amusing, so charming and good-natured under all circumstances—and his circumstances were certainly none of the most brilliant, as he lost all his luggage at the outset, and had to perform the whole journey with nothing of his own but a comb and a tooth-brush." Wherever we went, he made friends, retailing all the local information gained from one person to the next he met, in the most entertaining way. Especially do I remember one occasion at Chepstow. I was drawing the castle, surrounded by about a hundred little children, and he made himself so charming to them, and was so indescribably entertaining, that one after the other of the little things succumbed, till at last the whole party were rolling on the ground in fits of uncontrollable laughter. On this visit to Chepstow I remember the touching incident of our walking in the churchyard late at night, and seeing a woman bring a number of glow-worms to put upon her child's grave, that she might still see it from the window of her cottage. We saw Tintern, Raglan, Goodrich (the great collection of "Meyrick's Ancient Armour" was there then), and Ross, with its old market-house, still standing, owing to the recent defence of the market-women, who had positively refused to enter a new one which had been built for them. A shorter expedition from Malvern was one which I made with Emma Leycester to Worcester, which resulted in a story I published in a magazine years afterwards—"The Shadows of Old Worcester." In one of the passages of the china manufactory we saw a figure of "Tragedy"—a magnificently handsome woman with a wreath of laurel on her head. Was it Mrs. Siddons? "No," said the guide, "it was modelled from a poor girl who used to work here, and who was murdered by her lover last night."
From Malvern we drove through the rose-fringed lanes by Ledbury to Hereford, and then went to stay at Tickwood, in Shropshire, with my uncle's old friend Mr. Hull, and Mrs. Butler, my mother's early instructress, who lived there to take care of his only child by his second wife (Miss Rowe)—Rowna—whose great wealth was her only fault in her father's eyes. Afterwards we went to meet our old friends, the Tayleurs of Buntingsdale, at the quaint old Raven Inn at Shrewsbury, and thence proceeded to Llangollen and Valle Crucis. Plas Newydd, the house of "the ladies of Llangollen,"[105] was still in existence—a very ridiculous little place; and "the ladies" had had successors, Miss Andrews and Miss Lolly!—of whom Miss Lolly still survived. A beautiful varied drive by Corwen and Bettwys y Coed took us to the Penrhyn Arms at Capel Curig, where my mother had often been in her childhood, and where, at the bottom of the garden, is the noble view of Snowdon across lake and moorland, so well known from pictures innumerable. From Llanberis I ascended Snowdon, which in my recollection is—from its innate picturesqueness, not its views—the only mountain in Europe worth ascending, except Soracte. Afterwards we went to the William Stanleys[106] at Penrhôs in Anglesea, and it was a very pleasant visit, as Mrs. William Stanley was a most kind and amusing person, good-natured to young people, and exceedingly pleased with my delight over all she showed me, especially over the rocks—so glorious in colour—near the South Stack lighthouse. It recalls oddly the extreme poverty as to pocket-money in which I spent my youth, when I remember that the sum of £2 which my Aunt Lucy gave me at Penrhôs was at twenty-one the largest present in money that I had ever yet received in my life. I spent it in the purchase of Lord Lindsay's "Christian Art."
After visiting Penrhyn Castle, we went to take lodgings near the Albert Ways at Conway, of which I recollect nothing remarkable except the exemplification of "cast not your pearls before swine" in the frantic eagerness the pigs at Towen showed to get at the mussels from which the tiny pearls found there (and sold at two shillings an ounce) were being extracted by the pearl-fishers. Our next visit was to Bodelwyddelan, the fine place of Sir John and Lady Sarah Williams. We went afterwards to Alton Towers, Ham in Dovedale, Matlock, and Rowsley—whence I saw Chatsworth and spent several days in drawing the old courts of Haddon Hall.
All through the past winter the Crimean War had been an absorbing interest, people had sobbed in the churches when the prayer for time of war was read, and even those not immediately concerned had waited in agonised expectation for the news from the Alma, Inkermann, the Redan. While we were at Lichfield came the news of the capture of Sebastopol, announced by the bells of the cathedral, followed by all the churches, and every town and village became gay with flags from every window.
In returning home this year, I felt even more anxious than before to improve and educate myself, and always got up for the purpose as early as I could, recollecting how Chevalier Bunsen, by always getting up four hours before other people, made his year into sixteen months instead of twelve. Beginning to think of colour in sketching now tended to make me even more observant than I had been of the wonderfully artistic elements of the scenery around our home—the long lines of the levels with their fleeting shadows, the delicate softness of the distant downs, the trees embossed in their dark green against the burnt-up grass of the old deer-park.
JOURNAL.
"Sept. 24, 1855.—We have had a visit from Miss Rosam, the last of the old Sussex family who once lived at Lime. She said when she was here as a little child the old convent was still standing. She remembered the deep massive Saxon (?) archway at the entrance and the large dark hall into which it led.
"'Were there any stories about the place?' I asked.
"'Nothing but about the fish; of course you know that?'
"'No, I don't; do tell me.'
"'Well, I don't say that it's true, but certainly it is very generally believed that the whole of the great fish-ponds were once entirely filled with gold and silver fish, and the night my grandfather died all the fish died too. And then perhaps you do not know about the horse. My grandfather had a very beautiful horse, which he was very fond of, and though it was so old and infirm that it could scarcely drag its legs along, he would not have it made an end of, and it still remained in the field. But the night my grandfather died, a man saw the horse suddenly spring up and race at full gallop over the field, and at the moment my grandfather died the horse fell down and died too.'
"Just now we have a full moon, and the reflections in the pond are so clear that you can see the fish dance in the moonbeams. The mother says, 'It is difficult to realise that this same moon, ever serene and peaceful, is looking down upon all the troubles and quarrels of the earth.'"
"Sept. 29.—We came in the morning to Eastbourne, which is much altered and enlarged, only a few of the old familiar features left as landmarks—Sergeant Bruce's house, No. 13—O how I suffered there!—Miss Holland's, outside which I used to wait in my agonies of grief and rage—the beach where as a little child I played at building houses."
"Oct. 4.—In spite of threatening clouds, we drove to Wilmington, whence I walked with Mr. Cooper to Alfriston, a most wild out-of-the-way place, just suited for the beautiful 'effects' of Copley Fielding. The cruciform church, with its battered shingled spire, stands on a little hill, and, with a few wind-stricken trees around it, is backed by a hazy distance of downs, where the softest grey melts into the green. When we were there, all the clouds were tossed into wild forms, with only a gleam of frightened sunshine struggling through here and there."
"Oct. 7.—I fear I rather distressed mother to-day by reverting to the Rectory miseries, the recollection of which was aroused by finding an old journal. I will never do it again. My darling mother has been given back to me from the brink of the grave to love and to cherish, and, whatever it costs me, can I ever say anything to cause her even one flush of pain? My will is strong, I know, and it shall be exercised in always ignoring my own troubles and prejudices, and never forgetting to anticipate each thought, each wish of hers. Henceforward I am determined to have no separate identity, and to be only her reflection."
"Oct. 25.—Went to see old Mrs. Pinnock. She was lying on her rag-bed in her wretched garret, sadly changed now from the old woman who, two years ago, would go in the spring-time to Lime Wood that she might see the bluebells and listen to the nightingales. Now her old husband sate by, pointing at her worn, dying form, and exclaiming,'Poor cratur! poor cratur!' She fumbled her poor shrunken hands over the bedclothes and murmured, 'God bless you, sir; may God bless you.' They are probably the last words I shall ever hear from her, and she has always been an object of interest. As I read 'Shadows' this last evening to the mother, I could not help feeling how like some of them my own home reminiscences must some day become, so sad and so softened. But it is no use to think about the future, for which only God can arrange. 'Good-night, darling, comfort and blessing of my life,' mother said to me to-night. 'I will try not to be too anxious. May you be preserved, and may I have faith. Good-night, my own Birdie.'"
To MY MOTHER.
"Chartwell (Mr. Colquhoun's), Oct. 18, 1855.—This is a beautiful neighbourhood.... How every hour of the day have I thought of my sweetest mother, and longed to know what she was doing. We have been so much together this vacation, and so uncloudedly happy, that it is unnatural to be separate; but my darling mother and I are never away from one another in heart, though we so often are in body. And what a blessing it is for me to have left my mother so well, and to feel that she can still take so much interest and be so happy in the old home, and that I may go on cheerily with my Oxford work."
"Harrow, Oct. 11, 1855.—No one is here (with the Vaughans) except Mr. Munro, whom I find to be the author of 'Basil the Schoolboy,' which he declares to be a true picture of Harrow life in his time. A Mr. Gordon has called, who gave a most curious account of his adventures after having been at school here three days, and how his companions, having stoned their master's lapdog to death, forced him to eat it uncooked!"[107]
"Portishead, Nov. 10.—How often I have thought of my mother when sitting here in the little bow-window, surrounded by the quaint pictures and china, and the old furniture. Miss Boyle[108] is in her great chair, her white hair brushed back over her forehead. The Channel is a dull lead-colour, and the Welsh mountains are half shrouded in clouds, but every now and then comes out one of those long gleams and lines of light which are so characteristic of this place. The day I arrived, a worn-out clockmaker and a retired architect came to spend the evening and read Shakspeare, and Miss Boyle made herself quite as charming to them as she has doubtless been all summer to the archduchesses and princesses with whom she has been staying in Germany. The next day we went to Clevedon, and saw the old cruciform church above the sea, celebrated in 'In Memoriam,' where Arthur Hallam and his brothers and sisters are buried. From the knoll above was a lovely view of the church—immediately below was a precipice with the white breakers at the bottom, which beyond the church ripple up into two little sandy bays: in the distance, the Welsh mountains, instead of blue, were the most delicate green. We returned by Clapton, where, beside an ancient manor-house, is a little church upon a hill, with a group of old yew-trees."
"Oxford, Nov. 15.—On Monday, Miss Boyle came in my fly to Bristol, her mission being to break a man she had met with of drunkenness, having made a promise to his wife that she would save him. She said that she had shut herself up for hours in prayer about it, and that, though she did not know in the least how it was to be done, she was on her way to Bristol to do it. One day, as we were walking, we met a woman who knew that she had seen her in a drunken state. 'You will never speak to me again, ma'am,' said the woman; 'I can never dare see you again.'—'God forbid,' answered Miss Boyle. 'I've been as great a sinner myself in my time, and I can never forsake you because you've done wrong: it is more reason why I should try to lead you to do right.' I had an interesting day at Bath with dear old Mr. Landor, who sent his best remembrances to you—'the best and kindest creature he ever knew.'"
"Oxford, Nov. 21.—I have been dining at New College and drinking out of a silver cup inscribed—'Ex dono Socii Augustus Hare.'
"Yesterday I went to luncheon at Iffley with Miss Sydney Warburton, authoress of 'Letters to my Unknown Friends,' and sister of the Rector—a most remarkable and interesting person. She had been speaking of the study of life, when the door opened and a young lady entered. Miss Warburton had just time to whisper 'Watch her—she is a study indeed.' It was Mrs. Eliot Warburton, uninteresting in her first aspect, but marvellously original and powerful in all she said."
"Nov. 26.—I have been a long drive to Boarstall Tower, which is like an old Border castle, with a moat and bridge. It was defended during the Civil Wars by a Royalist lady, who, when starved out after some months' siege, made her escape by a subterranean passage, carrying off everything with her. Afterwards it was always in the hands of the Aubreys, till, in the last century, Sir Edward Aubrey accidentally poisoned his only and idolised son there. The old nurse imagined that no one knew what had happened but herself, and she spent her whole life in trying to prevent Sir Edward from finding out what he had done, and succeeded so well, that it was years before he discovered it. At last, at a contested election, a man in the opposition called out, 'Who murdered his own son?' which led to inquiries, and when Sir Edward found out the truth, he died of the shock.
"Mrs. Eliot Warburton and her sister-in-law have just been to luncheon with me in college, and I am as much charmed with them as before."
"Dec. 3.—I have been to spend Sunday at Iffley with the Warburtons."
I have inserted these notices of my first acquaintance with the Warburtons, because for some years after this they bore so large a share in all my interests and thoughts. Mrs. Eliot Warburton at that time chiefly lived at Oxford or Iffley with her two little boys. Her brother, Dr. Cradock, was Principal of Brazenose, and had married Miss Lister, the maid of honour, with whom I became very intimate, scarcely passing a day without going to Dr. Cradock's house. Miss Warburton died not long afterwards, but Mrs. Eliot Warburton became one of my dearest friends, and not mine only, but that of my college circle; for she lived with us in singular, probably unique intimacy, as if she had been an undergraduate herself. Scarcely a morning passed without her coming to our rooms, scarcely an afternoon without our walking with her or going with her on the river. It was a friendship of the very best kind, with a constant interchange of the best and highest thoughts, and her one object was to stimulate us onwards to the noblest aims and ambitions, though I believe she overrated us, and was mistaken in her great desire that her two boys should grow up like Sheffield and me. We gave her a little dog, which she called "Sheffie" after him. We often went to a distant wood together, where we spent whole hours amongst the primroses and bluebells or wandered amongst "the warm green muffled Cumnor hills," as Matthew Arnold calls them; in the evenings we frequently acted charades in Mrs. Cradock's house. Our intimacy was never broken while I stayed at Oxford. But I never saw my dear friend afterwards. In 1857 I heard with a shock of what it is strange that I had never for an instant anticipated—her engagement to make a second marriage. She wrote to tell me of it herself, but I never heard from her again. She had other children, girls, and a few years afterwards she died. Her death was the first great sorrow I had ever felt from death out of my own family. Her memory will always be a possession to me. I often saw her husband afterwards in London, but as I had never seen him with her, it is difficult for me to associate him with her in my mind.
JOURNAL.
"Lime, Dec. 23, 1855.—I have found such a true observation in 'Heartsease'—'One must humble oneself in the dust and crawl under the archway before one can enter the beautiful palace.' This is exactly what I feel now in waiting upon my mother. When sensible of being more attentive and lovingly careful than usual, I am, of course, conscious that I must be deficient at other times, and so that, while I fancy I do all that could be done, I frequently fall short. A greater effort is necessary to prevent my mind being even preoccupied when it is possible that she may want sympathy or interest, even though it may be in the very merest trifles.
"The dear mother says her great wish is that I should study—drink deep, as she calls it—in Latin and Greek, for the strengthening of my mind. It is quite in vain to try to convince her that college lectures only improve one for the worse, and that I might do myself and the world more good by devoting myself to English literature and diction, the one only thing in which it is ever possible that I might ever distinguish myself. Oh, how I wish I could become an author! I begin so now to thirst after distinction of some kind, and of that kind above all others: but I know my mind must receive quite a new tone first, and that my scattered fragments of sense would have to be called into an unanimous action to which they are quite unaccustomed.
"The Talmud says 'that there are four kinds of pupils—the sponge and the funnel, the strainer and the sieve; the sponge is he who spongeth up everything; and the funnel is he that taketh in at this ear and letteth out at that: the strainer is he that letteth go the wine and retaineth the dross; the sieve is he that letteth go the bran and retaineth the fine flour.' I think I have begun at least to wish to belong to the last.
"It has been fearfully cold lately, and it has told sadly upon the mother and has aged her years in a week. But she is most sweet and gentle—smiling and trying to find amusement and interest even in her ailments, and with a loving smile and look for the least thing done for her."
Soon after this was written we went to London, and the rest of the winter was spent between the house of Mrs. Stanley, 6 Grosvenor Crescent, and that of my Uncle Penrhyn at Sheen. At Grosvenor Crescent I often had the opportunity of seeing people of more or less interest, for my Aunt Kitty was a capital talker, as well as a very wise and clever thinker. She had "le bon sens à jet continu," as Victor Hugo said of Voltaire. She also understood the art of showing off others to the best advantage, and in society she never failed to practise it, which always made her popular; at home, except when Arthur was present, she kept all the conversation to herself, which was also for the best. Macaulay often dined with her, and talked to a degree which made those who heard him sympathise with Sydney Smith, who called him "that talking machine," talked of his "flumen sermonis," and declared that, when ill, he dreamt he was chained to a rock and being talked to death by Macaulay or Harriet Martineau. This year also I met Mrs. Stowe, whose book "Uncle Tom's Cabin" made at the time a more profound impression in England than any other book I ever remember. She was very entertaining in describing her Scotch visits. Inverary she had liked, but she declared with vehemence that she would "rather be smashed into triangles than go to Dunrobin again."
END OF VOL. I.
Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
Edinburgh and London
THE STORY OF MY LIFE
VOL. II
Maria Hare.BY
AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE
AUTHOR OF "MEMORIALS OF A QUIET LIFE,"
"THE STORY OF TWO NOBLE LIVES,"
ETC. ETC.
VOLUME II
LONDON
GEORGE ALLEN, 156, CHARING CROSS ROAD
1896
[All rights reserved]
Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
At the Ballantyne Press
| PAGE | |
| OXFORD LIFE | 1 |
| FOREIGN LIFE | 32 |
| WORK IN SOUTHERN COUNTIES | 130 |
| WORK IN NORTHERN COUNTIES | 259 |
| HOME LIFE WITH THE MOTHER | 367 |
| The illustrations may be viewed enlarged by clicking on them.
In order to ease the flow of reading, some of the illustrations have been moved to before or after the paragraph in which they appeared in the book. (note of etext transcriber) |
| MARIA HARE. From G. Canevari. (Photogravure) | Frontispiece |
| PAGE | |
| DRAWING-ROOM, LIME | 15 |
| FROM THE DEAN'S GARDEN, CANTERBURY | 24 |
| LA MADONNA DEI. SASSO, LOCARNO | 45 |
| IN S. APOLLINARE NUOVO, RAVENNA | 48 |
| LORETO | 51 |
| MACERATA | 53 |
| CIVITA CASTELLANA | 55 |
| VALMONTONE | 77 |
| ROCCA JANULA, ABOVE SAN GERMANO | 79 |
| CAPRI | 82 |
| PÆSTUM | 83 |
| VALLOMBROSA | 85 |
| AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE. From G. Canevari. (Photogravure) | To face 96 |
| PONTE ALLA MADDALENA, LUCCA | 96 |
| PIETRA SANTA | 102 |
| IL VALENTINO, TURIN | 107 |
| VILLAR, IN THE VAUDOIS | 110 |
| NOTRE DAME, PARIS | 117 |
| THE PONT NEUF, PARIS | 124 |
| PORT ROYAL | 126 |
| CATHERINE STANLEY. From E. U. Eddis. (Photogravure) | To face 132 |
| CANON STANLEY'S HOUSE, OXFORD | 136 |
| HODNET CHURCH | 159 |
| GIBSIDE | 181 |
| OLD BEECHES, HURSTMONCEAUX PARK | 227 |
| THE ABELES, LIME | 245 |
| MENTONE | 248 |
| GRIMALDI | 251 |
| DOLCEACQUA | 254 |
| PEGLIONE | 255 |
| VENTIMIGLIA | 257 |
| AT DURHAM | 262 |
| ON ALLEN WATER, RIDLEY HALL | 273 |
| FORD CASTLE, THE TERRACE | 281 |
| VIEW FROM HOLMHURST. (Full-page woodcut) | To face 286 |
| ENTRANCE TO HOLMHURST: "HUZ AND BUZ" | 287 |
| ALDERLEY CHURCH AND RECTORY | 293 |
| WARKWORTH, FROM THE COQUET | 352 |
| WINTON CASTLE | 355 |
| THE CHEVIOTS, FROM FORD | 361 |
| CARROZZA | 371 |
| ROMAN THEATRE, ARLES | 378 |
| HÔTEL DU MAUROY, TROYES | 379 |
| THE KING OF BOHEMIA'S CROSS, CRECY | 380 |
| S. FLAVIANO, MONTEFIASCONE | 386 |
| OSTIA | 391 |
| THEATRE OF TUSCULUM | 392 |
| AMALFI | 397 |
| COURMAYEUR | 410 |
| ANNE F. M. L. HARE. From G. Canevari. (Photogravure) | To face 416 |
| ARS | 421 |
| TOURS | 465 |
| AT ANGOULÊME | 467 |
| PAU | 471 |
| BÉTHARRAM | 481 |
| BIARRITZ | 489 |
| THE PAS DE ROLAND | 491 |
| S. EMILION CATHEDRAL DOOR | 494 |
| AMBOISE | 496 |
"A few souls brought together as it were by chance, for a short friendship and mutual dependence in this little ship of earth, so soon to land her passengers and break up the company for ever."—C. Kinsgley.
| "To thine own self be true, |
| And it must follow, as the night the day, |
| Thou canst not then be false to any man." |
| —Shakspeare, Polonius to Laertes. |
"IF you would escape vexation, reprove yourself liberally and others sparingly."—CONFUCIUS.
It was the third year of our Oxford life, and Milligan and I were now the "senior men" resident in college; we sat at one of the higher tables in hall, and occupied stalls in chapel. We generally attended lectures together, and many are the amusing tricks I recall which Milligan used to play—one especially, on a freshman named Dry—a pious youth in green spectacles, and with the general aspect of "Verdant Green." An undergraduate's gown is always adorned with two long strings behind; these strings of Dry, Milligan adroitly fastened to mine, and, inventing one excuse after another, for slipping round the room to open the door, shut a window, &c., he eventually had connected the whole lecture in one continuous chain; finally, he fastened himself to Dry on the other side; and then, with loud outcries of "Don't, Dry,—don't, Dry," pulled himself away, the result being that Dry and his chair were overturned, and that the whole lecture, one after another, came crashing on the top of him! Milligan would have got into a serious scrape on this occasion, but that he was equally popular with the tutors and his companions, so that every possible excuse was made for him, while I laughed in such convulsions at the absurdity of the scene, that I was eventually expelled from the lecture, and served as a scapegoat.
I think we were liked in college—Milligan much better than I. Though we never had the same sort of popularity as boating-men and cricketers often acquire, we afforded plenty of amusement. When the college gates were closed at night, I often used to rush down into Quad and act "Hare" all over the queer passages and dark corners of the college, pursued by a pack of hounds who were more in unison with the general idea of Harrow than of Oxford. One night I had been keeping ahead of my pursuers so long, that, as one was apt to be rather roughly handled when caught after a very long chase, I thought it was as well to make good my escape to my own rooms in the New Buildings, and to "sport my oak." Yet, after some time, beginning to feel my solitude rather flat after so much excitement, I longed to regain the quadrangle, but knew that the staircase was well guarded by a troop of my pursuers. By a vigorous coup d'état, however, I threw open my "oak," and seizing the handrail of the bannisters, slipped on it through the midst of them, and reached the foot of the staircase in safety. Between me and the quadrangle a long cloistered passage still remained to be traversed, and here I saw the way blocked up by a figure approaching in the moonlight. Of course it must be an enemy! There was nothing for it but desperation. I rushed at him like a bolt from a catapult, and by taking him unawares, butting him in the stomach, and then flinging myself on his neck, overturned him into the coal-hole, and escaped into Quad. My pursuers, seeing some one struggling in the coal-hole, thought it was I, and flung all their sharp-edged college caps at him, under which he was speedily buried, but emerged in time to exhibit himself as—John Conington, Professor of Latin!
Meantime, I had discovered the depth of my iniquity, and fled to the rooms of Duckworth, a scholar, to whom I recounted my adventure, and with whom I stayed. Late in the evening a note was brought in for Duckworth, who said, "It is a note from John Conington," and read—"Dear Duckworth, having been the victim of a cruel outrage on the part of some undergraduates of the college, I trust to your friendship for me to assist me in finding out the perpetrators," &c. Duckworth urged that I should give myself up—that John Conington was very good-natured—in fact, that I had better confess the whole truth, &c. So I immediately sat down and wrote the whole story to Professor Conington, and not till I had sent it, and it was safe in his hands, did Duckworth confess that the note he had received was a forgery, that he had contrived to slip out of the room and write it to himself—and that I had made my confession unnecessarily. However, he went off with the story and its latest additions to the Professor, and no more was said.
If Milligan was my constant companion in college, George Sheffield and I were inseparable out of doors, though I often wondered at his caring so much to be with me, as he was a capital rider, shot, oarsman—in fact, everything which I was not. I believe we exactly at this time, and for some years after, supplied each other's vacancies. It was the most wholesome, best kind of devotion, and, if we needed any ennobling influence, we always had it at hand in Mrs. Eliot Warburton, who sympathised in all we did, and who, except his mother, was the only woman whom I ever knew George Sheffield have any regard for. It was about this time that the Bill was before Parliament for destroying the privileges of Founder's kin. While it was in progress, we discovered that George was distinctly "Founder's kin" to Thomas Teesdale, the founder of Pembroke, and half because our ideas were conservative, half because we delighted in an adventure of any kind, we determined to take advantage of the privilege. Dr. Jeune, afterwards Bishop of Peterborough, was Master of Pembroke then, and was perfectly furious at our audacity, which was generally laughed at at the time, and treated as the mere whim of two foolish schoolboys; but we would not be daunted, and went on our own way. Day after day I studied with George the subjects of his examination, goading him on. Day after day I walked down with him to the place of examination, doing my best to screw up his courage to meet the inquisitors. We went against the Heads of Houses with the enthusiasm of martyrs in a much greater cause, and we were victorious. George Sheffield was forcibly elected to a Founder's-kin Scholarship at Pembroke, and was the last so elected. Dr. Jeune was grievously annoyed, but, with the generosity which was always characteristic of him, he at once accorded us his friendship, and remained my most warm and honoured friend till his death about ten years afterwards. He was remarkable at Oxford for dogmatically repealing the law which obliged undergraduates to receive the Sacrament on certain days in the year. "In future," he announced in chapel, "no member of this college will be compelled to eat and drink his own damnation."
In urging George Sheffield to become a scholar of Pembroke, I was certainly disinterested; without him University lost half its charms, and Oxford was never the same to me without "Giorgione"—the George of Georges. But our last summer together was uncloudedly happy. We used to engage a little pony-carriage at the Maidenhead, with a pony called Tommy, which was certainly the most wonderful beast for bearing fatigue, and as soon as ever the college gates were opened, we were "over the hills and far away." Sometimes we would arrive in time for breakfast at Thame, a quaint old town quite on the Oxfordshire boundary, where John Hampden was at school. Then we would mount the Chiltern Hills with our pony, and when we reached the top, look down upon the great Buckinghamshire plains, with their rich woods; and when we saw the different gentlemen's places scattered about in the distance, we used to say, "There we will go to luncheon"—"There we will go to dinner," and the little programmes we made we always carried out; for having each a good many relations and friends, we seldom found we had no link with any of the places we came to. Sometimes Albert Rutson would ride by the side of our carriage, but I do not think that either then or afterwards we quite liked having anybody with us, we were so perfectly contented with each other, and had always so much to say to each other. Our most delightful day of all was that on which we had luncheon at Great Hampden with Mr. and Lady Vere Cameron and their daughters, who were slightly known to my mother; and dined at the wonderful old house of Chequers, filled with relics of the Cromwells, the owner, Lady Frankland Russell, being a cousin of Lady Sheffield's. Most enchanting was the late return from these long excursions through the lanes hung with honeysuckle and clematis, satiated as we were, but not wearied with happiness, and full of interest and enthusiasm in each other and in our mutual lives, both past and present. One of the results of our frequent visits to the scenes of John Hampden's life was a lecture which I was induced to deliver in the town-hall at Oxford, during the last year of my Oxford life, upon John Hampden—a lecture which was sadly too short, because at that time I had no experience to guide me as to how long such things would take.
It was during this spring that my mother was greatly distressed by the long-deferred declaration of Mary Stanley that she had become a Roman Catholic.[109] A burst of family indignation followed, during which I constituted myself Mary's defender, utterly refused to make any difference with her, as well as preventing my mother from doing so; and many were the battles I fought for her.
A little episode in my life at this time was the publication of my first book—a very small one, "Epitaphs for Country Churchyards." It was published by John Henry Parker, who was exceedingly good-natured in undertaking it, for it is needless to say it was not remunerative to either of us. The ever-kind Landor praised the preface very much, and delighted my mother by his grandiloquent announcement that it was "quite worthy of Addison!"
At this time also my distant cousin Henry Liddell was appointed to the Deanery of Christ Church. He had previously been Headmaster of Westminster, and during his residence there had become celebrated by his Lexicon. One day he told the boys in his class that they must write an English epigram. Some of them said it was impossible. He said it was not impossible at all; they might each choose their own subject, but an epigram they must write. One boy wrote—
"Two men wrote a Lexicon,
Liddell and Scott;
One half was clever,
And one half was not.
Give me the answer, boys,
Quick to this riddle,
Which was by Scott
And which was by Liddell?"
Dr. Liddell, when it was shown up, only said, "I think you are rather severe."
As to education, I did not receive much more at Oxford this year than I had done before. The college lectures were the merest rubbish; and of what was learnt to pass the University examinations, nothing has since been of use to me, except the History for the final Schools. About fourteen years of life and above £4000 I consider to have been wasted on my education of nothingness. At Oxford, however, I was not idle, and the History, French, and Italian, which I taught myself, have always been useful.
To MY MOTHER.
"Oxford, Feb. 19, 1856.—Your news about dear Mary (Stanley) is very sad. She will find out too late the mistake she has made: that, because she cannot agree with everything in the Church of England, she should think it necessary to join another, where, if she receives anything, she will be obliged to receive everything. I am sorry that the person chosen to argue with her was not one whose views were more consistent with her own than Dr. Vaughan's. It is seldom acknowledged, but I believe that, by their tolerance, Mr. Liddell and Mr. Bennett[110] keep as many people from Rome as other people drive there. I am very sorry for Aunt Kitty, and hope that no one who loves her will add to her sorrow by estranging themselves from Mary—above all, that you will not consider her religion a barrier. When people see how nobly all her life is given to good, and how she has even made this great step, at sacrifice to herself, because she believes that good may better be carried out in another Church, they may pity her delusion, but no person of right feeling can possibly be angry with her. And, after all, she has not changed her religion. It is, as your own beloved John Wesley said, on hearing that his nephew had become a Papist—'He has changed his opinions and mode of worship, but has not changed his religion: that is quite another thing.'"
JOURNAL.
"Lime, March 30, 1856.—My mother and I have had a very happy Easter together—more than blessed when I look back at the anxiety of last Easter. Once when her bell rang in the night, I started up and rushed out into the passage in an agony of alarm, for every unusual sound at home has terrified me since her illness; but it was nothing. I have been full of my work, chiefly Aristotle's Politics, for 'Greats'—too full, I fear, to enter as I ought into all her little thoughts and plans as usual: but she is ever loving and gentle, and had interest and sympathy even when I was preoccupied. She thinks that knowledge may teach humility even in a spiritual sense. She says, 'In knowledge the feeling is the same which one has in ascending mountains—that, the higher one gets, the farther one is from heaven.' To-day, as we were walking amongst the flowers, she said, 'I suppose every one's impressions of heaven are according to the feeling they have for earthly things: I always feel that a garden is my impression—the garden of Paradise.' 'People generally love themselves first, their friends next, and God last,' she said one day. 'Well, I do not think that is the case with me,' I replied; 'I really believe I do put you first and self next.' 'Yes, I really think you do,' she said."
When I returned to Oxford after Easter, 1856, my pleasant time in college rooms was over, and I moved to lodgings over Wheeler's bookshop and facing Dr. Cradock's house, so that I was able to see more than ever of Mrs. Eliot Warburton. I was almost immediately in the "Schools," for the classical and divinity part of my final examination, which I got through very comfortably. While in the Schools at this time, I remember a man being asked what John the Baptist was beheaded for—and the answer, "Dancing with Herodias's daughter!" Once through these Schools, I was free for some time, and charades were our chief amusement, Mrs. Warburton, the Misses Elliot,[111] Sheffield, and I being the principal actors. The proclamation of peace after the Crimean War was celebrated—Oxford fashion—by tremendous riots in the town, and smashing of windows in all directions.
At Whitsuntide, I had a little tour in Warwickshire with Albert Rutson as my companion. We enjoyed a stay at Edgehill, at the charming little inn called "The Sun Rising," which overlooks the battlefield, having the great sycamore by its side under which Charles I. breakfasted before the battle, and a number of Cavalier arms inside, with the hangings of the bed in which Lord Lindsey died. From Edgehill I saw the wonderful old house of the Comptons at Compton-Whinyates, with its endless secret staircases and trap-doors, and its rooms of unplaned oak, evidently arranged with no other purpose than defence or escape. We went on to Stratford-on-Avon, with Shakspeare's tomb, his house in Henley Street, and the pretty old thatched cottage where he wooed his wife—Anne Hathaway. Also we went to visit Mrs. Lucy (sister of Mrs. William Stanley) at Charlecote, a most entertaining person, with the family characteristic of fun and goodhumour; and to Combe Abbey, full of relics of Elizabeth of Bohemia and her daughters, who lived there with Lord Craven. Many of the portraits were painted by her daughter Louisa. A few weeks later I went up to the Stanleys in London for the Peace illuminations—"very neat, but all alike," as I heard a voice in the crowd say. I saw them from the house of Lady Mildred Hope, who had a party for them like the one in Scripture, not the rich and great, but the "poor, maimed, halt, and blind;" as, except Aldersons and Stanleys, she arranged that there should not be a single person "in society" there.
JOURNAL.
"Lime, June 8, 1856.—I had found the dear mother in a sadly fragile state, so infirm and tottering that it is not safe to leave her alone for a minute, and she is so well aware of it, that she does not wish to be left. She cannot now even cross the room alone, and never thinks of moving anywhere without a stick. Every breath, even of the summer wind, she feels most intensely. '"The Lord establish, strengthen you," that must be my verse,' she says."
"June 15.—I am afraid I cannot help being tired of the mental solitude at home, as the dear mother, without being ill enough to create any anxiety, has not been well enough to take any interest, or have any share in my doings. Sometimes I am almost sick with the silence, and, as I can never go far enough from her to allow of my leaving the garden, I know not only every cabbage, but every leaf upon every cabbage."
"June 29.—We have been for a week with the Stanleys at Canterbury, and it was very pleasant to be with Arthur, who was his most charming self."
Early in July, I preceded my mother northwards, made a little sketching tour in Lincolnshire, where arriving with little luggage, and drawing hard all day, I excited great commiseration amongst the people as a poor travelling artist. "Eh, I shouldn't like to have such hard work as that on. Measter, I zay, I should'na like to be you."
At Lincoln I joined my mother, and we went on together to Yorkshire, where my friend Rutson lent us a charming old manor-house, Nunnington Hall near Helmsley, the centre of an interesting country, in which we visited the principal ruined abbeys of Yorkshire. My mother entirely recovered here, and was full of enjoyment. On our way to Harrogate, a Quakeress with whom we travelled persecuted me with "The Enquiring Parishioner on the Way to Salvation," and then, after looking at my sketches, hoped that "one so gifted was not being led away by Dr. Pusey!" At Bolton we stayed several days at the Farfield Farm, and thence drove through Swale Dale to Richmond. On our way farther north, I paid my first visit to my cousins at Ravensworth, and very alarming I thought it; rejoining my mother at Warkworth, a place I have always delighted in, and where Mrs. Clutterbuck[112] and her daughters were very kind to us. More charming still were the next few days spent with my kind old cousin Henry Liddell (brother-in-law of my Aunt Ravensworth) in Bamborough Castle.
We visited Dryburgh and Jedburgh, and the vulgar commonplace villa, with small ill-proportioned rooms looking out upon nothing at all, out of which Sir Walter Scott created the Abbotsford of his imagination. Charlotte Leycester having joined us, I left my mother at the Bridge of Allan for a little tour, in the first hour of which I, Italian-fashion, made a friendship with one with whom till her death I continued to be most intimate.
To MY MOTHER.
"Tillycoultry House, August 12, 1856.—My mother will be surprised that, instead of writing from an inn, I should date from one of the most beautiful places in the Ochils, and that I should be staying with people whom, though we met for the first time a few hours ago, I already seem to know intimately.
"When I left my mother and entered the train at Stirling, two ladies got in after me; one old, yellow, and withered; the other, though elderly, still handsome, and with a very sweet interesting expression. She immediately began to talk. 'Was I a sportsman?'—'No, only a tourist.'—'Then did I know that on the old bridge we were passing, the Bishop of Glasgow long ago was hung in full canonicals?' And with such histories the younger of the two sisters, in a very sweet Scottish accent, animated the whole way to Alloa. Having arrived there, she said, 'If we part now, we shall probably never meet again: there is no time for discussion, but be assured that my husband, Mr. Dalzell, will be glad to see you. Change your ticket at once, and come home with me to Tillycoultry.' And ... I obeyed; and here I am in a great, old, half-desolate house, by the side of a torrent and a ruined churchyard, under a rocky part of the Ochils.
"Mr. Dalzell met us in the avenue. He is a rigid maintainer of the Free Kirk, upon which Mrs. Huggan (the old sister) says he spends all his money—about £18,000 a year—and he is very odd, and passes three-fourths of the day quite alone, in meditation and prayer. He has much sweetness of manner in speaking, but seems quite hazy about things of earth, and entirely rapt in prophecies and thoughts either of the second coming of Christ or of the trials of the Kirk part of his Church on earth.
"Mrs. Dalzell is quite different, truly, beautifully, practically holy. She 'feels,' as I heard her say to her sister to-night, 'all things are wrapt up in Christ.' The evening was very long, as we dined at four, but was varied by music and Scotch songs.
"The old Catholic priest who once lived here cursed the place, in consequence of which it is believed that there are—no little birds!"
"Dunfermline, August 13.—This morning I walked with Mr. Dalzell to Castle Campbell—an old ruined tower, on a precipitous rock in a lovely situation surrounded by mountains, the lower parts of which are clothed with birch woods. Inside the castle is a ruined court, where John Knox administered his first Sacrament. On the way we passed the little burial-ground of the Taits, surrounded by a high wall, only open on one side, towards the river Devon."
"Falkland, August 14.—After drawing in beautiful ruined Dunfermline, I drove to Kinross, and embarked in the 'Abbot' for the castle of Loch Leven, which rises on its dark island against a most delicate distance of low mountains.... There is a charming oldfashioned inn here, and a beautiful old castle, in one of the rooms of which the young Duke of Rothesay was starved to death by his uncle."
"St. Andrews, August 15.—This is a glorious place, a rocky promontory washed by the sea on both sides, crowned by Cardinal Beaton's castle, and backed by a perfect crowd of ecclesiastical ruins. The cathedral was the finest in Scotland, but destroyed in one day by a mob instigated by John Knox, who ought to have been flayed for it. Close by its ruins is a grand old tower, built by St. Regulus, who 'came with two ships' from Patras, and died in one of the natural caves in the cliff under the castle. In the castle itself is Cardinal Beaton's dungeon, where a Lord Airlie was imprisoned, and whence he was rescued by his sister, who dressed him up in her clothes."
"Brechin, August 17.—The ruin of Arbroath (Aberbrothock) is most interesting. William the Lion is buried before the high altar, and in the chapter-house is the lid of his coffin in Scottish marble, with his headless figure, the only existing effigy of a Scottish king. In the chapter-house a man puts into your hand what looks like a lump of decayed ebony, and you are told it is the 'blood, gums, and intestines' of the king. You also see the skull of the Queen, the thigh-bone of her brother, and other such relics of royalty. Most beautiful are the cliffs of Arbroath, a scene of Scott's 'Antiquary.' From a natural terrace you look down into deep tiny gulfs of blue water in the rich red sandstone rock, with every variety of tiny islet, dark cave, and perpendicular pillar; and, far in the distance, is the Inchcape Rock, where the Danish pirate stole the warning bell, and was afterwards lost himself; which gave rise to the ballad of 'Sir Patrick Spens.' The Pictish tower here is most curious, but its character injured by the cathedral being built too near."
I have an ever-vivid recollection of a most piteous Sunday spent in the wretched town of Brechin, with nothing whatever to do, as in those days it would have made my mother too miserable if I had travelled at all on a Sunday—the wretched folly of Sabbatarianism (against which our Saviour so especially preached when on earth) being then rife in our family, to such a degree, that I regard with loathing the recollection of every seventh day of my life until I was about eight-and-twenty.[113] After leaving Brechin, I saw the noble castle of Dunottar, and joined my mother at Braemar, where we stayed at the inn, and Charlotte Leycester at a tiny lodging in a cottage thatched with peat. I disliked Braemar extremely, and never could see the beauty of that much-admired valley, with its featureless hills, half-dry river, and the ugly castellated house of Balmoral. Dean Alford and his family were at Braemar, and their being run away with in a carriage, our coming up to them, our servant John stopping their horses, the wife and daughters being taken into our carriage, and my walking back with the Dean, first led to my becoming intimate with him. I remember, during this walk, the description he gave me of the "Apostles' Club" at Cambridge, of which Henry Hallam was the nucleus and centre, and of which Tennyson was a member, but from which he was turned out because he was too lazy to write the necessary essay. Hallam, who died at twenty-two, had "grasped the whole of literature before he was nineteen." The Alfords were travelling without any luggage, and could consequently walk their journeys anywhere—that is, each lady had only a very small hand-bag, and the Dean had a walking-stick, which unscrewed and displayed the materials of a dressing-case, a pocket inkstand, and a candlestick.
On our way southwards I first saw Glamis. I did not care about the places on the inland Scottish lakes, except Killin, where our cousin Fanny Tatton and her friend Miss Heygarth joined us, and where we spent some pleasant week-days and a most abominable Sunday. We afterwards lingered at Arrochar on Loch Long, whither Aunt Kitty and Arthur Stanley came to us from Inverary. We returned to Glasgow by the Gareloch, which allowed me to visit at Paisley the tomb of my royal ancestress, Marjory Bruce. At Glasgow, though we were most uncomfortable in a noisy and very expensive hotel, my mother insisted upon spending a wretched day, because of—Sunday! We afterwards paid pleasant visits at Foxhow and Toft, whence I went on alone to Peatswood in Shropshire (Mr. Twemlow's), and paid from thence a most affecting visit to our old home at Stoke, and to Goldstone Farm, the home of my dear Nurse Lea. Hence I returned with Archdeacon and Mrs. Moore to Lichfield, and being there when the grave of St. Chad was opened, was presented with a fragment of his body—a treasure inestimable to Roman Catholics, which I possess still.
During the remaining weeks of autumn, before I returned to Oxford, we had many visitors at Lime, including my new friend Mrs. Dalzell, whose goodness and simplicity perfectly charmed my mother.
We passed the latter part of the winter between the Penrhyns' house at Sheen, Aunt Kitty's house of 6 Grosvenor Crescent, and Arthur Stanley's Canonry at Canterbury. With Arthur I dined at the house of Mr. Woodhall, a Canterbury clergyman, now a Roman Catholic priest, having been specially invited to meet (at a huge horseshoe table) "the middle classes"—a very large party of chemists, nurserymen, &c., and their wives, and very pleasant people they were. I used to think Canterbury perfectly enchanting, and Arthur was most kind and charming to me. While there, I remember his examining a school at St. Stephen's, and asking the meaning of bearing false witness against one's neighbour—"When nobody does nothing to nobody," answered a child, "and somebody goes and tells."
In returning to Oxford in 1857, I terribly missed my constant companions hitherto—Milligan and Sheffield, who had both left, and, except perhaps Forsyth Grant, I had no real friends left, though many pleasant acquaintances, amongst whom I had an especial regard for Tom Brassey, the simple, honest, hardworking son of the great contractor and millionaire—afterwards my near neighbour in Sussex, whom I have watched grow rapidly up from nothing to a peerage, with only boundless money and common-sense as his aides-de-camp. The men I now saw most of were those who called themselves the δωδεκα—generally reputed "the fast men" of the college, but a manly high-minded set of fellows. Most of my time was spent in learning Italian with Count Saffi, who, a member of the well-known Roman triumvirate, was at that time residing at Oxford with his wife, née Nina Crauford of Portincross.[114] I was great friends with this remarkable man, of a much-tried and ever-patient countenance, and afterwards went to visit him at Forli. I may mention Godfrey Lushington (then of All Souls) as an acquaintance of whom I saw much at this time, and whom I have always liked and respected exceedingly, though our paths in life have not brought us often together since. It was very difficult to distinguish him from his twinbrother Vernon; indeed, it would have been impossible to know them apart, if Vernon had not, fortunately for their friends, shot off some of his fingers.
In March (1857) I was proud to receive my aunt, Mrs. Stanley, with all her children, Mrs. Grote, and several others, at a luncheon in my rooms in honour of Arthur Stanley's inaugural lecture as Professor of Ecclesiastical History, in which capacity his lectures, as indeed all else concerning him, were subjects of the greatest interest to me, my affection for him being that of a devoted younger brother.
I was enchanted with Mrs. Grote, whom De Tocqueville pronounced "the cleverest woman of his acquaintance," though her exterior—with a short waist, brown mantle of stamped velvet, and huge bonnet, full of fullblown red roses—was certainly not captivating. Sydney Smith always called her "Grota," and said she was the origin of the word grotesque. Mrs. Grote was celebrated for having never felt shy. She had a passion for discordant colours, and had her petticoats always arranged to display her feet and ankles, of which she was excessively proud. At her own home of Burnham she would drive out with a man's hat and a coachman's cloak of many capes. She had an invalid friend in that neighbourhood, who had been very seriously ill, and was still intensely weak. When Mrs. Grote proposed coming to take her for a drive, she was pleased, but was horrified when she saw Mrs. Grote arrive in a very high dogcart, herself driving it. With great pain and labour she climbed up beside Mrs. Grote, and they set off. For some time she was too exhausted to speak, then she said something almost in a whisper. "Good God! don't speak so loud," said Mrs. Grote, "or you'll frighten the horse: if he runs away, God only knows when he'll stop."
On the occasion of this visit at Oxford, Mrs. Grote sat with one leg over the other, both high in the air, and talked for two hours, turning with equal facility to Saffi on Italian Literature, Max Müller on Epic Poetry, and Arthur on Ecclesiastical History, and then plunged into a discourse on the best manure for turnips and the best way of forcing Cotswold mutton, with an interlude first upon the "harmony of shadow" in watercolour drawing, and then upon rat-hunts at Jemmy Shawe's—a low public-house in Westminster. Upon all these subjects she was equally vigorous, and gave all her decisions with the manner and tone of one laying down the laws of Athens. She admired Arthur excessively, but was a capital friend for him, because she was not afraid of laughing—as all his own family were—at his morbid passion for impossible analogies. In his second lecture Arthur made a capital allusion to Mr. Grote, while his eyes were fixed upon the spouse of the historian, and when she heard it, she thumped with both fists upon her knees, and exclaimed loudly, "Good God! how good!" I did not often meet Mrs. Grote in after life, but when I did, was always on very cordial terms with her. She was, to the last, one of the most original women in England, shrewd, generous, and excessively vain. I remember hearing that when she published her Life of her husband, Mr. Murray was obliged to insist upon her suppressing one sentence, indescribably comic to those who were familiar with her uncouth aspect. It was—"When George Grote and I were young, we were equally distinguished by the beauty of our persons and the vivacity of our conversation!" Her own true vocation she always declared was that of an opera-dancer.
Arthur Stanley made his home with me during this visit to Oxford, but one day I dined with him at Oriel, where we had "Herodotus pudding"—a dish peculiar to that college.
JOURNAL.
"Lime, Easter Sunday, April 12, 1857.—I have been spending a happy fortnight at home. The burst of spring has been beautiful—such a golden carpet of primroses on the bank, interspersed with tufts of still more golden daffodils, hazels putting forth their fresh green, and birds singing. My sweet mother is more than usually patient under the trial of failure of sight—glad to be read to for hours, but contented to be left alone, only saying sometimes—'Now, darling, come and talk to me a little.' On going to church this morning, we found that poor Margaret Coleman, the carpenter's wife, had, as always on this day, covered Uncle Julius's grave with flowers. He is wonderfully missed by the people, though they seldom saw him except in church; for, as Mrs. Jasper Harmer said to me the other day, 'We didn't often see him, but then we knew he was always studying us—now wasn't he?'"
A subject of intense interest after my return to Oxford was hearing Thackeray deliver his lectures on the Georges. That which spoke of the blindness of George III., with his glorious intonation, was indescribably pathetic. It was a great delight to have George Sheffield back and to resume our excursions, one of which was to see the May Cross of Charlton-on-Ottmoor, on which I published a very feeble story in a magazine; and another to Abingdon, where we had luncheon with the Head-master of the Grammar School, who, as soon as it was over, apologised for leaving us because he had got "to wallop so many boys." All our visits to Abingdon ended in visits to the extraordinary old brothers Smith, cobblers, who always sat cross-legged on a counter, and always lived upon raw meat. We had heard of their possession of an extraordinary old house which no one had entered, and we used to try to persuade them to take us there; but when we asked one he said, "I would, but my brother Tom is so eccentric, it would be as much as my life is worth—I really couldn't;" and when we asked the other he said, "I would, but you've no idea what an extraordinary man my brother John is; he would never consent." However, one day we captured both the old men together and over-persuaded them (no one ever could resist George), and we went to the old house, a dismal tumble-down building, with shuttered windows, outside the town. Inside it was a place of past ages—old chairs and cupboards of the sixteenth century, old tapestries, and old china, but all deep, deep in dust and dirt, which was never cleaned away. It was like the palace of the Sleeping Beauty after the hundred years' sleep. I have several pieces of china out of that old house now—"Gris de Flandres ware."
In June I made a little tour, partly of visits, and from Mrs. Vaughan's house at Leicester had an enchanting expedition to Bradgate, the ruined home of Lady Jane Grey, in a glen full of oaks and beeches of immense age.
In my final (History and Law) Schools I had passed with great ease, and had for some time been residing at Oxford as a Bachelor, having taken my degree. But as one friend after another departed, the interest of Oxford had faded. I left it on the 13th of June 1857, and without regret.
"Under the arch of Life, where love and death,
Terror and mystery, guard her shrine, I saw
Beauty enthroned; and though her gaze struck awe,
I drew it in as simply as my breath."—ROSSETTI.
"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."—HAMERTON, French and English.
"WHO thinks the story is all told at twenty? Let them live on and try."—Hitherto.
In June 1857 we left Lime for a long residence abroad. My mother's doctors had declared that being thoroughly imbued with heat in a warm climate was the only way in which her health could be permanently benefited. It was a journey so long prepared for by historical studies, that I imagine few people have gone to Italy with a more thorough knowledge of what they would find there than we possessed.
We took our two old servants, Lea and John (Gidman), abroad with us, and Charlotte Leycester accompanied us to Lucerne, where the family was established for the hot summer months at the Pension Faller, which stands at the end of a long green terrace behind the cathedral cloisters, with a glorious view of Mont Pilate and all the range of mountains on the other side of the lake. George Sheffield came out to Lucerne to accompany me thence to Austria; but as he was very young at the time, and his college examinations were not over, we had to gain his parents' consent to this project by consenting to his having a tutor, and chose for this purpose our common acquaintance Robinson Duckworth, afterwards tutor to Prince Leopold. The arrangement did not answer, though it must be confessed that we treated Duckworth very ill, and were always playing him tricks. One night at Linz, for instance, we were greatly annoyed by finding he would have to sleep in our room, which was a very large one. He went out to listen to the band in the evening, and we spent the time of his absence in drawing the third bed into the middle of the room, and arranging it like a kind of catafalque, with lighted candles at the four corners. We then went to bed ourselves and pretended to be deep in slumber. When Duckworth came in, though two people could just manage to move the heavy bed to its pedestal, it was quite impossible for him alone to move it back again, and he was obliged to go to bed upon it—and most absurd he looked in the morning. I do not think he ever quite forgave us for this trick.
To MY MOTHER.
"Constance, July 24.—The Falls of Schaffhausen, with the dashing and roaring emerald water, were quite glorious. We came here from thence by steamer—the entrance to Constance very lovely, and the distant Alps lighted with the most delicate pink hues of sunset. The inn is close to the lake-pier and to the old Council-house. We have walked to the field at Bruhl where Huss was burnt, and since then Duckworth has been serenading the nuns of a Franciscan convent under their windows with airs out of 'Don Giovanni.'"
"July 26.—We were called at four, and my companions went out fishing, and returned dragging an immense pike which they had caught. Meanwhile I had seen the Minster and drawn the Kauf-haus, and was ready to leave with them at nine. We had a delicious journey across the still lake, Sheffield and I sitting quite down in the bow of the boat, where we had nothing before us but the soft blue lake and distant snows, and where we cut through air and water at the same time."
"July 29.—Yesterday we embarked at Donauwörth on the Danube steamer—crowded, filthy, and ceaselessly vibrating—the river the colour of pea-soup, with sandbanks on which we stuck every five minutes. There was no relief to the hideous monotony of the nine hours' voyage, the blackened swamps only changing into barren sandhills, on which a few ragged hops were vainly struggling for existence. But to-day in grand old Ratisbon has made up for yesterday's sufferings. Sheffield and I had great fun in making an expedition to the palace of the Prince of Thurm and Taxis. Numbers of people were out, and we discovered it was to greet the two young princes, who were to return that day from their travels: so we represented them, bowed to the right and left all through the street, and finally being set down at the palace, escaped into the garden and out the other way: what became of the real princes we have not heard. After all our audacity and impertinence in pushing through the Prince's courtyard and intruding upon his garden, we were rather touched by coming upon a placard inscribed—'The possessor of this garden, who has nothing nearer his heart than the promotion of universal pleasure, bids you—welcome!'"
"August 1.—In early morning we were on board the Danube steamer. Immediately after, three very common-looking men came on board by a boat, and descended at once to the cabin. Soon a neighbour whispered that one of them was the Archduke Albrecht, Governor of Hungary,—and behold, in a few minutes the three strangers emerged, dressed in gorgeous uniforms and glittering with orders.... All along the shore were crowds of bowing and curtseying people. At the hotel at Linz the Archduchess and her two daughters were waiting for the Archduke on the balcony of the inn; and their presence brought a splendid band under the window in the evening. This morning the whole family came on board, amid guns firing and crowds of people, to whom we thought the Archduchess would have bowed her head off. The presence of royalties gave us a better steamer, and before reaching Vienna the scenery of the Danube improved, especially at the rocks and castle of Dürnstein, where Richard Cœur-de-Lion was imprisoned."
"August 4.—Vienna would be delightful if it were not for the heat, but the grass is all burnt brown, and the trees almost black. Sheffield and I have driven to the old convent called Klosterneuburg, and in returning saw at Nussdorf the arrival of the Archduke Maximilian and his lovely wife,[115] radiant, unaffected, captivating all who saw her."
"August 6.—We have been to the country-palace of Laxenburg—a terrible drive in a sirocco, which made both Sheffield and me as ill as a sea-voyage. Laxenburg was the palace of Maria Theresa, and has an English park, only the grounds are full of gothic temples, &c., and an imitation dungeon fortress, with an imitation prisoner in it, who lifts his hands beseechingly and rattles his chains as you approach. Princess Charlotte was to have her first meeting with all the imperial family in the afternoon, and we waited for the public appearance of the royalties after dinner. We saw them emerge from the palace, and then ran down to the lake to see them embark. The imperial party arrived in carriages at the water's edge, and were set down under some old plane-trees, where their barges were ready, with rowers in sailors' dresses. First came the Empress, looking very lovely and charming, bowing her way to her own boat, which was distinguished by its blue cloth linings. Then came the Emperor, running as hard as he could, to be in time to hand her in: then sweet-looking Princess Charlotte, with a radiantly happy and not at all a shy expression; the mother of the Empress; Princess Marguerite; the Queen of Saxony; and the Archduchess Albrecht. All these entered the imperial boat, which was followed by another with three old countesses, and then all the court ladies in other boats. The Emperor and the Archdukes Leopold and Heinrich rowed themselves. There could hardly be a prettier scene—no crowd, no staring, and sunset on the water as the little fleet glided in among the cypress-covered islets. The last I saw of them was one of the princesses seizing hold of the old countesses' boat, and rocking it violently to give them a good fright.
"Throughout our travels we have perpetually fallen in with two solitary ladies. Yesterday one of them said to Duckworth, 'I beg your pardon, perhaps I ought not to ask, but the melancholy gentleman (meaning me) must have had a very severe disappointment; was it recent?—he seems to take on very much. Well, my idea is one must always be crossed three times before love runs smooth.' Duckworth asked where they were going. 'Oh, where is it?' said the younger lady; 'I quite forget the name of the place; something very long, I know.'—'Oh, Constantinople, my dear, that's the name, and then we go to a place they call Smyrna, and then to Algeria; for you see we've been to Rome and Naples, and if you don't mind travelling, it's just the same thing whether you go to one place or another.'"
"Aussee in Styria, August 8.—The last thing Sheffield and I did together was to go to the Capuchin vault, where all the sovereigns of the House of Hapsburg lie in gorgeous sarcophagi and coffins: amongst them Maria Theresa, and the husband by whose grave she came to pray every Friday in this dark vault. In one corner was the little Archduchess Sophia, only dead two months, her coffin heaped still with the white garlands deposited by her father and mother, who—are out of mourning for her.
"After parting with my companions, I went by train to Modling, and drove through the Wienerwald to Heiligenkreutz,[116] a gigantic monastery on the edge of a perfectly desolate moor, but in itself magnificent, with a quadrangle larger than 'Tom Quad' at Oxford. Daylight was waning, and I hastened to get the Sacristan to show me the 'Heilige Partikel,' which is kept in a venerable old leather case, and set in a huge golden cross covered with jewels. There are beautiful cloisters, and several chapels of the fourteenth century, and in one of them a fountain, so large that its sound is that of a waterfall. From Baden I crossed the Simmering pass to Bruck-an-der-Mur. Here all the travellers who descended from the train drew diligence tickets by turns, and as mine was only No. 11, I came in for the rickety board by the driver! What a road it was, in which the heavy wheels alternately sank into quagmires of deep mud, or jolted over the piles of stones which were thrown down to fill them up. The dank marshy plain was covered with driving white fog, from which one could only take refuge in the fumes of bad tobacco around one.
"When at length it was my turn to change, it was into an old car with leathern curtains, and horses so feeble that the passengers were obliged to get out and plod through the thick mud at every incline. I had a German companion, who smoked all night in my face.
"All through the night a succession of these cars was kept up, the company being turned out every two hours in some filthy village street, while another wretched old carriage was searched for and brought out. The taverns at which we stopped were most miserable. In the only one I entered the old landlady came out in her nightgown, and seizing my straw hat from my head, placed it on the top of her own top-knot, exclaiming, 'Schöne Strohhut.' Not till midday did we arrive here, and then found the inn full and the hills shrouded in mist—the 'Mountains of the Dead,' as the surroundings of this lonely lake are called, appalling in their white winding-sheets."
"Salzburg, August 14.—During my first days in the Salzkammergut, I might have been inside a kitchen boiler, so thick and white was the steam. But the landlord at Ischl said it was not likely to clear, and, wearied of waiting and longing to see something, I went off to the Traunsee, where, to my surprise, the mist suddenly gave way, the sun appeared, and in a few minutes the heavy veil rolled back, and the beautiful blue lake and high forest-clad mountains were disclosed as if by magic. In a few minutes after shivering, we were all complaining of heat again, and then luxuriating in the cool breeze as we steamed slowly under the great purple Traunstein. At Gmünden[117] we dined at the little inn, served by ladies in gold helmets, with great silver chains round their necks. I drove on to the fall in an Einspanner. It is a miniature Schaffhausen, and the colour of the water most beautiful. On the following day an old Colonel Woodruffe and his wife took me with them to Hallstadt, where we were rowed by women in crimson petticoats down the lovely lake to the village. The scenery is magnificent—jagged mountains melting into beautiful chestnut woods which reach to the water's edge, and at the end of the lake the little town, with its picturesque wooden houses and beautiful gothic chapel. The population consists of nine hundred Roman Catholics and nine hundred Protestants, who live together most amicably. No vehicle can enter the town, for the streets are narrow gullies, with staircases from one house to another.
"My new friends left me at Hallstadt, and early next morning I was up, and in the forest, to see the Wildbach waterfall, an exquisite walk, through green glades carpeted with cyclamen and columbines, with great masses of moss-grown rock tossed about amongst the trees, and high mountains rising all around. The goats were just getting up and coming out of their sheds, ringing their little bells as they skipped about amongst the rocks, and the flowers were all glistening with dew—no human being moving, except the goatherds directing their flocks up the mountain paths. I reached the waterfall, in its wild amphitheatre of rock, before the sun, and saw the first rolling away of the morning mist, and the clear mountain torrent foaming forth in its place; while far beyond was the great snowy Dachstein.
"At nine, a little boat took me to the Gosauswang at the other end of the lake, and while I was waiting there for an Einspanner, four travellers came up, one of whom—a pleasant-looking clergyman—introduced himself as Mr. Clements, the Rector of Upton St. Leonards, and informed me that his companions were his brother, just returned from Australia, and the two young Akers of Prinknash.
"As soon as they were gone off in their boat, my little carriage came, and I had a glorious drive, up the banks of the torrent Gosau, to open mountain pastures, backed by a magnificent range of bare rocky peaks. There is only a footpath from the 'Schmidt' to the Vorder See, set in the loveliest of forests, and backed by noble rugged peaks and snowy glaciers. The colour of the lake was indescribable, but oftenest like a rainbow seen through a prism—the purple, green, and clear blue melting into each other, and the whole transparent as crystal, showing all the bright stones and pebbles in the immense depths and reflecting all the snow-peaks beyond. When I returned to the inn, the Clements' party had arrived, and finding they were going the same way, I engaged to travel with them to Innsbruck.
"On Friday we all went again to the Vorder See, and then, taking a woodcutter as guide, scrambled on for two hours through woods and rocks to the Hinter See,[118] which is like a turquoise set in the mountains.
"We returned together to Ischl, and left in a carriage next day. At the end of St. Wolfgang Lake we engaged a boat and crossed to the curious old gothic church which contains the shrine of St. Wolfgang, and his rocky bed projecting through the pavement of a chapel, upon which the peasants throw kreutzers through a grating. We did not arrive at Salzburg till dark. What a fine old town it is!—but what most interested me was seeing here an old lady in black walking to church with a lady behind her. It was the Kaiserin Caroline, widow of the Emperor Francis I., grand-daughter-in-law of Maria Theresa, niece of Marie Antoinette, sister-in-law of Marie Louise!"
"Reichenhall, August 26.—From Salzburg we visited the mines of Hallein, into which we descended in full miner's costume—thick white trousers, smock-frock, cap, and a leathern apron behind. The guide gave us each a light, and marshalled us in single file through the narrow dark passages. On the summit of the first descent, we were all made to sit down upon our leathern aprons, to put our legs round each others' heads, hold a rope, and then slide off like a train into the dark abyss—alarming at first, and then very amusing. After three slides, we reached a black lake like the Styx, with lamps glittering like stars on faraway rocks. Here a boat moved by invisible hands came soundlessly gliding towards us: we stepped in, and in death-like silence, without oars or rowers, floated across the ghastly waters. On the opposite bank a wooden horse was waiting, on which we were made to sit, each behind the other, and, when we were mounted, rushed away with the speed of a whirlwind through the dark unearthly passages. At last, what looked like a twinkling star appeared in the distance, and it gradually increased till we emerged in open daylight. It is a most extraordinary expedition, but as the salt is all black, there is no beauty. We went on to Berchtesgaden and the Königsee and Obersee, but the wet weather only cleared enough to show us the beauties of the myrtle-green water."
It was a most wearisome journey then—two days of twelve hours in a carriage—to Innsbruck, where I parted with my companions. Hence a terrible long diligence journey of seventeen hours brought me to Botzen. The driver beguiled the way by telling me the history of his life—how when quite young he had given up smoking, and constantly put by all the money he should have spent on tobacco, in the hope of using it in revisiting Naples and the Island of Ischia, where he had been in boyhood as a soldier; but that two years before these designs had been cut short, because one day, when he returned with his diligence from Verona, he found his house burnt to the ground, and nothing saved except six silver spoons which his wife had carried off in her apron.
From Botzen I went to Meran and Trafoi, whence I walked across the Stelvio to the Baths of Bormio; but this part of the tour was not enjoyable, as my sufferings were always so great from bad weather, and hunger owing to want of money. Still less pleasant were the immense journeys afterwards by Finstermuntz and the Great Arlberg, along horrible roads and in wretched diligences, which, in these days of luxurious railway travelling, we should think perfectly unendurable. At Wesen, on the Lake of Wallenstadt, I had the happiest of meetings with my dear mother and her old servants, and vividly does the impression come back to me of the luxurious sense of rest in the first evening, and of freedom from discomfort, privation, and want.
We crossed the Bernardino to Locarno, where we were joined by mother's widowed niece, Mrs. Charles Stanley, and by her friend Miss Cole. There were many circumstances which made me see the whole of North Italy through jaundiced eyes at this time, so that Milan, Venice, and even beautiful Verona, became more associated in my mind with mental and bodily fatigue than with any pleasure. One of the happiest recollections which comes back to me is an excursion alone with my sweet mother to the old deserted convent of Chiaravalle near Milan, and the grave of the enthusiast Wilhelmina. At Venice we had much pleasure in sight-seeing with Miss Louisa Cole, and her cousins Mr. and Miss Warre, the latter of whom afterwards married Froude the historian.
At Padua we engaged two vetturino carriages, in one of which our companions travelled, and in the other my mother and I with our two old servants. The first day's journey, through the rich plain of the vintage in October, was very pleasant, meeting the immense wains and waggons laden with grapes, and the merry peasants, who delighted to give us large ripe bunches as we passed. But we had a perilous passage of the swollen Po, on which our carriage was embarked in a large boat, towed with ropes by numbers of men in smaller boats. In our long journey in our roomy excellent carriage—our home for about three weeks—we were provided with a perfect library of books, for my mother was quite of the opinion of Montaigne when he said, "Je ne voyage sans livres, n'y en paix, n'y en guerre. C'est la meilleure munition j'aye trouvé à cet humain voyage." So we studied the whole of Arnold, Gibbon, Ranke, and Milman at this time. The slower the mode of travel, the greater its variety. In the middle of the day the vetturini rested often in some picturesque town, where there were churches, convents, and pictures to sketch or visit; sometimes in quiet country inns, near which we wandered in country lanes, and collected the wild-flowers of the district. How vividly the recollections of these quiet weeks come back to me—of the charm of our studies and the weekly examination upon them: of the novel which my mother and I used afterwards to tell each other alternately, in which the good characters lived at a place called "Holmhurst," but somehow contrived to have always some link with the scenes through which we were travelling: of our early luncheon of bread and preserved apricots: of our arrival in the evenings at rooms which had always a wholesome barn-like smell, from the fresh straw under the carpets: of the children, who scampered along by the sides of the carriage calling out "Tà-tà"—as short for Carità: of my mother screaming at Ferrara as she ran away from a white spectral figure, with eyes gleaming out of holes in a peaked hood and rattling a money-box—a figure to which we became well accustomed afterwards as a Frate della Misericordia: of the great castle of Ferrara, whose picturesque outlines seemed so strangely familiar till I recollected where I had seen them—at the bottom of willow-patterned washing-basins.
Ravenna was at this time reached by a wearisome journey through marshy flats overgrown by a dark-berried plant much used in the making of dye: we afterwards imported it to Hurstmonceaux. The Stanleys, whom we seldom contradicted, had greatly opposed our going thither, so that our journey to Ravenna had the charm of eating forbidden fruit; but I was able to silence their angry reproaches afterwards for having "taken my mother into so unhealthy a climate" by finding in Gibbon the remark that Ravenna, though situated in the midst of fœtid marshes, possesses one of the most salubrious climates in Italy! My mother was even more enchanted with the wonderful old city than myself, especially with the peerage of martyrs in the long palm-bearing procession in the mosaics of S. Apollinare Nuovo, and with the exquisite and ever-varied loveliness of the Pineta.
Deeply interesting was the historical journey afterwards along the shores of the Adriatic—the sunset on the Metaurus—the proud ruins of Roman Rimini, where also we went to see the soft lustrous picture known as "the winking Virgin," and accidentally met the father of the painter in the church—the Rubicon and Pesaro; Sinigaglia and Fano; and the exquisitely beautiful approach to Ancona, with the town climbing up the steep headland crowned by the cathedral, and the blue sea covered with shipping. In many ways Ancona has always seemed to me more beautiful than Naples. I have seen much of all these towns since, but there is nothing now like the halcyon days of vetturino travelling, with the abundant time for seeing and digesting everything, and the quiet regular progression, without fuss or fatigue, or anything to mar mental impressions.
From Ancona we went to Loreto, a lovely drive then, through ranges of hills, sweeping one behind another like files of an advancing army, and crested sometimes by the picturesque roofs, domes, and towers of an old town; sometimes clothed to their summits with olives and pines, vineyards and mulberry-gardens. Here and there a decayed villa stood by the roadside in its overgrown garden, huge aloes and tall cypresses rising from its tangled grass and periwinkles. Very lovely was the ascent to Osimo, thronged with the students of the old university town in their black cloaks, amongst whom was the Cardinal-bishop, going for a walk in crimson stockings, sash, and gloves, with two footmen in cocked hats strutting behind him.
Nothing can be grander than the situation of Loreto, and the views from it over the surrounding country—the walls overlooking a wide sea-view as well. A building like a huge castle, with massive semicircular towers, dominates the town, and is the fortress which guards the holy of holies—the Santa Casa. We were called at five to go to the church. It was still pitch dark, but many pilgrims had already arrived, and waited with us in a corridor till the doors were opened. The scene inside was most singular—the huge expanse quite dark, except where a blaze of light under the dome illuminated the marble casing of the Santa Casa, or where a solitary lamp permitted a picture or an image to loom out of the chaos. The great mass of pilgrims knelt together before the shrine, but here and there a desolate figure, with arms outstretched in agonising prayer, threw a long weird shadow down the pavement of the nave, while others were crawling on hands and knees round the side walls of the house, occasionally licking up the sacred dust with their tongues, which left a bloody trail upon the floor. At either door of the House, the lamplight flashed upon the drawn sword of a soldier, keeping guard to prevent too many people pressing in together, as they ceaselessly passed in single file upon their knees, to gaze for a few seconds upon the rugged walls of unplastered brick, blackened with soot, which they believed to be the veritable walls of the cottage at Nazareth. Here, in strange contrast, the negress statue, attributed to St. Luke, gleams in a mass of diamonds. At the west end of the House was the window by which the angel entered! The collection of jewels and robes in the sacristy was enormous, though the priests lamented bitterly to us over the ravages of the Revolution, and that now the Virgin had only wardrobe sufficient to allow of her changing her dress once instead of three times every day of the year.
We travelled afterwards through a country seldom visited now—by hill-set Macerata and Recanati, and picturesque Tolentino with its relics of S. Nicolas, into the central Apennines, where Sabbatarianism doomed us to spend a most miserable Sunday at the unspeakably wretched inn of La Muccia. From Foligno we made an excursion to Assisi, then filled with troops of stately Franciscan monks—all "possidenti;" and by the Clitumnus temple, Spoleto, and Narni to Terni. At Civita Castellana the famous robber chief Gesparoni was imprisoned at this time, this year being the thirty-third of his imprisonment. Miss Cole and I obtained an order to visit him and his band, tall gaunt forms in a large room in the castle. The chieftain had a long white beard: we bought a little knitted cap of his workmanship. There was a ghastly sensation in being alone for a few minutes with this gang of men, who had all been murderers, and mostly murderers of many.
Breathlessly interesting was the first approach to Rome—the characteristic scenery of the Campagna, with its tufa quarries, and its crumbling towers and tombs rising amidst the withered thistles and asphodels; its strange herds of buffaloes; then the faint grey dome rising over the low hills, and the unspoken knowledge about it, which was almost too much for words; lastly, the miserable suburb and the great Piazza del Popolo.
I never shall forget the ecstasy of awaking the next morning in the Hôtel d'Angleterre, and feeling that the longed-for desire of many years was realised. We engaged apartments in the upper floor of the Palazzo Lovati in the Piazza del Popolo—cold dreary rooms enough, but from my mother's bedroom there was a lovely view to St. Peter's across the meadows of S. Angelo.
Naturally one of my first visits was to Mrs. Hare and my sister, whom I found established in the first floor of the Palazzo Parisani, which occupies two sides of the little Piazza S. Claudio, a dismal little square, but which my sister regarded with idolatry, asserting that there was no house half so delightful as the Palazzo Parisani, no view which could be compared in interest to that of the Piazza S. Claudio. Making acquaintance with my sister at this time was to me like the perpetual reading of an engrossing romance, for nobody ever was more amusing, no one ever had more power of throwing an interest into the commonest things of life. She did not colour her descriptions, but she saw life through a prism, and imparted its rays to others. Her manner, her dress, all her surroundings were poetical. If one went to dine with her, the dinner was much the same as we had at home, but some picturesquely hung grapes, or a stalk of finocchio, or some half-opened pomegranates, gave the table an air which made it all seem quite different.
"Italima" liked my coming and going, and was very angry if I did not come, though she never professed any maternal affection for me. I often found myself in difficulties between my two mothers. My adopted mother would sometimes take an alarm that I was going too often to Italima, and would demand my presence just on the particular occasion when "Italima" had counted upon it; in which case I always gave way to her. And indeed, as a rule, I always spent all my time with my mother, except about two evenings in the week, when I went to Italima and the Palazzo Parisani. On rare occasions, also, I went out "into the world" with Italima and my sister, to balls at the Palazzo Borghese, and at the Palazzo di Spagna, where old Queen Christina of Spain was then living, an interesting historic figure to me as the sister of the Duchesse de Berri and great-niece of Marie Antoinette. She was very hospitable, and her parties, approached through an avenue of silver candelabra representing palm-trees—spoils from the Spanish convents—were exceedingly magnificent. At her suppers on Fridays, one side of the room was laid for "maigre," the other for "gras," and when the doors were opened, there was a general scrimmage to reach the delicious viands on the "maigre" table. After each of her receptions, it was the rule that five cards should be left by each guest—for herself, for her husband the Duc de Rianzares (who had been a common soldier), for her master of the household, for her equerry, and for her lady-in-waiting. The principal balls were those given by Princess Borghese, at which many cardinals were present, but would sit down to whist in a room apart from the dancers. A great feature of the Borghese parties at this time was the Princess-mother, who always sat in a conspicuous place in the anteroom, and to whom all the guests were expected to pay their court. By birth she was Adèle de la Rochefoucauld, and she was the mother of three princes—Marc-Antonio Borghese, Aldobrandini, and Salviati. She was "sage, souple, et avide des biens," as Voltaire says of Mazarin, and it was she who—probably most unjustly—had then the reputation of having poisoned the beautiful Princess Guendolina, first wife of Marc-Antonio, with all her sons, in order that her own son might marry her niece, Thérèse[124] de la Rochefoucauld, which he afterwards did. A conspicuous figure was the beautiful young Princess del Drago, one of the daughters of Queen Christina's second marriage, whose husband had a most fiendish face. I often saw the blind Duke of Sermoneta, celebrated for his knowledge of Dante, and his witty canonical brother, Don Filippo Caiëtani, generally known as "Don Pippo." The then Duchess of Sermoneta was "Margherita," née Miss Knight, a most ghastly and solemn woman to outsiders, but much beloved by those who knew her intimately.
The Prince of Piombino, who lived in exile or seclusion after the change of government in Rome, was then flourishing in his immense palace in the Corso, and his children, then young married people, were the life of all the parties. Of these, Rudolfo, Duke of Sora, had married the saint-like Agnese, only surviving child of Donna Guendolina Borghese, who was supposed only by absence to have escaped the fate of her mother and brothers. Of his sisters, Donna Carolina was the clever, brilliant Princess Pallavicini, and Donna Giulia had married the Duke of Fiano, who lived in the neighbouring palace, and by marrying her had broken the heart of Mademoiselle Judith Falconnet.[125]
One of the Romans whom I saw most frequently was the Princess Santa Croce, living in the old historical palace which has the reputation of being the only haunted house in Rome, where two statues of cardinals come down from their pedestals and rattle their marble trains up and down the long galleries. The Princess was one of the daughters of Mr. Scully in Ireland. He had three, of whom two were beautiful, clever, and brilliant, but the third was uninteresting. The two elder Miss Scullys went out into the world, and were greatly admired and much made of; but the youngest stayed at home like Cinderella, and was never known at all except as "the Miss Scullys' younger sister." Many people wished to marry the elder Miss Scullys; but they said "No, for we have a presentiment that we are to marry dukes, and therefore we will wait." But no dukes came forward, and at length old Mr. Scully died, leaving his daughters three great fortunes; and being Roman Catholics, without any particular call or claim, they determined to visit Rome before they settled in life. They took many introductions with them, and on their arrival the good looks, cleverness, and wealth of the elder sisters created quite a sensation; but people asked them, Roman-fashion, "what was their vocation," for in Rome all Catholic ladies are expected to have decided this. Then they said they had never thought of it, and they went to spend a week in the convent of the Trinità de' Monti to consider it. When the day came on which the three Miss Scullys were to declare their vocation, all Rome was interested, and the "great world" thronged the parlours of the Trinità de' Monti to hear it; but the expectants were petrified when the two elder Miss Scullys came out, for they had found their vocation, and it was a convent! No doubt whatever was felt about the youngest—"of course she would follow her sisters." But no; she had found her vocation, and it was marriage! and the youngest Miss Scully, additionally enriched by half the fortunes of her two elder sisters, went out into the world, and in three weeks she had accepted the great Roman Prince of Santa Croce, who claims descent from Valerius Publicola. I often used to watch with interest the Princess Santa Croce, who went to confess and pray at the convent of the Villa Lante (which Roman princesses are wont to frequent), for the two portresses who opened the doors were her two elder sisters, the proud Miss Scullys: it was the story of Cinderella in real life. I was at Rome years afterwards (1864) when the Princess Santa Croce died. All the princesses lie in state after death, but by old custom, the higher their rank, the lower they must lie, and the Princess Santa Croce was of such excessively high rank, that she lay upon the bare boards.
I think that it was towards the middle of our stay in Rome that I received a summons to a private audience of Pius IX. Italima and my sister went with me. We went in evening dress to the Vatican in the middle of the day, and were shown into a gallery where a number of Monsignori were standing. Amongst them was Monsignore Talbot, who asked me if I did not feel very much agitated. I said "No," and he answered, "But every one must be agitated when they are about to stand in the presence of the Vicar of Christ"—and at that moment he drew aside a portière, and we found ourselves at one end of a long hall, at the other end of which a sturdy figure with a beneficent face, in what looked like a white dressing-gown, was standing leaning his hand upon a table: it was Pius IX. We had been told beforehand that, as we had asked for a private audience, we must perform all the genuflections, three at the doorway, three in the middle of the room, and three at the feet of the Pope, and the same in returning; and Italima had declared that the thought of this made her so nervous that we must do all the talking. But Italima had often been to the Pope before, and she was so active and agile, that by the time my sister and I got up from the third genuflection in the doorway, she was already curvetting in the centre of the hall, and we heard the beautiful voice of the Pope, like a silver bell, say, "E come sta la figlia mia—e come sta la cara figlia mia," and by the time we were in the middle of the apartment she was already at the feet of the Pope. Eventually my sister and I arrived, and flung ourselves down, one on each side of Italima, at the feet of the Pope, who gave us his ring to kiss, and his foot, or rather a great raised gold cross upon his white slipper. "E questa la figlia?" he said, pointing to my sister. "Si, Sua Santità," said Italima. "Ed e questo il figlio?" he said, turning to me. "Si, Sua Santità," said Italima. Then my sister, who thought it was a golden opportunity which she would never have again, and which was not to be lost, broke through all the rules of etiquette, and called out from the other side of the daïs, clasping her hands, "Ma, Sua Santità, il mio fratello e stato Protestant."
Then the Pope turned to me and spoke of the great privilege and blessing of being a Catholic, but said that from what he had heard of me he felt that I did not deserve that privilege, and that therefore he could not wish that I should enjoy its blessings. He said much more, and then that, before I left, I should make him a "piccolo piccolino promessino" (the least little bit of a promise in the world), and that I should remember all my life that I had made it at the feet of Pius IX. I said that I should wish to do whatever Sua Santità desired, but that before I engaged to make a promise I should like to know what the promise was to be about. "Oh," said the Pope, smiling, "it is nothing so very difficult; it is only something which a priest in your own Church might ask: it is that you will say the Lord's Prayer every morning and evening." "Yes," I replied, "I shall be delighted to make Sua Santità the promise; but perhaps Sua Santità is not aware that the practice is not unusual in the Church of England." Then, almost severely for one so gentle, the Pope said, "You seem to think the promise a light one; I think it a very serious one; in fact, I think it so serious, that I will only ask you to promise to use one petition—'Fiat voluntas tua, O Deus, in terris ut in cœlo,' and remember that you have promised that at the feet of Pius IX." Then he blended his farewell very touchingly into a beautiful prayer and blessing; he blessed the things—rosaries, &c.—which my sister had brought with her; he again gave us his ring and the cross on his foot to kiss, and while he rang the little bell at his side, we found our way out backwards—quite a geometrical problem with nine genuflections to be made on the way.
I was often in the convent of the Trinità when I was at Rome in 1857, for visitors are allowed there at certain hours, and a great friend of my sister's, Adèle, Madame Davidoff, was then in the convent, having been sent to Rome on an especial mission to the Pope on matters connected with the French convents of the Sacré Cœur. Madame Davidoff ("Madame" only "in religion," as "a spouse of Christ") was daughter of the Maréchale Sebastiani, the stepmother of the murdered Duchesse de Praslin, and was grand-daughter of the Duchesse de Grammont, who founded the Sacré Cœur. Her own life had been very romantic. One winter there was a very handsome young Count Schouvaloff in Rome, whom my sister knew very well. She had been one day in the convent, and Madame Davidoff had accompanied her to the outer door, and was standing engrossed with last words, leaning against the green baize door leading into the church. Suddenly a man appeared, coming through the inner door of the convent, evidently from visiting the Abbess. "Mais c'est le Comte Schouvaloff!" said Madame Davidoff to my sister, and pushing the baize door behind her, suddenly disappeared into the church, while Schouvaloff, seeing her suddenly vanish, rushed forward to my sister exclaiming, "Oh, c'est elle—c'est elle! Oh, mon Adèle, mon Adèle!" He had been on the eve of marriage with her, when she had thought herself suddenly seized by a conventual vocation, had taken the veil, and he had never seen her since. The next day Count Schouvaloff left Rome. He went into retreat for some time at the Certosa of Pavia, where total silence is the rule of daily life. He took orders, and in a few years, having a wonderful gift for preaching, was sent on a mission to Paris; but the shock of returning to the scenes of his old life was too much for him, and in a few days after reaching Paris he died.
When I knew Madame Davidoff, she still possessed an extraordinary charm of conversation and manner, and the most exuberant eloquence of any person I have ever seen. Her one object was conversion to the Roman Catholic faith, and into that she threw all her energies, all her charm and wit, and even her affections. Her memory was as prodigious as that of Macaulay, and she knew all the controversial portions of the great Catholic writers by heart. What was more extraordinary still was, that having many "cases" going on at the same time (for people used to go to visit her and sit round her anteroom like patients at a fashionable dentist's), she never confounded one with another in her mind, never lost time, and always went on exactly where she left off. But her love of ruling made Madame Davidoff less popular within the walls of her convent than with the outside world; and after her return to Paris, the means which she often took to attain the ends to which she devoted her life brought such trouble to the convent of the Sacré Cœur, that the nuns refused to keep her amongst them, and she afterwards lived in the world, giving frequent anxiety to her sister, the Marquise de Gabriac, and to Lord Tankerville and Lady Malmesbury, her cousins. During my first visit at Rome, I saw Madame Davidoff often, and, after a courteous expression of regret that I was sure to be eternally damned, she would do her best to convert me. I believe my dear mother underwent great qualms on my visits to her. But her religious unscrupulousness soon alienated me, and I had a final rupture with her upon her urging me to become a Roman Catholic secretly, and to conceal it from my adopted mother as long as she lived. Other Roman Catholics who made a vehement effort for my perversion were Monsignor Talbot and Monsignor Howard, the latter of whom I had known as a very handsome dashing young guardsman a few years before, but who afterwards became a Cardinal. There was a most ridiculous scene when they came to the Palazzo Lovati, where Monsignor Howard made so violent a harangue against Protestantism that Monsignor Talbot was obliged to apologise for him. Roman Catholics with whom we were intimate from circumstances were the ex-Jew Mr. Goldsmid and his wife. Mr. Goldsmid had been converted by the Père Ratisbon, whose own conversion was attributed partially to the image of the Virgin in the Church of Andrea delle Fratte, and partly to the prayers of M. de la Ferronays, which are believed to have endowed the image with speech.
A really excellent Roman Catholic priest of whom I saw much was Monsignor Pellerin, Bishop in Cochin-China. His conversation was liberal and beautiful, and he had the simplicity of a mediæval saint. He was at that time about to return to China, with a great probability of martyrdom. On his last day in Rome he celebrated mass in the Catacombs in the Chapel of Santa Cecilia, a most touching sight even to those who were not of his faith. On taking leave, he gave me a small silver crucifix, which I treasured for a long time, then it disappeared: I always thought that Lea made away with it, in the fear that it might make me a Roman Catholic. I heard of the close of Monsignor Pellerin's self-sacrificing life in China several years later.
Amongst the English we had many pleasant friends, especially the George Cavendishes and the Greene Wilkinsons, who had a great fortune left to them for opening a pew-door to an old gentleman: it used to be said that they ought to take "Pro Pudor" as their motto.
But no notice of our familiar society at Rome can be complete which does not speak of "Auntie"—Miss Paul—the sister of "Italima," who lived her own life apart in two rooms in a corner of the Parisani Palace, where she saw and observed everything, and was very ready to make her quaint original remarks upon what she had observed when she joined the rest of the family, which was only in the evenings. I never saw "Auntie" otherwise than desperately busy, sometimes with immense rolls of embroidery, sometimes with charcoal-drawing, often with extraordinary and most incomprehensible schemes for recovering the very large fortune she had once possessed, and which she had lost in "the Paul Bankruptcy." Italima was not at all kind to her, but this did not affect her in the least: she went her own way, and when she was most soundly abused, it only seemed to amuse her. My sister she absolutely adored, and then and afterwards used to think it perfect happiness to sit and watch her for hours, not being able to hear a word she said on account of her deafness. I was exceedingly fond of "Auntie," and used to delight to escape from the ungenial atmosphere of Italima's great drawing-room to the busy little den in the corner of the palace, where I was always a welcome visitor, and always found something amusing going on.
When we arrived in Rome, my sister Esmeralda was supposed to be partially engaged to Don Emilio Rignano, eldest son of the Duke Massimo, whom she had known well from childhood. Emilio at one time passed every evening at the Palazzo Parisani; but during this winter Donna Teresa Doria appeared in the world, and the old Duchess Massimo, who hated Anglo-Roman alliances, by a clever scheme soon compelled her son to consent to an engagement with her. Having learnt this, Esmeralda refused ever to receive Emilio again. On the day before his marriage, however, he found her in the Church of S. Claudio, and tried to make her marry him at once by the easy Roman form, "Ecco il mio marito—Ecco la mia moglie," but she would not listen to him. Then, when she drove to the Villa Borghese, he pursued the carriage, regardless of the people in the street. His hat fell off, but he would not stop: he seemed to have lost his senses.
At a marriage in high life in Rome, the guests are often asked, not to the actual ceremony, but to St. Peter's afterwards, to see the bridal pair kiss the foot of the famous statue. When the Duke and Duchess Rignano entered St. Peter's, they were piteous to see: they would not look at each other. Old Lady Rolle was there, standing by the statue, and when they came near she said audibly, "What a wicked scene! what a sinful marriage!" And Emilio heard her, gave her one look of agony, and flung himself down on the pavement in front of the statue.
As Duchess Rignano, Teresa Doria was wretched. We saw her afterwards at Genoa, in the old Doria Palace, with her mother, whose death was hastened by the sight of her daughter's woe and her own disappointed ambition. Before long the Duchess Teresa was separated from her husband. Her tragical fate was a good thing for her sisters: the second sister, Guendolina, made a happy marriage with the Conte di Somaglia in the Marchi, and the youngest, Olimpia, was allowed to remain long unmarried. This last daughter of the house of Doria was described by her mother as so very small when she was born, that they swathed her in flannel and laid her in the sun, in the hope that it would make her grow like a plant. I was one day at the house of Mrs. de Selby, cousin of Princess Doria, when her servant threw open the door and announced in a stentorian voice, allo Romano—"La sua Eccellenza l'illustrissima Principessina la Donna Olimpia di Doria,"—and there marched in a stately little maiden of eight years old!
Cardinal Antonelli obtained an order for my sister and me to visit the Madre Makrina, the sole survivor of the Polish nuns who were martyred for their faith in the terrible persecution at Minsk. The nuns were starved, flogged to death, buried alive, subjected to the most horrible cruelties. Three escaped and reached Vienna, where two of them disappeared and never were heard of again. After a series of unparalleled adventures and escapes, the Abbess, the Madre Makrina, arrived in Rome. Pope Gregory XVI. received her kindly, but made her tell her whole story once for all in the presence of sixty witnesses, who all wrote it down at once to ensure accuracy, and then he shut her up, for fear she should be turned into a saint and object of pilgrimage. It was not generally known what had become of the Madre Makrina—it was a mystery in Rome—but we were able to trace her to the tiny convent of the Monacche Polacche, which has since been destroyed by the Sardinian Government, but which then stood near the Arch of Gallienus, nearly opposite the Church of S. Eusebio. Italima wished to go with us, but we could only obtain an order for two. When we rang the convent bell and had shown our permit through the grille, a portress from within drew a bolt which admitted us to a little room—den rather—barred with iron, and with an iron cage at one side, behind which the portress, a very fat old woman, reappearing, asked us many questions about ourselves, the Pope, the state of Rome generally. At last we got tired and said, "But shall we not soon see the Madre Makrina?"—"Io sono la Madre Makrina," said the old woman, laughing. Then we said, "Oh, do tell us the story of Minsk."—"No," she replied, "I promised at the feet of Pope Gregory XVI. that I would never tell that story again: the story is written down, you can read it, but I cannot break my promise."—"How dreadfully you must have suffered at Minsk," we said. "Yes," she answered, and, going backwards, she pulled up her petticoats and showed us her legs, which were enormously fat, yet, a short distance above the ankles, were quite eaten away, so that you could see the bones. "This," she said, "was caused by the chains I wore at Minsk." The Madre Makrina, when we took leave, said, "I am filled with wonder as to how you got admittance. I have never seen any one before since I came here, and I do not suppose I shall ever see any one again, so I will give you a little memorial of your visit!" and she gave me a tiny crucifix and medal off her chain. I have it still.
When the Emperor Nicholas came to Rome, he went to pay his respects to the Pope, who received him very coldly. "You are a great king," said Pius IX. "You are one of the mightiest monarchs in the world, and I am a feeble old man, the servant of servants; but I cite you to meet me again, to meet me before the throne of the Judge of the world, and to answer there for your treatment of the nuns at Minsk."
But of the gathering up of reminiscences of Roman life there is no end, and, after all, my normal life was a quiet one with my mother, driving with her, sketching with her, sitting with her in the studio of the venerable Canevari,[126] who was doing her portrait, spending afternoons with her in the Medici gardens, in the beautiful Villa Wolkonski, or in the quiet valley near the grove and grotto of Egeria.
In the mornings we generally walked on the Pincio, and there often noticed a family of father, mother, and daughter working on the terrace, as the custom then was, at rope-making. One day a carriage passed and re-passed with a solitary gentleman in it, who at last, as if he could no longer restrain himself, jumped out and rushed towards the group exclaiming, "C'est elle! c'est elle!" Then he became embarrassed, retired, and eventually sent his servant to beg that the mother would bring some of her cord to his house the next morning. She obeyed, and on entering his apartment was struck at once by a portrait on the wall. "That is the picture of my daughter," she said. "No," he replied, "that is the portrait of my dead wife." He then proceeded to say that he must from that time consider himself affianced to her daughter, for that in her he seemed to see again his lost wife, and he insisted on establishing the old woman and her daughter in comfortable lodgings, and hiring all kinds of masters for the latter, saying that he would go away and leave her to her studies, and that in a year he should come back to marry her, which he did. In England this would be a very extraordinary story, but it was not thought much of at Rome.
I have always found that the interests of Rome have a more adhesive power than those of any other place, and that it is more difficult to detach oneself from them; and even in this first winter, which was the least pleasant I have spent there—the conflicting requirements of my two mothers causing no small difficulty—I was greatly distressed when my mother, in her terror of Madame Davidoff and Co., decided that we must leave for Naples on the twenty-third of February. What an unpleasant companion I was as we drove out of the Porta S. Giovanni in the large carriage of the vetturino Constantino, with—after the custom of that time—a black Spitz sitting on the luggage behind to guard it, which he did most efficaciously. I remember with a mental shiver how piteously the wind howled over the parched Campagna, and how the ruins looked almost frightful in the drab light of a sunless winter morning. But though the cold was most intense, for the season really was too early for such a journey, our spirits were revived by the extreme picturesqueness of the old towns we passed through. In Valmontone, where the huge Doria palace is, we met a ghastly funeral, an old woman carried by the Frati della Misericordia on an open bier, her withered head nodding to and fro with the motion, and priests—as Lea said—"gibbering before her." Here, from the broad deserted terrace in front of the palace, we looked over the mountains, with mists drifting across them in the wind; all was the essence of picturesqueness, raggedness, ignorance, and filth. By Frosinone and Ceprano—then the dreary scene of the Neapolitan custom-house—we reached San Germano, where the inn was in those days most wretched. In our rooms we were not only exposed to every wind that blew, but to the invasions of little Marianina, Joannina, and Nicolina, who darted in every minute to look at us, and to the hens, who walked about and laid their eggs under the bed and table. Most intensely, however, did we delight in the beauties of the glorious ascent to Monte Cassino and in all that we saw there.
How well I remember the extreme wretchedness of our mid-day halting-places in the after journey to Capua, and wonder how the pampered Italian travellers of the present day would put up with them; but in those days we did not mind, and till it was time to go on again, we drew the line of old crones sitting miserably against the inn-wall, rocking themselves to and fro in their coloured hoods, and cursing us in a chorus of—
"Ah, vi pigli un accidente
Voi che non date niente,"
if we did not give them anything.
While we were at Naples, every one was full of the terrible earthquake which in December had been devastating the Basilicata. Whole towns were destroyed. It was as after a deep snow in England, which covers fields and hedges alike; you could not tell in the mass of débris whether you were walking over houses or streets. The inhabitants who escaped were utterly paralysed, and sat like Indian Brahmins with their elbows on their knees, staring in vacant despair. Hundreds were buried alive, who might have been extricated if sufficient energy had been left in the survivors. Others, buried to the middle, had the upper part of their bodies burnt off by the fire which spread from the ruined houses, and from which they were unable to escape. Thousands died afterwards from the hunger and exposure.
Whilst we were at Naples my mother lost her gold watch. We believed it to have been stolen as we were entering the Museo Borbonico, and gave notice to the police. They said they could do nothing unless we went to the King of the Thieves, who could easily get it back for us: it would be necessary to make terms with him. So a ragazaccio[129] was sent to guide us through one of the labyrinthian alleys on the hill of St. Elmo to a house where we were presented to the King of Thieves. He mentioned his terms, which we agreed to, and he then said, "If the watch has been stolen anywhere within twelve miles round Naples, you shall have it in twenty-four hours." Meanwhile the watch was found by one of the custodes of the Museo at the bottom of that bronze vase in which you are supposed to hear the roaring of the sea; my mother had been stooping down to listen, and the watch had fallen in. But the story is worth mentioning, as the subserviency of the police to the King of the Thieves was characteristic of public justice under Ferdinand II.
To my Sister.
"Sorrento, March 7, 1858.—Some people say Sorrento is the most beautiful place in the world, and I believe that even my town-loving sister, if she could gaze over the golden woods in the sunset of this evening, and see the crimson smoke float over dark Vesuvius and then drift far over the blue sea, would allow it to be more inspiring than the Piazza S. Claudio! Then to-day the mother and her three companions have been riding on donkeys to the lovely Vigna Sersale through a fringe of coronilla and myrtle, anemones and violets.... It is a comfort here to be free from the begging atmosphere of Naples, for in Sorrento people do not beg; they only propose 'mangiare maccaroni alla sua salute.'"
"April 4.—We have had a charming cruise in the 'Centaur'—the sea like glass, the view clear. Captain Clifford sent his boat to fetch us, and we sat on deck in arm-chairs, as if on land. In tiny fishing-boats, lying flat on our backs, we entered the Grotta Azurra (of Capri), like a magical cavern peopled with phantoms, each face looking livid as the boats floated over the deep blue water. Then we scrambled up to the fortress-palace of Tiberius, our ascent being enlivened by a tremendous battle between the midshipmen and the donkey-women, who finally drew their stilettos!
"Amalfi is most romantic and lovely. We were there ten days, and spent the mornings in drawing amongst the purple rocks and sandy bays, and the afternoons in riding up the mountain staircases to the Saracenic rock-built castles and desolate towns.
"The mother thinks I have grown dreadfully worldly under your influence, and that my love for wild-flowers is the only hopeful sign remaining!"
From Salerno we made a glorious expedition to Pæstum, but on our return found our servant, John Gidman, alarmingly ill in consequence of a sunstroke while fallen asleep on the balcony at Amalfi. His sufferings were dreadful, and he remained between life and death for a long time, and I believe was only eventually saved by the violent bleedings (so often inveighed against) of an Italian doctor. This delayed us long at the dull Salerno, and afterwards at La Cava, where I comforted myself by much drawing at Salvator Rosa's grotto in the valley below the old Benedictine convent.
In May our companions returned to England, and having no one but ourselves to consider, we planned to make our own northern vetturino journey as interesting as possible. I think it was a description in "Dennis" which made us take the route by Viterbo and Orvieto, but we went there and saw it with enthusiasm, as afterwards Perugia—to which we zigzagged back across the Apennines, and Cortona, where the hill was redolent with great wild yellow roses, and where I drew the tomb of S. Margherita in the monastery, to the great delight of the monks, who regaled us with snuff and wine.
Whilst we were at Florence, living in the Casa Iandelli, I made a delightful excursion to Vallombrosa, driving in a little carriage to Pelago, and thence riding on a cart-horse up the forest-clothed mountain by the rough track which emerges on a bright green lawn, then covered with masses of lilies and columbine, and other spring flowers of every description. All around the dark forests swept down from the mountains towards the convent, where the hospitable monks entertained me with a most excellent dinner, and the abbot showed the manuscripts.
On my return, I found my mother so convulsed with laughter that it was long before she was able to explain the cause of it. At last she showed me a letter in her hand, which was a violent declaration of love and proposal of marriage from one Giorgio Rovert—"bello—possidente—avocato"—who was even then waiting at Siena to know if his "fiamme d'amore" was responded to, and if he might hasten to Florence to throw himself at the feet of the object of his adoration. For some time we were utterly bewildered, but at length recollected that at Rome a young man had constantly followed the cousin who was with us, had lifted the heavy curtains for her at the entrance of the churches, found her places in a mass-book, &c., and we concluded that he must have tracked her to the Palazzo Lovati, inquired of the porter who lived there, and hearing it was "Mrs. Hare," had followed us to Florence. Lady Anne S. Giorgio coming in soon after to see us, undertook to answer the letter, and did so most capitally; but Giorgio Rovert did not break his heart, and within three weeks we heard of him as proposing to old Lady Dillon!
The Lady Anne S. Giorgio I have mentioned began at this time to fill a great part in our life. She was a Roman Catholic, and used to say that she had become so (at sixteen) on account of the poor apology which she found made for Protestantism in Robertson's "Charles V.," which she had been reading. After she was a widow, she became a member of a Tertiary Order which binds its votaries to forsake the vanities of the world, to wear a cross, and be dressed in black. She used to be very anxious for my conversion, and have special prayers to that intent on St. Augustine's Day. She read through Madame de Sévigné every year, and her library of books excited the astonishment of her poorer neighbours, who said, "O la Contessa e tanto buona; legge sempre; prega sempre; e tanto buona," for they cannot understand any one reading anything but religious books.
Lady Anne was one of the daughters of that beautiful Lady Oxford whose offspring were named "the Harleian Miscellany." Lady Oxford lived at Genoa with her daughters, leaving Lord Oxford in England, and during her Italian life had many strange adventures, and one of a most terrible kind, the story of which was related to me by Dr. Wellesley, who was present at the time, but I will omit it. Of the weird stories of the other sisters I will say nothing, but Lady Anne in her youth was engaged to a young Italian, who, with the ugly name of Boggi, was yet of a very good family. However, before they could be married, Boggi died, and the Harleys returned to England. While there, Lady Anne wished to marry her music-master, but her family would not hear of it, and by the harshness of their opposition made her life miserable. Having striven vainly for some years to win the consent of her family, Lady Anne wrote to Madame Boggi, the mother of her late betrothed, with whom she had always kept up a communication, to say that she was in wretched health and spirits, that she required change terribly, and that she was very unhappy because her family violently opposed her marriage with a very excellent young Italian—but she did not say who he was. Madame Boggi replied by saying that nothing could give her greater happiness than having her dearest Annie with her, and imploring her to come out to her at once. The Harley family consented, thinking that the change might cure Lady Anne's heartache, and she went out to Madame Boggi, who had always said that she looked upon her as a daughter because she was once engaged to her dead son.
While Lady Anne was with Madame Boggi, she heard that her Italian lover had returned to Italy to join his friends, but that he had been stopped by illness at some place in the north of Italy, and was lying in a very critical condition. I cannot say how Lady Anne persuaded Madame Boggi, but she did persuade her to consent to her going off to nurse her lover, and, unmarried girl as she was, she nursed him through all his illness. He died, but his brother, who came to him when he was dying, was so touched by Lady Anne's devotion, that he afterwards proposed to her, and she married him.
The husband of Lady Anne was only a "cavaliere." They were dreadfully poor, and lived at a little farm somewhere in the hills above Spezia, where two boys and a girl were born. But Lady Anne did not mind poverty; she fattened her chickens and pigs for market, she studied botany and all the ologies by herself, and she taught her children. After she became a widow, she heard one day that her father, Lord Oxford, from whom she had been separated from childhood, was passing through Italy, and she threw herself in his way upon the staircase in the inn at Sarzana. When he found who she was, he was delighted both with her and her children. He said, "I have done nothing for you hitherto, and I can do nothing for you after my death, for my affairs are arranged and they cannot be altered; but whatever you ask me to do now shall be granted." "Then," said Lady Anne, "you have always looked down upon me and despised me, because my husband was a simple 'cavaliere.' You are going to Rome: get me created a Countess in my own right, and then you will despise me no more." And Lord Oxford went to Rome, and, by his personal influence with the Pope, to whom he had great opportunities of being useful, his daughter Anne was created a Countess in her own right, and her sons became titular Counts and her daughter a Countess.
It was in this summer of 1858, while we were at Florence, that Lady Anne came to "Italima" (for she had known my father intimately in her palmy days) and said, "You know how I have lived like a hermit in my 'tenuto,' and meanwhile here is Carolina grown up, and Carolina must marry somebody, and that somebody you must find, for you are almost the only person I know." And, to her surprise, Italima was able to answer, "It is really very odd, but Mrs. de Selby, the cousin of the Princesses Doria and Borghese, was here this morning, and she said, 'Here is Roberto, and I want to find somebody for him to marry. I do not want a fortune, we have plenty of money, but it must be a girl of good family, and if she is partly English so much the better.'"
We went to the betrothal dinner of Robert Selby and Carolina di S. Giorgio, and afterwards we ran about the Torrigiani gardens in the still summer evening, and made round our straw hats wreaths of the fireflies, which, when they are once fixed, seldom fly away. Carolina was afterwards a great friend of ours, and most entertaining and clever. She could imitate an old priest scolding and taking snuff so exactly, that if you shut your eyes you thought one must be in the room; and she used to create for herself little dramas and tragedies, in which she was as pathetic as she was at other times comic. As a mother she was most unfortunate. Several of her children were poisoned by eating "fungi" at a trattoria outside the Porta del Popolo, and she herself nearly died from the same cause. After Robert Selby's death she married again, and went to live at Leghorn.
I was very sorry afterwards that during this visit we never saw Mrs. Browning, who died in 1861, before we were at Florence again. We used to hear much of her—of her peculiar appearance, with her long curls, and (from illness) her head always on one side; of the infinite charm of her conversation; of her interest in spiritualism; how she would endeavour to assert her belief in it in her little feeble voice, upon which Browning would descend in his loud tones; but they were perfectly devoted to each other.
Another person whom we often saw at Florence was the foolish wife of our dear old Landor, who never ceased to describe with fury his passionate altercations with her, chiefly caused apparently by jealousy. Landor was still living at Bath at this time.
In the Cascine at Florence we found the same old flower-woman who had been there when I was a baby in the Prato, where I was taught to walk. She used to drive to the Cascine with her flowers in a smart carriage with a pair of horses, and would smile and kiss her hands to us as we passed. It was contrary to good Florentine manners not to accept the flowers which she offered to every one she saw when she arrived where the carriages were waiting, but they were never paid for at the time; only a present was sent occasionally, or given by foreigners when they left Florence, and she came to the station to see them off and present a farewell bouquet. I merely mention these customs because they are probably dying out, perhaps are already extinct.
My cousin Lady Normanby was at this time resident in her beautiful Florentine villa, with its lovely garden of roses and view over Florence, and she was very kind to us.
We were at Florence this year during the festival of Corpus Domini, and saw that curious procession, chiefly consisting of little boys in white dominos, and brown monks and brothers of the Misericordia; but, following the Archbishop under his canopy, came the Grand Duke on foot, with all the male members of the Corsini and Guicciardini families, and the young Archdukes in white satin trains.
We saw also the Foundling Hospital, where all the children were brought up and nursed by goats, and where, when the children cried, the goats ran and gave them suck.
About the 10th of June we settled at Lucca baths, in the pleasant little Casa Bertini, a primitive house more like a farm-house than a villa, on the steep hillside above the Grand Duke's palace, possessing a charming little garden of oleanders and apple-trees at the back, with views down into the gorge of the river, and up into the hilly cornfields, which were always open to us. Very delightful were the early mornings, when the mother, with book and camp-stool, wandered up the hill-path, fringed with flowers, to the Bagni Caldi. Charming too the evenings, when, after "merenda" at four o'clock in the garden, we used to go forth, with all the little society, in carriages or on horseback, till the heavy dews fell, and drove us in by the light of the fireflies. A most pleasant circle surrounded us. Close by, in a large cool villa with a fountain, was the gentle invalid Mrs. Greville (née Locke), singing and composing music, with her pleasant companion Miss Rowland. Just below, in the hotel of the villa, "Auntie" was living with the George Cavendishes, and in the street by the river the pretty widow, Mrs. Francis Colegrave, with her children, Howard and Florence, and her sister Miss Chichester.
An amusing member of the society at the Bagni, living in a cottage full of curiosities, was Mrs. Stisted, the original of Mrs. Ricketts in "The Daltons." She had set her heart upon converting the Duke of Parma to Protestantism, and he often condescended to controversy with her. One day she thought she had really succeeded, but driving into Lucca town next day, to her horror she met him walking bare-headed in a procession with a lighted candle in his hand. Then and there she stopped her carriage and began to upbraid him. When he returned to the Bagni, he went to see her and to reprove her. "There cannot," he said, "be two sovereigns at Lucca; either I must be Duke or you must be Queen," and ever after she was called the Queen of the Bagni. Colonel Stisted had a number of curious autographs, the most interesting being the MS. of the "Lines to an Indian air"—"I rise from dreams of thee"—found in the pocket of Shelley after he was drowned.
Living beneath us all this summer were the Grand Ducal family, and we saw them constantly. They were greatly beloved, but the Grand Duchess-Dowager, who was a Sardinian princess, was more popular than the reigning Grand Duchess, who was a Neapolitan Bourbon, and ultimately brought about the ruin of the family by her influence. The Grand Duchess-Dowager was the step-mother of the Grand Duke, and also his sister-in-law, having been sister-in-law of his first wife. The Hereditary Grand Duke was married to her niece, a lovely Saxon princess, who died soon afterwards: it was said that he treated her very ill, and that his younger brother protected her. We were at a very pretty ball which was given on the festa of S. Anna, her patroness. The Grand Ducal family generally went out at the same hour as ourselves. In the middle of the day nothing stirred except the scorpions, which were a constant terror. One was found in my bath in the morning, and all that day we were in fearful expectation, as the creatures never go about singly; but in the evening we met the companion coming upstairs. There were also quantities of serpents, which in the evening used frequently to be seen crossing the road in a body going down to the river to drink.
Augustus J. C. Hare.
Every Friday afternoon we had a reception in our hill-set garden, and our maid Quintilia set out tea and fruit, &c., in the summer-house. At the gate a basket was held, into which every one dropped a story as they entered, and they were all read aloud after tea. One day, one of these stories, a squib on Ultra-Protestants written by the younger Miss Cavendish, led to a great fracas with the George Cavendishes, Admiral and Mrs. Cavendish being perfectly furious with my gentle mother, who of all people was the most innocent, as she could not have an idea of what was in the stories till they were read aloud. Well do I remember coming round the corner of the villa, and finding the Admiral storming at her as she sat upon her donkey, with "My daughters shall never enter your house again—they shall never enter it again!" and her sweet smile as she replied, "Then, Admiral Cavendish, I have only to thank you so very much for having so often allowed them to come to me hitherto,"—and the Admiral's subdued look afterwards.
There was a little school established by the Grand Duchess just below us, whither my mother sometimes went in the mornings. The children were taught Scripture dialogues. One little girl would say to another, "Oh, cara mia, cara amica mia, I have such a wonderful thing to tell you," and then would narrate how a babe was born in Bethlehem, &c., upon which the hearer would exclaim, "O Gran Dio" in her amazement, and on one occasion, with a cry of "O cielo!" pretended to faint away with astonishment in the most natural way imaginable.
A long excursion from Lucca was that to Galicano, where a hermit with a reputation of great sanctity was living under an overhanging cliff in the mountains. He hid himself on our approach, but our large party hunted him, and eventually unearthed him—an old dirty man in a brown gown, with a chain of huge beads at his girdle. We wanted to see the miraculous image of which he was guardian, but he would not show it unless we were Catholics, and was much puzzled by my protesting that we were, and my mother that we were not. However, at last he consented to exhibit it, on condition that we all knelt, and that the ladies took off their bonnets. We returned home much later than was expected, and so, as we found afterwards, escaped seven bandits, who had been lying in wait for us, and at last gave us up. The whole of the road from Lucca to Galicano had then black crosses at intervals, commemorating the murders committed there.
This summer at Lucca was altogether the greatest halt in my life I have ever known. We seemed so removed from the world, and I was more free from family snubbings than I had ever been before. But, all through the time we were there, I had been far from well, and the doctor who was consulted declared that I could not survive the severities of an English winter. In spite of this, my mother never flinched in her determination to return, for having once taken the impression (without the remotest reason) that I had a tendency to Roman Catholicism, she had a far greater terror of what she considered as danger to my soul than of any danger to my body.
When we left the Bagni di Lucca on the 2nd of August, I left it in despair. Behind us was a quiet, peaceful, and a far from useless life, encircled by troops of friends, and supplying the literary and artistic occupations in which I began to feel that I might possibly in time be able to distinguish myself. Before me was the weary monotony of Hurstmonceaux, only broken by visits from or to relations, by most of whom I was disliked and slighted, if not positively ill-treated. I also felt sure that all the influence of my aunts would be used with my easily guided mother to force upon me the most uncongenial of employments, which she was only too certain to allow them to advocate as "especially desirable for Augustus, because they were uncongenial!" I was at this time also in more than usual disgrace, because disgust at the sham Christians, sham Evangelicals, sham Protestants, with whom for years I had been thrown, had induced me to avow my horror of Ordination. In every way I felt myself unfitted for it. I wrote at this time—"'Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no depth of earth: and when the sun was up, they were scorched; and, because they had no root, they withered away.' If you want to know about my past religious 'impressions,' that is just my story." Still the declaration of my determination not to take Orders, dreaded and put off for years, cost me acutest suffering from the pain and disappointment which I knew it inflicted upon my mother.
When we left Casa Bertini and descended the steep hill to our carriages, we found that the whole society had been amusing themselves by dressing in mourning, and were waiting to sing "a dirge" of their own composition, as we drove away. But we had one or two more happy days. On the morning after our arrival at Lucca town, we were astonished by sounds of loud singing in the passage, and going out, found all those we had so recently parted from at the Bagni singing in chorus some more verses which they had composed as "a serenade," and bringing for us a picture of the Ponte alla Maddalena, painted on a stone out of the river. We quickly determined to spend the day in going with them to Pisa, and making an excursion to the Gombo, where the Pisan pines end in the sands by the seashore—and we did not return till midnight. It was the custom at Lucca for those who drew to make little sketches in the travellers' book at the hotel, and I had amused myself by doing one the day before, and inscribing it "View from the Walls of Lucca," though it was a wretched performance. When we came back, we found a most lovely drawing opposite, inscribed—"View from the Walls of Lucca as it really is." The Grand Duke's artist had been at the hotel in the interval.
We travelled then with delicious slowness, only rolling onwards through the most glorious scenery in the cool mornings and evenings, and resting in the heat of mid-day, while, as at this time we only took our carriage from place to place, we had no scruple in halting for days at Pietra Santa, with its glorious views over the mountains, and old convents embosomed in olives and cypresses; in making excursions to Serravezza and to dismal Carrara; in lingering at La Spezia, where the avenue of oleanders was in full blaze of bloom, and driving thence to Porto Venere with its marble church and wonderful views along the cliffs—blue, green, yellow, and coral-red, descending abruptly into the sea.
To my Aunt Eleanor Paul.
"Lucca, August 3, 1858.—Once upon a time there was a lady advanced in years, who had an only child. They were sick and sorrowful, and the tempests of the world beat upon them. Driven from home, they wandered hither and thither, seeking rest and finding none, till at length one day they arrived, wearied and wayworn, at the entrance of a mountain valley. 'Alas!' they whispered, 'what place is this?'—'Take courage,' answered the trees and fountains; 'rejoice,' shouted the flowers, 'for this is the Happy Valley, where those who enter rest from all sickness and trouble: this is the place where people may have a halt in life, and where care and anxiety do not exist.' And when they heard these words, the countenances of the weary lady and her son were glad, and the flowers and the trees and the fountains laughed and shouted for joy in the ceaseless golden sunshine. For two months the strangers rested in the Happy Valley, and then once more the tempest howled to receive them, and the voices of the unseen sternly bade them depart; and slowly and sadly they arose, and went out again into the wilderness, where every solitary flower, every mountain and stream, seemed only an echo from a lost and beautiful past.
"Oh, my auntie, do you know who the mother and son were, and what was the Happy Valley to which they looked back with so much loving regret?"
"La Spezia, August 8.—We have been to Carrara. Do you know, my auntie, that once upon a time there lived in the mountains of Carrara a race of funny little people called Fanticelle? They were the hobgoblins of the marble rocks, and were very merry, very useful, and highly respected by every one. Each marble had its own Fante; one was dressed in red, another in yellow, and others in stripes of various colours; but the Fante of the white marble wore only a simple dress as white as snow, and was greatly despised in consequence by her companions, who were so fashionably attired. Daily the poor white Fante was snubbed and insulted, and at last, when the ancient Romans came to make quarries, and cut and hacked her to pieces, and carried her remains away in carts, all the other Fanti smiled in their cold satire and said, 'It only served the vulgar creature right, for she did not even know how to dress herself, and sitting upon the mountain with nothing on but her night-dress was really quite indecorous.'
"But when some years had passed, the great guardian spirit came to the mountains, and, stretching forth his wings, he gathered all the Fanti beneath them, and said, 'Now, my children, you shall go forth to see the world, and, when you return, you shall each say what is most highly esteemed by the lovers of art, and what it is that the children of men consider most beautiful and best.'
"Thus the Fanti of Carrara flew forth to see the world! They alighted first in the square at Genoa. All around were huge and stately palaces, and in the centre the statue of a hero, with the world lying captive at his feet. But what the Fanti remarked most was that in the most magnificent chambers of every palace, and even upon the statue of the great Columbus himself, sat the semblance of their despised sister the white Fante, as if enshrined and honoured. 'Alas!' exclaimed the Fanti, 'what degraded notions have these Genoese; let us examine places better worth our notice.' So they came to Spain, and visited the Alhambra, but in every court, and even on the Fountain of Lions itself, they found the image of the white Fante seated before them. Thence they passed on to London, to Paris, to Berlin, to Vienna, but it was ever the same. In every gallery of statues, over the hearth of every palace, upon the altar of every church, it seemed as if the white Fante was reigning. 'Ah,' they exclaimed, 'can all men be thus degraded? can all good taste be banished from the earth? Let us see one more city nearer home, and from that let us form our judgment, for the inhabitants of these northern cities are not worthy to be ranked with mankind.'
"So the Fanti came to Milan, and beneath the wings of the great guardian spirit, rejoicing in their approaching triumph, they entered its vast square. And behold the spirit drew back his wings, and they beheld a mighty and an awful vision! Before them stood their sister, the Fante of the milk-white rocks, but no longer humble, no longer to be restrained even within the bounds of the greatest palace upon earth. Majestic in beauty, invincible in power, she raised her mighty wings to heaven in the aisles of a vast cathedral, and mounted higher and higher as by an aërial staircase, till, far above all human things, she flung her snow-white tresses into the azure sky!
"Then the Fanti of the coloured robes bowed their heads and trembled, and acknowledged in penitence and humility—'Truly the Fante of the white rocks is the most beautiful thing in the world!'
"Who can go to Carrara, my auntie, and not feel this?"
We were for a few days at Turin. The society there was then, as it is still, the very climax of stagnation. One of its most admired ornaments was a beautiful young Contessa la Marmora. She did nothing all day, absolutely nothing, but sit looking pretty, with her chin leaning on her hand. Her mother-in-law was rather more energetic than herself, and hoping to rouse her, left a new "Journal des Modes" upon her table. Some days after, she asked what she thought of it. "Alas!" said the young Countess, with her beautiful head still leaning upon her hand, "I have been so much occupied, that I never have found time to look into it." In all my acquaintance since with Italian ladies, I have always found the same, that they are all intensely occupied, but that it is in doing—nothing!
Since the dreadful epidemic at court, which swept away at once the Queen, the Queen-Dowager, and the Duke of Genoa, the King had never received, and as his eldest daughter, Madame Clotilde, was not old enough to do so, there were no court parties. At the opera all the young ladies sat facing the stage, and the old ladies away from it; but when the ballet began there was a general change; the old ladies moved to the front, and the young ones went behind.
A great contrast to the Italians at Turin was Mr. Ruskin, whom we saw constantly. He was sitting all day upon a scaffold in the gallery, copying bits of the great picture by Paul Veronese. My mother was very proud of my drawings at this time, and gave them to him to look at. He examined them all very carefully and said nothing for some time. At last he pointed out one of the cathedral at Perugia as "the least bad of a very poor collection." One day in the gallery, I asked him to give me some advice. He said, "Watch me." He then looked at the flounce in the dress of a maid of honour of the Queen of Sheba for five minutes, and then he painted one thread: he looked for another five minutes, and then he painted another thread.[135] At the rate at which he was working he might hope to paint the whole dress in ten years: but it was a lesson as to examining what one drew well before drawing it. I said to him, "Do you admire all Paul Veronese's works as you do this?" He answered, "I merely think that Paul Veronese was ordained by Almighty God to be an archangel, neither more nor less; for it was not only that he knew how to cover yards of canvas with noble figures and exquisite colouring, it was that it was all right. If you look at other pictures in this gallery, or any gallery, you will find mistakes, corrected perhaps, but mistakes of every form and kind; but Paul Veronese had such perfect knowledge, he never made mistakes."
The Charles Bunsens were at Turin, and we dined with them. With Mrs. C. Bunsen was her brother, whom we thought a very dull, heavy young man. Long afterwards he became very well known as the French Ambassador, Waddington.
We saw Mr. Ruskin again several times in the Vaudois, whither we went from Turin, and stayed for several days at La Tour, riding on donkeys to the wild scene of the Waldensian battle in the valley of Angrogna, and jolting in a carriage to the beautiful villages of Villar and Bobbio—"une vraie penitence," as our driver expressed it, though the scenery is lovely. My mother was charmed to find an old woman at La Tour who had known Oberlin very well and had lived in his parish.
Amongst the endless little out-of-the-way excursions which my mother, Lea, and I have made together in little chars-à-banc, one of those I remember with greatest pleasure is that from Vergogna up the Val Anzasca. The scenery was magnificent: such a deep gorge, with purple rocks breaking through the rich woods, and range upon range of distant mountains, with the snows of Monte Rosa closing them in. We stayed at a charming little mountain inn at Ponte Grande, where everything was extraordinarily cheap, and wandered in the meadows filled with globe-ranunculus and over-shadowed by huge chestnut-trees. In the evening the charcoal-burners came down from the mountains, where we had watched the smoke of the fires all day amongst the woods, and serenaded us under our windows, singing in parts, with magnificent voices, most effective in the still night. We were afterwards at Domo d'Ossola for a Sunday for the extraordinary fête of the imaginary Santa Filomena—kept all day with frantic enthusiasm, cannons firing, bells ringing, and processions of girls in white, chaunting as they walked, pouring in from all the country parishes in the neighbourhood.
To Mrs. Hare (Italima).
"Lausanne, Sept. 3, 1858.—At Martigny we found Galignani, which we had not seen for some days, and you will imagine my distress at the sad news about Mr. Landor with which they were filled.[137] Dear Mr. Landor! I had always hoped and intended to be near him and watch over the last years of this old, old friend. I feel certain that there is much, which the world does not know, to be said on his side. I have known Mrs. Y. for years ... and always prophesied that she would be the ruin of Mr. Landor some day. For the poems, no excuse can be offered except that he was so imbued with the spirit of the classical authors, that when he wished to write against Mrs. Y., he thought, 'How would Horace have written this?' and wrote accordingly, only that Horace would have said things a great deal worse.
'Some thought far worse of him, and judged him wrong;
But verse was what he had been wedded to,
And his own mind did like a tempest strong
Come to him thus, and drove the weary wight along.'[138]
Whatever his faults are, I am sure you will feel that we who have known him well must draw a veil for ourselves over the failings of his old age, and remember only the many kind words of the dear old man, so tender in heart and so fastidious in taste, the many good and generous acts of his long life, and how many they are.
"How much we have been struck with the pale blue of the Swiss lakes compared with the deep blue of those of Italy."
To my Aunt, Eleanor Paul.
"Dijon, Sept. 12, 1858.—We found Fribourg quite up to our expectations, quite worth coming all the way round by Switzerland to visit. And the organ, how magnificent it is! We went in the evening to hear it, when all the beautiful gothic church was wrapped in darkness, except the solitary gleam of light in the organ-loft, and we all sat long in breathless expectation. When the music came, it was like a story. One seemed to be sitting far up the nave of some great cathedral, and to hear from the distant choir the choristers chaunting a litany, answering one another, and then swelling and joining in a universal chorus. Then, while they were singing, it was as if a great storm arose, the hail rattled and the rain splashed against the windows, the thunder crashed overhead, and the wind howled around. And then a mighty earthquake convulsed and shook the church to its very foundations. But always, in the pauses of the storm, the sweet silvery voices of the choristers were heard above the roaring of the elements, and when the storm subsided, they joined in thanksgiving, which died away in the faint echoes of the surrounding hills. And all this was the organ!
"We came by Morat to Neuchâtel. It is a pretty, though not a striking place; but the view of the vast mass of Mont Blanc and of all the Oberland Alps in the rose-coloured glow is magnificent. The mother made inquiries after many old acquaintances,[139] to find most of them dead, and those who were still living old, old ladies of ninety and of one hundred.
"Did you ever hear of Doubs? We came through it yesterday, and it certainly seemed to us the most melancholy, ill-fated village we had ever seen. Some time ago there lived there a boy, whose stepmother was very cruel to him—so cruel that his whole aim and object in life was to obtain money enough to set up for himself and escape from her tyranny. At last he succeeded, and leaving his father's house with his heart full of bitterness, he invested his savings in a partnership with the owner of the village café, where he kept the accounts. One day his partner accused him of not giving him a fair share of the profits. This made him perfectly frantic—so furious that he determined to avenge himself by nothing less than the total destruction of his native place! He began by setting fire to his café, but the alarm was scarcely given when it was discovered that almost every other house was in flames. The inhabitants hurried from their beds, and were barely able to save themselves, their houses, cattle, and goods perishing at one blow. Only a few houses and the church escaped, in which the fugitives took refuge, and were beginning to collect their energies, when, after ten days, the fire broke out again in the night, and the rest of the village was consumed with all it contained, including a child of four years old. Between the two fires cholera had broken out, so that numbers perished from pestilence as well as exposure. The author of all the misery was taken and transported, but the town is only now beginning to rise again from its ruins, and the people to raise their spirits."
On reaching Paris, we found Italima and my sister at the Hôtel d'Oxford et Cambridge. Greatly to my relief, my mother decided that, as she was in perfect health and well supplied with visitors, it was an admirable opportunity for my remaining abroad to learn French: this I was only too thankful for, as it put off the evil day of my return to England, and encountering the family wrath about my refusal to take Orders. With my sister I spent an amusing day at Versailles on a visit to the Marquis and Marquise du Prât, the latter a daughter of the Duc de Grammont, and a very pretty, lively person. They lived in an ideal house of the ancienne régime, where the chairs, picture-frames, carpets, even the antimacassars, were carved or worked with the shields, crests, and mottoes of the family.
After my sister left, the intrigues of Madame Davidoff, whom, in compliance with my mother's wishes, I had refused to visit, brought about my acquaintance with the Vicomte de Costa le Cerda, a Franco-Spaniard and ardent Catholic, who constituted himself my cicerone, and amongst other places took me to séances of the Académie de France, of which he was a member; and I should have been much interested in seeing all the celebrated philosophers, politicians, physicians, geologists, &c., if I had not been so ignorant of French literature that I had scarcely heard of any one of them before. The Marquis de Gabriac[140] (I forget how his office entitled him to do so) sent me a medal which enabled me to visit all profane, and the Archbishop of Paris a permission to enter all religious, institutions. Using the latter, I went with De Costa to the Benedictines, Ursulines, Carmelites, Petites Sœurs des Pauvres, and the Œuvre de la Compassion for bringing up little homeless boys. On Sundays I heard Père Félix, the philosophic Bourdaloue of the nineteenth century, preach with his musical voice to vast enthralled audiences in Nôtre Dame.[141]
Capital were the French lessons I received from the excellent M. Nyon, to whom I have always felt indebted. After Italima left Paris, I lodged with a Madame Barraud, who rented a small apartment at the back of a court in the Rue des Saints-Pères. Here my wretched little room looked out upon a blank wall, and was as thoroughly uncomfortable as it was possible to be. The weather soon became bitterly cold, and, to prevent being starved, I had to sit almost all day in the one poor uncarpeted sitting-room with old Madame Barraud herself, who was a most extraordinary character. Without the slightest apparent reason, a sudden suspicion would seize her, and she would rush off to the kitchen. In another minute she would return, wringing her hands, and would fling herself down in a chair with—"Oh, que je suis malheureuse! Oh, que je suis malheureuse! C'est une fille abominable cette Marie—cette tortue! elle ne sait pas le service du tout," and then, before she had time to take breath, she would run off to investigate the causes of a fresh noise in the kitchen. You were never safe from her. Every moment that old woman would dart in like a whirlwind, just to wipe off one speck of dust she had discovered on the mirror, or to smooth some crease she suspected in the tablecloth; and almost before you could look up she was vanishing with her eternal refrain of "que je suis misérable! que je suis malheureuse!"
The one subject of discussion till twelve o'clock was the déjeûner, from twelve to six the dinner, and after that the déjeûner of the next morning. Matters, however, were rather improved when Mademoiselle Barraud was at home—a thoroughly sensible, sterling person, who was generally absent on professional duties, being one of the first music-mistresses of the day. Sometimes Madame and Mademoiselle had friends in the evening, when it was amusing to see specimens of the better sort of third-class Parisians.
I made very few friends at Paris, but the persons I saw oftenest were the Marquise du Pregnier and her old mother, who remembered the Reign of Terror and had lost both her parents by the guillotine. Occasionally I went in the evening to the salon of Madame Mohl, wife of Julius Mohl, the great Orientalist, but herself an Englishwoman, who had in early life been intimate with Chateaubriand and present at his touching last hours, when his friend Madame Recamier, beautiful to the end, sat watching him with her blind eyes. Madame Mohl was a most extraordinary-looking person, like a poodle, with frizzled hair hanging down over her face and very short skirts. Her salon, at 120 Rue de Bac, especially on Friday evenings, was at that time quite one of the social features of Paris. One savant used to drop in after the other and sit round her talking in a circle, and with a finesse d'esprit all her own, she would address each in turn in her quick sharp voice, always saying something pungent or clever. Politics were the chief topic, and though I remember Madame Mohl once saying that "political society was not what could be called a nourishing occupation," there were no refreshments, however late the company stayed, but tea and biscuits. She had always had a sort of salon, even when, as Miss Clarke, she lived with her old mother in a very small apartment in the Abbaye-aux-Bois. Ticknor speaks of her there as keeping a little bureau d'esprit all her own, à la française.
One night when I was shown into her salon, I found, to my horror, that I was not only the first to arrive, but that the old lady was so engrossed in administering a violent scolding to her husband, that she was promenading the drawing-room half undressed, with her strange locks still in curl-papers. It was a most ridiculous scene, and my premature appearance not a little embarrassing to them both. I retreated into the passage till Madame Mohl was "done up," though that operation was not accomplished till many other guests had arrived.
M. Julius Mohl was the greatest contrast to his quicksilver wife. He used to be called "le bourru bienfaisant," from his rough exterior and genuine kindness of heart. He was really ten years younger than his wife, though she considered sixty-eight the right age for a woman to attain to, and never to her last day allowed that she had passed that limit.
Madame Mohl was fond of describing how, when she was at Paris in her childhood, her elder sister, Mrs. Frewen, was taken by their mother and grandmother to the chapel royal at the Tuileries, where Marie Antoinette was then living in a kind of half-captivity. She was a very little girl, and a gendarme thought she would be crushed, and lifted her upon his shoulders, on which she was just opposite the King and Queen. She remembered, as in a picture, how on one side of them were first Madame Royale, then Madame Elizabeth, then the little Dauphin.
The cause which led to Mrs. Frewen seeing Marie Antoinette at that time was in itself very curious. She was returning from the south with her mother (Mrs. Clarke) and her grandmother. They reached Bordeaux, where they were to embark for England in a "smack." Their luggage was already on board; but, on the night before starting, the grandmother had a vivid dream that the smack was lost with all on board. In the morning she declared that nothing on earth should induce her to go in it. The daughter remonstrated vigorously about expense, but the old lady stood firm. They were able to take off their smaller things, but all their larger luggage had to be left. The smack went down on the Goodwin Sands and all was lost; so the family came to Paris.[143]
Of all the evenings I spent at Paris, the most interesting was one with the Archbishop, who kindly invited me to his old country château of Issy, once a palace of the Prince de Condé, and very magnificent. The Archbishop, however, only inhabited the porter's lodge, and all the rest was left deserted. The Archbishop was playing at bagatelle with his chaplains when we entered, upon which he seated himself opposite to us (De Costa went with me) in an arm-chair. He was a fine old man with grey hair, dressed in cardinal's robes and crimson stockings, with the chain of a Grand Almoner of France round his neck. There was only one light in the high dark room, a lamp close to his shoulder, which threw a most picturesque light over him, like a Rembrandt portrait. He inquired about my visits to the different "religious" in Paris, and spoke regretfully of the difficulties encountered by the Petites Sœurs des Pauvres. Then he talked to De Costa about his medical studies and about phrenology. This led him to the great Napoleon, of whose habits he gave a very curious account. He said that he believed his strange phrenological development was caused by his extraordinary way of feeding—that he never was known to take a regular meal, but that he had a spit on which a chicken was always roasting at a slow fire, and that whenever he felt inclined he took a slice. When demolished, the chicken was instantly replaced. It was the same with sleep: he never went to bed at regular hours, only when he felt sleepy. We had been warned that the Archbishop himself went to bed at nine, as he always rose at four; so at nine I got up and kissed his ring, as we always did then to the cardinals at Rome, but the kind old man insisted on coming out after us into the passage, and seeing that we were well wrapped up in our greatcoats.
In October, Aunt Kitty (Mrs. Stanley) came for a few days to Paris, and going about with Arthur Stanley was a great pleasure.
To MY MOTHER.
"Paris, Oct. 19, 1858.—I have been much disturbed by my dearest mother's writing twice to Aunt Kitty to urge upon me the duty of instantly deciding upon some situation. It seems so useless to make oneself miserable in the interval because situations and professions do not drop from the clouds whenever one chooses to call for them. You know how I have dreaded the return to England, simply because I knew how wearing the family onslaught would be directly I arrived, and that all peace would be at an end, and it certainly was not likely to mend matters to write to complain to the Stanleys of how grievously I had disappointed you, and that therefore I must decide instantly! If my mother will consider, she will see that it is no question of exerting oneself. I know exactly what there is to be had and what there is not, and we both know how extremely improbable it is that I could get anything without some knowledge of modern languages, at least of French. This therefore is evidently the first point, and whilst one is employed all day long in struggling and striving to attain it, is it not rather hard to see letters from England about waste of time, want of effort, &c.?
"Were I to take an office in London now, the pay might possibly be as much as £60 a year, without any vacation, or any hope of advance in life, and even in the most miserable lodgings it would be difficult to live in London under £200 a year. However, if my mother hears of anything which she wishes me to take, I will certainly take it.
"Aunt Kitty has been very kind, and I have enjoyed going about with Arthur. Yesterday we went to the Conciergerie, where, by help of the Archbishop's letter and an order from the Préfecture of Police, we contrived to gain admittance. It is in the centre of Louis the Ninth's palace, of which it was once the dungeon, and has been very little altered. The room in which Marie Antoinette was confined for two months before her execution has scarcely been changed at all. There are still the heavy barred doors, the brick floor, the cold damp smell, the crucifix which hung before the window and kneeling before which she received the viaticum, the place where the bed stood, upon which the Queen could not lie down without being watched by the guards—who never took their eyes off—from the wicket opposite. Opening out of the Queen's prison is the small narrow chamber in which Robespierre was confined for one day, but where he never slept—brought there at eight, tried at eleven, executed at four. This opens into a large room, now the chapel, once the prison of Madame Elizabeth, and afterwards the place in which the Girondists held their last dreadful banquet before execution, when they sang the Marseillaise around the dead man on the table, and are said to have composed 'Mourir pour la Patrie.'
"To-day Arthur and I went by rail to Versailles, and took a little carriage thence to Port Royal. The country was lovely, the forest red and golden with autumnal tints. In a wooded valley, with a green lawn winding through it like a river, watered by a little brooklet, are the remains of Port Royal, the farmhouse where Racine and Pascal lived and wrote, the dovecot and fountain of Mère Angélique, the ruins of the church, the cemetery and cross, and 'the Solitude' where the nuns sat in solemn council around a crucifix in the middle of the woods. In the house is a collection of old pictures of the celebrities connected with the place. Arthur, of course, peopled the whole place in imagination and description with the figures of the past, and insisted on our 'walking in procession' (of two) down the ruined church.
"We went on to Dampierre, a fine old château of the Duc de Luynes, with green drives and avenues; and then to Chevreuse, where we climbed up the hill to the ruined castle with machicolated towers and a wide view over the orange-coloured woods, where the famous Madame de Chevreuse lived."
"Nov. 8.—The cold is almost insupportable! Parisians are so accustomed to their horrible climate, that Madame Barraud cannot understand my feeling it, and I have great difficulty in getting even the one little fire we have, and am occupied all day in shutting the doors, which every one else makes a point of leaving open. Madame Barraud describes her own character exactly when she stands in the middle of the room and says with a tragic voice, 'Je suis juste, Monsieur, je suis bonne; mais, Monsieur, je suis sévère!' She is excellent and generous on all great occasions, but I never knew any one who had such a power of making people uncomfortable by petty grievances and incessant fidgetting. Though she will give me fifty times more food than I wish, nothing on earth would induce her to light the fire in my bedroom, even in the most ferocious weather, because it is not 'son habitude'. 'La bonne Providence m'a donné un caractère,' she said the other day, recounting her history. 'Avec ce caractère j'ai fait un mariage de convenance avec M. Barraud: avec ce caractère, étant veuve, j'ai pris ma petite fille de douze ans, et je suis venue à Paris pour faire jouer son talent: avec ce caractère, quand les fils de mon mari m'ont fait des mauvaises tournées, je n'ai rien dit, mais je les ai quittés pour toujours, parceque je n'ai pas voulu voir le nom de mon mari paraître dans des querelles: je suis bonne, Monsieur, je suis juste, c'est ma nature; mais, Monsieur, je suis sévère; et je ne les reverrais jamais.' Just now she is possessed with the idea—solely based upon her having a new pair of shoes—that Marie, the maid, certainly has a lover concealed somewhere, and she constantly goes to look for him under the kitchen-table, in the cupboard, &c. She hangs up the chicken or goose for the next day's dinner in the little passage leading to my room, and in the middle of the night I hear stealthy footsteps, and a murmur of 'Oh, qu'il est gras! Oh, qu'il sera délicieux!' as she pats it and feels it all over."
At the end of November I returned to England. Two years after, when we were in Paris on our way to Italy, I went to the Rue des Saints-Pères. Madame Barraud was dead then, and her daughter, left alone, was lamenting her so bitterly that she was quite unable to attend to her work, and sat all day in tears. She never rallied. When I inquired, as we returned through Paris, Mademoiselle Barraud had followed her mother to the grave; constantly as she had been scolded by her, wearisome as her life seemed to have been made, the grief for her loss had literally broken her heart.
During the winter we were absent at Rome, our house of Lime was lent to Aunt Esther (Mrs. Julius Hare) and Mrs. Alexander. Two cabinets contained all our family MSS., which Aunt Esther knew that I valued beyond everything else. Therefore, she forced both the cabinets open and destroyed the whole—all Lady Jones's journals and letters from India, all Bishop Shipley's letters—every letter, in fact, relating to any member of the Hare family. She replaced the letters to my adopted mother from the members of her own family in the front of the cabinets, and thus the fact they had nothing behind them was never discovered till we left Hurstmonceaux, two years after. When asked about it, Aunt Esther only said, "Yes, I did it: I saw fit to destroy them." It was a strange and lasting legacy of injustice to bequeath, and I think I cannot be harsh in saying that only a very peculiar temperament could construe such an act into "right-doing."
"How can a man learn to know himself? By reflection never, only by action. In the measure in which thou seekest to do thy duty shalt thou know what is in thee. But what is one's duty? The demand of the hour."—GOETHE.
"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."—Sainte-Beuve.
"Every man has a separate calling, an end peculiar to himself."—Frederick Schlegel.
"The old lord-treasurer Burleigh, if any one came to the Lords of the Council for a licence to travel, he would first examine him of England: if he found him ignorant, he would bid him stay at home and know his own country first."—HENRY PEACHAM, 1622, The Compleat Gentleman.
UPON returning to England in the winter of 1858, I felt more bitterly that ever the want of sympathy which had formerly oppressed me. Though I had the most idolatrous love for my dearest mother, and the most over-anxious wish to please her, there was then none of the perfect friendship between us, the easy interchange of every thought, which there was in later years; for she was still so entirely governed by her sisters-in-law as scarcely to have any individuality of her own. Often, often, did she pain me bitterly by suspecting my motives and questioning my actions, even when I was most desirous of doing right; and from the long habit of being told that I was idle and ignorant, that I cared for nothing useful, and that I frittered away my life, she had grown to believe it, and constantly assumed that it was so. Thus all my studies were embittered to me. I was quite sure that nothing I did would be appreciated, so that it never seemed worth while to do anything, and I became utterly deficient in that cheerfulness of disposition which is the most important element in all private success.
As I write this, and remember the number of delightful intimates by whom my after years have been surrounded, I find it difficult to realise that I had at this time no friends who, by mutual confidence, could help or cheer me. The best of them, Milligan, was now settled in London, being in full work in the Ecclesiastical Commission Office, and though always very kind to me, he had now fallen into a new set of acquaintances and surroundings, and had no time to bestow upon me individually. George Sheffield I seldom saw; and I had no other friends worth speaking of.
At this time all the intellectual impetus I received, and without which I should have fallen into a state of stagnation, came from the house of my aunt, Mrs. Stanley. Her grace, ease, and tact in society were unrivalled. At her house, and there alone, I met people of original ideas and liberal conversation. In this conversation, however, I was at that time far too shy to join, and I was so dreadfully afraid of my aunt, who, with the kindest intentions, had a very cold unsympathetic manner in private, that—while I always appreciated her—I was unable to reap much benefit from her society. Perhaps my chief friend was my cousin Arthur Stanley, whom I was not the least afraid of, and whom I believe to have been really fond of me at this time; also, though he had a very poor opinion of my present powers and abilities, he did not seem, like other people, utterly to despair of my future.
Catherine Stanley
By my mother's desire, Archdeacon Moore (an old friend of the Hare family) had written to Sir Antonio Panizzi,[146] then the autocratic ruler of the British Museum Library, with a view to my standing for a clerkship there. But this idea was afterwards abandoned, and it was owing to the kindness of my cousin Arthur and that of Albert Way (our connection by his marriage with Emmeline Stanley) that I obtained from John Murray, the publisher, the employment of my next two years—the "Handbook of Berks, Bucks, and Oxfordshire."
The commission to undertake this Handbook was one which I hailed with rapture. The work was in every respect welcome to me. I had an inner consciousness that I could do it well, and that while I was doing it I should be acquiring information and advancing my own neglected education. Besides, the people with whom the work would necessarily bring me in contact were just those who were most congenial. My principal residence would be Oxford, associated with some of my happiest days, and where it was now a real pleasure to be near Arthur Stanley; while, if my mother were ill or needed me in any way, there was nothing in my work which would prevent my returning to her, and continuing it at home. Above all, the fact of my having the work to do would silence the ceaseless insinuations to my mother as to my desire for an idle life of self-indulgence. I knew nothing then of the mercantile value of my labour. I did not know (and I had no one to inform me) that I was giving away the earnest work of two years for a pitiful sum,[147] which was not a tenth of its value, and which was utterly insufficient to meet its expenses.
How well I remember my first sight of John Murray, when he came to dine at the Stanleys' house in Grosvenor Crescent—his hard, dry questions, his sharp, concise note afterwards, in which he announced the terms of our hardly-driven bargain, received by me as if it had been the greatest of favours. Perhaps, however, the very character of the man I had to deal with, and the rules he enjoined as to my work, were a corrective I was much the better for at this time. The style of my writing was to be as hard, dry, and incisive as my taskmaster. It was to be a mere catalogue of facts and dates, mingled with measurements of buildings, and irritating details as to the "E. E.," "Dec.," or "Perp." architecture even of the most insignificant churches, this being the peculiar hobby of the publisher. No sentiment, no expression of opinion were ever to be allowed; all description was to be reduced to its barest bones, dusty, dead, and colourless. In fact, I was to produce a book which I knew to be utterly unreadable, though correct and useful for reference. Many a paper struggle did I have with John Murray the third—for there has been a dynasty of John Murrays in Albemarle Street—as to the retention of paragraphs I had written. I remember how this was especially the case as to my description of Redesdale, which was one of the best things I have ever done. Murray, however, was never averse to a contribution from one whose name was already distinguished either by rank or literature, and when Arthur Stanley contributed passages with his signature to my account of Oxford, they were gladly accepted, though antagonistic to all his rules.
Arthur Stanley had been made Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Oxford before we had gone abroad, and, while we were absent, a Canonry at Christ Church, attached to the professorship, had fallen in to him. The Canon's house was just inside the Peckwater Gate leading into Tom Quad, and had a stiff narrow walled garden behind, planted with apple-trees, in the centre of which Arthur made a fountain. It had been a trouble to the Canon that it was almost impossible in his position to make the acquaintance he wished with the young men around him, and in this I was able to be a help to him, and in some way to return the kindness which often gave me a second home in his house for many months together. His helpless untidiness, and utter inability to look after himself, were also troubles which I could at least ameliorate. I rapidly made acquaintances in Christ Church, several of which developed into friendships, and I was only too glad to accede to Arthur's wish that I should invite them to his house, where they became his acquaintances also. Of Christ Church men at this time I became most familiar with Brownlow,[148] Le Strange,[149] Edward Stanhope,[150] Stopford,[151] Addie Hay,[152] and my second cousin, Victor Williamson.[153] A little later, at the house of Mrs. Cradock, I was introduced to "Charlie Wood."[154] I did not think that I should like him at first; but we became intimate over an excursion to Watlington and Sherborne Castle, and he has ever since been the best and dearest of my friends. Very soon in constant companionship, we drew together in the Bodleian and Christ Church libraries, we read together at home, and many were the delightful excursions we made in home scenes, forerunners of after excursions in more striking scenes abroad. We also often shared in the little feasts in Mrs. Cradock's[155] garden, where we used to amuse ourselves and others by composing and reciting verses.
I frequently left Christ Church for a week or two upon exploring raids into the counties on which I was employed, and used to bring back materials to work up in Oxford, with the help of the Bodleian and other libraries. Very early, in this time of excursions, I received an invitation (often repeated) from Jane, Viscountess Barrington, a first cousin of my real mother, to visit her at Beckett near Shrivenham. I had seen so little then of any members of my real family, that I went to Beckett with more shyness and misgivings than I have ever taken to any other place; but I soon became deeply attached to my dear cousin Lady Barrington, who began from the first to show an interest in me, which was more that of a tenderly affectionate aunt than of any more distant relation. Lord Barrington, the very type of a courteous English nobleman, was also most kind. Of their daughters, two were unmarried—Augusta, who was exceedingly handsome, brimful of very accurate information, and rather alarming on first acquaintance; and Adelaide, who was of a much brighter, gentler nature. I thought at this time, however, that Lina, Lady Somerton, was more engaging than either of her sisters. I often found her at Beckett with her children, of whom the little Nina—afterwards Countess of Clarendon—used to be put into a large china pot upon the staircase when she was naughty. Beckett was a very large luxurious house in the Tudor style, with a great hall, built by Thomas Liddell, Lady Barrington's brother. The park was rather flat, but had a pretty piece of water with swans, and a picturesque summer-house built by Inigo Jones. Much of the family fortune came from Lord Barrington's uncle, Shute Barrington, Bishop of Durham, who used to say he was the only licensed poacher in England—"I Shute, by the grace of God," &c. This old bishop, when his nephew brought his bride to visit him—a wedding visit—at Mongewell, filled all the trees with rare cockatoos and parrots, in the hope that when she heard them scream, she would think they were the native birds of that district. Lord and Lady Barrington took me, amongst other places, to see Mr. Aitkens of Kingston Lyle—"the Squire" in Tom Hughes's "Scouring of the White Horse," and also to see the creature itself, which is far more like a weasel than a horse. The kindness of Lord Barrington also secured my favourable reception at every other house in the county, and many were the visits I paid in Berkshire at places described in my Handbook.
Much kindness was also shown me by old Lady Stanley of Alderley,[156] who was often very violent, indeed quite furious, about her own opinions; but full of the most sincere interest and kindness towards me for my mother's sake. Holmwood, near Henley, whither I went several times to visit her, was an enchanting place, with luxuriant lawn and flowers, fine trees, and beautiful distant views. A succession of grandchildren always filled the house, and found it most enjoyable, the two unmarried aunts—Rianette (Maria Margaret) and Louisa—being, as one of them (Lady Airlie) has often told me, "the good fairies of their childhood." Like most Stanleys, they were peculiarly subject to what that family calls "fits of righteous indignation" with all who differed from them; but nobody minded. Having had the most interesting youth themselves, during which their uncle (afterwards Bishop Stanley) and other relations were always inventing something for their amusement, they had a special gift for interesting others, so that those who went to visit them always felt that though they received many and often unmerited scoldings, their visit could never be dull. How well I remember still Louisa Stanley's graphic imitation of many people of her long-ago—especially of old Mr. Holland, the Knutsford doctor,[157] who would come in saying, "Well, Miss Louisa, and how are we to-day? We must take a little more rubbub and magnesia; and I would eat a leetle plain pudden with a leetle shugger over it!" and then, ringing the bell, "Would you send round my hearse, if you please?"
Lady Stanley herself had been the pupil of Gibbon at Lausanne, and had much to tell of past days; and the pertinacity with which she maintained her own opinions about them and everything else, rendered her recollections very vivid and amusing. All the family, including my mother, were so dreadfully afraid of Lady Stanley, that a visit to her always partook of the nature of an adventure; but it generally turned out to be a very charming adventure, and I always look back to her with affectionate gratitude, and feel that there was a great charm in the singleness, sincerity, and freshness of her character. When I was at Holmwood, I used to engage a little carriage and go out for long excursions of eight or ten hours into the country; and when I returned just before dinner, Lady Stanley was so anxious to hear my adventures, that she would not wait till I came down, but would insist upon the whole history through the bedroom door as I was dressing.
If people were not afraid of her, Lady Stanley liked them the better for it, and she always heartily enjoyed a joke. I remember hearing how one day at Alderley she raged and stormed because the gentlemen sat longer after dinner than she liked. Old Mr. Davenport was the first to come into the drawing-room. "Well now, what have you been doing?" she exclaimed; "what can you have found to talk about to keep you so long?"—"Would you really like to know what we've been talking about, my lady?" said Mr. Davenport. "Yes indeed," she stormed. "Well," said Mr. Davenport very deliberately, "we talked first about the depression in the salt (mines), and that led us on inadvertently to pepper, and that led us to cayenne, and that, my lady, led us ... to yourself,"—and she was vastly amused. One day her maid told her that there was a regular uproar downstairs about precedence, as to which of the maids was to come in first to prayers. "Oh, that is very easily settled," said Lady Stanley; "the ugliest woman in the house must always, of course, have the precedence," and she heard no more about it.
Another house which I was frequently invited to use as a centre for my excursions was that of my father's first cousin, Penelope, Mrs. Warren, who was living in the old home of Lady Jones at Worting, near Basingstoke. It was in a most dreary, cold, wind-stricken district, and was especially selected on that account by Lady Jones, because of its extreme contrast to the India which she abominated. Internally, however, the old red-brick house was very comfortable and charming, and Mrs. Warren herself a very sweet and lovable old lady, tenderly cared for by her sons and daughters, many of whom were always about her, though only one of the latter, Anna, was unmarried. Mrs. Warren had been the eldest of the daughters of Dean Shipley, and the only one who never gave her family any trouble, and who was invariably loved and honoured by its other members. Her character through life had been that of a peacemaker, and in her old age she seemed almost glorified by the effulgence of the love which had emanated from her, no single member of the family having a recollection of her which was not connected with some kindly word or unselfish action.[158] That Lady Jones should bequeath Worting to her was felt by all the other nephews and nieces to have been most natural. "Who should it have been to, if not to Penelope?" She liked to talk of old times, and her reminiscences were most interesting. She was also very proud of her family, especially of the Mordaunts, and of our direct descent, through the Shipleys, from the youngest son of Edward I. It was on one of my early visits at Worting that I first made acquaintance with my cousin Harriet, Mrs. Thornton, niece of Mrs. Warren, and one of the daughters of Bishop Heber.[159] She described the second marriage of her mother to Count Valsamachi in the Greek church at Venice, and the fun she and her sister thought it to walk round the altar with huge wedding favours in their hands. She was full of amusing stories of India, from which she was just returned: would tell how one day she was sitting next a Rajah who was carving a pie, and when he lifted the crust a whole flock of little birds flew out—"Whir-r-r-r!" said the Rajah as they flew all over the room; how, one day, being surprised that an expected ham was not brought in to dinner, she went out and found it lying in the court, with all the native servants round it in a circle spitting at it; and how one day at the Cape she was told that a woman was bitten by a venomous snake, and going out, found her eating a toad as a remedy. One of Mrs. Thornton's stories, which I have often repeated since, is so curious as to deserve insertion here.
"M. de Sartines had been brought up by an old friend of his family who lived in Picardy. The château of his old friend was the home of his youth, and the only place where he felt sure that all his failings would be overlooked and all his fancies and wishes would be considered.
"While he was absent from France on diplomatic service, M. de Sartines heard with great grief that his old friend was dead. In losing him, he lost not only the friend who had been as a second father, but the only home which remained to him in France. He felt his loss very much—so much, indeed, that for many years he did not return to France at all, but spent his time of leave in travelling in Italy and elsewhere.
"Some years after, M. de Sartines, finding himself in Paris, received a letter from the nephew of his old friend, who had succeeded to the Picardy property. It was a very nice letter indeed, saying how much he and his wife wished to keep up old family ties and connections, and that though he was well aware that it would cost M. de Sartines much to revisit the château so tenderly connected with memories of the dead, still, if he could make that effort, no guest would be more affectionately welcomed, and that he and his wife would do their utmost to make him feel that the friendship which had been held had not passed away, but was continued to another generation. It was so nice a letter that M. de Sartines felt that he ought not to reject the hand of friendship stretched out in so considerate and touching a manner, and though it certainly cost him a great effort, he went down to the château in Picardy.
"His old friend's nephew and his wife received him on the doorstep. Everything was prepared to welcome him. They had inquired of former servants which room he had occupied and how he liked it arranged, and all was ready accordingly. They had even inquired about and provided his favourite dishes at dinner. Nothing was wanting which the most disinterested solicitude could effect.
"When M. de Sartines retired to his room for the night, he was filled with conflicting emotions. The blank which he felt in the loss of his old friend was mingled with a grateful sense of the kindness he had received from the nephew. He felt he could not sleep, or would be long in doing so; but having made up a large fire, for it was very cold weather, he went to bed.
"In process of time, as he lay wakefully with his head upon the pillow, he became aware of the figure of a little wizened old man hirpling towards the fire. He thought he must be dreaming, but, as he listened, the old man spoke—'Il y a longtemps que je n'ai vu un feu, il faut que je me chauffe.'
"The blood of M. de Sartines ran cold within him as the figure turned slowly round towards the bed and continued in trembling accents—'Il y a longtemps que je n'ai vu un lit, il faut que je me couche.'
"But every fibre in M. de Sartines' body froze as the old man, on reaching the bed, drew the curtains, and seeing him, exclaimed—'Il y a longtemps que je n'ai vu M. de Sartines, il faut que je l'embrasse.'
"M. de Sartines almost died of fright. But fortunately he did not quite die. He lived to know that it was his old friend himself. The nephew had got tired of waiting for the inheritance; he had imprisoned his uncle in the cellar, and had given out his death, and had a false funeral of a coffin filled with stones. The invitation to his uncle's friend was a coup de théâtre: if any suspicions had existed, they must have been lulled for ever by the presence of such a guest in the château. But on the very day on which M. de Sartines had arrived, the old gentleman had contrived to escape from his cell, and wandering half imbecile about the house, made his way to the room where he remembered having so often been with his friend, and found there his friend himself.
"M. de Sartines saw the rightful owner of the castle reinstated, and the villainy of the wicked nephew exposed; but the old man died soon afterwards."
Here is another story which Mrs. Thornton told, apropos of the benefits of cousinship:—
"Frederick the Great was one day travelling incognito, when he met a student on his way to Berlin, and asked him what he was going to do there. 'Oh,' said the student, 'I am going to Berlin to look for a cousin, for I have heard of so many people who have found cousins in Berlin, and who have risen through their influence to rank and power, that I am going to try if I cannot find one too.' Frederick had much further conversation with him, and on parting said, 'Well, if you trust to me, I believe that I shall be able to find a cousin for you before you arrive at Berlin.' The student thanked his unknown friend, and they parted.
"Soon after he reached Berlin, an officer of the court came to the student, and said that he was his cousin, and that he had already used influence for him with the King, who had desired that he should preach before him on the following Sunday, but that he should use the text which the King himself should send him, and no other.
"The student was anxious to have the text, that he might consider his sermon, but one day after another of the week passed, and at last Sunday came and no text was sent. The time for going to church came, and no text had arrived. The King and the court were seated, and the unhappy student proceeded with the service, but still no text was given. At last, just as he was going up into the pulpit, a sealed paper was given to him. After the prayer he opened it, and it was ... blank! He turned at once to the congregation, and showing them the two sides of the paper, said, 'Here is nothing, and there is nothing, and out of nothing God made the world'—and he preached the most striking sermon the court had ever heard."
Mrs. Thornton described how old Mr. Thornton had been staying in Somersetshire with Sir Thomas Acland, when he heard two countrymen talking together. One of them said to the other, who was trying to persuade him to do something, "Wal, noo, as they say, 'shake an ass and go.'" Mr. Thornton came back and said to Sir Thomas, "What very extraordinary proverbial expressions they have in these parts. Just now I heard a man say 'shake an ass and go'—such a very extraordinary proverbial expression." "Well," said Sir Thomas, "the fact is there are a great many French expressions lingering in this neighbourhood: that meant 'Chacun à son goût!'"
Of the new acquaintances I made in Oxfordshire, those of whose hospitality I oftenest availed myself were the Cottrell Dormers, who lived at the curious old house of Rousham, above the Cherwell, near Heythrop. It is a beautiful place, with long evergreen shrubberies, green lawns with quaint old statues, and a long walk shaded by yews, with a clear stream running down a stone channel in the midst. Within, the house is full of old family portraits, and has a wonderful collection of MSS., and the pedigree of the family from Noah! Mr. and Mrs. Dormer were quaint characters: he always insisting that he was a Roman Catholic in disguise, chiefly to plague his wife, and always reading the whole of Pope's works, in the large quarto edition, through once a year; she full of kind-heartedness, riding by herself about the property to manage the estate and cottagers, always welcoming you with a hearty "Well, to be sure, and how do you do?" She was a maîtresse femme, who ruled the house with a sunshiny success which utterly set at nought the old proverb—
"La maison est misérable et méchante
Où la Poule plus haut que le Coq chante."
Mrs. Dormer was somehow descended from one of the daughters of Sir Thomas More, and at Cokethorpe, the place of her brother, Mr. Strickland, was one of the three great pictures by Holbein of the family of Sir Thomas More, which was long in the possession of the Lenthalls.[160] Another place in the neighbourhood of Rousham which I visited was Fritwell Manor, a most picturesque old house, rented by the father of my college friend Forsyth Grant—"Kyrie." Fritwell is a haunted house, and was inhabited by two families. When the Edwardes lived there in the summer, no figure was seen, but stains of fresh blood were constantly found on the staircase. When the Grants lived there, for hunting, in the winter, there was no blood, but the servants who went down first in the morning would meet on the staircase an old man in a grey dressing-gown, bleeding from an open wound in the throat. It is said that Sir Baldwin Wake, a former proprietor, quarrelled with his brother about a lady of whom they were both enamoured, and, giving out that he was insane, imprisoned him till real madness ensued. His prison was at the top of the house, where a sort of large human dog-kennel still exists, to which the unfortunate man is said to have been chained.
I made a delightful excursion with "Kyrie" to Wroxton Abbey and Broughton Castle—Lord Saye and Sele's—where we were invited to luncheon by Mr. Fiennes and Lady Augusta, in the former of whom I most unexpectedly found 'Twisleton'[161]—an old hero boy-friend of my Harrow school-days, whom I regarded then much as David Copperfield did Steerforth. The old castle is very picturesque, and the church full of curious monuments.
To MY MOTHER.
"Christ Church, Oxford, April 25, 1859.—Arthur and I dined last night at Canon Jelf's. He was for thirteen years tutor to the King of Hanover, and while at the court fell in love with Countess Schlippenbach, the Queen's lady-in-waiting, who married him.... Dr. Jelf told a great deal that was interesting about the King: how, as Prince George, he would insist upon playing at being his Eton fag, brush his clothes, make his toast, &c.: that he was with the Prince at the time of the fatal accident which caused his blindness, when, in the garden at Kew, having just given half-a-crown to a beggar, he was whisking his purse round and round, when the ring at the end went into his eye. A fortnight's anxiety followed, and then came the great grief of his dear Prince one day saying to him when out shooting, 'Will you give me your arm, sir? I don't see quite so well as I ought to do. I think we had better go home.' Afterwards, instead of murmuring, the Prince only said, 'Those who will not obey must suffer: you told me not to whisk my things about in that way, and I disobeyed: it is right that I should suffer for it.'
"He gave many beautiful pictures of the King's after life: how the dear blind King, who bears no outward mark of his misfortune, always turns to the sun, as if seeking the light: of his marriage with his cousin of Saxe-Altenbourg, a true love-match: that he, the old tutor, was never forgotten, and that on his last birthday, when he least expected it, a royal telegram announced—'The King, the Queen, and the royal children of Hanover wish Dr. Jelf many happy new years.' The King always writes to Dr. and Mrs. Jelf on their wedding-day, which even their own family do not always remember, and on their silver-wedding he sent them a beautiful portrait of himself.
"Arthur, I imagine, rather likes having me here, though no outsiders would imagine so; but he finds me useful after a fashion, and is much annoyed if I allude to ever going into lodgings. He certainly does exactly what he likes when I am there, and is quite as unreserved in his ways as if nobody whatever was present. I am generally down first. He comes in pre-engrossed, and there is seldom any morning salutation. At breakfast I sit (he wills it so) at the end of the table, pour out his excessively weak tea, and put the heavy buttered buns which he loves within his easy reach. When we are alone, I eat my own bread and butter in silence; but if undergraduates breakfast with us, it is my duty, if I know anything about it, so to turn the conversation that he may learn what their 'lines' are, and converse accordingly. Certainly the merry nonsense and childlike buoyancy which cause his breakfast parties to be so delightful, make the contrast of his silent irresponsiveness rather trying when we are alone—it is such a complete 'you are not worth talking to.' However, I have learnt to enjoy the first, and to take no notice of the other; indeed, if I can do so quite effectually, it generally ends in his becoming pleasanter. In amiable moments he will sometimes glance at my MSS., and give them a sanction like that of Cardinal Richelieu—'Accepi, legi, probavi.' After breakfast, he often has something for me to do for him, great plans, maps, or drawings for his lectures, on huge sheets of paper, which take a good deal of time, but which he never notices except when the moment comes for using them. All morning he stands at his desk by the study window (where I see him sometimes from the garden, which he expects me to look after), and he writes sheet after sheet, which he sometimes tears up and flings to rejoin the letters of the morning, which cover the carpet in all directions.[162] It would never do for him to marry, a wife would be so annoyed at his hopelessly untidy ways; at his tearing every new book to pieces, for instance, because he is too impatient to cut it open (though I now do a good deal in this way). Meantime, as Goethe says, 'it is the errors of men that make them amiable,' and I believe he is all the better loved for his peculiarities. Towards the middle of the day, I sometimes have an indication that he has no one to walk with him, and would wish me to go, and he likes me to be in the way then, in case I am wanted, but I am never to expect to be talked to during the walk. If not required, I amuse myself, or go on with my own work, and indeed I seldom see Arthur till the evening, when, if any one dines for whom he thinks it worth while to come out of himself, he is very pleasant, and sometimes very entertaining."
My mother spent a great part of the spring of 1859 at Clifton, whither I went to visit her, afterwards making a tourette by myself to Salisbury, Southampton, Beaulieu, and Winchester.
"Salisbury, April 12, 1859.—At 8½ I was out on bleak Salisbury Plain, where, as the driver of my gig observed, 'it is a whole coat colder than in the valley.' What an immense desert it is! The day, so intensely grey, with great black clouds sweeping across the sky, was quite in character with the long lines of desolate country. At last we turned off the road over the turf, and in the distance rose the gigantic temple, with the sun shining through the apertures in the stones. It was most majestic and impressive, not a creature in sight, except a quantity of rabbits scampering about, and a distant shepherd."
The latter part of June 1859 I spent most happily in a pony-carriage tour in Buckinghamshire and Berkshire with my friend George Sheffield, who had just passed his examination at the Foreign Office. It was on this occasion that, as we were driving under a park wall in Buckinghamshire, I said to George, "Inside that park is a very fine old house, and inside the house is a very fine old sundial. We will go to see the house, and we will take away the sundial;" and we did, though at that moment I did not even know the name of the people who lived there. The old house was the Vatche, which had belonged to my great-great-grandfather, Bishop Hare, who married its heiress in the reign of George II., and I had heard of the sundial from the churchwarden of Chalfont, with whom I had had some correspondence about my ancestor's tomb. It was made on the marriage of Bishop Hare with Miss Alston and bore his arms. The family of Allen, then living at the Vatche, allowed us to see the house, and my enthusiasm at sight of the sundial, which was lying neglected in a corner, so worked upon the feelings of Mrs. Allen, that she gave it me. It is now in the garden at Holmhurst.
To MY MOTHER.
"June 16.—I have enjoyed a visit to the Henry Leycesters at White Place, which lies low in the meadows, but has the charm of a little creek full of luxuriant water-plants, down which Henry Leycester punts his guests into the Thames opposite Clifden; and how picturesque are the old yew-trees and winding walks of that beautiful place. Henry Leycester, to look upon, is like one of the magnificent Vandykes in the Brignole Palace at Genoa. Little Mrs. Leycester is a timid shrinking creature, who daily becomes terribly afraid of the domestic ghost (a lady carrying her head) as evening comes on. 'Imagine my feelings, Mr. Hare,' she says, 'my awful position as a wife and a mother, when my husband is away, and I am left alone in the long evenings with her.'"
"June 17, Christ Church.—Last week the Dean, with much imprudence, punished two Christ Church men most severely for the same offence, but one more than the other. The next night the Deanery garden was broken into, the rose-trees torn up and flower-beds destroyed, the children's swing cut down, and the name of the injured man cut in large letters in the turf. It has created great indignation.
"My chief work, now I am at Oxford, is in the Bodleian, where I have much to look out and refer to, and where everything is made delightful by Mr. Coxe, the librarian,[163] who is not only the most accurate and learned person in the world, but also the most sympathetic, lively, and lovable. 'Never mind, dear boy,' he always says, the more trouble I give him. Anything more unlike the cut-and-dried type of Oxford Dons cannot be imagined. He has given me a plant (Linaria purpurea) from the tomb of Cicero.
"I should like to take my Master's degree, but the fees will be about £20. I could then vote at the election. I should certainly vote against Gladstone, though Arthur says he should vote for him 'with both hands and both feet.' ... I have great satisfaction in being here now, in feeling that I can be useful to Arthur, in preparing drawings for his lectures, &c., also that he really prefers my presence to my absence."
"July 4.—I sate up till twelve last night preparing 'the bidding prayer' for Arthur (who was to preach the 'Act Sermon to-day at St. Mary's)—immensely long, as the whole of the founders and benefactors have to be mentioned. Imagine my horror when, after the service, the Vice-Chancellor came up to Arthur and demanded to know why he had not been prayed for! I had actually omitted his name of all others! Arthur said it was all the fault of 'Silvanus.' In his sermon on Deborah, Arthur described how the long vacation, 'like the ancient river, the river Kishon,' was about to form a barrier, and might wash away all the past and supply a halting-place from which to begin a new life: that the bondage caused by concealment of faults or debts might now be broken: that now, when undergraduates were literally 'going to their father,' they might apply the story of the Prodigal Son, and obtain that freedom which is truth."
In July I paid a first visit to my cousins, the Heber Percys, at Hodnet Hall, in order to meet Countess Valsamachi (Mrs. Heber Percy's mother).[164] The old Hodnet Hall was a long low two-storied house, like an immense cottage, or rather like a beehive, from the abundant family life which overcrowded it. The low dining-room was full of curious pictures of the Vernons, whose heiress married one of the Hebers, but when the pictures had been sent up to London to be cleaned, the cleaner had cut all their legs off. At this time a debt of £40,000 existed upon the Hodnet estate. Mr. Percy's father, the Bishop of Carlisle, had promised to pay it off when certain fees came in. At last the fees were paid, and the papers were in the house, only awaiting the signature of the Bishop. That day he fell down dead. When it was told to his children, they only said, "It is the will of God; we must not complain."
I had much conversation with Lady Valsamachi. Talking of religion, she spoke of an atheist who once grumbled at the dispensation of a gourd having such a slender stem, while an acorn was supported by an oak. "When he had done speaking, the acorn fell upon his nose; had it been the gourd, his nose would have been no more!"
We walked to where Stoke had been, so tenderly connected with past days. All was altered, except the Terne flowing through reedy meadows. It was less painful to me to see it than on my last visit, but cost me many pangs.
I joined my mother at Toft, where our dear cousin Charlotte Leycester was acting as mistress of the house, and gave us a cordial welcome to the old family home. Greatly did my mother enjoy being there, and the sight of familiar things and people. Especially was she welcomed by an old woman named Betty Strongitharm; I remember how this old woman said, "When I am alone, I think, and think, and think, and the end of all my thinking is that Christ is all in all ... but I do not want to go to heaven alone; I want to take a many others along with me."
JOURNAL.
"When we left Toft, we went to our cousins at Thornycroft. At Thornycroft was a labourer named Rathbone. One winter day, when his wife was in her confinement, she was in great want of something from Macclesfield, which her husband undertook to get for her when he went to his work in the town, but he said that he must take his little girl of ten years old with him, that she might bring it back to her mother. The woman entreated him not to take the child, as the snow was very deep, and she feared that she might not find her way home again. However, the father insisted, and set off, taking his little girl with him. The purchase was made and the child set off to return home with it, but she—never arrived.
"When Rathbone reached home in the evening, and found that his child had not appeared, he was in an agony of terror, and set off at once to search for her. He traced her to Monk's Heath. People had seen her there, and directed her back to Henbury, but she seemed to have lost her way again. Rathbone next traced her to a farmhouse at Peover, where the people had had the barbarity to turn her out at night and direct her back to Henbury. Then all trace of her was lost.
"At last Rathbone was persuaded by his friends and neighbours to apply to a woman whom they called 'the White Witch' at Manchester, and to her he went. She told him to look into a glass and tell her what he saw there. He looked into the glass and said, 'I see a man holding up his hat.' 'Well,' she said, 'then go on with your search, and when you meet a man holding up his hat, he will tell you where your child is.' So he returned and went again to search, taking another man with him. At length, as they were going down a lane, Rathbone exclaimed, 'There he is!'—'Who?' said the companion, for he only saw a man running and holding up his hat. That man told them that he had just found the body of a child under a tree, and there, near a pond, frozen to death, lay Rathbone's little girl.
"When we were at Thornycroft, Rathbone was still overwhelmed with contrition for what he considered the sin of having consulted the witch."
From Cheshire we went to the English Lakes. The curious old King's Arms Inn at Lancaster, described by Dickens, was then in existence, and it was a pleasure to sleep there, and walk in the morning upon the high terrace in front of the church and castle. From Ambleside, we spent a delightful day in making the round by Dungeon Ghyll and Blea Tarn, where we drew the soft grey peaks of Langdale Pikes, framed in dark heather-covered rocks, and in the foreground the blue tarn sleeping amid the pastures. From Keswick I ascended Skiddaw, and had a glorious view across the billows of mountains to the sea and the faint outlines of the Isle of Man. Another delightful day was spent with the mother and Lea in Borrowdale. One of the most beautiful effects I have ever seen was in crossing to Buttermere by Borrowdale Hawse, a tremendous wild mountain chasm, into which the setting sun was pouring floods of crimson light as we descended, smiting into blood the waters of the little torrent which was struggling down beside us through the rocks. We arrived at Buttermere very late, and found not a single room unoccupied in the village, so had to return in the dark night to Keswick.
We were much interested in Dumfries, in many ways one of the most foreign-looking towns in Britain, where we remained several days, making excursions to the exquisitely graceful ruins of Lincluden Abbey; to New Abbey (glorious in colour), founded by Devorgilda to contain the heart of John Baliol; to the Irongray Church, where Helen Walker, the original of Jeannie Deans, is buried, and where, on a rocky knoll under some old oaks, is a desolate Covenanter's grave; to Ellisland, the primitive cottage-home of Burns, overlooking the purple hills and clear rushing Nith; and to the great desolate castle of Caerlaverock near Solway Firth. The old churchyard of Dumfries reminded us of Père la Chaise in its forest of tombs, but was far more picturesque. Burns is buried there, with all his family. The exaggerated worship which follows Burns in Scotland rather sets one against him, and shows how many a saint got into the Calendar; for there are many there whose private lives would as little bear inspection as his. His son, formerly a clerk in Somerset House, had long been living at Dumfries upon a pension, and died there three years before our visit. Many are the old red sandstone gravestones in Dumfries and its neighbourhood bearing inscriptions to Covenanters, telling how they were "martyrs for adhering to the word of God, Christ's kingly government in his house, and the covenanted work of Reformation against tyrannie, perjury, and prelacie."
Amongst our Roman friends had been Mrs. Fotheringham of Fotheringham, whom we visited at the so-called Fotheringham Castle, a comfortable modern house, in Forfarshire. We went with her to spend a day with the charming old Thomas Erskine,[165] author of the "Essays," and since well known from his "Letters." With him lived his two beautiful and venerable old sisters, Mrs. Stirling and Mrs. Paterson, and their home of Linlathen contained many noble Italian pictures. Another excursion was to visit Miss Stirling Graham at Duntrune, a beautiful place overlooking the blue firth and bay of St. Andrews. Miss Graham was the authoress and heroine of "Mystifications," intimately bound up with all the literary associations of Edinburgh in the first half of the nineteenth century. She was also the nearest surviving relation of Claverhouse, and Duntrune was filled with relics of him.[166] She was a great bee-fancier and bee-friend, and would allow the bees to settle all over her. "My dear, where can you have lived all your life not to know about bees?" she said to a young lady who asked her some simple questions about them. At Fotheringham, the principal relic is a portrait of "the Flower of Yarrow" (said by Sir Walter Scott to have been such an ugly old woman at seventy), singing from a piece of music. The last cannibals in Scotland lived in a glen near Fotheringham, where carters and ploughmen were perpetually disappearing. The glen was known to be the abode of robbers, and at last a strong force was sent against them, and they were all killed, except one little girl of ten years old, whom it was thought a shame to destroy. She had not been with her preservers many days before she said, "Why do you never eat man's flesh? for if you once ate that, you would never wish to eat anything else again." My mother made an excursion from Fotheringham to see Panmure, where the housekeeper said to her that her Lord[167] was "very bad, for he had not killed a single beast that year."
To MY MOTHER.
"August 22.—I went early by rail to Stonehaven, and walked to Dunottar. The sea was of the softest Mediterranean blue, and the walk along the edge of the cliffs, through the cornfields, looking down first on the old town and then on the different little coves with their curiously twisted and richly coloured rocks, most delightful. The castle is hidden by the uplands at first, but crowns the ridge of a magnificent rock, which runs far out into the sea, with a line of battered towers. In the depths are reefs covered with seaweed, between which the sea flows up in deep green pools.
"A narrow ledge of rock, of which you can scarcely make out whether it is natural or artificial, connects the castle with the mainland, and here through an arch in the wall you look down into a second bay, where the precipices, crested by a huge red fragment of tower, descend direct upon the water. High up in one of the turrets lives the keeper, a girl, who said that she was so used to climbing, that she could go anywhere where there was the least rest for the sole of her foot; that she did not care to have anything to hold on by, and had never known what it was to be giddy. The 'Whigs' Vault' is shown, in which a hundred and twenty Covenanters were chained, and, beneath it, the awfully close stifling dungeon in which forty-eight were confined, and many of them suffocated. The place still remains where they were let down from the more airy vault above, and also the hole through which their food was transmitted to them. On one side of the dungeon is the well of brackish water which is said (as in the prison of St. Peter) to have sprung up in one night to quench their thirst; on the other, the hole which, in their agonised desperation, they scratched with their hands through the wall, and by which five-and-twenty escape, but were all dashed to pieces against the rocks or taken, except two; while, if the dark night had only allowed them to see it, there is a little footpath near, by which they might all have passed in safety. In the castle also are the chamber in which the Regalia of Scotland were concealed, and the well once supplied by pipes, the cutting of which by Cromwell caused the surrender of the garrison."
"August 23, Eccles Greig, Montrose.—This is a charming place belonging to Kyrie's[168] father, and of which he is the heir. Miss Grant drove me to-day to Denfenella, a beautiful ravine of tremendous depth, where a lovely burn dashes over a precipice, and then rushes away to the sea through depths of rock and fern, amid which it makes a succession of deep shadowy pools. Endless are the Scottish stories about this place:
"That Queen Fenella—the fairy queen—first washed her clothes in the bright shining Morne, and then walked on the tops of the trees, by which means she escaped.
"That Queen Fenella, having murdered her husband, fled to Denfenella, where she flung herself over the rocks to escape justice.
"That Queen Fenella, widow of Kenneth III., after the death of her husband and her own escape from the Castle of Kincardine, fled to Denfenella, where she was taken and put to death.
"That Queen Fenella loved a beautiful youth, but that her enemies tried to force her to marry another; and that, rather than do so, she fled from her father's castle, which is at an immense distance from this, but, on reaching Denfenella, she felt that farther escape was hopeless, and let herself float down the stream and be carried away over the waterfall into the sea.
"All the stories, however, agree in one fact, that at midnight the beautiful Fenella still always walks in the braes where she died, and still washes her clothes in the bright shining Morne.
"We went on to the 'Came of Mathers,' a wild cove on the seashore with a ruined castle on the farthest point of an inaccessible precipice, beneath which the green waves rush through deep rifts of the rock, which is worn into caves and arches. The Sheriff of these parts was once very unpopular, and the lairds complained to King James, who said in a joke that it would be a very good thing if the Sheriff were boiled and cut up and made into browse. When the lairds heard this, they beguiled the Sheriff to Gavoch, where they had a huge caldron prepared, into which they immediately popped him, and boiled him, and cut him up. Then, literally to carry out the King's words, they each ate a part of him. Having done this, they were all so dreadfully afraid of King James, that they sought every possible means of escape, and the Laird of Arbuthnot, who had been one of the most forward in boiling the Sheriff, built this impregnable castle, where he lived in defiance of the King.
"Beneath the castle is a deep cleft in the rock, which seems endless. It is said to continue in a subterranean passage to Lauriston. The drummer of Lauriston once went up it, and tried to work his way through, but he never was seen again; and at night, it is said, that the drummer of Lauriston is still heard beating his drum in the cavern beneath."
Upon leaving Eccles Greig, I joined my mother, and went with her to St. Andrews, which I had always greatly desired that she should see. Even more than the wonderful charm of the place at this time was that of seeing much of the genial, witty, eccentric Provost, Sir Hugh Lyon Playfair. He first came up to me when I was drawing—an old man in a cloak—and invited me into his garden, whither we returned several times. That garden was the most extraordinary place, representing all the important facts of the history of the world, from chaos and the creation of the sun down to the Reform Bill, "whence," said Sir Hugh, "you may date the decline of the British Empire." On the same chart were marked the lengths of all the principal ships, while representations of the planets indicated their distance from the sun! No verbal description, however, can recall the genial oddity of the garden's owner. On Saturdays he used to open his garden to the public, and follow in the crowd to hear their opinion of himself. He said they would often say, "Ah! the poor Provost, he has more money than brains; he is sadly deficient here," pointing to the forehead. Once some of the people said to him, "We do so want to see the Provost; how would it be possible to see Sir Hugh?"—"Oh," he answered, "I think you had better go and look in at the windows, and you will be sure to see him." So they all crowded to the windows, but there was no one to be seen. "Oh," he said, "I'll tell you why that is: that is because he is under the table. It is a way Sir Hugh has. He is so dreadfully shy, that whenever he hears any one coming, he always goes under the table directly." Presently, on going out, they met an official, who, coming up, touched his hat and said, "If you please, Sir Hugh, I've spoken to that policeman, as you ordered me," and the horrified people discovered their mistake, to Sir Hugh's intense amusement.
JOURNAL.
"August 30.—A stormy day, but I went by train to Tynehead for Crichton. Two old ladies of ninety got into the carriage after me. An old gentleman opposite made a civil speech to one of them, upon which she tartly replied, 'I don't hear a word, for I thank Almighty God for all His mercies, and most of all that He has made me quite deaf, for if I heard I should be obliged to speak to you, and I don't want to speak to you.'
"Crichton is a red ruined castle on a hill, with a distance of purple moorland, and inside is the courtyard so exactly described in 'Marmion.' With storm raging round it, it was awfully desolate. Close by is an old stumpy-towered thoroughly Scotch church."
After a visit to the Dalzels at North Berwick, my mother went south from Durham. I turned backwards to pay my first visit to Mrs. Davidson—the "Cousin Susan" with whom I was afterwards most intimate. "The beautiful Lord Strathmore," my great-grandmother's brother, so often painted by Angelica Kauffmann, who married "the Unhappy Countess," had two daughters, Maria and Anna. After Lady Strathmore was released from her brutal second husband, the one thing she had the greatest horror of for her daughters was matrimony, and she did all she could to prevent their seeing any one. But Lady Anna Bowes, while her mother was living in Fludyer Street, made the acquaintance of a young lawyer who lived on the other side the way, and performed the extraordinary acrobatic feat of walking across a plank suspended across the street to his rooms,[169] where she was married to him. The marriage was an unhappy one, but Mr. Jessop did not survive long, and left Lady Anna with two young daughters, of whom one died early: the other was "Cousin Susan." Lady Anna was given a home (in a house adjoining the park at Gibside) by her brother, John, Lord Strathmore, and her daughters were brought up in sister-like intimacy with his (illegitimate) son, John Bowes. Susan Jessop afterwards married Mr. Davidson of Otterburn, who, being a very rich man, to please her, bought and endowed her with the old Ridley property—Ridley Hall on South Tyne.
Cousin Susan was an active, bright little woman, always beautifully dressed, and with the most perfect figure imaginable. No one except Mr. Bowes knew how old she was, and he would not tell, but she liked to be thought very young, and still danced at Newcastle balls. She was a capital manager of her large estate, entered into all business questions herself, and would walk for hours about her woods, marking timber, planning bridges or summer-houses, and contriving walks and staircases in the most difficult and apparently inaccessible places.
Ridley Hall was the most intense source of pride to Cousin Susan, and though the house was very ugly, the place was indeed most beautiful. The house stood on a grassy hill above the South Tyne Railway, with a large flower-garden on the other side, where, through the whole summer, three hundred and sixty-five flower-beds were bright with every colour of the rainbow. I never saw such a use of annuals as at Ridley Hall—there were perfect sheets of Colinsia, Nemophila, and other common things, from which, in the seed-time, Cousin Susan would gather what she called her harvest, which it took her whole evenings to thresh out and arrange. A tiny inner garden, concealed by trees and rockwork, would have been quite charming to children, with a miniature thatched cottage, filled with the smallest furniture that could be put into use, bookcases, and pictures, &c. Beyond the garden was a lovely view towards the moors, ever varied by the blue shadows of clouds fleeting across them. Thence an avenue, high above the river, led to the kitchen-garden, just where the rushing Allen Water, seen through a succession of green arches, was hurrying to its junction with the Tyne. Here one entered upon the wood walks, which wound for five miles up and down hill, through every exquisite variety of scenery—to Bilberry Hill Moss House, with its views, across the woods, up the gorge of the Allen to the old tower of Staward Peel—to the Raven's Crag, the great yellow sandstone cliff crowned with old yew-trees, which overhangs the river—and across the delicately swung chain-bridge by the Birkie Brae to a lonely tarn in the hills, returning by the Swiss Cottage and the Craggy Pass, a steep staircase under a tremendous overhanging rock.
During my first visits at Ridley Hall, words would fail to express my enjoyment of the natural beauties of the place, and I passed many delightful hours reading in the mossy walks, or sketching amongst the huge rocks in the bed of the shallow river; but at Ridley more than anywhere else I have learnt how insufficient mere beauty is to fill one's life; and in later years, when poor Cousin Susan's age and infirmities increased, I felt terribly the desolation of the place, the miles and miles of walks kept up for no one else to enjoy them—the hours, and days, and weeks in which one might wander for ever and never meet a human being.
During my earlier visits, however, Cousin Susan would fill her house in the summer, especially in the shooting season. There was nothing particularly intellectual in the people, but a large party in a beautiful place generally finds sources of enjoyment: which were always sought on foot, for there was only one road near Ridley Hall, that along the Tyne valley, which led to Hexham on the east and Haltwhistle on the west. Constant guests and great friends of Cousin Susan were the two old Miss Coulsons—Mary and Arabella—of Blenkinsop, primitive, pleasant old ladies, and two of the most kind-hearted people I have ever known. Cousin Susan delighted in her denomination of "the Great Lady of the Tyne," and, in these earlier years of our intimacy, was adored by her tenantry and the people of the neighbouring villages, who several times, when she appeared at a public gathering, insisted on taking out her horses and drawing her home. With her neighbours of a higher class, Cousin Susan was always very exacting of attention, and very apt to take offence.
But no account of Ridley Hall can be complete without alluding to the dogs, of which there were great numbers, treated quite as human beings and part of the family. An extra dog was never considered an infliction; thus, when Cousin Susan engaged a new servant, he or she was always told that a dog would be especially annexed to them, and considered to belong to them. When the footman came in to put on the coals, his dog came in with him; when you met the housemaid in the passage, she was accompanied by her dog. On the first day of my arrival, Cousin Susan said at dessert, "John, now bring in the boys," and when I was expecting the advent of a number of unknown young cousins, the footman threw open the door, and volleys of little dogs rushed into the room, but all white Spitzes except the Chowdy-Tow, a most comical Japanese. Church service at Ridley Hall was held at the Beltingham Chapel, where Cousin Susan was supreme. The miserable little clergyman, who used to pray for "Queen-Victori-ā," was never allowed to begin till she had entered the church and taken her place in a sort of tribune on a level with the altar. Many of the dogs went to church too, with the servants to whom they were annexed. This was so completely considered a matter of course, that I never observed it as anything absurd till one day when my connections the Scotts (daughters of Alethea Stanley) came to the chapel from Sir Edward Blackett's, and were received into Cousin Susan's pew. In the Confession, one Miss Scott after another became overwhelmed with uncontrollable fits of laughter. When I looked up, I saw the black noses and white ears of a row of little Spitz dogs, one over each of the prayer-books in the opposite seat. Cousin Susan was furiously angry, and declared that the Scotts should never come to Ridley Hall again: it was not because they had laughed in church, but because they had laughed at the dogs!
Upon leaving Ridley Hall, I paid another visit, which I then thought scarcely less interesting. My grandmother's first cousin, John, Earl of Strathmore (who left £10,000 to my grandfather), was a very agreeable and popular man, but by no means a moral character. Living near his castle of Streatlam was a beautiful girl named Mary Milner, daughter of a market-gardener at Staindrop. With this girl he went through a false ceremony of marriage, after which, in all innocence, she lived with him as his wife. Their only boy, John Bowes, was sent to Eton as Lord Glamis. On his deathbed Lord Strathmore confessed to Mary Milner that their marriage was false and that she was not really his wife. She said, "I understand that you mean to marry me now, but that will not do: there must be no more secret marriages!" and, ill as he was, she had every one within reach summoned to attend the ceremony, and she had him carried to church and was married to him before all the world. Lord Strathmore died soon after he re-entered the house, but he left her Countess of Strathmore. It was too late to legitimatise John Bowes.
Lady Strathmore always behaved well. As soon as she was a widow, she said to all the people whom she had known as her husband's relations and friends, that if they liked to keep up her acquaintance, she should be very grateful to them, and always glad to see them when they came to her, but that she should never enter any house on a visit again: and she never did. My grandmother, and, in later years, "Italima," had always appreciated Lady Strathmore, and so had Mrs. Davidson, and the kindness they showed her was met with unbounded gratitude. Lady Strathmore therefore received with the greatest effusion my proposal of a visit to Gibside. She was a stately woman, still beautiful, and she had educated herself since her youth, but, from her quiet life (full of unostentatious charity), she had become very eccentric. One of her oddities was that her only measurement of time was one thousand years. "Is it long since you have seen Mrs. Davidson?" I said. "Yes, one thousand years!"—"Have you had your dog a long time?"—"A thousand years."—"That must be a very old picture."—"Yes, a thousand years old."
Seeing no one but Mr. Hutt, the agreeable tutor of her son, Lady Strathmore had married him, and by her wealth and influence he became member for Gateshead. He was rather a prim man, but could make himself very agreeable, and he was vastly civil to me. I think he rather tyrannised over Lady Strathmore, but he was very well behaved to her in public. Soon after her death[170] he married again.
Gibside was a beautiful place. The long many-orielled battlemented house was reached through exquisite woods feathering down to the Derwent. A tall column in the park commemorates the victory of George Bowes (the father of the unhappy 9th Lady Strathmore, who married a Blakiston, the heiress of Gibside) over Sir Robert Walpole at a Newcastle election. There was a charming panelled drawing-room, full of old furniture and pictures. The house had two ghosts, one "in a silk dress," being that Lady Tyrconnel who died in the house while living there on somewhat too intimate terms with John, Earl of Strathmore. He gave her a funeral which almost ruined the estate. Her face was painted like the most brilliant life. He dressed her head himself! and then, having decked her out in all her jewels, and covered her with Brussels lace from head to foot, he sent her up to London, causing her to lie in state at every town upon the road, and finally to be buried in Westminster Abbey!
At the end of the garden was the chapel, beneath which many of my Strathmore ancestors are buried—a beautiful building externally, but hideous within, with the pulpit in the centre. During the service on Sundays a most extraordinary effect was produced by the clerk not only giving out the hymns, but singing them entirely through afterwards by himself, in a harsh nasal twang, without the very slightest help from any member of the congregation.
After we parted at Paris in the autumn of 1858, Mrs. Hare and my sister, as usual, spent the winter at Rome, returning northwards by the seat of the war in Lombardy. Thence Esmeralda wrote:—
"Turin, May 25, 1859.—Instead of a dolce far niente at Frascati or Albano, we have been listening to the roaring of cannon. The Austrians are said to be fourteen miles off, but there is no apparent excitement in the town. The juggler attracts a crowd around him as usual in the piazza, the ladies walk about with their fans and smelling-bottles, the men sing vivas. The town is guarded by the guardia civile; all the regular troops have left for the battlefield. The nobility are either shut up or walk about in the streets, for all their carriage and riding horses have been taken from them for the use of the army. Bulletins are published twice a day, and give a short account of the engagements. The Piedmontese are confident of ultimate success: fresh French troops are pouring in every day. The lancers came in this morning with flying colours, splendidly mounted, and were received with thundering applause, the people shouting and clapping their hands, waving their handkerchiefs, and decorating them with bouquets and wreaths of flowers. I hear the Emperor has been waiting for the arrival of this regiment to begin war in earnest, and a great battle is expected on Monday.... We left Genoa at night, and came on by the ten o'clock train to the seat of war. The French were mounting guard in Alessandria,—the Zouaves and Turcos in their African dress lounging at the railway station. The Austrians had been repulsed the day before in trying to cross the river; the cannon had been rolling all day, but the officers were chatting as gaily as if nothing had happened, and were looking into the railway carriages for amusement. I longed to stop at Alessandria and go to see the camp, but Mama would not hear of it. There were troops encamped at distances all along the line.... We have had no difficulty in coming by land, though people tried to frighten us. We proceeded by vetturino to Siena: everything was quiet, and we met troops of volunteers singing 'Viva l'Italia'—so radiant, they seemed to be starting for a festival. Five hundred volunteers went with us in the same train, and when we arrived at Pisa, more volunteers were parading the streets amid the acclamations of the people. At Genoa, hundreds of French soldiers were walking about the town, looking in at the shop-windows. Prince Napoleon Bonaparte was walking about the Via Balbi with his hands in his pockets, followed by great crowds.
"We packed up everything before leaving Palazzo Parisani, in case we should not be able to return there next winter. I will not think of the misery of being kept out of Rome; it would be too great. Perhaps you will see us in England this year, but it is not at all probable."
Alas! my sister did not return to Rome that year, or for many years after. "L'homme s'agite et Dieu le mêne."[171] Parisani was never again really her home. A terrible cloud of misfortune was gathering over her, accompanied by a series of adventures the most mysterious and the most incredible. I should not believe all that happened myself, unless I had followed it day by day; therefore I cannot expect others to believe it. As Lucas Malet says, "English people distrust everything that does not carry ballast in the shape of obvious dulness," and they are not likely, therefore, to believe what follows. But it is true nevertheless. In narrating what occurred, I shall confine myself to a simple narrative of facts: as to the source of the extraordinary powers possessed by the lady who for some time exercised a great influence upon the fortunes of our family, I can offer no suggestion.
When Mrs. Hare and my sister arrived at Geneva in June 1859, though their fortunes had suffered very considerably by the Paul bankruptcy, they were still in possession of a large income, and of every luxury of life. To save the trouble of taking a villa, they engaged an excellent suite of apartments in the Hôtel de la Metropole, where they intended remaining for the greater part of the summer.
Soon after her arrival, Italima (Mrs. Hare) wrote to her banker for money, and was much astonished to hear from him that she had overdrawn her account by £150. Knowing that she ought at that season to have plenty of money in the bank, she wrote to her attorney, Mr. B. (who had the whole management of her affairs), to desire that he would pay the rest of the money due into Coutts', and that he would send her £100 immediately. She had no answer from Mr. B., and she wrote again and again, without any answer. She was not alarmed, because Mr. B. was always in the habit of going abroad in the summer, and she supposed that her letters did not reach him because he was away. Still, as she really wanted the money, it was very inconvenient.
One day, when she came down to the table-d'hôte, the place next to her was occupied by an elderly lady, who immediately attempted to enter into conversation with her. Italima, who always looked coldly upon strangers, answered shortly, and turned away. "Je vois, Madame," said the lady, with a most peculiar intonation, "que vous aimez les princesses et les grandeurs." "Yes," said Italima, who was never otherwise than perfectly truthful, "you are quite right; I do." And after that—it was so very singular—a sort of conversation became inevitable. But the lady soon turned to my sister and said, "You are very much interested about the war in Italy: you have friends in the Italian army: you are longing to know how things are going on. I see it all: to-morrow there will be a great battle, and if you come to my room to-morrow morning, you will hear of it, for I shall be there."—"Yes," said Esmeralda, but she went away thinking the lady was perfectly mad—quite raving.
The next morning, as my sister was going down the passage of the hotel, she heard a strange sound in one of the bedrooms. The door was ajar, she pushed it rather wider open, and there, upon two chairs, lay the lady, quite rigid, her eyes distended, speaking very rapidly. Esmeralda fetched her mother, and there they both remained transfixed from 10 A.M. to 3 P.M. The lady was evidently at a great battle: she described the movements of the troops: she echoed the commands: she shuddered at the firing and the slaughter, and she never ceased speaking. At 3 P.M. she grew calm, her voice ceased, her muscles became flexible, she was soon quite herself. My sister spoke to her of what had taken place: she seemed to have scarcely any remembrance of it. At 6 P.M. they went down to dinner. Suddenly the lady startled the table-d'hôte by dropping her knife and fork and exclaiming, "Oh, l'Empereur! l'Empereur! il est en danger." She described a flight, a confusion, clouds of dust arising—in fact, all the final act of the battle of Solferino. That night the telegrams of Solferino came to Geneva, and for days afterwards the details kept arriving. Everything was what the lady described. It was at the battle of Solferino that she had been.
When my sister questioned the landlord, she learnt that the lady was known as Madame de Trafford, that she had been née Mademoiselle Martine Larmignac (de l'Armagnac?), and that she was possessed of what were supposed to be supernatural powers. Esmeralda herself describes the next incident in her acquaintance with Madame de Trafford.
"One day when we were sitting in our room at Geneva, a lady came in, a very pleasing-looking person, perfectly gracieuse, even distinguée. She sat down, and then said that the object of her visit was to ask assistance for a charity; that Madame de Trafford, who was living below us, had given her sixty francs, and that she hoped we should not refuse to give her something also. Then she told us a story of a banker's family at Paris who had been totally ruined, and who were reduced to the utmost penury, and living in the greatest destitution at Lausanne. She entered into the details of the story, dwelling upon the beauty of the children, their efforts at self-help, and various other details. When she had ended, Mama said she regretted that she was unable to give her more than ten francs, but that she should be glad to contribute so much, and I was quite affected by the story, which was most beautifully told.
"Meantime, Madame de Trafford, by her secondsight, knew that she was going to be robbed, yet she would not forego her usual custom of keeping a large sum of money by her. She wrapped up a parcel of bank-notes and some napoleons in a piece of newspaper, and threw it upon the top of a wardrobe in which her dresses were hung. She told me of this, and said she had hidden the money so well that it was unlikely that any one could find it.
"In a few days, the lady came again to tell us of the improvement in the poor family, and she also went to see Madame de Trafford. She was alone with her, and Madame de Trafford told her about her money, and showed her the place where she had put it, asking her if she did not think it well concealed.
"Some days after, when we came up from dinner, we found the same lady, the quêteuse, walking up and down the gallery fanning herself. She said she had been waiting for Madame de Trafford, but had found her apartment so hot, she had left it to walk about the passage. We all went into the public sitting-room together, but Mama and I stayed to read the papers, whilst the lady passed on with Madame de Trafford to her room beyond, as she said she wished to speak to her. Soon she returned alone, and began talking to us, when ... the door opened, and in came Madame de Trafford, dreadfully agitated, looking perfectly livid, and exclaiming in a voice of thunder, 'On m'a volé,' and then, turning to the lady, 'Et voilà la voleuse.' Then, becoming quite calm, she said coldly, 'Madame, vous étiez seule pendant que nous étions à table; je vous prie donc de vous ... déshabiller.'—'Mais, Madame, c'est inoui de me soupçonner,' said the lady, 'mais ... enfin ... Madame....' But she was compelled to pass before Madame de Trafford into the bedroom and to undo her dress. In her purse were ten napoleons, but of these no notice was taken; she might have had them before. Then Madame de Trafford gave the lady five minutes to drop the notes she had taken, and came out to us—'Car c'est elle!' she said. In five minutes the lady came out of the room and passed us, saying, 'Vraiment cette Madame de Trafford c'est une personne très exaltée,' and went out. Then Madame de Trafford called us. 'Venez, Madame Hare,' she said. We went into the bedroom, and in the corner of the floor lay a bundle of bank-notes. 'Elle les a jeté,' said Madame de Trafford."
Of the same week my sister narrates the following:—
"One Sunday morning, the heat was so great, I had been almost roasted in going to church. In the afternoon Madame de Trafford came in. 'Venez, ma chère, venez avec moi à vêpres,' she said. 'Oh, non, il y a trop de soleil, c'est impossible, et je vous conseille de vous garder aussi d'un coup de soleil.'—'Moi, je vais à l'église,' she answered, 'et aussi je vais à pied, parceque je ne veux pas payer une voiture, et personne ne me menera pour rien; il n'y a pas de charité dans ce monde.' And she went.
"When she came back she said, 'Eh bien, ma chère, je suis allé à vêpres, mais je ne suis pas allé à pied. Je n'étais que sorti de l'hôtel, quand je voyais tous ces cochers avec leurs voitures en face de moi. "Et que feras tu donc, si tu trouveras la charité en chemin?" me disait la voix. "Je lui donnerai un napoléon." Eh bien, un de ces cochers, je le sentais, me menerait pour la charité: je le sentais, mais j'avançais toujours; et voilà que Pierre, qui nous avait amené avec sa voiture l'autre journée, me poursuivit avec sa voiture en criant, "Mais, madame, où allez vous donc: venez, montez, je ne veux pas vous voir vous promener comme cela; je vous menerai pour rien."—"Mais, Pierre, que voulez vous donc," je dis. "Mais montez, madame, montez; je vous menerai pour rien," il repetait, et je montais. Pierre m'emmenait à l'église, et voila la voix qui me dit, "Et ton napoléon," parceque j'avais dit que si je trouvais la charité en chemin, je lui donnerais un napoléon. Mais je n'ai pas voulu lui donner le napoléon de suite, parceque cela pouvait lui faire tourner la tête, et j'ai dit, "Venez, Pierre, venez me voir demain au soir. Vous avez fait un acte de la charité: Dieu vous recompensera."'
"Madame de Trafford always wore a miniature of the Emperor Napoleon in a ring which she had: the ring opened, and inside was the miniature. The next morning she showed it to me, and asked me to get it out of the ring, as she was going to send the ring to a jeweller to be repaired. I got scissors, &c., and poked, and thumped, and pulled at the picture, but I could not get it out of the ring: I could not move it in the least.
"In the morning Mama was with Madame de Trafford when Pierre came. I was not there. Pierre was a dull stupid Swiss lout of a cocher. 'Madame m'a commandé de venir,' he said, and he could say nothing else.
"Then Madame de Trafford held out a napoleon, saying, 'Tenez, Pierre, voilà un napoléon pour vous, parceque vous avez voulu faire un acte de la charité, et ordinairement il n'y a pas de charité dans ce monde.' ... But as Madame de Trafford stretched forth her hand, the ring flew open and the portrait vanished. It did not slip out of the ring, it did not fall—it vanished! it ceased to exist! 'Oh, le portrait, le portrait!' cried Madame de Trafford. She screamed: she was perfectly frantic. 'Quel portrait?' said Pierre, for he had seen none: he was stupefied: he could not think what it all meant. As for Mama, she was so terrified, she rushed out of the room. She locked her door, she declared nothing should induce her to remain in the same room with Madame de Trafford again.
"I went down to Madame de Trafford. She offered a napoleon to any one who would find the portrait. She was wild. I never saw her in such a state, never. Of course every one hunted, garçons, filles-de-chambre, every one, but not a trace of the portrait could any one find. At last Madame de Trafford became quite calm; she said, 'Je sens que dans une semaine j'aurai mon portrait, et je vois que ce sera un des braves du grand Napoléon qui me le rapportera.'
"I thought this very extraordinary, and really I did not remember that there was any soldier of the old Napoleon in the house. I was so accustomed to Félix as our old servant, it never would have occurred to me to think of him. The week passed. 'C'est la fin de la semaine,' said Madame de Trafford, 'et demain j'aurai mon portrait.'
"We had never told Victoire about the portrait, for she was so superstitious, we thought she might refuse to stay in the house with Madame de Trafford if we told her. But the next morning she came to Mama and said that a child who was playing in a garret at the top of the house had found there, amongst some straw, the smallest portrait ever seen, and had given it to Félix, and Félix had shown it to her, saying, 'Voila c'est bien fait çà; çà n'est pas un bagatelle; çà n'est pas un joujoux çà!' and he had put it away. 'Why, it is the lost portrait,' said Mama. 'What portrait?' said Victoire. Then Mama told Victoire how Madame de Trafford had lost the portrait out of her ring, and Félix took it back to her. It was when Félix took back the portrait that I first remembered he had been a soldier of the old Napoleon, and was even then in receipt of a pension for his services in the Moscow campaign.
"Félix refused the napoleon Madame de Trafford had offered as a reward; but she insisted on his having it, so he took it, and wears it on his watchchain always: he almost looks upon it as a talisman."
As Italima and Esmeralda saw more of Madame de Trafford, they learned that she was the second wife of Mr. Trafford of Wroxham in Norfolk. He did not live with her, because he said that when he married her he intended to marry Mademoiselle Martine Larmignac, but he did not intend to marry "Maricot," as she called the spirit—the "voice"—which spoke through her lips, and live with Maricot he would not. He showed his wife every possible attention, and placed implicit confidence in her. He left her entire control of her fortune. He constantly visited her, and always came to take leave of her when she set off on any of her journeys; but he could not live with her.
One day Italima received a letter from her eldest son Francis, who said that he knew she would not believe him, but that Mr. B. was a penniless bankrupt, and that she would receive no more money from him. She did not believe Francis a bit, still the letter made her anxious and uncomfortable: no money had come in answer to her repeated letters, and there were many things at Geneva to be paid for. That day she came down to the table-d'hôte looking very much harassed. Madame de Trafford said to my sister, "Your mother looks very much agitated: what is it?" Esmeralda felt that, whether she told her or not, Madame de Trafford would know what had happened, and she told her the simple truth. Madame de Trafford said, "Now, do not be surprised at what I am going to say; don't be grateful to me; it's my vocation in life. Here is £80: take it at once. That is the sum you owe in Geneva, and you have no money. I knew that you wanted that sum, and I brought it down to dinner with me. Now I know all that is going to happen: it is written before me like an open book,—and I know how important it is that you should go to England at once. I have prepared for that, and I am going with you. In an hour you must start for England." And such was the confidence that Italima and Esmeralda now had in Madame de Trafford, such was her wonderful power and influence, that they did all she told them: they paid their bills at Geneva with the money she gave, they left Félix and Victoire to pack up and to follow them to Paris, and they started by the night-train the same evening with Madame de Trafford.
That was an awful night. My sister never lost the horror of it. "Madame de Trafford had told me that extraordinary things often happened to her between two and four in the morning," said Esmeralda. "When we went with her through the night in the coupé of the railway-carriage, she was very anxious that I should sleep. Mama slept the whole time. 'Mais dormez donc, ma chère,' she said, 'dormez donc.'—'Oh, je dormirai bientôt,' I always replied, but I was quite determined to keep awake. It was very dreadful, I thought, but if anything did happen, I would see what it was. As it drew near two o'clock I felt the most awful sensation of horror come over me. Then a cold perspiration broke out all over me. Then I heard—oh, I cannot describe it! a most awful sound—a voice—a sort of squeak. It spoke, it was a language; but it was a language I did not understand,[172] and then something came out of the mouth of Madame de Trafford—bur-r-r-r! It passed in front of me, black but misty. I rushed at it. Madame de Trafford seized me and forced me back upon the seat. I felt as if I should faint. Her expression was quite awful. No one knows it but Mama. Some time after, Mr. Trafford spoke to me of a hunchback in Molière, who had a voice speaking inside him, over which he had no control, and then he said, 'What my wife has is like that.'"
As they drew near Paris, Madame de Trafford began to describe her apartments to my sister. It was like a description of Aladdin's palace, and Esmeralda did not believe it. When they reached the station, Madame de Trafford said, "I have one peculiarity in my house: I have no servants. I used to have them, but I did not like them; so now, when I am at Paris, I never have them: therefore, on our way from the station, we will stop as we pass through the Rue St. Honoré, and buy the bread, and milk, and candles—in fact, all the things we want." And so they did.
The carriage stopped before a porte cochère in the Champs Elysées, where Madame de Trafford got a key from the concierge, and preceded her guests up a staircase. When she unlocked the door of the apartment, it was quite dark, and hot and stuffy, as closed rooms are, but when the shutters were opened, all that Madame de Trafford had said as to the magnificence of the furniture, &c., was more than realised—only there were no servants. Madame de Trafford herself brought down mattresses from the attics, she aired and made the beds, and she lighted the fire and boiled the kettle for supper and breakfast.
Of that evening my sister wrote:—
"I shall never forget a scene with Madame de Trafford. I had gone to rest in my room, but I did not venture to stay long. She also had been up all night, but that was nothing to her—paresse was what she could never endure. When I went into her room, she had the concierge with her, but she was greatly excited. She was even then contending with her spirit. 'Taisez-vous, Maricot,' she was exclaiming. 'Voulez vous vous taire: taisez-vous, Maricot.' I saw that the concierge was getting very angry, quite boiling with indignation, for there was no one else present, and she thought Madame de Trafford was talking to her. 'Mais, madame, madame, je ne parle pas,' she said. But Madame de Trafford went on, 'Va-t'en, Maricot: va-t'en donc.'—'Mais, madame, je suis toute prête,' said the concierge, and she went out, banging the door behind her."[173]
Madame de Trafford told my sister in Paris that her extraordinary power had first come to her, as it then existed, many years before in the Church of S. Roch. She had gone there, not to pray, but to look about her, and, as she was walking round the ambulatory, there suddenly came to her the extraordinary sensation that she knew all that those kneeling around her were thinking, feeling, and wishing. Her own impression was one of horror, and an idea that the power came from evil; but kneeling down then and there before the altar, she made a solemn dedication of herself; she prayed that such strange knowledge might be taken away, but, if that were not to be, made a vow to turn the evil against itself, by using it always for good.
People suddenly ruined—whom Madame de Trafford called "the poor rich"—she considered to be her peculiar vocation, because in her younger life she had twice been utterly ruined herself. Once it was in England. She had only a shilling left in the world, and, in her quaint way of narrating things, she said, "Having only a shilling left in the world, I thought what I had better do, and I thought that, as I had only a shilling left in the world, I had better go out and take a walk. I went out, and I met a man, and the man said to me, 'Give me something, for I have nothing left in the world,' and I gave him sixpence, and I went on. And I met a woman, and the woman said to me, 'Give me something, for I have nothing whatever left in the world.' And I said, 'I cannot give you anything, for I have only sixpence left in the world, so I cannot give you anything.' And the woman said, 'But you are much richer than I, for you are well dressed; you have a good bonnet, a gown, and shawl, while I am clothed in rags, and so you must give me something.' And I thought, 'Well, that is true,' so I gave her the sixpence, and I went on. At the corner of the street I found a sovereign lying in the street. With that sovereign I paid for food and lodging. The next day I had remittances from an uncle I had long supposed to be dead, and who expressed the wish that I should come to him. He died and left me his heiress: money has since then always flowed in, and I go about to look for the poor rich." A presentiment would come to Madame de Trafford, or the voice of Maricot would tell her, where she would be needed, and she would set out. Thus she went to Geneva to help some one unknown. She moved from hotel to hotel until she found the right one; and she sat by person after person at the table-d'hôte, till she felt she was sitting by the right one; then she waited quietly till the moment came when she divined what was wanted.
The morning after their arrival in Paris, Madame de Trafford stood by my sister's bedside when she awoke, ready dressed, and having already put away most of the things in the apartment. As soon as breakfast was over, a carriage came to take them to the station, and they set off for Boulogne, where Madame de Trafford set her guests afloat for England with £40 in their pockets. Thus they arrived on the scene of action.
Straight from London Bridge Station they drove to Mr. B.'s office. He was there, and apparently delighted to see them. "Well, Mr. B., and pray why have you sent me no money?" asked Italima. "Why, I've sent you quantities of money," said Mr. B., without a change of countenance. "If you write to Messrs. O. & L., the bankers at Geneva, you will find it's all there. I have sent you money several times," and he said this with such perfect sangfroid that they believed him. Italima then said, "Well now, Mr. B., I should wish to see the mortgages," because from time to time he had persuaded her to transfer £46,000 of her own fortune from other securities to mortgages on a Mr. Howell's estate in Cornwall. Mr. B. replied, "Do you know, when you say that, it would almost seem as if you did not quite trust me."—"That I cannot help," said Italima, "but I should wish to see the mortgages."—"There is no difficulty whatever," said Mr. B.; "you could have seen them last year if you had wished: to-day you cannot see them because they are in the Bank, and the Bank is closed, but you can fix any other day you like for seeing them,"—and they fixed the following Wednesday. Afterwards Mr. B. said, "Well, Mrs. Hare, you do not seem to have trusted me as I deserve, still I think it my duty to give you the pleasant news that you will be richer this year than you have ever been in your life. A great deal of money is recovered from the Paul bankruptcy, which you never expected to see again; all your other investments are prospering, and your income will certainly be larger than it has ever been before." Italima was perfectly satisfied. That evening she made my sister write to Mrs. Julius Hare and say, "We are convinced that Mr. B. is the best friend we have in the world. Augustus was always talking against him, and we have been brought to England by a raving mad Frenchwoman who warned us against him; but we will never doubt or mistrust him any more."
When the Wednesday came on which they were to see the mortgages, Italima was not well, and she said to my sister, "I am quite glad I am not well, because it will be an excuse for you to go and fetch the mortgages, when we can look them over quietly together." My sister went off to Lincoln's Inn, but before going to Mr. B., she called at the house of another lawyer, whom she knew very well, to ask if he had heard any reports about Mr. B. "I pray to God, Miss Hare, that you are safe from that man," was all he said. She rushed on to the office. Mr. B. was gone: the whole place was sotto-sopra: everything was gone: there were no mortgages: there was no Mr. Howell's estate: there was no money: £60,000 was gone: there was absolutely nothing left whatever.
Never was ruin more complete! Italima and Esmeralda had nothing left: not a loaf of bread, not a penny to buy one—nothing. My sister said she prayed within herself as to how she could possibly go back and tell her mother, and it seemed to her as if a voice said, "Go back, go back, tell her at once," and she went. When she reached the door of Ellison's hotel, where they were staying, the waiter said a gentleman was sitting with her mother, but it seemed as if the voice said, "Go up, go up, tell her at once." When she went in, her mother was sitting on the sofa, and a strange gentleman was talking to her. She went up to her mother and said, "Mama, we are totally ruined: Mr. B. has taken flight: we have lost everything we have in the world, and we never can hope to have anything any more." The strange gentleman came in like a special intervention of Providence. He was a Mr. Touchet, who had known Italima well when she was quite a girl, who had never seen her since, and who had come that day for the first time to renew his acquaintance. He was full of commiseration and sympathy with them over what he heard; he at once devoted himself to their service, and begged them to make use of him: the mere accident of his presence just broke the first shock.
Lady Normanby was at Sydenham when the catastrophe occurred; she at once came up to London and helped her cousins for the moment. Then Lady Shelley, the daughter-in-law of Italima's old friend Mrs. Shelley (see chap. i.), fetched them home to her at Boscombe near Bournemouth, and was unboundedly kind to them. Sir Percy Shelley offered them a cottage rent-free in his pine-woods, but they only remained there three weeks, and then went to Lady Williamson at Whitburn Hall near Sunderland, where I first saw them.
Everything had happened exactly as Madame de Trafford had predicted. My sister wrote to me:—
"The most dreadful news. We are ruined. Mr. B. has bolted, and is a fraudulent bankrupt. Nobody knows where he is. We are nearly wild. God help us. I hardly know what I am writing. What is to become of Francis and William? We hardly know what we have lost. I fear B. has seized on Mama's mortgages. Pray for us."
We received this letter when we were staying at Fotheringham. We were very much shocked, but we said that when my sister talked of absolute ruin, it was only a figure of speech. She and her mother might be very much poorer than they had been, but there was a considerable marriage settlement; that, we imagined, B. could not have possessed himself of.
But it was too true; he had taken everything. The marriage settlement was in favour of younger children, I being one of the three who would have benefited. Some years before, Mr. B. had been to Italima and persuaded her to give up £2000 of my brother William's portion, during her life, in order to pay his debts. On her assenting to this, Mr. B. had subtly entered the whole sum mentioned in the settlement, instead of £2000, in the deed of release, and the two trustees had signed without a question, so implicit was their faith in Mr. B., who passed not only for a very honourable, but for a very religious man. Mr. B. had used the £2000 to pay William's debts, and had taken all the rest of the money for himself. About Italima's own fortune he had been even less scrupulous. Mr. Howell's estate in Cornwall had never existed at all. Mr. B. had taken the £46,000 for himself; there had been no mortgages, but he had paid the interest as usual, and the robbery had passed undetected. He had kept Italima from coming upon him during the last summer by cutting off her supplies, and all might have gone on as usual if Madame de Trafford had not brought his victims to England, and Italima had not insisted upon seeing the mortgages.
The next details we received were from my aunt Eleanor Paul.
"Sept. 1, 1859.—B. is bankrupt and has absconded. They think he is gone to Sweden. The first day there were bills filed against him for £100,000, the second day for £100,000 more, all money that he swindled people out of. I have not suffered personally, as the instant I heard there was anything against him, I went to his house, demanded my securities, put them in my pocket, and walked away with them. But I fear B. has made away with all the mortgages your mother and sister were supposed to have, or that they never existed, as they are not forthcoming. It is supposed that he has also made away with all the trust-money, besides the £5000 left to your sister by her aunt. At this moment they are penniless.... Your mother went to B. as soon as she arrived and desired to have the mortgages. He promised to have them ready in a few days, and meantime he talked her over, and made her believe he was a most honourable man. Before the day came he had bolted...."
I went from Gibside to Whitburn to be there when Italima arrived. Her despair and misery were terrible to witness. She did nothing all day but lament and wail over her fate, and was most violent to my sister, who bore her own loss with the utmost calmness and patience. Nothing could exceed Lady Williamson's kindness to them. She pressed them to stay on with her, and cared for them with unwearied generosity during the first ten months of their destitution. Many other friends offered help, and the Liddell cousins promised an annual subscription for their maintenance; but the generosity which most came home to their hearts was that of their old Roman friend Mr. William Palmer, who out of his very small income pressed upon them a cheque for £150. In this, as in all other cases of the kind, those who had least gave most. One idea was to obtain admission for them to St. Catherine's Almshouses for ladies of good family, but this was unwisely, though generously, opposed by my Aunt Eleanor.
"I am inclined to quarrel with you for ever mentioning the word 'Almshouse.' I have lived with my sister during her richer days, and certainly do not mean to desert her in her distress. I only wish she could think as I do. We can live in a smaller domain very happily, and if the worst come to the worst, I have £300 a year, and if the Liddell family allow £150, that, with the colliery shares, would make up £500 a year between us: and I have every prospect of recovering at least a portion of my fortune, and if I do, shall have £200, perhaps £300 a year more, making £800. Knowing this, I think it wrong to make oneself miserable. Francis and William must work: they have had their share of the fortune. I am only waiting till something is settled with regard to my affairs, but desertion has never for a moment entered my brain, and I hope you never gave me credit for anything so barbarous."[174]
To MY MOTHER (before seeing Italima).
"Whitburn Hall, Sept. 13.—Nothing can exceed Lady Williamson's kindness about Italima. Though she can ill afford it, she at once sent them £110 for present necessities.... She does not think it possible they can ever return to Rome, but having to part with Félix and Victoire is the greatest of their immediate trials. In addition to her invalid husband and son, Lady Williamson, the good angel of the whole family, has since her father's death taken the entire charge of his old sister, Mrs. Richmond—'Aunt Titchie.' Victor and I have just been paying a visit in her bedroom to this extraordinary old lady, who was rolled up in petticoats, with a little dog under a shawl by way of muff. She is passionately fond of eating, and dilated upon the goodness of the cook—'Her tripe and onions are de-licious!'—'I like a green gosling, and plenty of sage and stuffing, that's what I like.'
"She is a complete Mrs. Malaprop. 'I was educated, my dear,' she said, 'at a cemetery for young ladies;' but this is only a specimen. She is also used to very strong language, and till she became blind, she used to hunt all over the country in top-boots and leathern breeches, like a man. When her husband died, she went up from Mrs. Villiers' house at Grove Mill to prove his will. Adolphus Liddell met her at the station, and helped her to do it, and then took her to the 'Ship and Turtle' and gave her real turtle—in fact, a most excellent luncheon. He afterwards saw her off at Euston. She is blind, you know, and took no notice of there being other passengers in the carriage, and greatly astonished they must have been, as he was taking leave of her, to hear the old lady say in her deliberate tones, 'Capital turtle! de-e-licious punch! Why, lor bless ye! I'd prove my husband's will once a week to get such a blow-out as that.'
"I thought this place hideous at first, but it improves on acquaintance, and has its availabilities, like everything else: there is a fine sea with beautiful sands, and the flower-garden is radiant."
"Sept. 15.—I long for you to know Lady Williamson. Of all people I have ever known, she has the most truly Christian power of seeing the virtues of every one and passing over their faults. She also has to perfection the not-hearing, not-seeing knack, which is the most convenient thing possible in such a mixed family circle.
"Charlie Williamson arrived yesterday, and, with the most jovial entertaining manner, has all his mother's delicacy of feeling and excessive kindness of heart. When he heard of the B. catastrophe, he went up at once from Aldershot to see Italima in London. 'Your mother was quite crushed,' he says, 'but as for your dear sister, there isn't a girl in England has the pluck she shows. She never was down for a moment, not she: no, she was as cheery as possible, and said, "Mama, it is done, and it is not our fault, so we must learn to make the best of it." People may say what they like, but she is real downright good, and no mistake about it.'
"I have been with Victor to Seaton Delaval—the 'lordly Seaton Delaval' of 'Marmion,' scene of many of the iniquities of the last Lord Delaval. It is a magnificent house, but the centre is now a ruin, having been burnt about eighty years ago, by the connivance, it is said, of its then owner, Sir Jacob Astley. There is a Norman chapel, full of black effigies of knights, which look as if they were carved out of coal, and in one of the wings is a number of pictures, including Lord Delaval's four beautiful daughters, one of whom married the village baker, while another was that Lady Tyrconnel who died at Gibside.
"I hope I shall know all these cousins better some day. At present, from their having quite a different set of friends and associations, I always feel as if I had not a single thing to say to them, and I am sure they all think I am dreadfully stupid.... But I am enchanted with Charlie Williamson, his tremendous spirits and amusing ways."
"Sept. 17.—At 8½, as we were sitting at tea, Lady Williamson put her head in at the drawing-room door and said, 'Come down with me; they are arriving.' So we went to the hall-door just as the carriage drove up, and Italima got out and flung herself into Lady Williamson's arms.... Both she and Esmeralda looked utterly worn-out, and their account was truly awful.... Lady Normanby came at once to their assistance—but what touched them most was the kindness of dear good Charlie Williamson, who came up directly from Aldershot, bringing them all he had—£50."
"Sept. 18.—It has now come out that Mr. B. was the person who had Francis arrested, and he kept him in prison while he plundered his estate of £17,000. It has also transpired that when, on a former occasion, Sir J. Paul gave Mr. B. £1000 to pay Francis's debts, he never paid them, but appropriated the money. B. has robbed Italima of the whole of her own fortune besides her marriage settlement. Two years ago he arranged with the trustees and Italima to sell £2000 of the settlement fund to pay William's debts, and presented to the trustees, as they supposed, papers to sign for this purpose. They trusted to B. and did not examine the papers, which they now find empowered him to take possession not only of the £2000, but of the whole fund!"
"Sept. 19.—Italima's state is the most hopeless I ever saw, because she absolutely refuses to find hope or comfort or pleasure in anything, and as absolutely refuses to take any interest or bestir herself in any measures for the recovery of her lost fortune.... When any one tries to elicit what she recollects about the mortgages, she will begin the story, and then bury herself in the sofa-cushions, and say we are killing her by asking her questions, and that if we do not want her to die, she must be quiet. She is furious with me because I will not see that the case is quite hopeless, and quite acts up to her promise of never regarding me with the slightest affection.... The state of Italima is appalling, but my sister is perfectly calm. Lady Williamson is kindness itself; and as for Charlie, I never knew his equal for goodness, consideration, and generosity.
"I wish you could hear Lady Williamson sing; even when she was a little girl, Catalani said that her voice was better than her own, and that if it were necessary for her to sing publicly, she would be the first singer in Europe."
"Sept. 21.—Italima is daily more entirely woe-begone, and her way of receiving her misfortunes more bitter.... It seems a trouble to her even to see her cousins so prosperous, while she ...! The Normanbys are here and most kind, though much out of patience with her.... Old Mrs. Richmond, who has been very kind throughout, sent for my sister the other day to her room, and gave her five pounds to buy winter clothes, and has sent for patterns to Edinburgh for a warm dress for her."
"Sandhutton Hall, Sept. 24.—I left Whitburn yesterday, very sorry to part with the dear kind cousins, with whom I had a tender leave-taking—not so with Italima, who took no more notice of my departure than she had done of my visit."
The only event of our home-autumn was the death of the Rector of Hurstmonceaux, who had succeeded my uncle, and the appointment of the charming old Dr. Wellesley[175] in his place. In November I was at Harrow with the Vaughans, meeting there for the first time two sets of cousins, Lord and Lady Spencer,[176] and Sir John Shaw-Lefevre,[177] with two of his daughters. With the latter cousins I made a great friendship. Then I returned to Oxford.
To MY MOTHER.
"Christ Church, Dec. 6, 1859.-My whole visit here this time has been enjoyable. Arthur is always so very good and kind, so knowing in what will give one pleasure: which I especially feel in his cordiality to all my friends when they come here. Then it is so interesting and delightful being perpetually examined by him in different parts of history, and charming to feel that I can in a small way be useful to him in looking out or copying things for his lectures, &c. Victor Williamson and Charlie Wood come in and out constantly.
"Mr. Richmond the artist is here. I quite long to be Arthur, going to sit to him: he is so perfectly delightful: no wonder his portraits are always smiling."
In the winter of 1859-60 I made a much-appreciated acquaintance with Sir George Grey, author of "Polynesian Mythology."
JOURNAL.
"Dec. 15, 1859.—At the Haringtons' I met Sir George and Lady Grey. I was very anxious to make acquaintance, but much afraid that I should not have an opportunity of doing so, as I was never introduced. As they were going away, I expressed regret at having missed them before, and he hoped that we should meet another time. I suppose I looked very really sorry for not seeing more of him, for, after a consultation in the passage, he came back, and asked if I would walk part of the way with him. I walked with him all the way to Windmill Hill, where he was staying: he walked home with me: I walked home with him; and he home with me for the third time, when I was truly sorry to take leave, so very interesting was he, and so easy to talk to. We began about Polynesian Mythology—then poetry—then Murray, who, he said, had just paid Dr. Livingstone £10,000 as his share of the profits on his book—then of Lord Dillon, who, he said, had led them the most jovial rollicking life when he went to Ditchley to look over MSS., so that he had done nothing.
"Then he talked of the Church in the Colonies. He said that High Churchism had penetrated to the Cape to the greatest extent, and that the two or three churches where it was carried out were thronged as fashionable: that one of the views preached was, that religion was a belief in whatever you fancied was for your good, so that if you fancied that, our Lord being one with God, it would be well for you to have a mediator between yourself and Him, you ought then to believe in that mediator, and to invoke your guardian angel as the mediator most natural. Another tenet was that prayer was only 'a tracter' to draw down the blessings of God—that, as there were three kinds of prayer, so there were three kinds of tracters—that individual prayer would draw down a blessing on the individual, family prayer on a family, but that public prayer, as proceeding from the mouth of a priest, could draw down a blessing on the whole state. Sir George had heard a sermon on 'It is needful for you that I go away from you,' &c., proving that it was needful, because if not, Christ would have to have remained as an earthly king, have had to negotiate with other kings, meddle in affairs of state, &c.—also because he would have been made 'a lion' of—perhaps have become an object of pilgrimage, &c.
"Sir George said that the Wesleyan Methodists lived a holier, more spiritual life in the Colonies, but then it was because religion was there so easy to them; in London it would not be so; that London, the place in the world most unsuited to Christianity, lived on a great world of gambling-houses, brothels, &c., as if there were no God; no one seemed to care. He said what a grand thing it would be if, in one of the great public services in St. Paul's or Westminster Abbey, the preacher were to shout out as his awful text—'Where art thou, Adam?'—and show how the Lord would look in vain for His in most parts of London—where, where had they hidden themselves?
"Sir George told me an anecdote of a dog in New Zealand—that two officers were walking by the shore, and that one of them said, 'You declare your dog will do everything. I'll bet you he does not fetch that if you tell him,' and he threw his walking-stick into a canoe lying out at some distance in the shallow water, where the natives wade up to their waists to get into them, and where they are secured by strong hempen cords. The dog, when told, instantly swam out, but, as the man who made the bet had foreseen, whenever he tried to scramble into the canoe to get the stick, it almost upset, and at length, after repeated struggles, he was obliged to swim to shore again and lie down to rest. Once rested, however, without a second bidding, he swam out again, and this time gnawed through the cord, pulled the canoe on shore, and then got the stick out, and brought it to his master."[178]
I told Arthur Stanley much of this conversation with Sir George Grey. Some time after, he was very anxious that I should go to hear Dr. Vaughan preach in a great public service under the dome of St. Paul's. I went, and was startled by the text—"Where art thou, Adam?"
In January 1860 I paid a delightful visit to Sir John Shaw-Lefevre at Sutton Place, near Guildford, a beautiful old brick house with terra-cotta ornaments, which once belonged to Sir Francis Weston, Anne Boleyn's reputed lover. Besides the large pleasant family of the house, Lord Eversley and his daughter were there, and Sophia, daughter of Henry Lefevre, with Mr. Wickham, whom she soon afterwards married.
JOURNAL.
"Sutton Place, Jan. 8.—Lord Eversley has been talking of Bramshill, the old home of Prince Henry, where Archbishop Abbott shot a keeper by accident, in consequence of which it became a question whether consecration rites received at his hands were valid. Lord Eversley did not believe that the oak in the park, from which the arrow glanced (with the same effect as in the case of Rufus), was the real tree, because it was too old: oaks beyond a certain age, after the bark has ceased to be smooth, do not allow an arrow to glance and rebound.
"The Buxtons sent me a ticket for Lord Macaulay's funeral, but I would not leave Sutton to go. Sir John went, and described that, as often in the case of funerals and other sad ceremonies, people, by a rebound, became remarkably merry and amusing, and that they had occupied the time of waiting by telling a number of uncommonly good stories. The sight of Lady Holland[179] and her daughters amongst the mourners had reproduced the bon-mot of Mrs. Grote, who, when asked how this Lady Holland was to be distinguished from the original person of the name, said, 'Oh, this is New Holland, and her capital is Sydney.'
"Apropos of Macaulay, Sir John remarked how extraordinary it was in growing age to see a person pass away whose birth, education, public career, and death were all within your memory.
"He said how unreadable 'Roderick Random' and 'Tom Jones' were now. A lady had asked to borrow 'Pamela' from his library, saying she well remembered the pleasure of it in her youth; but she returned it the next day, saying she was quite ashamed of having asked for anything so improper.
"Yesterday was Sunday, and I groped my way through the dark passages to the evening service in the Catholic chapel, which has always been attached to the house. An old priest, seated on the steps of the altar, preached a kind of catechetical sermon upon Transubstantiation—'My flesh is meat indeed'—'and the poor Protestants have this in their Bibles, and yet they throw away the benefit of the indeed.' The sight was most picturesque—the dark old-fashioned roof, only seen by the light of the candles on the richly decorated altar, and the poor English peasants grouped upon the benches. It carried one back to the time before the Reformation. In his discourse, the old priest described his childhood, when he sat in the east wing of the house learning his catechism, and when there were only two Catholics in Guildford; and 'what would these two solitary ones say now if they had seen the crowd in St. Joseph's Chapel at Guildford this morning? Yes, what would old Jem Savin say if he could rise up and see us now, poor man?'"
To MY MOTHER (after I had returned to my Handbook explorations).
"Aldermaston Hall, Berks, Jan. 14, 1860.—I came here from Newbury. The weather was so horrible, and the prospect of a damp lonely Sunday in an inn so uninviting, that I thought over all possible and impossible houses in the neighbourhood, and finally decided upon Aldermaston as the best, and have taken it by storm.
"It was the dampest and dreariest of mornings as I came from the station, but this place looked beautiful in spite of it—a wild picturesque park, and a large house, full of colour inside, like a restored French château. Mrs. Higford Burr (who seems to live more in Italy than here) wears a sort of Greek dress with a girdle and a broad gold hem.... I was at once, as I rather expected, invited to stay per l'amore d'Italia, and my luggage sent for. This afternoon Mrs. Burr, who is a most tremendous walker, has taken me to Upton Court, the home of Arabella Fermor (Pope's Belinda), a charming old house with a ghost, which the farm-people described as 'coming a clinkerin upstairs right upon un loike.'"
"Christ Church, Feb. 4.—I have had a terribly cold tour to Drayton-Beauchamp, Ashridge, Aylesbury, &c. The pleasantest feature was a warm welcome from Mrs. Barnard, wife of the great yeoman-farmer at Creslow Pastures, the royal feeding-grounds from the time of Elizabeth to Charles II., with a lovely and interesting old house overlooking Christ Low (the Christ's Meadow) and Heaven's Low (Heaven's Meadow). Thence I went to North Marston, where was the shrine of Sir John Shorne, a sainted rector, who preserved his congregation from sin by 'conjuring the devil into his boot.' Buckinghamshire is full of these quaint stories.
"Arthur has just been making great sensation by a splendid sermon at St. Mary's, given in his most animated manner, his energies gradually kindling till his whole being was on fire. It was on, 'Why stand ye here idle all the day long?—the first shall be last and the last first.' 'Why stand ye here idle, listless, in the quadrangle, in your own rooms, doing nothing; so that in the years to come you will never be able to look back and say, "In such a year, in such a term, I learnt this or that—that idea, that book, that thought then first struck me"? Perhaps this may be a voice to the winds, perhaps those to whom it would most apply are even now in their places of resort, standing idle: probably even those who are here would answer to my question, "Because no man hath hired us."'
"Then he described the powers, objects, and advantages of Oxford. Then the persons who had passed away within the year, leaving gaps to be filled up—the seven great masters of the English language,[180] the German poets and philosophers,[181] the French philosopher[182]—'and their praise shall go forth from generation to generation.' Then he dwelt on the different duties of the coming life to be prepared for, and he described the model country-clergyman (Pearson), the model teacher (Jowett), the model country-gentleman. Then came a beautiful and pictorial passage about the eleventh hour and the foreboding of the awful twelfth. The congregation was immense, and listened with breathless interest. When the signatures were being collected for the Jowett appeal, Arthur was hard at work upon them on Sunday when Mr. Jowett came in. Arthur said, 'You need not mind my being at work to-day, for I can assure you it is quite a Sunday occupation, a work of justice, if not of mercy.'—'Yes,' said Jowett, 'I see how it is: an ass has fallen into a pit, and you think it right to pull him out on the Sabbath-day.'"
Arthur Stanley used to see a great deal of Mr. Jowett during this year—far too much, my mother thought when she was staying with him at Oxford; for Jowett—kind and unselfish as a saint—was only "Christian" in so far that he believed the central light of Christianity to spring from the life of Christ. He occasionally preached, but his sermons were only illustrative of practical duties, or the lessons to be learnt from holy and unselfish lives. It was during this year, too, that the English Church recognised with surprise that it was being shaken to its foundations by the volume of—mostly feeble and dull—"Essays and Reviews." But to turn to a very different religious phase.
JOURNAL.
"Wantage, Feb. 21, 1860.—I came here yesterday over dreary snow-sprinkled downs. Wantage is a curious little town surrounding a great cruciform church in the midst of a desert. The Vicar (Rev. W. J. Butler[183]) welcomed me at the door of the gothic vicarage, and almost immediately a clerical procession, consisting of three curates, schoolmaster, organist, and scripture-reader, filed in (as they do every day) to dinner, and were introduced one by one. The tall agreeable Vicar did the honours just as a schoolmaster would to his boys. There was such a look of daily service, chanting, and discipline over the whole party, that I quite felt as if Mrs. Butler ought also to be a clergyman, and as if the two little girls would have been more appropriately attired in black coats and bands.
"After dinner, in raging snow and biting east wind, we sallied out to survey the numerous religious institutions, which have been almost entirely founded by the energy and perseverance of this Vicar in the thirteen years he has been at Wantage. The church is magnificent. There is an old grammar-school in honour of Alfred (who was born here), a National School painted with Scripture frescoes by Pollen, Burgon, &c., a training school under the charge of Mrs. Trevelyan, a cemetery with a beautiful chapel, and St. Mary's Home for penitents. At seven o'clock all the curates dispersed to various evening services, Mr. Butler went to St. Mary's Home, and Mrs. Butler and I to the church, where we sat in the dark, and heard a choir chant a service out of what looked like a gorgeous illumination.
"I was aghast to hear breakfast was at half-past seven, but as I could not sleep from the piercing cold, it did not signify. At seven a bell rang, and we all hurried to a little domestic chapel in the house, hung with red and carpeted with red, but containing nothing else except a cross with flowers at one end of the room, before which knelt Mr. Butler. We all flung ourselves down upon the red carpet, and Mr. Butler, with his face to the wall, intoned to us, and Mrs. Butler and the servants intoned to him, and all the little children intoned too, with their faces to the ground.
"Now there is to be full church service again, and then—oh! how glad I shall be to get away."[184]
The society of Mrs. Gaskell the authoress was a great pleasure during this term at Oxford. I made great friends with her, and we kept up a correspondence for some time afterwards. Everybody liked Mrs Gaskell.[185] I remember that one of the points which struck me most about her at first was not only her kindness, but her extreme courtesy and deference to her own daughters. While she was at Oxford, the subject of ghosts was brought forward for a debate at the Union; she wished to have spoken from the gallery, and if she had, would probably have carried the motion in favour of ghosts at once. Here is one of her personal experiences:—
"Mrs. Gaskell was staying with some cousins at Stratford-on-Avon, who took her over to see Compton Whinyates. On their return she stayed to tea at Eddington with her cousins—cousins who were Quakers. Compton Whinyates naturally led to the subject of spirits, and Mrs. Gaskell asked the son of the house whether there were any stories of the kind about their neighbourhood; upon which the father, who was a very stiff, stern old man, reproved them for vain and light talking.
"After tea Mrs. Gaskell and her cousins went out to walk about the place with the younger Quaker, when the subject of the supernatural was renewed, and he said that their attention had lately been called to it in a very singular manner. That a woman who was a native of the place had many years ago gone as a lady's-maid to London, leaving her lover, who was a carter, behind her. While in London, she forgot her carter and married some one else, but after some years her husband died, leaving her a large competence, and she came back to spend the rest of her life in her native village. There she renewed her acquaintance with the carter, to whom, after a fortnight's renewal of courtship, she was married. After they had been married a few weeks, she said she must go up to London to sell all the property she had there, and come down to settle finally in the country. She wished her husband to go with her, and urgently entreated him to do so; but he, like many countrymen in that part, had a horror of London, fancied it was the seat of all wickedness, and that those who went there never could come back safe: so the woman went alone, but she did not return. Some time after her husband heard that she had been found in the streets of London—dead.
"A few weeks after this the carter husband was observed to have become unaccountably pale, ill, and anxious, and on being asked what was the matter with him, he complained bitterly, and said that it was because his wife would not let him rest at nights. He did not seem to be frightened, but lamented that his case was a very hard one, for that he had to work all day, and, when he wanted rest, his wife came and sat by his bedside, moaning and lamenting and wringing her hands all the night long, so that he could not sleep.
"Mrs. Gaskell naturally expressed a wish to see the man and to hear the story from his own lips. The Quaker said that nothing could be easier, as he lived in a cottage close by; to which she went, together with five other persons. It was like a Cheshire cottage, with a window on each side of the door, and a little enclosure, half-court, half-garden, in front. It was six o'clock in broad summer daylight when they arrived. The door was locked and the Quaker went round to try the back entrance, leaving Mrs. Gaskell and her friends in the enclosure in front. They all, while there, distinctly saw a woman, of hard features, dressed in a common lilac print gown, come up to the latticed window close by them on the inside and look out. They then saw her pass on and appear again at the window on the other side of the door, after which she went away altogether.
"When the Quaker appeared, unsuccessful in opening the back-door, they said, 'But there is some one who could have let you in, for there is a woman in the house.' They tried unsuccessfully, however, to make her hear. Then they went to the adjoining cottage, where the people assured them that the man was gone out for the day, and that there could not possibly be any one in the house. 'Oh,' said Mrs. Gaskell, 'but we have seen a woman in the house in a lilac print gown.' 'Then,' they answered, 'you have seen the ghost: there is no woman in the house; but that is she.'"
It was when I was at Beckett, just before Easter 1860, that I was first told that we should have to leave our dear home at Hurstmonceaux. Many years before, there had been an alarm, and my mother would then have bought the Lime property, but that the price asked was so greatly above its value, and no other purchasers came forward. So she was satisfied to go on renting Lime and the surrounding fields for a small sum, especially as she had a promise from those who had charge of the sale that no other offer should be accepted without giving her the preference. In the spring of 1860, however, Mr. Arkcoll, a rich old Hurstmonceaux farmer and churchwarden, died, leaving a large fortune to his nephew and a considerable sum of ready money to buy a house near his property. Lime had long been as Naboth's vineyard in the younger Mr. Arkcoll's eyes, and before we knew that the uncle was dead, we heard that the nephew was the purchaser of Lime, the promise to us having been broken.
My mother immediately offered Mr. Arkcoll a much larger sum than he had paid to save Lime, but not unnaturally he was inexorable.
Thus it was inevitable that at Michaelmas we must leave our dear home, and, though I had suffered much at Hurstmonceaux, and though our position there as a ruined family was often a dismal one, yet we felt that nothing could ever replace what Lime itself was, where every plant was familiar, and every tree had its own little personal reminiscence. And there was also the great difficulty of finding a new home within our small means, and yet large enough to house our many books and pictures.
I met my mother at Bournemouth to talk over plans and possibilities for the future, and we went on to Weymouth, where we remained some weeks. It was bitterly cold weather, but I always liked Weymouth, and the pleasant walks in Sandyfoot Bay, and excursions to Bow and Arrow Castle, Corfe Castle, Abbotsbury, and Lyme Regis. In April I was again at Beckett.
To MY MOTHER.
"Beckett, April 8, 1860.—Yesterday I went with Lady Barrington and Lady Somerton to Ashdowne (Lord Craven's). It is a most awfully desolate place, standing high up on the bare downs. Four avenues approach the house from the four sides. It was built by a Craven who was Lord Mayor of London, and who, flying from the great plague, rode fiercely on and on, till upon this bleak down he saw a desolate farmhouse, where he thought that the plague could not penetrate, and there he rested, and there he eventually built. The four avenues, and the windows on every side, were intended to let the plague out in one direction if it came in at the other. Inside the house are great stag's horns which Elizabeth of Bohemia brought with her from Germany, and portraits of her, Prince Rupert, Prince Maurice, and the four princesses her daughters, painted by one of them. The young Ladies Craven showed us the house amid shouts of laughter at their own ignorance about it, which certainly was most dense.
"We went on by roads, which were never meant for a carriage, to a point whence Lady Barrington and I walked across the down to 'Wayland Smith's Cave,' a very small cromlech, in which Wayland could hardly have stood upright when he used it for a forge."
"Hendred House, April 15.—It is a proof how necessary it is for the writer of a Handbook to see himself all that he writes about, that I found East Hendred, of which I had heard nothing, to be one of the most romantic villages I ever saw—groups of ancient gable-ended houses, black and white or black and red, with turreted chimneys—a ruined moss-grown chapel dedicated to 'Jesus of Bethlehem'—a fine old grey church in a glen—and a beautiful Catholic chapel attached to this quaint old house, which contains a great Holbein of Sir Thomas More and his family, his cup, a portrait of Cardinal Pole, and the staff upon which Bishop Fisher leant upon the scaffold!"
My next visit was to Dr. Hawtrey, the Provost of Eton, to whom I became much attached. Being in the house with him was a constant intellectual feast, he was so accomplished as well as learned. Beautiful and interesting books were produced to illustrate all he said, and it would be hard to say how much Latin or Italian poetry he daily read or repeated to me. It was impossible not to be perfectly at home with him, he was so easy and natural. Of the two old sisters who had resided with him, and who were known by Eton boys as Elephantina and Rhinocerina, only one was still living, in a gentle and touching state of childishness, keeping up all her old-fashioned habits of courtesy and politeness; the mind now and then taking in an idea like a flash of light, and immediately losing it again. The Provost's attention to this old sister was quite beautiful, and her affection for him. When she was going to bed she would "pack up" and carry off all the things upon the table—books, envelope-boxes, &c., which were soon sent downstairs again.
I went with the Provost to dine at New Lodge (Mr. Van de Weyer, the Belgian Minister's), and found there the Dean of St. Paul's and Mrs. Milman, he most bright and animated, she "icily bland and coldly amiable as ever." I was quite delighted with the Van de Weyers, especially the second son Albert (who afterwards died young). M. Sylvain Van de Weyer, through life the trusted friend and representative of Leopold I. of Belgium, had the expensive hobby of books, collecting rare editions and the earliest printed classics, a taste inherited from his father, who kept a circulating library at Louvain. When he showed us two shelves of books in his library he said, "I have read all these whilst waiting for dinner. I am always down punctually, and my guests are always late. From my library I see them arrive, and never join them till a good many are come: thus I have got through all these." Madame Van de Weyer was immensely fat. She had lately been with her husband to a concert at Windsor, and been much jostled, at which she was very indignant. "Why, they take us for pages," she said to her husband. "No, my dear," he replied; "they take me for a page, but they take you for a volume."
On the last occasion on which I saw the Provost Hawtrey before his death, he said to me that he knew I collected curious stories, and that there was one story, intimately connected with his own life, which he wished that I should write down from his lips, and read to him when I had written it, that he might see that it was perfectly correct.
Here is the story as he gave it:—
"In the time of my youth one of the cleverest and most agreeable women in Europe was Madame de Salis—the Countess de Salis—who had been in her youth a Miss Foster, daughter of the Irish Bishop of Kilmore. As a girl she had been most beautiful and the darling of her parents' hearts, but she married against their will with the Count de Salis. He was a Swiss Count, but he took her, not to Switzerland, but to Florence, where he hired a villa at Bellosguardo. There the life of Madame de Salis was a most miserable one: she had many children, but her husband, who cut her off from all communication with her friends, was exceedingly unkind to her. She was married to him for several years, and then she was mercifully released by his death. It was impossible for her to pretend to be sorry, and she did not pretend it: she hailed it as the greatest mercy that could have befallen her.[186]
"Madame de Salis went back to Ireland, where her parents, the old Bishop of Kilmore and Mrs. Foster, were still alive, and welcomed her with rapture. But she had left them a radiant, beautiful, animated girl; she returned to them a haggard, weird, worn woman, with that fixed look of anguish which only the most chronic suffering can leave. And what was worst was that her health had completely given way: she never slept, she never seemed able to rest, she had no repose day or night: she became seriously ill.
"All the best advice that could be procured was hers. There was a great consultation of doctors upon her case, and after it had taken place, the doctors came to the Bishop and said, 'The case of Madame de Salis is an extraordinary one; it is a most peculiar, but still a known form of hypochondria. She cannot rest because she always sees before her—not the horrible phantom which made her married life so miserable, but the room which was the scene of her suffering. And she never will rest; the image is, as it were, branded into her brain, and cannot be eradicated. There is only one remedy, and it is a very desperate one. It will probably kill her, she will probably sink under it, but it may have happy results. However, it is the only chance of saving her. It is that she should see the real room again. She can never get rid of its image: it is engraven upon her brain for life. The only chance is for her to connect it with something else.' When Madame de Salis was told this, she said that her returning to Florence was impossible, absolutely impossible. 'At any rate,' she said, 'I could not go unless my younger sister, Miss Foster, might go with me; then possibly I might think of it.' But to this Dr. and Mrs. Foster would not consent. The happiness of their lives seemed to have been extinguished when their elder daughter married Count de Salis, and if their beautiful younger daughter went abroad, perhaps she also would marry a foreigner, and then what good would their lives do them? However, Madame de Salis grew daily worse; her life was evidently at stake, and at last her parents said, 'Well, if you will make us a solemn promise that you will never, under any circumstances whatever, consent to your sister's marrying a foreigner, she shall go with you;' and she went.
"Madame de Salis and Miss Foster went to Florence. They rented the villa at Bellosguardo which had been the scene of the terrible tragedy of Madame de Salis's married life. As they entered the fatal room, Madame de Salis fell down insensible upon the threshold. When she came to herself, she passed from one terrible convulsion into another: she had a brain fever: she struggled for weeks between life and death. But nature is strong, and when she did rally, the opinion of the Irish doctors was justified. Instead of the terrible companion of her former life and the constant dread in which she lived, she had the companionship of her beautiful, gentle, affectionate sister, who watched over her with unspeakable tenderness, who anticipated her every wish.... The room was associated with something else! Gradually, very gradually, Madame de Salis dawned back into active life. She began to feel her former interest in art; in time she was able to go and paint in the galleries, and in time, when her recovery became known, many of those who had never dared to show their sympathy with her during her earlier sojourn at Florence, but who had pitied her intensely, hastened to visit her; and gradually, as with returning health her brilliant conversational powers came back, and her extraordinary gift of repartee was restored, her salon became the most recherché and the most attractive in Florence.
"Chief of all its attractions was the lovely Miss Foster. When, however, Madame de Salis saw that any one especially was paying her sister attentions, she took an opportunity of alienating them, or, if there seemed to be anything really serious, she expressed to the individual her regret that she was unable to receive him any more. But at last there was an occasion on which Madame de Salis felt that more stringent action was called for. When a young Count Mastai, in the Guardia Nobile, not only felt, but showed the most unbounded devotion to Miss Foster, Madame de Salis did more than express to him her regret that untoward family circumstances prevented her having the pleasure of seeing him again; she let her villa at Bellosguardo, she packed up her things, and she took her sister with her to Rome.
"The reputation of the two sisters had preceded them, and when it became known that the Madame de Salis who had had so romantic a history was come to Rome with her beautiful younger sister, all that was most intellectual and all that was most remarkable in the old Papal capital gathered around them. But now the scene had changed. It was no longer Madame de Salis who was the invalid. Miss Foster grew pale and languid and unable to occupy herself, and gradually she became so pale and so changed, and the cause of it was so evident, that Madame de Salis felt that she must choose between two alternatives: she must either break her word to her parents and save the life of her sister, or she must keep her promise to her parents and see her sister sink into the grave.
"And she decided on the former course. She wrote two letters—one letter to Count Mastai, telling him that he might come back and see her sister again, and the other letter to the Bishop of Kilmore and Mrs. Foster. She said to her parents that she knew they measured a foreign marriage by her own dreadful life with Count de Salis: that in Count Mastai they must imagine the exact opposite of Count de Salis: that he was honourable, noble, chivalrous, generous, disinterested—in fact, that had she to seek through the whole world the person to whom with the greatest confidence she could commit her sister's happiness, she could not do otherwise than choose Count Mastai. This letter she sent too late to have the refusal which she knew it would bring. Count Mastai flew to the feet of the beautiful Miss Foster, and was accepted at once. The wedding-day was fixed, the wedding-dress was made, the wedding-feast was prepared.[187]
"When the day came, all the friends of Madame de Salis collected in the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi, where the marriage was to take place. According to the custom of brides in Rome, Miss Foster, accompanied by Madame de Salis, came first to the altar and waited for the bridegroom. He never came—he never came at all—he never, never, never was heard of again. And that is the end of the first part of the story.
"The second part of the story is quite different. It was the time of the great famine and pestilence in the Basilicata. The misery was most intense, hundreds perished daily everywhere. Every one who could get away did; those who could went to Switzerland, others went to Sicily; bishops abandoned their dioceses, priests abandoned their flocks: there was a general stampede.
"But in that terrible time, as in all seasons of great national suffering, there were instances of extraordinary devotion and heroism. There was one young bishop of a Neapolitan diocese, who was absent in Switzerland at the time, who came back like San Carlo Borromeo over the Alps, who sold his library for the poor, who sold his carriages, who sold at last even his episcopal ring, who walked day and night in the hospitals, and by whose personal devotion many lives were saved, while thousands were cheered and encouraged by his example. The consequence was, that when the famine and the pestilence in the Basilicata passed away, at an early age—at a much earlier age than is usual—that young bishop was made a cardinal.
"The third part of the story is again quite different. It was when Pope Gregory XVI. lay upon his deathbed. There was the greatest possible difficulty about who should be his successor; one member of the Sacred College was too old, another was too young, another was too much bound up with the princely families: there seemed to be no one. The person who was of most influence at that time was Count Rossi, the French Ambassador, and he was very anxious for a liberal Pope, for some one who would carry out his own liberal views. One day as he was walking pensively, filled with anxieties, down the Corso, there passed by in a carriage that young bishop of the Basilicata, once Bishop of Imola, now Archbishop of Spoleto, who had been so distinguished during the famine. And when Count Rossi saw him, he felt that is the man—that is the man who would further my ideas and carry out my views. And by the wonderful influence of Count Rossi on separate individuals, and by his extraordinary powers of combination in bringing the mind of one person to bear upon another, that person was chosen Pope. And on the day on which he mounted the Papal throne as Pius IX., he revealed that he was the person who, as Count Mastai Ferretti in the Guardia Nobile, had been engaged to be married to the beautiful Miss Foster. He had belonged to a Jesuit family: he had been summoned on a Jesuit mission from which no one can shrink: his value to the Church had been estimated: he was sent off to the West Indies: letters were intercepted, and he was induced to believe that Miss Foster had ceased to care about him: he was persuaded to take Orders; he became bishop in the Basilicata, Bishop of Imola, Archbishop of Spoleto, Pope of Rome—and Miss Foster lived to know it.
"'Now,' said Dr. Hawtrey, 'if you ever tell that story, recollect to say that it is no mere story I have heard; it is part of my own life. Madame de Salis and her sister were my relations, and I was most intimate with them. I was there when Madame de Salis made her miserable marriage; I was there when she came back so terribly changed. I shared in the consultations as to whether her sister should go with her: I was with Dr. and Mrs. Foster when they received the letter about Count Mastai: I was there when they heard of the disappearance of the mysterious bridegroom: and I have lived to think of him as Pope.'"
I am surprised to find no letters recording the long and happy visit which I made during the latter part of April 1860 to Chequers, the beautiful old house of Lady Frankland Russell, to whom I had been introduced by Lady Sheffield, who was her cousin. With this most interesting old lady I made great friends and received the greatest kindness from her. Owing to the marriage of Sir John Russell of Chequers with Mrs. Rich, youngest daughter of Cromwell, the house was perfectly full of Cromwell relics, and in its grand old gallery hung portraits of the Protector, his mother, brother, his four daughters, two sons-in-law, secretary, &c. Here, also, enclosed in a cabinet, was a very awful mask taken from Cromwell's face after death, which Lady Frankland used to uncover with great solemnity. In the garden was a wonderful wych elm, said to have been planted by King Stephen, and behind rose the Chiltern Hills, the most beautiful point of which—Velvet Lawn, covered with indigenous box—was in the immediate neighbourhood.
All through the summer of 1860 we were occupied in considering our new home. We sent for all the London agents' lists of places to be let or sold south of the Humber, and many of these, in Kent, Surrey, Berks, Bucks, Oxfordshire, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, I went to see, either with or without my mother. If she were not with me, I wrote to her long accounts, always concluding with saying, "They are not like Holmhurst, not in the least like Holmhurst,"—Holmhurst being the ideal place in the unwritten novels which my mother and I had been accustomed to narrate to each other in our long journeys abroad. My being difficult to satisfy gave the aunts an unusual handle for abuse, and plentifully did they bestow it upon me. "What can it signify whether you have a view or not? No one but you would care to waste your time in always looking out of the window," &c., &c. Especially was indignation roused by my refusing to consider an old house which the Stanleys were determined upon our taking in Oxfordshire,[188] and which was to be had very cheap because no servants could be persuaded to stay there on account of a frightful apparition which was supposed to haunt it. At last we almost despaired of finding any place to suit us, and determined to take the farm of Belhurst at Hurstmonceaux to put our furniture in, and to go abroad till quite a different set of places were to be disposed of. Just then a neighbour sent us a Hastings paper with a very humble advertisement marked, "At Ore, a house, with thirty-six acres of land, to be let or sold." "What a horrible place this must be," I said, "for which they cannot find one word of description;" for the very ugliest places we had seen had often been described in the advertisements as "picturesque manorial residences," "beautiful villas with hanging woods," &c. But my mother rightly thought that the very simple description was perhaps in itself a reason why we should see it, and after breakfast we set off in the little carriage. It was a drive of about fourteen miles. Long before we could arrive at Ore, we passed under a grey wall overhung by trees. "It looks almost as if there might be a Holmhurst inside that wall," I said. Then we reached a gate between two clipped yew-trees, and a board announced, "This house is to be let or sold." We drove in. It was a lovely day. An arched gateway was open towards the garden, showing a terrace, vases of scarlet geraniums, and a background of blue sea. My mother and I clasped each other's hands and simultaneously exclaimed—"This is Holmhurst!"
The house was let then, and we were refused permission to see the inside, but my mother bought the property at once: she was as sure as I was that we should never like any other place as well.
We found that the name of the place was Little Ridge. There were six places called Ridge in the neighbourhood, and it was very desirable to change the name, to prevent confusion at the post-office and elsewhere. Could we call it anything but Holmhurst? Afterwards we discovered that Holmhurst meant an ilex wood, and our great tree is an ilex.
On September 24 my mother left Lime. The day before was Sunday, and very sad—so many tearful farewells, so many poor women crying in the churchyard as we passed through. I stayed at Lime to pack up and arrange everything. On October 6, in the gloaming of the autumn evening, while the sunlight was streaming through the diminishing leaves of the old abele trees, and throwing long shadows upon the green lawn and bright flower-beds, we took a last farewell of our dear Hurstmonceaux home. Lea delivered up the keys, and we walked away (to the Rectory) up the drive, our drive no longer.
To MY MOTHER.
"Holmhurst, Oct. 8, 1860.—This morning we left Hurstmonceaux Rectory directly after breakfast, good old Dr. Wellesley quite affected, and Harriet Duly, and even begging Mrs. Havendon, crying bitterly on taking leave of Lea. We met a smart carriage with two white horses going to fetch the Arkcolls, who made a triumphal entry to Lime just after our departure. Winchester drove us, in order to bring back the horse—John and Romo (the dog) on the box: Lea and I with Julietta (the cat) and her kitten inside, and no end of provisions under the seats. We stopped first at Mrs. Taylor's farm, and she gave Lea a new loaf and some cheese to begin housekeeping with, and me some excellent cakes. Lea thought the drive charming. I walked up all the hills and we arrived about one o'clock. It was impossible to enter the gates on account of the waggons of the outgoing tenants, but Joe and Margaret Cornford from the lodge hailed us with the joyful news that they had themselves departed a few hours before."
"Oct. 9.—We began work at six, a lovely morning, and the view exquisite as I opened my window, the oak-trees with which the meadows are studded casting long shadows on the grass, the little pond glittering in the sun, and the grey castle rising against the softest blue sea beyond. John is awed by the magnitude of the grounds.... Julietta cries to go home, and would certainly set off, if it were not for little black pussy. I think the winding walks and obscure paths are enchanting, and the fir-woods are really large enough for you to 'inhale the turpentine air' as at Bournemouth."
My mother came to Holmhurst in about ten days, but not to stay, as we had arranged to break the transition between our two homes by spending the winter at Mentone. We took the route to the south by Orleans (whence I made a most interesting excursion to Notre Dame de Clery), Bourges, and then lingered at Oranges, Avignon, &c. I have always looked back upon the earlier part of this journey with remorse, as one in which I took my mother a longer way, in cold weather, simply to gratify my own wishes.
The dear mother, however, was very well, and this winter was therefore perhaps the happiest of the many we have spent abroad. Mentone consisted then only of the old town on a promontory above the sea, ending in a little island-tower, and clambering up the sides of the hill to the castle and cemetery. On either side were a very few villas scattered amid the olive and orange groves. In one of these,[189] above the terrace which led from the eastern gate of the town to the little chapel of St. Anne, we rented the first floor. On the ground floor lived our worthy landlord, M. Trenca, and his Swiss wife, with whom we made much acquaintance. In the neighbouring villas also we had many friends, and often gave little parties,—for the tiny society was most simple and easily pleased. We all enjoyed Mentone, where we had no winter, and breakfasted with windows wide open at Christmas. Our old servants, Lea and John, amused themselves by collecting roots of anemones and other plants; I drew, and sought materials for my little book "A Winter at Mentone;" and my mother was always gay and happy, betaking herself every morning with her camp-stool to draw in some sheltered nook, and returning proud of having discovered some new pathlet, or some fresh bank of rare flowers in the olive groves; and in the afternoons often going to sit with and read or sing to some of the invalid visitors.
JOURNAL.
"Dec. 1860.—Our apartment has a bright salon looking towards the garden, with glass doors opening on a balcony. All the rooms except one overlook a vast expanse of blue sea, above groves of magnificent olivetrees, and from the garden a fresh scent of flowers is wafted up, even in December. From this garden the peaks of the Berceau are seen rising above the thickets of oranges and lemons, and beyond is a chain of rosecoloured rocks descending in an abrupt precipice to the blue waters of the bay, while on the farthest promontory Bordighera gleams white in the sunshine. Twice a day a lovely fairy vision salutes us; first, when, in the sunrise, Corsica reveals itself across the sapphire water, appearing so distinctly that you can count every ravine and indentation of its jagged mountains, and feel as if a boat would easily take you to it in an hour; and again in the evening, when, as a white ghost, scarcely distinguishable from the clouds around it, and looking inconceivably distant, it looms forth dimly in the pink haze of sunset.
"We were here a very little while before several donkey-women presented themselves to secure our custom. We engaged ourselves to a wild Meg Merrilies figure in a broad white hat, with a red handkerchief tied underneath, and a bunch of flowers stuck jauntily in the side of her hair, who rejoices in the name of Teresina Ravellina Muratori de Buffa! With her we have made many excursions. It is impossible for anything to be more beautiful than the variety of green in the valleys: the blue-green of the gigantic euphorbias, which fringe the rocks by the wayside, the grey-green of the olives, the dark green of the old gnarled carouba trees, and the yellow-green of the canes and the autumnal vineyards. The walls are beautiful with their fringe of mesembryanthemum—'Miss Emily Anthem' as the servants call it. Most of the paths are a constant 'excelsior,' and beginning with the steep yellow tufa rocks behind the town, gradually enter the pine-woods, and ascend towards the blue peaks of Sant' Agnese, which are always visible through the red stems of the pine-trees, and across the rich foreground of heath and myrtle. The trees are full of linnets, which the natives call 'trenta-cinque' from the sound of their note, and the air resounds with the cries of the donkey-drivers—'Ulla'—go on, and 'Isa'—for shame."
"Jan. 11, 1861.—We have been climbing up to Grimaldi, whose broad sunny terrace is as Italian a scene as any on the Riviera, for it is crossed by a dark archway, and lined on one side with bright houses, upon whose walls yellow gourds hang in the sun, with a little church, painted pink and yellow, while the other side is overshadowed by old olive-trees, beneath which is seen the broad expanse of sea, here deep blue, there gleaming silver white in the hot sunshine. Children in bright handkerchiefs and aprons were playing about, and singing 'Tanta di gioja, tanto di contento,' while we were drawing.
"Beyond Grimaldi the path becomes intensely steep, but we were repaid for going on when we reached to the top of the hills, as the scenery there is almost Alpine in its bold rocky foregrounds, beneath which yawns the deep black chasm of St. Louis, with a huge cliff towering above. On the scorched rock is Ciotti Superiore, a quaint cluster of houses, while the church, quite separated from the village, stands farther off, on the highest ridge of the mountain. Behind the church, the sea view is magnificent, embracing the coast, with its numerous bays, as far as the Estrelles, which turn golden and pink in the sunset; the grand mountain barriers, with all the orange-clad valleys running up into them; and S. Agnese rising out of the blue mist on its perpendicular cliff.... And, even in this high situation, lovely narcissus and pink carnations were blooming in January.
"People here are unconventional. When it began to rain on Tuesday, as we were going to a picnic, the coachman said 'Ah! le bon Dieu a oublié que c'est un jour de fêtes.'"
It was a great delight during our winter at Mentone that Lady Mary Wood and her family were spending the winter at Nice with old Lady Grey, so that my friend Charlie and I often met, and became greater friends than ever, entirely sympathising in all we did and saw. I went to Nice to spend some days with the Woods, and they came to Mentone for Easter, when we saw the Mentonais assemble to "grind Judas's bones," and many other of their strange ceremonies.
"Good Friday, 1861.—When Charlie and I went to S. Michele at eight o'clock in the evening, we found the church crowded from end to end with people chanting the Miserere, and radiant with a thousand waxlights. In the choir, under a canopy, upon a raised bier surrounded by a treble row of tall tapers, lay the body of Christ, for which the whole service was a funeral celebration. Soon after we arrived, a sudden hush in the crowd showed that something important was going to happen, and a huge friar's lanthorn carried in by a boy preceded the celebrated 'Pilgrim Preacher of the Riviera,' a Capuchin monk with a long white beard, who exercises his wonderful gift of preaching all along the Riviera during Lent. His sermon was short, but very graphic and striking. He began by describing a dreadful murder which people had committed upon the person of their kindest friend, with the horror it excited; and then, pointing to the white corpse which lay before him amid the blazing candles, he declared that those around him were themselves the perpetrators of the crime, and that the object of it was no other than their Saviour, whose image they saw there pale and bleeding before their eyes. Then, snatching the crucifix from the support by his side, he held it aloft to urge repentance by the sufferings there portrayed. As he concluded, soldiers filed into the church, and, amid rolling of drums and blowing of trumpets which intermingled with the chanting, the body was taken up and carried three times round the church by the Black Penitents, Mentonais nobles supporting a canopy over the bier."
With Charlie Wood, also, I went to Dolceacqua, which will always come back to me as one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, with its forest-clad mountains, its tall bridge, its blue river Nervia, and the palatial castle of the Dorias on a cliff, with sunlight streaming through its long lines of glassless windows. Almost equally picturesque were Peglia and Peglione, the latter on the top of a conical rock, with tremendous precipices and extraordinary mountain forms all around.
In the spring we went for a few days to S. Remo, accompanied by several friends. With them, when my mother returned to Mentone, I travelled farther along the Riviera, an excursion which was most amusing, as we bargained for a little carriage from place to place, giving ridiculously small sums, and living entirely like Italians. We went on to many-towered Albenga, to Savona, and eventually to Genoa, making all the excursions belonging to each place. From Genoa we joined Mr. and Mrs. Strettel in an excursion to Porto Fino. When we returned, it was too late to reach Mentone before Sunday, and my companions refused to travel on that day, so we employed the interval in going to Piacenza, Parma, and Modena! Thence we were obliged to telegraph to Mr. Strettel (then chaplain at Genoa) to send us some money to get home with, which we did in a series of little carriages as we had come, but travelling all day and night, driving in the moonlight along the Riviera roads, or often walking for miles at night upon the sands by the sea.
Mr. Petit, the famous ecclesiologist,[195] spent some time at Mentone afterwards, and was very kind in taking me sketching excursions, as a fourth in the carriage with his sister, Miss Emma Petit, and his niece, Miss Salt. Mr. Petit was extraordinarily clever, especially as an artist, but most eccentric. He covered the backs of his pictures with caricatures of goblins, &c., representing the events of each day on which the pictures were done. When they travelled, this extraordinary family used to keep what they called "the Petit count:" if they met a cat, it counted for so much—a black goat for so much more, and so on: but if they met a royal prince, it annihilated the whole of the Petit count, and the party would consequently go a whole day's journey out of their way to evade a royal prince. Mr. Petit was most striking in appearance, with a great deal of colour and snow-white hair and beard. I remember the start which our donkey-boy François gave when he first saw him, and his exclaiming, "Je crois, Monsieur, que c'est le frère du Père Eternel!" One day I had gone with Mr. Petit and Miss Salt to Ventimiglia, and we were returning at a most alarming speed (with their horses, from Toulon, unaccustomed to the road) along the edge of an almost unguarded and perpendicular precipice. Suddenly the horses made a great dash, and I felt, rather than saw, that they were leaving the road. I threw myself out instantly over the side of the carriage. As I picked myself up, I had the horror of seeing the horses over, hanging in the branches of an olive-tree which overhung the sea at a tremendous height, and on the tiny plateau on which it grew. The carriage was swaying to and fro on the wall, which it had broken down, and which was rapidly giving way altogether. "Uncle, shall I get out?" said Miss Salt, as coolly as if nothing was going on. "Yes," he said—and they both got out. A crowd of men came and rescued the horses with ropes from their perilous position, and we walked home.
As usual, in our return to England, we lingered much by the way. The railway then only reached as far as Aix in Provence, and we joined it there after a long vetturino journey; then, after visiting the wonderful deserted town of Les Baux near Arles and Vaucluse near Avignon, we went to S. Laurent du Pont and the Grande Chartreuse, greatly enjoying the beauty of the spring flowers there, as well as the scenery.
| "Al ogni uccello suo nido par bello." |
| —Italian Proverb. |
| "O my life! have we not had seasons |
| That only said, Live and rejoice? |
| That asked not for causes or reasons, |
| But made us all feeling and voice." |
| —Lowell. |
ON our arrival in England, we were delighted with our little Holmhurst, which we arranged to be as much like Lime as possible, while many of the plants and shrubs we had brought with us, were, in the garden, a perpetual reminder of our old home. To my mother, however, our return was greatly clouded by the loss of her only brother, my Uncle Penrhyn, who died at Sheen while we were at Mentone, passing away most peacefully, surrounded by his family. This uncle is one of the few figures connected with my childhood with whom I have no associations but those of unvarying kindness, and in later years we had been brought nearer to him in our long winter visits at Sheen, and we missed him greatly.
My Handbook (nominally Murray's) of Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Berkshire had been published during our winter absence: my little book "A Winter at Mentone" appeared soon after our return. With Murray's Handbook I had taken as much pains as if it were to appear in my own name, and felt as strongly the responsibility of what Miss Edgeworth calls "irremediable words," once past the press. The "Winter at Mentone" fell perfectly flat, but Murray was so pleased with the laudatory notices which followed the appearance of the Handbook, that he asked me to select any other counties I liked. I chose Durham and Northumberland, and after the middle of July went there for three months. In undertaking these counties, I again assented to an arrangement by which I was never repaid for my work; but the work was one which I liked extremely, bringing me in contact with endless interesting persons, enabling me to be much with "Cousin Susan," who gave me a second home at Ridley Hall, and opening a field of historic study of the most interesting kind. On the way north I went to the Vaughans at Doncaster, of which Dr. Vaughan had lately become Vicar.
To MY MOTHER.
"Doncaster, July 24, 1861.—The people here are a perpetual amusement to Kate, they are so quaint and original. She spoke to one old woman the other day about her sinful ways and the necessity for amendment. 'Na, na, Mrs. Vaughan,' she replied, 'I be got too old for Mr. Satan noo; he canna hurt I noo.' Another old woman who was brought into the hospital swore dreadfully all night long, to the great annoyance of her neighbours; but when they complained she said, 'Wal, I niver did it afore I coomed here, but I be gettin' old, and I canna help it—and it's the will o' God, and I canna help it.'
"Kate said to an old man, 'What are you so low about, my man?' 'Why,' he said, 'what wi' faith, and gas, and balloons, and steam-ingines a-booming and a-fizzling through t' warld, and what wi't' arth a going round once in twenty-four hours, I'm fairly muzzled and stagnated.'
"I have been to call on the daughters of 'Presence-of-mind Smith,' who was Dean of Christ Church, and to the close of his life used to tell this story of himself. 'In my life,' he said, 'there has been one most fortunate incident. A friend of mine persuaded me to go out with him in a boat upon a lake. I did not wish to go, but he persuaded me, and I went. By the intervention of Providence, I took my umbrella with me. We had not been long on the lake when the violence of the waves threw my friend out of the boat drowning, and he sank. Soon, as is the case with drowning persons, he came up again, and clutched hold of the side of the boat. Then such, providentially, was my presence of mind, that I seized my umbrella and rapped him violently on the knuckles till he let go. He sank, and I was saved.'"
When I arrived at Durham, I presented myself at once to my cousins the George Liddells, who lived at a dingy brick house in the suburb called Old Elvet. They had never seen me before, but welcomed me with the utmost kindness and hospitality, making me quite at home with them. I took a little lodging close by, but they made me dine with them almost every day, and I went constant expeditions with them, staying to dinner at the neighbouring houses, Elemore, Aldin Grange, &c. Durham itself I always found charming. The smoke only gave a picturesqueness of its own, and on Sunday there was a Sabbath of nature, for when the chimneys ceased smoking, the birds began to sing, the flowers to bloom, and the sky to be blue. Sunday, however, was a severe day with the George Liddells, almost entirely spent in going to church, reading prayers, and listening to long sermons at home. Even on ordinary days, after long morning prayers, we were expected to read all the Psalms and Lessons for the day, verse by verse, before we went out. But with all this, George Liddell was the very dearest and kindest of old men, and I was very fond too of his wife—"Cousin Louise"—who was most amusing and original.
Other cousins, who were intensely good to me at this time, were old Henry Liddell, brother of my great-uncle Lord Ravensworth, and his wife, who was daughter of Thomas Lyon of Hetton, my great-grandmother's youngest brother. I had known them first at Bath many years before, where they were kind to me when I had very few friends. With them lived their daughters Charlotte and Amelia, and their youngest son William, a very tall, very excellent, and very shy clergyman, who was his father's curate at Easington. Here I paid my first visit to them. It is an ugly village in the Black Country, but the Liddells' house was most comfortable, having the sea close by, with delightful sands and rocks, and many wooded "denes" running down to it, of which Castle Eden is especially beautiful.
I remember one day, after returning from Easington, dining with Dr. Phillpotts, the celebrated Bishop of Exeter, who had a Canonry at Durham. He was very old, and was obliged to have a glass of wine given to him to obtain strength to go in to dinner, and every one wished him good-night when he left the dinner-table. He was good enough also to send for me alone to wish success to my book, &c. It was my only sight of this kindly old man, though I knew his daughter well, and valued her many good qualities. They both died shortly afterwards. Amongst the company at the Bishop's were Mr. and Mrs. Johnson of Akeley Heads, whom I also visited at their own beautiful place, which is on a high terrace overlooking Durham. It came to them in a curious way. Mr. Johnson was at school at Durham, and went out with his two elder brothers to spend the day with a rich old uncle who lived there. The eldest brother was his uncle's heir. They were sent to play in the garden, and seeing there a beautiful ripe peach upon the wall, they were unable to resist it, and ate it up. Soon the uncle came into the garden to look for that identical peach. "Where is my peach gone?" he said. The three boys were dreadfully frightened, and the two eldest denied knowing anything about it, but the youngest said, "We picked it and ate it up." The old man said nothing, but went home and altered his will that very afternoon, and when he was killed by an accident three weeks afterwards, his youngest nephew was found to be the heir of Akeley Heads.
I was frequently invited by Dean Waddington, who was a man of stately presence, "grand seigneur, fastueux, homme du monde," and had a great reputation for learning and cleverness; but in my acquaintance with him he seemed to care for nothing but his dinner, and his chief topic of conversation was his sherry of 1815, for which he gave £12 a dozen. "What with diner à la Russe, crinoline, and pale sherry," he said one day, "England is fast going to the dogs."
To MY MOTHER.
"Dilston, August 28.—The Greys gave me a warm welcome to Dilston—Mr. Grey being agent for the Greenwich Hospital Estates there, and a great agriculturist. Dilston is lovely. The house stands on a terraced height, covered with hanging woods, beneath which flows the Devil's Water, the most beautiful of Northumbrian rivers, with trout dancing about in its transparent brown currents, and floating away over its crumpled-looking rocks. On the hilltop is the ruined castle of the Earl of Derwentwater, with his nursery, now overgrown by huge elder-trees, and the little chapel beneath which he was buried at night beside his ancestors. Below is the old grey pointed bridge, upon which, as he rode over, he repented of his rebellion and turned back to the castle, when his wife threw her fan at him, and calling him a coward, drove him forth to his destruction."
"Ridley Hall, Sept. 1.—'How happily the days of Thalaba roll by' might be applied to all the dwellers at Ridley Hall; for 'Cousin Susan' is so truly genial to her many guests, that they cannot fail to enjoy being with her."
"Chillingham Castle, Sept. 6.—I went with Cousin Susan to spend two days at Matfen, Sir Edward Blackett's, a large modern Tudor house with a church beside it, looking into a great park, and entered through a stately gothic hall. Sir Edward and Lady Blackett have not been married many years, but four of his daughters by his first wife are now out. Lady Blackett also had another Northumbrian husband, Mr. Orde of Whitfield, and, as daughter of Sir Charles Lorraine, was once thought a great beauty. Sir Edward drove me to see Aydon, a curious old castle which belongs to him.
"Yesterday I came to Chillingham from Belford, a beautiful drive, over hills first, and then descending into moorland, purple with heather, and bounded by the Cheviots, which rose deep blue against the sunset sky. The castle, which is partly as old as King John, is built round a great courtyard, from which flights of stone steps go up to the principal apartments. On the stairs I found Lord Tankerville, a handsome middle-aged man, with grey hair, romping with his children. He is quite charming, so merry and so courteous. He took me at once to my room, which is high up in one of the old towers, and at eight we dined. Lady Tankerville is sister of the Duke of Manchester, very pretty, and looks quite a girl, though her three boys must be eight, nine, and ten years old."
"Chillingham, Sept. 8.—This park is quite as beautiful in its way as any scenery abroad, and much more so, I think, than any in Scotland. It is backed by the Cheviot Hills, and often broken into deep dells, with little streamlets rushing down them, and weird old oaks whose withered branches are never cut off, sheltering herds of deer. Great herds too of wild cattle, which are milk-white, and have lived here undisturbed from time immemorial, come rushing every now and then down the hillsides like an army, to seek better pasture in the valley. Deer of every kind are to be seen upon the hills, and Lady Tankerville hunts them furiously, tiring out twelve horses in succession, placed to await her at different points in the park. Nothing can be more lovely than the evening effects each day I have been here, the setting sun pouring streams of golden light into the great grey mysterious basins of the Cheviots, amid which Marmion died and Paulinus baptized the ancient Northumbrians.
"If the place is charming, the people are even more so. The family is the happiest and most united I have ever seen. Lord Tankerville is the best and kindest of human beings. Lady Tankerville, whose spirits are so exuberant she scarcely knows how to get rid of them, dotes on her 'Hossinun,' plays with her children, gallops on her horses, hunts her deer, and manages her household, with equal vivacity. She is the most amusing person possible, is never ill, laughs fine-ladyism to scorn, and scrambles about the park, regardless of colds and crinolines, in all states of the weather. The three little boys, Charlie, Georgie, and Peddie, are all quite as engaging in their different ways, and the two little girls are lovely little creatures.
"The prettiest story of an acceptance I ever heard of is that of Lord Tankerville. He was playing at billiards with Lady Olivia Montagu when he proposed, but she gave no definite answer. At last she said, 'I think we must go into the drawing-room now; we have been away long enough.'—'But what may I think, what may I say?' he asked in agitation. 'Say that we have played our game, and that you have won,' she answered.
"Yesterday, as soon as luncheon was over, Lady Tankerville and I set off for a regular good sketching, in which she soon outstripped me, for her drawings are first-rate. In some she has been helped by Landseer, who is often here, and who has added beautiful misty backgrounds, and put herds of deer into her fern.
"In the park is a beautiful old Peel tower, the home of the Hepburns."
"Chillingham, Sept. 10.—Lord Tankerville says, 'I do not see why any one should ever go away from a place as long as he can make himself happy there.' On that principle I should certainly never leave Chillingham, which is the pleasantest place I ever was at. I feel as if I had known Lord and Lady Tankerville all my life, his kindness and her fun make one so entirely at home; and as for Charlie, Georgie, and Peddie, there never were such little boys.
"Yesterday I was awakened by the servant saying that an order had just come out to have breakfast ready in twenty minutes, as we were all going to Dunstanborough for the day. So we hurried down, and as soon as we had eaten our breakfast, set off in two little basket-carriages across the park and up the steep hills to the moors. At the top we found a larger carriage, packed with luncheon, and with plenty of wraps, for the day was most unpromising; but Lady Tankerville had quite made up her mind that it should be fine, and that we would enjoy ourselves; and so we most certainly did. The drive across the moorlands was charming, such sweeps of purple heather, with blue mountain distance. Then, after twelve miles, we descended through the cornland to Dunstanborough, and walked through the sandhills covered with rye-grass and bloody cranesbill to the castle, on a reef of basaltic rocks overhanging the sea, which in one place roars up beneath in a strange cavern, known as the Rumbling Churn. Lady Tankerville and I drew Queen Margaret's Tower, where she was concealed after the battle of Hexham, and then we picnicked and rambled about. Coming home we told stories. A tremendous shower came on, and then the sky cleared for a golden sunset over the mountains, and a splendid descent into the old deer-park."
"Bamborough Castle, Sept. 12.—Yesterday, at four, we set off on a gipsy picnic from Chillingham—little 'Co' (Corisande) on a pony, with the tea-things in panniers; Lady Tankerville, a fat Mr. Athelstane from Portugal, Charlie, Georgie, Peddie, and I walking. The pouring morning turned into a beautiful afternoon, and we had a delightful scramble through the ferny glades of the park, and up the steep craggy hills to the moorlands. Here Lady Tankerville went off through the heather to look after her little girl, and I told the three boys the story of Littlecot Hall, till the Shetland pony, 'Piccolomini,' arrived by the longer path. Then we lighted a fire between two rocks, and Lady Tankerville and her children boiled a kettle and cooked omelets over a fire of heather and fern, and beautiful grapes, greengages, jam, and cakes unfitted us for the eight-o'clock dinner. Then we came down like bushrangers, breaking a path through the bracken, a great deal taller than ourselves, and seeing in the distance the herds of wild white bulls. One or two people came to dinner, but it was just the same simple merry meal as usual.
"The Tankervilles sent me here to-day—twelve miles—in their carriage."
"Bamborough Castle, Sept. 13.—It is very pleasant, as you will imagine, to be here again, and I have much enjoyed the delightful sands and the splendid green waves which came rolling in all yesterday afternoon. It was a lovely evening, warm enough to enjoy sitting out on the seat amongst the tall bent-grass, and to watch Holy Island quite distinct in the sunset, with all the little fleet of red-sailed herring-boats coming round from North Sunderland. Old Mrs. Liddell sits as usual in her deep window and looks through the telescope. Amelia wanders about with her black spaniel, and Charlotte rides furiously on the sands when out, and talks incessantly, though pleasantly, when in."
"Bamborough, Sept. 16.—Yesterday I set off at 8 A.M. in a dogcart for Holy Island, one of the castle cart-horses being harnessed for the purpose, and the castle joiner going with me to find old wood for repairs. It was a wild morning, but gleams of light made the country picturesque, and Waren Bay looked very striking, backed by its angular purple hills, and strewn with pieces of wreck, over which sea-birds were swooping. Only one bit of sand was visible when we reached the ford, but the horse plunged gallantly in. Then we had a very rough crossing of a quarter of an hour in a boat through the great green waves to the island, where we landed on the yellow rocks. Close by, on the green hill, stand the ruins, so well described in 'Marmion,' of St. Cuthbert's Abbey, the old cathedral of Lindisfarne—rather small after descriptions, but beautiful in colour, and its massive round pillars, with patterns upon them, almost unique in England. Beyond, was the still blue harbour filled with fishing-boats, and the shore was lined with men and women packing herrings in barrels of salt. At one corner of the bay rises the castle on a conical hill like a miniature Mont St. Michel, and Bamborough and Dunstanborough are blue in the hazy distance."
"Sept. 17.—Stephen Denison is here (my cousin by his marriage with Miss Fellowes[196]), and I have been with him to pay a long visit to Grace Darling's[197] old father, an interesting man, with as much information as it is possible for any one to have who has lived since he was one year old on a desolate island rock tending a lighthouse. He lent us his diary to read, which is very curious, and an awful record of wrecks and misery."
"Ridley Hall, Sept. 19.—Cousin Susan and her old friend Miss Coulson, with 'the boys' (the dogs), were waiting to welcome me in the avenue, when I got out at the private station here. The house is quite full of people, to whom it is amusing to help to do the honours. Great is the autumnal beauty of the place. I have been with Cousin Susan up the Birky Brae, and down by the Craggy Pass and the Hawk's Nest—streams of sunlight falling upon the rocks and river, and lighting up the yellow and red leaves which now mingle with the green. The dogs walked with us to church to-day—Tarlie was allowed to enter with the family, and Bloomer with the maids, but Perette, Bianca, Fritz, and the Chowdy-Tow were sent back from the door!
"We have had a remarkable visit from an old Miss Clayton, an eccentric, strangely-attired, old, very old lady, who had travelled all the way from Chesters, on North Tyne, to see Staward Peel, and then had rambled on foot hither down the rocks by the Allen. Both she and her friend had fallen into the river in crossing the stepping-stones above the wood, and arrived, carrying a large reticule basket, and dripping with wet and mud, about five o'clock; yet, as soon as she had been dried and fed, she insisted on setting off again on foot to visit Haltwhistle and Bellister Castle before going home at night!"
"Streatlam Castle, Sept. 25.—I came with Cousin Susan to this curious place, to which our cousin Mr. Bowes[198] has welcomed us very cordially. The house is in a hollow—an enormous building of the last century, enclosing a mediæval castle. I sleep in the ghost-room, looking most grim and weird from its black oak with red hangings, and containing a tall bed with a red canopy. Here the only existing local Handbook says that 'the unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots expired in captivity.' I am afraid the next Handbook will be obliged to confess that she was beheaded at Fotheringay.
"The long galleries are full of family portraits—Hyltons, Blakistons, and Bowes's—one of whom, Miss Bowes of Streatlam, was Mrs. John Knox! More interesting to me is the great picture of Mary Eleanor, the unhappy Countess of Strathmore,[199] walking in the gardens of Pauls-Walden. This house was the scene of her most terrible sufferings."
"Streatlam Castle, Sept. 27.—This is the oddest house I ever was in! Everything is arranged for you, from the moment you get up till the moment you go to bed, and you are never allowed to deviate from the rules laid down: I even write this in time stolen from the half-hour for dressing. We are called at eight, and at ten march in to breakfast with the same procession as at dinner, only at this meal 'Madame Bowes' does not appear, for she is then reclining in a bath of coal-black acid, which 'refreshes her system,' but leaves her nails black. After breakfast we are all set down to employments appointed for the morning. At twelve Madame appears, having painted the under-lids of her jet-black eyes with belladonna. At two the bell rings for luncheon, and we are fetched if not punctual to an instant. At three we are all sent out driving (the coachman having exact orders where to take us) immense drives (twenty-four miles to-day) in an open barouche and pair. At seven we dine in great splendour, and afterwards we sit in the oak drawing-room and talk about our ancestors!
"The town of Barnard Castle is most picturesque, with a ruined castle of the Baliols. Dickens, in early life, used frequently to come down and stay there with some young artist friends of his. The idea of 'Humphrey's Clock' first sprung from Humphrey, the watchmaker in the town, and the picture in the beginning of the book is of the clock over the door of his shop. While at Barnard Castle, Dickens heard of the school at Bowes which he afterwards worked up as Dotheboys Hall. Many of these schools, at £15 and £20 a year, existed at that time in the neighbourhood, and were principally used for the sons of London tradesmen, who, provided their sons got a moderate education, cared little or nothing what became of them in the meantime. Dickens went over to see the school at Bowes, and was carefully shown over it, for they mistook him for a parent coming to survey it, with a view of sending his son there. Afterwards the school was totally ruined. At one of Mr. Bowes's elections, the Nicholas Nickleby or former usher of the school, who was then in want of a place, wrote to him to say in what poverty he was. He 'had formerly been living with Mr. Shawe at Bowes, and they had been happy and prosperous, when Mr. Dickens's misguided volume, sweeping like a whirlwind over the schools of the North, caused Mr. Shawe to become a victim to paralysis, and brought Mrs. Shawe to an untimely grave.'"
"Morpeth Rectory, Oct. 8.—My present host is Mr. Francis Grey, an old likeness of his nephew, Charlie Wood: his wife, née Lady Elizabeth Howard, is as sweet-looking as she is charming.
"Friday morning was pouring, with a thick sea-fog hiding the country. Nevertheless Mr. Grey did not think it too bad for a long expedition, and drove me in his little pony-carriage a dreary twelve miles to Wallington, where we arrived about half-past twelve. Wallington is a huge house of the elder branch of the Trevelyans, represented in the North by Sir Walter, who is at the head of teetotallers and Low Churchmen, while his wife is a great friend of Ruskin, Rossetti, and all the Pre-Raphaelites. It is like a French château, with tall roofs and chimneys, enclosing a hall, once a court, which Lady Trevelyan and her artists have covered in and painted with beautiful fresco studies of Northumbrian birds, flowers, and insects, while the intervening spaces are filled with a series of large pictures of the chief events in Northumbrian history—very curious indeed.
"Lady Trevelyan[200] is a little, bright, black-eyed woman, who was charmed to see us, and more to see my drawings, which Mr. Grey had brought. Any good opinion of me, however, which they led her to entertain was quelched by my want of admiration for some wretched little scraps by Ruskin—very scratchy sketches, after his manner. After luncheon, which was as peculiar as everything else (Lady Trevelyan and her artists feeding solely on artichokes and cauliflowers), we went to the upper galleries to look at more pictures.
"Yesterday morning we went to the fine old Morpeth Church, which has been 'restored,' one of the stained windows having been put in by a poor old woman in the village. We saw her afterwards in her garden gathering cabbages, and I told her I had seen the window. 'Eh, hinnie,' she said, 'and ain't it bonnie? and I be going to case it i' marble afore I dee, to mak it bonnier.' And then she said, 'And noo come ben, hinnie, my dear, and see me hoose;' and she showed me her cottage.
"The Greys are one of the families who have a sort of language of their own. A bad cold the Greys always call a Shelley, because of a famous cold old Lady Shelley had when she came to stay with them. This was the Lady Shelley who, when her carriage, full of people, upset, and there was a great entanglement of legs, called out to the footman, who came to extricate them, 'John, the black ones are mine—the black ones are mine.'"
"Warkworth, Oct. 6.—It is very pleasant being here with my kind Clutterbuck cousins,[201] and this old-fashioned house, though small, is most refined and comfortable, with its pervading smell of roseleaves and lavender."
"The Rock, Alnwick, Oct. 10.—I am now staying with the father of a college friend, Charles Bosanquet, in a pleasant old-fashioned house, an enlarged 'Peel tower.' The family are very united, genial and kind; are friends of the Arnolds, Gaskells, &c., and related to Mr. Erskine of Linlathen. I like Charlie Bosanquet so much in his own home, that I am quite ashamed of not having tried to cultivate him more when at Oxford. Yesterday he drove me to Craster Tower, the old castellated house of the Crasters, a very ancient Northumbrian family, now well represented by the old Squire and his wife, their three tall daughters, and seven stalwart sons, one of whom was at college with me. After luncheon we went over the tower, its vaulted cellars and thickly walled rooms, and then walked to the wild heights of Dunstanborough, with its ruins overhanging the waves, and large white gulls floating up from the 'caverned shore' of 'Marmion.' Then we went to Embleton to see one of the curious fortified rectories of the North—fortified against the Scots."
"Ford Castle, Oct. 15.—I enjoyed my visit at Rock increasingly, and we made interesting excursions to Falloden and Howick. At the former we dined with Sir George and Lady Grey. On Sunday the beautiful little Norman chapel at Rock was filled from end to end with the whole population of the village, all responding, all singing, and forty-three (in that tiny place) remaining to the Sacrament. Mrs. Bosanquet says they are truly a God-fearing people. They live (as all over Northumbria) bound by the year like serfs, close around the large farms. At Rock the people seem perfectly devoted to the Bosanquets, who are certainly quite devoted to them. 'My Missis herself can't feel it more than I do,' said the gamekeeper when he heard the sailor son was coming home.
"Yesterday morning I set off directly after breakfast with Charles Bosanquet, in the sociable, on a long expedition. It was a really lovely day, and the drive over the wild moorlands, with the pink and blue Cheviot distances, was quite beautiful. At one we reached Hedgeley, where we had been asked to luncheon at the fine old house of the Carrs, looking up a mountain ravine, but a soldier-son first took us up to Crawley Tower, a neighbouring ruined Peel. At three we came on to Roddam, where an uncle and aunt of Charlie Bosanquet's live—a beautiful place, with a terraced garden almost overhanging the moorlands, and a dene stretching up into the Cheviots. I had ordered a gig to meet me and take me to Ford, where I arrived about half-past six, seeming to be driving into a sort of gothic castle of Otranto, as we passed under the portcullis in the bright moonlight. I found Lady Waterford sitting with her charming old mother, Lady Stuart de Rothesay.... Her drawings are indescribably lovely, and her singing most beautiful and pathetic. Several people appeared at dinner, amongst them Lord Waterford (the brother-in-law), who sat at the end of the table, a jovial white-headed young-old man."
"Ford Castle, Oct. 17.—Being here has been most pleasant, there is so much to do and see both indoors and out. Lady Waterford is perfectly charming.... She is now occupied in putting the whole architecture of the castle back two centuries. Painting is her great employment, and all evening she makes studies for larger drawings, which she works upon in the mornings. She is going to make a 'Marmion gallery' in the castle to illustrate the poem.
"Yesterday we went to Palinsburn, where Paulinus baptized, and on to Branxton to see Mr. Jones, who is the great authority about the battle of Flodden, which he described to us till all the dull ploughed fields seemed alive with heroes and armies. He is coming to-night to talk about it again, for Flodden seems to be the great topic here, the windows of the castle looking out upon the battle-field. The position of the different armies and the site of Sybil's Well are discussed ten times a day, and Lady Waterford herself is still sufficiently a stranger here to be full of her first interest about it.
"To-day the pony-carriage took me part of the way to the Rowting Lynn, a curious cleft and waterfall in the moorland, with a 'Written Rock,' supposed to have been the work of ancient Britons. Thence I walked by a wild path along the hills to Nesbitt, where I had heard that there was a chapel of St. Cuthbert, of which I found no vestiges, and on to Doddington, where there is a Border castle. If you look on the map, you will see that this was doing a great deal, and I was very glad to get back at five to hot tea and a talk with Lady Stuart."
"Roddam, Oct. 20.—I had not promised to return here, and I was received almost rapturously, so welcome is any stray guest in this desolate place.... Sunday here was a curious contrast to that at Rock, for though there is a population of nine hundred, the Rector waited for us to begin afternoon service, as no one else came!"
"Roddam, Oct. 22.—Yesterday was terribly dark and cold, but we went a long expedition across the moorland to the Raven's Burn, a wild tumbling rivulet in a chaos of grey rocks, and thence by the farm of 'Blaw Weary'—picturesquely perched upon rocks which were covered with white goats, like a bit of Roman Campagna—to the 'Raven's Rock' in a rugged cleft of the moorland. To-day I have been to Linhope Spout, a waterfall at the end of a gorge, and to-morrow we go to the Three Stone Burn, where there are Druidical remains."
"Ripley Castle, Yorkshire, Oct. 25.—Lady Ingilby (who is sister of Mr. Bosanquet of Rock) kindly pressed my coming here on my way south, and here I am. It is a fine old castle added to, about four miles from Harrogate, with beautiful gardens and a lovely neighbourhood. At the head of the stairs is the portrait of a Nun, who is said to descend from her picture at night and tap at the bedroom doors, when, if any one says, 'Come in'—in she comes. Eugene Aram was the gardener here, and the Ingilbys have all his letters. Cromwell insisted on taking the castle, but the then Lady Ingilby, a staunch Royalist known as 'Trooper Jane,' would not let him have either food or rest there, and sat opposite him all the night through with two loaded pistols in her girdle."
"Hickledon Hall, Yorkshire, Oct. 27.—Sir Charles Wood's carriage was waiting at Doncaster for me and a very nice young Seymour.[202] Charlie seems delighted to have me here, and I think Sir Charles quite charming, not a bit as if he had the government of all India upon his shoulders."
Many of the visits which I paid in 1861 laid the foundation of after friendships, but chiefly that to Ford, whither I went again and again afterwards, and where I have passed some of the happiest days of my life. Lord and Lady Tankerville, after a few years, passed out of my horizon—I never have quite known how or why. The Liddells, Mrs. Clutterbuck and her daughters, and the saintly Lady Ingilby, added much to my enjoyment for several years. This was especially happy for me, as I see by my journals of the time how in the following winter I felt more than ever depressed by the constant snubbing I received from different members of my immediate family. Such snubs are trifling in themselves, but, like constant dropping of water in one place, they wear away the spirit at last. All this time my sister was bravely exerting herself in cheering her mother and aunt, as well as in a clever (and eventually successful) scheme for the improvement of their fortunes. Miss Hughan (afterwards Lady John Manners) showed her at this time an unwearied kindness which I can never forget.
To my Sister.
"Holmhurst, Dec. 18, 1861.—I went to-day to see three ladies take the veil in the convent at Hastings. I had to get up in the cold early morning and be in the chapel by half-past eight. At nine the Bishop of Brighton arrived in a gold robe and mitre, and took his place with his back to the altar, leaning against it. Then a side door opened, and a procession came in singing—some nuns, and the three brides of Christ dressed in white watered silk, lace veils, and orange flowers. There were six little bridesmaids also in white veils and wreaths. The brides looked ghastly livid, and one of them would have fallen if a nun had not rushed forward to support her. The Bishop then made them an address, the point of which was that they were not going into a convent for their own benefit or that of the world, but for 'the consolation of Christ'—that was to be their work and duty through life—'the consolation of Christ for the sins of the world.' Then he fixed his eyes upon them like a basilisk and cried, 'Venite.' They tottered, quivered, but scarcely moved; again in a louder voice he called 'Venite;' they trembled and advanced a few steps. Once more 'VENITE,' and they all three fell down prostrate at his feet.
"Then the most solemn music was played, the most agonising wailing dirges were sung, and the nuns coming behind with a great black pall, spread it over the prostrate figures. It was as if they were dead. The bridesmaids strewed flowers, rosemary and laurestinus, as they sang out of their books: the spectators cried and sobbed till they were almost hysterical; but nothing was to be seen but the sunlight streaming in upon a great black pall.
"Then all the saints of the monastic orders were invoked and responded to, and then the nuns closed in, so that no one could see how the three novices were hurried away, only to reappear in their nun's dress. Then they received the Sacrament.
"It is impossible to say how well this little Holmhurst seems suited to the mother. There is still a lingering of autumnal leaves and flowers, and the grey castle rises against a gleaming sea. Thinking of her, and of our home view as it is now, one cannot help recalling Keble's lines:—
'How quiet shows the woodland scene,
Each flower and tree, its duty done,
Reposing in decay serene,
Like weary men when age is won,
Such calm old age as conscience pure
And self-commanding heart ensure,
Waiting their summons to the sky,
Content to live, but not afraid to die.'"
JOURNAL.
"Holmhurst, Dec. 27.—It was on Monday, the 16th, that I was sitting in my study in the twilight, when the mother came in suddenly. She had been down to Hastings with Mrs. Colegrave and Miss Chichester to see Florence Colegrave at the convent, and there first heard the dreadful news of the event of Saturday. Seeing her so much agitated terrified me to the last degree. I thought that it was Arthur who was dead, and when I heard that it was the Prince Consort, the shock was almost as great. It seems impossible to realise that one will not be able to say 'the Queen and Prince Albert' any more: it is a personal affliction to every one, and the feeling of sympathy for the Queen is overpowering. The Prince sank from the time he read the letter about the deaths of the King and Princes of Portugal. Then they tried to persuade him not to see the messengers who returned from taking the letters of condolence: he insisted upon doing so, and never rallied.... From the first the Prince thought that he should not live, and from the Wednesday Sir Henry Holland thought so too, and wrote in the first bulletin, 'Hitherto no unfavourable symptoms,' to prepare the public mind; but the Queen came into the anteroom, saw the bulletin, and scratched out the 'hitherto:' she would entertain no idea of danger till the last[203].... When the Prince was dying, he repeated the hymn 'Rock of Ages.' ... A letter from Windsor Castle to Mr. P. describes the consternation and difficulty as to how the Queen was to be told of the danger: no one would tell her. At last Princess Alice relieved them all by saying, 'I will tell her,' and took her out for a drive. During the drive she told the Queen that the Prince could not recover. When he died, the Queen gave one piercing, heart-rending scream, which echoed all over the castle, and which those who stood by said they could never forget, and threw herself upon the body. Then she rose and collected her children and spoke to them, telling them that they must rally round her, and that, next to God, she should henceforth look to them for support.
"C. W. sends an odd story about the King of Portugal. After his death, Princess Alice made a drawing of him lying dead, and, at the top of the drawing, the gates of heaven, with Queen Stephanie waiting to receive the spirit of her husband. A little while after, M. Lavradio sent the Queen a long account of the King's illness, in which it was said that when the King lay dying he fell into a deep sleep, and woke up after some little time saying that he had dreamt, and wished he could have gone on dreaming, that he lay dead, and that his spirit was going up to heaven, and that at the gates he saw 'Stephanie' waiting to welcome him in. Everything fresh that one hears of Prince Albert makes one realise, 'Le prince était grand, l'homme l'était davantage.'"[204]
In the course of the winter I was at Miss Leycester's house in Wilton Crescent, and saw there Miss Marsh and Sir Culling Eardley, both of whom told me much that was curious. I remember Sir Culling Eardley's saying, "I feel sure that the destruction of the temporal power will be the end of the Papacy, and I am also sure that there is one person who agrees with me, and that is Pio Nono!" He also told me that—
"One morning Mrs. Pitcairn at Torquay told her husband that she had been very much disturbed by a dream. She said she had seen her little boy of four years old carried into the house dreadfully crushed and hurt, and that all the principal doctors in the town—Madden, Mackintosh, &c.—had come in one after the other to see him.
"Her husband laughed at her fears, but said, 'Whatever you do, don't tell this to the boy; it would only frighten him unnecessarily.' However, Mrs. Pitcairn did not promise, and when her husband was gone out, she called her little boy to her, and taking him on her knee, spoke to him very seriously, saying, 'If anything happened to you now, where would you be?' &c.
"That afternoon, the little boy went with his elder brother to see some new houses his father was building. In crossing the highest floor, the ill-fastened boards gave way, and he fell, passing through all the floors, into the cellar. Half-an-hour afterwards his mother saw him carried into the house, and all the doctors come in to see him, one after another, in the exact order of her dream.
"The little boy recovered; but four years after, his elder brother, playing on the shore at Babbicombe, pulled down some rocks upon himself, and was killed upon the spot."
In March 1862 an event occurred which caused a great blank in our circle, and which perhaps made more change in my life than any other death outside my own home could have done—that of my aunt Mrs. Stanley.
JOURNAL.
"Holmhurst, March 23, 1862.—In March last year dear Uncle Penrhyn died. Aunt Kitty was with him, and felt it deeply. Now she also, on the same day of the same week, the first anniversary of his death, has passed away from us—and oh! what a blank she has left! She was long our chief link with all the interest of the outside world, writing almost daily, and for years keeping a little slate always hanging to her davenport, on which, as each visitor went out, she noted down, from their conversation, anything she thought my mother might like to hear.
"Five weeks ago Arthur went to join the Prince of Wales at Alexandria. He was very unwilling to leave his mother, but he took the appointment by her especial request, and she was delighted with it. He took leave of her in the early morning, receiving farewells and blessings as she lay on the same bed, from whence she was unable afterwards to speak one word to her other children. When he went, my mother was very ill with bronchitis. Aunt Kitty also caught it, but wrote frequently, saying that 'her illness did not signify, she was only anxious about my mother.' It did signify, however. She became rapidly weaker. Congestion of the lungs followed, and she gradually sank. The Vaughans were sent for, and Mary was with her. We were ready to have gone at any moment, if she had been the least bit better, but she would not have been able to have spoken to the mother, perhaps not have known her, so that I am thankful for my sweet mother's sake that she should have been here in her quiet peaceful home.
"There were none of the ordinary features of an illness. Aunt Kitty suffered no pain at all: it was a mere passing out of one gentle sleep into another, till the end.
"Kate wrote—'What a solemn hour was that when we were sitting in silence round her bed, watching the gradual cessation of breathing—the gradual but sure approach of the end! Not a sound was heard but the sad wailing of the wind as her soul was passing away. She lay quite still: you would hardly have known who it was, the expression was so changed—Oh no, you would never have known it was the dear, dear face we had loved so fondly. And then, when all ceased, and there was stillness, and we thought it had been the last breath, came a deep sigh, then a pause—then a succession of deep sighs at long intervals, and it was only when no more came that we knew she was gone. Charles then knelt down and prayed for us, "especially for our dear absent brother, that he might be comforted"—and then we rose up and took our last look of that revered countenance.'
"When people are dead, how they are glorified in one's mind! I was almost as much grieved as my mother herself, and I also felt a desolation. Yet, on looking back, how few words of tenderness can I remember receiving from Aunt Kitty—some marigolds picked for me in the palace garden when I was ill at Norwich—a few acknowledgments of my later devotion to my mother in illness—an occasional interest in my drawing: this is almost all. What really makes it a personal sorrow is, that in the recollection of my oppressed and desolate boyhood, the figure of Aunt Kitty always looms forth as that of Justice. She was invariably just. Whatever others might say, she never allowed herself to be biassed against me, or indeed against any one else, contrary to her own convictions.
"I went with Mary and Kate to the funeral in Alderley churchyard. We all assembled there in the inner school-room, close to the Rectory, which had been the home of my aunt's happiest days, in the centre of which lay the coffin covered with a pall, but garlanded with long green wreaths, while bunches of snowdrops and white crocuses fell tenderly over the sides. 'I know that my Redeemer liveth' was sung as we passed out of the church to the churchyard, where it poured with rain. The crowds of poor people present, however, liked this, for 'blessed,' they said, 'is the corpse that the rain falls on.'"
During this sad winter it was a great pleasure to us to have our faithful old friend the Baroness von Bunsen at St. Leonards, with two of her daughters—Frances and Matilda. She had been near my mother at the time of her greatest sorrow at Rome, and her society was very congenial at this time. We were quite hoping that she would have made St. Leonards her permanent winter-home, when she was recalled to live in Germany by the death of the darling daughter of her heart—Theodora von Ungern-Sternberg—soon after giving birth, at Carlsruhe, to her fifth child.
In this winter I went to stay at Hurstmonceaux Rectory with Dr. Wellesley, who was never fitted to be a country clergyman, but who never failed to be the most agreeable of hosts and of men. In person he was very like the Duke of Wellington, with black eyes, shaggy eyebrows, and snow-white hair. His courtesy and kindness were unfailing, especially to women, be their rank what it might. A perfect linguist, he had the most extraordinary power of imitating Italians in their own peculiar dialects. Most diverting was his account of a sermon which he heard preached in the Coliseum. I can only give the words—the tone, the gestures are required to give it life. It was on the day on which the old Duke of Torlonia died. He had been the great enemy of the monks and nuns, and of course they hated him. On that day, being a Friday, the Confraternità della Misericordia met, as usual, at four o'clock, in SS. Cosmo and Damiano in the Forum, and went chanting in procession to the Coliseum. Those who remember those days will recall in imagination the strong nasal twang of "Sant' Bartolome, ora pro nobis; Santa Agata, ora pro nobis; Sant' Silvestro, ora pro nobis," &c. Arrived at the Coliseum, the monk ascended the pulpit, and began in the familiar style of those days, in which sermons were usually opened with "How do you do?" and some remarks about the weather.
"Buon giorno, cari fratelli miei. Buon giorno, care sorelle—come state tutti? State bene? Oh, mi fa piacere, mi fa molto piacere! Fa bell' tempo stasera, non e vero? un tempo piacevole—cielo sereno. Oh ma piacevole di molto!
"Ebbene, cari fratelli miei—Ebbene, care sorelle—sapete cosa c' è di nuovo—sapete che cos' è successo stammattina in città? Non lo sapete—maraviglia! Oh, non vi disturbate—nò—nò—nò—non vi disturbate affatto—ve lo dirò, io ve lo spieghierò tutto.
"Stammattina stessa in città è morto qualcheduno. Fu un uomo—un uomo ben inteso—ma che specie d' uomo? Fu un uomo grande—fu un uomo ricco—fu un uomo potente—fu un uomo grandissimo, ricchissimo, potentissimo, magnificentissimo, ma morì!—morì, cari fratelli miei, quell' uomo così grande, così ricco, così potente—morì!—così passiamo tutti—così finisce il mondo—moriamo.
"E che fu quell' uomo così importante che è morto? Fu un Duca! un Duca, cari fratelli miei! E, quando morì, cosa fece? È montato sopra, montato sopra su alla porta del Paradiso, dove sta San Pietro, colle sue sante chiavi. Picchia il Duca.... 'Chi è là,' disse San Pietro. 'Il Duca di Torlonia!'—'Ah, il Duca di Torlonia,' disse San Pietro, 'quel nome è ben conosciuto, ben conosciuto davvero.' Quindi si voltò San Pietro all' angelo custode che teneva il libro della vita, e disse, 'Angelo mio, cercate un pò se trovate quel nome del Duca di Torlonia.' Dunque l'angelo cercò, cercò con tanta pena, con tanta inquietudine, voltò tante pagine in quel libro così grande della vita, ma disse infine, 'Caro Signor San Pietro mio, mi rincresce tanto, ma quel nome lì non mi riesce di trovarlo.'
"Allora si voltò San Pietro, e disse, 'Caro Signor Duca mio, mi rincresce tanto, ma il suo nome non si trova nel libro della vita.' Rise il Duca, e disse, 'Ma che sciocchezza! cercate poi il titolo minore, cercate pure il titolo maggiore della famiglia, cercate il Principe di Bracciano, e lo troverete sicuramente.' Dunque l'angelo cercò di nuovo, cercò con sollecitudine, voltò tante tante pagine in quel libro così immenso—ma alla fine disse, 'Caro Signor San Pietro mio, mi rincresce tanto—ma quei nomi non si trovan qui, nè l'uno, nè l'altro.' Allora disse San Pietro, 'Mi dispiace tanto, Signor Duca mio—ma bisogna scendere più giù—bisogna scendere più giù.'
"Scese dunque il Duca—poco contento—anzi mortificato di molto—scese giù alla porta del Purgatorio. Picchia il Duca. 'Chi è là,' disse il guardiano. 'Il Duca di Torlonia' (piano). 'Ah, il Duca di Torlonia,' disse il guardiano. 'Anche qui, quel nome è ben conosciuto, molto ben conosciuto—ma bisogna scendere più giù—bisogna scendere più giù.'
"Scese dunque il Duca. Ahimè! quant' era miserabile! come gridava, quanto piangeva, ma—gridando, piangendo—scendeva—scendeva giù—alla porta dell' Inferno, dove sta il Diavolo. Picchia il Duca. 'Chi è là,' disse il Diavolo. 'Il Duca di Torlonia' (pianissimo). 'Ah, il Duca di Torlonia,' disse il Diavolo, 'oh siete il benvenuto, entrate qui, caro amico mio, oh quanto tempo siete aspettato, entrate qui, e restate per sempre.' Ecco cari fratelli miei, ecco care sorelle, quel ch' è successò quest' oggi, stammattina, in città, a quel povero Duca di Torloni-a!" &c.
I narrated this story afterwards to Mrs. F. Dawkins and her daughters, and they told me that some friends of theirs were at Rome on August 10, St. Laurence's Day—which fell on a Friday that year—and St. Laurence, as all know, was roasted on a gridiron. That day, the monk began as usual—
"Buon giorno, cari fratelli miei—buon giorno, care sorelle (sniff, sniff, sniff)—ma sento qualche cosa (sniff, sniff)—che cosa sento io (sniff)—sento un odore. E l'odore de che? (sniff, sniff, sniff)—è l'odore di carne (sniff). Chi specie di carne può essere? E l'odore di carne bollito? (sniff). Nò, nò, nò, non e bollito (sniff, sniff, sniff). Ah, lo vedo, è l'odore di carne arrosto, è l'odore di carne arrostito—è l'odore d'un santo arrostito—è l'odore di San Lorenzo."
Lady Marian Alford used to tell a similar story. Lord Brownlow was at S. Agostino, when a monk, who was walking about, preaching, in the great pulpit there, said, "Che odore sento io? E l'odore di montone?—nò! È l'odore di presciutto?—nò! È l'odore delle anime che friggono nell' inferno."
I cannot remember whether it was in this or the preceding winter that I spent an evening with Dr. Lushington, the famous judge, who, having been born in the beginning of 1782, and preserving evergreen all the recollections of his long life, was one of the most delightful of men. I remember his describing how all the places ending in s in England take their names from people who have lived there. Leeds is so called from an old person called Leed or Lloyd, of whom the great city is now the only memorial. Levens is from Leofwin.
He said that "the Duchesse d'Angoulême never forgave the Court of Rome for not canonising her father." She always regarded Louis XVI. as a saint. Of her mother she spoke with less confidence—"she had faults," she said, "but they were terribly expiated."
Dr. Lushington said that when he was a very little child travelling alone with his father, the carriage stopped near a public-house, and the footman and coachman, with the license of those times, went in to drink. He was himself asleep in the corner of the carriage, when a pistol, directed at his father, came crashing in at the window, with a demand for money. Dr. Lushington distinctly remembered his father drawing out a long green silk purse, in which were one hundred guineas, and deliberately counting out twelve guineas into the man's hand, and saying, "There, take that, that is enough." "Well," said the man, "but I must have your watch."—"No," said his father, "it is an old family watch, and I cannot give it to you." Upon this the man said, "Well, God bless you," and went away. Immediately after the servants came out of the inn, and hearing what had happened, said they were armed, they could pursue the highwayman, and they could easily take him. "No," said Dr. Lushington's father, "let him go. The man God-blessed me, and I'll be damned if I hang him."
At this time I took the opportunity of persuading Dr. Lushington to tell me himself the most celebrated of his stories, which I had already heard from his son Godfrey and from Arthur Stanley. I wrote it down at the time, and here it is, in the very words of the old judge.
"There was once, within my memory, an old gentleman who lived in Kent, and whose name, for very obvious reasons, I cannot mention, but he lived in Kent. He was a very remarkable old man, and chiefly because in the whole course of his very, very long life—for he was extremely old—he had never been known on any single occasion to want presence of mind; he had always done exactly the right thing, and he had always said exactly the right word, at exactly the right moment. The old gentleman lived alone. That is to say, he had never married, and he had no brother or sister or other relation living with him, but he had a very old housekeeper, a very old butler, a very old gardener—in fact, all the old-fashioned retinue of a very old-fashioned household, and, bound together by mutual respect and affection, the household was a very harmonious one.
"Now I must describe what the old gentleman's house was like. Upstairs, there was a very long passage, which ended in a blank wall. At the end of the passage, on the left, was a dressing-room, and on the right was a bedroom, the room in which the old gentleman himself slept. The bedroom was entered by a very heavy swing-door, which could only be opened from the inside—that is to say, the old gentleman carried the key upon his watch-chain, and let himself in and out. When he wished housemaids or other persons to go in or out, he left the door open; but when he was inside and shut the door, no one could come in unless he opened the door to them. People may say 'it was very eccentric;' it was very eccentric: but the old gentleman was very peculiar; it was the way he chose to live: at any rate, it was a fact. Through the bedroom, opposite the door into the passage, was another door which led into the plate-room. This was also a very heavy swing-door, which could only be opened from the outside, and very often in summer the old gentleman would set it open at night, because he thought it gave more air to the bedroom. Everything depends upon your attending to and understanding the geography of these rooms. You see they were all en suite cross-wise. If you stood in the plate-room, and all the doors were open, you would see the dressing-room, and vice versâ.
"One morning when the old gentleman came down to breakfast, he found upon his plate a note. He opened it, and it contained these words—'Beware, you are in the hands of thieves and robbers.' He was very much surprised, but he had such presence of mind that he threw the note into the fire and went on buttering his toast, having his breakfast. Inwardly he kept a sharp look-out upon all that was going on. But there was nothing special going on whatever. It was very hot summer weather; the old gardener was mowing the lawn, the old housekeeper cooked the dinner, the old butler brought it in: no, there was nothing whatever especial going on.
"That night, when the old gentleman went to bed, he took particular care to examine his room, and to see that his heavy swing-door was well fastened, so that no one could come in to disturb him. And when he had done this, he went to bed and fell asleep, and slept very well till the next morning, for nothing happened, nothing whatever.
"When the next morning came, he rang his bell for his hot water as usual, but nobody came. He rang, and rang, and rang again, but still nobody came. At last he opened his bedroom door, and went out down the passage to the head of the staircase, and called to the butler over the banisters. The butler answered. 'Why did you not attend to my bell?' said the old gentleman. 'Because no bell rang,' answered the butler. 'Oh, but I have rung very often,' said the old gentleman; 'go downstairs again, and I will pull the bell again; watch if it rings.' So the butler went downstairs, and the old man pulled the bell, but no bell rang. 'Then,' said the old gentleman, 'you must send for the bell-hanger at once; one cannot live with broken bells; that sort of thing cannot be allowed to go on in the house,'—and he dressed and went down to breakfast.
"While he was eating his breakfast, the old gentleman found he had forgotten his pocket-handkerchief, and went up to his room to get it. And such was the promptitude of that old-fashioned household, that the village being close to the house, and the bell-hanger living in the village, the master's orders had already been obeyed, and the bell-hanger was already in the room, standing on a ladder, arranging the new wire of the bell. In old-fashioned houses, you know, the bell wires come through the wall and go round the top of the room, so that you can see them, and so it was in this house in Kent. You do not generally perhaps observe how many wires there are in your room, but it so happened that, as he lay in bed, the old gentleman had observed those in his, and there were three wires. Now he looked, and there were four wires. Yes, there was no doubt there were four wires going round his room. 'Now,' he said, 'now I know exactly what is going to happen,' but he gave no outward sign of having discovered anything, and he went down and finished his breakfast.
"All that day everything went on as usual. It was a dreadfully hot day in July—very sultry indeed. The old gentleman was subject to bad nervous headaches, and in the afternoon he pretended to be not quite so well. When dinner-time came, he was very suffering indeed. He spoke of it to the butler. He said, 'It is only one of my usual attacks; I have no doubt it is the weather. I shall be better to-morrow; but I will go to bed early.' And towards half-past nine he went upstairs. He left the door of the bedroom ajar, so that any one could come in; he set the door of the plate-room wide open, for the sake of more air to the bedroom, and he went to bed. When he was in bed, he rang the bell, the new bell that the bell-hanger had put up that morning. The butler came. The old gentleman gave some orders about horses for the next day, and then said, 'Do not disturb me in the morning. I had better sleep off my headache; I will ring when I want to get up. You can draw the curtains round the bed, and then shut the door.' So the butler drew the curtains round the bed, and went out, shutting the door after him.
"As soon as the old gentleman heard the footsteps of the butler die away down the passage, he dressed himself completely from head to foot; he took two loaded pistols and a blunderbuss. He stealthily opened the heavy swing-door of the bedroom. He let himself out into the dark passage. He shut to the bedroom door behind him. It fastened with a click; he could not go in himself any more, and he crossed the passage, and stood in the dark dressing-room with the door open.
"It was still very early, and eleven o'clock came, and nothing happened; and twelve came and nothing happened; and one o'clock came and nothing happened. And the old gentleman—for he was already very old—began to feel very much exhausted, and he began to say to himself, 'Perhaps after all I was wrong! Perhaps after all it is a hallucination; but I will wait till two o'clock.'
"At half-past one o'clock there was a sound of stealthy footsteps down the passage, and three figures passed in front of him and stood opposite the bedroom door. They were so near that he could have shot them every one; but he said to himself, 'No, I'll wait, I'll wait and see what is going to happen.' And as he waited, the light from the dark lantern which the first man carried fell upon their faces, and he recognised them. And the first figure was the butler, and the second figure was the bell-hanger, and the third figure, from having been long a magistrate on a London bench, he recognised as the most notorious ruffian of a well-known London gang. He heard the ruffian say to the butler, 'I say, it's no use mincing this kind of thing: no use doing this kind of thing by halves: better put him out of the way at once, and go on to the plate afterwards.'—'Oh no,' said the butler, 'he has been a good master to me; I'll never consent to that. Take all he has; he'll never wake, not he; but you can't do him any harm; I'll never consent to that.' And they wrangled about it for some time, but at last the butler seemed to get the better, and the ruffian had to consent to his terms.
"Then exactly what the old gentleman had expected happened. The butler, standing on tiptoe, could just reach the four wires of the bells, which came through into the low passage above the bedroom door. As the butler reached the lowest of the wires, and by leaning his weight upon it, pulled it downwards, it was seen that the wire was connected with the bolt of the door on the inside; the bolt rolled up, and the heavy swing-door of the bedroom, of which the hinges were well oiled for the occasion, rolled open. 'There,' said the butler, as they passed into the room, 'master always sleeps like that. Curtains drawn all round the bed. He'll not hear anything, not he.' And they all passed in through the open door of the plate-room. The old man waited till they were entirely occupied with the plate-chest, and then he slipped off his slippers, and, with a hop, skip, and a jump, he darted across the room, and—bang! they were all caught in a trap. He banged to the heavy swing-door of the plate-room, which could only be opened from the outside.
"Having done that—people may believe it or not, but I maintain that it is true—the old man had such presence of mind, that he undressed, went to bed, and slept soundly till the next morning. Even if this were not so, till the next morning he did not send for the police, and the consequence was that when he did send for the police, and the door was opened, the following horrible scene revealed itself: The ruffian had tried to make a way of escape through the roof, had stuck fast, and was dreadfully mangled in the attempt: the bell-hanger had hung himself from the ceiling: and the butler was a drivelling idiot in the corner, from the horror of the night he had gone through."
Dr. Lushington had been employed in the inquiry which ensued, and had personal knowledge of all he narrated. I must record one more story which he told me—in his words:—
"I had a great-uncle, and as I am a very old man, you may imagine that my great-uncle was alive a very long time ago. He was a very eccentric man, and his peculiar hobby when in London was to go about to dine at all sorts of odd places of entertainment, to amuse himself with the odd characters he fell in with. One day he was dining at a tavern near St. Bride's in Fleet Street, and at the table opposite to him sat a man who interested him exceedingly, who was unusually amusing, and quaint, and agreeable. At the end of dinner the stranger said, 'Perhaps, sir, you are not aware that you have been dining with a notorious highwayman?'—'No, indeed,' said my great-uncle, not the least discomposed. 'What an unexpected pleasure! But I am quite sure, sir, that you cannot always have been a highwayman, and that your story must be a very remarkable one. Can I not persuade you to do me the honour of telling it to me?'—'Well,' said the stranger, 'we have had a very pleasant dinner, and I like your acquaintance, and I don't mind if I do tell you my story. You are quite right in thinking that I was in early life as free as you are, or indeed, for that matter, as I myself am now. But one day, as I was riding over Hounslow Heath, I was surrounded by highwaymen. They dragged me from my horse, and then said, "We don't want your money, and we don't want your life, but we want you, and you we must have. A great many of us have been taken, and we want recruits; you must go with us." I protested in vain; I said it was impossible I could go with them; I was a respectable member of society, it was quite impossible that I could become a highwayman. "Then," they said, "you must die; you cannot be allowed to live, to go out into the world, and tell what has been proposed to you." I was in a terrible strait, and eventually I was obliged to promise to go with them. I was obliged to promise, but I made such difficulties that I was able to exact two conditions. One was that at the end of seven years I should be allowed to go free, and that I should never be recognised or taken by them again. The other was that in the seven years I was with them, no deed of actual cruelty should ever be committed in my presence.
"'So I rode with the highwaymen, and many strange things happened. I saw many people robbed and pillaged, and I helped to rob and pillage them, but no deed of actual cruelty was ever committed in my presence. One day, after I had been with the band four years, we were riding in Windsor Forest. I saw a carriage approaching down the long avenue. It was sure to have ladies in it; there was likely to be a disagreeable scene; it was not necessary that I should be present, so I lingered behind in the forest. Presently, however, I was roused by so dreadful a scream from the carriage that I could no longer resist riding forward, and I spurred on my horse. In the carriage sat a lady, magnificently dressed, evidently just come from Windsor Castle, and the highwaymen had torn the bracelets from her arms and the necklace from her neck, and were just about to cut off her little finger, because there was a very valuable diamond ring upon it, which they could not otherwise get off. The lady implored me to have pity upon her, to intercede for her, and I did. I represented that the highwaymen had made me a solemn promise that no deed of personal cruelty should ever be committed in my presence, that on that condition only I was with them, and I called upon them to keep their promise. They disputed and were very angry, but eventually they gave in, and rode off with the rest of their booty, leaving me alone with the lady.
"'The lady then said she owed me everything. She certainly owed me her life, for she was quite sure that she should never, never, have survived the loss of her little finger. She was quite sure, she said, that I could not like being a highwayman, and she entreated me to abandon the road and reform my life. "I can get you a pardon," she said, "I can set you up in life—in fact, I can do anything for you." Then I told her my story. I told her how the highwaymen had made a promise to me, and they had kept it; and I told her how I had made a promise to them, and I must keep it also. I had promised to go with them for seven years, and I had only been with them four; I must go with them for three years more. "Then," said the lady, "I know what will happen; I know what stringent measures are going to be enforced for the suppression of highwaymen. I am certain you cannot escape for three years: you will be taken, and you will be condemned to death. When this happens, send for me, and I will save your life. I am Mrs. Masham."
"'It was indeed Mrs. Masham, the great favourite of Queen Anne.
"'Before the expiration of the three years I was taken, I was tried, and I was condemned to death. While I was lying in Newgate under sentence of death, I sent to Mrs. Masham, and Mrs. Masham flung herself at the feet of Queen Anne, and the Queen spared my life.'"
This was the story of Dr. Lushington's great-uncle's friend.
In April I returned to my work in the North. My first visit worth recording was one to the old house of Mainsforth in Durham, the home of Mrs. Surtees, widow of the genial and delightful historian, who was the intimate friend of Sir Walter Scott, though he offended him when it was discovered that he had himself written the glorious ballads which he had imposed upon Sir Walter as originals.[205] He was also the author of many ballads of a simpler and more touching character, which have never attained to the position in English poetry which they surely deserve.
To MY MOTHER.
"Mainsforth, April 26, 1862.—This has been a most interesting visit, both the old ladies of the house so amusing, and so full of stories of the past, in which they are still living, having shut out the present ever since the death of Mr. Surtees, twenty years ago. Miss Robinson has lived with 'my Sister Surtees' for the last fifteen years, and thinks there is no place in the world like Mainsforth: and indeed it is a most pleasant old house, thoroughly unpretending, but roomy and comfortable, close to the road on one side, but a very quiet road, with a fringe of ancient trees and a rookery, and on the other looking out on the wide green lawn and broad terrace-walk, bordered by clumps of hyacinths and tall turncap lilies. My room has two low windows, which slide back like doors, and look down through glades of hollies, like a picture, to the silvery windings of the Skene. It is quiet, and stillness itself; no sound but the cawing of the rooks, and the ticking of the clock on the broad old staircase.
"Ever since an accident five years ago, 'my Sister Surtees' has sat on a sofa in a sitting-room covered with fine old prints pasted on the walls, with a large tapestry screen on one side of her, and during the three days I have been here, I have never seen her move from this place, to which she appears to be glued. 'My Sister Mary' does all the hospitalities of the house, in the heartiest, most cordial way, and both always keep open house at Mainsforth for every one who likes to come. University students from Durham are constantly here, and the house is a second home to all the poor clergy of the neighbourhood, who come whenever they want a good dinner, or ready interest and kindly sympathy. A new curate was appointed to the neighbouring church of Bishop Middleham, and was asked to stay here while he looked out for lodgings: he stayed on and on, till he never went away again: he stayed here three years! The students of Durham University have just put up two stained glass windows in the church here, in token of gratitude for the kindness they have received at Mainsforth. Imagine the students of Oxford doing such a thing!
"On Thursday I went by the early train to Darlington, and, after seeing the town, set off in a gig on a long round of country villages. I saw the 'Hell Kettles,' three pools which are supposed to be fathomless, and into which, if a sheep falls, it is believed to be always 'a going' to the end of all time: and at one o'clock came to Sockburne, a lovely peninsula on the Tees, where an old ruined chapel stands on the edge of the green lawn above the rushing river, and beside it 'the Wishing-Tree,' a chestnut 1100 years old, where everything wished for comes true. I had an introduction to Mrs. Blackett, the owner, who lives in a beautiful modern house with terraces above the river, and when I was shown in, I found with her, in three young ladies spinning, three friends of last year, daughters of Sir Edward Blackett of Matfen. After luncheon, though it rained, they all walked with me three miles along the lovely hanging woods by the Tees to 'the Leper's Bath.'
"Yesterday I went off again, before the family breakfast, to Stockton-on-Tees, a manufacturing town, celebrated for possessing the widest street in England. I dined at Greatham Hospital with Mr. Tristram, the Master. It seemed a most melancholy place morally, no one speaking to anybody else, every one quarrelling about their rights of way, the keys of their church, even about their interest in the poor old men of the Hospital. The country is now all blackened with coal-pits, and it is curious to hear my present hostesses describe it all trees and verdure, as it was in their youth. But the natives are still wonderfully simple and full of kind-heartedness. At Billingham a poor woman having spent half-an-hour in trying to find the keys of the church for me, said, when I begged her to give it up, 'Na, na, I'll try once again, if only to show a willin'.'"
JOURNAL.
"Mainsforth, April 24, 1862.—Sitting alone with Miss Robinson just now, she talked much of Sir Walter Scott.
"'I knew Sir Walter Scott very well: to hear him talk was like hearing history with all the disagreeable parts weeded out. I often dined with him in Edinburgh. I went with my Sister Surtees to his house just after his first paralytic seizure. We went to take him a book, and, not knowing of his illness, my Sister Surtees asked if he was at home. The servant said he did not know; so my sister told him just to give Sir Walter the book and say it was left by Mrs. Surtees of Mainsforth. But Sir Walter, who was sitting in his study, heard my sister's voice, and said, "I am sure that is Mrs. Surtees of Mainsforth," and sent to desire us to come in. We found him dreadfully altered, and he described to us all that had happened. "I was sitting with Sophy, when I was taken," he said (she is dead—they are all dead now), "and I could not speak; so I ran upstairs into the drawing-room, where there were several ladies in the room, and there I soon became insensible and could not be roused. I remember it as if it were to-day," he said; "they all began to beel, and they made such a tiran, you can scarcely imagine it. I did not wish to frighten them more, so I did not say what I felt, but I'll tell you what it was, Mrs. Surtees—I shook hands with death."
"'Lady Scott was brought up in France. She was a very frivolous person—very exceedingly. The first time I dined with them, I sat next to her, and she wore a brocaded silk gown which she told me cost two hundred guineas. "Dear me, Lady Scott," I said, "but is not that a very large price?"—"Yes," she replied, "but that's what my dressmaker charges me." People never knew what present to give to Sir Walter; so, when they wished to make a present, they gave ornaments to Lady Scott, and she would come down to a common dinner with her arm quite covered with bracelets. What more she could have worn if she went to court, I cannot imagine. She never entered into Sir Walter's pursuits at all.
"'Donald was the old piper, and a very fine-looking person he was. He used to walk about the gallery outside playing the pibroch on the bagpipes. He could not have done it in the room, it was so deafening. Even from outside, the noise was tremendous, but Sir Walter liked it because it was national.'"
"April 25.—I have had a long talk with Mrs. Surtees. I wish I could put down half she said about the Ettrick Shepherd.
"'Once we wanted to go to the Highlands. There were my sister and two other ladies: we were a party of four. Surtees would not go with us because he said we should be such a trouble to him; but he said, "What I advise you to do is, to go to Mr. Blackwood when you get to Edinburgh, and ask him to give you a tour." So when we got to Edinburgh, we went to Mr. Blackwood, and told him what Surtees said. "Oh dear, Mrs. Surtees," said Mr. Blackwood, "what a pity you were not here a minute ago, for Mr. Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, has only just gone out of the shop, and he would have been the very person to have told you all you wanted to know." Now you must know that Surtees had been very kind to Hogg, and I was very anxious to see him, so I said, "Oh dear, but can we not still see him?"—"Well," said Mr. Blackwood, "he is going out of town now, but he will be back in a short time, and if you like to leave your address, he will come and call upon you." So I was just going to write my name on a card, when who should come in again but the Ettrick Shepherd. "Oh, sir," said Mr. Blackwood, "I'm so glad to see you back, for this is Mrs. Surtees, and she wants you to give her a tour in the Highlands."—"Eh!" said the Shepherd, "coom awa then wi' me into th' backshop, and I'll do't."
"'So we went into the backshop, and he told me where to go, and showed me all the route on a large map that was there; and when he had done he said, "Weel, Mrs. Surtees, an noo I've shown ye the route, I'd jist like to go wi' ye."—"Well," I said, "Mr. Hogg, we are only four ladies, but we would do all we could to make it agreeable to you, if you liked to go."—"Eh," said the Shepherd, "but I could'na just leave the lammies."
"'So then he said, "Eh, Mrs. Surtees, but my wife's here, and I'm just a going to choose her a silk gown: will ye coom awa along wi' us an' help to choose it?" So I went with them (a very nice-looking woman too Mrs. Hogg was) and helped to choose the gown.
"'Once I met them at dinner at Sir Walter's. Sir Walter treated Mrs. Hogg very well, and thought her (as the poet's wife, you know) every bit as good as Lady Scott; but Lady Scott thought her very different, and she did not carry it off very well.
"'We were at Abbotsford when Washington Irving was there. When people went away, Sir Walter used to conduct all those he especially liked over the hill as far as a particular little wicket. When Mr. Irving went, he said, "Now I'll take you as far as the wicket." I walked with them, and when they parted, I so well remember Mr. Irving saying what a pleasant visit he had had, and all that kind of thing—and then Sir Walter's hearty, earnest "Coom again."'
"Mrs. Surtees had also much to say of Mrs. Siddons.
"'I used often to meet Mrs. Siddons at the house of the Barringtons when they lived at Sedgefield. She was always acting. I remember as if it were yesterday her sitting by me at dinner and asking George Barrington how Chinamen eat their rice with chopsticks. "Well, but I pray you, and how do they do it?" she said in a theatrical tone; and then, turning to the footman, she said, "Give me a glass of water, I pray you; I am athirst to-day." After dinner, Lord Barrington would say, "Well now, Mrs. Siddons, will you give us some reading?"
"'Her daughter was with her, who was miserably ill-educated. She could not even sew. The Miss Barringtons took her in hand and tried to teach her, but they could make nothing of her.'"
"April 26.—Miss Robinson has been telling me, 'When we were in London, we went to a chapel in Bedford Place where Sydney Smith often used to preach, and we were shown into a pew; for, you know, in London you do not sit where you like, but they show you into pews—the women people that keep the church do. There was a strange lady in the seat, and I have never seen her before or since. It was not I that sat next to her—my Sister Surtees was the person. The service was got through very well, and when the preacher got up, it was Sydney Smith. I remember the sermon as if it were to-day. It was from the 106th Psalm. He described the end of man—the "portals of mortality." "Over those portals," he said, "are written Death! Plague! Famine! Pestilence!" &c., and he was most violent. I am sure the poor man that had read the service and was sitting underneath would rather have been at the portals of mortality than where he was just then, for Sydney Smith thumped the cushion till it almost touched his head, and he must have thought the whole thing was coming down upon him. The lady in the pew was quite frightened, and she whispered to my Sister Surtees, "This is Sir Sydney Smith, who has been so long in the wars, and that is what makes him so violent."—"Oh dear, no," said my Sister Surtees, "you are under a great mistake," &c.
"Miss Robinson described her youth at Houghton-le-Spring, now almost the blackest place in Durham.
"'Houghton-le-Spring was a lovely rustic village. There was not a pit in the neighbourhood, and the neighbourhood was the best that was known in England. Sixteen or seventeen carriages waited at the church-gate every Sunday. My father lived at Herrington Hall, and our family were buried in Bernard Gilpin's tomb, because they were related.
"'The Lyons[206] of Hetton were a beautiful family, but Mrs. Fellowes was the loveliest. Jane and Elizabeth died each of a rapid decline. Mrs. Lyon embarked £60,000 in the pit at Hetton, lost it, and died of a broken heart. People used to say, 'Do you know where Mrs. Lyon's heart is? At the bottom of Hetton coal-pit.'"
After a visit to the George Liddells at Durham, I went on to Northumberland.
To MY MOTHER.
"Westgate Street, Newcastle, May 6, 1862.—Yesterday afternoon I came here, to the old square dark red brick house of the Claytons, who are like merchant-princes in Newcastle, so enormous is their wealth, but who still live in the utmost simplicity in the old-fashioned family house in this retired shady street. The family are all remarkable. First comes Mr. John Clayton of Chesters, the well-known antiquary of North Tyne, a grand, sturdy old man, with a head which might be studied for a bust of Jupiter;[207] then there is his brother Matthew, a thin tall lawyer, full of jokes and queer sayings; then the venerable and beautiful old sister, Mrs. Anne Clayton (beloved far and wide by the poor, amongst whom she spends her days, and who are all devoted to 'Mrs. Nancy Claytoun'), is the gentlest and kindest of old ladies. And besides these, there is the nephew, George Nathaniel, a college friend of mine, and his wife, Isabel Ogle, whom we have often met abroad.
"Last night, Dr. Bruce[208] dined, the leader of the 'Romanist' antiquarians in the county, in opposition to Dr. Charlton and the 'Mediævalists.'"
"May 7.—How amused my mother would be with this quaintest of families, who live here in the most primitive fashion, always treating each other as if they were acquaintances of the day, and addressing one another by their full titles, as 'Miss Anne Clayton, will you have the goodness to make the tea?'—'Mr. Town-Clerk of Newcastle, will you have the kindness to hand me the toast?' &c. Miss Anne is a venerable lady with snow-white hair, but her brother Matthew, who is rather older, is convinced that she is one of the most harum-scarum young girls in the world, and is continually pulling her up with 'Miss Anne Clayton, you are very inaccurate,'—'Miss Anne Clayton, be careful what you say,'—'Miss Anne Clayton, another inaccuracy,'—while the poor old sister goes on her own way without minding a bit.
"This afternoon we have been to Tynemouth, and most refreshing was the sea-air upon the cliffs, and the sight of that enchanting old ruin standing on its rocky height. The journey was very curious through the pit, glass, and alkali country.
"This evening old Mr. Matthew has been unusually extraordinary, and very fatiguing—talking for exactly two hours about his bootmakers, Messrs. Hoby & Humby, whence they came, what they had done, and how utterly unrivalled they were. 'Miss Anne Clayton,' he said at the end, 'I hope you understand all I've been saying. Now wait before you give an opinion, but above all things, Miss Anne Clayton, don't, don't be inaccurate.'"
"Dilston Hall, May 8, 1862.—I left Westgate Street this morning directly after breakfast, and getting out of the train at Blaydon, walked by Stella and Ryton to Wylam. Ryton was very interesting to me, because the church is full of monuments of my Simpson relations, including that of old Mrs. Simpson, the mother-in-law of Lady Anne, of whom we have a picture, and of her father, Mr. Andersen,[209] from whom the property came. As I was going through the churchyard, the sexton poked up his head from an open grave to stare at me. 'Where can I get the church keys?' I said. 'Why, I'll tell you wherefrom you'll get them; you'll just get them out of my coat-pocket,' he answered, and so I did. It was a beautiful church, with rich stained windows, oak stalls, and tombs, and outside it lovely green haughs sloping down to the Tyne.
"Thence I walked on to see Bradley,[210] the home of my great-grandmother Lady Anne Simpson. It is a charming place, with deep wooded glens filled with what Northumbrians call rowan and gane trees, and carpeted with primroses and cowslips.
"I arrived at Dilston by tea-time, and afterwards we went out along the terraced heights, and I longed for you to see the view—the rich hanging woods steeped in gold by the setting sun, while behind rose the deep blue moorlands, and from below the splash of the Devil's Water came through the gnarled oaks and yellow broom."
"Old Elvet, Durham, May 4.—On Friday I drew in the lovely woods by the Devil's Water, and then walked, overtaken by a dreadful storm on the way, to Queen Margaret's cave in Deepden, where she met the robber. Yesterday a wild moorland drive took me to Blanchland,[211] a curious place, with a monastic church and gateway, and a village surrounding a square, in the deep ravine of the Derwent. Then a still wilder drive brought me to Stanhope, whence I came here by rail to the kind Liddell cousins.
"George Liddell has been telling me how, when they lived out of the town at Burnopside, a poor woman lived near them at a place called 'Standfast Hill,' who used to have periodical washings, and put out all the things to dry afterwards on the bank by the side of the road. One day a tramp came by and carried them all off: when the daughter came out to take the things in, they were all gone, and she rushed back to her mother in despair, saying that they were all ruined, the things were all gone, &c.
"The Liddells went up to see that poor woman afterwards and to tell her how sorry they were; but she said, 'Yes, there's my poor Mary, she goes blearing about like a mad bull; but I say to her, "Dinna' fash yersel, but pray to the Lord to have mercy on them that took the things, for they've paid far dearer than I ever paid for them."'"
In June I was at Chartwell in Kent, when Mr. Colquhoun (who was one of the most perfect types of a truly Christian gentleman I have ever known), told me the following story, from personal knowledge both of the facts and persons:—
"On awaking one morning, Mr. Rutherford of Egerton (in Roxburghshire) found his wife dreadfully agitated, and asked her what was the matter. 'Oh,' she said, 'it is something I really cannot tell you, because you could not possibly sympathise with it.'—'But I insist upon knowing,' he said. 'Well,' she answered, 'if you insist upon knowing, I am agitated because I have had a dream which has distressed me very much. I dreamt that my aunt, Lady Leslie, who brought me up, is going to be murdered; and not only that, but in my dream I have seen the person who is going to murder her:—I have seen him so distinctly, that if I met him in any town of Europe, I should know him again.'—'What bombastical nonsense!' said Mr. Rutherford; 'you really become more and more foolish every day.'—'Well, my dear,' said his wife, 'I told you that it was a thing in which you could not sympathise, and I did not wish to tell you my dream.'
"Coming suddenly into her sitting-room during the morning, Mr. Rutherford found his wife still very much agitated and distressed, and being of choleric disposition, he said sharply, 'Now do let us have an end once for all of this nonsense. Go down into Fife and see your aunt, Lady Leslie, and then, when you have found her alive and quite well, perhaps you will give up having these foolish imaginations for the future.' Mrs. Rutherford wished no better; she put a few things into a hand-bag, she went to Edinburgh, she crossed the Firth of Forth, and that afternoon at four o'clock she drove up to Lady Leslie's door. The door was opened by a strange servant. It was the man she had seen in her dream.
"She found Lady Leslie well, sitting with her two grown-up sons. She was exceedingly surprised to see her niece, but Mrs. Rutherford said that having that one day free, and not being able to come again for some time, she had seized the opportunity of coming for one night; and her aunt was too glad to see her to ask many questions. In the course of the evening Mrs. Rutherford said, 'Aunt, when I lived at home with you, whenever I was to have an especial treat, it was that I might sleep in your room. Now I am only here for one night; do let me have my old child's treat over again: I have a special fancy for it;' and Lady Leslie was rather pleased than otherwise. Before they went to bed, Mrs. Rutherford had an opportunity of speaking to her two cousins alone. She said, 'You will be excessively surprised at what I ask, but I shall measure your affection for me entirely by whether you grant it: it is that you will sit up to-night in the room next to your mother's, and that you will tell no one.' They promised, but they were very much surprised.
"As they were going to bed, Mrs. Rutherford said to Lady Leslie, 'Aunt, shall I lock the door?' and Lady Leslie laughed at her and said, 'No, my dear; I am much too old-fashioned a person for that,' and forbade it. But as soon as Mrs. Rutherford saw that Lady Leslie was asleep, she slipped out of bed and turned the lock of the door. Then, leaning against the pillow, she watched, and watched the handle of the door.
"The reflection of the fire scintillated on the round brass handle of the door, and, as she watched, it almost seemed to mesmerise her, but she watched still. Suddenly the speck of light seemed to appear on the other side; some one was evidently turning the handle of the door. Mrs. Rutherford rang the bell violently, her cousins rushed out of the next room, and she herself threw the door wide open, and there, at the door, stood the strange servant, the man she had seen in her dream, with a covered coal-scuttle in his hand. The cousins demanded why he was there. He said he thought he heard Lady Leslie's bell ring. They said, 'But you do not answer Lady Leslie's bell at this time in the night,' and they insisted upon opening the coal-scuttle. In it was a large knife.
"Then, as by sudden impulse, the man confessed. He knew Lady Leslie had received a large sum for her rents the day before, that she kept it in her room, and that it could not be sent away till the next day. 'The devil tempted me,' he said, 'the devil walked with me down the passage, and unless God had intervened, the devil would have forced me to cut Lady Leslie's throat.'
"The man was partially mad—but God had intervened."
JOURNAL (The Green Book).
"Holmhurst, July 27, 1862.—A gorgeous beautiful summer day at length, and it is our last here. To-morrow we go north. It has been a pleasant summer, and it will be a very bright one to look back upon. I have had the great delight of having Charlie Wood here for four days—days of endless conversations, outpourings of old griefs and joys, of little present thoughts and anxieties, of hopes and aspirations for the future, which I should not venture upon with any one else. And besides, we have had a succession of visitors, each of whom has enjoyed our home, whilst our little Holmhurst daily twines itself more and more round our own hearts. Sometimes I have a sort of inward trembling in thinking that I trace an additional or increasing degree of feebleness or age in my sweetest mother, but I do not think her ill now, and may go to the North with a confident feeling that it will be at the time which will suit her best, as she will have other friends with her with whom she would rather be alone. My sweet darling! what should I do without her? and how blank and black the whole world would seem! Yet even then I should bless God that this place, now consecrated by memories of her, would still be my home, and, in fulfilling her wishes, her designs, I should try to link the desolate present to the sunny past. I cannot be grateful enough for her power of bearing and rallying from great blows. The loss of Aunt Kitty in the spring, the impending loss of Aunt Esther, are furrows which God permits, but which He too smooths over. I have even the comfort of feeling that it would be thus in case of my own death, dreadful as that would be to her at the time."
Early in August I went with my mother for a long visit to Buntingsdale in Shropshire, the old pleasant friendly home of the Tayleurs. The master of the house, William Tayleur, had come very late into his property, after a long period of almost cruel repression during the life of his eccentric father; but, unlike most people, the late attainment of great wealth only made him full of anxiety that as many as possible should benefit by it, and he was the very soul of courtesy, hospitality, and generosity. With him lived his two delightful old sisters (already mentioned in the account of my childhood), emancipated when past fifty from a thraldom like that of the schoolroom. Of these, my mother's great friend, Harriet, was the younger—a most bright, animated, clever, and thoroughly excellent person, exceedingly popular in Shropshire society. The elder, Mary, was very delicate in health, but a very pretty, gentle old lady, who always wore an immense bonnet, ending in a long shade of the kind called "an ugly," so that people used to call her "the old lady down the telescope." Buntingsdale is one of the finest houses in Shropshire, a large red brick mansion, with very handsome stone mouldings and pillars, and a most splendid flower-garden, bordered by a high terrace overlooking the little shining river Terne and its pretty watermeadows. I have seldom known my mother happier than during this visit. It touched her so much to find how she was considered by these faithful old friends—how, after many years' absence, all the people she wished to see were asked to meet her, yet all arranged with thoughtful care, so as to cause her the least possible amount of fatigue and emotion.
We went to Stoke to visit my grandfather's grave, and any of his old parishioners who wished to see my mother were bidden to meet her in the churchyard. There we found fourteen poor women and three old men waiting. To the changed Rectory she never looked. Then we were for some days at Hodnet, where Lady Valsamachi[212] was staying, and both at Hodnet and Hawkestone my mother was warmly welcomed by old friends. I was glad to have the opportunity of walking with her in the beautiful fields consecrated to her by recollections of her happy life long ago in intimacy with the Hebers. From Hodnet we went to spend a few days with Henry de Bunsen at Lilleshall Rectory, which had a charming garden, where all his parishioners were invited to walk on Sunday afternoons. Thence my mother returned home, and I went towards my northern work.
To MY MOTHER.
"Weeping Cross, Stafford, August 21, 1862.—Miss Sarah Salt met me at the Stafford station, and drove me here—a moderate-sized house, simply furnished, but with the luxury of a cedar-wood ceiling, which smells delicious. Out of a window-seat in the low comfortable library rose the thin angular figure of Harriet Salt, speaking in the subdued powerless way of old. She had a huge cat with her, and an aunt—rather a pretty old lady. 'What is your aunt's name?' I said afterwards to Miss Sarah. 'Oh, Aunt Emma.'—'Yes, but what is her other name? what am I to call her?'—'Oh, call her Aunt Emma; she would never know herself by any other name.'—'And what do you do when your Aunt Emma Petit is here too?'-'Oh, she is only Aunt Emma, and this is the other Aunt Emma; so when Aunt Emma from Lichfield is here, and we want this one, we say, "Other Aunt Emma, will you come here?"'
"After luncheon, we went out round the domain—paddocks with round plantations, and a good deal of garden. Miss Salt rode a white pony, we walked. Then the aunt mounted the pony, and she and Miss Sarah and I went a longer round, Miss Sarah breaking down the fences and pulling the pony through after her. 'Will not the farmers be angry?' I said. 'Oh, no; I threatened to have them up before the magistrates for stopping up a road, so we compromised; they are to have their road, and I am to break down their fences and go wherever I like, whether there is a road or not.'
"At seven the clergyman and his wife came to dinner. I took in the aunt, a timid old lady, who seldom ventured a remark, and then in the most diffident manner. This was her first—'I think I may say, in fact I believe it has been often remarked, that Holland is a very flat country. I went there once, and it struck me that the observation was correct.' In the evening Miss Sarah looked at my drawings, and said, 'Well, on the whole, considering that they are totally unlike nature, I don't dislike them quite so much as I expected.'
"We breakfasted this morning at half-past seven, summoned by a gong; Miss Sarah having said, 'At whatever hour of the day or night you hear that gong sound, you will know that you are expected to appear somewhere.' She presided at the breakfast-table with a huge tabby-cat seated on her shoulder. 'Does not that cat often tear your dress?' I asked. 'No,' she replied, 'but it very often tears my face,' and went on pouring out the tea."
"August 22.—Yesterday was hot and steamy, without a breath of air. Miss Sarah drove me and the clergyman's wife to Cannock Chase, a wild heathy upland, with groups of old firs and oaks, extending unenclosed for fifteen miles, and surrounded by noblemen's houses and parks. Here we joined a picnic party of fifty people. English fashion, scarcely anybody spoke to anybody else, and the families sat together in groups. Afterwards the public played at 'Aunt Sally,' and I walked with Miss Salt and her friends Misses Anastasia and Theodosia Royd far over the moorlands. A ridiculous old gentleman went with us, who talked of 'mists, while they enhanced the merits of nature, obscuring the accuracy of vision.' He also assured us that whenever he saw a snake, he shut his eyes and cried 'Murder!' We mounted another hill for kettle-boiling and tea, and then danced country-dances to the sound of a fiddle. It was seven o'clock and the mists were rolling up from the hollows when we turned to go home. Mr. Salt was heard blowing a horn in the distance, which his daughter answered by a blast on her whistle, and so we found the carriage."
I am sorry not to find any letters recording the visit I paid after this to Mr. Petit, the ecclesiologist. He lived at Lichfield in a house built by Miss Porter, Dr. Johnson's step-daughter. With him resided his three sisters and seven cats, who appeared at all meals as part of the family, and rejoiced in the names of "Bug, Woodlouse, Nebuchadnezzar, Ezekiel, Bezor, Rabshakeh, and Eva—'the mother of all the cats.'" Mr. Petit was most extraordinary, but a very interesting companion. I had a capital sight of the cathedral with him, beautiful still, though sadly "jemmyfied" by Scott, who has added some immense statues in the choir which put everything out of proportion, and has put up a bastard-gothic metal screen. At the end of an aisle is Chantrey's monument of the two Robinson children. One of them was burnt to death in reaching to get from the chimney-piece the snowdrops represented in her hand; the other died of consumption caused by too much rowing. When I was at Lichfield their mother was still living there with her third husband.
We went up Borrow Copp, a charming mound near the town, crowned by a chapel-like summer-house. Here the three Saxon kings are supposed to be buried whose bodies are represented in the arms of Lichfield.
The Petits are Petits des Etampes, and were refugees from Caen. They had a valuable miniature of Mary Queen of Scots by Bernard Lens, from their family connection with the Guises. Far more extraordinary than any other house I have ever seen was their country place of—"Bumblekite Hall!"
To MY MOTHER.
"Ripley Castle, August 28, 1862.—In coming down to dinner, I found a tall distinguished-looking lady upon the staircase, with whom I made friends at once as Charlie Wood's aunt, Lady Georgiana Grey. This afternoon I went with her and Miss Ingilby to Knaresborough, a town with stone roofs on a height above the Nid, crowned by the ruins of the castle which contains the vaulted dungeon where the murderers of Thomas à Becket were confined. Below the castle is the public-house called 'Mother Shipton,' bearing her picture and the inscription—
'Near to this petrifying well
I first drew breath, as records tell.'
Through the inn—kept "by one 'Almeda Burgess'—is a walk by the wooded bank of the river to the petrifying well, which is highly picturesque. The water falls from an overhanging umbrella-like cliff into a deep basin. A chain of stuffed birds is hung up for petrifaction, taking from twelve to fifteen months to turn into stone: bird's-nests take twelve months.
"Also in the valley of the Nid, on the east of the town, is St. Robert's Cave, excavated, as the guide told us, by St. Robert, 'a gentleman who wished to live very retired.' This was the place where the body of Clarke was discovered, which led to the execution of Eugene Aram. It is a most curious story.
"Eugene was the son of Peter Aram, who was head-gardener at Ripley Castle, and very respectable. But, together with two others, Housman and Clarke, Eugene arranged a curious scheme of robbery. They gave out that they were going to give a grand supper, and borrowed a quantity of plate, which they made away with, and on the night of the supposed supper Eugene and Housman murdered Clarke, that it might be supposed, when he was not forthcoming, that he alone was the robber. Afterwards Eugene went at night to Housman's house and talked over what was to be done. Before they left he said, 'If your wife is in bed upstairs, she must have heard us; we must make this secure,' and they went up intending to murder her if she was awake, but they passed the candle before her eyes, and she bore it without flinching. Then they went down again and burnt the clothes of the murdered man. Only the buttons fell uninjured amongst the cinders, and were found next morning by the wife. Afterwards, whenever she had a quarrel with her husband, she frightened him by saying, 'How about those buttons?'
"Housman and Aram buried the body in St. Robert's Cave, which was then filled with earth. Brushwood and briars grew over it, and no trace was left; but the murderers had a perpetual dread that some day the Nid would rise and lay the body bare, and whenever there was a very high wind, Housman for years used to go to see that it was not uncovered.
"Eugene Aram went away to Norfolk, where he prospered exceedingly, and 'visited with the best families.' But fourteen years after the murder, some workmen digging in St. Robert's Cave found a skeleton. 'I shouldn't wonder if this were Clarke,' said one of them. 'No, it is not,' said one of his companions, and this led to his arrest. It was Housman. He then confessed to the murder, and said that Eugene Aram was his accomplice; but Eugene Aram was gone.
"It happened, however, that a Knaresborough pedlar, in his walks through Norfolk, accidentally recognised Eugene Aram in a garden. On his return home, he gave notice to the constables, who went to Norfolk and fetched him away, and he was executed. The murder took place in 1745, the execution in 1759. It is said that after the murder Eugene never gave his right hand to any one. After he was executed, the 'finger of scorn pointed at his family,' and they went to America. The mother of the old woman who showed us the cave knew Clarke's widow intimately.
"A letter of Eugene Aram is preserved at Ripley Castle.[213] There were many letters there from Peter Aram, his father, but they were destroyed by the late Lady Ingilby, because they were 'so wicked and blasphemous.' The chief point against Eugene Aram was that, when he was discovered, a defence was found which he had written twelve years before: this is made use of in Bulwer's novel.
"In the evening something was said about many ghost-stories being the result of a practical joke. Lady Georgiana Grey, who had been sitting quietly, suddenly rose—awful almost with her white face and long black velvet dress—and exclaimed, 'If any one ever dared to play a practical joke upon me, all my fortune, all my energies, my whole life would be insufficient to work my revenge.' And she swept out of the room. They say it is because of the Grey story about a head. Lady Georgiana first saw the head, when she was in bed in Hanover Square, in the autumn of 1823. She rushed for refuge to her mother's room, where she remained all night. Lady Grey desired her on no account to mention what she had seen to her father. But a fortnight later Lord Grey came into the room where Lady Georgiana was sitting with her mother and sister, much agitated, saying that he had just seen a head roll towards him."
"Ripley Castle, August 30.—The old Ladies Ruthven and Belhaven came to-day. They appear to have spent their lives in an atmosphere of dukes, but are very simple great ladies, chiefly interested by art and artists, and draw well themselves. Lady Belhaven is allowed by her husband to be with her sister now because of the odd illness of the latter, an invincible sleeplessness, which makes her very peculiar, and gives her a habit of talking to herself in a low murmur, however many people are around her. Rather to my alarm, I had to take her in to dinner, and as she is very deaf, to talk to her the whole time at the pitch of my voice; but we got on very well notwithstanding, so well indeed, that before the fish had been taken away she had asked me to come to stay with her at her castle in Scotland. As soon as dinner was over she made me bring my portfolio and sit the whole evening talking to her about my drawings. However, I was very glad of it, as, when she went to bed, she said, 'I have been so very happy this evening.'
"September 1.—Saturday was a dismally wet day. We sat in the oak parlour, drew, and told stories. Lady Ruthven has lived many years at Athens, and four years—winter and summer—at Rome, and in summer used to study 'Roma Adombrata,' which taught her how to walk in the shade. On Sundays she invited all the artists, who never went to church, to her house, and 'read them a sermon, poor things, for the good of their souls.'
"She used when at Rome to go to 'La toilette des pieds' of Pauline Borghese. Regular invitations were issued for it. When the guests arrived, they found the Princess—supremely lovely—with her beautiful little white feet exposed upon a velvet cushion. Then two or three maids came in, and touched the feet with a sponge and dusted them with a little powder—'ç'était la toilette des pieds.' The Duke of Hamilton used to take up one of the little feet and put it inside his waistcoat 'like a little bird.' ... Lady Ruthven and all her household are still wearing mourning for Lord Ruthven, who died seven years ago.
"The people here are full of quaint character, especially two brothers 'Johnny and Jacky.' Said Johnny to Jacky the other day, 'I've found a saxpence.'—'That's moine,' said Jacky, 'for I've lost un.'—'Had thoine a haule in it?' said Johnny.—'Ees,' said Jacky.—'Then this ain't thoine,' said Johnny, 'for there's na haule in't.'
"Mrs. Ingilby herself is perfection—so refined and agreeable. No one would believe, when they see how admirably and unaffectedly she manages the castle and £20,000 a year, that seven years ago she and her husband lived in a Lincolnshire cottage with only £300 a year of income.
"Lady Georgiana Grey told me a curious story of some friends of hers.
"Lady Pennyman and her daughters took a house at Lille. The day after they arrived they went to order some things from a warehouse in the town, and gave their address. 'What,' said the man, 'are you living there, ma'am? Did I not misunderstand you?'—'Yes,' said Lady Pennyman, 'that is where I live. Is there anything against the place?'
"'Oh dear, no, ma'am,' said the warehouseman; 'only the house has been for a long time without being let, because they say it's haunted.' Going home, Lady Pennyman laughed to her daughters, and said, 'Well, we shall see if the ghost will frighten us away.'
"But the next morning Lady Pennyman's maid came to her and said, 'If you please, ma'am, Mrs. Crowder and me must change our rooms. We can't remain where we are, ma'am; it's quite impossible. The ghost, he makes such a noise over our heads, we can get no sleep at all.'—'Well, you can change your room,' said Lady Pennyman; 'but what is there over your room where you sleep? I will go and see;' and she found a very long gallery, quite empty except for a huge iron cage, in which it was evident that a human being had been confined.
"A few days after, a friend, a lady living in Lille, came to dine with them. She was a very strong-minded person, and when she heard of the servants' alarm, she said, 'Oh, Lady Pennyman, do let me sleep in that room; I shall not be frightened, and if I sleep there, perhaps the ghost will be laid.' So she sent away her carriage and stayed; but the next morning she came down quite pale and haggard, and said certainly she had seen the figure of a young man in a dressing-gown standing opposite her bed, and yet the door was locked, and there could have been no real person there. A few days afterwards, towards evening, Lady Pennyman said to her daughter, 'Bessie, just go up and fetch the shawl which I left in my room.' Bessie went, and came down saying that as she went up she saw the figure of a young man in a dressing-gown standing on the flight of stairs opposite to her.
"One more attempt at explanation was made. A sailor son, just come from sea, was put to sleep in the room. When he came down in the morning, he was quite angry, and said, 'What did you think I was going to be up to, mother, that you had me watched? Why did you send that fellow in the dressing-gown to look after me?' The next day the Pennymans left the house.
"Lady Georgiana also told me:—
"There was once a Bishop Thomas.[214] His mother one day awoke, having dreamt that her husband had fought a duel and was killed. She was much frightened by her dream, and, having great influence over her husband, she persuaded him not to go out that day as usual, but to stay at home with her. They lived in Spring Gardens, and having stayed in all day, towards four o'clock Mr. Thomas began to repine, and to wish to go out and walk in the Park. Mrs. Thomas assented on condition of going with him, and they walked in the Park and enjoyed it very much. While they were out, they met an old Indian friend of Mr. Thomas, whom he had not seen for years, and was delighted to meet. They talked over old times and scenes with great avidity, and at last Mr. Thomas said that he would see his old friend back to his hotel. Mrs. Thomas, being tired, begged to be left at her own house on the way.
"Mrs. Thomas waited long for her husband's return. At last she heard a sound of many footsteps coming down the street, and a voice asking which was Mrs. Thomas's house. She rushed down saying, 'You need not tell me; I know what has happened,' and she found her dream realised. Mr. Thomas had gone back to the hotel with his friend. According to the custom of that time, they drank a good deal together: they quarrelled over their wine, they fought, and Mr. Thomas was killed. The child that was born afterwards was Bishop Thomas."
"Middleton in Teesdale, Sept. 3.—Yesterday I went with the party at Ripley to Brimham Rocks, a most curious place—the rocks clustered in groups of enormous and fantastic forms on the very top of the Yorkshire range, and with a splendid view over the country, even York Minster appearing in the hazy distance.
"I slept at Barnard Castle last night, and set out at eight this morning for the Fells. It was gloomy and dismal, with mists gathering black over the distance, and constant rain falling; but there was no alternative. The valley of Upper Teesdale is in some ways like a valley in the Alps, the glaringly white farmhouses scattered thinly over the brilliantly green meadows, the hedgerows and trees replaced by low rugged stone walls, 'the Grass of Parnassus' springing up by the side of all the clear streams. The people are all 'kin' to one another, and are singularly honest and truthful. 'They are all sincere men in these parts,' said the guide, 'and if they tell you a tale, you may know it's because they're deceived.' We met a man on a horse. 'What a long cloak that man has,' I said. 'Yes,' answered the driver, 'but he's a good man and a just, and he fears God rather than men.'
"The High Force is a truly grand waterfall, where the whole river tosses over a huge precipice in the black basaltic cliff. We left the gig at a little inn at Langdon Beck, whence we set out on a weary foot-pilgrimage—a most fatiguing walk of ten miles, over broken edges of scars, along the torrent-bed, through rushes and bogs and heather, and across loose slippery shale—all this too in ceaseless rain and wind, and with the burden of a thick Scotch cloak. But Cauldron Snout is a very curious waterfall, quite out in the desolate moorlands, with the Westmorland Fells looming behind it. I was completely wet through before we got there, and came back plunging from tuft to tuft of rushes in the boggy moorlands. At one time we took refuge in a shepherd's hut, where an old shepherd, with flowing white hair and horn spectacles, was reading the Bible to his grandchildren—a group like many pictures one has seen. Here my socks were dipped in hot water and put on again, the mountaineer's remedy against cold."
"Ridley Hall, Sept. 7.—Yesterday Cousin Susan sent me to Bonnyrigg, Sir Edward Blackett's place in the moors—an enchanting drive, out of the inhabited country into the purple heather-land, where the desolate blue Northumbrian lakes lie at the foot of their huge precipitous crags. Bonnyrigg itself is embosomed in woods, yet surrounded on all sides by rock and moorland, and with a delightful view of Greenlea Lough. The Scotts were staying there, and I walked with the General[215] along the Roman Wall, high on the cliffs and running from crag to crag, as perfect in its 1600th year as in its first."
"Chesters, Hexham, Sept. 10.—I came here yesterday. My aged hostess, the eldest sister of the Newcastle Clayton family, is of a most tall, weird figure, and speaks in an abrupt, energetic, startling manner, but she is the most perfect lady imaginable, both in feeling and manners, and her kindness and thoughtfulness and consideration for others make her beloved far and wide. Chesters is famous for its liberal unostentatious hospitality, and Miss Clayton always lives here, though it is her brother's place, and he resides at Newcastle. She reads everything, and is ready to talk on any subject, but her great hobby is Roman antiquities, and she is one of the best antiquarians in the North, which is only as it should be, as Cilurnum, one of the finest of the Roman stations, is here in the garden, where there is also a museum of Roman relics. This house is about the size of Hurstmonceaux Place,[216] and most thoroughly comfortable, with wide well-lighted galleries on each storey, filled with water-colour drawings by Richardson, with Roman antiquities, and curiosities of all kinds.
"This morning we were called at six, breakfasted at seven, and at half-past seven in the bright cold morning Miss Clayton herself drove me down to the train at Chollerford. A delightful journey brought me to Kielder, where, under the heather-clad hills, close to the Scottish Border, is the Duke of Northumberland's favourite castle and the scene of the beautiful ballad of the 'Cout of Kielder.' I wandered through the valley:—
"Up to 'the bonny brae, the green,
Yet sacred to the brave;
Where still, of ancient size, is seen
Gigantic Kielder's grave.
'Where weeps the birch with branches green
Without the holy ground,
Between two old grey stones is seen
The warrior's ridgy mound.'
Coming back, I left the train at Bellingham, and walked to Hesleyside, the fine place of the Roman Catholic Charltons, where the celebrated Charlton spur is preserved, which the lady of the house, in time of Border raids, used to serve up at dinner whenever she wished to indicate that her larder needed replenishing."
"Chesters, Sept. 13.—On Thursday Miss Clayton drove me in her Irish car up North Tyne to Chipchase Castle, a noble old Jacobean house on a height, with a Norman tower, and afterwards to Simonburn and Tecket Lynn—a most picturesque waterfall through fern-fringed rocks; a very artistic 'subject,' too little known. Mr. John Clayton and Dr. Bruce arrived in the evening, and Roman antiquities became the order of the next day. We set off in a hurricane of cold wind, in the Irish car, along the Roman Wall, and spent the whole day amongst Roman remains, lunching at Hotbank Farm, where the Armstrongs live—last relics of the great mosstrooping family—inspiring a sort of clannish attachment still, as, when the last farmer died in 1859, two hundred mounted Borderers escorted him across the moorland to his grave.
"The great Roman station of Housesteads (Borcovicus) is a perfect English Pompeii of excavated houses and streets. Hence we clambered across stone walls and bogs for several miles to Sewing Shields, where Arthur and Guinevere and all their knights lie asleep in a basaltic cavern.... The Claytons are indescribably kind, and spare no pains to amuse, interest, and instruct me, and their horses seem as untirable."
"Chesters, Sept. 15.—I am becoming increasingly attached to 'Aunt Saily,' who is always finding out all the good she can in her neighbours and guests, and doing everything possible to make the world bright and pleasant to them: being really so loving and gentle herself, she influences all around her. On Saturday she took me to Houghton Castle, one of the most perfect inhabited feudal fortresses in the county; and to-day to Fallowfield, where there is a Roman inscription on a grey rock—'the Written Rock'—in the moorland."
"Otterburn, Sept. 18.—I left the train at Bellingham, where I found no further means of locomotion except a huge chariot with two horses. So, after going on a vain search for a cart to all the neighbouring farmhouses, I was obliged to engage it; but then there was another difficulty, for the key of the coach-house was lost, and I had to wait an hour till a smith could be brought to break it open. At length I set off in the great lumbering vehicle across the roughest moorland road imaginable—mere blocks of stone, scarcely chipped at all, with gates at every turn, over hideous barren moorland, no heather, only dead moss and blackened rushes and fern. It was like the drive in 'Rob Roy.' At last, in the gloaming, we drove over a rude bridge and up to this gothic castle, with terraces in front sloping down to the sullen Reedwater and barren deserted Fells. My host, Mr. James, has nine sons, of whom the two youngest, Charlie and Christie, are here now, and scamper on two little ponies all over the country. The whole family are inclined to abundant rude hospitality, and delight to entice visitors into these deserts. They have taken me to Elsdon, a curious desolate village in the hills, where the Baillies are rectors, and live in a dismal old castle, built to fortify the rector in mosstrooping times. It is a place quite out of the world, so very high up, that the coming of any chance stranger is quite an event: its people live entirely by keeping sheep and rearing geese in large flocks."
"Matfen, Sept. 20.—We had a very long excursion from Otterburn on Thursday. In these high moorlands, thirty-five miles is thought nothing extraordinary, and we drove in a brilliant morning all up the course of the Reedwater, through rocky valleys and relics of ancient forest, and by the Roman station of High Rochester to the Scottish border, upon the famous Reedswire. Here we carried our baskets up the hills and picnicked just inside Scotland, looking over the Lammermoor Hills and the valley of Jedburgh to Edinburgh far in the hazy distance. I long for my mother in all these moorland scenes—such feasts of beauty to mind and eye. The next morning we walked to Troughend, the grim haunted house of the Border hero Percy Reed.[217] Then I went with 'Christie' to Percy's Cross, where Percy fell in the battle of Chevy Chase, and Witherington fought upon his stumps.[218] Altogether it is an enchanting neighbourhood, full of ballads and traditions.... I much enjoy, however, the comparative rest at Matfen, nine or ten hours being the least time I was out any day at Chesters or Otterburn. Lady Blackett has been telling me a very curious story—from her personal knowledge.
"Mrs. Bulman went up from Northumberland to London, taking her little child with her. The evening after she arrived at her London house, she had occasion to go downstairs, and at the foot of the stairs passed a man talking to her maid; at that time she happened to have a bank-note in her hand. Afterwards she went upstairs again, and put her child to bed. In a little while she went up to see if it was comfortable. When she went into the room, the child was in bed, but appeared to be in rather an excited state, and said, 'Mama, I feel quite sure that there is somebody under the bed.' Mrs. Bulman said, 'Nonsense, my dear; there is nothing of the kind: only you are over-tired; so go to sleep, and do not think of anything else foolish;' and she went downstairs.
"I don't know what the child did then, but when Mrs. Bulman went up again, there was no one under the bed, but the window was open, and the lock of the desk on the table had been tried.
"Many years afterwards, Mrs. Bulman had occasion to visit a London prison. When she was going away, the governor came to her and said that there was a man there who was under sentence of death, and that he could not account for it, but, having seen Mrs. Bulman pass as she went into the prison, he was exceedingly importunate to be allowed to speak to her, if it were only for a moment. 'Well,' said Mrs. Bulman, 'if it will be any comfort to the poor man, I am sure I shall be very glad to speak to him,' and she went to his cell. She did not recollect ever having seen the man before, but he said that as he was so soon to go into another world, it could not matter to him what he confessed now, and that he thought it might be some satisfaction to her to know what a very narrow escape she had once had of her life.
"He said he was in the house talking to her maid, having gone in to visit one of her servants, when she came downstairs with the bank-note in her hand, and that he could not say what tempted him, but that he had seized a knife and hidden himself behind a door till she passed on her way upstairs again. Then he found his way to her room and concealed himself under her bed. There he had heard her come in and put the child to bed and leave it, and then, amazed at the strangeness of his situation, he turned round. She came back, and he heard the child tell her that there was a man under the bed, and if at that moment she had looked under, he should have sprung out and murdered her. She did not, and afterwards hearing a noise downstairs, he thought it was better to make his escape, which he did by the window, leaving it open behind him."
"Wallington, Sept. 24.—On the way here I stopped to see Belsay, the finest of the Border fortresses, a grand old gothic tower, standing in a beautiful garden and amongst fine trees.
"Opening from the enclosed courtyard, which now forms a great frescoed hall in the centre of this house of Wallington, are endless suites of huge rooms, only partly carpeted and thinly furnished with ugly last-century furniture, partly covered with faded tapestry. The last of these is 'the ghost-room,' and Wallington is still a haunted house: awful noises are heard all through the night; footsteps rush up and down the untrodden passages; wings flap and beat against the windows; bodiless people unpack and put away their things all night long, and invisible beings are felt to breathe over you as you lie in bed. I think my room quite horrid, and it opens into a long suite of desolate rooms by a door which has no fastening, so I have pushed the heavy dressing-table with its weighty mirror, &c., against it to keep out all the nasty things that might try to come in. Old Lady Trevelyan was a very wicked woman and a miser: she lived here for many years, and is believed to wander here still: her son, Sir Walter, has never been known to laugh.
"Sir Walter is a strange-looking being, with long hair and moustache, and an odd careless dress. He also has the reputation of being a miser.[219] He is a great teetotaller, and inveighs everywhere against wine and beer: I trembled as I ran the gauntlet of public opinion yesterday in accepting a glass of sherry. Lady Trevelyan is a great artist. She is a pleasant, bright little woman, with sparkling black eyes, who paints beautifully, is intimately acquainted with all the principal artists, imports baskets from Madeira and lace from Honiton, and sells them in Northumberland, and always sits upon the rug by preference.
"There is another strange being in the house. It is Mr. Wooster, who came to arrange the collection of shells four years ago, and has never gone away. He looks like a church-brass incarnated, and turns up his eyes when he speaks to you, till you see nothing but the whites. He also has a long trailing moustache, and in all things imitates, but caricatures, Sir Walter. What he does here nobody seems to know; the Trevelyans say he puts the shells to rights, but the shells cannot take four years to dust."
"Sept. 26.—Such a curious place this is! and such curious people! I get on better with them now, and even Sir Walter is gruffly kind and grumpily amiable. As to information, he is a perfect mine, and he knows every book and ballad that ever was written, every story of local interest that ever was told, and every flower and fossil that ever was found—besides the great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers of everybody dead or alive. His conversation is so curious that I follow him about everywhere, and take notes under his nose, which he does not seem to mind in the least, but only says something more quaint and astonishing the next minute. Lady Trevelyan is equally unusual. She is abrupt to a degree, and contradicts everything. Her little black eyes twinkle with mirth all day long, though she says she is ill and has 'the most extraordinary feels;' she is 'sure no one ever had such extraordinary feels as she has.' She never appears to attend to her house a bit, which is like the great desert with one or two little oases in it, where by good management you may possibly make yourself comfortable. She paints foxgloves in fresco and makes little sketches à la Ruskin in the tiniest of books—chiefly of pollard willows, which she declares are the most beautiful things in nature. To see pollard willows in perfection she spent six weeks last spring in the flattest parts of Holland, and thought it lovely—'the willows so fine and the boat-life so healthy.' 'Well, you will go to the bad,' she said to me yesterday, because I did not admire a miserable little drawing of Ruskin: my own sketches she thinks quite monstrous.
"We went the day before yesterday to Capheaton, the home of the Swinburnes, a very curious old house, and Sir John Swinburne, a very pleasing young miser, is coming to dinner to-day. Yesterday we went through fog and rain to Camphoe, Kirk Whelpington, and Little Harle, a fine inhabited castle. Sir Walter made me wade through the Wansbeck as we came back!"
"Sept. 28.—The more one knows Sir Walter and Lady Trevelyan, the more one finds how, through all their peculiarities, they are to be liked and respected. Everything either of them says is worth hearing, and they are so full of information of every kind, that the time here has been all too short for hearing them talk.[220] On Thursday, Miss Ogle, the authoress of that charming novel 'A Lost Love,' came. She has lived here a great deal, and says the Wallington ghost is a lady with her head under her arm, who walks about at night. She has heard all the extraordinary rappings very often, and says they cannot be accounted for in any way, but she has never seen the lady.
"The library here is delightful, full of old topographical books and pamphlets; and sleek Mr. Wooster, with whites of his eyes turned up to the skies, is always at hand to find for you anything you want.
"On Friday Sir Walter took me a long drive through the beautiful forest-land called the Trench, and by Rothley Crags to Netherwitton, where the Raleigh Trevelyans live. Mrs. Raleigh Trevelyan, a stately and beautiful old lady, is the direct descendant of the Witherington who fought upon his stumps. She has pictures of Lord Derwentwater and his brother, and one of her ancestors concealed Simon, Lord Lovat, in his house for months: the closet where he was hidden is still to be seen, and very curious. Then we went to Long Witton, to Mrs. Spencer Trevelyan, a great botanist and eccentric person, who breakfasts at six, dines at twelve, teas at four, and goes to bed at seven o'clock.
"Yesterday Miss Ogle and I went to Harnham, where Mrs. Catherine Babington, a famous Puritan lady who was excommunicated, is buried in the rock; to Shortflat Tower, the old peel castle of the Dents; and to the Poind and his Man, Druidical antiquities, and Shaftoe Crag, a beautiful wild cliff overgrown with heather. The country round this is singularly interesting—the view from the church (Cambo), where we have just been, quite beautiful over the endless waves of distant hill."
"Warkworth, Oct. 2.—My mother will like to think of me with the Clutterbucks in this charming sunny old house, the most perfect contrast to Wellington; but if Sir Walter saw his house papered and furnished like those of other people's, he would certainly pine away from excess of luxury. I have spent two days with the Ogles, whom we have often met abroad, with their dark handsome daughters—dark, people say, because their grandmother was a Spaniard. They are proud of their supposed Spanish blood, and when Isabel Ogle married George Clayton, all her sisters followed in long black lace veils. Near their modern house is the old moated family castle of Ogle."
"St. Michael's Vicarage, Alnwick, Oct. 4.—I have been kindly received here by the Court Granvilles: he is a fiery, impetuous little man; she (Lady Charlotte) a sister of the Duke of Athole. The Duke of Northumberland sent for me to his hot room at the castle, where he sits almost immovable, fingers and toes swollen with gout, and talked a great deal about the importance of my work, the difficulty of getting accurate information, &c.; but I do not think he heard a word that I said in reply, for when he has the gout he is almost quite deaf. Then he sent for the Duchess, who good-naturedly knotted her pocket-handkerchief round her throat, and went through all the rooms to show me the pictures. We went again to dinner—only Sir Cresswell Cresswell, the famous judge, there, and Lady Alvanley, sister of the Duke of Cleveland. Sir Cresswell was most amusing in describing how, when a lady was being conveyed in a sedan-chair to a party at Northumberland House, the bottom fell out, and, as she shouted in vain to make her bearers hear, she was obliged to run as fast as she could all the way through the mire inside the shell of the chair."
"Blenkinsopp Castle, Oct. 11.—This is the castellated house of the Coulsons, in the upper part of South Tyne Valley—very large and comfortable. The owner, Colonel Coulson, is a great invalid, and his daughter-in-law, a daughter of Lord Byron, does the honours. We have made pleasant excursions to Gilsland Spa, and to Llanercost and Naworth, the latter—externally a magnificent feudal castle—the home of Belted Will Howard in mosstrooping times."
"Bamborough Castle, Oct. 17.—How enchanting it is in this grand old castle looking out on the sea, with all the Farne Islands stretched out as on a map. I think even the Mediterranean is scarcely such a beautiful sea as this, the waves are so enormous and have such gorgeous colouring. I have had delightful walks with the dear old cousin on the sands, and to Spindleston, where the famous dragon lived."
"Winton Castle, Tranent, Oct. 17, Evening.—As my mother will see, I have come here for holidays, and shall be glad of a day or two in which the mind is not kept in perpetual tension. I heard from Lady Ruthven that I was to meet Lord Belhaven at Prestonpans station, and had no doubt which was he—an old gentleman in a white hat with white hair and hooked nose. We drove here together, and very pleasant it was to exchange the pouring rain without for the large, low, old-fashioned drawing-room, with a splendid ceiling and sculptured chimney, thick Indian carpets, and fine old pictures and china. Soon Lady Ruthven and Lady Belhaven came in, calling out 'welcome' as they entered the room. The other guests are Lady Arthur Lennox and her youngest daughter, who looks, as Lady Ruthven says, 'just like a Watteau;' also Lord Leven, cousin of our hostess, and Miss Fletcher of Saltoun."
"Winton Castle, Oct. 20.—When I awoke on Saturday, I was surprised to see a fine old tower opposite my windows, with high turrets and richly-carved chimneys and windows; but the castle has been miserably added to. Lady Ruthven is most original, with a wonderfully poetical mind, and is very different from her regal-looking sister, Lady Belhaven, who, still very handsome, sweeps about the long rooms, and for whom 'gracious' is the only befitting expression. All the guests are pushed together by Lady Ruthven in a way which makes it impossible that they should not be intimate. For instance, as we went in to breakfast on Saturday, she said, 'Now, Mr. Hare, you are to sit next to Lord Leven, for you will not see any more of him; so mind you devote yourselves to one another all breakfast time.'
"On Saturday we all went to luncheon at Saltoun, the great place of the neighbourhood, where Mr. Fletcher lives, whose wife, Lady Charlotte, is one of Lady Ruthven's nieces. It is a large, stately, modern castle, containing a fine library and curious MSS. The tables were loaded with 'loot' from the Summer Palace in China.
"Yesterday we all went at twelve o'clock to the Presbyterian church at Pencaitland, one of the oldest in Scotland. The singing was beautiful, and we had an admirable sermon from the minister, Mr. Rioch, who came in the evening and made a very long 'exposition' to the servants."
"Oct. 21.—The Mount-Edgecumbes and I went to-day with Lady Ruthven to Gosford—her nephew Lord Wemyss's place, near the sea. I walked for some time in the shrubberies with Lady Mount-Edgecumbe, till we were sent for into the house. There we found old Lady Wemyss with her daughter, Lady Louisa Wells, and her daughter-in-law, Lady Elcho. The last is a celebrated beauty, and has been celebrated also for fulfilling the part of 'Justice' in a famous tableau. In ordinary life she is perfectly statuesque, with a frigid manner. She was very kind, however, and took us over the house, full of works of art, of which we had not time to see a tenth part, but there is a grand Pordenone."
"North Berwick, Oct. 23.—It has been charming to be here again with dear Mrs. Dalzel.... What a quaint place it is. Formerly every one who lived in North Berwick was a Dalrymple: there were nine families of Dalrymples, and seventeen Miss Dalrymples, old maids: the only street in the town was Quality Street, and all its houses were occupied by Dalrymples. North Berwick supported itself formerly upon its herring-fishery, and it is sadly conducive to strict Sabbatarianism that the herrings have totally disappeared, and the place become poverty-stricken, since an occasion in the spring when the fishers went out on a Sunday."
"Kings Meadows, Oct. 25.—This comfortable house of kind old Sir Adam Hay is close to Peebles. 'As quiet as Peebles or the grave,' is a proverb. The Baillie, however, does not think so. He went to Paris, and when he came back, all his neighbours were longing to know his impressions. 'Eh, it's just a grand place, but Peebles for pleasure,' he said. Ultra-Sabbatarianism reigns supreme. An old woman's son whistled on a Sunday. 'Eh, I could just put up wi' a wee swearing, but I canna thole whistling on the Sabbath,' she lamented. Another woman, being invited to have some more at a dinner given to some of the poor, answered, 'No, thank ye, mum, I won't have any more, mum; the sufficiency that I have had is enough for me.'"
"Wishaw House, Motherwell, Oct. 27.—When I came here, I found Lord and Lady Belhaven alone, but a large party arrived soon afterwards, who have since been admirably shaken together by their hostess. The place is almost in the Black Country, but is charming nevertheless. A rushing river, the Calder, dashes through the rocky glen below the castle, under a tall ivy-covered bridge, and through woods now perfectly gorgeous with the crimson and golden tints of autumn. Above, on either side, are hanging walks, and in the depth of the glen an old-fashioned garden with a stone fountain, clipped yew-trees, and long straight grass walks.
"We have been taken to Brainscleugh, a wonderful little place belonging to Lady Ruthven—a sort of Louis XIV. villa, overhanging the river Avon by a series of quaint terraces, with moss-grown staircases and fountains—more like something at Albano than in Scotland. Miss Melita Ponsonby, Sir Charles Cuffe, and I walked on hence to the old Hamilton Chase, full of oaks which have stood there since the Conquest, and part of the forest which once extended across Scotland from one sea to the other. It poured with rain, but we reached the place where the eighty wild milk-white cattle were feeding together. Then we pursued the rest of the party to Hamilton Palace, which is like a monster London house—Belgrave Square covered in and brought into the country. There are endless pictures, amongst them an awful representation of Daniel in an agony of prayer in the lions' den. 'It is no wonder the lions were afraid of him,' the Duchess of Hamilton overheard one of the crowd say as they were being shown round. In the park is a huge domed edifice something like the tomb of Theodoric at Ravenna. It was erected by the last Duke for himself, his son, grandson, and his nine predecessors. 'What a grand sight it will be,' he said, 'when twelve Dukes of Hamilton rise together here at the Resurrection!' He lies himself just under the dome, upon a pavement of coloured marbles and inside the sarcophagus of an Egyptian queen, with her image painted and sculptured outside. He had this sarcophagus brought from Thebes, and used frequently to lie down in it to see how it fitted. It is made of Egyptian syenite, the hardest of all stones, and could not be altered; but when dying he was so haunted by the idea that his body might be too long to go inside the queen, that his last words were, 'Double me up! double me up!' The last drive he took had been to buy spices for his own embalming. After he was dead, no amount of doubling could get him into the mummy-case, and they had to cut off his feet to do it![221] The mausoleum is a most strange place, and as you enter mysterious voices seem to be whispering and clamouring together in the height of the dome; and when the door bangs, it is as if all the demons in the Inferno were let loose, and the shriekings and screamings around you are perfectly terrific. Beneath lie all the house of Hamilton in their crimson coffins, which you survey by the light of a single tallow candle.
"Yesterday I went to Dalzell, the old fortified house of the Hamiltons, and we have also been taken to the Falls of the Clyde at Stonebyres, which were magnificent, the river tossing wildly through woods which now have all the gorgeous colouring of an Indian autumn."
"Ford Cottage, Nov. 5.—This is a charming little house, nestling at the foot of the castle-hill, and it has been an amusement to Lady Waterford to fit it up temporarily with the most interesting contents of the castle. The walls are hung with beautiful pictures and the rooms furnished with ivory and ebony cabinets, quantities of old china, tall glasses piled with ferns and flowers, old-fashioned tables and deep velvet arm-chairs. She will be here for another year probably, and thoroughly enjoys the life, saying that she never knew what it was to have a garden before.
"Dear old Lady Stuart is here in her deep mourning, and Lady Waterford, now her only remaining child, has been more closely united to her mother than ever since Lady Canning's death.[222]
"Lady Waterford is indeed perfectly delightful—brimming with originality and enthusiasm, and with the power—which so few people have—of putting all her wonderfully poetical thoughts into words, and so letting others have the benefit of them. Sometimes she will sit down to the pianoforte and sing in the most thrilling way—Handel or Beethoven, or old Spanish ballads—without having the music or words before her. At others she will draw, suddenly and at once, the beautiful inspirations which come to her. Last night it was a lovely child crowned and sporting with flowers, and four other sweet little maidens dancing round her with garlands; it was from the childhood of Mary Queen of Scots and her four Maries. She is never tired of hearing of people; she says she sees so few and knows so little of them now—places she does not care to hear about.
"In the afternoon we went up to the castle, which is entirely changed since I saw it last, having gone back from a gingerbread gothic house to the appearance of an ancient building. The drawing-room is beautiful, with its ceiling and ornaments copied from that at Winton. Lord Durham was drilling his volunteer corps before the castle, and a mock siege was got up, with a storming of the new bridge over the dene. Then we walked to a new lodge which is building. All around are improvements—church restored, schools built, cottages renewed, gardens made, and then the castle."
"Nov. 5 (Evening).—The hard frost last night preluded a bright beautiful day. Lady Waterford let me have the pony-carriage with two white ponies to go where I liked, and I went to a ruined peel at Howtell Grange, and then through hollows in the Cheviots to Kirk-Newton, where Paulinus baptized his Northumbrian converts. 'Oh! if my Lady were only here, for it is quite lovely!' exclaimed the coachman, as we turned the corner of the mountains. He told me about Lord Waterford's death, how he was riding by his side over the mountain when his horse stumbled. He got up safely, and then somehow overbalanced himself and fell from the saddle upon his head. They could not believe that he was hurt at first, for he lay in his hunting-coat quite unbruised and beautiful; but when they raised him up, his head fell down, for his neck was broken and he was dead. 'Then there was an awful wail,' said the man, 'though we could none of us believe it. Dr. Jephson rode on to break it to my Lady, and he met her driving her two white ponies up to the door, all gay and happy, and told her at first that my Lord had broken his thigh-bone and was very much hurt; but she saw by his face that it was worse than that, and said so, and he could not speak to her. Then she went away to her own room and locked herself in. When my Lord had been brought home and night came on, she ordered every one away from her, and she looked on his face once more, but what my Lady did that night we none of us knew.'
"She cannot bear a horse now: she has only this little pony-carriage.
"This afternoon I have been with her to her school. She is covering it with large pictures which have the effect of frescoes. All the subjects are Bible stories from the lives of good children. In the first, of Cain and Abel, the devout Abel is earnestly offering his sacrifice of the lamb; while careless Cain, attracted by the flight of some pigeons, looks away and lets his apples fall from the altar. All the children are portraits, and it was interesting to see the originals sitting beneath the frescoes, slates and pencils in hand.
"It seems to me as if Lady Waterford had become strangely spiritualised this year since Lady Canning's death. She is just what she herself describes Miss Boyle to have become, 'A calm seeker after good, in whatever way she may find it.'"
"Falloden, Nov. 7, 1862.—I have been most kindly received by Sir George and Lady Grey.... He has the reputation of being the most agreeable 'gentleman' in England, and certainly is charming, so cordial and kind and winning in manner.... We have been this evening to Dunstanborough—most lovely, the tall tower in the evening light rising rosy-pink against a blue sea."
"Roddam, Nov. 13.—I have been with Mrs. Roddam at Eslington, a large grey stone house on a terrace, with a French garden and fine trees. Hedworth Liddell received us, and then his many sisters came trooping in to luncheon from walking and driving. 'We are sure this is our cousin Augustus Hare: we saw you through the window, and were sure it was you, you are so like your sister.' ... They were much amused at my delight over the portraits of our ancestors."
"Chillingham, Nov. 14.—There is a large party here, including Captain and Mrs. Northcote, a very handsome, distinguished-looking young couple, and my hitherto unknown cousins, Lord and Lady Durham.[224] He has a morose look, which does him great injustice; she is one of Lord Abercorn's charming daughters—excessively pretty, natural, and winning."
"Nov. 15.—Each evening we have had impromptu charades, in which Lord Durham acts capitally. Yesterday we went to a review of his volunteer corps on Millfield Plain, and afterwards to tea at Copeland Castle, an old Border fortress on the Till, which the Durhams are renting. You would be quite fascinated by Lady Durham—'the little Countess,' as Lady Tankerville calls her. Lord Durham does not look a bit older than I, though he has seven children. They have given me a very cordial invitation to stay with them."
"Morpeth, Nov. 16.—We dispersed yesterday evening. Lord Tankerville wished me to have stayed, and it was very pleasant at the end of an enchanting visit to have one's host say, 'I am so very sorry you are going; and, though the Greys are very nice people, I quite hate them for taking you away from us.' They sent me in one carriage, and my luggage in another, to meet the coach at Lilburn. I had three-quarters of an hour to wait, and took refuge in a shepherd's hut, where the wife was very busy washing all her little golden-haired children in tubs, and putting them to sleep in box-beds."
"Morpeth, Nov. 19.—On Monday I got up in pitch darkness and went off at half-past seven by coach to Rothbury, a lonely little town amid moorland hills with sweeping blue distance. There I got a gig, and went far up Coquetdale to Harbottle, a most interesting country, full of peel towers and wild rocky valleys. Coming back, I stopped at Holystone, where a tall cross and an old statue near a basin of transparent water mark the place where Paulinus baptized three thousand Northumbrians. Then, in the gloaming, I saw the fine old Abbey of Brinkburn, close upon the shore of Coquet, celebrated in many old angling songs.
"To-day I have been with the Greys to Cresswell, the largest modern house in the county, with an old peel tower where an ancestress of the family starved herself to death after seeing her three brothers murder her Danish lover upon the shore."
Several more visits brought me home at the end of November, with an immense stock of new material, which I arranged in the next few months in "Murray's Handbook of Durham and Northumberland"—work for which neither Murray nor any one else gave me much credit, but which cost me great labour, and into which I put my whole heart.
| "Golden years |
| Of service and of hope swept over us |
| Most sweetly. Brighter grew our home, more dear |
| Our daily life together. And as time went by, |
| God daily joined our hearts more perfectly." |
| —B. M. |
"Look at a pious person, man or woman, one in whom the spirit sways the senses; look at them when they are praying or have risen from their knees, and see with how bright a ray of divine beauty their faces are illuminated: you will see the beauty of God shine on their faces: you will see the beauty of an angel. All those who in adoring humility partake of the Holy Sacraments are so united to God that the presence of the divine light is manifest upon their faces."—SAVONAROLA, Sermons.
| "God's in his heaven— |
| All's right with the world." |
| —BROWNING, Pippa Passes. |
WHEN I returned from the North in the winter of 1862-63, I was shocked to find how much a failure of power, which I had faintly traced in the summer, had increased in my dearest mother. But I cannot describe the unspeakable thankfulness I felt that the work which had taken me so much away from her during her four years of health was ended just when she needed me; that it would never be absolutely necessary for me to leave her again; and I inwardly vowed never again to undertake anything which should separate me from her. Some work which might be done at home would doubtless turn up, and meanwhile I had constant employment in the service and watchings which scarcely ever permitted me to be away from her side.
Meanwhile all the sympathy which I had to spare from the sick-room at home was called forth by the suffering of my sister, who had struggled bravely under the depression of her mother's ceaseless despair and wilful refusal to be comforted, but upon whom that struggle was beginning to tell most severely. My mother allowed me to have her at Holmhurst a great deal this winter, and she was no trouble, but, on the contrary, a constant source of interest to my mother, who, while deprecating the fact of her Roman Catholicism, became full of respect for her simple faith, large-hearted charity, and reality of true religion—so different from that of most perverts from the national faith of England. In her changed fortunes, accustomed to every luxury as she had been, she would only see the silver linings of all her clouds, truly and simply responding to Thackeray's advice—
"Come wealth or want, come good or ill,
Let young and old accept their part,
And bow before the Awful Will,
And bear it with an honest heart."
At Christmas my mother suffered terribly, and was so liable to a sudden numbness which closely threatened paralysis, that by day and night remedies had always to be prepared and at hand. In the last days of January she was moved to London, and immediately felt benefited; but the doctors who then saw my mother agreed with our old friend Dr. Hale at St. Leonards that it was absolutely necessary that she should go abroad. This gave rise to terrible anxiety. I remember how then, as on many other occasions when I was longing to stay at home, but felt certain the path of duty lay abroad, all my difficulties were enormously added to by different members of the family insisting that my mother ought to stay at home, and that I knew it, but "dragged her abroad for my own pleasure and convenience." This tenfold increased my fatigue when I was already at the last gasp, by compelling me to argue persistently to misinformed persons in favour of my convictions, against my wishes. On February 16 we left home, and went by slow stages to Hyères, whence we proceeded to Nice.
To my Sister.
"Pension Rivoir, Nice, March 16, 1863.—We stayed at Hyères ten days, but did not like the place at all, though it has a tropical vegetation, and there are pretty corkwoods behind it. The town is a prolonged village, clouded with dust and reeking with evil odours.... We took a vetturino from Les Arcs to Cannes, but found prices there so enormously raised, that we decided on coming on here. This place also is very full, but we like our tiny apartment, which has the sea on one side, and a beautiful view across orange-groves to the snow mountains on the other. The mother already seems not only better but—quite well! We have found a great many friends here, including Sir Adam Hay and all his family, and Lord and Lady Charles Clinton, the latter charming and most affectionately attentive to the mother."
The spring we spent at Nice is one of those I look back upon with the greatest pleasure—my mother recovered so rapidly and entirely, and was so pleased herself with her own recovery. The weather was beautiful, and as I was already in heart looking forward to drawing as the one lucrative employment which would not separate me from my mother, I devoted myself to it most enthusiastically, inwardly determined to struggle to get a power of colour which should distinguish me from the herd of sketchers and washers, and I made real progress in knowledge and delicacy. It was the greatest help to me in this, as it was the greatest pleasure in everything else, to have our dear old friend Lady Grey with her niece Miss Des Vœux settled close by us, and I constantly drew and made excursions with them, dining with them afterwards: my only difficulty being that my mother was then often left alone longer than I liked, with only Lea as a companion. During the close of our stay I had some really adventurous expeditions with Miss Des Vœux, Mrs. Robert Ellice, and Miss Ellice along the bed of the Var and up Mount Chauve and to Aspromonte; with Miss Des Vœux and the Stepneys to Carrozza and Le Broc, proceeding with the carriage as far as it would go, and then on chairs lashed upon a bullock-cart—the scenery most magnificent; and with a larger party to the glorious Peglione.
Addie Hay was often the companion of our excursions, and deeply attached himself to the mother, sitting by us for hours while we drew at Villeneuve or other mountain villages. His sister Ida did the honours at splendid parties which were given by Mr. Peabody the philanthropist, so I was invited to them. Mr. George Peabody—"Uncle George," as Americans used to call him—was one of the dullest men in the world: he had positively no gift except that of making money, and when he was making it, he never parted with a penny until he had made hundreds of thousands, and then he gave vast sums away in charity. When he had thus become quite celebrated, he went back to America, and visited his native place of Danbury, which is now called Peabody. Here some of his relations, who were quite poor people, wishing to do him honour, borrowed a silver tea service from a neighbour. He partook of their feast, and, when it was over, he looked round and said, "I am agreeably surprised to find that you are in such very good circumstances as to want nothing that I could do for you,"—and he did nothing for them.
There was, however, at least one very interesting story connected with George Peabody's life. He was going to Berlin for some important financial meeting, in which he was to take a prominent part. On the way his carriage broke down, and he was in despair as to how he was to get on, when a solitary traveller passed in a carriage and offered to take him up. Soon they began to converse. "I had a remarkably good dinner to-night," said George Peabody; "guess what it was."—"Well, I guess a good turkey."—"Better than that," said Peabody, slapping his companion on the knee. "Well, a piece of Welsh mutton."—"Better than that," with another slap; "why, I've had a prime haunch of venison from a Scotch forest." Soon they were approaching Berlin, and every one saluted the carriage as it passed. "May I ask to whom I am so much indebted for my drive?" said Peabody. "Well, guess," said his companion, as they were passing some soldiers who saluted. "Well, I guess you're a captain in the army."—"Better than that," said the stranger, slapping Peabody on the knee. "Well, perhaps you're a general."—"Better than that," with another slap. "Well, sir, I am—the Crown Prince of Prussia."
At Mr. Peabody's parties I always used to see the old King Louis of Bavaria, then a dirty dissipated old man, though Munich will ever bear witness to the great intelligence he showed in early life.
At dinner at Lady Grey's I used to meet Dr. Pantaleone, who was then practising at Nice as a Roman exile. Here are some fragments of his ever-amusing conversation:—
"What is gout, Dr. Pantaleone?"
"Why, the Clerici Canonici do say it is the divil, and the doctors do say it is the nerves, and the statesmen do say it is Lord Palmerston or Lord John Russell, as the case may be!"
"Have you studied the subject much?"
"Ah, yes! oh, it is beautiful to follow the gout. But I have felt it too, for my grandfather he did eat up all his fortune and leave us the gout, and that is what I do call cheating his heirs!"
"I have never had gout, but I have had rheumatism."
"Ah, yes; rheumatism is gout's brother."
————
"Why is Mr. B. in love with Miss M.?"
"Why, you see it is an ugly picture, but is beautiful encadré. She has £1500 a year—that is the cadre, and the husband will just step into the frame and throw the old picture into the shade?"
————
"They seem to be giving up the Bishops in Piedmont."
"Yes, but they must not do it: it is no longer wise. With us all is habit. We have now even been excommunicated for three years, and as we find we do as well or rather better than before, we do not mind a bit."
————
"I have often been miserable when I have lost a patient, and then I have cursed myself for wasting my time and sympathy when I have seen that the relations did not mind. It is always thus. Thus it was in that dreadful time when the Borghese lost his wife and three children. I was so grieved I could not go near the Prince. Some days afterwards I met him in the garden. 'Oh, M. le Prince,' I said, 'how I have felt for you!'—'Dr. Pantaleone,' he replied, 'if I could have them back again now I would not, for it was the will of God, and now I know that they are happy.' Then I did curse myself. 'Ah, yes, you are quite right, M. le Prince,' I said, and I did go away, and I never did offer condolences any more."
————
"Yes, that is where our King (Victor Emmanuel) goes when he wants to hunt. And when Azeglio wants the King back, he writes to his ministers, 'The tyrant wants to amuse himself,'—because his enemies do call him the tyrant."
————
"It is a dreadful thing not to remember. I had a friend once who married an Italian lady. One day they were at a party, and he went out in the course of the evening. Nothing was thought of it at the time; Italians often do go out. At last his wife became excited—agitated. They tried to calm her, but she thought he had poséd her there and gone away and left her for ever. She flew home, and there he was comfortably seated by his fireside. 'Oh, Tommaso, Tommaso!' she exclaimed. 'Che, che!' he said. 'Oh, why did you leave me?' she cried. 'Oh,' said he, striking his forehead, 'I did forget that I was married!'"[226]
————
"There was a poor woman whose son was dreadfully ill, and she wanted to get him a doctor; but somehow, instead of going for the doctor, she fell asleep, and dreamt that her son was ill, and that she was going for the doctor. She went first (in her dream) to the house of the first physician in the town, but, when she arrived, the door was crowded with a number of pale beings, who were congregating round it, and calling out to those within. So the woman asked them what they were, and they said, 'We are the spirits of those who have been killed by the treatment of this doctor, and we are come to make him our reproaches.' So the woman was horrified, and hurried away to the house of another doctor, but there she found even more souls than before; and at each house she went to, there were more and more souls who complained of the doctors who had killed them. At last she came to the house of a very poor little doctor who lived in a cottage in a very narrow dirty street, and there there were only two souls lamenting. 'Ah!' she said, 'this is the doctor for me; for while the others have killed so many, this good man in all the course of his experience has only sent two souls out of the world.' So she went in and said, 'Sir, I have come to you because of your experience, because of your great and just reputation, to ask you to heal my son.' As she talked of his great reputation the doctor looked rather surprised, and at last he said, 'Well, madam, it is very flattering, but it is odd that you should have heard so much of me, for I have only been a doctor a week.' Ah! then you may imagine what the horror of the woman was—he had only been a doctor a week, and yet he had killed two persons!... So she awoke, and she did not go for a doctor at all, and her son got perfectly well."
In May we went to spend a week at Mentone, seeing old haunts and old friends; thence also I went for three days with Lady Grey to S. Remo, where we drew a great deal, but I did not then greatly admire S. Remo. We stayed a few days at Arles, where M. and Madame Pinus, the landlord of the Hôtel du Nord and his wife, had become quite intimate friends by dint of repeated visits. Each time we stayed at Arles we made some delightful excursion: this time we went to S. Gilles. Then by a lingering journey, after our fashion of the mother's well-days, loitering to see Valence and Rochemaure, we reached Geneva, where we had much kindly hospitality from the family of the Swiss pasteur Vaucher, with whose charming daughter we had become great friends at Mentone two years before. We were afterwards very happy for a fortnight in the pleasant Pension Baumgarten at Thun, and went in einspanners in glorious weather to Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald. On our way north, we lingered at Troyes, and I also made a most interesting excursion from Abbeville to St. Riquier and the battlefield of Crecy, where the old tower from which Edward III. watched the battle still stood,[229] and the cross where the blind King of Bohemia fell amid the corn-lands.
It was the 9th of June when we reached Holmhurst, and on the 15th I went to Arthur Stanley's house at Oxford for the Commemoration, at which the lately married Prince and Princess of Wales were present, she charming all who met her as much by her simplicity as by her grace and loveliness. "No more fascinating and lovely creature," said Arthur, "ever appeared in a fairy-story." Mrs. Gladstone was at the Canonry and made herself very pleasant to everybody. "Your Princess is so lovely, it is quite a pleasure to be in the room with her," I heard her say to the Prince of Wales. "Yes, she really is very pretty," he replied.
Afterwards I went to stay with Miss Boyle, who had lately been "revived," and it was a most curious visit. Beautiful still, but very odd, she often made one think of old Lady Stuart de Rothesay's description of her—"Fille de Vénus et de Polichinelle."
To MY MOTHER.
"Portishead, June 27, 1863.—Miss Boyle is quite brimming with religion, and, as I expected, entirely engrossed by her works. She preaches now almost every night. She began a sort of convertive talking instantly. She asked at once, 'Are you saved?' &c. She seems to have in everything 'une grande liberté avec Dieu,' as Madame de Glapion said to Madame de Maintenon. She thinks Arthur an infidel, and said that there had been a meeting of six thousand people at Bristol to pray that his influence at Court may be counteracted. Speaking of this, on the spur of the moment she had up the servants and prayed for 'our poor Queen, who is in ignorance of all these things.' Then, at great length, for me, 'Thy child and servant who is just come into this house.' She said she had put off her meeting for the next day on my account, but I begged that she would hold it, even though the bills were not sent out.
"On Friday she did not appear till one. We dined at three, and then an 'Evangelist' came in, who also asked at once 'if I was saved?' and then knelt down and made a long prayer, 'O God, I thank Thee that I am a saved sinner,' with a sort of litany of 'Yes, bless the Lord,' from Miss Boyle. Then I was prayed for again: it felt very odd.
"Then we went off in a fly, with one of the maids and another Evangelist called Mr. Grub, a long drive through a series of country lanes to solitary farmhouses amongst the hills. It was like the description in 'The Minister's Wooing.' At one of the houses a young woman came out and said to me that she 'hoped we were one in Christ.'
"From a turn of the road I walked down to Pill, the rude town on the Avon where Miss Boyle preaches almost every evening to the wharfingers and sailors, nearly two hundred at a time. I saw her pulpit in the open air close to the river, with the broad reaches of the Channel and ships sailing in behind it. When she preaches there it must be a very striking scene. Numbers of people crowded round to ask—'Isna Lady Boyle a cooming down?'—and all the little children, 'Is Lady Boyle a cooming? Tell us, Mister, where's Lady Boyle?'
"When we returned to the other village, St. George's, Miss Boyle and her maid were sitting on a well in an old farmhouse garden, singing beautiful revival hymns to a troop of mothers and little children, who listened with delight. As the crowd gathered, she came down, and standing with her back against the fly, beneath some old trees in the little market-place, addressed the people. Then Miss Boyle prayed; then the Evangelist preached. Then came some revival hymns from Dick Weaver's hymn-book. The people joined eagerly, and the singing was lovely—wild, picturesque choruses, constantly swelled by new groups dropping in. People came up the little lanes and alleys, listening and singing. Great waggons and luggage-vans passing on the highroad kept stopping, and the carters and drivers joined in the song. At last Miss Boyle herself preached—most strikingly, and her voice, like a clarion, must have been audible all over the village. She preached on the ten lepers, and words never seemed to fail her, but she poured out an unceasing stream of eloquence, entreating, warning, exhorting, comforting, and illustrating by anecdotes she had heard and from the experiences of her own life. The people listened in rapt attention, but towards the end of her discourse a quantity of guns and crackers were let off close by by agents of a hostile clergyman (Vicar of Portbury), and a fiddle interrupted the soft cadences of the singing. On this she prayed aloud for 'the poor unconverted clergyman, that God would forgive him,' but when she had done, the people sang one of Weaver's hymns, 'He is hurrying—he is hurrying—he is hurrying down to hell.' Some of the clergy uphold her, others oppose. She has had a regular fight with this one. The meeting was not over till past nine; sometimes it lasts till eleven. The people did not seem a bit tired: I was, and very cold."
I seldom after this saw my old friend, Miss Boyle. I could not press her coming to Holmhurst, because she forewarned me that, if she came, she must hold meetings in the village. A sister of John Bright declared, "I always agree with my old gardener, who says 'I canna abide a crowing hen';" and latterly I have been of much the same opinion.
We left home again for Italy on the 26th of October. In those days there was no railway across the Mont Cenis, but my mother enjoyed the vetturino journey along the roads fringed with barberries. Beyond this, travelling became difficult, owing to the floods. At Piacenza we were all ejected from the train, and forced to walk along the line for a great distance, and then to cross a ford, which made me most thankful that my mother was tolerably well at the time.
JOURNAL.
"Nov. 7, 1863.—We left Bologna at 5 A.M. In the journey to Vergato the colouring was beautiful, the amber and ruby tints of autumn melting into a sapphire distance. At Vergato we engaged the coupé of the diligence, and had a pleasant passage over the Apennines, sometimes with four, sometimes with seven horses in the ascent. The richness of the autumnal glory was beyond description—a tossing torrent, rocky moss-grown forests of old oaks and chestnuts, their leaves golden in death: here and there thickets of holly and box: an old castle on a rock: a lonely old town (La Porretta) in a misty hollow: and then a grand view from the top of the pass over purple billowy mountains. The scenery becomes suddenly Italian—perfectly Italian—in the descent, cypresses and stone-pines, villas and towers, cutting the sky and relieved upon the delicate distance: and in the depth Pistoia, lying like a map, with dome and towers like a miniature Florence."
At the station of Ficulle near Orvieto, where the railway to the south came to an end altogether at that time, the floods were out all over the country, and there were no carriages—everything being quite disorganised. We arrived at a miserable little station, scarcely better than a small open shed, in torrents of rain, at twelve o'clock in the day, and had to wait till the same hour of the day following, when carriages would arrive from Orvieto. After some time my mother was conveyed to a wretched little inn, but it was necessary for some one to remain to guard the luggage, and knowing what a fearful hardship it would be considered by our cross-grained man-servant, John Gidman, I remained sitting upon it, without any food except a few biscuits, in pitch darkness at night, and with the swelching rain beating upon my miserable shed, for twenty-four hours. It was a very unpleasant experience.
When at length we got away, we had to take the road by Montefiascone and Viterbo, which was then almost untravelled, and the postboys took advantage of the utter loneliness of the road and disturbed state of the country to be most insolent in their demands for money. Sometimes they would stop altogether in a desolate valley and refuse to let their horses go an inch farther unless we paid a sort of ransom. On such occasions we always took out our books and employed ourselves till they went on from sheer weariness. We were never conquered, but it made the journey very anxious and fatiguing.
It was with real thankfulness that we reached Rome on November 12, and engaged the upper apartment of 31 Piazza di Spagna, our landlady being the pleasant daughter of Knebel the artist, who lived in some little rooms above us, with her brother Tito and her nurse Samuccia.
The first days at Rome this winter were absolute Elysium—the sitting for hours in the depth of the Forum, then picturesque, flowery, and "unrestored," watching the sunlight first kiss the edge of the columns and then bathe them with gold: the wanderings with different friends over the old mysterious churches on the Aventine and Cœlian, and the finding out and analysing all their histories from different books at home in the evenings: the very drives between the high walls, watching the different effects of light on the broken tufa stones, and the pellitory and maiden-hair growing between them.
We were also especially fortunate this winter in our friends. At first I much enjoyed very long walks with a Mr.[232] and Mrs. Kershaw, who lived beneath us. Taking little carriages to the gates, we wandered forth to the Aqueducts and Roma Vecchia, where we spent the day in drawing and picking up marbles, not returning till the cold night-dews were creeping up from the valleys, and the peasants, as we reached the crowded street near the Theatre of Marcellus, were eating their fritture and chestnuts by lamplight, amid a jargon of harsh tongues and gathering of strange costumes.
We saw much of the handsome young Marchese Annibale Paolucci di Calboli, in the Guardia Nobile, whose wife was an old friend of early Hurstmonceaux days, and whose children, especially the second son, Raniero, have always remained friends of mine. This is the family mentioned by Dante in "Purgatorio," xiv.—
"Questo è il Rinier; quest' è il pregio e l'onore
Della casa da Calboli."
Old Lady Wenlock[233] came to the Hôtel Europa close beside us, and was a constant pleasure. My mother drove with her frequently. She scarcely ever said anything that was not worth observing, and her reminiscences were of the most various kinds. She it was who, by telling my mother of her own strong wish and that of other people to possess some of my sketches, first suggested the idea of selling my drawings. We amused ourselves one evening by putting prices on the backs of sketches of the winter—highly imaginative prices, as it seemed to us. Some time afterwards Lady Wenlock had a party, and asked for the loan of my portfolio to show to her friends: when they came back there were orders to the amount of £60.
Other friends of whom we saw much this winter were old Lady Selina Bridgeman, sister of my mother's dear friend Lady Frances Higginson; and Lord and Lady Hobart. Lord Hobart was afterwards Governor of Madras, but at this time he was excessively poor, and they lived in a tiny attic apartment in the Via Sistina. At many houses we met the long-haired Franz Liszt, the famous composer, and heard him play. Mr. and Mrs. Archer Houblon also were people we liked, and we were drawn very near to them by our common interest in the news which reached us just after our arrival in Rome of the engagement of Arthur Stanley, just after his appointment to the Deanery of Westminster, to Lady Augusta Bruce (first cousin of Mrs. Houblon), the person whom his mother had mentioned as the one she would most like him to marry.
A little before Christmas—a Christmas of the old kind, with a grand Papal benediction from the altar of St. Peter's—Henry Alford, Dean of Canterbury, and his family came to Rome. With them I went many delightful expeditions into the distant Campagna: to Ostia, with its then still gorgeous marbles and melancholy tower and pine; to Castel Fusano, with its palace, like that of the Sleeping Beauty, rising lovely from its green lawns, with its pine avenue and decaying vases with golden-flowered aloes, and beyond all the grand old forest with its deep green recesses and gigantic pines and bays and ilexes, its deep still pools and its abysses of wood, bounded on one side by the Campagna, and on the other by the sea; to Collatia, with its woods of violets and anemones, and its purling brook and broken tower; to Cerbara, with its colossal caves and violet banks, and laurustinus waving like angels' wings through the great rifts; to Veii, with its long circuit of ruins, its tunnelled Ponte Sodo and its mysterious columbarium and tomb. Another excursion also lives in my mind, which I took with Harry and Albert Brassey, when we went out very early to Frascati, and climbed in the gorgeous early morning to Tusculum, where the little crocuses were just opening upon the dew-laden turf, and then made our way across hedge and ditch to Grotta Ferrata and its frescoes.
I have always found—at Rome especially—that the pleasantest way is to see very little, and to enjoy that thoroughly. "Je n'avale pas les plaisirs, je sais les goûter."
In the spring our sketchings and excursions were frequently shared by our cousins, Maria and Mary Shaw-Lefevre, who came to Rome with their maternal aunt, Miss Wright, whom I then saw for the first time, but who afterwards became the dearest of my friends—a nominal "Aunt Sophy," far kinder and far more beloved than any real aunt I have ever known.
But most of all does my remembrance linger upon the many quiet hours spent alone with the mother during this winter, of an increasing communion with her upon all subjects, in which she then, being in perfect health, was able to take an active and energetic interest.
Especially do I look back to each Sunday afternoon passed in the Medici Gardens, where she would sit on the sheltered sunny seats backed by the great box hedges—afternoons when her gentle presence, when the very thought of her loved existence, made all things sweet and beautiful to me, recalling Cowper's lines—
"When one that holds communion with the skies
Has filled her urn where these pure waters rise,
And once more mingles with us meaner things,
'Tis e'en as if an angel shook his wings;
Immortal fragrance fills the circuit wide,
And tells us whence her treasures are supplied."
These afternoons with the mother are my real Roman memories of 1863-64—not the hot rooms, not the evening crowds, not the ceremonies at St. Peter's!
This year I greatly wished something that was not compatible with the entire devotion of my time and life to my mother. Therefore I smothered the wish, and the hope that had grown up with it. Those things do not—cannot—recur.
One day in the spring, mother and I drove to our favourite spot of the Acqua Acetosa, and walked in the sun by the muddy Tiber. When we came back, we found news that Aunt Esther was dead. She had never recovered a violent cold which she caught when lying for hours, in pouring rain, upon her husband's grave. Her death was characteristic of her life, for, with the strongest sense of duty and a determination to carry it out to the uttermost, no mental constitution can possibly be imagined more happily constructed for self-torment than hers. My mother grieved for her loss, and I grieved that my darling had sorrow.... How many years of heartburnings and privation are buried for ever out of sight in that grave! Requiescat in pace. I believe that I have entirely forgiven all the years of bitter suffering that she caused me. "He who cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself: for every man hath need to be forgiven," was a dictum of Lord Herbert of Cherbury. I believe that I really feel this; still "les morts se prétent aux réconciliations avec une extrême facilité," as Anatole France says.[236]
We did not go to many of the services. The most impressive processions we saw were really those of the bare-footed monks who followed the funerals, many hundreds of them, each with his lighted candle: we used to hear their howling chant long before they turned the corner of the Piazza di Spagna.
To my Sister.
"31 Piazza di Spagna, Rome, Feb. 1864.—Manning is indefatigable in proselytising. I once went to hear him preach at San Carlo: anything so dull, so wholly unimpassioned, I never heard. There was a great function at the Minerva the other day as a protest against Renan. Michelangelo's statue of Christ was raised aloft and illuminated. A Dominican friar preached, and in the midst of his sermon shouted, 'Adesso, fratelli miei, una viva per Gesù Cristo!' and all the congregation shouted 'Viva.' And when he finished, he cried 'Adesso tre volte viva per Gesù Cristo!' and when they were given, 'E una viva di più,' just as if it were a toast. The Bambino of Ara Cœli has broken its toe! It was so angry at the church door being shut when it returned from its drive, that it kicked the door till one of its toes came off, and the monks are in sad disgrace.
"The old Palace of the Cæsars, as we have always called it, is being superseded by immense scavi, opened by the French Emperor in the Orti Farnesiani: these have laid bare such quantities of old buildings and pavements, that the Orti are now like a little Pompeii."
We left Rome before Easter, and spent it quietly at Albano, where we had many delightful days, with first the Hobarts and then the Leghs of Booths in our hotel, and I made charming excursions up Monte Cavi and round the lake of Nemi with Alexander Buchanan and the Brasseys. On Good Friday there was a magnificent procession, the dead and bleeding Christ carried by night through the streets upon a bier, preceded and attended by monks and mutes with flaming torches, and followed by a wailing multitude. In the principal square the procession stopped, the bier was raised aloft, and while the torchlight flamed upon the livid features of the dead, a monk called upon the people to bear witness and to account for his "murder."
At Sorrento we spent a fortnight at the Villa Nardi, with its quiet orange-grove and little garden edged with ancient busts overlooking the sea. At Amalfi, the Alfords joined us. We went together to Ravello. I remember how the Dean insisted on calling the little dog that went with us from the inn "Orthodog," and another dog, which chose to join our company, "Heterodog," on the principle of Dr. Johnson, who explained the distinction by saying, "Madam, orthodoxy is my doxy, and heterodoxy is any other person's doxy."
As we returned through Rome we stayed at the Palazzo Parisani, and much enjoyed the luxury of the large cool rooms, where we lived chiefly on riccotta and lettices. One day as we came in, the porter gave us a black-edged letter. It was the news that poor "Italima" was released from all her sorrows. For my sister, to whom Madame de Trafford had written exactly foretelling what was going to happen, one could only give thanks (though she truly mourned her mother); but it was strangely solemnising receiving the news in "Italima's" own rooms, where we had seen her in her utmost prosperity. It was a fortnight before Esmeralda could send us any details.
"34 Bryanston Street, May 9, 1864.—Your long-expected letter came this morning. I had been waiting for it every day, every hour. The illness was so short, and the sense of desolation so terrible afterwards, it seems strange to have lived. On the Thursday the nuns of the Precious Blood came to dinner, and were alarmed by seeing a change in Mama. She talked cheerfully to them, but when I left the room, she said to the Superior, 'I am really ill,' but this was not told me till afterwards. I sent for Dr. Bell. He said at once, 'It is bronchitis, but there is no danger, nothing to be feared.' On Friday, Mama was up as early as usual. Father Galway came to see her, also Lady Lothian. Mama was cheerful, and they saw no cause for anxiety. Every hour made me more anxious. Mama kept saying, 'Esmeralda, you cannot keep quiet, what is the matter with you? I am not ill.' On Saturday I thought Mama worse, and more so on Sunday, though she got up and came downstairs. Lady Lothian came at two o'clock, then Father Galway. Mama talked to Father Galway about her past life, and seemed quite cheerful. She sat up till nine o'clock. When Mama was in bed, she said, 'I am better, I think; go to bed, you are so tired, and do not get up again.' I went to my room and wrote a letter to Father Galway, as I dreaded that a change might take place in the night, and wished that the letter might be ready to send. I went to Mama several times.... It was at two o'clock that she laid her hand upon my head and said, with a great effort, 'Esmeralda, I am going from you.' ... In a few minutes she began to say the Gloria. I repeated the Belief, the Our Father, and the Hail Mary.... Soon after five o'clock Father Galway was here, and then Lady Lothian came with a nun of the Misericorde as a nurse. Mama was then better, and seemed surprised to see Father Galway. I remained praying in the next room with the nun and Lady Lothian. At seven, I went in to Mama. She did not then believe she was dying, but said she was ready to make her last confession. The nuns of the Precious Blood had brought the relic of the True Cross. At a quarter past eight o'clock Father Galway had heard Mama's confession; he then said she must be raised before she could receive the Last Sacraments. We all went into the room. Lady Lothian made every effort to raise Mama. She stood on the bed, and tried to raise her; it was no use; we all tried in turn. The nun of the Misericorde suggested raising Mama on sheets. It must have been dreadful agony. There were a few deep moans, but at last the nuns and Lady Lothian did raise Mama. Then she received Extreme Unction; the nuns, Lady Lothian, and I kneeling around. Father Galway approached the bed, and said to Mama that she was going to receive the Body and Blood of our Lord—'Could she swallow still?' She said 'Yes' audibly. She fixed her eyes on Father Galway; her face was for the instant lighted up with intensity of love and faith. There was a pause. Her breathing had in that moment become more difficult. Father Galway said a second time the same words, and again, with a great effort, Mama said 'Yes.' She then received the Holy Viaticum, and in that solemn moment her eyes opened wide, and a beautiful calm peaceful look came over her countenance,—and this calm look never left her through all the long hours till half-past three o'clock, when she breathed her last. When she was asked anything, she always answered, 'Pray, pray.' Once she opened her eyes wide, and with a long parting look said, 'Do not worry,'—she passed her hand over my head: she liked to see me kneeling by her side.
"Francis did not arrive till Mama had received the Last Sacraments. I met him on the stairs, and said, 'Francis, you are too late.' He staggered against the wall, and with a cry of agony exclaimed, 'It is impossible.' Father Galway was then saying the prayers of the agonising, the responses being taken up by the nuns and Lady Lothian. Lady Williamson and Lady Georgina Fullerton had also arrived, but I do not think Mama knew them. At two o'clock Mama asked for Lady Lothian, for she always missed her when she left the room and asked for her back again, asked her to pray, and tried hard to say something to her about me. I led Francis into the room, and Lady Lothian said to Mama, 'Francis, you remember Francis,' and Mama said 'Yes,' and then she blessed him. Francis buried his head in his hands, his whole frame quivering with sobbing. Mama fixed her eyes on him with a kind parting look, and then closed them again. Lady Lothian then said, 'William' (for he and Edith had come), and Mama said 'Yes,' and she opened her eyes again and blessed William. Father Galway at intervals took up the prayers for the dying,—and then, at last, while Francis, William, Auntie, and Lady Lothian were kneeling at the foot of the bed, and the nuns supporting Mama, the words were heard—'Go forth.' There was a slight, hardly audible, rattle in Mama's throat. Father Galway turned round to me, and said, 'Now you can help her more than you did before,' and began the prayers for the dead—the five joyful mysteries of the Rosary. The overpowering awe of that solemn moment prevented any outburst of grief; a soul had in that instant been judged. For long I had prayed that Mama might make a good death, and this prayer was answered. All Father Galway's devotion before and afterwards to each and all of us,—all Lady Lothian's untiring kindness, I can never tell you, it was so beautiful. Then came long days of watching by the body. The nuns of the Precious Blood sent their large crucifix and their high silver candlesticks; the room was hung in black and white. Auntie is sadly altered, but always patient and self-sacrificing. I was with Lady Lothian a week; how that week went by I cannot tell, and now there are lawyers. I long for rest. There is such a blank, such a loneliness. I like to be alone with our Blessed Lord, and to shut out the world."
"May 18.—Probably I have told you everything up to the time of the death, three weeks last Monday, and still I can hardly realise it. Those last hours are so vivid. My thoughts are going back. Was there anything that could have been done that was not done to save Mama's life? was there anything she wished for that was not done? because her breathing was so difficult she could only articulate the shortest words. There was one sentence she tried to say to Lady Lothian, and over and over again she began it with such an anxious look that Lady Lothian should understand it, but it was impossible. It began with Es ... da, and ended with her, but the intermediate words were lost.
"After all was over, Lady Lothian took me by the hand and led me gently to the sofa in the other room. After some time the nun of the Miséricorde fetched me into the room of death, and we began to light torches round the bed, and watch those dear remains, and there we watched and prayed for the dead for long, long hours. I ordered a person to watch from eleven at night until the morning, when the nun of the Miséricorde went in. She had been resting in my bedroom next door, and we had been taking up alternately, in the stillness of the night, the prayers for dear Mama. Then began the watching through the day. The Abbé de Tourzel, Father Galway, William, Edith, Lady Lothian, and Lady G. Fullerton came in turn to watch, and so the day passed, and the night, and Tuesday. On Tuesday evening Francis came up. The whole room had been transformed. When he entered the door, he stopped and looked around, then he went round the bed, stooped over Mama, and said, 'Oh sister, Mama does not look dead,' then he sat down, buried his head in his hands, and there he remained for an hour and a half without moving. And then he left, and others came and joined in the Rosary and Litany for the dead, and then came the second night, and on Wednesday there were watchers through the day. On Wednesday I first felt the great fatigue, but that day also passed praying and watching. The next day Lady G. Fullerton came and took me to her house while those dear remains were laid in the coffin. In the evening the nun who was watching would not let me see Mama again, but I got up early the following morning and went into the room, and I cannot tell you what the agony of that moment was:—I became senseless and was carried out. The coffin was closed and stood in the middle of the room, which looked like a chapel. The crucifix stood at the head of the coffin, huge silver candlesticks near and around,—the room draped in black and white, and a bouquet of fresh flowers at the head of the coffin. Watchers succeeded each other, Miss Turville several times, Mrs. Galton, and so through Thursday and Friday. On Friday evening Lady Lothian took me away.
"The body was carried to the church at Farm Street at half-past eight on Friday evening, as it was my wish that it should remain before the Blessed Sacrament throughout the night. Low Masses commenced at seven o'clock, at which time persons began to assemble. At ten o'clock were the Requiem and High Mass. The coffin was placed on a catafalque in front of the high altar, surrounded by burning tapers. Francis was on the right, William on the left, the four nuns at the foot, Lady Williamson, Lady Hardwicke, Sir Hedworth, Lord Normanby, Col. Augustus Liddell, Victor Williamson, and many others, stood near them. The chapel was full, the wailing chant very impressive. There was one person, an old man tottering with grief, whom every one saw, and every one inquired who he was. At eleven o'clock six bearers came up the centre of the church, and slowly the coffin was carried out. The family followed. Lady Lothian came out of one of the seats and implored me not to follow to the cemetery. The crowd closed in behind the coffin. Lady Lothian and I remained in the church; after a time we returned to her house. Everything appeared indistinct from that time. Now William will tell the rest.
(Continued by William.)—"The four carriages started along the road; by the side ran the weather-beaten white-haired gentleman, and every one still inquired who he was. We reached Kensal Green at half-past one. The coffin was carried into the chapel, and laid upon another catafalque, where it was asperged. After a very impressive oration by Father Galway, the procession left the chapel headed by the four nuns. Then came the priests, then all the others following the coffin, and last of all the white-haired unknown. As the coffin was lowered, the responses were chanted by the nuns, and at the same time a gleam of sunshine burst forth, being the only one that appeared, throwing a strong light over everything.
"That day the nuns and Father Galway went to see my sister, who was terribly exhausted. On Monday morning the white-haired unknown came to Bryanston Street and asked for Miss Hare. He was sent on to Lady Lothian. Sister was alone (now she dictates the rest).—The door opened, and as I looked, I saw a white-haired old man, who seemed almost as if he had not strength to come forward. I went up to him. Tears were streaming down his face; he clasped my hands in his, and exclaimed, 'Ah! Mademoiselle!' and his sobs choked him and prevented him from saying any more, and I, in my turn, exclaimed, 'Oh! Lamarre, c'est vous!' It was indeed Lamarre, our old cook from Palazzo Parisani! His was the most touching sorrow I ever saw. 'Celle que j'ai servi, celle que j'ai véneré pendant tant d'années, j'ai voulu lui rendre ce dernier homage de mon devoir. J'ai respecté votre douleur dans l'église, et j'ai suivi le cortège à pied jusqu'au cimetière. J'ai desiré voir la fin.' As Lamarre leaned over me, he was trembling from head to foot. I made him sit down by the fireside, and then we talked more calmly. Only when he spoke of Victoire and her terrible grief, all his sorrow burst out again, and large tears trickled down his cheeks. It was such a sad parting when he went. But I was comforted in feeling how Mama had been loved, how much she had been esteemed in her life, how many there were who were deeply attached to her, who felt the sorrow as I felt it. Then came the days of long letters of condolence from France, from Italy, from Pisa, from Victoire, whose heart seemed breaking, and where the funeral mass was said with great pomp, sixty of the Pisan clergy attending, who sent me a list of their names. At Rome the Duchess Sora will have a funeral mass said at San Claudio, and all the clergy and friends who knew Mama well will be present to offer up their prayers."
According to Roman custom, the death was announced to acquaintances by a deep mourning paper inscribed:—
"Have pity on me, have pity on me, at least you, my
friends."—JOB xix. 21.
Of your charity pray for the soul of
MRS. ANN FRANCES HARE,
(Widow of Francis George Hare, Esq., brother of the late
Archdeacon Hare of Lewes, Sussex), who departed this life,
after a short illness, on the 25th of April 1864, aged sixty-three
years, fortified with all the rites of Holy Church. On
whose soul sweet Jesus have mercy.
———
Requiescat in pace. Amen.
———
"Afflicted in few things, in many shall they be well rewarded,
because God has tried them."—Wisdom, iii. 5.[238]
It was Mr. Trafford who responded to the announcement of the death which had been sent to Madame de Trafford:—
"Château le Beaujour, par Onzain, Cher et Loire, ce 1 Mai 1864.—Croyez, ma chère Demoiselle, que nous partageons bien votre douleur, mais femme propose, et Dieu dispose. Vous savez que Madame de Trafford avait prévu ce qui est arrivé.... Madame de Trafford vous dira encore 'Espérance et Confiance.'
"E. W. Trafford." To My Sister.
"Florence, May 22, 1864.—This morning we have received your most touching account of the last hours, of which we had so longed to know something. You may imagine with what breathless interest we have followed every detail.
" ... I have seen poor Mr. Landor several times. He has a small lodging in the Via della Chiesa, where he 'sits out the grey remainder of his evening,' as Coleridge would describe it. He is terribly altered, has lost the use of his hearing and almost of his speech, and cannot move from his chair to his bed. I think he had a very indistinct recollection who I was, but he remembered the family, and liked to say over the old names—'Francis, Augustus, Julius, I miei tre imperatori. I have never known any family I loved so much as yours. I loved Francis most, then Julius, then Augustus, but I loved them all. Francis was the dearest friend I ever had.' He also spoke of the Buller catastrophe. 'It was a great, great grief to me.' I did not tell him what has happened lately; it was no use, he can live so short a time.[239]
"When he last left the Villa Landore, it was because Mrs. Landor turned him out by main force. It was a burning day, a torrid summer sun. He walked on dazed down the dusty road, the sun beating on his head. His life probably was saved by his meeting Mr. Browning, who took him home. After some time, Browning asked to take him to the Storys' villa at Siena, and he stayed with them a long time. Mrs. Story says that nothing ever more completely realised King Lear than his appearance when he arrived, with his long flowing white locks and his wild far-away expression. But after a day of rest he seemed to revive. He would get up very early and sit for hours at a little table in the great hall of the villa writing verses—often Latin verses.
"One day he wrote, and thundered out, an epigram on his wife:—
'From the first Paradise an angel once drove Adam;
From mine a fiend expelled me: Thank you, madam.'
"Then he would tell the Storys interesting things out of his long-ago, describing Count D'Orsay and Lady Blessington, with Disraeli sitting silently watching their conversation, as if it were a display of fireworks. He was always courteous and kind—a polished gentleman of the old school. At last Browning arranged for him to go to a lodging of his own, but he went to spend their little girl's birthday with the Storys. He walked to their villa along the dusty road in his old coat, but when he came in, he unbuttoned it, and with one of his old volleys of laughter showed a flowered waistcoat, very grand, which 'D'Orsay and he had ordered together,' and which he had put on in honour of the occasion.
"After he was living in Florence, Mrs. Browning told him one day that she had just got Lord Lytton's new book 'Lucile.'—'Oh, God bless my soul!' he said, 'do lend it to me.' In an hour he sent it back. 'Who could ever read a poem which began with But?' However, he was afterwards persuaded to read it, and shouted, as he generally did over what pleased him, 'Why, God bless my soul, it's the finest thing I ever read in my life.'
"Mrs. Browning did not think he was properly looked after at Florence, and sent her excellent maid, Wilson, to care for him. But it did not answer. Wilson cooked him a most excellent little dinner, and when he saw it on the table, he threw it all out of the window; it was too English, he said."
In returning north from Italy, we made an excursion to Courmayeur, driving in a tiny carriage from Ivrea along the lovely Val d'Aosta, and lingering to sketch at all the beautiful points. In France we had an especially happy day at Tonnerre, a thoroughly charming old town, where the people were employed in gathering the delicious lime-flowers which lined the boulevards, for drying to make tisanes.
There was a subject of painful interest to us during this summer, which it is difficult to explain in a few words. My sister's letter mentions how, when Italima was dying, there was one thing which she tried over and over again to say to the Dowager Lady Lothian, who was with her, and which Lady Lothian and the other bystanders vainly endeavoured to understand. It began with "Esmeralda" and ended with "her," but the intermediate words were lost. We naturally explained it to mean "Esmeralda will be very desolate when I am gone; you will look after her."
After Italima's death, Esmeralda had moved from Bryanston Street to a house in Duke Street, Manchester Square, which was kept by Mrs. Thorpe, the faithful and devoted maid of Italima's old friend Mrs. Chambers. Here my sister had every comfort, and might have had rest, but one day her brother William came to visit her, and broke a blood-vessel while he was in the house. His wife was sent for, and for several weeks he hovered between life and death; indeed, he never really recovered from this attack, though he was able to be moved in a month and lived for more than three years. The fatigue of her brother's illness entirely prostrated Esmeralda, who was already terribly shaken in health by the fatigue of the strange watchings, enjoined by Catholicism, which followed her mother's death.
It was about August that I received a letter from my Aunt Eleanor Paul begging me to come to London immediately, for something most extraordinary and trying had happened. When I went, I found my sister looking terribly ill, and my aunt greatly agitated. My aunt said that two days before Mrs. Beckwith had been to visit my sister; that, supposing she was come to talk of Catholic matters, she had not paid any especial attention to what they were saying, and, owing to her deafness, she consequently heard nothing. That she was suddenly startled by a scream from my sister, and looking up, saw her standing greatly excited, and Mrs. Beckwith trying to soothe her; that she still supposed it was some Catholic news which had agitated my sister, and that consequently she made no inquiries.
The next day, Esmeralda went out to drive with Mrs. Beckwith, and when she came back she looked dreadfully harassed and altered, so much so that at last my aunt said, "Now, Esmeralda, I am quite sure something has happened. I stand in the place of a mother to you now, and I insist upon knowing what it is."
Then my sister said that Mrs. Beckwith had startled her the day before by saying that, as she had been walking down Brook Street, Madame de Trafford had suddenly appeared before her, and, looking back upon all the events connected with the past appearances of Madame de Trafford, the news was naturally a shock to her. After driving with Mrs. Beckwith, she had returned with her to her hotel, and while she was there the door suddenly opened, and Madame de Trafford came in.
The malady from which Esmeralda had been suffering was an extraordinary feeling, a sensation of burning in her fingers. The doctor whom she had consulted, when this sensation became so acute as to prevent her sleeping, said it arose from an overwrought state of nerves, possibly combined with some strain she might have received while helping to move furniture to turn the room into a chapel, after her mother's death. When Madame de Trafford came into the room at the hotel, my sister instantly, as usual, jumped up to embrace her, but Madame de Trafford put out her hands and warded her off with a gesture of horror, exclaiming, "Ne me touchez pas, ma chère, je vous en supplie ne me touchez pas: c'est vos doigts qui sont en feu. Ah! ne me touchez pas." And then she became terribly transfigured—the voice of prophecy came upon her, and she said, "When your mother was dying, there was something she tried to say to Lady Lothian, which you none of you were able to hear or understand. I, in my château of Beaujour in Touraine, I heard it. It echoed through and through me. It echoes through me still. For three months I have struggled day and night not to be forced to tell you what it was, but I can struggle no longer; I am compelled to come here; I am forced away from Beaujour; I am forced to England against my will. When your mother was dying she saw the future, and said, 'Esmeralda will soon follow me: I shall not long be separated from her.' And you will follow her," shrieked Madame de Trafford, her eyes flaming, and every nerve quivering with passion. "You will follow her very soon. Only one thing could save you: if you were to go to Rome before the winter, that might save your life; but if not, you must—die!" And then Madame de Trafford, sinking down suddenly into an ordinary uninspired old woman, began to cry; she cried and sobbed as if her heart would break.
When my aunt heard what Madame de Trafford had said, she felt the injury it might do to my sister's impressible nature, and she was very angry. She felt that, whatever her impulse might have been, Madame de Trafford ought to have conquered it, and she determined to see her and to tell her so herself. Very early the next morning she went to the hotel where Madame de Trafford was and asked to see her. She was refused admittance, but she insisted upon waiting, and she did wait, till at last she was let in. Madame de Trafford was then quite composed and calm, very courteous, very kind, very like other people, and my aunt said that in entering upon her subject, it was like accusing a sane person of being perfectly mad. But suddenly, whilst they were talking, Madame de Trafford glided round the table, and standing in front of the fireplace, seemed to rise out of herself, and in her terrible voice, every syllable of which was distinctly audible to my deaf aunt on the other side of the room, exclaimed these words—"Votre nièce est malade; elle sera encore plus malade, et puis elle mourira," and having said this, she went out—she went entirely away—she went straight back to France. She had fulfilled the mission for which she came to England, and the next day she wrote from Beaujour in Touraine to pay her bill at the hotel.
Aunt Eleanor said that to her dying day that awful voice and manner of Madame de Trafford would be present to her mind.
Looking back upon the past, could Esmeralda and her aunt disbelieve in the prediction of Madame de Trafford? Had not my sister in her desk a warning letter which had told the day and hour of her mother's death? and how true it had been! Yet at this time her going to Rome seemed quite impossible; she could not go away whilst all her law affairs were unwound up, indeed even then in the most critical state: besides that, she had no funds. But in November, three suits in Chancery were suddenly decided in her favour. By two of these my sister recovered £8000 of her mother's fortune; by the third she secured £3000 from the trustees who had signed away her mother's marriage settlement. So she and her aunt immediately started for Rome, accompanied by Clémence Boissy, the old maid of her childhood, whom she had summoned to return to her immediately on her recovering an income. I will give a few extracts from Esmeralda's letters after this:—
"Paris, Nov.—At last we did start. But what a packing! what a confusion!... Yesterday I saw Madame Davidoff,[241] as enthusiastic as ever, but she was so rushed upon from all quarters, that I could not get a quiet talk. I also saw the Père de Poulevey, the great friend of the Père de Ravignan, who wrote his life.... And now you will say this is a very cheerful letter, and on the contrary I feel very sad, and very sad I felt at the Sacré Cœur and at S. Roch this morning. Everything I see brings back the past."
"Dec. 8, 1864, Maçon.—How astonished you will be to see the date of this place. 'Why are you not in Rome by this time?' you will exclaim. Because I was so exhausted when we arrived here that Auntie agreed that the only thing to do was to take a long rest, give up the Mont Cenis, and proceed slowly by Nice and Genoa.
Anne F. M. L. Hare."Villefranche, which is about an hour's drive from Ars, is on our way to Lyons. If the road is not a heavy one, Auntie and I shall spend the Feast of the Immaculate Conception there next Thursday, and then proceed on our journey. The mistress of the hotel here has been backwards and forwards to Ars for upwards of twenty-five years, and constantly talked to the Curé d'Ars and heard him preach. 'Vous ne pouvez pas vous imaginer,' she says, 'ce que c'était que d'entendre le Curé d'Ars en chair; on fondait en larmes, on croyait entendre les paroles de notre Seigneur quand il enseignait le peuple. C'était peu de paroles, mais cela remuait jusqu'à fond de l'âme. "Oh, mes enfants," disait le Curé, "si vous pouviez voir le bon Dieu comme je le vois, combien peu de chose seraient à vos yeux les choses de cette terre. Ah! si vous connaissiez l'amour de Dieu!" Et puis les larmes coulaient le long de ses joues. Il pleurait toujours quand il parlait de l'amour de Dieu. Ce n'était pas un grand orateur que l'on écoutait. Oh! non, Mademoiselle, c'étaient seulement quelques paroles qui allaient droit au cœur. Vous deviez l'entendre quand il faisait son catéchisme à midi, à chaque jour un sujet nouveau. L'église était toujours pleine. Il y'a vingt-cinq ans, il y a même trente ans, l'on parlait du Curé d'Ars et on allait à Ars. Le Curé restait dans son confessional jusqu'à minuit, quelquefois jusqu'à une heure de matin. Alors il sortait de l'église pour prendre deux heures de repos. Quatre femmes de la campagne se mettaient aux quatre coins pour empêcher le monde de passer, car, au moindre bruit, M. le Curé se levait et sortait de suite: ces femmes de la campagne étaient bien dévouées.
"'Un jour que j'étais dans l'église d'Ars, le Curé s'écriait, "Laissez passer cette dame," designant du doigt une dame au chapeau verte—"laissez la passer." Un jour une autrefois il me vit; il dit à la foule qui se pressait autour de lui, "Laissez passer cette dame, car elle n'est pas d'ici, il faut qu'elle parte,"—et ainsi j'ai pu m'approcher et lui parler. J'allais voir le Curé d'Ars bien malade d'une maladie des nerfs à la suite de la maladie de ma fille. "Vous êtes bien souffrante," dit le Curé, "vous ne voulez pas encore mourir; c'est pour vos enfants que vous desirez vivre: c'est bien," dit il, "c'est bien; vous serez encore malade aussi longtemps que vous l'avez été, et puis vous serez bien." En effet, il y'avait huit mois que je souffrais, et huit mois après je fus guérie—tel que M. le Curé d'Ars m'avait dit.'
"'Le Vicaire-Général,' said the mistress,'m'a raconté ceci lui-même, avec des larmes aux yeux. Il a logé ici une nuit: c'est alors qu'il me l'a raconté. "Madame," dit il, "je ne pouvais croire à tout ce que j'entendis d'Ars. Je croyais que ces paysans étaient exaltés. Je voulus donc voir en personne: je me rendis à Ars. J'arrivai donc à Ars. Il y'avait beaucoup de monde. J'y suis resté deux jours. Voici ce qui est arrivé. Je quittais l'église avec M. le Curé. J'allais avec lui vers sa petite maison. En arrivant, la vieille cuisinière ou bonne du Curé vient à notre rencontre. 'Ah! M. le Curé,' dit elle, 'nous n'avons plus rien, nous ne pouvons plus donner.'—'Donnez,' répondit M. le Curé, 'donnez toujours.'—'Mais nous ne pouvons pas,' dit encore la vieille femme, 'il n'y a rien, rien,' répetait elle. M. le Curé était vif. Combien il lui a couté pour pouvoir se modérer—'Donnez, donnez toujours par poignées,' dit il encore. 'Comment,' répondit la vieille, 'comment voulez-vous que je donne: il n'y a rien?' "C'est alors," dit M. le Vicaire-Général, "que j'ai dit au Curé, 'Je ferai un rapport à Monseigneur l'Evêque, je suis sûr qu'il vous enverra pour vos pauvres.' Le Curé ne répondit pas; il fit comme un mouvement d'impatience. 'Montez au grénier,' dit il à la vieille cuisinière, 'et donnez, donnez toujours aux pauvres.' Cette fois elle obéit. Elle court, elle ouvre la porte du grénier. Elle descende aussi vite; le grénier était tout plein. 'Ah, M. le Curé, si c'est ainsi,' dit elle, 'nous pouvons toujours donner.' Ce fait," dit M. le Vicaire, "je l'ai vu de mes yeux, et les larmes remplissaient ses yeux en me le racontant."'
"Miraculous cures are still constantly occurring. Clémence is going to-morrow to find out for me a boy whose limbs were distorted and who was made whole. I wish to hear from his own lips about the wonderful cure; but here people are accustomed to all this, and any particular miraculous cure does not strike them as extraordinary. The facts in this case are that the boy was the son of a baker, eight years old, who, with limbs all distorted and suffering acutely, was carried by his parents to Ars. The Vicar-General and several of the clergy were at the church-door when the carriage drove up with this poor cripple in it. His mother carried him to the altar-rail and endeavoured to place him on his knees, but the boy could hardly keep himself in a kneeling posture owing to his distorted limbs, and seemed to swing first to the right and then to the left. When mass was ended he said, 'I am better,' and was led, being supported, to the hotel, where he was laid upon a bed. His mother, remaining in the room, after a while saw him looking upwards intently, and for a long time he continued as if gazing at something above him. She called her husband and said, 'Come and see our child looking upwards; what is he looking at?' Suddenly the boy turned towards his mother and said, 'Lift me off the bed; I think that I am well and that I can walk,'—and so it was: she lifted him on to the floor, and the boy was cured, and has been well from that hour, and lives opposite this hotel at the baker's shop.
"The mistress told me—'Un jour le Curé d'Ars alla voir un curé de Lyon qu'on dit être saint. "Vous prendrez ma place," dit il. "Vous ferez encore plus de conversions."' I am going to Lyons to try to find out this curé. At Maçon also there is a certain 'Curé de S. Pierre,' who is greatly beloved, and of whom many beautiful stories are told.
"I think of you at different times in the day, and try to picture you, sometimes in the study, sometimes reading to Aunt Augustus, sometimes late in the evening sitting on the large sofa, with all your manuscripts on the table, and good Lea coming in to put up the curtains. When I think of all the late family troubles, I try to remember that God never allows anything to happen, however painful, unless it is for our good. It depends on ourselves to make use of every trial, so I trust that you may be able to forgive and forget—the last is the more difficult.
" ... You expect too much good from—— Do not expect too much. We must leave those to flutter like sparrows who cannot soar like eagles. It is S. Ambrose who says so."
My sister next wrote from Avignon:—
"Dec. 11, 1864.—Not further than Avignon! I was ill at Lyons and could not go on. There I had a most agreeable visitor, a M. Gabet, very zealous in the œuvres de la Propagation de la Foi. He spent two evenings with us, and told us much that was very interesting. He told me that he had lately received a donation from Dahomey, and he corresponds with missionaries in every part of the world. Auntie went up to the convent to fetch two friends of mine who were staying there, and I have been given a small medal of the Curé d'Ars blessed by himself."
My sister did not reach Rome till the second week in January.
"Jan. 16, 1865.—We arrived late on Tuesday night, coming voiturier from Leghorn, two long days, and very fatiguing. When we arrived at Leghorn a violent storm was raging, and we were obliged to give up going by sea, only sending Leonardo with the luggage. Auntie, Victoire, Clémence, and I travelled in a tolerable carriage. There are so few travellers that way, that at Orbetello, where we slept, the excitement was intense, the women wishing to examine dress and coiffure, to know the ultima moda. The carriage was quite mobbed, the voiturier having declared it was a gran signora. 'La vogliamo vedere,' the people cried out, and pushed and struggled. It seemed so strange to return to a country where so little could create such an excitement. I was carried upstairs, so terribly tired with the incessant shaking. We slept also at Civita Vecchia, whence Victoire and Clémence went on to Rome by an early train, Auntie and I following late. It was quite dark as we drove up to the Parisani, and the streets seemed perfectly silent. The porter came out saying 'Ben tornata,' and then his wife, with a scarlet handkerchief over her head, exclaiming 'Ben tornata' also, and we came upstairs without being heard by any one else. I rushed through the rooms, throwing open one door after another. In the little sitting-room Clémence and Victoire were sitting together, a look of misery on both faces. When I reached my own room I fell upon a chair: I could scarcely breathe. I heard Victoire cry out,'Mon Dieu! courage; c'est la volonté de Dieu: l'heure de votre mère a sonné, l'heure aussi du mari de Clémence a sonné.' She poured something down my throat and rubbed my hands, and brought me round by degrees. Clémence was sobbing violently for the old husband, whose death she had learnt on her arrival; Auntie was standing looking from one to the other, as if she did not realise how terrible was that evening: she had hoped that the joy of seeing Rome again would make me forget what was sad. Poor Victoire had made one great effort, and then she could scarcely speak for hours. I never saw such devotion to the memory of a relation or friend as her devotion to the memory of dear Mama; and then there was so much to remind her also of the good Félix, gone to his rest since our Roman home was broken up. I had dreaded this arrival for months, and had been glad to put it off from week to week, till I could put it off no longer. Now it is a pleasure to Victoire to unpack Mama's things and bring them to me, one after another, her eyes often filled with tears, and then she says, trying to compose herself, 'Que la volonté de Dieu soit faite.' And yet I cannot wish dear Mama back again. What I had lived for was that deathbed—that it should have God's blessing and that her soul should be saved. I used to think how glorified that soul might be, after so much suffering, if only at death resigned. But now I am going back to past thoughts, instead of telling my Augustus about the present.
"The old beggar-woman at San Claudio rushed towards me. 'L'ho saputo,' she said,'quella benedetta anima!' and she cried also, and then the sacristan of San Claudio, and he told me how Mama had died on one of the great days of San Claudio—the feast of Notre Dame de Bon Conseil—our Lady's altar under that title being the altar where Mama had knelt for so many years: all have been struck by this."
"Feb. 9.—It is, as you say, a gathering up of the fragments that remain. I am beginning to feel the sense of loneliness in these desolate rooms less, though I still feel it very much. I do not wish that anything should be different from what God has willed it I used to tell Mama when we were so poor how strange it was that I never felt poor. She used to say that was the great difference between herself and me, that she felt poor and I did not; why not she could never understand. I feel quite certain that Mama would never have liked Rome again; probably she never would have returned here, and perhaps it was necessary that through suffering she should be prepared for death by being detached from the things of life.
"Most of the Romans have called, some paying long visits—Duchess Sora, Princess Viano, Prince Doria, Dukes Fiano and Sora. In fact, a day never passes without two or three visitors. I have made three devoted friends—the Princess Galitzin; the Padre Pastacaldi, a venerable ecclesiastic of Pisa, who is anxious to further my views in establishing a particular association for raising funds for the Church; and lastly, Don Giovanni Merlini, the friend of 'the Venerable'[243] for thirty years, who has already paid me four visits. These visits are quite delightful: I always feel I am in the presence of a saint. His language is most beautiful. Yesterday he gave me his blessing in the most solemn, earnest manner, laying his hand on my head. I have heard from him so much of the Venerable del Bufalo.... A great storm has swept over the nuns of the Precious Blood: it nearly swept them out of England, but instead of that they are to move to the Italian Church of S. Pietro in Bloomsbury. I have had a great deal of correspondence about them."
"March 4.—The friend of the Venerable[244] came to-day, and we planned together work for the nuns in London,—a great work I have wished to see established since early in 1858. Again he gave me his solemn blessing. He spoke of poverty—voluntary poverty, but said that all were not called to that 'spogliamento.' Then I told him that I had also been poor, and he looked around at the decorations of the room and said simply 'Iddio ci ha rimediato.' His is certainly a beautiful face from its expression; there is so much light about it, and such simplicity and humility. Pierina[245] certainly ought to be saint-like, since she has been trained to a religious life by such a man."
"March 9.—During my mother's illness I often thought of the 80,000 who die daily, and who have to appear before the judgment-seat and who are found wanting. Sometimes, when I am alone, I think how in every moment which I am idling away a soul has been judged, and perhaps a prayer could have saved that soul. Oh! in your watchings beside the sick-bed, ask forgiveness for the souls that are then passing away from the earth, that they may be counted amongst the blessed for eternity.... It is strange what mental agony one can live through. A sort of supernatural strength is given when it is required, and is it not another proof of the watchful tenderness of our Blessed Lord? It is so true, that when a soul is ready for the change, death is only an entering on the perfected life.... I believe that God has still blessings left for my brother: His blessings can never be exhausted."
"May 3.—How you will envy me when you hear that the saint of Acuto, the Rev. Mother-General of the Precious Blood, is coming to Rome at the end of the week and is coming to see me. The Father-General came to give me this welcome news, when I was wondering and planning how I could get to Acuto with my weak back. I have begged for two visits at least.... I have constant letters from the Rev. Mother of the Precious Blood in London about the new work of her nuns. I have been thinking of writing the life of the Venerable del Bufalo. Don Giovanni Merlini, the Father-General, promises help and materials, and the Italian life is very poor. The Taigi and Bufalo lives would come out so well together, as they lived at the same time, and died, I believe, in the same year, though quite independent of each other; but I have not the gift of writing—there is the difficulty.
"On the 25th there was an anniversary High Mass and a very beautiful choir for dearest Mama, Monseigneur Level attending, and many friends. Mrs. Monteith sat next to me, and felt it so much, she cried nearly the whole time. It is so beautiful this love for the dead in the Catholic Church.
"I have had a letter from Mrs. Wagner, who says just that which struck me in one of Father Galway's sermons, when he spoke of parents' sorrow at the loss of their children, that they are to look upon them as gifts lent for a time. She says, 'We do not repine, but render back with thankfulness the gift lent us for a season.'
"To-day I had a beautiful simple note from the Father-General of the Precious Blood. I wrote to thank him for several things he had sent me. His answer was, 'Do not thank me; it suffices me that you love our Lord Jesus Christ. I bless you from my heart. Pray for me miserable.' I thought how my Augustus would have liked this note."
My sister during the whole of this winter very seldom left the house, and never went into society. Political differences, however, rendered Roman society at this time less pleasant than before. Esmeralda wrote—"The usual conversation goes on, but all parties are divided and contradictory: the Pope (Pius IX.) alone is perfectly calm, and trusts in Providence whilst the world is raging and storming and plotting." If Esmeralda went out, it was generally to the Villa Ludovisi, where the Duke and Duchess Sora were living in a sort of honourable banishment, the Duke's parents, the Prince and Princess Piombino, having been exiled to Tuscany. The Duchess Sora used to talk to my sister of the patriarchal life in her great "villa," where there were so many small farmhouses and cottages within the grounds, that it gave her occupation enough to visit their inmates and learn their characters. She said that she brought up her children amongst the people within the walls of the villa, that they might thus early learn to know thoroughly those who would depend on them afterwards. She let them call one man after another to work in their little gardens, that they might thus make individual acquaintance with each. On Good Friday, when the chaplain called in all the work-people to prayer, there were seventy in the chapel, including the Duke and herself, and all, as it were, one great family.[246]
One of the people who most rejoiced over Esmeralda's return to Rome was Giacinta Facchini, commonly known as "the Saint of St. Peter's." This extraordinary woman lived for forty years in St. Peter's without ever leaving it, devoting herself to incessant prayer and sleeping in a cell in one of the pillars. When people had any particular object in view, they used to go down to St. Peter's and ask her to pray for it. Esmeralda used constantly, during her prosperity, to go to visit her in St. Peter's, and she would remain with her for hours. At length one day the confessor of the saint came to her and said that now, though she had lived in St. Peter's for forty years, she would be showing a far more real devotion to God and a more lowly spirit if she were to break through the life which was beginning to make her celebrated, and return to the humble service of God in the world. Giacinta Facchini obeyed, and after that she often used to go to see my sister at the Palazzo Parisani. But she still spent the greater part of her time in St. Peter's, where I have often seen her quaint figure, in a half nun's dress, bowed in prayer before one of the altars, or perfectly prostrate on the pavement in silent adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
Here are a few extracts from Esmeralda's private meditations at this time:—
"Let me offer myself continually with all I have for the greater glory of God, remembering the words of St. Ignatius, that 'having received everything from God, we ought to be ever ready to render back all that He has given us.' The propensity most opposed to the reign of Jesus in our souls is the want of resolution in all matters connected with spiritual advancement. Kneeling at the foot of the cross, let me make war against all my evil propensities; that I may be purified and strengthened in God's love, let me seek to detach myself from everything, exterior and interior, that separates me from God.'
"Self-love must be overcome by mortification of self, by asking of God to give us His love, to fill us with His love, for if the love of God fills our hearts, self-love must be rooted out. Let me ask of our Lord that I may have the same resolution in spiritual matters, and in the carrying out and on of a spiritual life, which I have where a temporal matter is concerned. Oh! with what zeal and earnestness can I pursue a temporal object, with the same zeal and earnestness may I carry out my resolutions for a spiritual life."
"Jan. 14, 1865.—Unless we can build up a solitude in our hearts, completely detaching ourselves from the love of everything in this world, we can never hope to attain to that spiritual joy which is a preparation for the life of Jesus in our souls, a preparation for the resurrection to eternal life."
"March 4.—Where there is such a strong attachment to this life, my will cannot be perfectly united to the Divine. Oh! how many steps there are in the ladder of a spiritual life! Detachment from this life must gradually lead to the union of my will with the Divine and to the entire indwèlling of the love of Jesus in my soul."
"March 17.—By the light of the wounds of Jesus Christ, may I search the innermost folds of my heart, and cast out all that is contrary to charity and humility. 'We must study in the book of Charity more than in any other: that book teaches us all things;' these are the words of S. Dominic."
"March 30.—May filial love of God take the place of servile fear in our hearts; then will our Lord draw nigh to us and replenish us with His grace. When filial love has closed the door against all earthly thoughts, then shall we return into that inward solitude in which our Lord loves that we should dwell, to seek Him and commune with Him."
"April 1.—I ask for the grace of a pure love of God. The more we can leave off thinking of ourselves, the nearer we shall attain to that union with our Lord which the saints speak of—loving Him only and entirely, because He first loved us. In proportion as our confidence in God increases, and we can lay aside all confidence in ourselves, we shall attain purity of intention in all our thoughts, words, and actions. Let us seek that purity of intention which can only follow confidence in God, and can only exist in those souls which unite themselves entirely to God."
"April 22.—Day by day I leave at the foot of the cross something more of myself. I cannot live again the time that is no longer mine. We are constantly journeying on to our last end, so let us strive in our spiritual life truly to lay at the foot of the cross something of that which binds our wills to ourselves and to creatures, and thus free our will from all that hinders its perfect union with the will of our Lord Jesus Christ."
I have been making a long digression from my personal story, but Esmeralda, in her gentle patience and ardent search after all things high and holy, had become so greatly endeared to us in the last few years, that her life was almost ours. And indeed all those things are ever a part of life which are a constant part of thoughts and conversation.
In the summer of 1864 we had a delightful visit at Holmhurst from Dean Alford and his family. He read Tennyson's "Guinevere" aloud to us in the garden, and was at his very best, full of anecdote and fun. I remember his description of a trial for murder which resulted in a verdict of manslaughter owing to the very effective evidence of a Somersetshire peasant. "He'd a stick and he'd a stick, and he hit he and he hit he, and if he'd ha hit he when he hit he, he'd ha killed he and not he he."
In the autumn, while I was staying with Mr. Stephen Lawley at Escrick near York, I had much conversation with his charming old mother, Lady Wenlock.[247] Here are some notes of what she told me:—
"I once saw Lord Nelson. It was when I was quite a little child. The maids took me to church at St. George's, and there I saw the wonderful little man, covered with orders and with one arm. They told me it was Lord Nelson, and I knew it was, for his figure and prints were in all the shop-windows.
"I remember well the battle of Trafalgar. It was the Euryalus, Captain Blackwood, that brought the news, and, oh dear! the sensation. I was seven years old then, but I knew the names of all the ships and captains. My sister was then the mistress of my father's house, and I was sent for down to her. She was not up, and the newspaper was lying on the bed. 'Oh, my dear,' she said, 'my father has sent me up the newspaper, and we have taken twenty ships of the line, but—Nelson is dead!' Child as I was, I burst into tears; one had been taught to think that nothing could go on without him.
"I cannot quite forgive Dean Trench his book.[248] Nelson was the one hero of his time, and it was a pity to bring up the bad vulgar side again and not to let it sleep.... The Lady Carysfort the book mentions was my aunt. My cousins were quite devoted to Mrs. Trench, and have often told me how enchanted they felt when she came back to England."
————
"King George III. used to be very fond of driving about in Berkshire with the Queen and visiting the families in the neighbourhood of Windsor—those whom they used to honour with their notice. He often came to my grandfather,[249] who was gouty with the gout of that day, which prevented people from rising, so that he was not able to get up when the King came in. The King and Queen always came quite simply in a carriage and four with the prickers riding before in crimson liveries. There was a particular point in the avenue at which the prickers were visible from the windows, and when they were seen, my grandfather used to ring the bell and ask if there was a round of beef in the house. He was generally answered in the affirmative, and then it was all right, for none of the royal party took luncheon, only the Queen used to have a particular kind of chocolate brought to her: my father generally offered it on a tray, after they had been about half-an-hour in the house. They used to take an interest in everything, and if any one ventured to rehang their pictures, they would say, 'Mr. So-and-so, why have you rehung your pictures?' I remember the King one day asking my grandfather if he had read the memoirs which every one was talking about at that time. They were those of the Duc de St. Simon, La Grande Mademoiselle, &c., and my father said no, he had not seen them. The King came again within the fortnight, and my grandfather did not see him coming down the avenue, nor did he know the King was in the house, till there was a kind of fumbling outside the door, and the King, who would not let any one come to help him, opened the door, with a great pile of volumes reaching from his waist to his chin, saying, 'Here, Mr. Grenville, I have brought you the books we were talking about.' But as the King came through the door, the books slipped and fell all about on the floor: my grandfather could not move, and the King began to pick them up, till some one came to help him and put them on the table for him.
"The scene on the terrace at Windsor on Sundays was the prettiest thing. It was considered proper that every one in the neighbourhood who could should go; those who were in a position of life to be presented at court stood in the foremost rank. The presence of the King was announced by the coming of 'Lavender,' a kind of policeman-guard, who used to clear the way and always preceded the royal family; he was the only kind of guard they had. The Queen wore evening dress, a sort of cap with a string of diamonds, and a loose flowing kind of gown; there was no such thing then as demi-toilette. After her came the princesses, or any of the princes who happened to have come down from London, or, on fine days, some of the Cabinet Ministers. The royal family stopped perpetually and talked to every one. I remember the King coming up to me when I was a very little girl, and dreadfully frightened I was. 'Well, now,' said the King, 'and here is this little girl. Come, my dear, take off your bonnet,' he said (for I wore a poke), and then he added, 'I wanted to see if you were like your mother, my dear.'
"It was Miss Burney who gave the impression of Queen Charlotte as being so formidable. Nothing could be more false; she was the kindest person that ever lived, and so simple and unostentatious. The fact was that Miss Burney had been spoilt by having been made a sort of queen in Dr. Johnson's court. The day 'Evelina' came out Dr. Johnson said to her, 'Miss Burney, die to-night,' meaning that she had reached the highest point of fame which it was possible to attain. Queen Charlotte made her one of her readers, for she was passionately fond of being read to while she worked. But Miss Burney was one of those people afflicted with mauvaise honte. She could not read a bit, and the Queen could not hear a word she said. 'Mama the Queen,' said the Duchess of Gloucester to me, 'never could bear Miss Burney, poor thing!' So the Queen invented some other place in her extreme kindness to Miss Burney, to prevent having to send her away, and in that place Miss Burney was obliged to stand.
"An instance of Queen Charlotte's extreme kindness was shown when she made Lady Elizabeth Montagu one of her ladies-in-waiting, out of her great love to Lady Cornwallis. When Lady Elizabeth arrived at court, the Queen sent for her and said, 'My dear, you have no mother here, so I must beg that you will consider me as your mother, and if you have any trouble or difficulty, that you will come to me at once.' When Lady Elizabeth went to her room, she found the bed covered with new things—new dresses, a quantity of black velvet to make the trains which were worn then, and a great many ornaments. 'My dear,' said the Queen, 'you will want these things, and it will be a year before your salary is due; I thought it might not be convenient to you to buy them just now, so you must accept them from me.'
"Another day, when Lady Elizabeth had been ill in the evening and unable to go with the Queen to a concert, early in the morning she heard a knock at her door while she was in bed, and the Queen came in in her dressing-gown, with what we called a combing-cloth (which they used because of the powder) over her shoulders, and all her hair down. 'May I come in, Lady Elizabeth?' she said. 'I heard you were ill, and there is nothing stirring to-day, so I came to beg that you will not think of getting up, and that you will send for everything you can wish for. Pray think of everything that it is right for you to have.'"
"Mrs. Fry came to Escrick once, and was pleased to see our gardens and the few little things we had to show her. 'Friend Caroline, I like thy pig-styes,' she said."
During this and the following summer I was often with my sister in London, and saw much of her friends, persons who have been entirely lost to me, never seen again, since the link which I had to them in her has been broken. Thus at Esmeralda's house I often saw the gentle sisters of the Precious Blood and their sweet-looking Mother, Pierina Roleston. She was utterly ignorant of worldly matters, and entirely governed by her priests, but her own character was of a simplicity much like that of the Curé d'Ars. She once described to me Maria de Matthias, and the story of the foundation of her Order.
"Oh, I wish you could see the Mother-General: she is so simple, such a primitive person. When she wants anything, she just goes away and talks to our Blessed Lord, and He gives it to her. Sometimes the nuns come and say to her, 'What can we do, Mother? we have no flour, we cannot bake;' and she answers, 'Why should you be troubled? Are not the granaries of our Master always full? We will knock at them, and He will give us something.'
"One day there was nothing at all left at Acuto: there was no bread, and there was no money to buy any. But Mother-General had just that simple faith that she was not at all troubled by it, and she even brought in five additional persons, five workmen who were to make some repairs which were necessary for the convent. When they came, she made the nuns come into the chapel, and she said, 'Now, my children, you know that we have nothing left, and we must pray to our Master that He will send us something;' and she herself, going up to the altar, began to talk to Our Blessed Lord and to tell Him all her needs. 'Dear Lord,' she said, 'we have nothing to eat, and I am just come to tell you all about it, and to ask you to send us something; and I am in debt too, dear Lord. I owe twenty-five scudi for your work; will you send it to me?' and so she continued to talk to Our Blessed Lord, just telling Him all she wanted.
"At that moment there was a knock at the door, and a young man put a paper into the portress's hand, only saying these words—'Pray for the benefactor.' The portress brought the paper to the Mother-General in the chapel, and she opened it and said,'My children, give thanks; the Master has sent us what we asked for.' It was the twenty-five scudi. Mother-General was not surprised. She knew that our Blessed Lord heard her, and she felt sure He would answer her. Soon after the convent bell rang for the dinner-hour. The nuns were coming downstairs, but there was nothing for them to eat. The Mother-General said, however, that the Master would send them something, and indeed, as they reached the foot of the stairs, the door-bell rang, and a large basket of food was left at the door, sent by some ladies in the neighbourhood. 'See how our Lord has sent dinner to us,' said the Mother-General.
"The Mother-General is an educated person, really indeed quite learned, considering that in the time of her youth it was not thought well to teach girls much, for fear they should learn anything that is evil.
"When the Mother-General was a young person, as Maria de Matthias in Vallecorso, she was very worldly and gay. But she heard 'the Venerable' (Gaspare del Bufalo) preach in Vallecorso, and, as he preached, his eye fixed upon her, he seemed to pierce her to the very soul. When she went home, she cut off all her hair except the curls in front, and turned her gown inside out, and wore her oldest bonnet. She thought to please our Lord in this way, and she remained for seven years shut up in her father's house, but all that time she was not satisfied, and at last she went to 'the Venerable' and asked him what she was to do, for she wished to do something for our Blessed Lord. And the Venerable said to her, 'You must go to Acuto, and there you will be told what you must do.' She had never heard of Acuto, but she went to a friend of hers, also named Maria, and inquired where Acuto was, for she was ordered to go there. The friend said she would go with her, and ordered out her horse, but the horse was a wild horse,[250] and she did not know how to ride it. Maria de Matthias, however, went up to the horse and patted it, saying, 'You must not be wild, you must become calm, because it is necessary that we should go to Acuto: you and I have to go in obedience, and I cannot walk, for it is twelve hours' journey.' When the Mother had thus spoken to the horse, it became quite mild, and, hanging down its head, went quite gently, step by step, and the Mother rode upon it. When they had gone half-way, she wished that the other Maria should ride, and the Mother got off, and Maria climbed upon a wall to mount the horse, but with her the horse would not move an inch, and then Maria felt it was not our Lord's will that she should mount the horse, and the Mother continued to ride to Acuto. When they arrived, and the Mother got off the horse, it became again immediately quite wild, and when Maria attempted to touch it, it was in such a fury that it kicked and stamped till the fire came out of the ground.
"The priest of Acuto was waiting to receive the Mother, and she remained there teaching a school. She believed at first that this only was her mission, but in a short time the children began to call her 'Mother,' and to ask her to give them a habit. The first nun who received the habit was a little child of eight years old, who is now Mother Caroline, Superior of the Convent at Civita Vecchia.
"The Mother-General often preaches, and she preaches so powerfully that even the priests crowd to hear her. When the people see her come forward to the edge of the altar-steps and begin to speak, they say 'Hark! the great Mother is going to talk to us,' and there is fixed silence and attention. She generally begins by addressing them as 'Brothers and Sisters,' and then she teaches them.
"The Mother-General cannot write. When she is obliged to write a letter, she kneels down and kisses the feet of the Crucifix and asks Our Lord to help her, and letters of hers which she has written in this way, in the most beautiful hand, are preserved. When there are no flowers for the altar she says, 'Our Master's flowers are always blooming; He will send us some;' and that day flowers come.
"After her death Sister Caterina appeared three times to Sister Filomena, and begged her to tell the Mother not to be troubled, for that the Sisters would suffer yet for four months longer, and then that they would have all that they needed. That day four months Lady Londonderry gave us a house.
"'The Venerable' left a prophecy that an English subject should come to join his Order in Italy, and then go back to found the female Order in England. When I took the veil, it was remembered that the Venerable had said this.
"Don Giovanni Merlini used to accompany 'the Venerable' on his missions. 'The Venerable' used to say, 'Take care of Don Giovanni, for he is a saint.' Don Giovanni is still living at the little church of the Crociferi near the Fountain of Trevi."
At this time my sister went frequently to see and consult Dr. Grant, the Bishop of Southwark. She believed him to be quite a saint, and fancied that he had the gift of healing, and she delighted to work for others under his direction. But Esmeralda was always willing to believe in or to find out saints of the nineteenth century. It was by Dr. Grant's advice, I believe, that she went to visit a nun of saintly attributes who lived near him, the Sœur Marie Anne. Of this visit she wrote: "Sœur Marie Anne was quite full of canonizations and of all that was going on about the Venerable Labre, because she said that, when she was a child, she had once seen him as a venerable pilgrim, going through a village, when the boys stoned him. She had been so struck, so saisie by his appearance, that she went up to him and said, 'Forgive me, but I hope that you will not refuse to tell your name.'—'Labre,' he said, and the name Labre had stuck by her to that day. She implored me to get up a special veneration for the Venerable Labre, but I said that I really could not, for he was too dirty."
In 1863, under the direction of her priests, and with the assistance of many Catholic friends, Esmeralda had published a "Manual of the Dolours of Our Lady," which she caused to be translated into almost every language of Europe and to be disseminated among all its nations; this she did through the medium of foreign converts. In her "retreats" and in her religious life Esmeralda had for some years been brought nearer to many of her former friends with the same interests, but especially to Lady Lothian, Lady Georgiana Fullerton, and to a Miss Bradley, a recent pervert to the Church of Rome. By them she had been induced to join the society of "Les Enfants de Marie;" a society of persons united together by special acts of devotion to the Virgin, and works of charity conducted in her honour. In sorrow, faithfully borne, the beauty and power of holiness had become hourly more apparent to Esmeralda. But she could never join in the exaggeration which led many of these ladies to invest the Virgin with all the attributes of our Lord Himself, as well as with the perfection of human sympathies. I remember as rather touching that when the Dowager Lady Lothian was writing to Esmeralda about her son as being so "fearfully Protestant," she said, "It is very trying to know that one cannot share one's thoughts with any one. I try to make our dear Mother more my companion, but I am tempted sometimes to remember how Our Lady, in all her sorrows, never can have had that of anxiety about her son's soul. I know that she has it in and for us, her adopted children, but she never can have felt it about Our Lord."
From the devotion which Esmeralda felt to the Blessed Virgin followed her especial interest in the Order of the Servites, who had lately been established in London, and who always wore black in sympathy with the sorrows of Mary. The very name had an interest for Esmeralda, derived as it was from the special love shown to the Madonna by seven noble Florentines, the founders of the Order, which induced the children to point at them in the streets, saying, "Guardati i servi di Maria." For the Servites Esmeralda never ceased to obtain contributions.
Another confraternity in which my sister had entered herself as an associate, together with Lady Lothian and most of her friends, was that of "The Holy Hour"—first instituted by the beatified nun, Margaret Mary Alacoque of Paray le Monial, a convent near Monceaux les Mines,[251] for which her admirers, and my sister amongst them, had worked a splendid carpet, to cover the space in front of her altar. The rules of this society set forth that it "is established as a special manner of sharing the agony of our Divine Lord, and of uniting in associated prayer for reparation of insults offered Him by sin. The associates of this devotion thus form a band of faithful disciples, who in spirit accompany our Saviour every Thursday night to the scene of His agony, and share more particularly that watch which Our Blessed Lady and the Apostles kept on the eve of the Passion. With this end in view, the associates spend one hour of Thursday evening in mental or vocal prayer upon the Agony in the Garden, or other mysteries of the Passion." Thus every Thursday night my sister repeated:—
"O Lord Jesus Christ, kneeling before Thee I unite myself to Thy Sacred Heart and offer myself again to Thy service. In this hour when Thou wert about to be betrayed into the hands of sinners, I, a poor sinner, dare to come before Thee and say, 'Yes, Lord, I too many times have betrayed and denied Thee, but Thou, who knowest all things, knowest that I desire to love Thee, that I desire to comfort Thee insulted by sin, that I desire to watch with Thee one hour, and to cry before Thy throne, 'O Lord, remember me when Thou comest into thy kingdom!' And therefore, with my whole heart, I now promise before thee—
"When the mysteries of Thy life and Passion are denied: the more firmly will I believe in them and defend them with my life.
"When the spirit of unbelief, coming in like a flood, seeks to quench our hope: I will hope in Thee and take refuge in Thy Sacred Heart.
"When blinded men obstinately shut their hearts to Thy love: I will love Thee who hast shown me an everlasting love.
"When the Majesty and power of Thy Divinity are denied: I will say to Thee—day by day—'My Lord and my God!'
"When Thy law is broken and Thy sacraments profaned: I will keep Thy words in my heart and draw near to thy holy altar with joy.
"When all men forsake Thee and flee from Thy ways: I will follow Thee, my Jesus, up the way of sorrow, striving to bear Thy cross.
"When the evil one, like a roaring lion, shall seek everywhere the souls of men: I will raise Thy standard against them and draw them to Thy Sacred Heart.
"When the Cross shall be despised for the love of pleasure and the praise of men: I will renew my baptismal vows, and again renounce the devil, the world, and the flesh.
"When men speak lightly of Thy Blessed Mother and mock at the power of Thy Church: I will renew my love to the Mother of God, hailing her as 'Our life, our sweetness, and our hope,' and will again give thanks for the Church that is founded upon the rock."
At my sister's house, I now, at least on one occasion, met each of my brothers, but we never made the slightest degree of real acquaintance; indeed, I doubt if I should have recognised either of them if I had met him in the street. When my eldest brother, Francis, came of age, he had inherited the old Shipley property of Gresford in Flintshire, quantities of old family plate, &c., and a clear £3000 a year. He was handsome and clever, a good linguist and a tolerable artist. But he had a love of gambling, which was his ruin, and before he was seven-and-twenty (October 1857) he was in the Queen's Bench, without a penny in the world, with Gresford sold—Hurstmonceaux sold—his library, pictures, and plate sold, and £53,000 of debts. After Francis was released in 1860, he went to join Garibaldi in his Italian campaign, and being a brave soldier, and, with all his faults, devoted to military adventure and impervious to hardships, he was soon appointed by the Dictator as his aide-de-camp. He fought bravely in the siege of Capua. His especial duty, however, was to watch and follow the extraordinary Contessa della Torre, who rode with the troops, and by her example incited the Italians to prodigies of valour. Of this lady Francis said—
"The Contessa della Torre was exceedingly handsome. She wore a hat and plume, trousers, boots, and a long jacket. She was foolhardy brave. When a shell exploded by her, instead of falling on the ground like the soldiers, she would stand looking at it, and making a cigarette all the time. The hospital was a building surrounding a large courtyard, and in the centre of the court was a table where the amputations took place. By the side of the surgeon who operated stood the Contessa della Torre, who held the arms and legs while they were being cut off, and when they were severed, chucked them away to join others on a heap close by. There were so many, that she had a heap of arms on one side of her and a heap of legs on the other. The soldiers, animated by her example, often sang the Garibaldian hymn while their limbs were being taken off, though they fainted away afterwards.
"When the war was over, the Contessa della Torre retired to Milan. Her first husband, the Count della Torre, she soon abandoned; her second husband, Signor Martino, a rich banker, soon abandoned her. Lately she has founded a Society for the Conversion of the Negroes of Central Africa, of which she appointed herself patroness, secretary, and treasurer; and, obtaining an English Clergy List, wrote in all directions for subscriptions. Of course many clergy took no notice of the appeal, but a certain proportion responded and sent donations, which it is needless to say were not applied to Central Africa."
After the siege of Capua, Francis was very ill with a violent fever at Naples, and then remained there for a long time because he was too poor to go away. It was during his stay at Naples that he formed his friendship with the K.'s, about which my sister has left some curious notes.
"When Francis first went to Naples, he had his pay, was well to do, and stayed at the Hotel Victoria. Amongst the people who were staying in the house and whom he regularly met at the table-d'hôte, were an old Mr. K. and his daughter. Old Mr. K. was a very handsome old gentleman and exceedingly pleasant and agreeable; Miss K. was also handsome, and of very pleasing manners: both were apparently exceedingly well off. After some time, the K.'s went to Rome, where they passed some time very pleasantly. When they returned, the siege of Capua was taking place, and it was a source of great surprise to the Garibaldian officers to see the father and daughter constantly walking about arm in arm with the most perfect sang-froid in the very teeth of the firing, shells bursting all around them. The Garibaldians remonstrated in vain: the K.'s remained unhurt in the heat of every battlefield, and appeared to bear charmed lives.
"Some time after, it transpired that the K.'s had no money to pay their bills at the Victoria. They were much respected there, having been there often before, but they could not be allowed to remain without payment, so the landlord told them they must leave. They went to another hotel, where the same thing happened. Then they went to a lodging.
"One day Francis met them coming down under the arch in the Chiaja. He turned round and went with them to the Villa Reale. As they went, Miss K. spoke of the great distress which was then prevalent in Naples, and said that a gentleman had just begged of them in the street, and that they had nothing to give him. 'Before I would be reduced to that,' she said, 'I would drown myself.'—'Yes, and I too would drown myself,' said Mr. K.; but what they said did not strike Francis till afterwards. When they reached the Villa Reale, they walked up and down together under the avenue. Miss K. was more than usually lively and agreeable, and they did not separate till nightfall, when the gates of the Villa were going to be shut.
"At two o'clock the next morning, Francis was awakened by the most dreadful and vivid dream. He dreamt that he stood on the little promontory in the Villa Reale, and that he saw two corpses bobbing up and down a short distance off. The dream so took possession of him, that he jumped up, dressed himself, and rushed down to the Villa, but the gates were shut when he got there, and he had to wait till they were opened at four o'clock in the morning. He then ran down the avenue to the promontory, and thence, exactly as he had seen in his dream, he saw two corpses bobbing up and down on the waves a short distance off. He called to some fishermen, who waded in and brought them to land, and he then at once recognised Mr. and Miss K. They must have concealed themselves in the Villa till the gates were closed, and must then have deliberately climbed over the railing of the promontory, and then tied each other's ankles and wrists, and, after filling their pockets with heavy stones, leapt off into the sea.
"Capua they had vainly hoped would destroy them.
"Some time after Francis found that Mr. K. had once been exceedingly rich, but had been ruined: that his wife, who had a large settlement, had then left him, making him a handsome allowance. A few days before the catastrophe this allowance had been suddenly withdrawn, and Mr. K. with the daughter, who devoted herself to him, preferred death to beggary."
It may seem odd that I have never mentioned my second brother, William, in these memoirs, but the fact is, that after he grew up, I never saw him for more than a few minutes. It is one of the things I regret most in life that I never made acquaintance with William. I believe now that he was misrepresented to us and that he had many good qualities; and I often feel, had he lived till I had the means of doing so, how glad I should have been to have helped him, and how fond I might have become of him. At Eton he was an excessively good-looking boy, very clever, very mischievous, and intensely popular with his companions. He never had any fortune, so that it was most foolish of his guardian (Uncle Julius) to spend £2000 which had been bequeathed to him by "the Bath aunts," in buying him a commission in the Blues. I only once saw him whilst he was in the army, and only remember him as a great dandy, but I must say that he had the excuse that everything he wore became him. After he left the army he was buffeted about from pillar to post, and lived no one knows where or how. Our cousin Lord Ravensworth was very kind to him, and so was old Lady Paul; but to Hurstmonceaux or Holmhurst he was never invited, and he would never have been allowed to come. I have often thought since how very odd it was that when he died, neither my mother nor I wore the slightest mourning for him; but he was so entirely outside our life and thoughts, that somehow it would never have occurred to us. He had, however, none of the cold self-contained manner which characterised Francis, but was warm-hearted, cordial, affectionate, and could be most entertaining. After his mother's great misfortunes he went to Spain on some temporary appointment, and at Barcelona nearly died of a fever, through which he was nursed by a lady, who had taken an extraordinary fancy to him; but on his return, when it was feared he would marry her, he took every one by surprise in espousing the very pretty portionless daughter of a physician at Clifton.
During the year 1864 I constantly saw my Lefevre cousins and found an increasing friendship for them. Sir John always showed me the greatest kindness, being full of interest in all my concerns. I consulted him on many subjects, feeling that he was the only person I had ever known, except my mother, willing to take the trouble of thinking how to give the best advice and perfectly disinterested in giving it: consequently I always took his advice and his only. His knowledge was extraordinary, and was only equalled by his humility and self-forgetfulness. Many were the interesting reminiscences of other days which he delighted to call up—many the remarkable parallels he drew between present events and those he remembered—many the charming stories he told me. One of these, which has always struck me as very grand and dramatic, I have so often repeated that I will make a note of it here:—
"Within the memory of those still living there resided in Madrid a family called Benalta. It consisted of Colonel Benalta, a man of choleric and sharp disposition; of his wife, Madame Benalta; of his young daughter; of his little son Carlos, a boy ten years old; and of the mother of Madame Benalta, who was a woman of large property and of considerable importance in the society at Madrid. On the whole, they were quoted as an example of a happy and harmonious family. It is true that there were, however, certain drawbacks to their being completely happy, entirely harmonious, and the chief of these was that Colonel Benalta, when his temper was not at its best, would frequently, much more often than was agreeable, say to his wife, 'My dear, you know nothing: my dear, you know nothing at all: you know nothing whatever.' This was very disagreeable to Madame Benalta, but it was far more unpleasant to the mother of Madame Benalta, who considered her daughter to be a very distinguished and gifted woman, and who did not at all like to have it said, especially in public, that she knew—nothing!
"However, as I have said, on the whole, as Madrid society went, the Benaltas were quoted as an example of a happy and harmonious family.
"One day Colonel Benalta was absent on military duty, but the rest of the family were assembled in the drawing-room at Madrid. In the centre of the room, at a round table, sat Madame Benalta and her daughter working. At a bureau on one side of the room sat the mother of Madame Benalta, counting out the money which she had just received for the rents of her estates in Andalusia, arranging the louis-d'ors in piles of tens before her, and eventually putting them away in a strong box at her side. At another table on the other side of the room sat little Carlos Benalta writing a copy.
"Now I do not know the exact words of the Spanish proverb which formed the copy that Carlos Benalta wrote, but it was something to the effect of 'Work while it is to-day, for thou knowest not what may happen to-morrow.' And the child wrote it again and again till the page was full, and then he signed it, 'Carlos Benalta, Sept. 22nd,' and he took the copy to his mother.
"Now the boy had signed his copy 'Carlos Benalta, Sept. 22nd,' but it really was Sept. 21. And Madame Benalta was a very superstitious woman; and when she saw that in his copy Carlos had anticipated the morrow—the to-morrow on which 'thou knowest not what may happen'—it struck her as an evil omen, and she was very much annoyed with Carlos, and spoke sharply, saying that he had been very careless, and that he must take the copy back and write it all over again. And Carlos, greatly crestfallen, took the copy and went back to his seat. But the mother of Madame Benalta, who always indulged and petted Carlos, looked up from her counting and said, 'Bring the copy to me.' And when she saw it she said to her daughter, 'I think you are rather hard upon Carlos, my dear; he has evidently taken pains with his copy and written it very well; and as for the little mistake at the end, it really does not signify; so I hope you will forgive him, and not expect him to write it again.' Upon which Madame Benalta, but with a very bad grace, said, 'Oh, of course, if his grandmother says he is not to write it again, I do not expect him to do it; but I consider, all the same, that he ought to have been obliged to do it for his carelessness.' Then the grandmother took ten louis-d'ors from the piles before her, and she tore the copy out of the book and rolled them up in it, and sealed the parcel, and she wrote upon the outside, 'For my dear grandson, Carlos Benalta; to be given to him when I am dead!' And she showed it to her daughter and her grand-daughter, and said, 'Some day when I am passed away, this will be a little memorial to Carlos of his old grandmother, who loved him and liked to save him from a punishment.' And she put the packet away in the strong box with the rest of the money.
"The next morning the news of a most dreadful tragedy startled the people of Madrid. The mother of Madame Benalta, who inhabited an apartment in the same house above that of her daughter and son-in-law, was found murdered in her room under the most dreadful circumstances. She had evidently fought hard for her life. The whole floor was in pools of blood. She had been dragged from one piece of furniture to another, and eventually she had been butchered lying across the bed. There were the marks of a bloody hand all down the staircase, and the strong box was missing. Everything was done that could be done to discover the murderer, but unfortunately he had chosen the one day in the year when such a crime was difficult to trace. As Mademoiselle Benalta was not yet 'out,' and as the family liked a quiet domestic life, they never went out in the evening, and the street door was known to be regularly fastened. Therefore, on this one day in the year, when the servants went on their annual picnic to the Escurial, it was supposed to be quite safe to leave the street door on the latch, that they might let themselves in when they returned very late. The murderer must have known this and taken advantage of it; therefore, though Colonel Benalta offered a very large reward, and though the Spanish Government—so great was the public horror—offered, for them, a very large reward, no clue whatever was ever obtained to the murderer.
"A terrible shadow naturally hung over the house in Madrid, and the Benalta family could not bear to remain in a scene which to them was filled with such associations of horror. By the death of the poor lady, Madame Benalta's mother, they had inherited her estates in Andalusia, and they removed to Cordova. There they lived very quietly. From so great a shock Madame Benalta could not entirely rally, and she shrank more than ever from strangers. Besides, her home life was less pleasant than it had been, for Colonel Benalta's temper was sharper and sourer than ever, and even more frequently than before he said to her, 'My dear, you know nothing: you really know nothing at all.'
"Eleven years passed away, melancholy years enough to the mother, but her children grew up strong and happy, and naturally on them the terrible event of their childhood seemed now quite in the far-away past. One day Colonel Benalta was again absent on military duty. Madame Benalta was sitting in her usual chair in her drawing-room at Cordova, and Carlos, then a young man of one-and-twenty, was standing by her, when the door opened and Mademoiselle Benalta came in. 'Oh, mother,' she said, 'I've been taking advantage of our father's absence to arrange his room, and in one of his drawers I have found a little relic of our childhood, which I think perhaps may be interesting to you: it seems to be a copy which Carlos must have written when he was a little boy.' Madame Benalta took the paper out of her daughter's hand and saw, 'Work while it is to-day, for thou knowest not what may happen to-morrow,' and at the bottom the signature 'Carlos Benalta, September 22nd,' and she turned it round, and there, at the back, in the well-known trembling hand, was written, 'For my dear grandson Carlos Benalta, to be given to him when I am dead.' Madame Benalta had just presence of mind to crumple up the paper and throw it into the back of the fire, and then she fell down upon the floor in a fit.
"From that time Madame Benalta never had any health. She was unable to take any part in the affairs of the house, and scarcely seemed able to show any interest in anything. Her husband had less patience than ever with her, and more frequently abused her and said, 'My dear, you know nothing;' but it hardly seemed to affect her now; her life seemed ebbing away together with its animation and power, and she failed daily. That day-year Madame Benalta lay on her death-bed, and all her family were collected in her room to witness her last moments. She had received the last sacraments, and the supreme moment of life had arrived, when she beckoned her husband to her. As he leant over her, in a calm solemn voice, distinctly audible to all present, she said, 'My dear, you have always said that I knew nothing: now I have known two things: I have known how to be silent in life, and how to pardon in death,' and so saying, she died.
"It is unnecessary to explain what Madame Benalta knew."
In later years, in Spain, I have read a little book by Fernan Caballero, "El Silencio en la Vita, e el Perdono en la Muerte," but even in the hands of the great writer the story wants the simple power which it had when told by Sir John.
The winter of 1864-65 was a terribly anxious one at Holmhurst. My mother failed daily as the cold weather came on, and was in a state of constant and helpless suffering. I never could bear to be away from her for a moment, and passed the whole day by the side of her bed or chair, feeding her, supporting her, chafing her inanimate limbs, trying by an energy of love to animate her through the weary hours of sickness, giddiness, and pain. We were seldom able to leave one room, the central one in the house, and had to keep it as warm as was possible. My recollection lingers on the months of entire absence from all external life spent in that close room, sitting in an armchair, pretending to read while I was ceaselessly watching. My mother was so much worse than she had ever been before, that I was never very hopeful, but strove never to look beyond the present into the desolate future, and, while devoting my whole thoughts and energies to activity for her, was always able to be cheerful. Still I remember how, in that damp and misty Christmas, I happened to light upon the lines in "In Memoriam"—
"With trembling fingers did we weave
The holly round our Christmas hearth;
A rainy cloud possess'd the earth,
And sadly fell our Christmas Eve."
And how wonderfully applicable they seemed to our case.
To my Sister.
"Holmhurst, Dec. 17, 1864.—How we envy you the warmth of Italy! Had we known how severe a winter this was likely to be, we also should have started for Italy at all risks, and I feel that I have been very wrong ever to have consented to the mother's staying in England, though she seemed so weary of travelling and so much better in health, that I could not believe the effect would be so bad. The cold is most intense. After a month of wet, we have had two days of snow with black east wind, and now it is pouring again, but the rain freezes as it falls.
"The dear mother is perfectly prostrated by the cold, and looks at least twenty years older than in the summer. She has great and constant pain, and trembles so greatly as to be quite unable to feed herself, and she can do nothing whatever all day, so that she is very miserable. Of course I am dreadfully and constantly anxious about her, and the dread of paralysis haunts me night and day. I need not say how sweet, and gentle, and uncomplaining my poor darling is, but one can see she suffers greatly, and 'the pleasures of an English winter,' which some of the family have always been urging her to enjoy, consist in an almost total non-existence on her part, and constant watching on mine."
Gradually the consciousness came to all around her that the only chance of my mother's recovery would be from taking her abroad. How I longed to follow the advice given in "Kotzebue's Travels" when he urges us to take pattern by our ancestors, who were content to sit still and read the injunction in their Bibles, "Let not your flight be in the winter." Yet this year even poor Lea, generally so averse to leaving home, urged us to set off. Then came the difficulty of how to go, and where. We decided to turn towards Pau and Biarritz, because easier of access than Cannes, and because the journeys were shorter: and then there was the constant driving down to look at the sea, and the discovery that, when it was calm enough, my mother was too ill to move, and when she was better, the sea was too rough. At last, on the 20th of January, we left home in the evening.
To my Sister.
"Bordeaux, Jan. 28, 1865.—I cannot say what a comfort it is, amid much else that is sad and trying, to think of you safe at Palazzo Parisani, in the home of many years, with the devoted auntie and the two old domestic friends to share your interests and sorrows and joys—so much left of the good of life, so much to gild the memory of the past. I know how you would feel the return to Rome at first—the desolate room, the empty chair, the unused writing-table; and then how you would turn to 'gather up the fragments that remain,' and to see that even the darkest cloud has its silver lining.... No, you cannot wish your mother back. In thinking of her, you will remember that if she were with you now, it would not be in the enjoyment of Rome, of Victoire, and Parisani, but in cheerless London rooms, with their many trials of spirits and temper. Now all those are forgotten by her, for
'Who will count the billows past,
If the shore be won at last'?
"And for yourself, you are conscious that you are in the place where she would have you be, and that if she can still be with you invisibly, her life and your life may still be running on side by side, and yours now giving to her unclouded eyes the pleasure it never could have given when earthly mists obscured them.
"I often think of Christian Andersen's story of the mother who was breaking her heart with grief for the loss of her only child, when Death bade her look into his mirror, and on one side she saw the life of her child as it would have been had it remained on earth, in all the misery of sorrow and sickness and sin; and on the other, the glorified life to which it was taken; and then the mother humbly gave thanks to the All-Wise, who chose for her, and could only beg forgiveness because she had wished to choose for herself.
"Do you know, my Esmeralda, that great sorrow has been very near me too? My sweetest mother has been very, very ill, and even now she is so little really better, that I am full of anxiety about her. From the New Year she was so ill at Holmhurst from the cold and snow, that it was decided that we must take the first available moment for going abroad. But we were packed up and waiting for more than a fortnight before her health and the tempests allowed us to start.
"Her passage on the 21st was most unfortunate, for a thick fog came on, which long prevented the steamer from finding the narrow entrance of Calais harbour, and the boat remained for two hours swaying about outside and firing guns of distress every ten minutes. These were answered by steamers in port, and the great alarm-bell of Calais tolled incessantly. At last another steamer was sent out burning red lights, and guided the wanderer in. My poor mother was quite unable to stand from the cold and fatigue when she was landed, and the journey to Paris, across the plains deep in snow, was a most anxious one. During the three days we spent at Paris, she was so ill that I had almost given up all hope of moving her, when a warm change in the weather allowed of our reaching Tours, where we stayed two more days.
"Tours is a fine old town, and is the place where our grandfather died. I saw his house, quite a palace, now the museum. We slept again at Angoulême, a very striking place, the old town rising out of the new, a rocky citadel surrounded with the most beautiful public walks I ever saw out of Rome, and a curious cathedral. This Bordeaux is a second Paris, only with a river like an arm of the sea, and immense quays, full of bustle and hubbub, like the Carminella at Naples."
"Hotel Victoria, Pau, Feb. 2.—On Monday we made the easiest move possible from Bordeaux to Arcachon, a most quaint little watering-place. The hotel was a one-storied wooden house, with an immensely broad West-Indian-like balcony, in which three or four people could walk abreast, descending on one side to the strip of silver sand which alone separated it from the wave-less bay of the sea called the Bassin d'Arcachon;[253] the other opening into the forest—sixty or seventy miles of low sandhills covered with arbutus, holly, and pine. Near the village, quantities of lodging-houses, built like Swiss châlets, are rising up everywhere in the wood, without walls, hedges, or gardens, just like a fairy story, and in the forest itself it is always warm, no winds or frosts penetrating the vast living walls of green. If the mother had been better, I should have liked to linger at Arcachon a few days, but we could not venture to remain so far from a doctor. Here at Pau we live in a deluge: it pours like a ceaseless waterspout; yet, so dry is the soil, that the rain never seems to make any impression. Pau is dreadfully full and enormously expensive. I see no beauty in the place, the town is modern with a modernised castle, the surrounding country flat, with long white roads between stagnant ditches, the 'coteaux' low hills in the middle distance covered with brushwood, the distant view scarcely ever visible. We are surrounded by cousins. Mrs. Taylor[254] is most kind—really as good-natured as she is ugly, and, having lived here twenty years, she knows everything about the place. Dr. Taylor is a very skilful physician. Edwin and Bertha Dashwood are also here with their five children, and Amelia Story with her father and step-mother.[255]
"Alas! my sweetest mother is terribly weak, and has hitherto only seemed to lose strength from day to day. She cannot now even walk across the room, nor can she move from one chair to another without great help. We are a little cheered, however, to-day by Dr. Taylor."
To MISS LEYCESTER.
"Pau, Feb. 12.—For the last two days my dearest mother's suffering has been most sad, without intermission.... This evening Dr. Taylor has told me how very grave he thinks her state, and that, except for the knowledge of her having so often rallied before, there is no hope of her precious life being restored to us. God has given her back before from the brink of the grave, and it might be His will to do so again; this is all we have to cling to. Her weakness increases daily. She cannot now help herself at all.... Her sweetness, her patience, the lovely expression of her countenance, her angelic smile, her thankfulness for God's blessings even when her suffering is greatest, who can describe? These are the comfort and support which are given us.
"I do not gather that the danger is quite immediate; the dread is a stupor, which may creep on gradually.... I am always able to be cheerful in watching over her, though I feel as if the sunshine was hourly fading out of my life."
To my Sister.
"Pau, Feb. 14.—My last account will have prepared you for the news I have to give. My sweetest mother is fast fading away.... Lea and I have been up with her all the last two nights, and every minute of the day has been filled with an intensity of anxious watching. The frail earthly tabernacle is perishing, but a mere look at my dearest one assures us that her spirit, glorious and sanctified, has almost already entered upon its perfected life. Her lovely smile, the heavenly light in her eyes, are quite undescribable.
"All through last night, as I sat in the red firelight, watching every movement, it seemed to me as if the end was close at hand. Her hymn rang in my ears—so awfully solemn and real:—
'It may be when the midnight
Is heavy upon the land,
And the black waves lying dumbly
Along the sand;
When the moonless night draws close,
And the lights are out in the house;
When the fires burn low and red,
And the watch is ticking loudly
Beside the bed:
Though you sleep, tired out, on your couch,
Still your heart must wake and watch
In the dark room,
For it may be that at midnight
I will come.'
When the Master does come, she will be always found waiting. Has not my darling kept her lamp burning all her life long? Surely when the Bridegroom cometh, she will enter into the kingdom.
"I cannot tell how soon it will be. I have no hope now of her being given back to me. It is a solemn waiting. Oh! my Esmeralda, when you hear that the hour has come, pity, pray for her unutterably desolate son."
To MISS LEYCESTER.
"Feb. 17.—There has been an unexpected rally. Two days ago, when I was quite hopeless and she lay motionless, unconscious of earth, Dr. Taylor said, 'Wait, you can do nothing: if this trance is to end fatally, you can do nothing to arrest it; but it may still prove to be an extraordinary effort of Nature to recruit itself.' And truly, at eight o'clock yesterday morning, after sixty hours of trance, she suddenly opened her eyes, smiled and spoke naturally. I had just left the room, when Lea called me back—'She is talking to me.' I could scarcely believe it; yet, when I went in, there my darling sat in her bed, with a sweet look of restored consciousness and returning power.
"It was like a miracle.
"She remembers nothing now of her illness. She does not think she has suffered. During the last night she says she was constantly saying the seventy-first Psalm. Almost the first thing she said after rallying was, 'I have not been alone: your Uncle Penrhyn and your Aunt Kitty[257] have been here, supporting me all through the night.'
"Our nice simple little landlady had just been to the church to pray for her, and, coming back to find her restored, believes it is in answer to her prayers.
"I did not know what the agony of the last three days was till they were over. While they lasted, I thought of nothing but to be bright for her, that she might only see smiles, to prevent Lea from giving way, and to glean up every glance and word and movement; but to-day I feel much exhausted."
To my Sister.
"Pau, Feb. 21.—My darling has been mercifully restored to me for a little while—a few days' breathing space; and yet I could not count upon this even while it lasted; I could not dwell upon hope, I could not look forward—the frail frame is so very frail. I cannot think she is given to me for long: I only attempt to store up the blessings of each day now against the long desolate future.
"Last Sunday week she fell into her trance. It lasted between sixty and seventy hours. During this time she was almost unconscious. She knew me, she even said 'Dear' to me once or twice, and smiled most sweetly as she did so, but otherwise she was totally unconscious of all around her, of day and night, of the sorrow or anxiety of the watchers, of pain or trouble. A serene peace overshadowed her, a heavenly sweetness filled her expression, and never varied except to dimple into smiles of angelic beauty, as if she were already in the company of angels.
"But for the last sixteen hours the trance was like death. Then the doctor said, 'If the pulse does not sink and if she wakes naturally, she may rally.' This happened. At eight the next morning, my darling gently awoke and was given back into life. This was Thursday, and there were three days' respite. But yesterday she was evidently failing again, and this morning, while Dr. Taylor was in the room, the trance came on again. For ten minutes her pulse ceased to beat altogether.... Since then she has lain as before—scarcely here, yet not gone—quite happy—between heaven and earth.
"I believe now that if my darling is taken I can give thanks for the exceeding blessedness of this end.
"Meantime it is again a silent watching, and, as I watch, the solemn music of the hymns that my darling loves comes back to me, and I repeat them to myself. Now these verses are in my mind:—
'Have we not caught the smiling
On some beloved face,
As if a heavenly sound were wiling
The soul from our earthly place?—
The distant sound and sweet
Of the Master's coming feet.
We may clasp the loved one faster,
And plead for a little while,
But who can resist the Master?
And we read by that brightening smile
That the tread we may not fear
Is drawing surely near.'
And then, in the long watches of the night, all the golden past comes back to me—how as a little child I played round my darling in Lime Wood—how the flowers were our friends and companions—how we lived in and for one another in the bright Lime garden: of her patient endurance of much injustice—of her sweet forgiveness of all injuries—of her loving gratitude for all blessings—of her ever sure upward-seeking of the will and glory of God: and my eye wanders to the beloved face, lined and worn but glowing with the glory of another world, and while giving thanks for thirty years of past blessing, shall I not also give thanks that thus—not through the dark valley, but through the sunshine of God—my mother is entering upon her rest?
"God will give me strength: I feel quite calm. I can think only how to soothe, how to cheer, how to do everything for her."
"Feb. 26.—It is still the same; we are still watching. In the hundred and twelfth hour of her second trance, during which she had taken no nourishment whatever, my mother spoke again, but it was only for a time. You will imagine what the long watchings of this death-like slumber have been, what the strange visions of the past which have risen to my mind in the long, silent nights, as, with locked doors (for the French would insist that all was over), I have hovered over the pillow on which she lies as if bound by enchantment. Now comes before me the death-bed scene of S. Vincent de Paul, when, to the watchers lamenting together over his perpetual stupor, his voice suddenly said, 'It is but the brother that goes before the sister.' Then, as the shadows lighten into dawn, Norman Macleod's story of how he was watching by the death-bed of his beloved one in an old German city, and grief was sinking into despair, when, loud and solemn, at three in the morning, echoed forth the voice of the old German watchman giving the hours in the patriarchal way—'Put your trust in the Divine Three, for after the darkest night cometh the break of day.'
"Last night the trance seemed over. All was changed. My sweetest one was haunted by strange visions; to her excited mind and renewed speech, every fold of the curtains was a spirit, every sound an alarm. For hours I sat with her trembling hands in mine, soothing her with the old hymns that she loves. To a certain extent, however, there is more hope, more of returning power. Is it a superstition to think that she began to revive when in the churches at Holmhurst, Hastings, Hurstmonceaux, Alton, and Pau prayers (and in many cases how earnest) were being offered up for her restoration?
"Two P.M.—My darling has been sitting up in bed listening to sweet voices, which have been singing to her; but they were no earthly voices which she heard.
"Ten P.M.—She has just declared that she sees Ruth Harmer (a good, sweet girl she used to visit, who died at Hurstmonceaux) standing by her bedside. 'It is Ruth Harmer—look at Ruth Harmer,' she said. But it was not a voice of terror; it was rather like the apostolic question, 'Who are these who are arrayed in white robes, and whence come they?' There has also been a time when she has spoken of 'dear Holmhurst, dear beautiful Holmhurst,' in the most touching way."
"Feb. 27.—She has fallen into a third stupor, deeper than the others; there is no sign of breath, the heart does not beat, the pulse does not beat, the features have sunk. I alone now declare with certain conviction that she lives. The shadows are closing around us, yet I feel that we are in the immediate presence of the Unseen, and that the good Ruth Harmer is only one of the many angels watching over my sweetest one. Years ago she told me that when dying she wished her favourite hymn—
'How bright those glorious spirits shine,—'
to be sung by her bedside; was it these words which she heard the angels sing to her? Oh! my Esmeralda, are you praying that I may endure while it is necessary to do everything for her, only so long? How strange that the scene which I have so often imagined should be in a country hitherto unknown, the only relations near having been strangers before; yet the simple French people here are very sad for us, and there is much sympathy."
"March 10.—It has been many days since I have ventured to write: it has been so difficult to say anything definite, with the constant dread of another relapse, which we have thought must come every day: yet I think I may now venture to write in thanksgiving that my mother is restored to me from the brink of the grave. It seemed quite impossible that she could come back, as if she must enter the world on the portals of which she had been so long resting. Doctor and nurse gave up all hope; and at last the nurse went out, saying all must be over when she returned in three hours' time. In those three hours the remedies began to take effect, the dead limbs to revive, the locked mouth to open, the closed eyes to see, the hands to feel. It had been a death-like trance of a hundred and ninety-six hours altogether—ten days and nine nights. She remembers nothing of it now, and nothing of the illness which came before, but a gradual revival and awakening of all her powers is going on. It has been less painful to her throughout than to any one, and it is so still.
"Dr. Taylor is made Sir Alexander. He and Lady Taylor have been most kind to us—could not have been more so. It has been interesting to see so much of her, the last survivor of our father's generation in the family, and one who, living constantly at Hurstmonceaux, was present through all the old family crises and conflicts, which she narrates with much of sound sense and observation. I shall hope to write down much of her recollections, and shall begin in good earnest to collect the memorials of that earlier family period, quite as curious in its way as many later ones."[259]
"Pau, March 27.—My sweet mother continues slightly better certainly, but in a most fragile and harassing state of health. I never feel happy in leaving her, even for half-an-hour. On some days she is better and almost able to enjoy reading a few words, or being read to a little: on others, as to-day, the trembling increases to such a degree as to prevent her occupying herself in any way. I need not say how beautiful are her faith and love, how increasing the beatitude of her inner, her heavenly life. 'Oh, how long it is since I have been at church,' she said last night. 'But you are always at church in your soul, darling,' I said. 'Yes,' she answered, 'that is the greater part of my day—meditation and prayer, and in the night I say my hymns and texts.' On my birthday she gave me a solemn blessing. Each day I watch her every look and movement. Truly I feel as if the pulse of her life beat into mine. She does not see many people, but our sweet little cousin Lady Dashwood, Lady Taylor, and Lady Charles Clinton come occasionally.
"Pau is the most unattractive place I ever was in, and it pours or snows almost incessantly. The 'society' is small, good, and uninteresting, and snubs the immense remainder of the Anglo-Pau world with hearty goodwill.
"For some days we have been very sad about dear Emma Leycester, who has been terribly ill: at least I have been, for I think the mother has scarcely taken in the great cause for alarm."
I think the name of this most dear cousin, Emma Leycester (Charlotte's much younger sister) has scarcely been mentioned in these memoirs, and yet there was scarcely any one who had a tenderer place in our home life and thoughts, or to whom we were more devoted. Perhaps the very fact of omitting her shows how entirely she must have kept aloof from all family squabbles and disorders, whilst rejoicing in all our pleasures and sorrowing in all our griefs. She was never strong, and I always recollect her as a semi-invalid, yet more animated and cheerful than most people in strong health, and able, from the very fact of weakness removing her from the general turmoil of all that was going on around her, to give her full attention and sympathy to the things she could participate in. Small in person, she was of a most sweet countenance, with grey hair, a most delicate complexion, and bright eyes, full of expression and humour—
"Her angel's face
As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright,
And made a sunshine in the shady place."[260]
As a child, in her visits to Stoke and Lime, I was quite devoted to her, and in the persecutions of my boyhood was comforted by her unfailing sympathy. When at Southgate, the greatest pleasure of my London excursions was that they sometimes ended at "Charlotte and Emma's house" in Wilton Crescent, and that I often went to have tea with the dear Emma, who was already gone to rest upon the sofa in her own little sitting-room. When I was at Oxford she came to visit me there; and latterly the loss of her own brother and sister had drawn this sister-like cousin nearer to my mother as well as to myself.
To MISS LEYCESTER.
"Pau, April 6, 1865, 8 P.M.—I must write one little line of love this evening: the sad news reached us two hours ago, and you will know how we are mourning with you. I had just a hope, and can hardly feel yet that dearest Emma's sweet presence, her loving tender sympathy and interest, are taken from us in this world: but may we not feel that she is perhaps still near us in her perfected state, and to you and to my darling mother even the visible separation may be a very short one, it can only be a few years—long here, but like a moment to her, till the meeting again.
"I am glad to think of you at Toft, and of her resting there, where we can visit the grave. I feel so deeply not being able to be with you, or to do anything for you, as dearest Emma so often said I should do for her, if you were taken from her.
"The news came at tea-time. It was impossible to conceal it. The mother had had a suffering day, and was utterly crushed. We put her to bed at once, and very soon she literally 'fell asleep for sorrow,' and I, watching beside her, heard her lips murmur, 'O blessed are they who die in Thee, O Lord, for they rest from their labours.'"
"L'Estelle, April 8.—My mother continued so seriously ill up to yesterday morning, that I was certain if she were not moved at once, I must not hope she ever would be. Dr. Taylor declined to take the responsibility, but I felt some one must act; so I sent for a large carriage, and had her carried down into it like a baby, and brought off here, only two hours' easy drive from Pau. Before we had gone six miles she began to revive, was carried to her room without exhaustion, and to-day opens her eyes on a lovely view of the snow mountains above the chestnut woods, with a rushing river and the old convent of Bétharram in the gorge, which is a wonderful refreshment after having lived in a narrow street, and seen nothing but a white-washed wall opposite for eleven weeks. Already she is better."
To my Sister.
"L'Estelle, April 9.—You will have heard of our great sorrow.... A week ago dearest Emma's fever passed and took the form of prayer, which, as Charlotte says, 'flowed like a river.' Once she said, 'I have been fed with angels' food; I did not ask for it, I could not, but I have had it.' Her last resting-place is at Toft. Charlotte was able to be present.... I feel that, though we have many still to love, no one can ever fill the same place in our hearts."
During my mother's long illness at Pau, I naturally thought of nothing, and saw scarcely any one, but her. In the last three weeks, however, after her rally, and before the last alarm, I saw a few people, amongst them very frequently Lady Vere Cameron, whose husband, Cameron of Lochiel, had been known to my mother from girlhood. Through Lady Vere, I was introduced to a remarkable circle then at Pau, which formed a society entirely occupied with spiritualism. Most extraordinary were the experiences they had to narrate. I have kept some notes of my acquaintance with them:—
"Pau, March 1865.—When I was at Lady Vere Cameron's, the subject of table-turning was brought forward, and I then said that I had been told that I was a medium, meaning merely with reference to tables. We sat down to a table and it turned. Soon it began to rap violently, and a scratching noise was heard underneath. This I believe to have been owing to some ventriloquism on the part of Ferdinand Russell, who was present, but it excited Lady Vere very much.
"Some days after I had a note from Lady Vere to desire that I would come to be introduced to her 'particular friend,' Mrs. Gregory, at a party in her own house. As I knew that Mrs. Gregory was a great spiritualist and much occupied with the subject, I naturally supposed that this desire to make my acquaintance was due to the table-turning at Lady Vere's, and I went expecting to find a séance.
"But it was a large party, a great number of people whom I had never seen before. Mrs. Gregory had the odd expression of always looking for something behind her. She spoke at once of my being a medium, and then said in an excited manner, 'But are you far advanced? are you like me? when a friend is going to die, do you see it written before you in letters of light there?'—pointing into vacancy. 'No,' I said, 'certainly not: that never happens to me.' Speaking of this afterwards to a Mr. Hamilton, he bade me beware, for very unpleasant things often happened at Mrs. Gregory's séances, or, if they did not happen, every one present believed that they did—that hands appeared, &c.: that his cousin, Mrs. H. of S., had received messages from her child who was dead: that others also had received messages from their dead relations. The meetings were always solemnly opened with prayer.
"At Mrs. White Hedges' I saw Mrs. H. She said that she also was certain that I was a medium, and asked whether I did not frequently have messages from the other world. I said 'No,' and that I did not wish to have any. 'What,' she said, with a look of great surprise, 'you do not wish, then, for the regeneration of the world; for if you did you would feel that it can only be brought about through the instrumentality of spirits.'"
"April 4.—At Lady Robinson's[262] I again met Mrs. Gregory, who asked me to come on the 6th to help her to turn a table, and see if I should receive any messages. I agreed to do so, understanding that nothing more was intended than she said. Afterwards I sat by Miss N. L., who said, 'I see that terrible woman has been getting hold of you. Pray don't go. You don't know what you will see. Every one who goes is beguiled by small pretexts till they see the most appalling things. It can only be through the devil.'
"Persuaded by Miss N. L., I went to Mrs. Gregory and said, 'Mrs. Gregory, do tell me exactly what you expect to happen on Thursday, because I do not wish to see anything.'
"'Oh, you are a coward, are you?' said both Mrs. Gregory and Mrs. Alexander, who was sitting near her.
"'Yes, certainly I am a coward about trifling with the supernatural. It is not because I do not believe that spirits can return from the dead, but because I do believe it that I would rather not come, if you expect to see anything.'
"'Well, I can only say that both seeing and receiving messages are the greatest possible comfort to me: it is only that which keeps me in my right mind,' said Mrs. Gregory.
"I answered that I should dislike being upset for the ordinary and practical duties of life by being led to dwell constantly upon the supernatural.
"'That is precisely what strikes me as the greatest advantage,' said Mrs. Gregory; 'surely one cannot think too much of the other world. To feel that spirits are constantly watching you, and grieving or rejoicing over you, must surely tend to keep you from a great deal of evil. I have known many infidels entirely converted to a new and Christian life by what they have seen with me—Mr. Ruskin, for instance. I asked Mr. Ruskin one day what he believed, and he answered "Simply nothing." He afterwards came to my house several times when I had séances, and then he took my hands, and with tears in his eyes said, "Mrs. Gregory, I cannot thank you enough for what you have shown me: it will change my whole life, for because I have seen I believe." Mr. Pickersgill the artist was another instance. Certainly hands often appear to me, but I like to see them. If you had lost any one who was a part of your life, would you not like to know that you were receiving a message from those you loved? You need not be afraid of the messages I receive. Just before I came here I received this message—"Keep close to God in prayer." There was nothing dreadful in that, was there? Was not that a beautiful message to receive. But sometimes the spirits are conflicting. There are good and bad spirits. If the messages are not such as we should wish, then we know the bad spirits are there. All this is in the Bible, "Ye shall try the spirits, whether they be good or evil." This is one of the means of grace which God gives us: surely we ought not to turn aside from it.'
"Afterwards I asked Lady Robinson her experience. She said that she had been at one of the séances, but nothing appeared and 'the Indicator' gave nothing decided. She said it was conducted most seriously, with all religious feeling. She described Mrs. Gregory as not only praying at the time, but living in a state of prayer, and she believed that the messages were granted in answer to real faith. She said quantities of people had seen the hands appear. Mrs. Gregory had a very large séance at Sir William Gomm's in London, and Lady Gomm asked for an outward sign before she would believe. A bodiless hand then appeared, and, taking up a vase with a plant in it from a china dish upon the table, set it on the floor, and then breaking a flower from the plant, came and laid it in Lady Gomm's lap: all the company saw it.
"I told the Taylors what I had heard. Sir Alexander said that he thought the chief good of such a clever physician as Mrs. Gregory's husband (Dr. Gregory of the powders) appearing would be to write a prescription for the living."
While we were at Pau, my sister wrote much to me upon the death of Cardinal Wiseman, to whom she was greatly devoted, and whom I have always believed to be a most sagacious and large-hearted man. His burly figure upon the sands at Eastbourne used to be very familiar to me in my boyhood. I heard Monsignor Capel, who afterwards attained some celebrity, preach his funeral sermon at Pau.
"Thirty years ago," he said, "there were only six Catholic churches in London; now there are forty-six. Then there were six Catholic schools in London; now there are at least three in each of these parishes—one for boys, one for girls, and one for infants. Then there were only 30,000 Catholics in all England; now there are two millions, one-ninth of the whole population of the country. Then there were no religious Orders except the Jesuit Fathers, who had lingered on from the Reformation, flying from one Catholic house to another, and administering the sacraments in fear and trembling; now there are in London the followers of St. Francis and St. Dominic, the Passionist Fathers, the Redemptorists, and at least twelve nunneries of English ladies. All this change is in a great measure due to Cardinal Wiseman, the founder of the English hierarchy. He entered on his labours in troublous times: with the enthusiasm and love of splendid ritual which he imbibed as a Spanish boy, with the ecclesiastical learning of Italy, with the dogmatic perseverance and liberality which he drank in with his English education. He chose as the title of his bishopric the see of the last martyred English bishop, and he also thirsted for martyrdom."
These notes are curious as showing how the rapid growth of Catholicism in England, which we Protestants are so unwilling to recognise, had advanced under Cardinal Wiseman's leadership.
At L'Estelle my mother daily revived, and was soon able to sit out on the sunny balcony, for the valleys of the Pyrenees were already quite hot, though the trees were leafless and the mountains covered with snow. It was long, however, before I ventured to leave her to go beyond the old convent of Bétharram, with its booths of relics and its calvary on a hill. When she was stronger, we moved to Argelès, a beautiful upland valley, whence excursions are very easy to Cauterets and Luz. Afterwards we visited Eaux Chaudes and Eaux Bonnes; but though the snow was too deep to allow of mountain rambles, the heat was already too intense for enjoyment of the valleys. We had left Pau without a sign of vegetation, and when we came back three weeks later, it was in all the deadest, heaviest green of summer. So it was a great refreshment to move at once to Biarritz, with its breezy uplands, covered with pink daphne, and its rolling, sparkling, ever-changing sea, so splendid in colour. To my mother, Biarritz was a complete restorative, and she was able there to take up her drawing again, to enjoy seeing friends, and to enter into the interests and peculiarities of the curious Basque country.
We visited many of the Basque churches, which are always encircled within by three galleries, except over the altar. These galleries are of black oak. The men sit in the galleries, and the women below, and they enter at different doors. In the churchyards the graves have all little crosses or Basque head-stones with round tops, and they are all planted with flowers. The houses all have wide overhanging roofs and external wooden galleries. Bidart and Cambo are good specimens of Basque villages. Bidart is a beautiful place on the road to S. Jean de Luz, and has a church with the characteristic overhanging belfry and high simple buttresses. A wide entry under the organ-loft is the only entrance to the church. In the hollow below is a broken bridge reflected in a pool, which is golden at sunset, and which, with the distant sea and sands, and the old houses with their wooden balconies scattered over the hillside, forms a lovely picture. Here I stayed one evening to draw with Miss Elizabeth Blommart, an acquaintance we made at Biarritz (afterwards our friend for many years), while my mother and Lea walked on, and descended from the opposite hill upon the sands. We had often been told of the treacherous waves of Bidart, but could not have believed in danger—so distant, beyond the long reaches of sand, seemed the calm Atlantic, glistening in the last rays of sunlight. To our horror, when we had nearly finished our drawing, we looked up, and saw my mother and Lea coming towards us pouring with salt water from cloaks, bonnets, everything. They had been walking unsuspiciously on the sands three-quarters of a mile from the sea, when suddenly, without any warning, a great wave surrounded them. My mother was at once swept off her feet, but Lea, with her usual presence of mind, caught her cloak and rolled it round her arm, and plunging herself deep into the sand, resisted the water and held her mistress till the wave receded, when they made their escape. A few days afterwards an Englishman with his little dog was walking in the Bay of Bidart; the man escaped, but the dog was swept out to sea.
Cambo is two hours' drive from Biarritz—a most pleasant watering-place on a high terrace above the Nive, with pergolas of vines and planes, a churchyard which is a perfect blaze of lilies and roses, and an inn-garden which is full of lovely flowers. Close by is the opening to the Pas de Roland, a grand little gorge where the Nive rushes through the mountains—a finer Dovedale. A rocky path ascends by the side of the stream and climbs a succession of steeps to la roche percée, through which it passes to a little hamlet and old bridge. Eighteen miles farther is S. Jean de Port, whence one can ride to Roncesvalles.
The whole of this Basque country is full of memorials of the Peninsular War, the events of which in this district are wonderfully well described in the novel of "The Subaltern." There are deep woods and glens which ran down with blood; green lanes (as at Irogne) which were scenes of desperate combats; tombs of English officers, as in the churchyard at Bidart and in the picturesque mayor's garden between Bidart and Biarritz, where a flat stone commemorating three English officers is to be seen under the old apple-trees, overlooking a wide expanse of country. The most dreadful slaughter was near the Negressa Station, where the two armies, having occupied the ridges on either side the lake, suffered frightful carnage. It might have been spared, but in both armies it was then unknown that Napoleon had abdicated, and that peace was proclaimed. Between S. Jean de Luz and the Behobia is a picturesque old château, which was taken by the English after an easy siege, the inhabitants having been forced to fly with such precipitation that everything was abandoned, even the mail-bags which they had just seized being left behind and the contents scattered about on the floor. The first letter the English officer in command picked up was directed to himself and from his own father! He took nothing from the house but a Spanish dictionary from the library, but returning that way three weeks afterwards, found it completely pillaged by the Spanish camp-followers.
The peasantry of the Basque country are most interesting to talk to, and it is strange that more should not have been said and written about them, as their conversation is more full of ancient proverbs and folk-lore than that of the inhabitants of any other part of France. I remember an old Basque woman saying that her language was not only the best, but far the oldest in the world—in fact, it was that which Adam and Eve spoke in Paradise!
Twice, while we were at Biarritz, I made excursions into Spain, crossing the Bidassoa close to the Isle of Pheasants with intense interest. In all the Spain I have seen since, there is nothing more utterly Spanish than the tiny walled town of Fontarabia, with its wooden balconies piled one above another, and its lookout over a blue estuary. Most striking also is Passages—a land-locked bay of the sea with a very narrow opening, which is passed on the way to S. Sebastian.
Our return journey to England in the late spring was very delightful. My mother, in entire enjoyment of her marvellously restored health, and delighting to drink in the full beauties of nature and antiquity, was in no hurry to return to the turmoil of English life. We lingered everywhere, making short half-day journeys, and spending quiet afternoons sketching in the grass-grown streets of half-deserted cities, or driving out in little carriages to grand old châteaux. Thus we first saw S. Emilion, that marvellous place, where the buildings are so mingled with the living rock, that you scarcely can tell where the work of man begins, and where each sculptured cornice glows in late spring with a glory of crimson valerian. In one of the quietest streets of Poitiers, before a cottage door, we bought an old inlaid table, which is one of the pleasantest memorials of our journey. At Amboise we stayed several days in a most primitive but charming hotel, the vision of my dear mother in which often comes back to me, sitting with her psalm-book in a low room with white-washed walls and brick floor, and with a latticed window looking out over the great river glistening in the sunset. My mother liked and admired Amboise[266] more than almost any of our thousand resting-places, and she delighted in the excursions to moated Chenonceaux and to Chambord, where we and Lea had tea and bilberry jam at a delightful little inn which then existed on the outskirts of the forest.
On the 27th of May we reached Holmhurst. One of those curious incidents which are inexplicable had occurred during our absence, and was narrated to us, on our return, by our servants, neighbours, and by Mrs. Hale, the wife of our Hastings doctor. During my mother's illness at Pau, two of our maids, Alice and Jane Lathom, slept, according to their custom, in one of the spare rooms to the front of the house. In the middle of the night they were both aroused by three piercing terrible screams in the room close to the bed. Petrified with horror, they hid under the bed-clothes, and lay thus more dead than alive till morning. With the first streak of dawn they crept down the passage to John Gidman's room, roused him, and told him what had happened. He felt it was certainly an omen that the death they expected had occurred; took the carriage and drove down at once to St. Leonards toMrs. Hale. Dr. and Mrs. Hale were at breakfast when John Gidman arrived and sent in word that his mistress was dead. When they went out, they found he had received no letter, but had only an inward conviction of the event from what had happened.
It was the same hour at which my mother, waking from her second trance in her room at Pau, had uttered three long piercing screams in her wandering, and said, "Oh, I shall never, never see my dear Holmhurst again!"
There is no explanation to offer.
We had much enjoyment of our little Holmhurst this summer and a constant succession of guests. Amongst those who now came annually were Arthur Stanley and his wife Lady Augusta. To my mother, Augusta Stanley was always a very tender and dutiful niece, and to me a most kind cousin. She rejoiced to aid my mother in acting as a drag to Arthur's ever-increasing impression that the creed of progress and the creed of Christianity were identical. Many people thought that such an intense, almost universal warmth of manner as hers must be insincere, but with her it was perfectly natural. She took the sunshine of court favour, in which they both lived, quite simply, accepting it quietly, very glad that the Royal Family valued her, but never bringing it forward. She was indeed well worthy of the confidence which her royal mistress reposed in her, for though the Queen wrote to her daily, and though she generally came in to breakfast with several sheets in the large well-known handwriting, not one word from them ever transpired to her nearest relation or dearest friend.
What Lord Beaconsfield called "Arthur Stanley's picturesque sensibility" made him care more than Augusta about having royal (i.e. historic) friendships, though he had less personal feeling than she had for the illustrious persons who made them. He was, however, quite devoted to the Queen, to her own personality, and would certainly have been so had she been in any other position of life. The interests of Westminster made him very happy, and he rejoiced in the duty which fell upon him of preserving the Abbey as he received it, furious when it was suggested that some of the inferior and ugly monuments might be removed, or that the peculiar character of the choir (like a Spanish coro) might be altered. Always more a lover of moral than of doctrinal, or even spiritual Christianity, at this time he was beginning to be the victim of a passion for heretics which went on increasing afterwards. The Scotch were delighted with him: they thought he had an enthusiastic admiration for their Church. But he almost equally admired all schismatics from the Church to which he officially belonged, and was almost equally interested in them, and if he could get any one with ever so slight a taint of heresy to preach in the Abbey, it was a great delight to him: he thought it was setting an example of Christian liberality.
My sister left Rome with her aunt at the end of May (1865). At Pisa she took leave of her beloved Victoire, who remained at her own house. When she reached France, weakness prevented her intended visit to Paray le Monial, whence the nuns sent her the following rules for the employment of "The Holy Hour" in acts of reparation for insults offered to our Lord by the sins of men:—
Esmeralda was detained for some time by serious illness at Dijon, with the strange symptoms which, three years later, attended her final illness, and which were then inexplicable to all around her. On her recovery, Madame de Trafford met her at Paris, and insisted that she should follow her to her château in Touraine. Hence Esmeralda wrote:—
"Château de Beaujour, June 1865.—You will have heard from Auntie of our arrival in this fairy château.... I have heard much that is wonderful, but what is most striking is to watch the perfect simplicity of a life so gifted as Madame de Trafford's—the three virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity, that faith which can move mountains, and with it great humility. Madame de Trafford is deeply interested in any details I give her of the last six years: she was really attached to Mama. Here, in her château, she saw that Mama was dying. She turned suddenly round to Mr. Trafford, who was here, and said, 'Ah! elle va mourir—sortons.' She could not bear it, and felt that she must go out into the open air.
"We shall be in London some time next week, with endless affairs to settle. I quite dread the lawyers' deeds, days and weeks of worry, never ending and still beginning.
"I think of you once more in your study, as if a new life were given you, and dear Aunt Augustus in her arm-chair, and everything bright and beautiful around you."
Of this, her first visit to Beaujour, Esmeralda has left a few remarkable notes.
"July 1865.—Madame de Trafford came off to receive us at Paris as soon as she heard we were on our way. Then, when she heard I was so ill at Dijon, she often telegraphed there four times a day to Auntie, to the master of the hotel, to every one, so that they thought at Dijon that I was quite 'une grande personage.' At last, when I was better, we went to Beaujour. Madame de Trafford sent to meet us at Blois, but not her own horses, because they were trop vifs. It was a long drive, though we went at a great pace, for Madame de Trafford had told the coachman he was to drive as fast as possible. At last, in the avenue of poplars, the ruts were so deep that I thought we should have been overturned. Beaujour is a large square house with wings to it. Madame de Trafford herself opened the door, with a handkerchief over her head. 'Ah! vous voilà,' she said, 'c'est bien; il y'a longtemps que je vous attends.'
"The lower part of the château is unfurnished and vast. This Madame de Trafford considers to represent chaos, the chaos of nations. On the upper floor, each room represents a nation. Where she considers there is something wanting to the nation, there is some piece of furniture wanting to the room. When she considers that a nation has too much, the room is over-crowded. Thus in England, Canada, Gibraltar, and Malta are de trop, but India she allows for.
"For us she had a whole suite of rooms newly furnished. I had a bedroom, boudoir, dressing-room, and bath-room, and Auntie had the same. They contained every possible luxury. My bed was the most delicious I ever slept in. Madame de Trafford's power of second-sight had enabled her to see exactly what I liked best.
"All morning we sat in Madame de Trafford's bedroom or mine, and in the evening in the sitting-rooms. All day she talked of the future of Europe. 'Je plane sur l'Europe,' she used to say; and, when she was about to see anything—'Mon second être s'en va.'
"Madame de Trafford is frequently in conflict with the devil. At such moments she is perfectly awful—quite sublime in her grandeur. She will repeat sotto voce what he says to her, suggestions of pride, &c.,—and then, raising herself to her full height, in a voice of thunder will bid defiance to the evil spirit. She spoke of the many things in connection with herself which made people say she was mad, and said she did not feel it safe to have people to stay with her in consequence. I told her that this would be quite impossible, for that even in the week which I had spent with her, I had seen much which others never ought to have the opportunity of seeing and misjudging. She often spoke most severely of my faults, and said that I lived too much for myself. 'Prenez garde,' she said, 'que vous ne passiez pas par cette petite porte, que j'ai vue une fois.' This was the gate of hell. She saw it in a most awful vision—the judged souls, 'qu'ils baissent leurs têtes et passent par cette petite porte.'
"One day the Curé sent up word that the village procession was coming to the gates of the château. On such an occasion an altar is always expected to be prepared. There was a dreadful fuss and hurry, but it had to be done. A foundation of barrels was covered with coloured cloths, on this rose a higher platform, and on that the altar. Workmen were immediately employed to dig up trees and plant them around it, and Clémence was sent to the garden to dig up all the lilies she could find. When the procession arrived, all was ready and the people were delighted."
During this and succeeding visits at Beaujour, Madame de Trafford dictated many remarkable passages in her life to my sister. This she did walking up and down the room, often with her eyes flaming and her arms extended, as in a state of possession. At such times she would often break off her narration and suddenly begin addressing the spirit within her, which answered her in the strange voice, not her own, which sometimes came from her lips. Some of the stories she narrated at these times are of the wildest description, and are probably mere hallucinations, but a vein of truth runs through them all; and her complete biography, as I still preserve it, is a most curious document. Almost all her stories are tinged by her enthusiasm for the Bonaparte family, with whom she had some mysterious connection. They are mingled with strange visions and prophecies, many of which have undoubtedly come true, and her second-sight caused her to foresee, and in one case to prevent, an attack on the life of Napoleon III. She was constantly occupied in works of benevolence—in fact, her whole life was a contest between good and evil. "On joue sur moi," she said, "ce sont les bons et les mauvais esprits." Sometimes, when Esmeralda happened to go suddenly into the room, she would find Madame de Trafford, with livid face and glaring eyes, in horrible personal conflict with an evil spirit—"Prince de cette terre, adore donc ton Créateur et ton Dieu." In a late Life of Jeanne Darc, whose early existence amongst spiritual influences is much like that of Madame de Trafford, Catherine de l'Armagnac, the great friend of Jeanne, is described as resembling her, and the observation is made that this extraordinary power remains in the Armagnac family still. Madame de Trafford was née Martine Larmignac (de l'Armagnac). But it was not only in Jeanne Darc that there was a similarity to the visions, the voices, the inspirations of Madame de Trafford: exactly the same appears in the histories of St. Bridget, St. Catherine of Siena, and Savonarola. The child-prophet Samuel also heard such voices calling to him.
In her "Life," Madame de Trafford says that she was brought up at Saumur, where spirits surrounded and talked to her in her childhood. When she was hungry, she believed that they brought her food. She was starved and ill-treated by her nominal mother, but her nominal father was kind to her. She always loved the poor, and they loved her. She once stole a loaf to give to a poor family. She was dressed in the richest child's frocks and lace till she was seven years old, then they were taken away and poor clothes were given to her. In her solitary life at Saumur she fancied that every one else like herself talked to spirits....
To escape from a marriage with a French Count, and, as she believed, in obedience to the spirits, Martine Larmignac went with the family of Sharpe as governess to England. Here she eventually became the second wife of Mr. Trafford of Wroxham Hall in Norfolk, but even then she never expected happiness in her life. She said that a spirit announced to her before her marriage, "Ton nom pour toi, ta fortune pour les autres, et tu ne seras jamais heureuse." She had two children by Mr. Trafford. She foresaw the deaths of both by her second-sight, and had the agony of watching the fatal hour approaching even when they were well and strong.
During the Crimean war, Madame de Trafford went out to Constantinople with some Irish Sisters of Charity. She was with them during the earthquake which overwhelmed Broussa. At the moment when the Emperor Nicholas is supposed to have died, she alarmed those who were with her by starting up and in her fearful voice of prophecy exclaiming, "Nicholas! arrête toi! tu n'est pas mort: tu as disparu." She always maintained that the Emperor did not die at the time at which his death was announced as having taken place.
One day Madame de Trafford was sitting in her room at Paris, when the spirit told her she was to go—not where she was to go, or why, but simply that she was to set off. She caught up her bonnet and shawl and bade her maid Annette (for she had servants then) to follow her. She went out: she walked: she walked on till she arrived at the railway-station for going to Lyons (Chemin de Fer de Lyon). She still felt she was to go on, but she did not know whither, so she said to the guard that she must pay for her ticket when she left the train, for she could not tell where she should get out. She went on till the railway came to an end, and the railway in those days came to an end at Toulon. Then she got out and went to a hotel and ordered rooms for herself and her maid Annette, and dinner—for they were famished after the long journey. But still she felt restless: she was still convinced that she was not in the right place.
"J'avais arrêté un appartement pour une semaine, mais une voix me dit, 'Pars,' et je savais qu'il y'avait du danger. Je fis appeler la maîtresse de l'hôtel. Je lui dis, 'Je vous payerai tout ce que vous voulez, mais je dois partir. Faites attendre dix minutes la malle-poste pour Marseilles.' J'arrive à Marseilles fatiguée. Je me repose sur un lit. Il faisait déjà nuit. J'appelais ma femme de chambre et je lui dis, 'Je veux sortir.' Je sors. J'avance. Je retourne. Ah, mon Dieu! qu'est ce que c'est? J'ai peur: je tremble: je ne sais pourquoi. 'Annette, suivez-moi,' je dis. J'avance encore. Je monte les rues étroites de Marseilles. J'arrête. Oh, mon Dieu! qu'est que c'est que je vois—une rue! Je ne puis plus avancer, mais qu'est que c'est cette rue? Je tourne: je monte la rue en frémissant. 'Annette, suivez-moi.' J'arrête. Je vois une maison—une fenêtre. La maison est fermée. C'est ici. Je mésure la distance de cette maison à la maison vis-à-vis. Une, deux, trois, quatre. La police me suivait. Ils soupçonnaient quelque chose, mais je disais, 'Qu'est que c'est que cela—une maison, une fenêtre?' La police entre dans la maison, dans cette fenêtre elle y trouva une machine infernale. Napoleon était sauvé: il devait y passer le lendemain."
From her extraordinary powers of second-sight, supernatural gifts were attributed by ignorant persons, and to her own great distress, to Madame de Trafford. The poor around her, both in Touraine and at Paris, often implored her to heal their sick, insisting that she could do so if she would, for she had the power.
"J'allais à la Madeleine un dimanche pour la messe. La fille de mon cocher avait ête bien malade depuis longtemps. Je demandais à mon cocher en descendant à l'église comment se portait sa fille. 'Elle a demandé Madame de Trafford,' disait-il en pleurant, 'jusqu'à son dernier moment.'—'Comment, Florimond,' lui dis-je, 'que voulez vous dire?'—'Elle est morte,' disait il en sanglotant: 'elle est morte hier à minuit.'—'Ah,' disais-je, et je descendais de la voiture. 'Florimond, pourquoi ne m'avez-vous pas fait appeler?' J'entrais à l'église, mais je ne pouvais rester tranquille. Je sentais que je ne pouvais rester pour la messe, et je sortis. Je remonte en voiture. 'Florimond, au grand trot,' lui dis-je, 'chez vous.'—'Chez moi, Madame,' dit-il; 'ah, il est trop tard; ah, si vous étiez venue plutôt, Madame, mais le pauvre enfant a déjà changé,' et le pauvre homme pleurait; ah! combien il aimait cet enfant. Nous arrivons. Je descends vite. Je monte. J'entre. J'ouvre la porte. Déjà on avait placé un linceul sur le corps de la jeune fille: on se preparait à l'ensevelir. La mère et la garde-malade étaient dans la chambre. Je fis sortir la garde. J'approche le lit. Je jette par terre chapeau et mantelle. Je lève le linceul. Ah! je n'avais jamais vu un mort: je ne puis vous dire l'effêt que cela me fit. Déjà depuis si peu d'heures! Il avait treize heures qu'elle était morte, et les levres étaient serrées: tout le contour de la bouche était décoloré. Je m'approchais. 'Seigneur,' dis-je, 'je ne vous ai rien demandé jusqu'à ce jour: je vous demande aujourd'hui la vie de cet enfant. Oh, Seigneur, c'est la fille unique, rendez donc, je vous en supplie, rendez donc cette fille à sa mère.' Alors une voix d'un mauvais esprit me dit, 'Tu peux rendre la vie: tu as le pouvoir.' Mais je répondis, 'Moi, je ne puis rien, je ne suis rien; mais, Seigneur, vous avez le pouvoir, vous seul pouvez tout; rendez donc, je vous supplie, rendez donc cette fille à sa mère.' Je passais la main sur la figure de l'enfant: je le prends par la main. 'Lève-toi,' lui dis-je, et la jeune fille se levait en sursaut! mais ses yeux étaient encore fermés, et tout doucement elle dit ces paroles, 'Madame T.. r.. a.. fford.. je.. vais.. dormir.' Les couleurs revenaient tout doucement dans ses joues. Je me retournais à la mère: 'Votre fille dormait,' dis-je. Je quittais la maison. Je commandais qu'on lui donnait à manger. 'Florimond,' dis-je à mon cocher, 'vous pouvez monter: votre fille n'est pas morte—elle dort.' Je quittais Paris sur-le-champ."[267]
The generosity of Madame de Trafford knew no bounds. Once she went to Bourges. She arrived at the hotel and ordered dinner. The waiter said dinner could not be ready for an hour. She asked what she could do to occupy the hour. The man suggested that she could visit the cathedral. She said she had often seen the cathedral of Bourges: "what else?" The man suggested the convent of Ursuline nuns on the other side of the street. "Yes," she said, she was much interested in education, she was much interested in Ursuline nuns—she would go to them.
A nun showed her everything, and she expressed herself much pleased; but the nun looked very sad and melancholy, and at last Madame de Trafford asked her what made her look so miserable. "Oh," said the nun, "it is from a very peculiar circumstance, which you, as a stranger, could not enter into."—"Never mind," said Madame de Trafford, "tell me what it is?"—"Well," said the nun, "since you insist upon knowing, many convents were founded in the Middle Ages by persons who had very peculiar ideas about the end of the world. They believed that the world could not possibly endure beyond a certain number of years, and they founded their institutions with endowments to last for a time which they believed to be far beyond the possible age of the world. Now our convent was founded on that principle, and the time till which our convent was founded comes to an end to-morrow. To-morrow there are no Ursuline nuns of Bourges: to-morrow we have no convent—we cease to exist."—"Well," said Madame de Trafford, "but is there no other house you could have, where you could be re-established?"—"Oh, yes," said the nun, "there is another house to be had, a house on the other side of the street, which would do very well for a convent, but to establish us there would cost £3000. We are under vows of poverty, we have no money, so it is no use thinking about it."—"Well," said Madame de Trafford, "if you can have the house, it is a very fortunate circumstance that Mr. Trafford sent me a bill for £3000 this morning: there it is. You can have your convent." This story my sister had from the nuns of Bourges: it was her second-sight of the trouble overhanging them which had taken Madame de Trafford to Bourges.
Amongst the most extraordinary of the dictations of Madame de Trafford are those which state that she was really the person (accidentally walking and botanising on those mountains) who appeared out of a dense fog to the two children of La Salette, and whom they took for a vision of the Virgin.
People who have heard our histories of Madame de Trafford have often asked if I have ever seen her myself. I never did. The way in which I have been brought nearest to her was this. One day I had gone to visit Italima and Esmeralda at their little lodging in Chester Terrace, in the most terrible time of their great poverty. I was standing with my sister in the window, when she said, "Oh, how many people there are that I knew in the world who would give me five pounds if they knew what it would be to me now. Oh, how many people there are that would do that, but they never think of it." Esmeralda thought no one was listening, but Italima, who was sitting on the other side of the room, and who was then in the depths of her terrible despair, caught what she was saying, and exclaimed, "Oh, Esmeralda, that is all over; no one will ever give you five pounds again as long as you live."
Three days after I went to see them again. While I was there, the postman's knock was heard at the door, and an odd-looking envelope was brought up, with a torn piece of paper inside it, such as Madame de Trafford wrote upon. On it were these words: "As I was sitting in my window in Beaujour this morning, I heard your voice, and your voice said, 'Oh, how many people there are that I knew in the world who would give me five pounds if they knew what it would be to me now! Oh, how many people there are that would do that, but they never think of it.' So I just slipped this five-pound note into an envelope, and here it is." And in the envelope was a five-pound note.
"J'étais là; telle chose m'advint." I was present on both these occasions. I was there when my sister spoke the words, and I was there when the letter came from Madame de Trafford sending the five-pound note, and repeating not only my sister's words, but the peculiar form of reduplication which she so constantly used, and which is so common in Italy when it is desired to make a thing emphatic.
Esmeralda spent the greater part of the summer at Mrs. Thorpe's, where I frequently visited her. She was soon deep in affairs of every kind, far too much for her feeble frame, as she added incessant religious work to her necessary legal worries. She would go anywhere or bear anything in order to bring over any one to the Roman Catholic Church, and was extraordinarily successful in winning converts. Her brother William had already, I think, been "received," and her little sister-in-law, Mrs. William Hare, was "received" about this time. Esmeralda's most notable success, however, had been in the case of Mr. and Mrs. T. G. When she was living in Sloane Street, she heard accidentally that Mrs. G. was wavering in her religious opinions. Esmeralda did not know her, but she drove immediately to her house at ten o'clock in the morning, and by four o'clock that afternoon not only Mrs. G., but her husband, had been received into the Roman Catholic Church.
Still, Esmeralda never believed that all those who were without the pale of her own Church would be lost. She felt certain of the salvation of every soul that had died in union with God by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost.
Amongst the persons whom I frequently saw when staying with my sister were the singular figures, in quaint dress with silver ornaments, with long hair, and ever booted and spurred as cavaliers, who were known as the Sobieski Stuarts. Their real names were John Hay Allan and Charles Stuart Allan, but my sister recognised them by the names they gave themselves—John Sobieski Stolberg Stuart and Charles Edward Stuart. I believe that they had themselves an unfailing belief in their royal blood. Their father was said to be the son of Charles Edward Stuart and Louise of Stolberg, Countess of Albany, born at Leghorn in 1773. Fear of "the King of Hanover" was described as the reason for intrusting him as a baby to Admiral Allan, whose frigate was off the coast. Allan brought up the boy as his own, and he lived to marry an English lady and leave the two sons I have mentioned. The elder brother died in 1872, and the younger on board a steamer off Bordeaux on Christmas Eve, 1880.
Upon her return to England, Esmeralda found in completion the beautiful monument which she had caused to be erected to her mother in the Catholic Cemetery at Kensal Green. It represents "Our Lady of Sorrows"—a figure of life-size, seated under a tall marble cross, from which the crown of thorns is hanging.
From Esmeralda's private meditations of this summer I extract:—
"July 15, 1865.—Ask for the gift to sorrow only for our Blessed Lord's sake, that truly we may share the divine sorrow of His Blessed Mother, and mingle our tears with hers on Calvary at the foot of the cross."
"August 20, 1865.—Ask for the grace of filial love. Strive to overcome all evil inclinations that are an impediment to filial love, amongst which one of the chief is self-conceit. Make acts of reparation for all the selfconceit of past life. When thoughts of self-conceit enter, let us shut the gates of our hearts against them, and make an act of profound humility and sorrow, seeing our own nothingness and baseness. We must seek for filial love by laying aside all confidence in self, and placing all our confidence in God alone; for all that proceeds from ourselves is corrupt, and our best actions have no merit unless performed solely for God's greater glory, without regard to ourselves."
"August 27, 1865.—Lay at the foot of the cross all secret doubts of God's guidance. It is this secret instinct which is one of the great hindrances to the reign of Jesus in our souls. Let us make an act of the will—'Lord, I believe that Thou lovest to make the souls of men Thy tabernacle; help Thou mine unbelief. I believe that Thou lovest me, in spite of my unworthiness and infidelity. I am blind and poor and naked; I have nothing of myself to offer Thee but what is corrupt and evil, but Thou hast given me by inheritance all the poverty and humility of Thy Blessed Mother, all her sorrows,—and these I offer Thee—Thy gift I give back to Thee. O my Lord, let me learn to know Thee more and more.'"
END OF VOL. II.
Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
Edinburgh and London
THE STORY OF MY LIFE
VOL. III
Anne F. M. L. HareBY
AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE
AUTHOR OF "MEMORIALS OF A QUIET LIFE,"
"THE STORY OF TWO NOBLE LIVES,"
ETC. ETC.
VOLUME III
LONDON
GEORGE ALLEN, 156, CHARING CROSS ROAD
1896
[All rights reserved]
Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
At the Ballantyne Press
| PAGE | |
| ENGLISH PLEASURES AND ROMAN TRIALS | 1 |
| LAST YEARS OF ESMERALDA | 233 |
| THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CONSPIRACY | 273 |
| LAST YEARS WITH THE MOTHER | 314 |
| INDEX TO VOLS. I., II. AND III. | 421 |
| The illustrations may be viewed enlarged by clicking on them.
In order to ease the flow of reading, some of the illustrations have been moved to before or after the paragraph in which they appeared in the book. (note of etext transcriber) |
| ANNE F. M. L. HARE. From Swinton. (Photogravure) | Frontispiece |
| PAGE | |
| THE CORONATION CHAIR, WESTMINSTER | 4 |
| BAMBOROUGH CASTLE | 9 |
| THE SUNDIAL GARDEN, FORD | 12 |
| THE FOUNTAIN, FORD | 13 |
| FORD CASTLE, THE TERRACE | 28 |
| ELIZABETH, LADY STUART DE ROTHESAY. From a miniature by Miss A. Dixon. (Photogravure) | To face 32 |
| THE PASS OF BRACCO | 52 |
| AT PORTO VENERE | 53 |
| LA SPINA, PISA | 62 |
| CONTADINA, VALLEY OF THE SACCO | 99 |
| THE BRIDGE OF AUGUSTUS, NARNI | 101 |
| THE MEDIÆVAL BRIDGE, NARNI | 102 |
| VIEW FROM THE BOBOLI GARDENS, FLORENCE | 104 |
| HOLMHURST, FROM THE GARDEN | 108 |
| LADY AUGUSTA STANLEY. (Photogravure) | To face 110 |
| ALTON BARNES CHURCH | 111 |
| BODRYDDAN | 124 |
| S. REMY | 137 |
| FROM MAISON S. FRANÇOIS, CANNES | 138 |
| BOCCA WOOD, CANNES | 140 |
| MAISON S. FRANÇOIS, CANNES | 141 |
| MARIA HARE. (Line engraving) | To face 142 |
| CAGNES | 145 |
| ANTIBES | 147 |
| LE PUY | 150 |
| ROYAT | 151 |
| IN THE DEAN'S GARDEN, CANTERBURY | 156 |
| ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, DEAN OF WESTMINSTER. (Photogravure) | To face 158 |
| COURTYARD, DEANERY, WESTMINSTER | 160 |
| PALACE GARDEN, PETERBOROUGH | 163 |
| FONTAINES | 184 |
| ARC DE S. CESAIRE, ALISCAMPS, ARLES | 185 |
| AT SAVONA | 186 |
| SESTRI | 189 |
| CASTLE OF ESTE | 227 |
| PETRARCH'S TOMB, ARQUA | 230 |
| TOMB OF THE COUNT OF CASTELBARCO, VERONA | 231 |
| ESMERALDA'S GRAVE | 271 |
| MARY STANLEY. (Photogravure) | To face 282 |
| JOIGNY | 316 |
| PORTE D'ARROUX, AUTUN | 321 |
| FORD CASTLE, THE LIBRARY | 325 |
| BAR-LE-DUC | 334 |
| BRIDGE OF BAR-LE-DUC | 335 |
| MANTUA | 337 |
| VICENZA | 339 |
| VICENZA FROM MONTE BERICO | 340 |
| THE PRATO DELLA VALLE, PADUA | 341 |
| SIENA | 342 |
| S. GEMIGNANO | 343 |
| THE HÔTEL DE LONDRES DURING THE FLOOD | 349 |
| S. ANTONIO, PISA, DURING THE FLOOD | 355 |
| VIEW FROM THE VIA GREGORIANA | 361 |
| NEMI | 369 |
| TIVOLI | 371 |
| BRACCIANO | 375 |
| GRAVE OF AUGUSTUS W. HARE, ROME | 377 |
| FROM THE LOGGIA DEI LANZI | 379 |
| PIAZZA S. DOMENICO, BOLOGNA | 381 |
| CLUNY | 384 |
| CLOISTER OF FONTENAY | 385 |
| ST. MARTIN'S, CANTERBURY | 394 |
| HENRY ALFORD, DEAN OF CANTERBURY. (Photogravure) | To face 394 |
| THE CHURCH LANE, HURSTMONCEAUX | 410 |
"The holidays of joy are the vigils of sorrow."—Proverb.
| "Dear friend, not every herb puts forth a flower; |
| Nor every flower that blossoms fruit doth bear; |
| Nor hath each spoken word a virtue rare; |
| Nor every stone in earth its healing power." |
| —Folgore da San Gemignano. |
| "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, |
| Old Time is still a-flying, |
| And this same flower that smiles to-day |
| To-morrow will be dying."—HERRICK. |
WE were for some time at the Deanery at Westminster in the summer of 1865. I think it was then that Archbishop Manning's consecration took place. I heard much about it, though I was not there. Manning looked like the white marble statue of a saint, especially when the consecration was over and he moved slowly down the church, giving the benediction. Newman was there also, and looked even more statuesque still. Wonderful was the selfcontrolling power which both these priests had. Many years before, as the Stanleys were going into St. Margaret's, there was a scuffle, and a huge black cat was driven out of the church. No one thought any more about it, and nobody saw any more of it, till, just as Newman was coming forward within the altar-rail, and was in the act of reading the Communion Service, the black cat sprang from one of the rafters of the roof, and came crashing down upon him, falling upon the hem of his white surplice. Newman's face never changed a muscle, and quietly, reverently, and slowly he went on reading the service without moving: but it must have seemed like a demon.[268]
During this visit to London I frequently saw, at the house of Lady Franklin (widow of the Arctic voyager) the gentle and pleasing Queen Dowager (Emma) of the Sandwich Islands.[269] Her complexion was copper-coloured, but she was very good-looking, and simply but handsomely attired in the dress of an English widow lady. She had greatly looked forward to the fogs of England, having been used to nothing but the blue or copper-coloured sky of the Pacific, and was dreadfully disappointed when she saw the resplendent blue sky of the glorious day on which she arrived at Southampton. "Why, I might just as well have been in the Sandwich Islands." She went over Westminster Abbey with far more knowledge of the tombs and persons they commemorate than I have seen in European royalties with whom I have visited the Abbey in later days. In stepping back to allow the Queen to inspect the Coronation Chair, my mother had a bad fall on the pavement of Edward the Confessor's Chapel, and the concern and amiability she showed made her very attractive.
Mr. Evans, of St. Andrew's, Wells Street, preached in Westminster Abbey at the evening service whilst we were at the Deanery. He preached on the destruction of the Temple, applying it to Westminster—that we were not to be taken in by "the grandeur of the building, the solemn distances of the choir, the misty shadows of the roof, the windows by painters who dipped their pencils in the rainbow," &c. He described the different Jewish temples; the first, rising from the heart of David and the hand of Solomon; the second, of Zerubabel; the third built by Herod, and "certainly he was no saint."
After the sermon was over I rushed upstairs, and was preaching it to the family with all its quaintnesses, when I saw Mary Stanley making most unaccountable faces, and turning round, I found Mr. Evans close behind me. The little dark figure had hirpled itself into the room and was listening all the time.
Madame Mohl (whom I have described at Paris in 1858) was staying at the Deanery, where Arthur and Augusta were very fond of her, and always called her "Molina." She was most amusing.
"When I was leaving Paris, I asked my friend M. Bourdon whether I could take anything to England for him, and he said that he was obliged to me, and that if I would take a very valuable Indian shawl, he would avail himself of my offer. However, before I left Paris, my little friend Barbara was starting for England, and she said to me that part of her box was empty, and that she could take anything I wanted, so I was very glad to give her M. Bourdon's Indian shawl. Now Barbara was in that dreadful accident at Staplehurst, and so were all her boxes, and when the train went over, the boxes went down into the water, and all the things were spoilt. At first I hoped it was not so bad, but 'the fact is that the shawl is spoilt,' wrote Barbara to me, and ever since that M. Bourdon and I have been en froid, which I am very sorry for, as we used to be such good friends."
"Oh, that will soon pass," I said.
"No, I am afraid it will not," said Madame Mohl, "for remember we are en froid, not merely en delicatesse. Being en delicatesse is easily remedied. 'Je suis en delicatesse avec maman,' said a young lady to me.... A little while ago I went to see the famous author Jules Janin. He could not attend to me. He was sitting at a table covered with papers and was writing notes. Messengers went off with the notes, and almost immediately came back with the answers, which were evidently written a very short distance off. This went on for some time, till at last Jules Janin looked up and said, 'Je vous demande mille pardons: faites bien d'excuses, Madame: c'est que je suis en delicatesse avec ma femme.'"
One day Madame Mohl told me:—
"There was a handsome young woman married to a man who was in her own, which was a very lowly station of life, but after her marriage she consented to go a journey by sea with a family which she had previously lived with. On the way the ship was wrecked, and she was one of the few persons saved. It was a desolate coast, and one of the officers who was saved with her fell in love with her—she was a very pretty young woman—and married her. Eventually they returned to England, and he died, leaving her a very fine place and a large fortune. Some years after, her favourite maid told her that she was going to be married, and, being attached to her maid, she desired her to bring her betrothed that she might see what he was like. When he came in, she recognised her own first husband. He did not know her again, but going upstairs, she put on an old shawl, and coming down said, 'Do you remember that shawl?'—'Yes,' he said, 'it is the shawl which I gave to my wife on our wedding-day.' Then the lady revealed herself and took her husband back; but he was a low man, and led her an awful life and drank dreadfully; but on the whole that was a good thing perhaps, for it soon brought on delirium tremens, so that he died and she got rid of him. 'What a fool she was ever to let him know who she was!' was what I felt when I heard the story."
"Well, I suppose she wanted to save her maid from marrying a man who was married already," I said; "it would have been very wrong if she had not."
"So the Bishop of Winchester seemed to think," said Madame Mohl, "for he was there when the story was told, and he was very much shocked and very grave, and he said, 'I think, Madame, that you should recollect our life is only a railway, and that it does not signify so much if we are comfortable in the railway, as at the home to which we are going.' But I told him I would rather be comfortable in the railway as well, and that I would certainly not have been such a fool—and the Bishop of Winchester thought I was a very wicked person."
In August and September my mother was very well, and had a succession of visitors, so that I was able to be away from her.
To MY MOTHER.
"Hallingbury, August 10, 1865.—The Archer Houblons' carriage met me at Bishop Stortford. This is a great red brick house in a large park, comfortable inside, but perfectly filled with oggetti—too many things. The country round is dull, except 'the forest,' Hatfield Broadoake, which is a grand possession for a private family—eight miles of green glades, old oaks, gnarled thorn-trees, and a small lake."
"Mainsforth, August 13.—I went to Cambridge on Friday, and saw the dear Hurstmonceaux Rectory pictures, which no one seemed to admire as we did, and the Hurstmonceaux books in Trinity College Library, where nobody ever reads them. I dined with the Public Orator, and the next day went to Ely.... The Cathedral is beautifully situated, a green sloping lawn with fine trees on one side, and it stands in a group of picturesque and venerable buildings—Deanery, Palace, and Grammar-school."
"Bamborough Castle, August 19.—My mother will be well able to imagine me in this old castle: it is such a pleasure that she knows it all. As we drove up the hill, I could see dear old Mrs. Liddell sitting in her usual place in the great window of the Court-room.... I walked till dinner with Mr. Liddell on those delicious open sands, fitful gleams coming on with the sunset over Holy Island, and the sea covered with herring-boats. Mr. Liddell talked of his youth. 'The old Duchess of Gordon used to lead the ton in my day—so exclusive it was! She took care to marry all her daughters well. With regard to their looks she said, "Give me eyes and I will supply the rest." Every one used to struggle to get into Almack's. When Lady Jersey was abroad, she heard of some "little people" being admitted, and set off home directly, saying, "I am obliged to come back to keep you all from going wrong." Lady Londonderry and Lady Jersey were rival queens, and I am afraid rejoiced in each other's misfortunes when their daughters married ill.'
"Yesterday we went to Holy Island—Charlotte, Mrs. George Liddell, Miss Parke, and I—crossing in a boat the emerald green waves, upon which great seagulls were floating in the most bewitching manner. We had luncheon in St. Cuthbert's Abbey, and by the time we were ready to return, the sea was like a lake, the lights most lovely in the still water, and the great castle looming against a yellow sky. We have had a very pleasant evening since. Mr. Liddell has just been telling me of an old man at Easington who said that the Bible was like a round of beef, it was always 'coot and coom again.'"
"Ford Cottage, August 22.—Lady Waterford had sent a kind invitation for the whole party at Bamborough to come to luncheon, so they drove with me here—sixteen miles. As we came down upon Ford all was changed. The gingerbread castle of Udolpho had marched back three centuries, and is now a grand massive building in the Audley End style, but with older towers. The ugly village had moved away from its old site to a hillside half a mile off, and picturesque cottages now line a broad avenue, in the centre of which is a fountain with a tall pillar surmounted by an angel. Schools for boys and girls have sprung up, a school for washing, adult schools, a grand bridge of three tall arches over the dens: it is quite magical.
"The cottage is radiant—gorgeous beds of flowers, smoothly shaven miniature lawns, and large majolica vases, while raised stands of scarlet geraniums look in at the windows. Dear old Lady Stuart received us, and then Lady Waterford came in. I felt rather shy at bringing such an immense party, but I believe the visit was really welcome to her, and all the guests were completely fascinated by her beauty, her kindness, and her goodness.... The castle will be magnificent inside. The ghost room is opened and a secret staircase found at the very spot from which the ghost was said to emerge. The Bamborough party went away after tea, and we had a delightful evening, Lady Waterford singing and talking by turns. 'Here are my two little choristers,' she said, showing her last picture. 'I painted them against the grass in early spring: it has all the effect of a gold ground. They like coming to me. They are the only children who have come to me who have not been sick: after the first hour, all the others used to turn perfectly livid and say "I'm sick." It was something in the room, and having to look fixedly at one object. Lady Marion Alford says it was just the same with the children who came to her.... I have often seen skies like this in my drawing, but I suppose others don't. I asked a little schoolgirl that came to me if she had ever seen anything like it. "No, never," she said.... I should like my fountain drawn either with a black cloud behind the angel or with a very deep blue sky; I have seen it both ways.... That is a sketch of a French town we went through, where the arms of the town are three owls. We asked a woman what it meant, and she said it was on account of a sermon. Some one betted the priest that he would not bring an owl into his sermon. So he preached on Dives and Lazarus, and, after describing the end of the rich man, said "Il bou, Il bou, Il bou" (He boils, boils, boils).... When Ruskin came here, he said I would never study or take pains, so I copied a print from Van Eyck in Indian-ink; it took me several months. When I took Ruskin into my school he only said, "Well, I expected you would have done something better than that."'
"But, in spite of Ruskin, my mother would be perfectly enchanted with the schools, which are glorious. The upper part of the walls is entirely covered with large pictures, like frescoes, by Lady Waterford, of the 'Lives of Good Children'—Cain and Abel, Abraham and Isaac, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his Brethren, &c., all being really portraits of the Ford children, so that little Cain and Abel sit underneath their own picture, &c. The whole place is unique. The fountain in the centre of the village is worthy of Perugia, with its tall red granite pillar and angel figure standing out against the sky. All the cottages have their own brilliant gardens of flowers, beautiful walks have been made to wander through the wooded dene below the castle, and miles of drive on Flodden, with its wooded hill and Marmion's Well. The whole country is wild and poetical—deep wooded valleys, rugged open heaths, wind-blown pine-woods, and pale blue distances of Cheviot Hill; and Lady Waterford is just the person to live in it, gleaning up and making the most of every effect, every legend, every ballad, and reproducing them with her wonderful pencil, besides which her large income enables her to restore all the old buildings and benefit all the old people who have the good fortune to be within her reach."
"Ford Cottage, August 24.—I have been walking in the dene to-day with Lady Stuart. She narrates very comically the effect which her two beautiful daughters produced when they came out into the world, and the way in which she saw a lady at a ball gaze at them, and then at her, and heard her say, 'How beautiful they are, and isn't it strange, considering?' Some one spoke of how Blake the artist used to go into a summer-house with Mrs. Blake, and practise for the Adam and Eve of his pictures, and how one day some visitors came, and it was very awkward. 'It would not have been so with the real Adam and Eve,' said Lady Stuart, 'for they could never dread any droppers-in.' In her anecdotes of old times and people, she is quite inexhaustible. Here are some of them:—
"'Yes, we were at George the Fourth's coronation; a great many other ladies and I went with Lady Castlereagh—she, you know, was the minister's wife—by water in one of the great state barges. We embarked at Hungerford Stairs, and we got out at a place called Cotton Garden, close to Westminster Hall. Lord Willoughby was with us. When we got out, we were looking about to see where all the ministers lived, &c., when somebody came up and whispered something to Lord Willoughby. He exclaimed "Good God!" and then, apologising for leaving us, went off in a hurry looking greatly agitated. Queen Caroline was at that moment knocking at the door of the Abbey. She had got Lady Anne Barnard, who was with her, to get her a peer's ticket, which was given her, but it was not countersigned, and they would not admit her. She was in despair. She stood on the platform and wrung her hands in a perfect agony. At last Alderman Wood, who was advising her, said, "Really your Majesty had better retire." The people who had tickets for the Abbey, and who were to go in by that door, were all waiting and pressing for entrance, and when the Queen went away, there were no acclamations for her; the people thought she had no business to come to spoil their sport.[273]
"'She had been married twenty-five years to the King then. They offered her £100,000 a year to stay quietly abroad, but she would come back at once and assert her rights as a queen. She died of that Coronation-day. She went home and was very ill. Then came a day on which she was to go to one of the theatres. It was placarded all about that she was to appear, and her friends tried to get up a little reaction in her favour. She insisted on going, and she was tolerably well received, but when she came home she was worse, and she died two days after.
"'The Duchesse de Berri[274] thought of marrying George IV. after her Duke was dead. People began to talk to her about marrying again. "Oh dear, no," she said, "I shall never marry again. At least there is only one person—there is the King of England. How funny it would be to have two sons, one the King of France and the other King of England—yes, and the King of England the cadet of the two." I never had courage to tell George IV. what she said, though I might have done it. He once said to me, when his going to France was talked of, "Oh dear, no, I don't want to see them. Poor Louis XVIII., he was a friend of mine, but then he's dead; and as for Charles X., I don't want to see him. The Dauphine! yes, I pity her; and the Duchesse de Bern, she's dreadful ugly, ain't she?" I wish I had said to him, "Yes, but she does not wish your Majesty to think so."
"'I went down one day to St. Cloud to see the Duchesse de Berri; she had been pleased to express a wish to see me. While I was there, her son rushed in.[275] "Come now," she said, "kiss the hand of Madame l'Ambassadrice. But what have you got there?" she said. "Oh, je vous apportais mes papillons," said he, showing some butterflies in a paper case, and then, with an air of pride, "C'est une assez belle collection." The Duchesse laughed at them, and the boy looked so injured and hurt, that I said, "But it is a very nice collection indeed." Many years afterwards, only three years ago, Lou and I were at Venice, and we went to dine with the Chambords. He remembered all about it, and laughed, and said, "Après, je regrettais mes papillons." For it was only a fortnight after I saw them that the Revolution took place, and the family had to fly, and of course the butterflies in their paper case were left behind in the flight. We were in the Pyrenees then, and indeed when the Duchesse sent for me, it was because she heard I was going there, and she wished to tell me about the places she had been to, and to ask me to engage her donkey-woman.
"'When they were at Venice, the Chambords lived in one palace, a very fine one, and the Duchesse de Berri in another farther down the canal, and the Duchess of Parma in a third. I did not see the Duchesse de Berri, though I should have liked to have done so. She was married then to a Marchese Lucchesi, by whom she had a quantity of grown-up sons and daughters. They were dreadfully extravagant—not Lucchesi, he never was, but she was, and her sons-in-law. The Comte de Chambord paid her debts over and over again, but at last her things were obliged to be sold.
"'When we went to dine with the Chambords, we were warned that we must not allow anything to pass, or we should not get any dinner. We went at half-past four, and the soup came, and the Duke (de Bordeaux) was talking to me at that time, and, while I was listening, the soup was carried away, and so it was with nearly everything else. The party was almost entirely composed of French exiles. Lou wrote down their names at the time, but I have forgotten them now. At seven our gondola was ordered, and it came too late, the royalties were so punctual. The Duke and Duchess got up, and saying, "I wish you a pleasant evening," went out, and then we had nothing for it but to go away. An old Venetian gentleman helped us out of the scrape, and gave us a lift home in his gondola, and very much aghast our gondoliers were when they met us in another boat upon the canal, while they were rowing with all their might to fetch us away. The royal family used to go in the evening to an island, which the Duke had bought for them to have exercise upon.
"'They would never do for France: they have not the manners. She is ugly,[276] and then she dresses so badly—no, she would never do. The only one who would do out of both sets is Aumale: he is really a fine prince. The Comte de Paris would of course naturally come first, but the Duke of Orleans used to say, 'I will never be a king by anything but popular election,' and that is against his family succeeding. All the members of the family look up to Aumale.
"'Did you ever hear about the old Duc de Coigny and his arm? His arm was shot during the Moscow campaign, and when it was amputated, numbers of others having their limbs taken off at the same time, he exclaimed, "Oh mon cher bras, qui m'a si bien servi, je ne puis jamais me séparer de ce cher bras," and he insisted on its being found for him, which was highly inconvenient, and packed it up in a portmanteau, which he carried before him on horseback during the whole of the return. The soldiers quite hated that arm; however, the Duke insisted upon it. At last, as he was crossing a ford in a carriage, the portmanteau rolled off his knee on to his foot and hurt it exceedingly, upon which he was so exasperated that in a fit of rage he opened the carriage door and kicked it out into the river. When he got to his night quarters, however, the Duke was in absolute despair—"Oh mon pauvre bras! mon pauvre cher bras!" He had wished it to be buried with him; for was it not his most faithful servant? he said. However, none of the soldiers were inclined to go and fish it up for him, and since then, poor man, he has had to be buried without it.
"'The wife of this Duc de Coigny was Henrietta Dalrymple Hamilton, who brought him large estates. Her parents were miserable at her marrying a foreigner, from the idea that the estates would certainly then go out of the family; but of all his children only two daughters survive; one is Lady Manvers, and the other married Lord Stair, and thus brought back the estates to the elder branch of the Dalrymples. The Duc died last year, chiefly of grief for the death of another daughter who had married a Frenchman. His sister married Maréchal Sebastiani and had five daughters. One of these was the murdered Duchesse de Praslin.
"'Madame de Praslin was one of a society that there was in Paris then, who used to laugh at anything like spiritualism or warnings from another world. Madame de Rabuteau was her great friend and partisan in these opinions. One day Madame de Praslin went with her husband to Choiseul Praslin. Her room was magnificent, and she slept in a great velvet bed. In the middle of the night, she awoke with a sense of something moving in the room, and, lifting herself up in bed, saw, by the expiring embers of the fire, a figure, and as it turned, she saw, as it were, something green. She scarcely knew whether she was asleep or awake, and, to convince herself, stretched out her hand and encountered something cold, hard, and which felt like steel. Then, widely awake, she saw the figure recede and vanish out of the room. She felt a thrill of horror and began to reason with herself. "Well," she said, "I have always opposed and laughed at belief in these things, and now one of them has come to me. Now what can it mean? It can only mean that I am soon to die, and it has come as a warning."
"'Soon after Madame de Praslin returned to Paris, and at the house of Madame de Rabuteau she met all her former intimates. "Oh," said Madame de Rabuteau as she entered the room, "I am so glad you have come to help me to laugh at all these people, who are holding forth upon revelations from another world."—"Indeed, I think we had better talk of something else," said Madame de Praslin; "let us talk of something else."—"Why, my dear, you used to be such an ardent defender of mine," said Madame de Rabuteau, "are you going over to the other side?" But Madame de Praslin resolutely refused the subject and "parlons d'autre chose" was all that could be extracted from her. When the rest of the company was gone, Madame de Rabuteau said, "Well, now, what is it? what can have come over you this evening? why do you not laugh at their manifestations?"—"Simply because I have had one myself," replied very gravely Madame de Praslin, and she told what had happened, saying that she believed it to indicate her approaching death. Madame de Rabuteau tried to argue her out of the impression, but in vain. Madame de Praslin went home, and a few days after she was murdered in the Hôtel Sebastiani.
"'When the Duke was taken, search was made, and amongst his things were found a green mask and a dagger. He had evidently intended to murder the Duchess at Choiseul Praslin, and it had been no spirit that she saw.
"'Madame de Feuchères was originally a Miss Sophia Dawes, the daughter of Mr. Dawes, who was a shipbuilder at Ryde and a very respectable man. The Duc de Bourbon[277] saw her somewhere and took a great fancy to her, and, to facilitate an intimacy with her, he married her to his aide-de-camp, the Baron de Feuchères. But M. de Feuchères was a very honourable man. When the marriage was proposed to him, the Duke paying the dowry, he took her for a daughter of the Duke, and when he found out the real state of things, he separated from her at once, leaving all her fortune in her hands. It was supposed that Madame de Feuchères was in the Orleans interest, and that therefore the Duke would leave everything to the Duc d'Aumale. I must say for the Duchesse de Berri that she was exceedingly good-natured about that. When there was a question about the Feuchères being received at the palace, she advocated it, for the sake of ma tante,[278] and Madame de Feuchères came. But when the Revolution took place and Charles X. fled, the feelings of the Duc de Bourbon were changed; all his loyalty was roused, and he said that he must follow son roi. Nothing that Madame de Feuchères could say could change this resolution. They said that he hanged himself (August 27, 1830), immediately after hearing of the escape, but few believed it; most thought that Madame de Feuchères had done it—unjustly perhaps, because, on arriving at an inn where they were to sleep, the Duke observed that the landlord looked very dispirited, and knowing the cause, said, "I am afraid you have had some sad trouble in your family besides all these terrible public events."—"Yes, Monseigneur," said the man, "my brother hanged himself yesterday morning."—"And how did he do that?" said the Duke. "Oh, Monseigneur, he hanged himself from the bolt of the shutter."—"No, that is impossible," said the Duke, "for the man was too tall." Then the landlord exactly described the process by which his brother had effected his purpose, raising himself upon his knees, &c., and it was precisely in that way that the body of the Duke was found in the château of St. Leu. Still most people thought that Madame de Feuchères had murdered him in his bed, and then hung up his body to avoid suspicion.[279]
"'It was said that the Duke could not have hanged himself, because he had hurt his hand and could not use it, and so could not have tied himself up, but Lord Stuart always said that he was very thankful that his evidence was not called for, because he had met the Duke at a dinner-party a little while before, when he showed that he could use his hand by carving a large turkey beautifully. That dinner-party was at St. Leu. Madame Adelaide had wanted to buy St. Leu, but the Duke said, "No; yet never mind; some day it will come into your family all the same." The Duke sat by Madame Adelaide at dinner and carved the turkey. "Pray do not attempt it, Monseigneur," she said, "for it will be too much for you," but he was able to do it very well.
"'In consequence of the Duke dying when he did, the Duc d'Aumale got the Condé property. Madame de Feuchères came to England, and her brother, Mr. Dawes, took a place for her near Highcliffe. I never called on her, but Lord Stuart did. I remember Bemister, a carpenter, being sent for by her, and coming to me afterwards. He told me, "I felt very queer when she told me to hang up a picture of the Duke on the wall of her room, and before I thought what I was about I said, 'And where will you hang he?'"—"And what in the world did she answer?" I asked. "Well," he said, "I was looking very foolish, and she said, 'Why, you don't think I really did it, do you?'"—"And what did you really think, Bemister?" I said. "Why, I don't think she did it," answered Bemister, "but I think she worrited of him into doing it himself," and I suspect this was pretty near the truth.'
"I sleep at the castle, and at 10 A.M. go down to the cottage, which looks radiant in its bowers of flowers and shrubs, with a little burn tossing in front. Lady Waterford reads the lessons and prayers to the household (having already been to church herself). Then comes breakfast in the miniature dining-room opening into the miniature garden, during which she talks ceaselessly in her wonderfully poetical way. Then I sit a little with Lady Stuart—then draw, while Lady Waterford has her choristers and other boy models to sit to her. At two is luncheon, then we go out, Lady Stuart in a donkey-chair. Yesterday we went all over Flodden; to-day we are going to Yetholm, the gipsy capital. At half-past seven we dine, then Lady Waterford paints, while I tell them stories, or anything, for they like to hear everything, and then Lady Waterford sings, and tells me charming things in return. Here are some snatches from her:—
"'I wish you had seen Grandmama Hardwicke.[280] She was such a beautiful old lady—very little, and with the loveliest skin, and eyes, and hair; and she had such beautiful manners, so graceful and so gracious. Grandmama lived till she was ninety-five. She died in '58. I have two oak-trees in the upper part of the pleasaunce which were planted by her. When she was in her great age, all her grandchildren thought they would like to have oak-trees planted by her, and so a row of pots was placed in the window-sill, and her chair was wheeled up to it, to make it as little fatigue as possible, and she dropped an acorn into each of the pots. Her old maid, Maydwell, who perfectly doted upon her, and was always afraid of her overdoing herself, stood by with a glass of port wine and a biscuit, and when she had finished her work, she took the wine, and passing it before the pots, said, "Success to the oak-trees," and drank it. I am always so sorry that Ludovic Lindsay (Lord Lindsay's eldest boy) should not have seen her. Lord Lindsay wished it: he wished to have carried on further the recollection of a person whose grandfather's wife was given away by Charles the Second; but it was Maydwell who prevented it, I believe, because she was too proud of her mistress, and did not think her looking quite so well then as she had looked some years before. The fact was, I think, that some of the little Stuarts had been taken to see her, and as they were going out they had been heard to say, "How awfully old she looks."
"'Her father, Lord Balcarres, was what they call "out in the '45," and his man was called on to swear that he had not been present at a time when he was. The man swore it and Lord Balcarres got off. When they were going away safe he said to his man, "Well now, how could you swear such a lie!"—"Because I had rather trust my sowle to God," said the man, "than your body to deevils." The first wife of Lord Balcarres's father[281] was Mauritia of Nassau, who was given away by Charles II. When they came to the altar, the bridegroom found that he had totally forgotten the ring. In a great fright he asked if one of the bystanders could lend him a ring, and a friend gave him one. He did not find out then that it bore the device of a death's-head and cross-bones, but Mauritia of Nassau found it out afterwards: she considered it a prophecy of evil, and she died within the year.
"'When he was almost an old man, Lord Balcarres went to stay with old Lady Keith. There were a quantity of young ladies in the house, and before he came Lady Keith said, "Now there is this old gentleman coming to stay, and I particularly wish that you should all endeavour to make yourselves as pleasant to him as you can." They all agreed, but a Miss Dalrymple[282] said, "Well, you may all do what you like, but I'll bet you anything you please that I'll make him like me the best of all of us," and so she did; she made him exclusively devoted to her all the while he was there; but she never thought of anything more than this, and when he asked her to marry him, she laughed at the very idea. He was exceedingly crestfallen, but when he went away he made a will settling everything he possessed upon this Miss Dalrymple. Somehow she heard of this, and said, "Well then, after all, he must really care for me, and I will marry him," and she did. He was fifty-eight then, but they had eleven children. When Lady Balcarres was an old woman, she was excessively severe, indeed she became so soon after her marriage. One day some one coming along the road towards her house met a perfect procession of children of all ages, from three upwards, walking one behind the other, and the eldest boy, who came first, gipsy fashion carrying the baby on his back. They were the eleven children of Lady Balcarres making their escape from their mother, with the intention of going out to seek their own fortunes in the world. It was one of the family of this Lady Balcarres who was the original of Lucy Ashton in the "Bride of Lammermoor." The story is all true. The Master of Ravenswood was Lord Rutherford. She rode to church on a pillion behind her brother that he might not feel how her heart was beating.
"'In consequence of Grandmama Hardwicke's great age, people used to be astonished at my aunt Lady Mexborough, when nearly eighty, running upstairs and calling out 'Mama.' When my aunt Lady Somers was at Bath, she sent for a doctor, and he said to her, "Well, my lady, at your age, you cannot expect to be ever much better."—"At my age!" she said, "why, my mother only died last year." The doctor was perfectly petrified with amazement. "It is the most wonderful thing," he said, "that I ever heard in my life." My grandmother's sisters were very remarkable women; one was Lady Margaret Lindsay, the other was Lady Anne Barnard. Lady Anne was the real authoress of "Auld Robin Gray." She loved the tune,[283] but the original words were bad and unfit for a lady to sing, so she wrote, "Auld Robin Gray," though some one else has always had the credit of it.'
"We have been walking this afternoon through the cornfields towards Etal. Lady Waterford recalled how Lady Marion Alford had shown her that all the sheaves leaning towards one another were like hands praying. To-night Mr. Williams dined at the cottage. Asking Lady Waterford about him afterwards, she said:—
"'I do not know if Mr. Williams is old or young. I think he is like the French lady of whom it was said, "Elle n'avait pas encore perdu l'ancienne habitude d'être jeune." Apropos of this, Lady Gifford made such a pretty speech once. A little girl asked her, "Do tell me, are you old or young? I never can make out," and she said, "My dear, I have been a very long time young."
"'The story of Mr. Williams is quite a pretty one. When Lord Frederick FitzClarence was in India, there was a great scandal in his government, and two of his aides-de-camp had to be sent away. He wrote to his brother-in-law to send him out another in a hurry, and he sent Mr. Williams. When he arrived, Lord Frederick was very ill, and soon after he died. After his death, Mr. Williams had the task of bringing Lady Frederick and her daughter home. Miss FitzClarence was then very much out of health, and he used to carry her up on deck, and they were thrown very much together. I believe the maids warned Lady Frederick that something might come of it, but she did not see it. Before the end of the voyage, Mr. Williams and Miss FitzClarence had determined to be married, but she decided not to tell her mother as yet. When the ship arrived at Portsmouth, the coffin of Lord Frederick had to remain all night on the deck, and Mr. Williams never left it, but walked up and down the whole time watching it, which touched Lady Frederick very much. Still, when her daughter told her she was going to marry him, she was quite furious, contrary to her usual disposition, which is an exceedingly mild one, and she would not hear of it, and sent him away at once.
"'It was the time of the war, and Captain Williams went off to the Crimea, but Miss FitzClarence grew worse and worse, and at last the difference between them made her so uncomfortable with her mother, that she went off to her grandmother; but while there she continued to get worse, and at last it was evidently a case of dying, and when her mother went to her, she was so alarmed that she begged she would marry any one she liked; she would consent to whatever she wished, and would send for Captain Williams at once. So Williams threw up everything, though it was considered a disgrace in time of war, and came home, but when he arrived, poor Miss FitzClarence was dead.
"'Then Lady Frederick felt that she could not do enough for him, and she took him to live with her as her son. The relations, however, were all very angry, and the mauvaises langues said that she meant to marry him herself. So then she thought it would not do, and she got him an agency on Lord Fife's property and sent him to live alone. However, after a time, the agency somehow was given up, and he came back, and he always lives now with Lady Frederick. At Etal they always sit in church gazing into the open grave, which Lady Frederick will never have closed, in which his love is to be buried when she (the mother) dies, and is laid there also, and at Ford he sits by his love's dead head.
"'I think Captain Williams must be no longer young, because he is so very careful about his dress, and that is always a sign of a man's growing old, isn't it?"
"The neighbours at Ford most of them seem to have 'stories' and are a perpetual source of interest. Lady Waterford says:—
"'Grindon is a fine old manor-house near Tillmouth. Mr. Friar lives there. One morning he was a carpenter working down a coal-pit, and in the evening he was the master of Grindon: I believe an uncle left it him.
"'Then there was that Sir F. Blake whose wife was a Persian princess, who afterwards left a fine diamond necklace and two most magnificent Persian vases to the family. I was so sorry when those vases were sold for £40: they were worth many hundreds.
"'Near Howtell is Thorpington, a farm of the Hunts. Sir J. Hunt was attainted for fighting in the Jacobite cause, and his property was all confiscated. His son was so reduced that he was obliged to become a groom, but he so gained the regard of his master, that, when he died, he left him all his horses. From that time the Hunts have taken to selling horses and their breed has become famous. They never sell a horse, however, under £200: if they do not get that sum, they either shoot them or give them away.'"
"Chillingham Castle, August 27, 1865.—On Thursday afternoon I drove with Lady Waterford and Lady Stuart to Yetholm, twelve miles from Ford. The way wound through wild desolate valleys of the Cheviots, and the village itself is a miserable place. I drew the palace of the gipsy queen—a wretched thatched hovel with a mud floor, but royalty was absent on a tinkering expedition.
"On Friday I went in the pony-carriage to Etal. There I was shown into a room hung with relics of Lord Frederick FitzClarence and miniatures of George IV. and the royal family. Very soon Lady Frederick[285] came in—a figure like a nun, one straight fall of crape, without crinoline, enveloping her thin figure, and her hair all pushed back into a tight round white muslin cap, and coal-scuttle bonnet. She scarcely ever sees any one, so it was an effort to her to receive me, but she was not so odd as I expected. She talked about the place and then about wasps, and said that if Captain Williams was stung by a wasp, it had such an effect upon him that he swelled up all over and fell down perfectly senseless upon the ground that instant. In the hall was the dinner service of Nelson (painted with figures of Lady Hamilton as Amphytrite), which was given to Lord Frederick by William IV. Captain Williams went with me to the ruined castle of Etal and then along a walk above the Till, which was very beautiful, with weird old willows, high rocks, and lovely reaches of wood and water.
"Yesterday morning I made a sketch of the door of the cottage, with all its flowers, &c., which I gave to Lady Stuart, much to her pleasure. She told me about Lord Waterford's death. On that morning, as always, Lady Waterford read to him a chapter in the Bible whilst he was dressing, and for that day it was the lament for Absalom. It contained the verse in which a pillar is raised up to him for 'he had no son to keep his name in remembrance;' so his widow determined to raise a pillar to his memory, and has done so in the beautiful angel-fountain at Ford.
Elizabeth, Lady Stuart de Rothesay."In the middle of luncheon Lady Tankerville drove up, came to fetch me, and bringing Lady Bagot[286] and Lady Blanche Egerton[287] to see the castle. So at five I came away with them, and took leave of the cottage and its delightful inmates.... It was a cold dreary day, and gusts of wind and rain blew from the Cheviots during our fourteen miles. Lady Tankerville drove."
"Chillingham, August 29.—Yesterday we all drove through pouring rain to Hulne Abbey in Alnwick Park, where we were glad of the shelter of the one unruined tower for our luncheon. Afterwards we drove through the park to the castle, which I had not seen since the reign of Algernon the Great and Eleanor the Good. Now we were the guests of Lady Percy, a kind pleasant person, and Lady Louisa. The rooms are grandly uncomfortable (except the library, which is an attractive room), but the decorations cost £350,000!"
"August 30.—Yesterday, as the family here are impervious to damp, we picknicked in the forest. Lady Tankerville made the fire and boiled the kettle; Lady Blanche laid the cloth and cut bread and butter; a young Grey and I made the toast, and the little boys and girls caught fresh trout out of the burn close by. In the evening Lord Tankerville told us this story:—
"'My father had a beautiful villa at Walton, which we have given up now. It was in the old days when we had to ride across Putney Heath to reach it. My father used to think it very odd that when he went into the stables to see his horses in the morning, they were all in a foam and perfectly exhausted, as if they were worn out with hard riding. One day he was coming home across Putney Heath, and he was bringing Lord Derby back with him. When they came near the heath, he had said, "Well, now, we had better have our pistols ready, because highwaymen are often to be met with here." So they loaded their pistols, and it was not a bit too soon, for directly after a highwayman rode up to the carriage-window and demanded their money or their lives. As he spoke he recognised them, and saw also that my father recognised his own groom upon one of his own horses. In the moment's hesitation he drew back, and in that moment my father and Lord Derby fired. Several shots were exchanged on both sides, but at last came a moment's pause, during which Lord Derby cried out of the window to the postillion to ride forward, and he dashed on at full gallop. The highwayman fired into the back of the carriage, and Lord Derby and my father returned his fire by leaning out of the windows. At last the back of the carriage was quite riddled with shot, and the ammunition of those inside was quite exhausted, and then Lord Derby held out a white handkerchief as a flag of truce out of the window, and the highwayman rode up and they delivered up all their valuables to him. Of course my father never saw his groom again, and his horses were in much better condition ever afterwards—at least those which were left, for the highwayman rode away upon the best horse in the stables.'"
"Howick, Sept. 1, 1865.—Yesterday I was able to stop the express at the private station (for Howick), whither Lord Grey sent for me. It was a drive of about a mile and a half, chiefly through shrubberies of hollies and rhododendrons, to this large square house with wings. It is most comfortable inside, with a beautiful library opening into a great conservatory. Lady Grey[288] is one of the severest-looking and one of the kindest-meaning persons I have ever seen. Lord Grey is little and lame, but gets about with a stick very actively. He is quite grey, but the very image of Lady Mary Wood. The rest of the party had put off coming for a day from different reasons, but I was not sorry to make acquaintance alone first with my host and hostess, and they were most pleasant, so that it was a very agreeable evening."
"Sept. 2.—Yesterday morning a great bell on the top of the house summoned all in it to prayers, which were read by Lord Grey in the breakfast-room opening on to very pretty terraces of flowers, with perfect shrubberies of sweet verbena, for the climate here is very mild. After breakfast I went down through the wood to the sea, not a mile distant, and a very fine bit of coast, with rich colour in the rocks and water, and Dunstanborough Castle on its crag as the great feature. The place reminds me a little of Penrhôs. When I returned from driving with Lady Grey to Alnwick, the Belhavens arrived, and before dinner the Bishop of London and Mrs. Tait, and the Durhams."
"Sept. 4.—My dearest mother will like to know how intensely I have enjoyed being at Howick. The Greys make their house so pleasant and the life here is so easy. Then Lady Belhaven[289] is always celebrated as a talker, and it has been delightful to sit on the outskirts of interesting conversations between my host and Sir George Grey or the Bishop.
"On Saturday afternoon I drove with the Durhams and Lady Belhaven to Dunstanborough. The sea was of a deep Mediterranean blue under the great cliffs and overhanging towers of the ruined castle. Lord Durham[290] and I walked back three miles along the cliffs—a high field-walk like the old one at Eastbourne.
"On Sunday the Bishop preached at the little church in the grounds. It has been rebuilt and decorated with carvings by Lady Grey and her sisters-in-law. In the chancel is the fine tomb of the Prime Minister Lord Grey. I went with Durham afterwards all over the gardens, which are charming, with resplendent borders of old-fashioned flowers; and after afternoon church, we all went down through the dene to the sea, where there is a bathing-house, with a delightful room fitted up with sofas, books, &c., just above the waves. All the French herring-fleet was out, such a pretty sight. The Bishop read prayers in the evening to the great household of forty-eight persons. He is a very pleasant, amiable Bishop.
"I enjoyed seeing so much of Durham; no one could help very much liking one who is very stiff with people in general, and most exceedingly nice to oneself. But Lady Durham[291] is always charming, so perfectly naïve, natural, and beautiful. She is devoted to her husband and he to her. Some one spoke of people in general not loving all their children. She said: 'Then that is because they do not love their husbands. Some women think no more of marriage than of dancing a quadrille; but when women love their husbands, they love all their children equally. Every woman must love her first child: the degree in which they love the others depends upon the degree in which they love their husbands.'
"Sitting by her at dinner, I asked if she had ever read 'Les Misérables'? 'No. When I was confirmed, the clergyman who was teaching me saw a French novel on the table, and said, "My dear child, you don't read these things, do you?" I said "No," which was quite true, for it belonged to my French governess, and he then said, "Well, I wish you never would. Don't make any actual promise, for fear you should not keep it, but don't do it unless you are obliged;" and I never have.'
"I spoke to her of the inconsistency involved by the confirmation ceremony, by which young ladies renounced the pomps and vanities of the world, being generally the immediate predecessor of their formal entrance upon them.
"'Yes; I never thought of that. But certainly my pomps and vanities were of very short duration. I went to three balls, two tea-parties, and one dinner, and that was all I ever saw of the world; for then I was married. One year I was in the school-room in subjection to every one, ordered about here and there, and the next I was free and my own mistress and married.'
"'And did not you find it rather formidable?' I said. 'Formidable to be my own mistress! oh no. One thing I found rather formidable certainly. It was when a great deputation came to Lambton to congratulate George upon his marriage, and I had to sit at the end of the table with a great round of beef before me. I wanted them not to think I was young and inexperienced. I wanted to appear thirty at least; so I would carve: and then only think of their saying afterwards in the newspaper paragraphs, "We are glad to learn that the youthful Countess is not only amiable but intelligent." I was glad that they should think I was amiable, but when they said I was intelligent, I was perfectly furious, as if George's wife could possibly have been anything else.
"'I was brought up a Tory, but as long as I can remember I have felt myself a Radical. I cannot bear to think of the division between the classes, and there is so much good in a working-man. I love working-men: they are my friends: they are so much better than we are.
"'When my little George of four years old—such a little duck he is!—was with me at Weymouth, I told him he might take off his shoes and stockings and paddle in the water, and he went in up to his chest; and then the little monster said, "Now, mama, if you want to get me again, you may come in and fetch me, for I shan't come out." I was in despair, when a working-man passed by and said, "Do you want that little boy, ma'am?" and I said "Yes," and he tucked up his trousers and went in and fetched George out for me; but if the man's little boy had been in the water, I am afraid I should not have offered to fetch him out for him.
"'And when I was going to church at Mr. Cumming's in Covent Garden (I daresay you think I'm very wrong for going there, but I can't help that), it began to pour with rain, and a cabman on a stand close by called out, "Don't you want a cab, ma'am?" I said, "Yes, very much, but I've got no money." And the cabman said, "Oh, never mind, jump in; you'll only spoil your clothes in the rain, and I'll take you for nothing." When we got to the church door, I said, "If you will come to my house you shall be paid," but he would not hear of it, and I have liked cabmen ever since. Oh, there is so much good in the working-men; they are so much better than we are.'"
"Winton Castle, N.B., Sept. 5, 1865.—My sweetest mother will like to think of me here with the dear old Lady Ruthven.[292] I left Howick at mid-day yesterday, with the Bishop and Mrs. Tait and their son Crauford, an Eton school-boy. It had been a very pleasant visit to the last, and I shall hope to repeat it another year, and also to go to the Durhams. We had an agreeable journey along the cliffs. I had become quite intimate with the Taits in the three days I was with them, and liked the Bishop very much better than Mrs. Tait, though I am sure she is a very good and useful woman.[293] At Tranent Lady Ruthven's carriage was waiting for me. I found her in a sadly nervous state, dreadfully deaf, and constantly talking, the burden of her refrain being—
'Mummitie mum, mummitie mum,
Mummitie, mummitie, mummitie mum.'
But in the evening she grew much better, and was like other people, only that she would constantly walk in and out of the dark ante-chambers playing on a concertina, which, as she wore a tiara of pearls and turquoises, had a very odd effect in the half light; and then at eleven o'clock at night she would put on her bonnet and cloak and go off for a walk by herself in the woods. Charming Miss Minnie Fletcher of Saltoun is here. She told me that—
"Sir David Brewster and his daughter went to stay with the Stirlings of Kippenross. In the night Miss Brewster was amazed by being awakened by her father coming into her room and saying, 'My dear, don't be alarmed, but I really cannot stay in my room. It may be very foolish and nervous, but there are such odd noises, such extraordinary groanings and moanings, that I positively cannot bear it any longer, and you must let me stay here. Don't disturb yourself; I shall easily sleep on the sofa.'
"Miss Brewster thought her father very silly, but there he stayed till morning, when he slipped away to his own room to dress, so as not to be found when the servant came to call his daughter. When the maid came she said, 'Pray, ma'am, how long are you going to stay in this house?' Miss Brewster was surprised, and said she did not know. 'Because, ma'am, if you are going to stay, I am sorry to say I must leave you. I like you very much, ma'am, and I shall be sorry to go, but I would do anything rather than again go through all I suffered last night; such awful groanings and moanings and such fearful noises I can never endure again.' Miss Brewster was very much annoyed and laughed at the maid, who nevertheless continued firm in her decision.
"In the afternoon Miss Brewster had a headache, and at length it became so bad that she was obliged to leave the dinner-table and go up to her room. At the head of the stairs she saw a woman—a large woman in a chintz gown, leaning against the banisters. She took her for the housekeeper, and said, 'I am going to my room: will you be so kind as to send my maid to me?' The woman did not answer, but bowed her head three times and then pointed to a door in the passage and went downstairs. Miss Brewster went to her room, and after waiting an hour in vain for her maid, she undressed and went to bed. When the maid came up, she asked why she had not come before, and said she had sent the housekeeper for her. 'How very odd,' said the maid, 'because I have been sitting with the housekeeper the whole time.' Miss Brewster then described the person she had seen, upon which the maid gave a shriek and said, 'Oh, then you have seen the ghost.' The maid was in such a state of terror, that when Mrs. Stirling came up to inquire after her headache, Miss Brewster asked her about the woman she had seen, when, to her surprise, Mrs. Stirling looked quite agonised, and said, 'Oh, then there is more misery in store for me. You do not know what that ghost has been to me all through my married life.' She then made Miss Brewster promise not to tell the persons who slept in the room pointed at, that theirs was the room. It was a Major and Mrs. Wedderburn who slept there. Mrs. Stirling and Miss Brewster then both wrote out accounts of what had happened and signed and sealed them. Before the year was out, they heard that the Wedderburns were both killed in the Indian Mutiny."
"Winton Castle, Sept. 8.—My visit here has been very pleasant indeed. The Speaker and Lady Charlotte Denison came on Tuesday afternoon with the Belhavens. He is a fine-looking elderly man, with a wonderful fund of agreeable small-talk. Lady Charlotte[294] is very refined, quite unaffected, and very pretty still: they are both most kind to me. Miss Fletcher has been here all the time to help Lady Ruthven, for whom it is well that she has such a kind, pleasant greatniece only a mile off, to come and help her to amuse all her guests, as she has had fifty-six parties of people staying in the house in the last year. We saw a large party of the great-great nephews and nieces of Lady Ruthven and Lady Belhaven on Wednesday, when we went to spend the afternoon at Lord Elcho's. It is a fine place, Amisfield—a huge red stone house in a large park close to the town of Haddington, where there is a beautiful old cathedral, but in ruins, like all the best Scotch churches. Lady Elcho[295] has the stately refinement of a beautiful Greek statue. Her children are legion, the two eldest boys very handsome and pleasant. We went over the house, with old tapestry, &c., to be seen, and the gardens with fine cedars, and then all Lord Wemyss's twenty-four race horses were brought out in turn to be exercised round the courtyard and admired: after which we had Scotch tea—scones, cakes, apricot-jam, &c.
"I have made rather friends with John Gordon,[296] a younger brother of Lord Aberdeen, who has been staying here. He is a second Charlie Wood in character, though only eighteen, and I have seldom seen any one I liked as well on short acquaintance. His family are all supposed to be dreadfully shy, but he seems to be an exception.
"Yesterday Lady Belhaven and Lady Ruthven went to Edinburgh, and I stayed with Miss Fletcher, and walked with her in the afternoon to Saltoun, where we had tea with Lady Charlotte and saw the curiosities. Lady Charlotte Fletcher[297] said:—
"'The French royal family were often here at Saltoun when they were at Holyrood—Charles X. and the Duchesse d'Angoulême, and the Duchesse de Berri and her daughter, the Duc and Duchesse de Guise and the Duc de Polignac.... The Duchesse d'Angoulême and the Duc de Polignac used to go down to the bridge in the glen and stay there for hours: they said it reminded them so much of France, the trees and the water. The Duc de Polignac said our picture of the leave-taking of Louis XVI. and his family contained figures more like than any he had seen elsewhere. We turned it to the wall and locked the door when they came, for fear the Duchesse d'Angoulême should see it, but the little Mademoiselle de Berri was playing hide-and-seek through the rooms, and she got in by the outer door, and it was the first thing she observed, and she insisted on seeing it.... She did me a little drawing, and left it behind her.
"'The family were very fond of coming here, because my father, Lord Wemyss, had been kind to them when they were here during the first Revolution. On the Duchesse de Berri's birthday, she was asked what she would like to do in honour of it, and she chose a day at Saltoun. It was very inconvenient their all coming with the children at a few hours' notice, such a large party, but she wrote a pretty note, saying what a pleasure it would be to see her old friends again, and another afterwards, saying what a delight it had been, so that we were quite compensated.'
"On Sunday, when it was church-time, Lady Ruthven said, 'We'll just gang awa to the kirk and see what sort of a discoorse the minister makes; and if he behaves himself, well—we'll ask him up to dinner!' She sat in kirk, with her two dogs beside her, in a kind of chair of state just under the pulpit, where she might have been mistaken for the clerk. She is as demonstrative in church as elsewhere, and once when Miss Fletcher came unexpectedly into the gallery after she had been some time without seeing her, she called out, 'Eh, there ye are, Minnie, my darling,' before the whole congregation, and began kissing her hands to her. When a child screamed in kirk, and its mother was taking it out, the minister interrupted his discourse with, 'Na, bide a wee: I'm no that fashed wi' the bairn.'—'Na, na,' said the mother, 'I'll no bide: it's the bairn that's fashed wi' ye.' Talking afterwards of the change of feeling with which church-services were usually regarded now-a-days, Lady Charlotte Fletcher said:—
"'Old Lady Hereford, my aunt, was quite one of the old school. She had a large glass pew in church, and the service was never allowed to begin till she had arrived, settled herself, and opened the windows of her pew. If she did not like the discourse, she slammed down her windows. After the service was over, her steward used to stand by the pew door to receive her orders as to which of the congregation were to be invited to dine in her hall that day.'
"While the party were talking of the change of manners, Lord Belhaven said:—
"'I just remember the old drinking days:[298] they were just dying out when I entered the army. Scarcely any gentlemen used to drink less than two bottles of claret after dinner. They used to chew tobacco, which was handed round, and drink their wine through it, wine and tobacco-juice at the same time. A spittoon was placed between every two gentlemen. It was universal to chew tobacco in country-houses: they chewed it till they went in to dinner, and they began again directly the ladies left the room, when tobacco and spittoons were handed round.
"'There were usually the bottles called "Jeroboams" on the table, which held six bottles of port. The old Duke of Cleveland[299] always had his wine-glasses made without a foot, so that they would not stand, and you were obliged to drink off the whole glass when you dined with him.
"'I remember once dining at a house from which I was going away the next morning. I got to bed myself at twelve. When I came down to go off at eight, I asked when the other gentlemen had left the diningroom. "Oh," said the servant, "they are there still." I went in, and there, sure enough, they all were. When they saw me, they made a great shout, and said, "Come, now, you must drink off a bumper," and filled a tumbler with what they thought was spirits, but to my great relief I saw it was water. So I said, "Very well, gentlemen, I shall be glad to drink to your health, and of course you will drink to mine,"—so I drank the water, and they drank the spirits.'"
"Castlecraig, Noblehouse, Sept. 9.—I came out this morning by the railway to Broomlee, a pretty line, leading into wild moorland, and at the station a dogcart met me, and brought me six miles farther, quite into the heart of the Pentlands. The ascent to this house is beautiful, through woods of magnificent alpine-looking firs. Addie Hay[300] was waiting for me. You would scarcely believe him to be as ill as he is, and he is most cheerful and pleasant, making no difficulties about anything. He is often here with my present host, Sir William Carmichael."
"Winton Castle, Sept. 10.—Yesterday I saw the beautiful grounds of Castlecraig—green glades in the hills with splendid pines, junipers, &c., and part of the garden consecrated as a burial-ground, with mossgrown sculptured tombs of the family ancestors on the green lawn.
"At Eskbank Lady Ruthven met me, and I came on with her to Newbattle. It is an old house, once an abbey, lying low in a large wooded park on the banks of the Esk—a fine hall and staircase hung with old portraits, and a beautiful library with long windows, carved ceiling, old books, illuminated missals, and stands of Australian plants. Lady Lothian is very young and pretty,[301] Lord Lothian a hopeless invalid from paralysis. She showed me the picture gallery and then we went to the garden—most lovely, close to the rushing Esk, and of mediæval aspect in its splendid flowers backed by yew hedges and its stone sundials. After seeing Lady Lothian's room and pictures, we had tea in the garden. The long drive back to Winton was trying, as, with the thermometer at 70°, Lady Ruthven would have a large bottle of boiling water at the bottom of the close carriage.
"Lady Ruthven is most kind, but oh! the life with her is so odd. One day a gentleman coming down in the morning looked greatly agitated, which was discovered to be owing to his having looked out of his window in the middle of the night, and believing that he had seen a ghost flitting up and down the terrace in a most ghastly clinging white dress. It was the lady of the castle in her white dressing-gown and night-gown!"
"Wishaw, Sept. 14.—I came here (to the Belhavens) after a two days' visit to Mrs. Stirling of Glenbervie, whence I saw Falkirk Tryste—the great cattle fair of Scotland. It was a curious sight, an immense plain covered with cattle of every description, especially picturesque little Highland beasts attended by drovers in kilts and plumes. When I saw the troops of horses kicking and prancing, I said how like it all was to Rosa Bonheur's 'Horse Fair,' and then heard she had been there to study for her picture.
"We dined yesterday at Dalzel, Lady Emily Hamilton's,[302] a beautiful old Scotch house, well restored by Billings. To-day is tremendously hot, but though I am exhausted by the sun, I am much more so by all the various hungers I have gone through, as we had breakfast at half-past ten and luncheon at half-past five, and in the interval went to Bothwell—Lord Home's,—beautiful shaven lawns above a deep wooded ravine of the Clyde, and on the edge of the slope a fine old red sandstone castle."
"Lagaray, Gareloch, Sept. 17.—How I longed for my mother on Friday in the drive from Helensburgh along a terrace on the edge of the Gareloch, shaded by beautiful trees, and with exquisite views of distant grey mountains and white-sailed boats coming down the loch! I was most warmly welcomed by Robert Shaw Stewart[303] and his wife.... Yesterday we went an immense excursion of forty-five miles, seeing the three lakes—Lomond, Long, and Gareloch."
"Carstairs House, Lanarkshire, Sept. 18.—Nothing could exceed the kindness of the Shaw Stewarts, and I was very sorry to leave them. The Gareloch is quite lovely, such fine blue mountains closing the lake, with its margin of orange-coloured seaweeds.... The Monteith family were at luncheon when I arrived at this large luxurious house—the guests including two Italians, one a handsome specimen of the Guardia Nobile—Count Bolognetti Cenci, a nephew by many greats of the famous Beatrice. After luncheon we were sent to the Falls of the Clyde—Cora Linn—a grand mass of water foaming and dashing, which the Italians called 'carina'!"
Before returning home, I went again to Chesters in Northumberland, to meet Dr. Bruce, the famous authority on "The Roman Wall" of Northumberland, on which he has written a large volume. It was curious to find how a person who had allowed his mind to dwell exclusively on one hobby could see no importance in anything else. He said, "Rome was now chiefly interesting as illustrating the Roman Wall in Northumberland, and as for Pompeii, it was not to be compared to the English station of Housesteads."
At the end of September I returned home, and had a quiet month with the dear mother, who was now quite well. I insert a fragment of a letter from a niece who had been with her in my absence, as giving a picture of her peaceful, happy state at this time:—
"Auntie and I have spent our evenings in reading old letters and journals, which have made the past seem nearer than the present. Hers is such a sweet peaceful evening of life. There have been many storms and sorrows, but her faith has stood firm, and she is now calmly waiting her summons home. Oh! I pray that she may be spared to us yet awhile, now so doubly dear to us, the one link left with the loved and lost."
We left Holmhurst at the beginning of November, and went to Italy by the Mont Cenis, with Emma Simpkinson, the gentle youngest sister of my Harrow tutor, as our companion. Fourteen horses dragged us over the mountain through the snow in a bright moonlight night, during the greater part of which I crouched upon the floor of the carriage, so as to keep my mother's feet warm inside my waistcoat, so great was my terror of her having any injury from the cold.
MY MOTHER to MISS LEYCESTER.
"Spezia, Nov. 11, 1865.—The day was most lovely on which we left Genoa, and so was the drive along the coast, reminding us of Mentone in its beauty—the hills covered with olive-woods and orange-groves, the mountains and rocky bays washed by the bluest of blue waves. We dined at Ruta, a very pretty place in the mountain, and slept at Chiavari. Saturday was no less beautiful, the tramontana keen when we met it, like a March day in England, but the sun so burning, it quite acted as a restorative as we wound up the Pass of Bracco after Sestri—lovely Sestri. We had the carriage open, and so could enjoy the views around and beneath us, though the precipices were tremendous. However, the road was good, and occasionally in some of the worst places there was a bit of wall to break the line at the edge. Nothing could be more grand than the views of the billowy mountains with the Mediterranean below. At Borghetto was our halting-place, and then we had a rapid descent all the way here, where we arrived at half-past six."
"Pisa, Nov. 14.—To continue my history. Sunday was again a splendid day, and the Carrara mountains most lovely, especially at sunset. On Monday we drove to Porto Venere, and spent the morning in drawing at the ruined marble church. We dined, and at half-past five set out, reaching Pisa at half-past seven. And here was a merciful preservation given to me, where, to use the words of my favourite travelling Psalm (xci.), though my feet 'were moved,' the angels had surely 'charge over me.' Augustus had just helped me down from the train and turned to take the bags out of the carriage. When he re-turned to look after me, I lay flat on the ground in the deep cutting of the side railway, into which, the platform being narrow, unfinished, and badly lighted, I had fallen in the dark. I believe both Augustus and Lea thought I was dead at first, so frightful was the fall, yet, after a little, I was able to walk to the carriage, though of course much shaken. Three falls have I had this year—in the waves of the Atlantic, in Westminster Abbey, and at Pisa—and yet, thanks be to God, no bones have been broken."
At Pisa we stayed at the excellent Albergo di Londra, which was kept by Flora Limosin, the youngest daughter of Victoire[305] and foster-sister of Esmeralda. Victoire herself was living close by, in her own little house, filled with relics of the past. I had not seen her since Italima's death, and she had many questions to ask me, besides having much to tell of the extraordinary intercourse she had immediately after our family misfortunes with Madame de Trafford—the facts of which she thus dictated to me:—
Félix and Victoire followed Italima from Geneva to Paris. Victoire says—"We rejoined Madame Hare at the house of Madame de Trafford. I went with her and Mademoiselle to the station in the evening. Madame Hare did all she could to console me. It was arranged that Constance should accompany them, because she was Miss Paul's maid. I had no presentiment then that I should never see Madame Hare again. After they were gone, we remained at the house of Balze, our son-in-law, at the end of the Faubourg S. Germain, but every day I went, by her desire, to see Madame de Trafford, at the other end of the Champs Elysées. She was all kindness to me. She did all she could to console me. When she had letters from Madame Hare, she read them to me: when I had them, I read them to Madame de Trafford. Matters went from bad to worse. One day Madame de Trafford had a letter which destroyed all hope. It was three days before she ventured to read it to me. I have still the impression of the hour in which she told me what was in it. She made me sit by her in an armchair, and she said, 'Il ne faut pas vous illusionner, Victoire: Madame Hare ne reviendra jamais; elle est absolument ruinée.' I remained for several hours unconscious: I knew there was no hope then. I was only sensible that Madame de Trafford gave me some strong essence, which restored me in a certain degree. Then she did all she could to console me. It was the most wonderful heart-goodness possible. She took me back that day to my son-in-law's house. I was thinking how I could break it to Félix: I did not venture to tell him for a long time. At last he saw it for himself; he said, 'Il y'a quelque chose de pire à apprendre, ou vous me cachez quelque chose, Victoire,' and then I told him. The next day Madame de Trafford said that she could not endure our sufferings. 'Après trente ans de service, après tant de dévouement, elle ne pouvait pas souffrir que nous irions à la mendicité. Vous n'avez rien,' she said, 'je le sais plus que vous.' I did not like her saying this. 'Yes, we have something,' I said, 'we are not so badly off as that.'—'Tais-toi, Victoire, vous n'avez rien,' she repeated, and she was right, it was her second-sight which told her. She bade me seek in the environs of Paris for a small house, any one I liked, in any situation, and she would buy it for me. If there was a large house near it, so much the better—that she would buy for herself. She said she knew I could not live there upon nothing, but that she should give me an annuity, and that Félix 'à cause de son rhumatisme,' must have a little carriage. I was quite overwhelmed. 'Mais, Madame, nous ne méritons pas cela,' I said. 'Oui, Victoire, je sais que vous le méritez bien, et je le veux.' I said it was impossible I could accept such favours at her hands. She only repeated with her peculiar manner and intonation—'je le veux.' The next day we both went to her. Her table was already covered with the notices of all the houses to let in the neighbourhood of Paris. 'Nous allons visiter tout cela,' she said, 'nous allons choisir.' Both Félix and I said it was impossible we could accept such kindness, when we could do nothing for her in return. 'Est que je veux acheter votre amitié?' she said. She repeatedly said that she wished nothing but to come and see us sometimes, and that perhaps she should come every day. Thus we went on for fifteen days, but both Félix and I felt it was impossible we could accept so much from her; besides, Félix suffered so much from his rheumatism, and he felt that the climate of Pisa might do him good; besides which, our hearts always turned to Pisa, for it seemed as if Providence had willed that we should go there, in disposing that Madame Jacquet, who had a claim to our house for her life, should die just at that time. We made a pretext of the health of Félix to Madame de Trafford, but it was fifteen days before she would accept our decision. 'Eh bien, vous voulez toujours aller à votre masure la bas à Pise,' said Madame de Trafford. She called our house a 'masure.' 'Eh bien, j'irai avec vous, je veux aussi aller à Pise, moi.' She wrote to M. Trafford, who came over to take leave of her, as he always does when she leaves Paris, and she arranged her apartment.... 'Oh, comme c'est une femme d'ordre, et comme son appartement est beau, le plus beau que j'ai jamais vue, même à la cour.' Then she left Paris with us.
"Voilà sa prévenance—the going to Pisa was in order that she might undertake all the expenses of our journey. Quand elle est chez elle, elle est très économe, mais quand elle voyage, elle voyage grandement. Where another person would give two francs, Madame de Trafford gives ten. She is always guided by her seconde vue: she reads the character in the face. She wished us to travel first-class, and she insisted on taking first-class tickets for us all, but Félix absolutely refused to go in anything but a second-class carriage. I travelled with Madame de Trafford. We went first to Turin. Thence, 'pour donner distraction à Félix, étant ancien militaire,' Madame de Trafford insisted on taking us to the battle-fields of Solferino and Magenta. Elle nous a fait visiter tout cela, et vraiment grandement. At last we reached Pisa. It was then that Madame de Trafford first revealed to us that she intended to rent our house. She insisted upon paying for it, not the usual rent, but the same that she paid for her beautiful apartments in the Hôtel de la Metropole, and nothing could turn her from this; she was quite determined upon it. Every day she ordered a large dinner; although she only ate a morsel of chicken herself, everything was served and then removed. Félix served her. It was in order that we might have food. It was the same with wine: she always had a bottle of wine, Madeira or whatever it might be: a new bottle was to be uncorked every day; she only drank half a glass herself, but the same bottle was never allowed to appear twice.
"Up to that time I had never entirely believed in her second-sight. It was just after we arrived in Pisa that I became quite convinced of it. I was astonished, on her first going into our house, to see her walk up to one of the beds and feel at the mattresses, and then she turned to me and said, 'On vous a volé, Victoire; vous avez mis ici de la bonne laine, et on a mis la malsaine et vieille laine.' I did not believe her at the time. I had sent money to Pisa to pay for the re-stuffing of those very mattresses: afterwards I unripped the mattresses, and found it was just as she said. From time to time in England we had bought a little linen, because the house was let without linen. M. Hare had left a thousand francs to Félix and me. This was paid to us in London; therefore we had spent it in carpets and linen. The carpets we sent at once to Pisa. The linen was also sent, but it was left packed up in boxes under the care of the woman who looked after the house. Soon after we arrived, Madame de Trafford asked if I had any linen. I said 'Yes,' and going to the boxes, unlocked them, and brought the sheets and towels which she required. She felt at them, and then she said, 'On vous a volé encore ici, Madame Victoire; vous avez mis de telles et telles choses dans une telle et telle boîte.'—'Oui, c'est ainsi,' I replied. 'Eh bien, on vous a volé telles et telles choses dans une telle et telle boîte.' I rushed to look over the boxes, and it was just as she said. The third time was when we went to Florence, for she would take me to spend some days with her at Florence. She bought me a beautiful black silk dress to wear when I went with her, and it was one of her prévenances that we should not go to any hotel I had been in the habit of going to, for she wished me to be entirely with her sans aucune remarque. When we went to Florence, the two large boxes Madame de Trafford had brought with her were left in the salon at Pisa. When we came back she said, with her peculiar intonation, 'Je vous prie, Victoire, de compter mes mouchoirs: savez-vous combien j'ai?'—'Mais oui, Madame; vous en avez cinque paquets avec des douzaines en chaque.'—'Eh bien, comptez-les: on m'a volé trois dans un paquet, deux dans un autre,' &c. Effectivement it was just as Madame de Trafford had said: it must have been the same person who had taken my linen before.
"It was always the custom at the convent of S. Antonio, which is close to our house, that any poor people who chose to come to the door on a Saturday should receive something. Madame de Trafford, from her window, saw the people waiting, and asked me what it meant. When I told her, she desired me to go to the convent and find out exactly what it was they received. Madame de Trafford will never be contradicted, so I went at once. When I came back I told her that it was one kreutz or seven centimes. She thought this much too little, and bade me give each of the people a paul. I sent the money down to them. The result was that next time, instead of ten, two or three hundred poor people came. They all received money. It made quite a sensation in the quarter. The house used to be quite surrounded and the streets blocked up by the immense crowds at that time. It became necessary to fix a day. Thursday was appointed, that was the day on which Madame de Trafford gave her alms. One day from the window she saw a poor woman with a child in her arms. 'Voilà une qui est bien malheureuse,' she said; 'descendez, je vous prie, et donnez lui de l'argent sans compter.' One cannot disobey Madame de Trafford. I went down directly, and gave a handful of silver to the woman, shutting the door upon her thanks and leaving her petrified with astonishment.
"One day we went to Leghorn by the eleven-o'clock train (for she always made me go with her). We descended at the hotel, and then she desired me to order a carriage—'le plus bel équipage qu'on pourrait avoir.' Soon afterwards the carriage came to the door: it was a very poor carriage indeed, and the coachman wore a ragged coat and a wide-awake hat. She seemed surprised, and asked me if I could not have done better for her than that, and, knowing her character, I was quite angry with the master of the hotel for ordering such a carriage; but in reality there was no other, all the others were engaged. So at length we got in, but when we had gone some distance she began to fix her eyes upon the driver, and said, 'Mais est-ce qu'on peut aller avec un cocher qui a un trou comme ça dans son habit?' and she desired him to drive back to the hotel. As we went back she said to me, 'Ce pauvre jeune homme doit être bien malheureux, dites lui de venir à l'hôtel.' When we got back to the inn, she desired me to procure everything that was necessary to dress the young man, everything complete, and of the best. But I could not undertake myself to dress the young man, so I asked the master of the hotel to do it for me. At Leghorn this is not so difficult, because there are so many ready-made shops. So the landlord procured a complete set of clothes, coat, trousers, waistcoat, boots, hat, everything, and Madame de Trafford gave orders that he should be shaved and washed and sent in to her. When he came in, the change was most extraordinary; he was such a handsome young man that I should not have known him. But Madame de Trafford only turned to me and said, 'Mais je vous ai ordonné de lui procurer un habillement complet, et est-ce que vous pensez que avec un habit comme ça, il peut porter cette vilaine vieille chemise?' for she perceived directly that they had not changed his shirt, which I had never thought of. The shirt was procured, but there was always something wanting in the eyes of Madame de Trafford. 'Mais que fera ce jeune homme,' she said, 's'il est enrhumé, quand il n'a pas de mouchoirs de poche,' and then I was obliged to get other shirts and socks, and cravats and handkerchiefs—in short, a complete trousseau. And then a commoner dress was wanted for the morning: and then the tailor was ordered to come again with greatcoats. Of these he had two; one cost much more than the other, but Madame de Trafford chose that which cost the most.
"Le jeune homme regardait tout ça comme un rêve. Il ne le croyait pas, lui, et il disait rien du tout: il laissa faire. Il disait après à Félix qu'il pensait que c'était des mystifications, et il ne croyait pas à ce qu'il voyait.
"At last, when all was completed and paid for in his presence, four o'clock came, and he mounted on his box and drove us to the station. All the little boys in the street, who had known him in his old dress, ran along by the side of the carriage to stare at him. At last, when we reached the station and were actually going off, he began to believe, and flung himself on his knees before all the people in his gratitude to Madame de Trafford. 'Je me suis soulagée d'un poids en laissant ce jeune homme ainsi,' said Madame de Trafford to me.
"After this," continued Victoire, "came the great floods in the marshes near Pisa. When Madame de Trafford heard of the sufferings which they caused, she bade me order a carriage and drive out there with her. We drove as far as we could, and then we left the carriage and walked along a little embankment between the waters to where there were some cottages quite flooded, from which some poor women crept out along some planks to the bank on which we were. Before we left the hotel, Madame de Trafford had said, 'Mettez vos grandes poches' (because she had made me have some very large pockets made, very wide and deep, to wear under my dress and hold her valuables when we travelled), and then she had said that I was to fill them up to the brim with large piastres, without counting what I took. I had shovelled piastres into my pockets by handfuls till I was quite weighed down. I did not like doing it, but I was obliged to do as she bade me. Then she said, 'Have you taken as much as your pockets will hold? I wish them to be filled to the brim.' When we arrived and saw the poor women, she said, 'Donnez-leur des piastres, mais donnez-les par poignets, et surtout ne comptez pas, ne comptez jamais.' So I took a large heap of piastres, and put them into the hands of Madame de Trafford that she might give them to the women. Then she began to be angry—'Je vous ai dit de les donner, je ne les veux pas.' So I began to give a handful of piastres to one woman and another, all without counting; even to the children Madame de Trafford desired me to give also. At first they were all quite mute with amazement, then the women began to call aloud to me, 'E chi é questa principessa benedetta, caduta dal cielo? dite chi é che possiamo ringraziarla.'—'Qu'est-ce qu'ils disent donc,' said Madame de Trafford. 'Mais, Madame, ils demandent quelle princesse vous êtes qu'ils puissent vous remercier.'—'Dites les que je ne suis pas princesse,' said Madame de Trafford, 'que je ne suis qu'une pauvre femme faite en chair et os comme eux.'
"Then Madame de Trafford asked them if there were no more poor people there, and they went and fetched other poor women and children, till there was quite a crowd. To them also she ordered me to give piastres—'toujours sans compter'—till at last, through much giving, my pockets were empty. Then Madame de Trafford was really angry—'Je vous ai dit, Madame Victoire, de porter autant que vous pouviez, et vous ne l'avez pas fait.'—'Mais, Madame, vous ne m'avez pas dit de mettre quatre poches, vous m'avez dit de mettre deux poches: ces deux poches étaient remplis, à present les voilà vides.'
"When we were turning to go away, all the people, who had not till that moment believed in their good fortune, fell on their knees, and cried, 'Oh, Signore, noi ti ringraziamo d'avere mandato questa anima benedetta, e preghiamo per ella.'—'Mais retournez bien vite à la voiture, mais montez donc bien vite, Madame Victoire,' said Madame de Trafford, and we hurried back to the carriage; and the coachman, concerning whom she had taken care that he should not see what had happened, was amazed to see us coming with all this crowd of poor women and children following us. When we were driving away, Madame de Trafford said, 'Quel jour heureux pour nous, Madame Victoire, d'avoir soulagé tant de misère; quel bonheur de pouvoir faire tant de félicité avec un peu d'argent.'"
After remaining many weeks at Pisa with Victoire, Madame de Trafford had accompanied her to Rome, whither she went in December 1859 to arrange the affairs of Italima at the Palazzo Parisani, and thence, having fulfilled her mission, and seen Victoire comfortably established in her Pisan home, Madame de Trafford had returned to Paris.
In 1865 the journey from Pisa to Rome was still tiresome and difficult. We went by rail to Nunziatella, and there a cavalcade was formed (for mutual protection from the brigands), of six diligences with five horses apiece, with patrols on each carriage, and mounted guards riding by the side. The cholera had been raging, so at Montalto, one of the highest points of the dreary Maremma, we were stopped, and those who were "unclean"—i.e., had omitted to provide themselves with clean bills of health at Leghorn—were detained for eight days' quarantine. We had obtained "clean" bills, from the Spanish Consul, grounded upon the hotel bills of the different places we had slept at since crossing the Alps, and, with others of our kind, were taken into a small white-washed room filled with fumes of lime and camphor, where we were shut up for ten minutes, without other hurt than that any purple articles of dress worn by the ladies came out yellow. Most dreary was the long after-journey through a deserted region, without a house or tree or sign of habitation, till at 10 p.m. we came in sight of the revolving light of Civita Vecchia, beautifully reflected in the sea. Then I had to watch all the luggage being fumigated for three midnight hours. However, November 18 found us established in Rome, in the high apartment of the Tempietto (Claude Lorraine's house), at the junction of the Via Sistina and Via Gregoriana, with the most glorious view from its windows over all the Eternal City, and a pleasant Englishwoman, Madame de Monaca, as our landlady. Hurried travellers to Rome now can hardly imagine the intense comfort and repose which we felt in old days in unpacking and establishing ourselves in our Roman apartment, which it was worth while to make really pretty and comfortable, as we were sure to be settled there for at least four or five months, with usually far more freedom from interruptions, and power of following our own occupations, than would have attended us in our own home, even had health not been in question. Most delightful was it, after the fatigues and (on my mother's account) the intense anxieties of the journey, to wake upon the splendid view, with its succession of aërial distances, and to know how many glorious sunsets we had to enjoy behind the mighty dome which rose on the other side of the brown-grey city. And then came the slow walk to church along the sunny Pincio terrace, with the deepest of unimaginable blue skies seen through branches of ilex and bay, and garden beds, beneath the terraced wall, always showing some flowers, but in spring quite ablaze with pansies and marigolds.
The first time we went out to draw was to the gardens of S. Onofrio, where, when we were last here, we used to be very much troubled by a furious dog. We rang the bell, and the woman answered; she recognised us, and, without any preliminary greetings, by an association of ideas, exclaimed at once, "Il cane e morto." It was very Italian.
So many people beset me during this winter with notes or verbal petitions that I would go out drawing with them, that at last I wrote on a sheet of paper a list of the days (three times a week) on which I should go out sketching, and a list of the places I should go to, and desiring that any one who wished to go with me would find themselves on the steps of the Trinità de' Monti at 10 A.M., and sent it round to my artistic acquaintance. To my astonishment, on the first day mentioned, when I expected to meet one or two persons at most, I found the steps covered by forty ladies, in many cases attended by footmen, carrying their luncheon-baskets, camp-stools, &c. I introduced four ladies to each other that they might drive out together to the Campagna, and I generally tried to persuade those who had carriages of their own to offer seats to their poorer companions. For a time all went radiantly, but, in a few weeks, two-thirds of the ladies were "en delicatesse" and, at the end of two months, they were all "en froid," so that the parties had to be given up. Of the male sex there was scarcely ever any one on these sketching excursions, except myself and my cousin Frederick Fisher,[308] who was staying at Rome as tutor to the young Russian Prince, Nicole Dolgorouki. He was constantly with us during the winter, and was a great pleasure from his real affection for my mother, who was very fond of him.
In the spring Esmeralda came to Rome, and I used often to go to see her in the rooms at Palazzo Parisani. She was very fragile then, and used to lie almost all day upon an old velvet sofa, looking, except for the heavy masses of raven hair which were still uncovered, almost like an uncloistered nun, with her pale face and long black dress, unrelieved at the throat, and with a heavy rosary of large black beads and cross at her waist.
From my JOURNAL.
"Rome, Dec. 21, 1865.—Cardinal Cecchi died last week, and lay in state all yesterday in his palace, on a high bier, with his face painted and rouged, wearing his robes, and with his scarlet hat on his head. Cardinals always lie in state on a high catafalque, contrary to the general rule, which prescribes that the higher the rank the lower the person should lie. Princess Piombino lay in state upon the floor itself, so very high was her rank.
"The Cardinal was carried to church last night with a grand torchlight procession, which is always considered necessary for persons of his rank; but it is expensive, as everything in Rome costs double after the Ave Maria. The fee for a frate to walk at a funeral is four baiocchi in the daytime, but after the Ave it is eight baiocchi. When the Marchesa Ponziani was taken to church the other day, all the confraternities in Rome attended with torches.[309]
"To-day at 10 A.M. the Cardinal was buried in the church at the back of the Catinari. According to old custom, when he was put into the grave, his head-cook walked up to it and said, 'At what time will your Eminence dine?' For a minute there was no response, and then the major-domo replied, 'His Eminence will not want dinner any more (non vuol altro).' Then the head-footman came in and asked, 'At what time will your Eminence want the carriage?' and the major-domo replied, 'His Eminence will not want the carriage any more.' Upon which the footman went out to the door of the church, where the fat coachman sat on the box of the Cardinal's state carriage, who said, 'At what time will his Eminence be ready for the carriage?' and when the footman replied, 'La sua Eminenza non vuol altro,' he broke his whip, and throwing down the two pieces on either side the carriage, flung up his hands with a gesture of despair, and drove off.
"The other day Mrs. Goldsmid was in a church waiting for her confessor, who was not ready to come out of the sacristy. While she was waiting, two men came in carrying something between them, which she soon saw was a dead frate. His robe was too short, and his little white legs protruded below. They put him on a raised couch with a steep incline and left him, and her agony was that he would slip down and fall off, and then that the priests would think she had done it. She became so nervous, that, as she kept her eyes fixed on the body, it seemed to her to slip, slip, slip, till at last she made sure the little man was coming down altogether, and going to the sacristy door, she rang the bell violently, and entreated to be let out of the church.
"Mrs. Goldsmid says that the Pope, Pius IX., cannot stop spitting even when he is in the act of celebrating mass.... Being very jocose himself, he likes others to be familiar enough to amuse him. The other day a friend asked Monsignor de Merode why the Pope was so fond of him: he said it was because, when he saw the Pope in a fit of melancholy, he always cut a joke and made him laugh, instead of condoling with him.
"The Pope is always thoroughly entertained at the stories which are circulated as to his 'evil eye' and its effects, as well as those about the 'evil eye' of the excellent and strikingly handsome Monsignor Prosperi. When the fire occurred in the Bocca di Leone, and the Pope was told of it, he said, 'How very extraordinary, for Monsignor Prosperi was out of Rome, and I was not there.'
"When the Pope, who does not speak good French, was talking of Pusey, he said, 'Je le compare à une cloche, qui sonne, sonne, pour appeler les fidèles à l'église, mais qui n'entre jamais.'
"I think there can scarcely be any set of men whose individuality is more marked than the present Cardinals.... Antonelli's manner in carrying the chalice in St Peter's is reverent in the extreme. Cardinal Ugolini, who is almost always with the Pope, never fails to ruffle up his hair in walking down St. Peter's or the Sistine."
"Christmas Day.—The Pope heard of the death of his sister, an abbess, this morning, just as he was going to be carried into St. Peter's, but the procession and the chair were waiting, and he was obliged to go. The poor old man looked deadly white as he was carried down the nave, and no wonder."
"January 15, 1866.—Went, by appointment, with Mrs. Goldsmid to the Church of SS. Marcellino e Pietro—the church with a roof like that of a Chinese pagoda, in the little valley beneath St. John Lateran. Inside it is a large Greek cross, and very handsome, with marbles, &c. The party collected slowly, Mrs. De Selby and her daughter, Mrs. Alfred Montgomery, Madame Sainte Aldegonde, the Bedingfields, a French Abbé, Mrs. Dawkins, and ourselves. Soon a small window shutter was opened to the left of the altar, and disclosed a double grille of iron, beyond which was a small room in the interior of the monastery. In the room, but close to the grille, and standing sideways, with lighted candles in front of it, was a very beautiful picture of the Crucifixion. It was much smaller than life, and seemed to be a copy of Guido's picture in the Lucina. The figure hung alone on the cross in the midst of a dark wind-stricken plain, and behind it the black storm clouds were driving through the sky, and beating the trees towards the ground. As you looked fixedly at the face, the feeling of its intense suffering and its touching patience seemed to take possession of you and fill you. We all knelt in front of it, and I never took my eyes from it. Very soon Mrs. Goldsmid said, 'I begin to see something; do you not see the pupils of its eyes dilate?' Mrs. Montgomery, in an ecstasy, soon after said, 'Oh, I see it: how wonderful! what a blessing vouchsafed to us! See, it moves! it moves!' Mrs. De Selby, who is always sternly matter-of-fact, and who had been looking fixedly at it hitherto, on this turned contemptuously away and said, 'What nonsense! it is a complete delusion: you delude yourselves into anything; the picture is perfectly still.' Mrs. Dawkins now declared that she distinctly saw the eyes move. Lady Bedingfield would not commit herself to any opinion. The French Abbé saw nothing.
"Meanwhile Madame Ste. Aldegonde had fallen into a rapture, and with clasped hands was returning thanks for the privilege vouchsafed to her. 'Oh mon Dieu! mon Dieu! quelle grâce! quelle grâce!' Shortly after this the French Abbé saw it also. 'Il n'y a pas le moindre doute,' he said; 'il bouge les yeux, mais le voilà, le voilà.' They all now began to distress themselves about Mrs. De Selby. 'Surely you must see something,' they said; 'it is impossible that you should see nothing.' But Mrs. De Selby continued stubbornly to declare that she saw nothing. While Madame Ste. Aldegonde was exclaiming, and when the scene was at its height, I could fancy that I saw something like a scintillation, a speculation, in one of the eyes of the Crucified One, but I could not be certain. As we left the church, the other ladies said, apropos of Mrs. De Selby, 'Well, you know, after all, it is not a thing we are obliged to believe,' and one of them, turning to her, added consolingly, 'And you know you did see a miracle at Vicovaro.'
"Mrs. Goldsmid declared that she was so shocked at my want of faith, that she should take me immediately to the Sepolti Vivi, to request the prayers of the abbess there. So we drove thither at once. The convent is most carefully concealed. Opposite the Church of S. Maria del Monte, a little recess in the street, which looks like a cul de sac, runs up to one of those large street shrines with a picture, so common in Naples, but of which there are very few at Rome. When you get up to the picture, you find the cul de sac is an illusion. In the left of the shrine a staircase in the wall leads you up round the walls of the adjoining house to a platform on the roof. Here you are surrounded by heavy doors, all strongly barred and bolted. In the wall there projects what looks like a small green barrel. Mrs. Goldsmid stooped down and rapped loudly on the barrel. This she continued to do for some time. At last a faint muffled voice was heard issuing from behind the barrel, and demanding what was wanted. 'I am Margaret Goldsmid,' said our companion, 'and I want to speak to the abbess.'—'Speak again,' said the strange voice, and again Mrs. G. declared that she was Margaret Goldsmid. Then the invisible nun recognised the voice, and very slowly, to my great surprise, the green barrel began to move. Round and round it went, till at last in its innermost recesses was disclosed a key. Mrs. Goldsmid knew the meaning of this, and taking the key, led us round to a small postern door, which she unlocked, and we entered a small courtyard. Beyond this, other doors opened in a similar manner, till we reached a small white-washed room. Over the door was an inscription bidding those who entered that chamber to leave all worldly thoughts behind them. Round the walls of the room were inscribed: 'Qui non diligit, manet in morte'—'Militia est vita hominis super terram'—'Alter alterius onera portate,' and on the side opposite the door—
'Vi esorto a rimirar
La vita del mondo
Nella guisa che il mira
Un moribondo.'
Immediately beneath this inscription was a double grille, and beyond it what looked at first like pitch darkness, but what was afterwards shown to be a thick plate of iron, pierced, like the rose of a watering-pot, with small round holes, through which the voice might penetrate. Behind this plate of iron the abbess of the Sepolti Vivi receives her visitors. She is even then veiled from head to foot, and folds of thick serge fell over her face. Pope Gregory XVI., who of course could penetrate within the convent, once wishing to try her faith, said to her, 'Sorella mia, levate il velo.'—'No, mio Padre,' replied the abbess, 'é vietato dalle regole del nostro ordine.'
"Mrs. Goldsmid said to the abbess that she had brought with her two heretics, one in a state of partial grace, the other in a state of blind and outer darkness, that she might request her prayers and those of her sisterhood. The heretic in partial grace was Mrs. Dawkins, the heretic in blind darkness was myself. Then came back the muffled voice of the abbess, as if from another world, 'Bisogna essere convertiti, perchè ci si sta poco in questo mondo: bisogna avere le lampane accese, perchè non si sa l'ora quando il Signore chiamerà, ma bisogna che le lampane siano accese coll' olio della vera fede, e se ve ne manca un solo articolo, se ne manca il tutto.' There was much more that she said, but it was all in the same strain. When she said, 'Se ve ne manca un solo articolo, se ne manca il tutto,' Mrs. Goldsmid was very much displeased, because she had constantly tried to persuade Mrs. Dawkins that it was not necessary to receive all, and the abbess had unconsciously interfered with the whole line of her argument. Afterwards we asked the abbess about her convent. They were 'Farnesiani,' she said; 'Sepolti Vivi' was only 'un nome popolare;' but she did not know why they were called Farnesiani, or who founded their order. She said the nuns did not dig their graves every day, that also was only a popular story. When they died, she said, 'they only enjoyed their graves a short time, like the Cappuccini (a year, I think), and then, if their bodies were whole when they were dug up, they were preserved; but if their limbs had separated, they were thrown away. She said the nuns could speak to their 'parenti stretti' four times a year, but when I asked if they ever saw them, she laughed in fits at the very idea, 'ma perchè bisogna vederli?' Mrs. Goldsmid was once inside the convent, but could not get an order this year, because, when it had been countersigned by all the other authorities, old Cardinal Patrizi remembered that she had been in before, and withdrew it.
"I heard afterwards that generally when the crucifixion at S. Marcellino is shown, a nun of S. Teresa, with her face covered, and robed from head to foot in a long blue veil, stands by it immovable, like a pillar, the whole time."
"January 27.—Gibson the sculptor died this morning. He was first taken ill while calling on Mrs. Caldwell. She saw that he could not speak, and, making him lie down, brought water and restoratives. He grew better and insisted on walking home. She wished to send for a carriage, but he would not hear of it, and he was able to walk home perfectly. That evening a paralytic seizure came. Ever since, for nineteen days and nights, Miss Dowdeswell had nursed him. He will be a great loss to Miss Hosmer (the sculptress), whom he regarded as a daughter. They used to dine together with old Mr. Hay every Saturday. It was an institution. Mr. Gibson was writing his memoirs then, and he used to take what he had written and read it aloud to Mr. Hay on the Saturday evenings. Mr. Hay also dictated memoirs of his own life to Miss Hosmer, and she wrote them down."
"January 29.—I had a paper last night begging me to be present at a meeting about Gibson's funeral, but I could not go. The greater part of his friends wished for a regular funeral procession on foot through the streets, but this was overruled by Colonel Caldwell and others. A guard of honour, offered by the French general, was however accepted. The body lay for some hours in the little chapel at the cemetery, the cross of the Legion of Honour fixed upon the coffin. It was brought to the grave with muffled drums, all the artists following. Many ladies who had known and loved him were crying bitterly, and there was an immense attendance of men. The day before he died there was a temporary rally, and those with him hoped for his life. It was during this time that the telegraph of inquiry from the Queen came, and Gibson was able to receive pleasure from it, and held it in his hand for an hour.
"Gibson—'Don Giovanni,' as his friends called him—had a quaint dry humour which was all his own. He used to tell how a famous art-critic, whose name must not be mentioned, came to his studio to visit his newly-born statue of Bacchus. 'Now pray criticise it as much as you like,' said the great sculptor. 'Well, since you ask me to find fault,' said the critic, 'I think perhaps there is something not quite right about the left leg.'—'About the leg! that is rather a wide expression,' said Gibson; 'but about what part of the leg?'—'Well, just here, about the bone of the leg.'—'Well,' said Gibson, 'I am relieved that that is the fault you have to find, for the bone of the leg is on the other side!'
"Gibson used to relate with great gusto something which happened to him when he was travelling by diligence before the time of railways. He had got as far as the Mont Cenis, and, while crossing it, entered into conversation with his fellow-traveller—an Englishman, not an American. Gibson asked where he had been, and he mentioned several places, and then said, 'There was one town I saw which I thought curious, the name of which I cannot for the life of me remember, but I know it began with an R.'—'Was it Ronciglione,' said Gibson, 'or perhaps Radicofani?' thinking of all the unimportant places beginning with R. 'No, no; it was a much shorter name—a one-syllable name. I remember we entered it by a gate near a very big church with lots of pillars in front of it, and there was a sort of square with two fountains.'—'You cannot possibly mean Rome?'—'Oh yes, Rome—that was the name of the place.'"
"February 4.—I spent yesterday evening with the Henry Feildens.[310] Mrs. Feilden told me that in her girlhood her family went to the Isle of Wight and rented St. Boniface House, between Bonchurch and Ventnor. She slept in a room on the first floor with her sister Ghita: the French governess and her sister Cha slept in the next room, the English governess above. If they talked in bed they were always punished by the English governess, who could not bear them; so they never spoke except in a whisper. One night, when they were in bed, with the curtains closely drawn, the door was suddenly burst open with a bang, and something rushed into the room and began to whisk about in it, making great draught and disturbance. They were not frightened, but very angry, thinking some one was playing them a trick. But immediately the curtains were drawn aside and whisked up over their heads, and one by one all the bed-clothes were dragged away from them, though when they stretched out their hands they could feel nothing. First the counterpane went, then the blankets, then the sheet, then the pillows, and lastly the lower sheet was drawn away from under them. When it came to this she (Ellinor Hornby) exclaimed, 'I can bear this no longer,' and she and her sister both jumped out of bed at the foot, which was the side nearest the door. As they jumped out, they felt the mattress graze against their legs, as it also was dragged off the bed. Ghita Hornby rushed into the next room to call the French governess, while Ellinor screamed for assistance, holding the door of their room tightly on the outside, fully believing that somebody would be found in the room. The English governess and the servants, roused by the noise, now rushed downstairs, and the door was opened. The room was perfectly still and there was no one there. It was all tidied. The curtains were carefully rolled, and tied up above the head of the bed: the sheets and counterpane were neatly folded up in squares and laid in the three corners of the room: the mattress was reared against the wall under the window: the blanket was in the fireplace. Both the governesses protested that the girls must have done it themselves in their sleep, but nothing would induce them to return to the room, and they were surprised the next morning, when they expected a scolding from their mother, to find that she quietly assented to the room being shut up. Many years after Mrs. Hornby met the lady to whom the property belonged, and after questioning her about what had happened to her family, the lady told her that the same thing had often happened to others, and that the house was now shut up and could never be let, because it was haunted. A murder by a lady of her child was committed in that room, and she occasionally appeared; but more frequently only the noise and movement of the furniture occurred, and sometimes that took place in the adjoining room also. St. Boniface House is mentioned as haunted in the guide-books of the Isle of Wight."
"Feb. 12.—Went in the morning with the Feildens to S. Maria in Monticelli—a small church near the Ghetto. The church is not generally open, and we had to ring at the door of the priest's lodgings to get in: he let us into the church by a private passage. In the right aisle is the famous picture over an altar. It is a Christ with the eyes almost closed, weighed down by pain and sorrow. The Feildens knelt before it, and in a very few minutes they both declared that they saw its eyes open and close again. From the front of the picture and on the right side of it, though I looked fixedly at it, I could see nothing, but after I had looked for a long time from the left side, I seemed to see the eyes languidly close altogether, as if the figure were sinking unconsciously into a fast sleep.
"In the case of this picture, Pope Pius IX. has turned Protestant, and, disapproving of the notice it attracted, after it was first observed to move its eyes in 1859, he had it privately removed from the church, and it was kept shut up for some years. Two years ago it was supposed that people had forgotten all about it, and it was quietly brought back to the church in the night. It has frequently been seen to move the eyes since, but it has not been generally shown. The sacristan said it was a 'regalo' made to the church at its foundation, and none knew who the artist was.
"In the afternoon I was in St. Peter's with Miss Buchanan when the famous Brother Ignatius[311] came in. He led 'the Infant Samuel' by the hand, and a lay brother followed. He has come to Rome for his health, and has brought with him a sister (Sister Ambrogia) and the lay brother to wash and look after the Infant Samuel. He found the 'Infant' as a baby on the altar at Norwich, and vowed him at once to the service of the Temple, dressed him in a little habit, and determined that he should never speak to a woman as long as he lived. The last is extremely hard upon Sister Ambrogia, who does not go sight-seeing with her companions, and having a very dull time of it, would be exceedingly glad to play with the little rosy-cheeked creature. The Infant is now four years old, and is dressed in a white frock and cowl like a little Carthusian, and went pattering along the church in the funniest way by the side of the stately Brother Ignatius. He held the Infant up in his arms to kiss St. Peter's toe, and then rubbed its forehead against his foot, and did the same for himself, and then they both prostrated themselves before the principal shrine, with the lay brother behind them, and afterwards at the side altars, the Infant of course exciting great attention and amusement amongst the canons and priests of the church. A lady acquaintance of ours went to see Brother Ignatius and begged to talk to the Infant. This was declared to be impossible, the Infant was never to be allowed to speak to a woman, but she might be in the same room with the Infant if she pleased, and Brother Ignatius would then himself put any questions she wished. She asked who its father and mother were, and the Infant replied, 'I am the child of Jesus Christ and of the Blessed Virgin and of the holy St. Benedict.' She then asked if it liked being at Rome, 'Yes,' it said, 'I like being at Rome, for it is the city of the holy saints and martyrs and of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.' When we saw the party, they were just come from the Pope, who told Brother Ignatius to remember that a habit could not make a monk.
"Miss Dowdeswell has been to see us, and given us a terrible account of the misapplication of the Roman charities. She says the people would rather beg, or even really die of want, than go into most of the institutions—that the so-called soup is little more than water, and that the inmates are really starved, besides which the dirt and vermin are quite disgusting. The best hospital is that of the 'Buon Fratelli,' where the people who obtain entrance are kindly treated, but it is exceedingly difficult to get admittance, and the hospital authorities will always say it is full, scarcely ever taking in more than nine patients, though there is accommodation for thirty, and each person admitted has to pay ten scudi. At S. Michele, which is enormously endowed, and which professes to be free, the patient is not only compelled to have a complete outfit of bedding and everything else she requires, but must pay three scudi a month for her maintenance as long as she remains, yet for this will not have what she could procure for the same sum elsewhere."
"Feb. 15.—Went with the Eyres to Benzoni's studio. Amongst many other statues was a fine group of a venerable old man raising a little half-naked boy out of a gutter. 'Ecco il mio benefattore,' said Benzoni. It was the likeness of Conte Luigi Taddini of Crema, who first recognised the genius of Benzoni when making clay images in the puddles by the wayside, and sent him to Rome at his own expense for education. Count Taddini died six years after, but, in the height of his fame, Benzoni has made this group as a voluntary thank-offering and presented it to the family of his benefactor in Crema. He was only twelve years old when adopted by Taddini.
"A curious instance of presentiment happened yesterday. Some charitable ladies, especially Mrs. McClintock,[312] had been getting up a raffle for a picture of the poor artist Coleman, whom they believed to be starving. The tickets cost five scudi apiece, and were drawn yesterday. Just at the last moment Mrs. Keppel, at the Pension Anglaise, had a presentiment that 77 would be the lucky number, and she sent to tell Mrs. McClintock that if she could have 77 she would take it, but if not, she would not take any number at all. Seventy-seven happened to be Mrs. McClintock's own number. However, she said that rather than Mrs. Keppel should take none, she would give it up to her and take another. Mrs. Keppel took 77 and she got the picture."
"Feb. 24, 1866.—The other day little Nicole Dolgorouki came in to dinner with a pencil in his hand. The Princess said, 'Little boys should not sit at dinner with pencils in their hands;' upon which the child of eight years old coolly replied, 'L'artiste ne quitte jamais son crayon!'
"When the Mother and Lea were both ill last week, our Italian servants Clementina and (her daughter) Louisa groaned incessantly; and when Clementina was taken ill on the following night, Louisa gave up all hope at once, and sent for her other children to take leave of her. This depression of spirits has gone on ever since Christmas, and it turns out now that they think a terrible omen has come to the house. No omen is worse than an upset of oil, but, if this occurs on Christmas Eve, it is absolutely fatal, and on Christmas Eve my mother upset her little table with the great moderator lamp upon it. The oil was spilt all over her gown and the lamp broken to pieces on the floor, with great cries of 'O santissimo diavolo' from the servants. 'Only one thing can save us now,' says Louisa; 'if Providence would mercifully permit that some one should break a bottle of wine here by accident, that would bring back luck to the house, but nothing else can.'
"The Borgheses have had a magnificent fancy ball. Young Bolognetti Cenci borrowed the armour of Julius II. from the Pope for the occasion, and young Corsini that of Cardinal de Bourbon. The Duchess Fiano went in the costume of the first Empire, terribly improper in these days, and another lady went as a nymph just emerged from a fountain, and naturally clothed as little as possible. The Princess Borghese[313] was dreadfully shocked, but she only said, 'I fear, Madame, that you must be feeling horribly cold.'
"When the French ambassador sent to the Pope to desire that he would send away the Court of Naples, the Pope said he must decline to give up the parental prerogative which had always belonged to the Popes, of giving shelter to unfortunate princes of other nations, of whatever degree or nation they might be, and 'of this,' he added pointedly, 'the Bonapartes are a striking example.' The French ambassador had the bad taste to go on to the Palazzo Farnese, and, after condoling with the King of Naples[314] upon what he had heard of his great poverty, said, 'If your Majesty would engage at once to leave Rome, I on my part would promise to do my best endeavours with my Government to obtain the restoration of at least a part of your Majesty's fortune.' The King coldly replied, 'Sir, I have heard that in all ages great and good men have ended their days in obscurity and poverty, and it can be no source of dread to me that I may be numbered amongst them.'
"The Queen-mother of Naples[315] is still very rich, but is now a mere nurse to her large family, with some of whom she is to be seen—'gran' bel' pezzo di donna'—driving every day. When the King returned from Caieta, she was still at the Quirinal, and went down to the Piazza Monte Cavallo to receive him; but with him and the Queen came her own eldest son, and, before noticing her sovereign, she rushed to embrace her child, saying, 'Adesso, son pagato a tutto.'
"One sees the Queen of Naples[316] daily walking with her sister Countess Trani[317] near the Porta Angelica, or threading the carriages in the Piazza di Spagna, where the coachmen never take off their hats, and even crack their whips as she passes. She wears a straw hat, a plain violet linsey-woolsey dress, and generally leads a large deerhound by a string. She is perfectly lovely.
"The great Mother, Maria de Matthias,[318] has lately come down from her mountains of Acuto to visit my sister, who has arrived in Rome, and the confessor of the Venerable Anna Maria Taigi has also visited her. I have read the life of this saint, and have never found out any possible excuse for her being canonised, unless that she married her husband because he was a good man, though he was 'ruvido di maniere e grossolano.'
"At dinner at Mr. Brooke's, I met the quaint and clever Mrs. Payne, Madame d'Arblay's niece. She said that England had an honest bad climate and Rome a dishonest good one.
"Count Bolognetti Cenci is marvellously handsome, face and figure alike perfect. Some people maintain that Don Onorato Caiëtani is equally handsome. He has the extraordinary plume of white hair which is hereditary in the Caiëtani family. His father, the Duke of Sermoneta, said the other day, with some pardonable pride, 'Our ancestors were reigning sovereigns (in Tuscany) long before the Pope had any temporal power.'
"We have been to the Villa Doria to pick 'Widowed Iris,' which the Italians call 'I tre Chiodi del Nostro Signore,'—the three nails of our Saviour's cross.
"My sister declares that when Madame Barrère, late superior of the Order of the Sacré Cœur, was in her great old age, a Catholic lady who was married to a Protestant came to her and implored her to promise that, as soon as she entered heaven, her first petition should be for her husband that he might be a Catholic. Soon after this the Protestant husband was taken alarmingly ill, but gave his wife no hope that he would change his religion; yet, to her great surprise, when he was dying he bade her send for a priest. She considered this at first as a result of delirium, but he insisted upon the priest coming, and, rallying soon after, was received into the Roman Catholic Church. In a few days came the news of the death of Madame Barrère, and on inquiry it was found that the moment of her death and that of the Protestant sending for the priest exactly coincided."
"March 13.—The Roman princes are generally enormously rich. Tortonia is said to have an income which gives him 7000 scudi (£1200) a day. He is very charitable, and gives a great many pensions of a scudo a day to poor individuals of the mezzoceto class. The Chigis used to be immensely rich, but were ruined by old Princess Chigi, who gambled away everything she could get hold of. When one of her sons was to be made a Monsignore, a collection was arranged amongst the friends of the family to pay the expenses, but they imprudently left the rouleaux of money on the chimney-piece, where the old Princess spied them, and snapping them up, gioccolare-d them all away. The Massimi are rich, but the old Prince[319] is very miserly. The other day he told his cook that he was going to give a supper, but that it must not cost more than fifteen baiocchi a head, and that he must give minestra. The cook said it was utterly impossible, but the Prince declared he did not care in the least about 'possible,' only it must be done. The supper came off, and the guests had minestra. The next day the Prince said to his cook, 'Well, now, you see you could do it perfectly well; what was the use of making such a fuss about it?' The cook said 'Yes, I did it, but would you like to know where I got the bones from that made the soup?' The Prince shrugged his shoulders and said, 'Oh no, I don't want in the least to know about that; so long as you do your suppers for my price, you may get your bones wherever you like.' The cook told his friends afterwards that he got them at the Immondezzajo!"
"March 25.—Last January my sister wanted to engage a new maid. The mistress of a famous flower shop at Paris recommended her present maid, 'Madame Victorine,' who came to the hotel to see Esmeralda, who was delighted with her, only thinking her too good for the place. The new maid only made two stipulations: one was that she should always be called Madame Victorine; the other, that she should not be expected to have her meals with the other servants. My sister said that as to the first stipulation, there would be no difficulty at all; that she had always called her mother's maid 'Madame Victoire,' and that she could have no objection to calling her Madame Victorine; but that as to the second stipulation, though she insisted upon nothing, and though Madame Victorine would be perfectly free to take her food away and eat it wherever she pleased, yet she did not advise her to make any difficulty of this kind, as they were going to Italy, where the servants have jealous natures, and would be peculiarly liable to resent anything of the sort. Upon this Madame Victorine waived her second stipulation.
"Esmeralda was surprised, when Madame Victorine came to her, to find how well she had been educated and little traces of her having belonged to a higher position several times appeared by accident, upon which occasions Madame Victorine would colour deeply and try to hide what she had said. Thus, once she was betrayed into saying, 'I managed in that way with my servants;' and once in the railway, 'I did so when I was travelling with my son.' My sister observed not only that all her dresses were of the best silk though perfectly plain, but that all her cuffs, collars, and handkerchiefs were of the very best and finest material. But the oddest circumstance was, that once when Esmeralda was going to seal a letter, having no seal about her, she asked Madame Victorine if she had one. Madame Victorine lent her one, and then, colouring violently, as if she remembered something, tried to snatch it away, but Esmeralda had already pressed it down, and saw on the impression a coronet and a cipher. When my sister first told Madame Victorine that she was too good for the place, she seemed greatly agitated and exclaimed, 'Oh don't, don't change your mind, do take me: I will consent to do anything, only do take me.'
"One day since they have been at Palazzo Parisani, Esmeralda was looking for something amongst her music. 'You will find it in such an opera,' said Madame Victorine. 'Why, do you play also?' said Esmeralda, much surprised. 'Yes,' said Madame Victorine, colouring deeply. 'Then will you play to me?' said my sister. 'Oh no, no,' said Madame Victorine, trembling all over. 'Then I hope you will play sometimes when I am out,' said Esmeralda, and this Madame Victorine said she would do, and it seemed to please her very much."[320]
"March 26.—The Santa Croce are perhaps really the oldest family in Rome. They claim descent from Valerius Publicola, and the spirit of his life, that which characterised 'the good house that loved the people well,' still remains in the family. The other day Donna Vincenza Santa Croce was speaking of the Trinità de' Monti,[321] and the system of education there, and she said, 'I do so dislike those nuns: they are so worldly: they do so give in to rank, for when a girl of one of the great noble houses is there, they will make all the other girls stand up when she comes into a room! But this, you know, is not right, for it is only goodness and talent, not rank, that ought to make people esteemed in the world.' And was not this the spirit of Valerius Publicola speaking through his descendant?"
"March 27.—Last Sunday (Palm Sunday) was the last day of the 'mission' which the Pope had appointed in the hope of warding off both the cholera and the destruction of his own power. All the week processions had paraded the streets and monks had preached in the piazzas, rousing the feelings of the people in behalf of the Holy Father, and last Sunday it all came to a close. Giacinta, 'the Saint of St. Peter's,' came to tell my sister about the scene at Santo Spirito, where she was. A Passionist Father took a real crown of thorns and pressed it upon his head three times, till the thorns sank deep into the flesh, and the blood ran in streams down his face and over his dress. The people cried and sobbed convulsively, and were excited to frenzy when he afterwards took a 'disciplina' and began violently to scourge himself before all the congregation. One man sobbed and screamed so violently that he was dragged out by the carabinieri. Whilst the feelings of the people were thus wrought up, the father besought and commanded them to deliver up all books they possessed which were mentioned in the Index, tambourines and things used in dancing the saltarella, and all weapons,—and all through that afternoon they kept pouring in by hundreds, men bringing their books, and women their tambourines, and many their knives and pistols, which were piled up into a great heap in the courtyard of the Santo Spirito and set on fire. It was a huge bonfire, which burnt quite late into the evening, and whilst it burnt, more people were perpetually arriving and throwing on their books and other things, just as in the old days of Florence under the influence of Savonarola.
"Last Thursday at the Caravità, the doors of the church were 'closed at one hour of the day' (i.e., after Ave Maria), only men being admitted, and when they were fast, scourges were distributed, the lights all put out, and every one began to scourge both themselves and their neighbours, any one who had ventured to remain in the church without using a 'disciplina' being the more vigorously scourged by the others. At such times all is soon a scene of the wildest confusion, and shrieks and groans are heard on all sides. Some poor creatures try to escape by clinging to the pillars of the galleries, others fly screaming through the church with their scourgers pursuing them like demons.
"They say that the reason why St. Joseph's day was so much kept this year is that the Pope is preparing the public mind to receive a dogma of the Immaculate Conception of St. Joseph—perhaps to be promulgated next year: St. Anne is to be reserved to another time."
"April 1, Easter Sunday.—Passion Week has been very odd and interesting, but not reverent. It was very curious to see how—as Mrs. Goldsmid says, 'the Church always anticipates,' so that the Saviour, personified by the Sacrament, is laid in the tomb long before the hour of His death, and Thursday, not Saturday, is the day upon which all the faithful go about to visit the sepulchres.[322] My sister decorated that of S. Claudio with flowers and her great worked carpet. The Mother recalls John Bunyan's confession of faith—
'Blest cross, blest sepulchre,—blest rather He,
The Man that there was put to shame for me.'
"We went to the Benediction in the Piazza S. Pietro—a glorious blue sky and burning sunshine, and the vast crowd making the whole scene very grand, especially at the moment when the Pope stretched out his arms, and, hovering over the crimson balcony like a great white albatross, gave his blessing to all the world. Surely nothing is finer than that wonderful voice of Pius IX., which, without ever losing its tone of indescribable solemnity, yet vibrates to the farthest corners of the immense piazza.
"Afterwards we went to S. Andrea della Valle to see the 'sepolcro;' but far more worth seeing was a single ray of light streaming in through a narrow slit in one of the dark blinds, and making a glistening pool of gold upon the black pavement.
"On Good Friday, after the English service, we went to Santo Spirito in Borgo, where, after waiting an hour and a half, seeing nothing but the curiously ragged congregation, we found that the 'Tre Ore' was to be preached in broad Trasteverino, of which we could not understand a word. We went into St. Peter's, which was in a state of widowhood, no bells, no clock, no holy water, no ornaments on any of the altars, no lamps burning at the shrine, and all because the Sacrament was no longer present. We went again in the afternoon, when the whole building was thickly crowded from end to end. I stood upon the ledge of one of the pillars and watched two graceful ladies and a gentlemanly-looking man in black buffetted in the crowd below me: they were the King and Queen of Naples and the Countess Trani. Some zealous Bourbonists kissed their hands at risk of being trampled on.
"To-day St. Peter's and all the other churches have come to life again: the Sacrament has been restored: the bells have rung: and fire and water have been re-blessed for the year to come. All private Catholic houses too have had their blessings. A priest and a boy surprised Lea by coming in here and blessing everything, and she found them asperging the Mother's bed with holy water, all at the desire of our fellow-lodger, Mr. Monteith of Carstairs, whom Louisa described as dropping gold pieces into their water-vessel. At Palazzo Parisani, as well as below us, a 'colazione' was set out, with a great cake, eggs, &c., and after being blessed was given away.
"Antonelli has just been made a priest, in the vague idea, I suppose, that it might some day be convenient to raise him to the papacy.
"Mr. Perry Williams, the artist, thought the old woman who cleans out his studio looked dreadfully ill the other day, and said, 'You look very bad, what on earth is the matter with you?'—'Cosa vuole, Signore, ho avuto una digestione tutta la notte.'"
"April 3.—This morning poor little Miss Joyce lay in a chapelle ardente at S. Andrea delle Fratte, and all the English Catholics, with the Borgheses and Dorias, who were her cousins, attended the requiem mass. She was only alarmingly ill for thirty-six hours, of brain fever, caused by a dose of twenty-five grains of quinine after typhus, which she had brought back from Naples. She had been the gayest of the gay all the season, and a week ago was acting in tableaux and singing at Mrs. Cholmondeley's party. It is said that at least one young lady is killed every year by being taken to Naples when she is overdone by the balls and excitement here.
"My sister gave a small party yesterday evening. The Duke and Duchess Sora were there. The Duchess has a wonderfully charming expression. K., a young Tractarian, was introduced to her. She said afterwards, 'J'ai pensé longtemps qu'il était catholique, et puis j'ai tourné, j'ai tourné, j'ai tourné, et voilà qu'il était protestant!'"
"April 8.—On Thursday, at the Monteiths', I met Lady Herries, Mrs. Montgomery, my sister, and many other Catholics. They were all assembled before dinner to receive Cardinal de Reisach, a very striking-looking old man, whose white hair and brilliant scarlet robes made a splendid effect of colour.
"On Friday, at 2 P.M., I joined the Feildens to go to the Palazzo Farnese. Mrs. F. wore a high grey dress without a bonnet: little Helen was in black velvet, with all her pretty hair flowing over her shoulders; Mr. Robartes, Mr. Feilden, and I wore evening dress. The whole way in the carriage my companions declared they felt more terrified than if they were going to a dentist, as bad as if they were going to have their legs taken off. We drove into the courtyard of the Farnese and to the foot of the staircase. Several other people were just coming down. We were shown through one long gallery after another to a small salon furnished with green, where the Duca della Regina and an old lady received us. Soon the door was opened at the side, and in very distinct tones the Duke mentioned our names. Just within the door stood Francis II. He looked grave and sad, and his forehead seemed to work convulsively at moments; still I thought him handsome. The Queen sat on a sofa at the other side of the room. She was in a plain black mourning dress with some black lace in her hair (for Queen Marie Amelie, her husband's aunt). The room was a boudoir, hung round with family portraits. There was a beautiful miniature of the Queen on the table near which I sat.
"I went up at once to the King and made as if I would kiss his hand, but he shook mine warmly and made me sit in an arm-chair between him and the Queen. Mrs. Feilden in the meantime had gone direct to the Queen, who seated her by her side upon the sofa, and taking little Helen on her lap, kissed her tenderly, and said she remembered her, having often seen her before. I said, 'Ce petit enfant a tant de dévouement pour sa Majesté la Reine, qu'elle va tous les jours à la Place d'Espagne seulement pour avoir le bonheur de voir sa Majesté quand elle passe.' The Queen's eyes filled with tears, and she hid her face in Helen's hair, which she kissed and stroked, saying, 'Oh mon cher enfant, mon cher petit enfant!'
"The King then said something about the great rains we had suffered. I mentioned the prophecy if it rained on the 4th April—
'Quattro di brillante,
Quaranta di durante,'
and the King said that in Naples there was a superstition of the same kind as that of our St. Swithin in England.
"As another set of people came in, we rose to go, kissing the Queen's hand, except Helen, who kissed her face. The King[323] shook hands and walked with us to the door, expressing a wish that we should return to Rome; and replying, when I said how much my mother benefited by the climate here, that Madame my mother ought always to make the most of whatever climate suited her health and remain in it. In the anteroom the Duca della Regina and the old lady were waiting to see Helen again.
"To-day Mrs. Ramsay asked me the difference between the Italian words mezzo-caldo and semi-freddo. One would think they were the same, but mezzo-caldo is hot punch and semi-freddo is cold cream!"
I have put in these extracts from my journal, as they describe a state of things at Rome which seemed then as if it would last for ever, but which is utterly swept away now and rapidly passing into oblivion. The English society was as frivolous then as it is now, but much more primitive. It was the custom in those days, when any one gave a larger party than usual, to ask Mrs. Miller, a respectable old Anglo-German baker who lived in the Via della Croce, to make tea and manage the refreshments, and one knew whether the party that one was invited to was going to be a large or small one by looking to see if there was "To meet Mrs. Miller" in the corner.
Our days were for the most part spent in drawing, and many were the delightful hours we passed in the Villa Negroni, which has now entirely disappeared, in spite of its endless historic associations, or in the desolate and beautiful vigne of the Esquiline, which have also been destroyed since the Sardinian occupation of Rome. Indeed, those who visit Rome now that it is a very squalid modern city, can have no idea of the wealth and glory of picturesqueness which adorned its every corner before 1870, or of how romantic were the passing figures—the crimson Cardinals; the venerable generals of religious orders with their flowing white beards; the endless monks and nuns; the pifferari with their pipes; the peasant women from Cori and Arpino and Subiaco, with their great gold earrings, coral necklaces, and snowy head-dresses; the contadini in their sheep-skins and goat-skins; the handsome stalwart Guardia Nobile in splendid tight-fitting uniforms; and above all, the grand figure and beneficent face of Pius IX. so frequently passing, seated in his glass coach, in his snow-white robes, with the stoic self-estimation of the Popes, but with his own kindly smile and his fingers constantly raised in benediction.
The heat was very great before we left Rome in April. We went first to Narni, where we stayed several days in a very primitive lodging, with the smallest possible amount of furniture, and nothing to eat except cold goat and rosemary, but in a glorious situation on the terrace which overlooks the deep rift of the Nar, clothed everywhere with ilex, box, and arbutus; and we spent long hours drawing the two grand old bridges—Roman and Mediæval—which stride across the river, even Lea being stimulated by the intense beauty to a trial of her artistic powers, and making a very creditable performance of the two grand cypresses on the slope of the hill, which have disappeared under the Sardinian rule.
We spent a happy day at Spoleto, with its splendid ilex woods. Here my friends Kilcoursie[326] and Pearson joined us, and I went with them to spend the morning at the Temple of the Clitumnus, and returned just too late for the train we had intended to leave by. It is very characteristic of the slowness of those early days of Italian railways, that though we did not order our carriage till some time after the train was gone, we reached Perugia by road, in spite of the steep hill to be climbed, before the train which we were to have taken arrived on the railway. This evening's drive (April 23) is one of the Italian journeys I look back upon with greatest pleasure, the going onwards through the rich plain of vines and almonds and olives, and all the blaze of spring tulips and gladioli, and the stopping to buy the splendid oranges from the piles which lay in the little market under the old cathedral of Foligno; then seeing the sky turn opal behind the hills, and deepen in colour through a conflagration of amber, and orange, and crimson, of which the luminousness was never lost, though everything else disappeared into one dense shadow, and the great cypresses on the mountain edges were only dark spires engraven upon the sky. How many such evenings have we spent, ever moving onwards at that stately smooth vetturino pace—and silent, Mother absorbed in her heavenly, I in my earthly contemplations; dear Lea, tired by her long day, often sleeping opposite to us against the hand-bags.
We spent several days in Florence in 1866, when the streets were already placarded with such advertisements as 'I Menzogne di Genese, o l'Impostatura di Mosé'—typical of the change of Government. I paid several visits to the Comtesse d'Usedom (the Olympia Malcolm of my childhood), who was more extraordinary than ever. When I went to luncheon with her in the Villa Capponi, she talked incessantly for three hours, chiefly of spirits.
"I believe in them," she said, "of course I do. Why, haven't I heard them?" (with a perfect yell). "Why, I've seen a child whom we knew most intimately who was perfectly possessed by spirits—evil spirits, I mean. There is nothing efficacious against that kind but prayer and the crucifix. Why, the poor little thing used to struggle for hours. It used to describe the devils it saw. They were of different kinds. Sometimes it would say, 'Oh, it's only one of the innocent blackies,' and then it would shriek when it thought it saw a red devil come. It was the red devils that did all the mischief. All the best physicians were called in, but they all said the case was quite beyond them. The possession sometimes came on twice in a day. It would end by the child gasping a great sigh, as if at that moment the evil spirit went out of it, and then quite calmly it would open its eyes, wonder where it was, and remember nothing of what had happened. The doctors urged that the child should not be kept quiet, but taken abroad and amused, and mama writes me word now that it is quite well.
"I never saw the ghosts at Rugen," said Madame von Usedom, "but there is one of Usedom's houses there which I have refused ever to go to again, for I have heard them there often. The lady in the room with me saw them too—she saw three white sisters pulling her husband out of his grave.
"We have an old lady in our family, a relation of Usedom's, who has that wonderful power of second-sight.... When we left you at Bamberg (in 1853), we went to Berlin, and there we saw Usedom's relation, who told me that I was going to have a son. She 'saw it,' she said. Saw it! why, she saw it as plain as daylight: I was going to have a son: Usedom's first wife had brought him none, and I was going to give him one.
"When I left Berlin, we went to Rugen, but I was to return to Berlin, where my son was to be born. Well, about three weeks before my confinement was expected, the old lady sent for a relation of Usedom's, who was in Berlin, and said, 'Have you heard anything of Olympia?'—'Yes,' he said, 'I heard from Usedom yesterday, and she is going on as well as possible, and will be here in a few days.'—'No,' said the old lady, 'she will not, for the child is dead. Yesterday, as I was sitting here, three angels passed through my room with a little child in their arms, and the face of the child was so exactly like Usedom's, that I know that the child is born and that it is in heaven.' And so it was. I had a bad fall in Rugen, which we thought nothing of at the time. I had so much strength and courage that it did not seem to affect me; but a week after my boy was born—dead—killed by that fall, and the image, oh! the very image of Usedom."
From Florence we went to Bellagio on the Lago di Como, and spent a week of glorious weather amid beautiful flowers with nightingales singing in the trees all day and night. Many of our Roman friends joined us, and we passed pleasant days together in the garden walks and in short excursions to the neighbouring villas. When we left Bellagio, the two Misses Hawker, often our companions in Rome, accompanied us. We ascended the Splugen from Chiavenna in pitch darkness, till, about 4 A.M., the diligence entered upon the snow cuttings, and we proceeded for some time between walls of snow, often fifteen feet high. At last we stopped altogether, and in a spot where there was no refuge whatever from the ferocious ice-laden wind. Meantime sledges were prepared, being small open carts without wheels, which just held two persons each: my mother and I were in the second, Lea and an Italian in the third, and the Hawkers in the fourth: we had no man with our sledge. The sledges started in procession, the horses stumbling over the ledges in the snow, from which we bounded up and down. At last the path began to wind along the edge of a terrific precipice, where nothing but a slight edging of fresh snow separated one from the abyss. Where this narrow path turned it was truly horrible. Then came a tunnel festooned with long icicles; then a fearful descent down a snow-drift almost perpendicularly over the side of the mountain, the horses sliding on all fours, and the sledges crashing and bounding from one hard piece of snow to another; all this while the wind blew furiously, and the other sledges behind seemed constantly coming upon us. Certainly I never remember anything more appalling.
At the bottom of the drift was another diligence, but the Hawkers and I walked on to Splugen.
We spent an interesting afternoon at Brugg, and drew at Königsfelden, where the Emperor Albert's tomb is left deserted and neglected in a stable, and Queen Agnes's room remains highly picturesque, with many relics of her. In the evening we had a lovely walk through the forest to Hapsburg, where we saw a splendid sunset from the hill of the old castle. With a glimpse at Freiburg-im-Breisgau, we reached Carlsruhe, with which we were very agreeably surprised. The Schloss Garten is really pretty, with fine trees and fountains: the town is bright and clean; and all around is the forest with its endless pleasant paths. We found dear Madame de Bunsen established with her daughters Frances and Emilia in a nice old-fashioned house, 18 Waldhornstrasse, with all their pictures and treasures around them, the fine bust of Mrs. Waddington in itself giving the room a character. Circling round the aunts were Theodora von Ungern Sternberg's five motherless children, a perpetual life-giving influence to the home. We went with them into the forest and to the faisanerie, and picked masses of wild lilies of the valley. In the palace gardens we saw the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess, a very handsome couple: she the only daughter of the King of Prussia. At the station also I saw again, and for the last time, the very pleasing Queen Emma of the Sandwich Islands, and presented the Bunsens to her.[329] On the eve of Trinity Sunday we reached home.
From my JOURNAL.
"July 30, 1866.—Holmhurst.—Another happy summer! How different my grown-up-hood has been to my boyhood: now all sunshine, then all reproach and misery. How strange it is that my dearest mother remembers nothing of those days, nothing of those years of bitter heartache which my uncles' wives cost me. But her present love, her beautiful full heart devotion, are all free-will offering, not sacrifice of atonement. Our little Holmhurst is most lovely and peaceful."
Lady Augusta Stanley
In August we spent a fortnight at the Deanery at Westminster with Arthur and Augusta Stanley, the latter fit les delices of all who came under her influence, and both were most kind in asking every one to meet us that they thought we could be interested to see. To me, however, no one was ever half so interesting as Arthur himself, and his conversation at these small Deanery dinner-parties was most delightful, though, as I have heard another say, and perhaps justly, "it was always versatile rather than accurate, brilliant rather than profound." From London we went to look after our humble friends at Alton, where all the villagers welcomed my mother with a most touching wealth of evergreen love, and where forty old people came to supper by her invitation in the barn. The owls hissed overhead in the oak rafters; the feast was lighted by candles stuck into empty ginger-beer bottles, and in quavering voices they all drank the mother's health. She made them a sweet little speech, praying that all those who were there might meet with her at the great supper of the Lamb. I had much interest at Alton in finding out those particulars which form the account of the place in "Memorials of a Quiet Life." The interest of the people, utterly unspoilt by "civilisation," can hardly be described, or the simplicity of their faith. Speaking of her long troubles and illness, "Betty Smith" said, "I ha' been sorely tried, but it be a' to help I on to thick there place." William Pontyn said, "It just be a comfort to I to know that God Almighty's always at whom: He never goes out on a visit." Their use of fine words is very comical. Old Pontyn said, "My son-in-law need na treat I ill, for I niver gied un no publication for it." He thanked mother for her "respectable gift," and said, "I do thank God ivery morning and ivery night, that I do; and thank un as I may, I niver can thank un enough, He be so awful good to I." He said the noise the threshing-machine made when out of order was "fierly ridic'lous," and that he was "fierly gallered (frightened) at it"—that he was "obliged to flagellate the ducks to get them out of the pond."
I drove with Mr. Pile to see the remains of Wolf Hall, on the edge of Savernake Forest, where Henry VIII. married Jane Seymour. The house, once of immense size, is nearly destroyed. The roof of the banqueting-hall is now the roof of a barn. The beautiful fragment of building remaining was once the laundry. Hard by, at Burbage, is "Jane Seymour's Pool."
After leaving Alton, as if making the round of my mother's old homes, we went to Buntingsdale, Hodnet, and Stoke. While at the former, I remember the Tayleurs being full of the promptitude of old Mrs. Massie (whose son Edward married our cousin Sophy Mytton). When above ninety she had been taken to see the church of Northwich, where some one pointed out to her a gravestone with the epitaph—
"Some have children, and some have none;
Here lies the mother of twenty-one."
Old Mrs. Massie drew herself up to her full height and at once made this impromptu—
"Some have many, and some have few;
Here stands the mother of twenty-two."
And what she said was true.
My mother turned south from Shropshire, and I went to Lyme, near Disley, the fine old house of the Leghs, whose then head, W. T. Legh, had married Emily Wodehouse, one of the earliest friends of my childhood. It is a most stately old house, standing high in a very wild park, one of the only three places where wild cattle are not extinct. The story of the place is curious.
"Old Colonel Legh of Lyme left his property first to his son Tom, but though Tom Legh was twice married, he had no sons, so it came to the father of the present possessor. Tom's first wife had been the celebrated Miss Turner. Her father was a Manchester manufacturer, who had bought the property of Shrigley, near Lyme, of which his only daughter was the heiress. She was carried off from school by a conspiracy between three brothers named Gibbon Wakefield and a Miss Davis, daughter of a very respectable master of the Grammar School at Macclesfield. While at school, Miss Turner received a letter from home which mentioned casually that her family had changed their butler. Two days after, a person purporting to be the new butler came to the school, and sent in a letter to say that Mr. Turner was dangerously ill, and that he was sent to fetch his daughter, who was to return home at once. In the greatest hurry, Miss Turner was got ready and sent off. When they had gone some way, the carriage stopped, and a young man got in, who said that he had been sent to break to her the news that her father's illness was a fiction; that they did not wish to spread the truth by letting the governess know, but that the fact was that Mr. Turner had got into some terrible money difficulties and was completely ruined, and he begged that his daughter would proceed at once to meet him in Scotland, whither he was obliged to go to evade his creditors. During the journey the young man who was sent to chaperon Miss Turner made himself most agreeable. At last they reached Berwick, and then at the inn, going out of the room, he returned with a letter and said that he was almost afraid to tell her its contents, but that it was sent by her father's command, and that he only implored her to forgive him for obeying her father's orders. It was a most urgent letter from her father, saying that it rested with her to extricate him from his difficulties, which she could do by consenting to marry the bearer. The man was handsome and pleasant, and the marriage seemed no great trial to the girl, who was under fifteen. Immediately after marriage she was taken to Paris.
"Meantime all the gentlemen in the county rallied round Mr. Turner, and he contrived somehow to get his daughter away whilst she was in Paris. Suspicion had been first excited in the mind of the governess because letters for Miss Turner continued to arrive at the school from Shrigley, and she gave the alarm. There was a great trial, at which all the gentlemen in Cheshire accompanied Mr. Turner when he appeared leading his daughter. The marriage was pronounced null and void, and one of the Gibbon Wakefields was imprisoned at Lancaster for five years, the others for two. It was the utmost punishment that could be given for misdemeanour, and nothing more could be proved. The Gibbon Wakefields had thought that, rather than expose his daughter to three days in a witness box, Mr. Turner would consent to a regular marriage, and they had relied upon that. Miss Turner was afterwards married to Mr. Legh, in the hope of uniting two fine properties, but as she had no son, her daughter, Mrs. Lowther, is now the mistress of Shrigley."
To MY MOTHER.
"Lyme Hall, August 29, 1866.—I have been with Mrs. Legh to Bramhall, the fine old house of the Davenports, near Stockport, with the haunted room of Lady Dorothy Davenport and no end of relics. Out of the billiard-room opens the parish church, in the same style as the house, with prayer-books chained to the seats. We returned by Marple, the wonderfully curious old house of Bradshaw the regicide."
"Sept. 1.—To-day we had a charming drive over the hills, the green glens of pasture-land, the steeps, and the tossing burns recalling those of Westmoreland. I went with Mrs. Legh into one of the cottages and admired the blue wash of the room, 'Oh, you like it, do ye?' said the mistress of the house; 'I don't—so that's difference of opinions.' The whole ceiling was hung with different kinds of herbs, 'for we're our own doctors, ye see, and it saves the physic bills.'
"The four children—Sybil and Mob (Mabel), Tom and Gilbert Legh, are delightful, and Sybil quite lovely. It is a pleasure to hear the little feet come scampering down the oak staircase, as the four rush down to the library to ask for a story at seven o'clock—'A nice horrible story, all about robbers and murders: now do tell us a really horrible one.'"
"Thornycroft Hall, Cheshire, Sept. 3.—The family here are much depressed by the reappearance of the cattle plague. In the last attack sixty-eight cows died, and so rapidly that men had to be up all night burying them by lantern-light in one great grave in the park.... How curious the remains of French expressions are as used by the cottagers here. They speak of carafes of water, and say they should not oss (oser) to do a thing. The other day one of the Birtles tenants was being examined as a witness at the Manchester assizes. 'You told me so and so, didn't you?' said the lawyer. And the man replied, 'I tell't ye nowt o' the kind, ye powther-headed monkey; ask the coompany now if I did.'"
From Thornycroft I went to stay (only three miles off) at Birtles, the charming, comfortable home of the Hibberts—very old friends of all our family. Mrs. Hibbert, née Caroline Cholmondeley, was very intimate with my aunt Mrs. Stanley, and a most interesting and agreeable person; and I always found a visit to Birtles a most admirable discipline, as my great ignorance was so much discovered and commented upon, that it was always a stimulus to further exertion. It was on this occasion that Mrs. Hibbert told me a very remarkable story. It had been told her by Mrs. Gaskell the authoress, who said that she felt so greatly the uncertainty of life, that she wished a story which might possibly be of consequence, and which had been intrusted to her, to remain with some one who was certain to record it accurately. Three weeks afterwards, sitting by the fire with her daughter, Mrs. Gaskell died suddenly in her arm-chair. Mrs. Hibbert, in her turn, wished to share her trust with some one, and she selected me.
In my childhood I remember well the Misses T., who were great friends of my aunt Mrs. Stanley, and very clever agreeable old ladies. "Many years before," as Mrs. Gaskell described to Mrs. Hibbert, "they had had the care of a young cousin, a girl whose beauty and cleverness were a great delight to them. But when she was very young, indeed in the first year of her 'coming out,' she engaged herself to marry a Major Alcock. In a worldly point of view the marriage was all that could be desired. Major Alcock was a man of fortune with a fine place in Leicestershire: he was a good man, of high character, and likely to make an excellent husband. Still it was a disappointment—an almost unspoken disappointment—to her friends that the young lady should marry so soon—'she was so young,' they thought; she had had so few opportunities of judging persons; they had looked forward to having her so much longer with them,' &c.
"When Mrs. Alcock went to her new home in Leicestershire, it was a great comfort to the Misses T. and others who cared for her that some old friends of the family would be her nearest neighbours, and could keep them cognisant of how she was going on. For some time the letters of these friends described Mrs. Alcock as radiantly, perfectly happy. Mrs. Alcock's own letters also gave glowing descriptions of her home, of the kindness of her husband, of her own perfect felicity. But after a time a change came over the letters on both sides. The neighbours described Mrs. Alcock as sad and pale, and constantly silent and preoccupied, and in the letters of Mrs. Alcock herself there was a reserve and want of all her former cheerfulness, which aroused great uneasiness.
"The Misses T. went to see Mrs. Alcock, and found her terribly, awfully changed—haggard, worn, preoccupied, with an expression of fixed melancholy in her eyes. Both to them and to the doctors who were called in to her she said that the cause of her suffering was that, waking or sleeping, she seemed to see before her a face, the face of a man whom she exactly described, and that she was sure that some dreadful misfortune was about to befall her from the owner of that face. Waking, she seemed to see it, or, if she fell asleep, she dreamt of it. The doctors said that it was a case of what is known as phantasmagoria; that the fact was that in her unmarried state Mrs. Alcock had not only had every indulgence and consideration, but that even the ordinary rubs of practical life had been warded off from her; and that having been suddenly transplanted into being the head of a large establishment in Leicestershire, with quantities of visitors coming and going throughout the hunting season, had been too much for a very peculiar and nervous temperament, and that over-fatigue and unwonted excitement had settled into this peculiar form of delusion. She must have perfect rest, they said, and her mind would soon recover its usual tone.
"This was acted upon. The house in Leicestershire was shut up, and Major and Mrs. Alcock went abroad for the summer. The remedy completely answered. Mrs. Alcock forgot all about the face, slept well, enjoyed herself extremely and became perfectly healthy in body and mind. So well was she, that it was thought a pity to run the risk of bringing her back to Leicestershire just before the hunting season, the busiest time there, and it was decided to establish her cure by taking her to pass the winter at Rome.
"One of the oldest established hotels in Rome is the Hôtel d'Angleterre in the Bocca di Leone. It was to it that travellers generally went first when they arrived at Rome in the old vetturino days; and there, by the fountain near the hotel door which plays into a sarcophagus under the shadow of two old pepper-trees, idle contadini used to collect in old days to see the foreigners arrive. So I remember it in the happy old days, and so it was on the evening on which the heavily laden carriage of the Alcock family rolled into the Bocca di Leone and stopped at the door of the Hôtel d'Angleterre. Major Alcock got out, and Mrs. Alcock got out, but, as she was descending the steps of the carriage, she happened to glance round at the group under the pepper-trees, and she uttered a piercing shriek, fell down upon the ground, and was carried unconscious into the hotel.
"When Mrs. Alcock came to herself, she affirmed that amongst the group near the door of the hotel she had recognised the owner of the face which had so long tormented her, and she was certain that some dreadful misfortune was about to overwhelm her. Doctors, summoned in haste, when informed of her previous condition, declared that the same results were owing to the same causes. Major Alcock, who disliked bad hotels, had insisted on posting straight through to Rome from Perugia; there had been difficulties about horses, altercations with the post-boys—in fact, 'the delusion of Mrs. Alcock was owing, as before, to over-fatigue and excitement: she must have perfect rest, and she would soon recover.'
"So it proved. Quiet and rest soon restored Mrs. Alcock, and she was soon able to enjoy going about quietly and entering into the interests of Rome. It was decided that she should be saved all possible fatigue, even the slight one of Roman housekeeping: so the family remained at the Hôtel d'Angleterre. Towards January, however, Mrs. Alcock was so well that they sent out some of the numerous letters of introduction which they had brought with them, and, in answer to these, many of the Romans came to call. One day a Roman Marchese was shown upstairs to the Alcocks' room, and another gentleman went up with him. The Marchese thought, 'Another visitor come to call at the same time as myself,' the waiter, having only one name given him, thought, 'The Marchese and his brother, or the Marchese and a friend,' and they were shown in together. As they entered the room, Mrs. Alcock was sitting on the other side of the fire; she jumped up, looked suddenly behind the Marchese at his companion, again uttered a fearful scream, and again fell down insensible. Both gentlemen backed out of the room, and the Marchese said in a well-bred way that as the Signora was suddenly taken ill, he should hope for another opportunity of seeing her. The other gentleman went out at the same time.
"Again medical assistance was summoned, and again the same cause was ascribed to Mrs. Alcock's illness: this time she was said to be over-fatigued by sight-seeing. Again quiet and rest seemed to restore her.
"It was the spring of 1848—the year of the Louis Philippe revolution. Major Alcock had a younger sister to whom he was sole guardian, and who was at school in Paris, and he told his wife that, in the troubled state of political affairs, he could not reconcile it to his conscience to leave her there unprotected; he must go and take her away. Mrs. Alcock begged that, if he went, she might go with him, but naturally he said that was impossible—there might be bloodshed going on—there might be barricades to get over—there might be endless difficulties in getting out of Paris; at any rate, there would be a hurried and exciting journey, which would be sure to bring back her malady: no, she had friends at Rome,—she must stay quietly there at the hotel till he came back. Mrs. Alcock, with the greatest excitement, entreated, implored her husband upon her knees that she might go with him; but Major Alcock thought this very excitement was the more reason for leaving her behind, and he went without her.
"As all know, the Louis Philippe revolution was a very slight affair. The English had no difficulty in getting out of Paris, and in a fortnight Major Alcock was back in Rome, bringing his sister with him. When he arrived, Mrs. Alcock was gone. She was never, never heard of again. There was no trace of her whatever. All that ever was known of Mrs. Alcock was that, on the day of her disappearance, some people who knew her were walking in front of S. John Lateran, and saw a carriage driving very rapidly towards the Porta S. Giovanni Laterano, and in it sat Mrs. Alcock crying and wringing her hands as if her heart would break, and by her side there sat a strange man, with the face she had so often described."
I have my own theories as to the explanation of this strange story of Mrs. Alcock, but as they are evolved entirely from my own imagination, I will not mention them here.
From Cheshire I went to North Wales to pay a visit to our cousinhood at Bodryddan, which had been the home of my grandmother's only brother, the Dean of St. Asaph. The place has been spoilt since, but was very charming in those days. Under an old clock-tower one entered upon a handsome drive with an avenue of fine elms, on the right of which a lawn, with magnificent firs, oaks, and cedars, swept away to the hills. At the end rose the stately old red brick house, half covered with magnolias, myrtles, and buddlea, with blazing beds of scarlet and yellow flowers lighting up its base. Through an oak hall hung with armour a fine staircase led to the library—an immense room with two deep recesses, entirely furnished with black oak from Copenhagen, and adorned with valuable enamels collected at Lisbon. The place had belonged to the Conwys, and that family ended in three sisters, Lady Stapleton, Mrs. Cotton, and Mrs. Yonge: they had equal shares. Mrs. Cotton bought up Lady Stapleton's share, and left it with her own to the two daughters of her sister Mrs. Yonge, of whom the elder married my great-uncle, Dean Shipley, and was the mother of William and Charles Shipley and of the three female first cousins (Penelope, Mrs. Pelham Warren; Emily, Mrs. Heber; and Anna Maria, Mrs. Dashwood) who played so large a part in the early history of my father and his brothers, and who are frequently mentioned in the first volume of these memoirs.
When Dean Shipley married, he removed to his wife's house of Bodryddan. Miss Yonge lived with them, and after her sister's death the Dean was most anxious to marry her, trying to obtain an Act of Parliament for the purpose. For some years their aunt, Lady Stapleton, also continued to hold a life-interest in the property. Of this lady there is a curious portrait at Bodryddan. She is represented with her two children and a little Moor, for whom her own little boy had conceived the most passionate attachment, and from whom he could never bear to be separated. One night, after this little Moor was grown up, Lady Stapleton, returning very late from a ball, went to bed, leaving all her diamonds lying upon the table. Being awakened by a noise in the room, she saw the Moor come in with a large knife in his hand, and begin gathering up her jewels. Never losing her presence of mind, she raised herself up in bed, and, fixing her eyes upon him, exclaimed in a thrilling tone of reproach, "Pompey, is that you?" This she did three times, and the third time the Moor, covering his face with his hands, rushed out of the room. Nothing was heard of him till many years afterwards, when the chaplain of a Devonshire gaol wrote to Lady Stapleton that one of his prisoners, under sentence of death for murder, was most anxious to see her. She was unable to go, but heard afterwards that it was Pompey, who said that on the night he entered her room he had intended to kill her, but that when she spoke, such a sense of his ingratitude overwhelmed him, that he was unable to do it.
As an ecclesiastical dignitary, Dean Shipley would certainly be called to account in our days. He was devoted to hunting and shooting, and used to go up for weeks together to a little public-house in the hills above Bodryddan, where he gave himself up entirely to the society of his horses and dogs. He had led a very fast life before he took orders, and he had a natural daughter by a Mrs. Hamilton, who became the second wife of our grandfather; but after his ordination there was no further stain upon his character. As a father he was exceedingly severe. He never permitted his daughters to sit down in his presence, and he never allowed two of them to be in the room with him at once, because he could not endure the additional talking caused by their speaking to one another. His daughter Anna Maria had become engaged to Captain Dashwood, a very handsome young officer, but before the time came at which he was to claim her hand, he was completely paralysed, crippled, and almost imbecile. Then she flung herself upon her knees, imploring her father with tears not to insist upon her marriage with him; but the Dean sternly refused to relent, saying she had given her word, and must keep to it.
She nursed Captain Dashwood indefatigably till he died, and then she came back to Bodryddan, and lived there with her aunt Mrs. Yonge, finding it dreadfully dull, for she was a brilliant talker and adored society. At last she went abroad with her aunt Louisa Shipley, and at Corfu she met Sir Thomas Maitland, who gave her magnificent diamonds, and asked her to marry him. But she insisted on coming home to ask her father's consent, at which the Dean was quite furious. "Why could you not marry him at once?"—and indeed, before she could get back to her lover, he died!
After the death of Mrs. Yonge, Mrs. Dashwood lived at Cheltenham, a rich and clever widow, and had many proposals. To the disgust of her family, she insisted upon accepting Colonel Jones, who had been a neighbour at Bodryddan, and was celebrated for his fearfully violent temper. The day before the wedding it was nearly all off, because, when he came to look at her luggage, he insisted on her having only one box, and stamped all her things down into it, spoiling all her new dresses. He made her go with him for a wedding tour all over Scotland in a pony-carriage, without a maid, and she hated it; but in a year he died.
Then she insisted on marrying the Rev. G. Chetwode, who had had one wife before and had two afterwards—an old beau, who used to comb his hair with a leaden comb to efface the grey. On her death he inherited all she had—diamonds, £2000 a year, all the fine pictures left her by Mr. Jones, and all those Landor had collected for her in Italy.
But to return to Dean Shipley. To Mrs. Rowley, who was the mistress of Bodryddan when I was there, the Dean had been the kindest of grandfathers, and she had no recollection of him which was not associated with the most unlimited indulgence. The Dean was much interested in the management of his estate, but he insisted that every detail should pass through his own hands. For instance, while he was absent in London, a number of curious images and carvings in alabaster were discovered under the pavement at Bodryddan: news was immediately sent to him, but he desired that everything should be covered up, and remain till he came home. On his return, he put off the examination from time to time, till, on his death, the place was forgotten, and now no one is able to discover it.
Mrs. Rowley was the beautiful Charlotte, only daughter of Colonel William Shipley, and had led an adventurous life, distinguishing herself by her bravery and heroism during the plague while she was in the East, and on various other occasions. By her marriage with Colonel Rowley, second son of the first Lord Langford, she had three children,—Shipley Conwy, the present owner of Bodryddan; Gwynydd, who has married twice; and Efah, who, after her mother's death, made a happy marriage with Captain Somerset.
In her early married life, Mrs. Rowley had lived much in Berkeley Square with her mother-in-law, old Lady Langford, who was the original of Lady Kew in "The Newcomes," and many pitched battles they had, in which the daughter-in-law generally came off victorious. Lady Langford had been very beautiful, clever, and had had une vie très orageuse. She had much excuse, however. She had only once seen her cousin, Lord Langford, when he came to visit her grandmother, and the next day the old lady told her she was to marry him. "Very well, grandmama, but when?"—"I never in my life heard such an impertinent question," said the grandmother; "what business is it of yours when you are to marry him? You will marry him when I tell you. However, whenever you hear me order six horses to the carriage, you may know that you are going to be married." And so it was.
At the time I was at Bodryddan, the most devoted and affectionate deference was shown by Mrs. Rowley to every word, movement, or wish of her only brother, Colonel Shipley Conwy. He looked still young, but was quite helpless from paralysis. Mrs. Rowley sat by him and fed him like a child. It was one mouthful for her brother, the next for herself. When dinner was over, a servant came in and wrung his arms and legs, as you would pull bell-ropes, to prevent the joints from stiffening (a process repeated several times in the evening), and then carried him out. But with all this, Colonel Shipley Conwy—always patient—was very bright and pleasant, and Mrs. Rowley, who said that she owed everything to my father and his interest in her education, was most cordial in welcoming me. I never saw either of these cousins again. They spent the next two winters at the Cape, and both died a few years afterwards.
A little later, I went to stay at Dalton Hall in Lancashire, to visit Mrs. Hornby, a cousin of my Aunt Penrhyn, and a very sweet and charming old lady, who never failed to be loved by all who came within her influence. She told me many old family stories, amongst others how—
"The late Lord Derby (the 13th Earl) was very fond of natural history even as a boy. One night he dreamt most vividly of a rare nest in the ivy on the wall, and that he was most anxious to get it, but it was impossible. In the morning, the nest was on his dressing-table, and it could only have got there by his opening the window in his sleep and climbing the wall to it in that state.
"Another instance of his sleep-walking relates that he had a passion, as a little boy, for sliding down the banisters, but it was strictly forbidden. One night his tutor had been sitting up late reading in the hall, when he saw one of the bedroom doors open, and a little boy come out in his night-shirt and slide down the banisters. This he did two or three times, and when the tutor made some little noise, he ran upstairs and disappeared into his bedroom. The tutor followed, but the little boy was fast asleep in bed."
Apropos of sleep-walking, Mr. Bagot (husband of Mrs. Hornby's daughter Lucy) told me a story he had just seen in the Times:—
"A large pat of butter was lately on the breakfast table of a family. When it was divided, a gold watch and chain were found in the midst of it. The maid who was waiting gave a shriek, and first rushed off to her room, then, coming back, declared it was hers. The family were much surprised, but what she said turned out to be true. She had dreamt that she was going to be robbed of her watch and chain, and that the only way of hiding them would be to wrap them up in a pat of butter, and she had done it in her sleep."
A sister-in-law of Mrs. Hornby—a Mrs. Bayley—was staying at Dalton when I was there. She told me—first hand—a story of which I have heard many distorted versions. I give it in her words:—
"My sister, Mrs. Hamilton (née Armstrong), was one night going to bed, when she saw a man's foot project from under the bed. She knelt down then and there by the bedside and prayed for the wicked people who were going about—for the known wicked person especially—that they might be converted. When she concluded, the man came from under the bed and said, 'I have heard your prayer, ma'am, and with all my heart I say Amen to it;' and he did her no harm and went away. She heard from him years afterwards, and he was a changed man from that day."
Apropos of the growth of a story by exaggeration, Mrs. Bayley said:—
"The first person said, 'Poor Mrs. Richards was so ill that what she threw up was almost like a black crow.' The second said, 'Poor Mrs. Richards was so ill: it was the most dreadful thing, she actually threw up a black crow.' The third said, 'Poor Mrs. Richards has the most dreadful malady: it is almost too terrible to speak of, but she has already thrown up ... three black crows.'"
Mrs. Bayley was a very "religious" person, but she never went to church; she thought it wrong. She called herself an "unattached Christian," and said that people only ought to go to church for praise, but to do their confessions at home. When I left Dalton, she presented me with a little book, which she begged me not to read till I was quite away. It was called "Do you belong to the Hellfire Club?" It was not an allegorical little book, but really and seriously asked the question, saying that, though not generally known, such a club really existed, where the most frightful mysteries were enacted, and that it was just within the bounds of possibility that I might secretly belong to it, and if so, &c., &c. A similar little book was once thrust into my hand by a lady at the top of St. James's Street.
On the 29th of October 1866 we left England for Cannes, stopping on the way at Villefranche, that we might visit Ars, for the sake of its venerable Curé.
To my Sister.
"Nov. 1866.—It was a pretty and peculiar drive to Ars: first wooded lanes, then high open country, from whence you descend abruptly upon the village, which, with its picturesque old church, and the handsome wooden one behind it, quite fills the little hollow in the hills. The village itself is almost made up of hotels for the pilgrims, but is picturesque at this season, with masses of golden vine falling over all the high walls. We left the carriage at the foot of the church steps, and ascended through a little square crowded with beggars, as in the time of the Curé.[330] The old church is exceedingly interesting. In the middle of the floor is the grave of the Curé, once surrounded by a balustrade hung with immortelles, which are now in the room where he died. At the sides are all the little chapels he built at the different crises of his life, that of S. Philomene being quite filled with crutches, left by lame persons who have gone away cured. Beyond the old church opens out the handsome but less interesting modern building erected by the Empress and the bishops, with a grand baldacchino on red granite pillars, and on the altar a beautiful bas-relief of the Curé carried to heaven by angels. In the old church a missionary was giving the pilgrims (who kept flocking in the whole time) a very beautiful and simple exposition on the life of Christ as a loving Saviour, quite carrying on the teaching of the Curé.
"At half-past twelve a Sister of Charity came to show the Curé's room. It is railed off, because the pilgrims would have carried everything away, as they have almost undermined the thick walls in their eagerness to possess themselves of the bits of stone and plaster; but you see the narrow bed, the poor broken floor, his chair, his table, his pewter spoon and earthenware pot,—the picture which was defiled by the Demon,—the door at which 'the Grappin' knocked,—the narrow staircase from which he shouted 'Mangeur de truffes,'—the still poorer room downstairs where the beloved Curé lay when all his people passed by to see him in his last sleep,—the little court shaded by ancient elder-trees in which he gave his incessant charities,—and close by the little house of his servant Catherine. She herself is the sweetest old woman, seeming to live, in her primitive life, upon the gleanings and the teaching of the past. She sate on a low stool at Mother's feet, and talked in the most touching way of her dear Curé. When Mother said something about the crowds that came to him, she said, 'I have always heard that when the dear Saviour was on earth, He was so sweet and loving, that people liked to be near Him, and I suppose that now when men are sweet and loving, and so a little like the dear Saviour, people like to be near them too.' In a small chapel of the school he founded they showed some blood of the Curé in a bottle—'encore coulant.' Many other people we saw who talked of him—'Comme il était gai, toujours gai,' &c. The whole place seemed cut out of the world, in an atmosphere of peace and prayer, like a little heaven: no wonder Roman Catholics like to go into 'Retreat' there."
We stayed afterwards at Arles, and made the excursion to S. Remy, one of the most exquisitely beautiful places I have ever seen, where Roman remains, grand in form and of the most splendid orange colouring, rise close to the delicate Alpines.
At Cannes we were most fortunate in finding a house exactly suited to our needs—a primitive bastide, approached by a long pergola of vines, on the way to the Croix des Gardes, quite high up in woods of myrtle and pine upon the mountain-side.[331] It was far out of the town and dreadfully desolate at night, but in the daytime there were exquisite views through the woods of the sea and mountains, and a charming terraced garden of oranges and cassia—the vegetation quite tropical. Close to the turn into our pergola was a little shrine of S. François, which gave a name to our cottage, and which the peasants, passing to their work in the forests, daily presented with fresh flowers. Delightful walks led beyond us into the hilly pine woods with a soil of glistening mica, and, if one penetrated far enough, one came out upon the grand but well-concealed precipices of rock known as the Rochers de Bilheres. Just below us lived Lord Mount-Edgecumbe, the "Valletort" of my Harrow days, with his sweet invalid wife, and their three little girls, with the little Valletort of this time, were a perpetual pleasure to my mother in her morning walk to the Croix des Gardes. Old Madame Bœuf, our landlady, used to come up every morning in her large flapping Provençal hat to work with her women amongst the cassia: the sunshine seemed almost ceaseless, and all winter we used to sit with open windows and hear our maid Marguerite carolling her strange patois ballads at her work.
On the other side of Cannes, at the Hôtel de Provence, we had a large group of friends, Lady Verulam and her sons; Lord and Lady Suffolk and their two daughters; and the Dowager Lady Morley with her son and daughter. With the latter I became very intimate, and joined them in many long and delightful excursions to remote villages and to the unspeakably grand scenery above the Var. Lady Suffolk too became a dear and much honoured friend.
A still greater pleasure was the neighbourhood, in a small house by the torrent at the foot of our hill, of the dear old Lady Grey of our Nice days, and her niece Miss G. Des Vœux. I generally dined with them once or twice a week, and constantly accompanied them on delightful drawing excursions, taking our luncheon with us. In the spring I went away with them for several days together to the wild mountains of S. Vallier and S. Cesaire. Lady Grey painted beautifully, though she only began to be an artist when she was quite an old woman. She always went out sketching with thirty-nine articles, which one servant called over at the door, another answering "Here" for each, to secure that nothing should be left behind.
Beneath us, at the Hôtel Bellevue, were Lady Jocelyn and her children, with Lord and Lady Vernon and Mr. and Lady Louisa Wells, whom we saw frequently; also three admirable Scotch sisters, Mrs. Douglas, Miss Kennedy, and Mrs. Tootal. Hither also came for two months our dear friend Miss Wright ("Aunt Sophy"), and she was a constant pleasure, dropping in daily at tea-time, and always the most sympathising of human beings both in joy and sorrow.
Altogether, none of our winters was so rich in pleasant society as this one at Cannes, and we had nothing to trouble us till the spring, when Lea was taken very seriously ill from the bite either of scorpion or tarantula, and, while she was at the worst and unable to move, my mother became alarmingly ill too with a fever. I was up with them through every night at this time; and it was an odd life in the little desolate bastide, as it was long impossible to procure help. At length we got a Sœur de Charité—a pretty creature in a most picturesque nun's dress, but efficient for very little except the manufacture and consumption of convent soup, made with milk, tapioca, and pepper.
Still, for the most part, my mother had not been so well or so perfectly happy for years as in our little hermitage amid the juniper and rosemary. It was just what she most enjoyed, the walks all within her compass—perfect country, invariably dry and healthy, perpetual warmth in which to sit out, and endless subjects for her sketch-book. Lea, rejoiced to be rid for some months of her tiresome husband, found plenty of occupation in her kitchen and in attending to the poultry which she bought and reared; while I was engrossed with my drawings, of which I sold enough to pay our rent very satisfactorily, and with my "Lives of the Popes," a work on which I spent an immense amount of time, but which is still unfinished in MS., and likely to remain so. My mother greatly appreciated the church at Cannes, and we liked the clergyman, Mr. Rolfe, and his wife. His sermons were capital. I do not often attend to sermons, but I remember an excellent one on Zacharias praying for vengeance, and Stephen for mercy on his murderers, as respectively illustrating the principles of the Old and New Testament—Justice and Mercy.
Maria Hare. 1862.
I dined once or twice, to meet Mr. Panizzi[334] of the British Museum, at the house of a quaint old Mr. Kerr, who died soon afterwards. It was him of whom it used to be said that he had been "trying to make himself disagreeable for sixty years and had not quite succeeded." When he was eighty he told me that there were three things he had never had: he had never had a watch, he had never had a key, and he had never had an account.
I frequently saw the famous old Lord Brougham, who bore no trace then of his "flashes of oratory," of his "thunder and lightning speeches," but was the most disagreeable, selfish, cantankerous, violent old man who ever lived. He used to swear by the hour together at his sister-in-law, Mrs. William Brougham,[335] who lived with him, and bore his ill-treatment with consummate patience. He would curse her in the most horrible language before all her guests, and this not for anything she had done, but merely to vent his spite and ill-humour. Though a proper carriage was always provided for him, he would insist upon driving about Cannes daily in the most disreputable old fly he could procure, with the hope that people would say he was neglected by his family. Yet he preferred the William Broughams to his other relations, and entirely concealing that he had other brothers, procured the reversion of his title to his youngest brother, William, much to the annoyance of the Queen when she found it out. Lord Brougham was repulsive in appearance and excessively dirty in his habits. He had always been so. Mr. Kerr remembered seeing him at the Beefsteak Club, when the Prince Regent was President, and there was the utmost license of manners. One day when he came in, the Prince Regent roared out, "How dare you come in here, Brougham, with those dirty hands?"—and he insisted on the waiters bringing soap and water and having his hands washed before all the company. In early life, if anything aggravated him at dinner, he would throw his napkin in the face of his guests, and he did things quite as insulting to the close of his life at Cannes, where he had a peculiar prestige, as having, through his "Villa Louise Eleanore,"[336] first brought the place into fashion, which led to the extension of a humble fishing village into miles upon miles of villas and hotels.
To MISS WRIGHT (after she had gone on to Rome).
"Maison S. François, Cannes, Feb. 2, 1867.—On Tuesday we made an immense excursion of thirteen hours to the 'Seven villages of the Var.' The party consisted of Lord Morley and Lady Katherine, Lord Suffolk and Lady Victoria, Lord Henry Percy, Lord Mount-Edgecumbe, and myself. We left by the 7.40 train and had carriages to meet us at Cagnes. These took us as far as the grand Sinai-like granite peaks of S. Janet, and thence we walked. The whole terrace is most grand for seven miles above the tremendous purple gorge of the Var, overhung here and there by splendid Aleppo pines or old gnarled oaks; and as we reached just the finest point of all, where the huge castle of Carrozza stands out on a great granite crag, the mist curtain drew up and displayed range on range of snow mountains, many of them close by—really a finer scene than any single view I remembered in Switzerland. The whole of our party, hitherto inclined to grumble, were almost petrified by the intensity of the splendour.
"M. Victor Cousin's sudden death at dinner has been a great shock to the Cannes world. It was just at that time that our attention was so sadly occupied by the illness and death of dear old Sir Adam Hay. The Hays gave a picnic at Vallauris, to which I was invited, and Sir Adam caught a cold there, which excited no attention at the time, as he had never been ill in his life before. Four days afterwards Addie Hay took Miss Hawker and me in their carriage to Napoule, where we spent a pleasant day in drawing. When we came back, his father was most alarmingly ill, and absent children had been already telegraphed for. All that week I went constantly to Villa Escarras, and shared with the family their alternations of hope and fear, but at the end of a week dear Sir Adam died, and all the family went away immediately, as he was to be buried at Peebles."
During the latter part of our stay at Cannes, the society of Madame Goldschmidt (Jenny Lind) was a great pleasure to my mother, and in her great kindness she came often to sing to her. We went with the Goldschmidts to Antibes one most glorious February day, when Madame G. was quite glowing with delight in all the beauties around and gratitude to their Giver. "Oh, how good we ought to be—how good with all this before our eyes! it is a country to die in." She spoke much of the sweetness of the Southern character, which she believed to be partly due to the climate and scenery. She talked of an old man, bowed with rheumatism, who worked in her garden. That morning she had asked him, "Comment ça va t'il? Comment va votre santé?"—"Oh, la volonté de Dieu!" he had replied—"la volonté de Dieu!" In his pretty Provençal his very murmur was a thanksgiving for what God sent. She spoke of the dislike English had to foreigners, but that the only point in which she envied the English was their noble women. In Sweden she said they might become as noble, but that hitherto the character of Swedish women had been oppressed by the bondage in which they were kept by the laws—that they had always been kept under guardians, and could have neither will nor property of their own, unless they married, even when they were eighty. She said that she was the first Swedish woman who had gained her liberty, and that she had obtained it by applying direct to the king, who emancipated her because of all she had done for Sweden. Now the law was changed, and women were emancipated when they were five-and-twenty.
Then Madame Goldschmidt talked of the faithfulness of the Southern vegetation. In England she said to the leaves, "Oh, you poor leaves! you are so thin and miserable. However, it does not signify, for you have only to last three or four months; but these beautiful thick foreign leaves, with them it is quite different, for they have got to be beautiful always."
We drove up the road leading to the lighthouse, and then walked up the steep rocky path carrying two baskets of luncheon, which we ate under the shadow of a wall looking down upon the glorious view. Madame Goldschmidt had been very anxious all the way about preserving a cream-tart which she had brought. "Voilà le grand moment," she exclaimed as it was uncovered. When some one spoke of her enthusiasm, she said, "Oh, it is delightful to soar, but one is soon brought back again to the cheese and bread and butter of life." When Lady Suffolk asked how she first knew she had a voice, she said, "Oh, it did fly into me!"
At first sight Madame Goldschmidt might be called "plain," though her smile is most beautiful and quite illuminates her features; but how true of her is an observation I met with in a book by the Abbé Monnin, "Le sourire ne se raconte pas." "She has no face; it is all countenance," might be said of her, as Miss Edgeworth said of Lady Wellington.
It was already excessively hot before we left Cannes on the 29th of April. After another day at the grand ruins of Montmajour near Arles, we diverged from Lyons to Le Puy, a place too little known and most extraordinary, with its grand and fantastic rocks of basalt crowned by the most picturesque of buildings. Five days were happily spent in drawing at Le Puy and Espailly, and in an excursion to the charming neighbouring campagne of the old landlord and landlady of the hotel where we were staying. Then my mother assented to my wish of taking a carriage through the forests of Velay and Auvergne to the grand desolate monastery of the Chaise Dieu, where many of the Popes lived during their exile in France, and where Clement VI. lies aloft on a grand tomb in the centre of the superb choir, which is so picturesquely hung with old tapestries. Our rooms at the hotel here cost half a franc apiece. Joining the railway again at Brioude, we went to the Baths of Royat, then a very primitive and always a very lovely place, with its torrent tumbling through the walnut woods, its gorge closed by a grand old Templars' church, and its view over rich upland vineyards to the town and cathedral of Clermont. On the way home we visited the great deserted abbey of Souvigny near Moulins, and bought the beautiful broken statuette which is one of the principal ornaments of Holmhurst.
In June I went to Oxford to stay with my friend Henry Hood, and was charmed to make acquaintance with a young Oxford so different from the young Oxford of my days, that it seemed altogether another race—so much more cordial and amusing, though certainly very Bohemian. During this visit I cemented an acquaintance with Claude Delaval Cobham, then reading for the orders for which he soon felt himself unsuited. In some respects, he is one of the cleverest men I have met, especially from his unusual linguistic acquirements, combined with extreme correctness. I have frequently received kindness from him since and valuable advice and help in literary work, and though I have sometimes conceitedly rebelled against his opinion at the time, I have never failed to find that he was in the right.
To MY MOTHER.
"Oxford, June 1, 1867.—We went this morning in two pony-carriages to Cuddesden, where Claude Cobham now is, and spent the afternoon in walking and sitting in the Bishop's shady and weedy garden.
"The other day, coming out of this garden, the Bishop heard two navvies on the other side of the road talking. 'I zay, Bill, ain't yon a Beeshop?' said one. 'Yees,' said Bill. 'Then oi'll have some fun oot o' him.' So he crossed the road and said, 'I zay, zur, be you a Beeshop?'—'Yes, at your service,' said the Bishop. 'Then can you tell us which is the way to heaven?'—'Certainly,' said the Bishop, not the least discomposed; 'turn to the right and go straight on.'"
"June 3.—I enjoy being at Oxford most intensely, and Hood is kindness itself. A wet day cleared into a lovely evening for the boat-race, which was a beautiful sight, the green of the water-meadows in such rich fulness, and the crowd upon the barges and walks so bright and gay."
"6 Bury Street, June 12.—The first persons I met in London were Arthur and Augusta Stanley, who took me into their carriage, and with them to the Park, whence we walked through Kensington Gardens, and very pretty they looked. Arthur described his first sight of the Queen on that spot, and Augusta was full of Princess Mary's cleverness in being confined in the same house on the same day on which the Queen was born.
"Then I went to Lady Wenlock, a most charming visit to that sweet old lady, now much feebler, but so animated and lively, and her life one long thanksgiving that her paralysis has left all her powers unimpaired. She told me many old stories. I also called on Lady Lothian, who is greatly disturbed at Madame de Trafford's power over my sister. She says she quite considers her 'possessed,' and that she ought to be exorcised. To-day I dined with Lady Grey. She told me that as Charlie Grey was crossing to America, his fellow-passengers were frightfully sea-sick, especially a man opposite. At last an American sitting by him said, 'I guess, stranger, if that man goes on much longer, he'll bring up his boots.'"
"June 15.—I have been sitting long with Lady Eastlake. She spoke of how the great grief of her widowhood had taught her to sift the dross from letters of condolence. She says that she lives upon hope; prayer is given her in the meanwhile as a sustenance, not a cure, for if it were a cure, one might be tempted to leave off praying: still 'one could not live without it; it is like port wine to a sick man.'
"She says she finds a great support in the letters of Sir Charles to his mother—his most precious gift to her. She said touchingly how she knew that even to her he had a slight reserve, but that to his mother he poured out his whole soul. In those letters she had learnt how, when he was absent, his mother hungered after him, and perhaps, in all those blessed years when she had him, his mother was hungering after him. In giving him up, she felt she gave him up to her: he was with her now, and from those letters she knew what their communion must be. 'I know he is with her now, for "I have seen my mother, I have seen my mother," he twice rapturously exclaimed when he was dying.' How touching and how consoling are those visions on this side of the portal. Old Mr. Harford, when he was dying, continually asked his wife if she did not hear the music. 'Oh, it is so wonderful,' he said, 'bands upon bands.' She did not understand it then but she knows now.
"'It was beautifully ordered,' said Lady Eastlake, 'that my "History of Our Lord" was finished first: I could not have done it now. And through it I learnt to know his library. My darling was like a boy jumping up and down to find the references I wanted, and, if possible, through the book I learnt to know him better.'
"She spoke of his wonderful diligence. When he was a boy he wrote to his mother, 'London will be illuminated to-morrow, I shall draw all night.'"
In July I spent a few days with the Alfords at the Deanery of Canterbury, which was always most enjoyable, the Dean so brimming with liveliness and information of every kind. In the delightful garden grows the old historic mulberry-tree,[342] about which it used to be said that the Deans of Canterbury sit under the mulberry till they turn purple, because those Deans were so frequently elevated to the episcopal bench, and bishops formerly, though it is rare now, always wore purple coats. I dined out with the Dean several times. I remember at one of the parties a son of Canon Blakesley saying to me—what I have often thought of since—"I find much the best way of getting on in society is never to be able to understand why anybody is to be disapproved of." Both the Dean's daughters were married now, and he cordially welcomed my companionship, always treating me as an intimate friend or relation. No one could be more sympathetic, for he had always the rare power of condemning the fault, but not the action of it.[343] I insert a few snatches from his table-talk, though they give but a faint idea of the man.
"We have been studying Butler's Analogy ever since we came back from Rome, for we've had eight different butlers in the time. The last butler said to me, 'It's not you who govern the Deanery, and it's not Mrs. Alford, but it is the upper housemaid.'"
"Archbishop Harcourt was very fond of hunting, so fond that he was very near refusing the archbishopric because he thought if he accepted he should have to give it up. He consulted a friend, who said that he must take counsel with others. 'Of course I should never join the meet,' said the Archbishop, 'but you know I might fall in with the hounds by accident.' After some time the friend came back and said that on the whole the party considered that the Archbishop might hunt, provided he did not shout."
"Archbishop Manners Sutton had a wonderfully ready wit. One day a blustering vulgar man came up to him and said, 'I believe, Archbishop, that I am a relation of yours: my name is Sutton.' The Archbishop quietly replied, 'Yes, but you want the Manners.'"
"When some one was abusing our font the other day, I could not help saying that, for a font, I thought renaissance peculiarly appropriate."
"I met Lady Mounteagle the other day: you know she was the sister—
'Of the woman tawny and tough[344]
Who married the Master rude and rough
Who lived in the house that Hope built.'
You know Hope gothicised the Master's Lodge at Trinity. At the Whewells' 'perpendiculars,' as their large parties were called, no one was allowed to sit down: if any one ventured to do so, a servant came and requested him to move on."
"When Alice was a little girl, I was explaining the Apostles' Creed to her. When we came to the point of our Saviour descending into hell she said, 'Oh, that is where the devil is, isn't it?'—'Yes.'—'Then why didn't the devil run at him and tear him all to pieces?'"
Arthur Penrhyn Stanley
In August we spent some time at the Deanery of Westminster, where Arthur and Augusta Stanley were always hospitality itself, and, with more than the usual kindness of hosts, always urged, and almost insisted, on our inviting our own friends to dinner and luncheon, making us, in fact, use their house and fortune as our own.
From my JOURNAL.
"July 28, 1867.—In the evening, from the gallery of the Deanery which overhangs the abbey, Mother, Mrs. Hall, and I looked down upon the last service. Luther's hymn was sung and the Hallelujah chorus, and trumpets played: it was very grand indeed. The Bishop of Chester and the Wordsworths dined. Yesterday Arthur showed thirty working-men over the Abbey. He pointed out where Peel was buried. One of them received it very gravely in silence, and then, after several minutes, said, 'Well, it is very extraordinary. I've lived all my life in the next county, and I never knew that before: I always thought he was buried at Drayton. Now that's what I call information.'"
"August 3.—It has a weird effect at night to look down upon the Abbey, and see the solitary watchman walking along the desolate aisles and the long trail of light from the lantern he carries flickering on each monument and death's-head in turn. Hugo Percy, who was here the other evening, asked him about his nights in the Abbey. 'The ghosts have been very cross lately,' he said. 'Palmerston was the last who came, but Mr. Cobden has not come yet.'
"We have been to Buckingham Palace to see the rooms which were arranged for the Sultan, which are dull and handsome. The chief fact I derived from the housekeeper was that the Sultan never 'goes to bed' and never lies down—in fact, he cannot, for a third of the imperial bed at either end is taken up by a huge bolster, in the middle of which he sits all night, and reclines either way in turn. There was a picture of the late Sultan in the room, and of Frederick, Prince of Wales, sent from Windsor for the occasion. One room was entirely hung with portraits of French kings and their families."
From London I went to visit Bishop Jeune,[345] who was most wonderfully kind to me, really giving up his whole time to me whilst I was with him, and pouring forth such stores of information as I had not received since the days of Dr. Hawtrey; and it was a great pleasure to feel, to be quite sure—which one so seldom is—that he liked my visit as much as I liked being with him.
From my JOURNAL.
"August 10, 1867.—On the 8th I went to Peterborough, where I have had a most agreeable visit at the Palace. When I arrived at half-past seven, the family were all gone to dine with Dr. James, an old Canon in the Close, whither I followed them. He was a charming old-fashioned gentleman, most delightful to see.
"In the morning the Bishop, wearing his surplice and hood, read prayers at a desk in the crypted hall of the Palace. Afterwards we walked in the garden. I spoke of there being no monument in the Cathedral to Catherine of Arragon. 'It is owing to that very circumstance,' said the Bishop, 'that you are here to-day. If Catherine of Arragon had had a tomb, I should never have been Bishop of Peterborough. When people reproached Henry VIII. with having erected no monument to his first wife, he said, "The Abbey of Peterborough shall be a cathedral to her monument," and he instituted the bishopric; the last abbot was the first bishop.' As we passed the lavatory of the old convent, the Bishop said that a touching description was still extant of its dedication and of the number of cardinals, bishops, and priests who were present. 'How few of them,' he said, 'would have believed that not only their buildings, which they believed would last for ever, could become an indefinite ruin, but that their Church, whose foundations they believed to be even more eternally rooted in the soil, should be cast out to make way for another Church, which is already tottering on its base and divided against itself.' He said he 'firmly believed that the ends both of the Church and monarchy were close at hand, that the power of government was even now in the hands of a few individuals, who were in their turn in the hands of a few Irish priests.'
"While passing through the garden in returning to the Palace, the Bishop showed me a white fig-tree growing out of the old wall of the refectory and abundantly bearing fruit. 'This,' he said, 'I believe to be the white fig-tree which is nearest to the Pole.' Passing a fine mulberry-tree he said, 'We owe that to James I., as he was so excessively anxious to promote the manufacture of silk, that he recommended to every one the cultivation of the mulberry-tree, but especially to the clergy, and those of the clergy planted it who wished to stand well with him. Therefore it is to be found in the neighbourhood of many of our cathedrals.'
"Afterwards the Bishop showed the old chronicle of the Abbey, which he had had splendidly restored at Oxford. He read me some Latin verses which had evidently been inserted by one of the monks descriptive of his amours. 'Yet,' said the Bishop, 'these sins of the monk were probably only sins of the imagination, quite as vivid as real ones. You know,' he added, 'there are far more acted than enacted sins, and the former are really far the more corrupting of the two.'
"In the afternoon we drove to Croyland. The Bishop talked the whole way. I spoke of his patronage, and envied the power it gave him; he bitterly lamented it. He said, 'I have in my gift three canonries, two archdeaconries, and sixty livings, and if any of these fell vacant to-morrow, I should be at my wit's end whom to appoint. On the average, two livings fall vacant every year, and then comes my time of trouble. A bishop who would appoint the best man would be most unpopular in his diocese, for every one of his clergy would be offended at not being considered the best.' With regard to the canonries, I suggested that he could find no difficulty, as he might always choose men who were employed in some great literary work. The Bishop allowed that this was exactly what he desired, but that no such men were to be found in his diocese. There were many very respectable clergy, but none more especially distinguished than the rest. He said that when he was appointed bishop, Dr. Vaughan advised him never to become what he called 'a carpet-bag bishop,' but that this, in fact, was just what he had become: that when he was going to preach in a village and sleep in a clergyman's house, he did not like to trouble them by taking a man-servant, and that he often arrived carrying his own carpet-bag. That consequently he often never had his clothes brushed, or even his boots blacked, but that he brushed his boots with his clothes-brush as well as he could, as he was afraid of ringing his bell for fear of mortifying his hosts by showing that he had not already got all that he wanted. He said, however, that the work of a bishop was vastly overrated, that there was nothing which did not come within the easy powers of one man, yet that a proposition had already been made to exclude the bishops from the House of Lords, to reduce their incomes to £1500, and to double their number. He said that he believed all Conservatives had better at once emigrate to New Zealand, and that he wondered the Queen did not invest in foreign funds; that it was utterly impossible the monarchy could last much longer; that the end would be hastened by the debts of the two Princes.
"When we reached Croyland we went into the Abbey Church, where the Bishop pointed out the baptistery used for immersion, and several curious epitaphs, one as late as 1729 asking prayers for the dead. The drive was most curious over the fens, which are now drained, but of which the soil is so light that they are obliged to marl it all over to prevent its being blown away. The abbey itself is most picturesque. It was built by St. Guthlac, a courtier, who retired hither in a boat, but who came from no desire of seclusion and prayer, but merely because he longed for the celebrity which must accrue to him as a hermit. His sister, Pega, became the foundress of Peakirk. The Bishop spoke much of the sublimity of the conception under which these great abbeys were founded—'One God, one Pope as God's interpreter, one Church, the servant of that Pope, unity in everything.' He spoke of the Jesuit influence as used to combat that of the Gallican Church, and he said that there were now only three Gallican bishops.
"Coming home, the Bishop talked about Wales, and asked if I had ever compared the military tactics of the Romans with regard to Wales with those of Edward I. 'The Romans,' he said, 'built the castle of Lincoln for the repression of the savage people of the fens, and with the same idea built a line of fortresses between England and Wales for the repression of the Welsh; but the consummate skill of Edward I. saw a better plan than this, and he built a line of fortresses along the coast, which could be provisioned from the sea, so that if the Welsh made a raid into England, he could bring them back by falling upon their wives and children.
"In the evening the Bishop read aloud French poetry, a ballad of the early part of the seventeenth century, on which Goldsmith had evidently founded his 'Madame Blaise,' the powerful 'Malbrook,' and many old hymns; also a beautiful hymn of Adolph Monod on the Passion of Christ, which he said showed too much philosophy. He described how he had preached in Westminster Abbey in French during the great Exhibition, and the immense power of declamation that French gave; that he had apostrophised those lying in the tombs, the dead kings round about him, as he never should have ventured to do in English. He spoke of the transitions of his life, that his childhood had been passed amongst the rocks of Guernsey, and that he had loved rocks and wild rolling seas ever since. That as a child he was never allowed to speak French, as only the lower orders spoke it, but that he went to the French college of S. Servan, and there he learnt it. Then came his Oxford life, after which, thinking that he was never likely to have any opening for making his way in England, he went off to Canada in despair, intending to become a settler in the backwoods. The rough life, however, soon disgusted him, and in a year he returned to England, where he became fellow and tutor of his college. Thence he was appointed Dean of Jersey, and ruled there over the petty community. Then he was made Master of Pembroke (where he remained twenty years), Vice-Chancellor, Dean of Lincoln, and Bishop of Peterborough. He spoke of the honour of Oxford men and the consistency of the Hebdomadal Board, compared with others he had to deal with. In Jersey, as a matter of course, all his subordinates voted with their Dean. When he came to Oxford he expected the same subserviency, and looked on all his colleagues with suspicion, but he was soon convinced of their uprightness. He said touchingly that, when near the grave, on looking back, it all seemed much the same—the same pettiness of feeling, the same party strife, only he did not worry himself about it; they were all in the hands of One who died for all alike; that now there were changes in everything—only One was unchanged.
"Speaking of the morality of Italy, he said that his friend Mr. Hamilton, head of a clan, had met 'Sandy,' one of his men, travelling between Rome and Naples. After expressing his surprise at seeing him there, he asked what he thought of Rome and Naples. 'Wal,' said Sandy, 'I jist think that if naething happens to Rome and Naples, Sodom and Gomorrah were very unjustly dealt with.'
"'I met Gioberti in Italy,' said the Bishop, 'and asked him about the Pope. "C'est une femme vertueuse," he replied, "mais c'est toujours une femme."'
"The Bishop said that, when younger, he wished to have written a series of Bampton Lectures (and began them) on the History of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. He intended to begin with a description of three scenes—first, the supper in the upper chamber at Jerusalem; then the Pope officiating at the altar of the Lateran; then a simple Scotch meeting in the Highlands—and he would proceed to describe what had led to the differences between these; how the Agape was arranged as a point at which all divisions and dissensions should be laid aside; how it was set aside after sixty years by the Roman Emperor; then of the gradual growth of the Eucharist, till oaths were taken on the wafer, and deeds were sealed with it to give them a solemnity; and till, finally, it came to be regarded as the actual body of Christ; then of the gradual rise of all the different theories, the impanation, the invination of the Saviour.
"This morning the Bishop asked if I knew what was the difference between the entrance of a field in France and England. 'In England,' he said, 'it is a gate to let people in; in France a barrière to keep people out: from this you might proceed to theorise that England was a country where sheep might stray, but France not: England a country for milk and flesh, France for corn and wine.'
"The Bishop said he knew our Roman acquaintance Mr. Goldsmid well. 'I met Nat Goldsmid in Paris about the time of the Immaculate Conception affair, and I said to him, "Goldsmid, now why has your Church done this? for you know you all worshipped the Virgin as much as you could before, and what more can you do for her now?"—"Yes," he said, "that is quite true; we all worshipped the Virgin before, but we have done this as a stepping-stone to declaring the infallibility of the Pope. A Pope who could take upon himself to declare such a dogma as this must be infallible!"'
From Peterborough I went to stay at Lincoln with Mrs. Nicholas Bacon, mother of the premier baronet, a very pretty old lady, who reminded me of the old lady in "David Copperfield," finding her chief occupation in rapping at her window and keeping the Minster green opposite free from intruding children, and unable to leave home for any time because then they would get beyond her—"so sacrilegious," she told them, it was to play there. Going with her to dine with that Mrs. Ellison of Sugbrooke who has bequeathed a fine collection of pictures to the nation, I met the very oldest party of people I ever saw in my life, and as one octogenarian tottered in after another, felt more amazed, till Mrs. Ellison laughingly explained that, as Mrs. Bacon had written that she was going to bring "a very old friend" of hers, she had supposed it would be agreeable to him to meet as many as possible of his contemporaries! Afterwards, when staying with Mr. Clements at Gainsborough, I saw Stowe, which, as an old cathedral, was the predecessor of Lincoln—very curious and interesting. Thence I went to Doncaster, arriving in time to help Kate[346] with a great tea-party to her old women. She asked one old woman how she was. "Well," she said, "I be middling upwards, but I be very bad downwards. I be troubled with such bad legs; downright dangerous legs they be." After visits at Durham, Cullercoats, and Ridley Hall, I went to stay with the Dixon-Brownes at Unthank in Northumberland.
To MY MOTHER.
"Unthank, August 27, 1867.—I spent yesterday morning in my Northern home (at Ridley), which is in perfect beauty now—the Allen water, full and clear, rushing in tiny waterfalls among the mossy rocks, all the ferns in full luxuriance, and the rich heather in bloom, hanging over the crags and edging the walks. At six o'clock the flag was raised which stops all trains at the bottom of the garden, and I came the wee journey of seven miles down the lovely Tyne valley to Haltwhistle. Unthank is the old home of Bishop Ridley, the house to which he wrote his last letter before the stake, addressed to 'my deare sister of Unthanke,'—and it is a beautiful spot in a green hollow, close under the purple slopes of the grand moor called Plenmellor. The house is modern, but has an old tower, and a garden splendid in gorgeous colouring sweeps up the hill behind it. To-day we went up through a romantic gill called 'The Heavenly Hole' to Plenmellor Tarn, a lovely blue lake in the midst of the heather-clad hills. We spoke of it to an old man there, 'Aye,' he said, 'it's jist a drap of water left by the Fluid, and niver dried up.'"
"Bonnyrigg, August 30.—This shooting lodge of Sir Edward Blackett is quite in the uninhabited moorlands, but has lovely views of a lake backed by craggy blue hills—just what my sweet mother would delight to sketch. Lady Blackett is very clever and agreeable.[347] We have been a fatiguing walk through the heather to 'the Queen's Crag,' supposed to be Guinevere turned into stone."
"Bamborough Castle, Sept. 7.—I always long especially for my dearest mother in this grand old castle, to me perhaps the most delightful place in the world, its wild scenery more congenial than even beautiful Italy itself. Nothing too can be kinder than the dear old cousins.[348] ... It was almost dark when we drove up the links and under all the old gateways and through the rock entrance: the light burning in Mrs. Liddell's recess in the court-room. And it was pleasant to emerge from the damp into the brightly lighted tapestried chamber with the dinner set out. All yesterday the minute-gun was booming through the fog to warn ships off the rocks—such a strangely solemn sound.
"Mr. Liddell was speaking to an old Northumbrian here about the organ yesterday, and he said, 'I canna bear the loike o' that kist o' whistles a buzzin' in my ears.'"
"The Lodge, North Berwick, Sept. 9.—I find my sweet hostess, Mrs. Dalzel,[349] little altered, except perhaps more entirely heavenly than before in all her thoughts and words. 'I am very near the last station now,' she says, 'and then I shall be at home. I am the last of fifteen, and I can think of them all there—my mother, my sisters, one after another, resting upon their Saviour alone, and now with Him for ever!' 'When one is old, the wonderful discoveries, the great works of man only bewilder one and tire one; but the flowers and the unfolding of Nature, all the wonderful works of God, refresh and interest as much as ever: and may not it be because these interests and pleasures are to be immortal, amid the flowers that never fade?'
"Mr. Dalzel does not look a day older, but he sat at dinner with a green baize cloth before him to save his eyes. We dined at five, and another Mrs. Dalzel came, who sang Scottish songs most beautifully in the evening. Mr. Dalzel prayed aloud long extempore prayers, and we dispersed at ten. Before dinner I went to the sands with Mrs. Allen Dalzel,[350] who was very amusing:—
"'The old Dalzel house is at Binns near Linlithgow. The first Dalzel was an attendant of one of the early Kenneths. The king's favourite was taken by his enemies and hanged on a tree. "Who will dare to cut him down?" said the king. "Dalzel," or "I dare," said the attendant, who cut him down with his dagger. Hence came the name, and hence the Dalzels bear a dagger as their crest, with the motto "I dare," and on their arms a man hanging.
"'At Binns there are trees cut in the shape of men hanging. There is also a picture of the "tyrannous Dalzel," who persecuted the Covenanters, and who made a vow at the death of Charles I. that he would never shave again or change his costume. He lived for fifty years after that, but he never cut his beard, and he is represented in his odd suit of chamois leather, with a high-peaked hat and his hair down to his waist.
"'His comrade was Grierson of Lag, whose eye was the most terrible ever seen. Long after the persecution was over, he was told that a servant in the house had a great curiosity to see him. "Let him bring me a glass of wine," said Grierson. The servant brought it in upon a salver. Grierson waited till he came close up, and then, fixing his eye on him, exclaimed, "Are there ony Whigs in Galloway noo?" and the effect was so terrible, that the servant dropped the salver, glass and all, and rushed out of the room.
"'I used to go and teach Betty O'Brien to read when we lived at Seacliffe. Her mother was a clean tidy body, and, though she had not a penny in the world, she was very proud, for she came from the North of Ireland, and looked down upon all who came from the South. I asked her why she did not make friends with her neighbours, and she said, "D'ye think I'd consort wi' the loike o' them, just Connaught folk?" So on this I changed the subject as quick as I could, for I just came from Connaught myself.
"'Her daughter, however, married one of those very Connaught Irish—what she called "the boy O'Flinn," and she would have nothing to do with her afterwards; and she lay in wait for "the boy O'Flinn," and threw a stone at him, which hit him in the chest so badly that he was in bed for a week afterwards. When I heard of this, I went to see her and said, "Well, Betty, you're Irish, and I'm Irish, and I think we just ought to set a good example and show how well Irishwomen can behave." But she soon cut short my little sermon by saying, "They've been telling tales o' me, have they? and it's not off you they keep their tongues neither: they say you're a Roman!" I did not want to hear any more, and was going out of the cottage, when she called after me in a fury, "I know what you've been staying so long in Edinburgh for; you just stay here to fast and to pray, and then you go there to faast and drink tay."'"
"Sept. 10.—I wish for my dearest mother every hour in this sanctuary of peace and loving-kindness, with the sweet presence of Mrs. Dalzel. What she is and says it is quite impossible to give an idea of; but she is truly what Milton describes—
"Insphered
In regions mild of calm and air serene,
Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot
Which men call earth."
"Her constant communion with heaven makes all the world to her only a gallery of heavenly pictures, creating a succession of heavenly thoughts, and she has so sweet and gentle a manner of giving these thoughts to others, that all, even those least in unison with her, are equally impressed by them. Most striking of all is her large-heartedness and admiration of all the good people who disagree with her. Her daughter-in-law has quite given up everything else in her devotion to her: it is really Ruth and Naomi over again.
"This afternoon we drove to Tantallon and on to Seacliffe, a most beautiful place on the coast, where Mrs. Dalzel lived formerly. A delightful little walk under a ruined manor-house and through a wood of old buckthorn trees led down to the sea, and a most grand view of Tantallon rising on its red rocks. We walked afterwards to 'Canty Bay,' so called because the Covenanters sang Psalms there when they were being embarked for the Bass.
"'How curious it would be,' Mrs. Dalzel has been saying, 'if all the lines on people's faces had writing on them to say what brought them there. What strange tales they would tell!'
"'Oh, what it is to be at peace! at perfect peace with God! in perfect reliance on one's Saviour! I often think it is like a person who has packed up for a journey. When all his work is finished and all his boxes are packed, he can sit down in the last hour before his departure and rest in peace, for all his preparations are made. So in the last hours of life one may rest in peace, if the work of preparation is already done.'
"'I used to count the future by years: now I only do it by months; perhaps I can only do it by weeks.'
"'My eldest brother lived in a great world. He was very handsome and much admired. As aide-de-camp to Sir Ralph Abercromby, George IV. made him his friend, and many people paid court to him. At last one day he came to my dear mother, who was still living in her great age, and who had found her Saviour some years before, and said to her, "Mother, I feel that my health is failing and that this world is rapidly slipping away from me, and I have no certain hope for the next: what would you advise me to do?" And my mother said to him, "My dear son, I can only advise you to do what I have done myself, take your Bible and read it with prayer upon your knees, and God will send you light." And my brother did so, and God granted him the perfect peace that passeth understanding. He lived many years after that, but his health had failed, and his Bible was his constant companion. When I went to see him, he used to lay his hand on the Book and say, "This is my comforter." A few years before he died, a malady affected one of his legs which obliged him to have the limb amputated. When the operation was about to commence, the doctor who was standing by felt his pulse, and did not find it varied in the least. "General Macmurdo," he said, "you are a hero."—"No," said my brother solemnly, "but I hope I am a Christian." And the doctor said he felt the power of Christianity from that day.'
"'From the shore of another world all my past life seems like a dream.'[351]
"I think if one stayed here long, one would quite feel the necessity of sinning occasionally to avoid the danger of becoming intolerant of petty faults and unsuitablenesses, from living with those so entirely without them."
"Carstairs, Sept. 18.—This is a large and comfortable house, and Mr. Monteith is busied with various improvements in the grounds. One improvement I should certainly make would be the destruction of a horrible tomb of a former possessor of the place, an atheist relation, with an inscription 'to the Infernal Deities.' No wonder that the avenue leading to the tomb is said to be haunted."
It was during this summer that old Lady Webster died.[352] She had long been a conspicuous figure in our home neighbourhood, and had seemed to possess the secret of eternal youth. In my childhood she reigned like a queen at Battle, but the Websters had several years before been obliged to sell Battle to Lord Harry Vane (afterwards Duke of Cleveland), chiefly because there were five dowager Lady Websters at once, all drawing jointures from the already impoverished property. Of these ladies, three, usually known as "the good Lady Webster," "Grace, Lady Webster," and "the great Lady Webster," lived much at Hastings. When the great Lady Webster died, she left several sons, and it was a subject of much comment at the time that, when her will was opened, she was found to have left nothing to any of them. Her will was very short. She left everything she possessed in the world to her dear and faithful companion Madame Bergeret. It excited many unkind remarks, but those who learnt the real facts always admitted that, in the crowning act of her life, Lady Webster had only acted with that sense of justice and duty which had ever been her characteristic. The story is this:[353]—
Towards the latter part of the last century there lived at an old manorial farm in Brittany a female farmer named Bergeret. Her ancestors had owned the farm, and had cultivated their own land for hundreds of years, and Madame Bergeret herself was well known and highly respected through all the neighbouring country, charitable to her poorer neighbours, frank, kind, and unfailingly hospitable to those in her own rank of life. She lived bounteously, kept an open house, and spent in beneficence and hospitality the ample income which her lands brought her.
One day she was surprised by a visit from her next neighbour, a man named Girard, in her own class of life, whose family had always been known to her own, and who had possessed the neighbouring farm. He told her that he felt she would be shocked to hear that he had long been acting a part in making himself appear much better off than he was; that he had lost a great deal of money in speculation; that all was on the eve of being divulged; that if he could manage to keeps things going till after the next harvest, he might tide over his misfortunes, but that otherwise he must be totally ruined, lose everything he had, and bring his wife and children to destitution; and by the recollection of their old neighbourhood and long intimacy he adjured Madame Bergeret to help him. Madame Bergeret was very sorry—very sorry indeed, but she told him that it was impossible; and it really was. She lived amply up to her income, she had laid nothing by: she was well off, but all she had came from her lands; her income depended upon her harvest; she really had nothing to give to her poor neighbour, and she told him so—told him so with a very heavy heart, and he went away terribly crestfallen and miserable.
When Girard was gone, Madame Bergeret looked round her room, and she saw there a collection of fine old gold plate, such as often forms the source of pride to a Breton yeoman of old family, and descends like a patent of nobility from one generation to another, greatly reverenced and guarded. Madame Bergeret looked at her plate, and she said to herself, "If this was sold, it would produce a very large sum; and ought I, for the sake of mere family pride, to allow an old and honourable family to go to destitution?" And she called her neighbour back, and she gave Girard all her gold plate. The sum for which he was able to sell it helped him through till after the harvest; soon afterwards he found an opportunity of disposing of his Breton lands to very great advantage, and removed to another part of the country. He thanked Madame Bergeret, but he did not seem to realise that she had made any great sacrifice in his behalf; and she, resting satisfied in having done what she believed to be right, expected no more.
Some years afterwards, Madame Bergeret, being an old woman, placed her Breton lands in the hands of an agent, and removed with her two children to Paris. The great French Revolution occurred while she was there, and the Reign of Terror came on, and Madame Bergeret, who belonged to a Royalist family of loyal Brittany, was arrested: she was thrown into the prison of La Force, and she was condemned to death.
The Madame Bergeret I knew in another generation recollected being with her little brother in a room on the Rue St Honoré on the day on which a hundred and twenty persons were to suffer in the Place Louis XV. She saw them pass down the street to execution in twenty-two tumbrils; but when the last tumbril came beneath the window, the friends who were with her in the room drew down the blinds; not, however, before she had recognised her own mother in that tumbril, with all her hair cut off, that the head might come off more easily.
All the way to the place of execution, Madame Bergeret consoled and encouraged her companions, and she assented to their petition that she should suffer last, that she would see them through the dread portal before her. Therefore, when her turn at length came, the ground around the scaffold was one sea of blood, for a hundred and nineteen persons had perished that day. Thus, on descending the steps of the cart, Madame Bergeret slipped and stumbled. This arrested the attention of the deputy who was set to watch the executions. He started, and then rushed forward saying, "This woman has no business here. I know her very well; she is a most honest citoyenne, or, if she is not, I know quite well how to make her so: this woman is not one to be guillotined." It was Girard.
Now Madame Bergeret was quite prepared for death, but the sudden revulsion of her deliverance overcame her and she fainted. Girard carried her away in his arms, and when she came to herself she was in bed in a house in a quiet back-street of Paris, and he was watching over her. He had removed to Lyons, and, with the sudden changes of the time, had risen to be deputy, and being set to watch the executions, had recognised the woman who had saved him. By the help of Girard, and after many hairbreadth escapes, Madame Bergeret reached the coast, and eventually arrived in England. She then made her way to the only person she knew, a lady who had once spent some time in her Breton village, a Mrs. Adamson. Her daughter played with and was brought up with the little Miss Adamson. When Miss Adamson married Sir Godfrey Webster of Battle Abbey, Mademoiselle Bergeret (her mother being dead) went with her and lived at Battle as a sort of companion to Lady Webster and nursery-governess to her boys. For fifty years she never received any salary, and having, through the changes of things in France, inherited something of her mother's Breton property, she twice sacrificed her little all to pay the debts of the Webster family. Therefore it was that, in the close of life, Lady Webster felt that her sons might provide for themselves, but that, having very little to bequeath, the one person she could not leave destitute was "her dear and faithful companion and friend, Madame Bergeret."
Five months before her death, Lady Webster was very full of the terrible deaths which had lately occurred from railway accidents, and, on leaving home, she said to Madame Bergeret, "Here is this paper, and if I should be killed by an accident or not live to come home, you may read it; but at any rate keep it for me, and perhaps, if I come back, some day I may want it again." Lady Webster came back well and did not ask for the paper, and when she died, it was so sudden, a few minutes after talking quite cheerfully to Madame Bergeret, that in the shock she remembered nothing about it, and it was only long afterwards, when they were making a great fuss about there being no will, that she suddenly thought of the paper entrusted to her, and, when it was read, found Lady Webster had left her all she possessed.
Madame Bergeret dying herself about a year afterwards, left everything back to the Webster family. She was a quiet primitive old woman, who used to sit in the background at work in Lady Webster's sitting-room.
After my return home in the autumn of 1867, my mother was terribly ill, so that our journey abroad was a very anxious one to look forward to. I tried, however, to face it quite cheerily. I have read in an American novel somewhere, "It is no use to pack up any worries to take with you; you can always pick up plenty on the way;" and I have always found it true.
To MISS WRIGHT and JOURNAL.
"Nice, Nov. 17, 1867.—My dear Aunt Sophy will be delighted to see this date. So far all our troubles and anxieties are past, and the sweet Mother certainly not the worse, perhaps rather better for all her fatigues. It is an extraordinary case, to be one day lying in a sort of vision on the portals of another world, the next up and travelling.
"When we reached Paris she was terribly exhausted, then slept for thirty-six hours like a child, almost without waking. At the Embassy we were urged to go on to Rome, all quiet and likely to subside into a dead calm; but so much snow had fallen on Mont Cenis, that in Mother's weak state we could not risk that passage, and were obliged to decide upon coming round by the coast. On Monday we reached Dijon, where twenty-four hours' sleep again revived the Mother. It was fiercely cold, but Tuesday brightened into a glorious winter's day, and I had a most enchanting walk through sunshine and bracing air to Fontaines. It is picturesque French country, a winding road with golden vines and old stone crosses, and a distance of oddly-shaped purple hills. Fontaines itself is a large village, full of mouldering mediæval fragments, stretching up a hillside, which becomes steeper towards the top, and is crowned by a fine old church, a lawn with groups of old walnut-trees, and the remains of the château where St. Bernard was born. Over the entrance is a statue of him, and within, the room of his birth is preserved as a chapel. The view from the churchyard is lovely, and the graves are marked by ancient stone crosses and bordered with flowers. Within are old tombs and inscriptions—'Ce git la très haute et très puissante dame,' &c.
"We came on to Arles by the quick night-train, and stayed there as usual two days and a half—days of glaring white sirocco and no colour, and at Arles we found ourselves at once in Southern heat, panting, without fires and with windows wide open."
"Pisa, Dec. 1.—We left Nice on the 21st, and slept at Mentone, quite spoilt by building and by cutting down trees. I saw many friends, especially the Comtesse d'Adhemar, who flung her arms round me and kissed me on both cheeks. We spent the middle of the next day at S. Remo and slept at Oneglia. The precipices are truly appalling. I have visions still of the early morning drive from Oneglia along dewy hillsides and amongst hoary olives, and through the narrow gaily painted streets of the little fishing-towns, where the arches meet overhead and the wares set out before the shop-doors brush the carriage as it passes by.
"The second day, at Loiano, I was left behind. I went just outside the hotel to draw, begging my mother and Lea to pick me up as they went by. The carriage passed close by me and they did not see me. At first I did not hurry myself, thinking, when they did not find me, that they would stop for me a little farther on; but seeing the carriage go on and on, I ran after it as hard as I could, shouting at the pitch of my voice; but it never stopped, and I quite lost sight of it in the narrow streets of one of the fishing-villages before reaching Finale. At Finale I was in absolute despair at their not stopping, which seemed inexplicable, and I pursued mile after mile, footsore and weary, through the grand mountain coves in that part of the Riviera and along the desolate shore to Noli, where, just as night closed in, I was taken up by some people driving in a little carriage, on the box of which, in a bitter cold wind, I was carried to Savona, where I arrived just as our heavy carriage with its inmates was driving into the hotel. It was one of the odd instances of my dear mother's insouciance, of her 'happy-go-lucky' nature: 'they had not seen me, they had not looked back; no, they supposed I should get on somehow; they knew I always fell on my legs.' And I was perfectly conscious that if I had not appeared for days, my mother would have said just the same. We spent a pleasant Sunday at Savona, the views most beautiful of the wonderfully picturesque tower, calm bay of sapphire water, and delicate mountain distance.
"The landlord of the Croce di Malta at Genoa engaged a vetturino to take us to La Spezia. The first day, it was late when we left Sta. Margherita, where we stayed for luncheon. The driver lighted his lamps at Chiavari. Soon both my companions fell asleep. I sat up watching the foam of the sea at the bottom of the deep black precipices without parapets as long as I could see it through the gloom: then it became quite dark. Suddenly there was a frightful bolt of the horses, scream after scream from the driver, an awful crash, and we were hurled violently over and over into the black darkness. A succession of shrieks from Lea showed me that she was alive, but I thought at first my mother must be killed, for there was no sound from her. Soon the great troop of navvies came up, whose sudden appearance from the mouth of a tunnel, each with a long iron torch in his hand, had made the horses bolt. One of them let down his torch into the mired and broken carriage as it lay bottom upwards. 'Povera, poveretta,' he exclaimed, as he saw Lea sitting pouring with blood amongst the broken glass of the five great windows of the carriage. Then Mother's voice from the depth of the hood assured us that she was not hurt, only buried under the cushions and bags, and she had courage to remain perfectly motionless, while sheet after sheet of broken glass was taken from off her (she would have been cut to pieces if she had moved) and thrown out at the top of the carriage. Then there was a great consultation as to how we were to be got out, which ended in the carriage being bodily lifted and part of the top taken off, making an opening through which first Lea was dragged and afterwards the Mother. Then my mother, who had not walked at all for many weeks, was compelled to walk more than a mile to Sestri, in pitch darkness and pouring rain, dragged by a navvy on one side and me on the other. Another navvy supported Lea, who was in a fainting state, and others carried torches. We excited much pity when we arrived at the little inn at Sestri, and the people were most hospitable and kind. I had always especially wished to draw a particular view of a gaily painted church tower and some grand aloes on the road near Sestri, and it was curious to be enabled to do so the next day by our forcible detention there for want of a carriage.
"On the 29th we crossed once more the grand pass of Bracco, with its glorious scenery of billowy mountains ending in the delicate peaks of Carrara; and we baited at a wretched village where Mother was able to walk in the sunny road. Yesterday we came here by the exquisite railway under Massa Ducale, and were rapturously welcomed by Victoire[358] and her daughter."
"Palazzo Parisani, Rome, Dec. 10.—We had a wearisome journey here on the 3rd, the train not attempting to keep any particular time, and stopping more than an hour at Orbetello for the 'discorso' of the guard and engine-driver,[359] and at other stations in proportion. However, Mother quite revived when the great masses of the aqueducts began to show in the moonlight. They had given up expecting us in the Palazzo, where my sister has lent us her apartments, and it was long before we could get any one to open the door.
"It has been bitterly cold ever since we arrived and the air filled with snow. The first acquaintance I saw was the Pope! He was at the Trinità de' Monte, and I waited to see him come down the steps and receive his blessing on our first Roman morning. He looked dreadfully weak, and Monsignor Talbot seemed to be holding him tight up lest he should fall. The Neapolitan royal family I have already seen, always in their deep mourning.[360]
"The Pincio is still surrounded with earthworks, and the barricades remain outside the gates: a great open moat yawns in front of the door of the English Church. The barrack near St. Peter's is a hideous ruin. The accounts of the battle of Mentana are awful: when the Pontificals had expended all their ammunition, they rushed upon the Garibaldians and tore them with their teeth.
"Terrible misery has been left by the cholera, and the streets are far more full of beggars than ever. The number of deaths has been frightful—Princess Colonna and her daughters; old Marchese Serlupi; Müller the painter and his child; Mrs. Foljambe's old maid of thirty years; Mrs. Ramsay's donna and the man who made tea at her parties, are amongst those we have known. The first day we were out, Lea and I saw a woman in deep mourning, who was evidently begging, look wistfully at us, and had some difficulty in recognising Angela, our donna of 1863. Her husband, handsome Antonio the fisherman, turned black of the cholera in the Pescheria, and died in a few hours, and her three children have been ill ever since.
"Mrs. Shakspeare Wood has been to see us, and described the summer which she has spent here—six thousand deaths in Rome between May and November, sixty in the Forum of Trajan, thirty in the Purificazione alone. The Government wisely forbade any funeral processions, and did not allow the bells to be tolled, and the dead were taken away at night. Then came the war. The gates were closed, and an edict published bidding all the citizens, when they heard 'cinque colpi di cannóne, d'andare subito a casa.' The Woods laid in quantities of flour, and spent £5 in cheese, only remembering afterwards that, having forgotten to lay in any fuel, they could not have baked their bread."
"Dec. 13.—Yesterday I went to Mrs. Robert De Selby.[361] She described the excitement of the battles. In the thick of it all she got a safe-conduct and drove out to Mentana to be near her husband in case he was wounded. She also drove several times to the army with provisions and cordials. If they tried to stop her, she said she was an officer's wife taking him his dinner, and they let her pass. One of the officers said afterwards to her mother, 'La sua figlia vale un altro dragone.'
"She told me Lady Anne S. Giorgio (her mother),[362] was living in the Mercede, and I went there at once. She was overjoyed to see me, and embraced me with the utmost affection. She is also enchanted to be near the Mother, her 'saint in a Protestant niche.' She is come here because 'all the old sinners in Florence' disapproved of her revolutionary tendencies. Lady Anne remembered my father's great intimacy with Mezzofanti. She said my father had once a servant who came from an obscure part of Hungary where they spoke a very peculiar dialect. One day, going to Mezzofanti, he took his servant with him. The Cardinal asked the man where he came from, and, on his telling him, addressed him in the dialect of his native place. The man screamed violently, and, making for the door, tried to escape: he took Mezzofanti for a wizard.
"Lady Anne recollected my father's extreme enjoyment of a scene of this kind. There was a Dr. Taylor who used to worship the heathen gods—Mars and Mercury, and the rest. One day at Oxford, in the presence of my father and of one of the professors, he took his little silver images of the gods out of his pocket and began to pray to them and burn incense. The professor, intensely shocked, tried to interfere, but my father started up—'How can you be so foolish? do be quiet: don't you see you're interrupting the comedy?' The same Dr. Taylor was afterwards arrested for sacrificing a bullock to Neptune in a back-parlour in London!"
"44 Piazza di Spagna, Dec. 29.—We moved here on the 20th to a delightfully comfortable apartment, which is a perfect sun-trap. Most truly luxurious indeed does Rome seem after Cannes—food, house, carriages, all so good and reasonable. I actually gave a party before we left my sister's apartment, lighting up those fine rooms, and issuing the invitations in my own name, in order that Mother might not feel obliged to appear unless quite equal to it at the moment. Three days after I had another party for children—tea and high romps afterwards in the long drawing-room.
"On the 21st I went with the Erskines, Mrs. Ramsay, and Miss Garden, by rail to Monte Rotondo. The quantity of soldiers at the station and all along the road quite allayed any fears of brigands which had been entertained regarding the mile and a half between the village and the railway. The situation proved quite beautiful—the old houses crowned by the Piombino castle, rising from vineyards and gardens, backed by the purple peak of Monte Gennaro. Beyond, in the hollow, is the convent where Garibaldi was encamped, and farther still the battlefield of Mentana.
"On the 23rd there was a magnificent reception at the Spanish Embassy. Every one went to salute the new ambassador, Don Alessandro del Castro, and the whole immense suite of rooms thrown open had a glorious effect. There was an abundance of cardinals, and the Roman princesses all arrived in their diamonds. The Borgheses came in as a family procession, headed by Princess Borghese in blue velvet and diamonds. The young English Princess Teano looked lovely in blue velvet and gold brocade. On Christmas Day I went to St Peter's for the coming in of the Pope, and stayed long enough to see Francis II. arrive with his suite. In the afternoon I took Lea to the Ara Cœli and Sta. Maria Maggiore. At the Ara Cœli great confusion prevails and much enthusiasm on account of a new miracle. When people were ill, upon their paying a scudo for the carriage, the Santo Bambino was brought by two of the monks, and left upon the sick-bed, to be fetched away some hours after in the same way. A sacrilegious lady determined to take advantage of this to steal the Bambino; so she pretended her child was ill and paid her scudo; but as soon as ever the monks were gone, she had a false Bambino, which she had caused to be prepared, dressed up in the clothes of the real one, and when the monks came back they took away the false Bambino without discovering the fraud, and carried it to the place of honour in the Church of Ara Cœli.
"That night the convent awoke to fearful alarm, every bell rang at the same moment, awful sounds were heard at the doors; the trembling brotherhood hastened to the church, but loud and fast the knocks continued on the very door of the sanctuary ('bussava, bussava, bussava'). At last they summoned courage to approach the entrance with lights, and behold, a little tiny pink child's foot, which was poked in under the door; and they opened the door wide, and there without, on the platform at the head of the steps, stood, in the wind and the rain, quite naked, the real Bambino of Ara Cœli. So then the real child was restored to its place, and the lady, confounded and disgraced, was bidden to take the false child home again.
"Our donna, Louisa, was in ecstasies when she told us this story—'Oh com' è graziosa, oh com' è graziosa questa storia,'—and she never can understand why we do not send for the Bambino to cure Mother of all her ailments, though, in consequence of the theft, it is now never left alone in a house, but is taken away by the same monks who bring it. Lea was imprudent enough to say she did not believe the Bambino would ever do her any good; but when Louisa, looking at her with wondering eyes, asked why, said weakly, 'Because I have such a bad heart,' in which Louisa quite acquiesced as a reason.
"It had been a sad shadow hitherto over all this winter that my sweetest Mother had been so ill. At Parisani I had many sad days and nights too. She suffered almost constantly from pain in the back, and moaned in a way which went to my very heart.... Twice only in the fortnight was Mother able to get out to the Forum and walk in the sun from the Coliseum to the Capitol, and she felt the cold most terribly, and certainly the Palazzo was very cold.
"At first, when we came to this house, Mother was better, and she was delighted with these rooms, which fulfilled a presentiment she had told me of before we left home, that this winter she should have the pleasantest apartment she had ever had yet. But on the 21st she was chilled when driving with Mrs. Hall to Torre Quinto, and that evening quite lost her power of articulation. It only lasted about an hour.... She was conscious of it afterwards, and said, 'It was so odd, I was not able to speak.' Some days after, though able to articulate, she was unable to find the words she needed, calling the commonest things by their wrong names, and this was the more alarming as more likely to be continuous. On Thursday she was well enough to drive with me to the Aqua Acetosa, and walk there in the sun on the muddy Tiber bank, but that evening she became worse, and since then has scarcely been out of bed."
"Dec. 30.—On Saturday I was constantly restless, with a sense of fire near me, but could discover nothing burning in the apartment. I had such a strong presentiment of fire that I refused to go out all day. When Lea came in with my tea at 8 P.M., I told her what an extraordinary noise I continually heard—a sort of rushing over the ceiling, which was of strained canvas—but she thought nothing of it. Soon after she was gone, a shower of sparks burst into the room and large pieces of burning wood forced their way through a hole in the ceiling. Shouting to Lea, I rushed up to the next floor, and rang violently and continuously at the bell, shouting 'Fuoco, fuoco;' but the owners of the apartment were gone to bed and would not get up; so, without losing time, I flew downstairs, roused the porter, sent him off to fetch Ferdinando Manetti, who was responsible for our apartment, and then for the pompieri. Meantime the servants of Miss Robertson, who lived below us, had come to our help, and assisted in keeping the fire under with sponges of water, while Lea and I rushed about securing money, valuables, drawings, &c., and then, dragging out our great boxes, began rapidly to fill them. Mother was greatly astonished at seeing us moving in and out with great piles of things in our arms, but did not realise at once what had happened. I had just arranged for her being wrapped up in blankets and carried through the streets to Palazzo Parisani, when the pompieri arrived. From that time there was no real danger. They tore up the bricks of the floor above us, and poured water through upon the charred and burning beams, and a cascade of black water and hot bricks tumbled through together into our drawing-room."
To MISS WRIGHT.
"Jan. 1.—Alas! I can give but a poor account of her who occupies all my real thoughts and interests. My sweetest Mother is still very, very feeble, and quite touchingly helpless. She varies like a thermometer with the weather, and if it is fine, is well enough to see Mrs. Hall and one or two friends, but she is seldom able to be dressed before twelve o'clock, and often has to lie down again before four. I seldom like to be away from her long, and never by day or night feel really free from anxiety."
JOURNAL.
"Jan. 2, 1868.—I have been out twice in the evening—to Mrs. Ramsay to meet M. de Soveral, the ex-minister of Portugal, and his wife and daughter, and to Mrs. Hall to meet the Erskines. Mrs. Hall described a sermon she had lately heard at the Coliseum, the whole object of which was the glorification of Mary Queen of Scots. It was most painful, she said, describing how Elizabeth, who turned only to her Bible, died a prey to indescribable torments of mind, while Mary, clinging to her crucifix, died religiously and devoutly.
"The Marchesa Serlupi has given a fearful account of the Albano tragedy. The old Marchese had come to them greatly worn out with his labours in attendance on the Pope during the canonisation,[363] and he was seized with cholera almost at once. When the doctor came, his hair was standing on end with horror. He said he had not sat down for eighteen hours, hurrying from one to another. He said the old Marchese had the cholera, and it was no use doing anything for him, he would be dead in a few hours. The Marchesa thought he had gone mad with fright, which in fact he had. When he was gone, she gave remedies of her own to the old man, which subdued the cholera at the time, but he sank afterwards from exhaustion. During that time the dead all around them were being carried out: the Appian Way was quite choked up by those who were in flight, and people were dying among the tombs all along the wayside.
"As soon as the old Marchese was dead, the Serlupi family determined to fly. As the Marchesa had been constantly nursing the old man, she would not take her child with her, and sent him on first in another carriage. When they got half way, a man came up to them saying that the person who was with the child in the other carriage was in the agonies of death, and they had to take the child into their own carriage. At the half-way house they stopped to inquire for a party of friends who had preceded them: five had fled in the carriage, three were already dead! There was only one remedy which was never known to fail: it was discovered by a Capuchin monk, and is given in wine. It is not known what the medicine is, and its effect entirely depends upon the exact proportions being given. The Marchesa used to send dozens of wine to the Capuchin, and then give it away impregnated with the medicine to the poor people in Rome.
"To-day my darling has been rather better, and was able to drive for an hour on the Pincio. Yesterday evening she prayed aloud for herself most touchingly before both me and Lea, that God would look upon her infirmities, that He would forgive her weakness, and supply the insufficiency of her prayers. Her sweet pleading voice, tremulous with weakness, went to our hearts, and her trembling upturned look was inexpressibly affecting."
"Feb. 4.—When we first came here, we were much attracted by Francesca Bengivenga, a pleasant cordial woman who lets the apartment above us, and who lived in a corner of it with her nice respectable old mother. Lea went up to see them, and gave quite a pretty description of the old woman sitting quietly in her room at needlework, while the daughter bustled about.
"On January 9 we were startled by seeing a procession carrying the Last Sacraments up our staircase, and on inquiry heard that it was to a very old woman who was dying at the top of the house. Late in the evening it occurred to Lea that the sick person at the top of the house might perhaps be in want, and she went up to Francesca to inquire if she could be of any use. Then, for the first time, we heard that it had been Francesca's mother who had been ill, and that she had died an hour after the priests had been. Francesca herself was in most terrible anguish of grief, but obliged to control herself, because only a few days before she had let her apartment, and did not venture to tell her lodgers what had occurred in the house. So whenever the bell rang, she had to dry her tears by an effort, and appear as if nothing had happened. We urged her to reveal the truth, which at length she did with a great burst of sobs, and the tenants took it well. The next day at four o'clock the old woman was carried away, and on the following morning I pleased Francesca by attending at the messa cantata in S. Andrea delle Fratte.
"On January 10 Charlotte and Gina Leycester arrived. By way of showing civilities to acquaintance, I have had several excursions to the different hills, explaining the churches and vineyards with the sights they contain. On the Aventine I had a very large—too large a party. With the Erskines I went to San Salvatore in Lauro, where the old convent is partially turned into a barrack, and was filled with Papal Zouaves, who spoke a most unintelligible jargon which turned out to be High Dutch. A very civil little officer, however, took us into a grand old chapel opening out of the cloisters, but now occupied as a soldiers' dormitory, and filled with rows of beds, while groups of soldiers were sitting on the altar-steps and on the altar itself, and had even piled their arms and hung up their knapsacks on the splendid tomb of Pope Eugenius IV., which was the principal object of our visit.[364] We went on hence to the Vallicella, where we saw the home and relics of S. Filippo Neri—his fine statue in the sacristy, his little cell with its original furniture, his stick, his shoes, the crucifix he held when he was dying, the coffin in which he lay in state, the pictures which belonged to him, and the little inner chapel with the altar at which he prayed, adorned with the original picture, candlesticks, and ornaments.
"Another excursion has been to the Emporium, reached by an unpleasant approach, the Via della Serpe behind the Marmorata, an Immondezzajo half a mile long; but it is a fine mass of ruin, with an old gothic loggia, in a beautiful vineyard full of rare and curious marbles. Close by, on the bank of the Tiber, the ancient port of the Marmorata is now being cleaned out.
"My dearest Mother continues very ailing and terribly weak, but I am hopeful now (as the cold months are so far advanced), that we may steer through the remainder of the winter, and that I may once more have the blessing of taking her back to England restored to health and power. Every Friday she has been seriously ill, but has rallied afterwards. On Friday 17th, she was very ill, and I was too anxious about her to rest at all during the night, but perpetually flitted ghost-like in and out of her room. Last Friday again she was, if anything, worse still, such a terrible cloud coming over all her powers, with the most complete exhaustion. I scarcely left her all day. When these sad days are over, life becomes quite different, so heavy is the burden lifted off, and it is difficult to realise all that they have been, the wearing anxiety as to what is best to be done, the terribly desolate future seeming so near at hand, all the after scenes presenting themselves so vividly, like fever phantoms, to the imagination, and then sometimes the seeming carried with my dearest one to the very gates of the unseen world.... She is always patient, always self-forgetful, and her obedience to her 'doctor,' as she calls me, is too touching, too entirely confiding and childlike. Oh, if our unity is broken by death, no one, no one will ever realise what it has been. Come what will, I can bless God for this winter, in which that union has been without one tarnished moment, one passing difference, in which my sweetest one has entirely leant upon me, and I have entirely lived for her.
"Feb. 9.—There is no improvement in my dearest Mother. If there is a temporary rally, it is followed by a worse attack and intense fits of exhaustion, and the effort of going up and down stairs fatigues her so much that it is difficult to judge how far it is wise to gratify her constant craving for air. On Tuesday, Lea and I took her to the Monte Mario, and she sat in the carriage while we got out and picked flowers in the Villa Mellini. That day she was certainly better, and able to enjoy the drive to a certain degree, and to admire the silver foam of the fountains of St. Peter's as we passed them. I often think how doubly touching these and many other beautiful sights may become to me, if I should be left here, when she, with whom I have so often enjoyed them, has passed away from us to the vision of other and more glorious scenes.
"It is in these other scenes, not here, that I often think my darling's mind is already wandering. When she sits in her great weakness, doing nothing, yet so quiet, and with her loving beautiful smile ever on her revered countenance, it is surely of no earthly scenes that my darling is thinking.
"In the night I am often seized with an irresistible longing to know how she is, and then I steal quietly through the softly opening doors into her room and watch her asleep by the light of the night-lamp. Even then the face in its entire repose wears the same sweet expression of childlike confidence and peace.
"I dined with Mrs. Robert Bruce one day, meeting Miss Monk and Cavendish Taylor, and went with them afterwards to see the 'Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein' acted. It was in a booth in the Piazza Navona, such as is generally used for wild beasts at a fair, and where one would expect an audience of the very lowest of the people; but instead the place was crowded with the most élite of the Roman princes and their families. The acting was wonderful, and the dresses and scenery very beautiful. It is said that the actors are a single family, fourteen sons, three daughters, and their cook!
"At the Shakspeare Woods' I met Miss Charlotte Cushman, the great American tragic actress, who has been living here for some years. She was the Mrs. Siddons of her time in America, and places were taken weeks beforehand for the nights when she acted. She does a great deal of good here and is intensely beloved. In appearance she is much like Miss Boyle,[365] with white hair rolled back, and is of most winning and gracious manners. I went to a party at her house last night, and never saw anything more dignified and graceful than her reception of her guests, or more charming than her entertainment of them. She sang, but as she has little voice left, it was rather dramatic representation than song, though most beautiful and pathetic.
"The American Consul, Mr. Cushman, told me he had crossed the Atlantic forty-seven times. The last time he returned was during the cholera at Albano, and he described its horrors. A hundred and fifty people died in the village on the first day, and were all thrown immediately into a large pit by a regiment of Zouaves, happily quartered there, and were tumbled in just as they happened to fall. The next day, so many more died, that soldiers were sent down into the pit to pack the bodies closer, so as to fit more in. The bodies already in the pit were so entangled, that several arms and legs were pulled off in the process. The Zouaves employed in the work all died."
I often saw Miss Cushman afterwards, and greatly valued her friendship. Hers was a noble and almost unique character, a benignant influence upon all she came in contact with. Her youth had been a long struggle, but it gave her a wonderful sympathy with young artists striving as she herself had done, and for them her purse, her hand, and her heart were always open. When she was only a "stock actress," the wife of the manager, who played herself and was jealous of her talents, got her husband to give her a very inferior part: it was that of Nancy Sykes in "Oliver Twist." Miss Cushman saw through the motive, and determined to prepare herself thoroughly. She disappeared. She went down to the worst part of the town, and remained for four days amongst all the lowest women there, till she understood them thoroughly and could imitate their peculiarities to perfection. Her first appearance, when she strolled on to the stage chewing a sprig of a tree, as they all do, took the house by storm, and from that time it was at her feet. The play of "Guy Mannering" was written to suit her in the part of Meg Merrilies. She would take an hour and a half to get herself up for it, painting all the veins on her arms, &c., and her success was wonderful.
She had been originally intended for an opera-singer, but, just when she was to appear, she had a dangerous illness, and, when she recovered, her voice was gone. But she wasted no time in regrets: she immediately turned to being an actress. This power of making the best of whatever was, formed one of the grandest traits of her character.
She died of what, to many, is the most terrible of all diseases. She insisted on an operation; but when she went to have it repeated, the great surgeons told her it was no use, and advised her to devote her remaining life to whatever would most take her out of herself and make her forget her pain. Then she, who had left the stage so long, went back to it as Meg Merrilies again and had all her old triumphs. And the last time she appeared, when she, as it were, took leave of the stage for ever, she repeated the words "I shall haunt this old glen," &c., in a way which sent a cold shiver down the backs of all who heard them.
Miss Stebbings' interesting Life of Miss Cushman is inadequate. It dwells too much on the successful part. What were really interesting, and also useful to those beginning life, would have been the true story of the struggles of her youth, and how her noble nature overcame them.
JOURNAL.
"Feb. 10.—My dearest Mother is better and up again, sweet and smiling. Last week, after poor Mrs. C. had died, Mrs. Ramsay, not knowing it, sent to inquire after her. 'E andata in Paradiso,' said her old servant Francesco, quite simply, when he came back."
"Feb. 25.—On the 16th old Don Francesco Chigi died, a most well-known figure to be missed out of Roman life. He was buried with perfectly mediæval pomp the next day at the Popolo. The procession down the Corso from the Chigi Palace was most gorgeous, the long line of princely carriages and the running footmen with their huge torches and splendid liveries, the effect enhanced by the darkness of the night, for it was at nine o'clock in the evening.
"Yesterday I rushed with all the world to St. Peter's to stare at the bridal of Donna Guendalina Doria, who had just been married at S. Agnese to the Milanese Conte della Somaglia. The Pope gave her his benediction and a prayer-book bound in solid gold and diamonds. Thirteen carriages full of relations escorted her to St. Peter's, but very few had courage to come with her into the church. She looked well in a long lace veil and white silk cloak striped with gold.
"My sweet Mother has gained very little ground the last fortnight. Yesterday for the first time she went out—carried down and upstairs by Benedetto and Louisa, and drove with Charlotte to the Villa Doria. But in the evening her breathing was difficult. To-day I drove with Lady Bloomfield[366] and Jane Adeane to the Campagna, and when I came back I found that she had been quite ill the whole time. The dear face looks sadly worn."
"Feb. 27.—When I went into my darling's room at 3 A.M., both she and Lea were sleeping quietly, but when I went again at six, the Mother had been long awake, and oppressed with great difficulty of breathing. At half-past nine Dr. Grilli came and begged for another opinion.... How did I bear it when he said that my darling was in the greatest danger, that if she would desire any spiritual consolations, they ought to be sent for! Then I lost all hope. 'No,' I said, 'she has long lived more in heaven than on earth.' 'Quello se vede,' said Dr. Grilli.
"I questioned whether she should be told the danger she was in, but I decided not; for has not my darling been for years standing on the threshold of the heavenly kingdom? Death could to her only be the passing quite over that threshold, and to us the last glimpse of her most sweet presence here.
"2 P.M.—Charlotte Leycester and Emma Simpkinson have been with me in the room all morning by turns. I cannot but think her slightly better. The shutter has just been opened that she may see the sun, which poured into the room. My darling was sitting up then and smiled to see it.
"5½ P.M.—Waiting for the consultation of doctors. How I dread it, yet I cannot but think they will find my darling better. I have a feeling that there must still be hope. At two I went in a carriage to the Villa Negroni,[367] as the most solitary place I knew, and there spent an hour on that terraced walk beneath the house in which I was born, where my two mothers walked up and down together before my birth, and where I have often been, oh! so happy in the sunshine of her presence who is life to me.
"Coming back, I went into the Church of the Angeli. A white Carthusian was kneeling there alone. I knelt too and prayed—not that God would give my darling back to me unless it were His will, but oh! so earnestly that there might be no pain in her departure.
"Mrs. Woodward and Miss Finucane want to come and sit up—always good and kind. Grilli has been this evening with Dr. Bertoldi, and says everything depends on how she passes the next night: if she sleeps and the breathing becomes easier, we may hope, but even then it will be most difficult to regain the ground lost. In this I buoy myself up that they know nothing of her wonderful power of rallying.
"When Charlotte went away for the night, she said, 'I shall think of you, dear, and pray for you very much to-night.'—'Yes, into the Lord's hands I commend my spirit,' said my darling solemnly.
"9 A.M. Feb. 28, Friday.—Last night, when I wished her good-night, she said in her sweetest manner, 'Don't be too anxious; it is all in His hands.' Lea went to bed and Emma Simpkinson sat upon the sofa. I went in and out all through the night. Since 4 A.M. she has been less well!
"6 P.M.—I went rapidly to-day in a little carriage to St. Peter's, and kneeling at the grating of the chapel of the Sacrament by Sixtus IV.'s tomb, I implored God to take two years out of my life and to add them to my Mother's. I could not part with her now. If there is power in prayer, I must have been heard. I was back within the hour.
"When Charlotte came, she repeated to the Mother the texts about the saints in white robes, and then said 'Perhaps, dear, you will be with them soon—perhaps it is as in our favourite hymn, "Just passing over the brink."'—'Yes,' said my darling, 'it cannot last long; this is quite wearing me out.' I heard this through the door, for I could not bear to be in the room. Then Charlotte said, 'The Lord be with you,' or similar words, and my darling answered 'Yes, and may He be with those who are left as well as with those who are taken.' At this moment I came in and kissed my darling. Charlotte, not knowing I had heard, then repeated what she had said. 'She is praying that God may be with you and with me,' she said. I could not bear it, and went back to the next room. Charlotte came in and kissed me. 'I cannot say what I feel for you,' she said. I begged her not to say so now, 'as long as there was anything to be done I must not give way.'"
"3 P.M. Saturday.—The night was one of terrible suffering. Mrs. Woodward sat up, but I could not leave the room. In the morning my darling said, 'I never thought it would have been like this; I thought it would have been unconscious. The valley of the Shadow of Death is a dark valley, but there is light at the end.... No more pain.... The Rock of Ages, that is my rock.' Then I read the three prayers in the Visitation Service. 'It will be over soon,' she said; 'I am going to rest.'
"'Will you give me some little word of blessing, darling?' I said. 'The Lord keep you and comfort you, my dear child,' she said. 'Don't fret too much. He will give you comfort.' I had begged that Mrs. Woodward would call in Lea, who was now kneeling between us at the bedside. 'And you bless poor Lea too,' I said. 'Yes, dear Lea; she has been a most good and faithful and dear servant to me. I pray that God may be with her and John, and keep them, and I hope that they will be faithful and loving to you, as they have been to me, as long as you need them.... Be reconciled to all who have been unkind to you, darling; love them all, this is my great wish, love—love—love—oh, I have tried to live for love—oh! love one another, that is the great thing—love, love, love!'
"'The Lord bless and comfort you, dear,' she said to Charlotte. 'Be a mother to my child.'—'I will,' said Charlotte, and then my darling's hand took mine and held it.
"'We look for the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ,' said Charlotte. 'Yes, and it was here that it first dawned upon me ... through much tribulation.... He will be with me, and He will be with those who are left.'
"'We look for the King in His beauty,' said Charlotte. 'Yes, beauty such as we have never seen,' my darling said. 'Eye hath not seen nor ear heard the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. Oh, I have been able to serve Him very little.'—'Yes, darling, but you have loved Him much.'
"'I send my love to all my dear ones in England; none are forgotten, none.' Then, after a pause, 'Tell your sister that we shall meet where there is no more controversy, and where we shall know thoroughly as we are known.'
"In the night the terrible pain came on, which lasted many hours and gave us all such anguish. 'And He bore all this,' she said, and at one of her worst moments—'He that trusteth in Thee shall never be put to confusion.' What these trembling words were to us I cannot say, with her great suffering and the sadly sunken look of her revered features. Mrs. Woodward cried bitterly.
"'Mine eyes look to the hills, from whence cometh my help,' said Charlotte when she came in. 'You have loved the Psalms so much, haven't you, dear?'—'Yes, the Psalms so much.'—'All Thy waves and storms pass over me,' said Charlotte, 'but the Rock resisteth the flood.'—'Yes, the Rock,' said my darling. 'The floods lift up their waves, but the Lord is mightier.'—'He is mightier,' she repeated. 'The Lord is a refuge and a strong tower,' said Charlotte. 'He is indeed,' she answered with emphasis; 'it is a dark valley, but there is light beyond, for He is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever.'
"She bade me in the early morning not to leave her, and I sat by her without moving from 6 A.M. till 1 P.M. 'Oh, you will all be so tired,' she said once. When she was very ill, Charlotte leant over her and said, 'I am oppressed, O Lord, undertake for me: may the everlasting arms be beneath you.'—'Yes,' she said."
"March 1, Sunday morning.—How long it is! At 6 P.M. she was very restless and suffering. At last she gave me her hand and lay down with me supporting the pillows behind. She spoke quite clearly, and said, 'My blessing and darling, may you be blessed in time and eternity!' This quiet sleep seemed to soothe and rest her, and afterwards Lea was able to take my place for an hour. But the night was terrible. Mrs. Woodward and Miss Finucane both sat up with me. Once she said, 'Through the grave and the gate of death ... a glorious resurrection.' At seven, she was speaking again, and leaning over her I heard, 'How long, how long? when will the Bridegroom come?'"
"4 P.M. Monday, March 2.—A rather less suffering night. Dear Miss Garden sat up with me, saying she felt as if it was her own mother who was lying there, and Mother rambled gently to her about 'going home.' At 7 A.M. she fell asleep sweetly with her hand clasped in both of mine. I did not venture to move, and sank from my knees into a sitting position on the floor; so we remained for nearly an hour. When she waked, her moan was more definite. 'Oh, for rest! oh, for rest!' I said, 'Darling, rest is coming soon.'—'Yes,' she said, 'my health will all come back to me soon; no infirmities and no pains any more."
"10 A.M.—When Charlotte went at nine, I thought my darling sinking more rapidly, and Dr. Grilli when he came told us it was all but impossible she could rally. She looks to me at moments quite passing away. I would not call my darling back for worlds now: if God took her, I could only be lost in thankfulness that her pains were over. Oh, that she may be soon in that perfect health which we shall not be permitted to see. I scarcely leave her a moment now, though it is agony to me if she coughs or suffers. Can I afford to lose one look from those beloved eyes, one passing expression of those revered features? So I sit beside her through the long hours, now moistening her lips, now giving her water from a spoon, now and then a little soup-jelly, which she finds it easier to swallow than the soup itself, and now and then my darling gently gives me her hand to hold in mine. 'Rest in bliss,' she said to Mrs. Woodward, 'rest ever in bliss.' Afterwards Charlotte said, 'When thou passest through the waters, they shall not overflow thee: underneath thee are ... the everlasting arms."
"12½ P.M.—Charlotte has repeated sentences from the Litany—'By Thine agony and bloody sweat.' We thought she scarcely understood at first, then her lips, almost inaudibly, repeated the sentences. Soon she said, 'It is so long coming!' Then Charlotte read, 'Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for they rest from their labours.' She opened her eyes, looked up at Charlotte, and said, 'Oh, how well I know you!'
"1 P.M.—After some minutes' quiet she opened her eyes with surprise and said, 'I thought I was safe home; I thought I was, yet I can move, so I suppose it will not be yet.'
"2 P.M.—Her face has lost all its troubled look, and though she still moans, there is a happy appearance of repose stealing over her features.
"3 P.M.—When C. L. came in she said, 'Oh, Charlotte, I thought it was all over. I did not hear the noise of the waves any more. Oh, they were so very tormenting, and then, when I did not hear them, I thought it was over, and then I heard your voice, and I knew I was still here.... I have no more pain now.... It was very long, but I suppose He thought He would knock out all that was bad in me.'
"Midnight, Monday.—After a terrible afternoon, she had such an extraordinary rally in the evening that we all began to hope. But soon after there was another change. Her features altered, her face sunk, but her expression was of the most transcendent happiness. Thinking the last moment was come, we knelt around the bed, I alone on the right; Charlotte, Lea, and Mrs. Woodward on the left; the nurse, Angela Mayer, at the foot. Charlotte and Mrs. W. prayed aloud. Then my darling, in broken accents, difficult to understand, but which I, leaning over her, repeated to the others, began to speak—'I am going to glory ... I have no pain now ... I see the light ... Oh, I am so happy ... no more trouble or sorrow or sin ... so extremely happy ... may you all meet me there, not one of you be wanting.'
"I, leaning over her, said, 'Do you know me still, darling?'—'Yes, I know and bless you, my dearest son ... peace and love ... glory everlasting ... all sins and infirmities purged away ... rest ... love ... glory ... reign for ever ... see Christ.
"'Oh, be ready!
"'Mary and Arthur and Kate and Emmie and Mamie, faithful servants of Christ, to meet me there in His kingdom.
"'Let peace and love remain with you always. This is my great wish, peace and love ... peace and love.'
"After saying this, my mother solemnly folded her trembling hands together on her breast, and looking up to heaven, said, 'Oh, Lord Jesus, come quickly, and may all these meet me again in Thy kingdom!' As she said this, my darling's eyes seemed fixed upon another world.
"After this I begged the others to leave me alone with her, and then my dearest one said to me, 'Yes, darling, our love for one another on earth is coming to an end now. We have loved one another very deeply. I don't know how far communion will be still possible, but I soon shall know; and if it be possible, I shall still be always near you. I shall so love to see and know all you are doing, and to watch over you; and when you hear a little breeze go rustling by, you must think it is the old Mother still near you.... You will do all I wish, darling, I know. I need not write, you will carry out all my wishes.'—'Yes, dearie,' I said, 'it will be my only comfort when you are gone to do all you would have wished. I will always stay at Holmhurst, darling, and I will continue going to Alton, and I will do everything else I can think of that you would like.'
"'Yes, and you must try to conquer self ... to serve God here, and then we may be together again in heaven.... Oh, we must be together again there.'
"Lea now came in, and my darling stroked her face while she sobbed convulsively. 'Your long work is done at last,' Mother said; 'I have been a great trouble to you both, and perhaps it is as well I should be taken away now, for I am quite worn out. Tell John and all of them that I am sorry to leave them, but perhaps it was for the best; for this is not an illness; it is that I am worn out.... You and Augustus will stay together and comfort one another when I am gone, and you will bear with one another's infirmities and help one another. The great thing of all is to be able to confess that one has been in the wrong. Oh, peace and love, peace and love, these are the great things.'
"'Have I been a good child to you, dearest?' I said. 'Oh, yes, indeed—dear and good, dear and good; a little wilful perhaps you used to be, but not lately; you have been all good to me lately—dear and good.'—('Yes, that he has,' said Lea.)—'Faithful and good,' my darling repeated, 'both of you faithful and good.'
"Charlotte now came in. 'Here is Charlotte.'—'Dear Charlotte! Oh yes, I know you. I do not know whether there will be any communication where I am going, but if there is, I shall be very near you. I am going to rest ... rest everlasting. Be a mother to my child. Comfort him when I am gone ... give him good advice.... You know what suggestions I should make.... You will say to him what I should say ... and if he could have a good wife, that would be the best thing ... for what would you do, my child, in this lonely world?... No, a good wife, that is what I wish for you—a good wife and a family home.
"'And now I should like to speak to kind Mrs. Woodward' (she came in). 'Thank you so much; you have been very good and kind to me, dear Mrs. Woodward. I am going fast to my heavenly home. I have said all I meant to have written all the time I have been ill, and have never been able ... my mouth has been opened that I might speak.'"
"7 A.M. March 3.—'Oh, it is quite beautiful. Good-bye, my own dearest! I cannot believe that you will look up into the clouds and think that I am only there ... but you will also see me in the flowers and in my friends, and in all that I have loved.'
"8 A.M.—With the morning light my dearest Mother has seemed to become more rapt in holy thoughts and visions, her eyes more intently fixed on the unseen world. At last, with a look of rapture she has exclaimed, 'Oh, angels, I see angels!' and since then pain seems to have left her.
"8½ A.M.—(To Lea.) 'You will take care of him and comfort him, as you have always taken care of me: you have been a dear servant to me.'—'Yes,' said Lea, 'I will always stay with him and take care of him as long as I live. I took care of your dear husband, and I have taken care of you, and I will take care of him as long as he wants me.' 'Darling sweet,' I said to her. 'Yes, darling sweet,' she repeated, with inexpressible tenderness. 'I always hear the tender words you say to me, dear, even in my dreams.' Then she said also to Mrs. Woodward, 'You have been very kind to us; you will comfort Augustus when he is left desolate: you know what sorrow is, you have gone through the valley.... It seems so much worse for others than for me.... For then I shall begin really to live.'
"All this time my darling lay with her eyes upturned and an expression of rapt beatitude. The nurse says that in her forty years' nursing she never saw any one like this, so quiet, so happy. 'Nothing ever puts her out or makes her complain: I never saw anything like it.'[368]
"8½ A.M.—'It is very difficult to realise that when you are absent from the body you are present with the Lord.'
"10 A.M.—Dr. Grilli says she may live till evening, even possibly into the night. She has just said, a little wandering, 'You know in a few days some pretty sweet violets will come up, and that will be all that will be left to you of the dear Mother.'
"11½ A.M.—She has taken leave of Emma Simpkinson and Miss Garden. When I came in she took my hand and said, 'And you, darling, I shall always think of you, and you will think of me. I shall spring up again like the little violets, and I shall put on an incorruptible body. I shall be always floating over you and watching over you somehow: we shall never be separated; and my body will rest beside that of my dear husband. So strange it should be here; perhaps, if it had been anywhere else, I might have wished to get better, but as it was here, the temptation was too great. I am quite worn out. I thought I could not get better after my last illness, and I was given back to you for a little while, though I have always felt very weak, but I shall be quite well now.'
"10 A.M. March 4.—All night she wandered gently, saying that she would 'go out and play with the little children; for there can be nothing bad amongst very little children.' In the morning Charlotte still thought there was a chance of her rallying, but Emma Simpkinson and I both think her sinking, and Dr. Grilli says that 'sussulti tendinósi' of the pulses have come on, and that there is not the slightest hope. It can probably only be two hours, though it may last till evening. He has formally taken leave, saying that medicine is useless, and that it is no use for him to return any more. Since the early morning my darling has been lying with her hand in mine, leaning her head against mine on the pillow, her eyes turned upwards, her lips constantly moving in inarticulate prayer. She has asked, 'What day is it? I think it is my birthday to-day.' I have not told her it is her father's birthday, as I believe it will be her own birthday in heaven.
"11 A.M.—She has again appeared to be at the last extremity. Raising her eyes to heaven and taking my hand, she has prayed fervently but inaudibly. Then she prayed audibly for blessings for me and Lea, and, with a grateful look to Emma, added, 'And for dear Emma too.'
"1 P.M.—She wandered a little, and asked if the battle was over. 'Yes,' said Lea, 'and the victory won.'
"1½ P.M.—'I am all straight now, no more crookedness.... You must do something, dear, to build yourself up; you must be a good deal pulled down by all this.... Rest now, but work, work for God in life.
"'Don't expect too much good upon earth.
"'Don't expect too much perfection in one another.
"'Work for eternity.
"'Only try for love.
"2 P.M.—'Oh, how happy I am! I have everything I want here and hereafter.'
"2.10.—(With eyes uplifted and hands clasped.) ... 'Living water. The Lamb, the Lamb is the life.'
"2.15.—C. L. repeated at her request 'Abide with me, fast falls the eventide.'
"2.30.—The dear Mother herself, with her changed voice, clasped hands, and uplifted eyes, has repeated the hymn 'Just as I am, without one plea.'
"3 P.M.—'I am glad I am not going to stay. I could not do you any more good, and I am so happy.'
"4 P.M.—(With intense fervour.) 'O God, O God! God alone can save—one and eternal. Amen! Amen!'
"4.15.—'Let us be one in heaven, dear, as we are one on earth.'
"4.30.—'Oh, let me go.... I have said I was ready to go so often, but you won't give me up.' I said, 'I think you had better try to sleep a little now, darling.'—'Yes, but let it be the last: I have had so many, many last sleeps.'—'You are in no pain now, dearie?' I said. 'Oh no, no pain; there is no pain on the borderland of heaven.
"'May He who ruleth all, both in heaven and earth, bless you, my child—bless you and keep you from ill. Love, love, perfect love, love on earth and then love in heaven.... I can hear words from the upper world now and none from the nearer. They have taught me things that were dark to me before.'
"5 P.M.—'Peace be with you, peace and love.
"'Sin below, grace above.
"'We sinners below, Christ above.
"'All love, all truth in Jesus Christ, my Lord and my God.'
"5½ P.M.—'Oh, let it be. It could not be better—no doubt, no difficulty.... All the good things of this world, what are they?... soon pass away—pride, vanity, vexation of spirit; but oh! love! love!' It was after saying these words that my darling's face became quite radiant, and that she looked upward with an expression of rapture. 'I see a white dove,' she said, 'oh, such a beautiful white dove, floating towards me.' Soon after this she exclaimed, 'Oh, Lord Jesus, oh, come quickly'.... When she opened her eyes, 'What a wilful child you are! you will not let your mother depart, and she is so ready.'—'Is it he who keeps you?' said C. L. 'No, a better One; but let me go or let me stay, O Lord, I have no will but Thine.'"[369]
"2 A.M. March 5.—During the night she has prayed constantly aloud for various relations and friends by name, and often for me. Once she said, 'Ever upright, ever just, sometimes irritable, weak in temperament, that others should love him as I have done ... and a good wife, that is what I have always thought.'
"8 P.M. March 5.—Twice to-day there has been a sudden sinking of nature, life almost extinct, and then, owing to the return of fever, there has been a rally. She became excited if I left her even for a moment, so through last night and to-day I have constantly sat behind her on the bed, supporting her head on a pillow in my arms.
"10 P.M.—Emma Simpkinson is come for the night, but there is a strange change. My mother is asleep! quietly asleep—the fever is reduced after the aconite which I insisted upon, and which the homœopathic doctor said must end her life in half-an-hour.
"Friday evening, March 6.—All day there has been a rally, and she has now power to cough again. Grilli had given the case up, so at noon to-day I had no scruple in sending for Dr. Topham, writing full explanation of the strange case. He says it is the most extraordinary he has ever seen and a most interesting study—'Before such a miracle of nature, science can only sit still.' Life still hangs on a thread, but there is certainly an improvement. She knows none but me."
"Saturday evening, March 7.—What a quiet day of respite we have had after all the long tension and anxiety. My darling's face has resumed a natural expression, and she now lies quite quiet, sleeping, and only rousing herself to take nourishment."
I have copied these fragments from my journal of two terrible weeks, written upon my knees by my mother's side, when we felt every hour must be the last, and that her words, so difficult to recall afterwards, would be almost our only consolation when the great desolation had really fallen. But no description can give an idea of the illness—of the strange luminousness of the sunken features, such as one reads of in lives of Catholic saints—of the marvellous beauty of her expression—of the thrilling accents in which many words were spoken, from which her sensitive retiring nature would have shrunk in health. Had there been physically any reason for hopefulness, which there was not—had the doctors given any hope of recovery, which they did not, her appearance, her words, her almost transfiguration would have assured us that she was on the threshold of another world. I feel that those who read must—like those who saw—almost experience a sort of shock at her being given back to us again. Yet I believe that God heard my prayer in St. Peter's for the two years more. During that time, and that time only, she was spared to bless us, and to prepare me better for the final separation when it really came. She was also spared to be my support in another great trial of my life, to which we then never looked forward. But I will return to my journal, with which ordinary events now again entwine themselves.
"March 10, 1868.—My darling is gradually but slowly regaining strength, the doctor saying he can give no medicine, but that he can only stand still in awe before the marvels of nature, whilst we, the watchers, are gradually rallying from the great strain and tension of the last week.
"Yesterday was Santa Francesca Romana's day. I went to her house, the old Ponziani Palace, now the Ezercizii Pii, hung outside for the day with battered tapestry and strewn within with box. The rooms inside are the same as when the Saint lived in them, with raftered ceilings, and many of them turned into chapels. Downstairs is the large room which she turned into a hospital, and there is a bright open courtyard planted with orange-trees, though certainly nothing of the 'magnificent Ponziani Palace' described by Lady Georgiana Fullerton in her book.
"Thence to the Tor de' Specchi, where a cardinal, a number of Roman ladies, and a crowd of others were passing through the bright old rooms covered with frescoes and tapestry, and looking into the pleasant courtyards of the convent with their fountains and orange-trees. Upstairs is a fine chapel, where the skeleton of the Saint lies under the altar, dressed as an Oblate (with the face exposed), but in a white veil and white gloves! The living Oblates flitting about were very interesting picturesque-looking women, mostly rather old. Several relics of Santa Francesca are preserved. On a table near the entrance was the large flat vase in which she made ointment for the poor, filled with flowers.
"On Sunday, when many ladies went to the Pope, he made them a little sermon about their guardian angels and Sta. Francesca Romana."
"March 15.—My sweet Mother is in almost exactly the same state—a sort of dormouse existence, and so weak that she can scarcely hold up her head; yet she has been twice wheeled into the sitting-room.
"I have been with the Fitzmaurices to the Castle of S. Angelo, very curious, and the prisons of Beatrice Cenci and her stepmother, most ghastly and horrid. There are between seven and eight hundred men there now, and many prisoners. Over the prison doors passers-by had made notes in chalk: one was 'O voi che entrate qui, lasciate ogni speranza;' another, 'On sait quand on entre, on ne sait pas quand on sort;' another, 'Hôtel des Martyrs.'
"On Friday evening I rushed with all the world to the receptions of the new cardinals—first to the Spanish Embassy, then to the Colonna to see Cardinal Bonaparte,[371] who has a most humble manner and a beautiful refined face like Manning at his best; and then to the Inquisition, where Cardinal de Monaco was waiting to receive in rooms which were almost empty."
"March 30.—The dear Mother makes daily progress. She has the sofa in her bedroom, and lies there a great deal in the sunny window.
"I went to Mrs. Lockwood's theatricals, to which, as she said, 'all the people above the rank of a duchess were asked down to the letter M.' The play, L'Aïeule, was wonderfully well done by Princess Radziwill, Princess Pallavicini, Princess Scilla, Duca del Gallo, and others, a most beautiful electric light being let in when the grandmother steals in to give the poison to the sleeping girl."
"May 8.—We leave Rome to-morrow—leave it in a flush of summer glory, in a wealth unspeakable of foliage and flowers, orange blossoms scenting our staircase, the sky deep blue.
"All the last fortnight poor Emma Simpkinson[372] has been terribly ill—a great anxiety to us as to what was best to be done for her, but we hope now that she may be moved to England, and I must go with my restored Mother, who is expanding like a flower in the sunshine.
"This afternoon, at the crowded time, the young Countess Crivelli, the new Austrian Ambassadress, drove down the Corso. At the Porta del Popolo she met her husband's horse without a rider. Much alarmed, she drove on, and a little farther on she found her husband's dead body lying in the road. She picked it up, and drove back down the Corso with the dead man by her side."
Amongst the many English who spent this spring in Rome, I do not find any note, in my diaries, of Lord Houghton, yet his dinners for six in the Via S. Basilio were delightful. His children were real children then, and his son, Robin,[373] a boy of wonderful promise. Lord Houghton was never satisfied with talking well and delightfully himself; his great charm was his evident desire to draw out all the good there was in other people.
JOURNAL.
"Venice, May 10, 1868.—We had a terribly hot journey by Spoleto and Ancona, and came on to Este. It is a long drive up from the station to the primitive little town close under the Euganean Hills, with the ruined castle where the first Guelph was born. The inn (La Speranza) is an old palace, and our sittingroom was thirty-four feet long. The country is luxuriance itself, covered with corn and flax, separated by rows of peach and fig trees, with vines leaping from tree to tree. I drove to Arqua, a most picturesque village in a hollow of the hills. In the little court of the church is Petrarch's tomb, of red Verona marble, and on the high ridge his house, almost unaltered, with old frescoes of his life, his chair, his chest, and his stuffed cat, shrunk almost to a weasel."
"Augsburg, May 24.—From Venice we saw Torcello—the Mother, Lea, and I in a barca gliding over those shallow mysterious waters to the distant island and its decaying church, where we sat to draw near Attila's marble chair half buried in the rank growth of the mallows.
"We came away by an early train to Verona, and drove in the afternoon to San Zenone, and then to the beautiful Giusti gardens for the sunset. Mother was able to climb up to the summer-house on the height, and the gardener gave us pinks and roses.
"On the 24th we came on to Trent, a most attractive place, with an interesting cathedral, fine fountains, beautiful trees, and surroundings of jagged pink mountains tipped with snow. Cheating the Alps by crossing the Brenner, we went by Salzburg to Berchtesgaden, where we found quiet rooms with a splendid view of the snow-clad Watzmann. We were rowed down the Königsee as far as the waterfall, Lea dreadfully frightened on the lake."
From Augsburg we went to Oberwesel on the Rhine, where we were very happy in a primitive hotel amid the vines and old timberhouses. On our second morning there, while I was drawing on the shore of the river, a strange and terrible presentiment came over me of some great misfortune, some overwhelming grief which was then taking place in England. I threw down my drawing things and hurried back to the hotel to my mother. "Never," I said, "have these sudden presentiments come to me without meaning. I am sure you will listen to me when I say that we ought to be in England directly."—"Yes," she said, "I quite believe it; let us go at once;" and then and there, in the hot morning, we walked down to the train. We travelled all night, and at daybreak we were in England. I confess that, as we travelled, the detailed impression which I had from my presentiment was wrong. I thought of what would have affected my mother most. I fancied that, as I was sitting on the Rhine shore, Arthur Stanley had died at Westminster. But John Gidman met us with our little carriage at Hastings, and as we drove up to Holmhurst he told me the dreadful truth—that, at the very moment of my presentiment, my sister Esmeralda had expired.
I still feel the echo of that terrible anguish.
"Sleep sweetly, dear one; thou wilt wake at dawn."—MOSCHUS.
"Her mind was one of those pure mirrors from which the polluting breath passes away as it touches it."—Bishop Heber.
"Cette longue et cruelle maladie qu'on appelle la vie, est enfin guérie."—Mademoiselle d'Espinasse.
"Let her pure soul ...
Remain my pledge in heaven, as sent to show
How to this portal every step I go."—Sir John Beaumont.
I THINK that I have not written anything concerning the life of my sister after we met her at Rome in the winter of 1865-66. Since that time she had been more incessantly engrossed by the affairs, and often very trivial interests, of the Roman Catholic Church, but without for a moment relaxing her affection and cordiality towards us. Great was my pleasure in watching how, in spite of all religious differences, my mother became increasingly fond of her every time they met. I think it is William Penn who says, "The meek, the just, the pious, the devout, are all of one religion."
On leaving Rome in 1866, Esmeralda made it an object to visit the famous "Nun of Monza," Ancilla Ghizza, called in religion the "Madre Serafina della Croce." This nun had been founding a religious order at Monza, which was at first intended to be affiliated to the Sacramentarie on the Quirinal at Rome. She was supposed to have not only the "stigmata," but the marks of our Lord's scourging, to be gifted with a wonderful power and knowledge of the interior life, and to possess the gift of prophecy. She was summoned to Rome, and, after three years' noviciate at the Sacramentarie, she was permitted, in 1862, to return to Monza, and to begin her community, fifteen nuns being clothed at the same time. She used to distribute little crosses which she declared to have been blessed by our Lord in person, and she was often in an ecstasy, in which it was alleged that her body became so light that she could be raised from the ground by a single hair of her head! Concerning Serafina della Croce, Esmeralda had already received from a celebrated Italian ecclesiastic the following:—
"Venezia, 3 Gennaio, 1864.—Mi scusi se io così presto riprendo la penna, per offrirle il mio povero tentativo di consolarla, sotto la forma di questa piccola croce, che io ebbi dall' Ancilla Ghizzi di Monza, e che è stata benedetta dalle mani stesse di Nostro Signore in una visione. Io potrei dirle molto di queste croci, ma ci vorrebbe troppo tempo. Così io le dirò soltanto per affermare la sua opinione sopra la santità di questa serva di Dio, che io conosco qui un sacerdote che andò a vederla, e al quale il confessore dell' Ancilla delegò la sua autorità, dicendogli che poteva commandarla ed interrogarla per un' ora, come se fosse lui stesso il suo confessore. Infatti, portatosi dall' Ancilla, senza che essa fosse stata avvertita di quest' accordo fra loro, il Sacerdote le diède mentalmente l'obbedienza di unirsi con Dio in orazione, ed essa immediatamente andò in estasi, e continuò un' ora intera in questo stato, nel qual tempo egli le domandò mentalmente varie cose in rapporto a certe persone che desiderebbero essere raccomandate alle sue preghiere, ed essa rispondeva al suo precetto mentale, raccomandogli ogni persona ed ogni domanda al Signore di viva voce, continuando così un dialogo non interrotto. Qualche volta per la soddisfazione di una terza persona che era presente, questo Sacerdote gli diceva all' orecchio il soggetto sopra il quale voleva schiarimento. Debbo aggiungere che in questo stato il suo corpo è così leggiero che la poteva sollevare da terra per un solo dei suoi capelli, come se non avesse più nessun peso. Ho pure veduto dei manoscritti voluminosi del suo confessore pieni di maraviglie, e che dimostrano che la sua familiarità colle cose e colle persone celesti è arrivata ad un tal punto, che si può ben paragonare a tutto ciò che si legge nelle vite dei santi. Anzi a me mi pare che supera tutto quel che io ho letto fin qui."
Another intention of Esmeralda was to visit "Torchio," the inspired cobbler at Turin, and consult him on various subjects. This Torchio had had the most extraordinary visions of the Judgment; but alas! I neglected to write down the long verbal account which my sister gave me of her visit to him, and thus it is lost. I have only the following, written in crossing the Mont Cenis with an Asiatic bishop, to whom Esmeralda had offered a place in her carriage:—
"June 4, 1866.—For three days running before leaving Rome, I had the visits of the venerable Monsignor Natale, and we talked of coming events in the political world. I went over from Pisa to Leghorn, and there I saw a very remarkable person called Suora Carolina. We went to Milan for one day, and from thence to Monza. I saw the bishop, and besought and entreated, and at last he gave permission, and I was the first to pass through the closed door of the convent, and to kneel and kiss the hand of the saint. Auntie went with me. I can never express what I felt. It was like seeing S. Francesco d'Assisi, and it seemed like a dream as, side by side, we walked through the cloisters and then went up into her cell: one so highly favoured! it was too much happiness. All I had heard was nothing to the reality, and there was Auntie sitting in her cell, the other nuns standing round. Her face was quite beautiful, quite heavenly.
"And then we returned to Milan and started for Turin, and there I went to see Torchio, the celebrated Torchio, as he sat on his basket and spoke as he was inspired. It was a wonderful and beautiful sermon, both in word and action. When he spoke of the Passion, one seemed to follow him to Calvary. He is a poor man living at the top of a very poor house, but he is an apostle."
Esmeralda returned to London to Mrs. Thorpe's, but in the autumn she went north and paid visits to the Monteiths and Stourtons and to Lady Herries in Yorkshire. Lady Herries said afterwards that she liked to think of her as she so often saw her in the chapel at Everingham, praying, "oh, so fervently," for hours together. As her life became more absorbed in devotion and religious interests, she was conscious of the danger of neglecting earthly duties and sympathies. On August 4, 1866, she wrote:—
"Let me walk in the presence of God without underrating His gifts, for the underrating of God's gifts is one of the temptations which I am required to fight against."
On September 8 she wrote:—
"Let me surrender entirely my individual will, to be completely united and absorbed in the will of Jesus Christ,—then will the truths of Christianity become a fixed life in my soul.
"The great impediment to the life of Jesus in the soul is the aiming at mediocrity in things pertaining to our Lord and to a spiritual life; whereas our Master would have us aim at perfection, and bear in mind as a command His words, 'Be ye perfect.'"
In August Esmeralda was thrown into real heart-mourning by the news which reached England of the death of "the Great Mother," Maria de Matthias. The following is from Pierina Rolleston, Superior of the Order of the Precious Blood in England:—
"My own dearest in the precious blood, I write in haste, and while I write my tears are flowing, because I have sad news to tell you and dear Mrs. Montgomery, who are both children of the Institute, and love our beloved Mother-General, who is in heaven, praying for us all. The following is a copy of a letter I received yesterday from Monsignor Talbot:—'I write to announce to you the death of your Mother-General. She expired two days ago—died as she lived, after giving examples of patience and resignation in the midst of her sufferings. To-morrow her funeral will be celebrated at the Church of SS. Vincenzo ed Anastasio, and I intend to attend. I do not think you need fear for the future of your Institute, because I think that the successor of your late Mother-General, though she may not be so saintly a person, will be equally able to carry on the business. I do not think you can be too grateful to Almighty God for having such friends as Monsignor Paterson and Miss Hare.' ... My dearest, I write in haste that you may receive all the news of our beloved Mother. Sister Carolina Longo, whom she named as her successor upon her death-bed, is a good clever nun, and she was Mother's dear child. She lived with Mother from a child of eight years old, and became a religious about the age of twenty-two. We have lost one of the dearest of mothers, but can look up to her in heaven, and I am sure she will help us in our work.... With fond love in the precious blood, I am always your most affectionate in Christ,
"Pierina of the Precious Blood."
The winter of 1866-67 was chiefly passed by my sister at the house of Mrs. Alfred Montgomery at Ifield near Crawley, where Esmeralda and her aunt for many months shared in the housekeeping. For Esmeralda had been induced to regard Mrs. Montgomery as a religious martyr, and her impressionable nature was completely fascinated by her hostess. While at Ifield, a fatal web was drawn each day more closely by her Catholic associates, by which Esmeralda was induced to entrust large sums to her brother Francis for speculation upon the political prophecies of Madame de Trafford. Her unworldly nature was persuaded to consent to this means of (as Francis represented) largely increasing her income, by the prospect which was held out to her of having more money to employ in assisting various religious objects, especially the establishment of the Servites in London, and the foundation of their church, for which she had promised Father Bosio, General of the Servites, to supply £500, to be obtained either by collections or otherwise, at the expiration of three years. Esmeralda never knew or had the faintest idea of the sum to which her speculations amounted. She was beguiled on from day to day by two evil advisers, and, her heart being in other things, was induced to trust and believe that her worldly affairs were in the hands of disinterested persons. The lists of her intended employments for the next day, so many of which remained amongst her papers, show how little of her time and attention was given to pecuniary matters. From them it is seen that a quarter of an hour allotted to the discussion of investments with her brother would be preceded by an hour spent in writing about the affairs of a French convent or the maintenance of a poor widow in Rome, and followed by an hour devoted to the interests of the Servites or some other religious body. There is no doubt that Esmeralda undertook far more than was good either for her health or for her mind; each hour of every day was portioned out from the day before, and was fully and intensely occupied, especially when she was in London. If visitors or any unexpected circumstance prevented the task for which she had allotted any particular hour, she did not leave it on that account unfulfilled, but only detracted from the hours of rest. One thing alone, her daily meditation, she allowed nothing to interfere with. In the hours of meditation she found the refreshment which helped her through the rest of the day. "Our Lord requires of us that our souls should become a tabernacle for Him to dwell in," she wrote on February 2, 1867, "and the lamp lighted before it is the lamp of our affections."
All through the summer of 1866, my brother William's health had been declining, and in the autumn, in the hope of benefit from the sea-breezes, he was moved to Brighton, which he never left. After Christmas day he was never able to leave the house. The small fortune of his pretty helpless wife had been lost in a bankruptcy, and they were reduced to a state of destitution in which they were almost devoid of the absolute necessaries of life. The following are extracts from William's letters to his sister at this time:—
"You cannot imagine how I miss your letters when you cease to write for any length of time.... Since Sunday I have been confined to my bed, having almost lost all use of my limbs. I could not possibly be moved to our sitting-room, being in so weak and emaciated a condition, and I fear I shall have to keep my bed all through this bitter cold weather. I am so miserably thin that it is with the greatest difficulty that I can contrive to sit or lie in any position. It is, however, God's will that it should be so, and I am enabled to say 'Thy will be done, O Lord.' ... God has mercifully vouchsafed me time for repentance, and has brought me back to Himself, and made me one with Him by strengthening me with His own body, so that, dear sister, I feel supremely happy and at peace with all the world; and should it please Almighty God to call me hence, I feel serene in His love, that He has graciously forgiven me all my sins, and that He will take me to Himself where there is no longer any pain or suffering. Father Crispin came on Wednesday to hear my confession, and on Thursday morning he administered the most Blessed Sacrament to me. ... Dear Edith has received £10 lately, which you may well suppose at this critical time was obtained with very great difficulty; but all this money has been expended on my illness, and there is nothing left for the doctor's visits, medicine, or to pay the butcher, baker, washerwoman, milk, or coal bill. Yet it will not do to give up the doctor in my critical state, or to cease taking his medicine, or to deny myself the necessary restoratives; if I did I must inevitably sink. Will you not, in compassion for my fallen state, consent to make me some sort of allowance during my illness to enable me to obtain what is necessary?
"Mr. Blackwood (you will remember 'Beauty Blackwood,' who married the Duchess of Manchester[376]) has sent me a little book which he has just published—'The Shadow and the Substance,' which he assures me is quite free from controversy, and he desires me to read it with especial care and attention, as being conducive to my comfort during hours of sickness and suffering."
My sister immediately sent William all he required, when he again wrote:—
"How can I thank you sufficiently for so generously responding to my appeal in more senses than one, by sending me money to relieve the pressure of want, books to comfort me in hours of sickness, and wine to cheer and strengthen me?... Should I be spared, I must accept this illness as one of the greatest, indeed the greatest blessing I could possibly receive, for it has taught me my own nothingness, my all insufficiency, and it has drawn me from a sphere of sin into a sphere of grace; it has caused me to despise the world and all its vanities, and has diverted my heart and whole being to Almighty God; it has brought me into close communion with Him, strengthened by the graces of His Holy Sacraments, and has made me feel the blessedness of constant prayer. Oh, I would not change my present state for worlds; and should it please Almighty God to call me from hence, I feel that He will receive me into everlasting peace. Father Crispin called last evening: he considers me so prostrate that he intends administering the sacrament of Extreme Unction. Pray for me! I cannot express to you how rejoiced I am that we are again hand in hand together. You should not forget the days of our youth, we were always inseparable; we were then estranged from each other, and a very, very bitter time that was to me. I cannot say that I am any better."
After the receipt of this letter my sister hurried to Brighton, and she was there when William died. On the 11th of March she wrote to me:—
"We are here to be with William, to wait by his bedside during these last days of his illness. On Thursday night, and again on Friday night, it seemed as if the last hour was come, but there is now a slight, a very slight improvement, so that he may live a few days longer. Yesterday there came over him a momentary wish to recover, but it passed away, and his calm resignation was really unbroken and continues the same to-day. He does not murmur, though his sufferings must be terrible.... From time to time he asks me to read aloud a few lines of the 'Imitation of Christ,' but I can scarcely do it without breaking down as I look up and see those sunken cheeks and large glazed eyes fixed upon me with such a deep look of intense suffering."
Two unexpected friends appeared to cheer William's last days. One was the young Duchess of Sutherland, who had been intimate with him as a child, and having never met him since the days when they both lived in the Maison Valin, heard accidentally of his illness at Brighton; she came repeatedly to see him, and supplied him with many comforts, and even luxuries. The other was the well-known Miss Marsh, the authoress of the "Memorials of Hedley Vicars,"—the staunch Protestant, but liberal Christian. She happened to call to see the landlady of the lodging where he was, when, hearing of William's illness and poverty, she went constantly to visit him, and laying aside in the shadow of death all wish for controversy, read and prayed with him in the common sympathy of their Christian faith and trust. She wrote afterwards:—
"Blessed be God that I have no doubt that the dying friend in whom I have been so deeply interested was in Christ and is now with Him. We never spoke together of Romanism or Protestantism; all I cared for was to persuade him, by the help of the Holy Ghost, to accept at once the offer of a free and present salvation through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and through Him only: and to believe God's word that he that believeth on the Son of God hath everlasting life, because of His one sacrifice once offered for the sins of the whole world. And he did believe it, and false confidences faded away like shadows before the sunrise. 'Jesus only' became all his salvation and all his desire, and he passed into His presence with a radiant smile of joy. I was not with him when he died, but the hour of communing with his spirit that same evening was one of the sweetest I have spent on earth."
My sister has left some notes of that which occurred after William's death:—
"After all was over, and when the room was decorated and the body laid out, Miss Marsh came to see him, and taking his dead hand, she placed a white camellia in it. Then kneeling by the side of the bed, she offered up the most beautiful prayer aloud, in which she described as in a picture our Blessed Lord and the angels receiving his soul. It was quite wonderfully beautiful: there was only one thing she left out; she never mentioned Our Blessed Lady; she placed the angels before our Lady. I was standing at the foot of the bed with a crucifix, and when she ceased praying, I said, 'But you have never spoken of Our Lady: I cannot let Our Lady be passed over.' And Miss Marsh was not angry; no, she only rose from her knees, and coming to me, she threw her arms round my neck and said, 'Do not let us dispute upon this now; we have one God and one Saviour in common, let us rest upon these,' and she came to see me afterwards when I was ill in London.
"'Know thou that courtesy is one of God's own properties, who sendeth His rain and His sunshine upon the just and the unjust out of His great courtesy; and verily Courtesy is the sister of Charity, who banishes hatred and cherishes love.' Were not these the words of the dear S. Francis of Assisi?
"During William's illness Miss Marsh came every day with something for him, and quite stripped her own room to give him her own chair, and even her mattress. She was just the one person William wanted. Any dried-up person might have driven him back, but she was daily praying by his side, handsome, enthusiastic, dwelling only on the love of God, and she helped him on till he began really to think the love of God the only thing worth living for.
"'O sister,' he said to me once, 'if it should please God that I should live, all my life would be given up to Him.'
"The doctor who went up to him when he was told that he could not live many hours came down with tears upon his face. 'There must indeed be something in religion,' he said, 'when that young man can be so resigned to die.'"
On the Saturday after William's death my sister wrote to us:—
"Now that dear William's last call has come, I feel thankful for his sake. The good priest who attended him in all the latter part of his illness wrote to me the day after his death that I could have no cause of anxiety for his everlasting welfare. It was a beautiful death, he was so happy, peaceful, and resigned. I had only left him a very short time when he again asked for Edith. She came up to his bedside, and then there seemed to come over William's face a bright light illuminating his countenance, and fixing his eyes upwards with a short sigh, he breathed his last. There was no suffering then, no agony. I had asked him if he feared death. 'No,' he said, and looked as if he wondered at the thought coming into my mind. He felt he had found the only true peace and happiness. He told me he wished to be buried at Kensal Green. His only anxiety was about poor Edith, and when I told him that I would do what lay in my power for her, he seemed satisfied, and never, I believe, gave this world another thought, but prepared to meet our Blessed Lord. That beautiful look of peace was on his face after death. Francis arrived too late to see him alive, but when he looked on William's face he said, 'Oh, sister, how beautiful!' The little room was draped with black and white. There he lay, and we were coming and going, and praying by the side of the open coffin. On Tuesday will be the funeral. On Monday the body will be removed to the Church of St. Mary of the Angels, Bayswater, where it will remain through the night, according to devout Roman custom."
After the funeral Esmeralda wrote:—
"Ifield Lodge, Crawley.—When the long sad week was over, I felt all power of further exertion gone, and yet it seemed, as it does now, that for the soul God had taken to Himself, should the happiness of that soul not yet be perfected, prayers must be obtained, and that I must work on and on as long as life lasts. There is a feeling of longing to help in the mind of every Catholic for those departed. On Monday the 24th the dear remains were moved from Brighton by the 6 P.M.train. Auntie and I went up by the same train from Three Bridges, and Francis came to the Victoria Station to meet the coffin; but such was the heavy feeling of sorrow, that, though we were on the platform at the same time, we did not see each other.
"The next morning I went for Edith, and we arrived at the church early. The body had been placed in one of the side-chapels, and had remained there through the night. Before mass it was brought out, and remained before the high-altar during mass. There were many of William's friends present, and also Margaret Pole, now Mrs. Baker. The funeral procession formed at the door of the church. As the body was moved down the church, Edith and I followed after the officiating priests. I held Edith's hand tightly, and did not intend her to get into one of the mourning coaches, but suddenly, as the hearse moved slowly from the church door, she wrenched her hand from my grasp and was gone before I had time to speak. Four nuns went to say the responses at the grave. One was the nun who had nursed dear Mama through her last hours, and had stayed on with me in Bryanston Street. I returned from the church to the hotel, and there Auntie and Edith found me after the funeral was over.
"The funeral service in the church was very solemn, but there was no weight of gloom or sadness. The strong feeling of the safety of the soul was such a consolation, that the end for which that soul had been created had been gained, and that if it were not then in heaven, the day would come soon, and could be hastened by the prayers said for it. His dear remains rest now under the figure of Our Lady of Sorrows, which he had so wished to see erected. I never looked forward to such a deathbed for William, where there would be so much peace and love of God, and now I can never feel grateful enough for such grace granted at the eleventh hour. May we all and each have as beautiful an end and close of life. Edith says, 'Oh I wish I could see what William saw when he looked up with that bright light on his face.' With that look all suffering is blotted out of poor Edith's mind, all her long watchings.
"I can never feel grateful enough to Miss Marsh for all her kindness to William. It helped him to God, and it was very, very beautiful.... I hope still to go to Rome for the funzione in June, and also to Hungary for the coronation of the Emperor."
May 1867 was passed by my sister in London, where, by her astonishing cleverness and perseverance, she finally gained the last of her lawsuits, that for the family plate, when it had been lost in three other courts. Soon after, in spite of the great heat of the summer, Esmeralda started for Rome, to be present at the canonisation of the Japanese martyrs, paying a visit to Madame de Trafford on the way. She wrote to me:—
"When I first went to Beaujour, I was afraid to tell Madame de Trafford that I intended to go to Rome. 'Mais où allez vous donc, ma chère?' said Madame de Trafford. 'Mais, Madame, je vais ... en voyage.'—'Vous allez en voyage, ça je comprends, mais ça ne répond pas à ma question: vous allez en voyage, mais il faut aller quelque part, où allez vous donc?'—'Mais, Madame, vous verrez de mon retour.'—'Mais où allez vous donc, ma chère? dites-moi, où allez vous?'—'Je vais à ... Rome!' Madame de Trafford sprang from her chair as I said this, and exclaimed, 'Rome, Rome, ce mot de Rome, Rome, Rome ... et vous allez à Rome ... moi aussi je vais à Rome,' and she went with us. From the time that Madame de Trafford determined to go, Auntie made no opposition to our going, and was quite satisfied."
The journey to Rome with Madame de Trafford was full of unusual incidents. The heat was most intense, and my sister suffered greatly from it. At Turin she was so ill that she thought it impossible to proceed, but Madame de Trafford insisted upon her getting up and going on. Whilst they were still en route Madame de Trafford telegraphed to Rome for a carriage and every luxury to be in readiness. She also telegraphed to Pisa to bid M. Lamarre, the old family cook of Parisani, go to Rome to prepare for them. My sister telegraphed to Monsignor Talbot to have places reserved for the ceremonies, &c. All the last part of the way the trains were crowded to the greatest possible degree, hundreds of pilgrims joining at every station in Umbria and the Campagna, for whom no places were reserved, so that the train was delayed six or seven hours behind its time, and the heat was increased, by the overcrowding, to the most terrible pitch. My sister wrote:—
"In the carriage with us from Florence was a young Florentine noble, a Count Gondi, all of whose relations I knew. He asked me what I should do after the canonisation. 'Ça dépend, M. le Comte, si on attaquera Rome.'—'Mais, certainement on l'attaquera.'—'Eh bien, done je reste.'—'Mais vous restez, Mademoiselle, si on attaque Rome.'—'Oui, certainement.'—'Et vous, Madame,' said Count Gondi, turning to Madame de Trafford. 'Mais si on attaque Rome,' said Madame de Trafford, 'je ferais comme Mademoiselle Hare, je reste, bien sure.' His amazement knew no bounds.
"When we arrived at Rome, I was so afraid that Madame de Trafford might do something very extraordinary that I made her sleep in my room, and slept myself in the little outer room which we used to call the library, so that no one could pass through it to my room without my knowing it. The morning after we arrived she came into my room before I was up. I said, 'Mais, Madame, c'était à moi de vous rendre cette visite?'—'Laissez donc ces frivolités,' said Madame de Trafford, 'nous ne sommes pas ici pour les frivolités comme cela: parlons du sérieux; commençons.'"
The ceremonies far more than answered my sister's expectations. She entered St. Peter's with Madame de Trafford by the Porta Sta. Marta, and they saw everything perfectly. She met the Duchess Sora in the church, radiant with ecstasy over what she considered so glorious a day for Catholicism. "I knew you would be here," said the Duchess; "you could not have been away." The meeting was only for a moment, and was their last upon earth. "When the voices of the three choirs swelled into the dome," wrote Esmeralda, "then I felt what the Pope expressed in words, 'the triumph of the Church has begun.' When we first went into St. Peter's, Giacinta,[377] who had felt I should be there, was waiting for me. 'Eccola, la figlia,' she said, 'io l'aspettava.'"
Afterwards Giacinta came to see my sister at the Palazzo Parisani. "I shall never forget the meeting of those two souls," wrote Esmeralda, "when Giacinta first saw Madame de Trafford. They had never heard of one another before: I had never mentioned Giacinta to Madame de Trafford, and she had never heard of Madame de Trafford, but they understood one another at once. Madame de Trafford passed through the room while Giacinta was talking to me, and seeing only a figure in black talking, she did not stop and passed on. Giacinta started up and exclaimed, 'Chi è?'—'Una signora,' I said. 'Quello se vede,' said Giacinta, 'ma quello non è una risposta—chi è?'—and when I told her, 'O vede un' anima,' she exclaimed. Madame de Trafford then did what I have never known her do for any other person; she looked into the room and said, 'Faites la passer dans ma chambre,' and we went in, and the most interesting conversation followed."
As she returned through Tuscany, Esmeralda had her last meeting with her beloved Madame Victoire, who had then no presentiment of the end. At Paris she took leave of Madame de Trafford, and returned to London, where she for the first time engaged a permanent home—5 Lower Grosvenor Street. The furnishing of this house was the chief occupation of the next two months, though Esmeralda began by depositing in the empty rooms a large crucifix which Lady Lothian had given her, and saying, "Now the house is furnished with all that is really important, and Providence will send the rest." A room at the top of the house was arranged as an oratory; an altar was adorned with lace, flowers, and images; a lamp burned all night long before the crucifix, and if Esmeralda could not sleep, she was in the habit of retiring thither and spending long hours of darkness in silent prayer. There also she kept the vigil of "the Holy Hour." Early every morning the Catholic household in Grosvenor Street was awakened by the sharp clang of the prayer-bell outside the oratory door.
I went to stay with my sister in August for a few days. Esmeralda was at this time looking very pale and delicate, but not ill. Though the beauty of her youth had passed away, and all her troubles had left their trace, she was still very handsome. Her face, marble pale, was so full of intelligence and expression, mingled with a sort of sweet pathos, that many people found her far more interesting than before, and all her movements were marked by a stately grace which made it impossible for her to pass unobserved. Thus she was when I last saw her, pale, but smiling her farewell, as she stood in her long black dress, with her heavy black rosary round her neck, leaning against the parapet of the balcony outside the drawing-room window.
All through the winter Esmeralda wrote very seldom. She was much occupied with her different books, some of which seemed near publication. "The Study of Truth," upon which she had been occupied ever since 1857, had now reached such enormous dimensions, that the very arrangement of the huge pile of MS. seemed almost impossible. A volume of modern American poetry was to be brought out for the benefit of the Servites, and was also in an advanced state; yet her chief interest was a collection of the "Hymns of the Early Church," obtained from every possible source, but chiefly through the aid of foreign monasteries and convents. Upon this subject she kept up an almost daily correspondence with the Padre Agostino Morini of the Servites, who was her chief assistant, especially in procuring the best translations, as the intention was that the original Latin hymn should occupy one page and that the best available translation should in every case be opposite to it: many hundreds of letters remain of this correspondence. In the autumn Esmeralda was again at Ifield Lodge, where she was persuaded into a wild scheme for building a town for the poor at Crawley. Land was bought, measurements and plans were taken, and a great deal of money was wasted, but Esmeralda fortunately withdrew from the undertaking before it was too late.
But the state of excitement and speculation in which she was now persuaded to live had a terrible effect upon Esmeralda, who had continued in a weak and nervous state ever since her hurried journey to Rome. She now found it difficult to exist without the stimulus of daily excitement, and she added one scheme and employment to another in a way which the strongest brain could scarcely have borne up against. On her return to London she threw herself heart and soul into what she called a scheme for the benefit of the "poor rich." She remembered that when she was herself totally ruined, one of her greatest trials was to see her mother suffer from the want of small luxuries in the way of food to which she had been accustomed, and that though their little pittance allowed of what was absolutely necessary, London prices placed chickens, ducks, cream, and many other comforts beyond their reach. Esmeralda therefore arranged a plan by which she had over twice a week, from certain farms in Normandy, large baskets containing chickens (often as many as eighty at a time), ducks, geese, eggs, apples, and various other articles. The prices of the farm produce in Normandy were so low, that she was able, after paying the carriage, to retail the contents of her hampers to the poor families she was desirous of assisting, besides supplying her own house, at a cost of not more than half the London prices. Many families of "poor rich" availed themselves of this help and were most grateful for it, but of course the trouble involved by so many small accounts, with the expenditure of time in writing notes, &c., about the disposition of her poultry was enormous. It was in the carrying out of this scheme that Esmeralda became acquainted with a person called Mrs. Dunlop, wife of a Protestant, but herself a Roman Catholic. Esmeralda never liked Mrs. Dunlop; on the contrary, she both disliked and distrusted her; but owing to her interesting herself in the same charities, she inevitably saw a great deal of her.
During the winter an alarming illness attacked my brother Francis. He was my brother by birth, though I had seldom even seen him, and scarcely ever thought about him. Looking back now, in the distance of years, I wonder that my Mother and I never spoke of him; but he was absolutely without any part in our lives, and we never did, till this winter, when my sister mentioned his refusing to go to live with her in Grosvenor Street, which she had hoped that he would do when she took the house, and of his putting her to the unnecessary expense of paying for lodgings for him. Here he caught cold, and one day, unexpectedly, Dr. Squires came to tell Esmeralda that he considered him at the point of death. She flew to his bedside and remained with him all through the night. As she afterwards described it, she "could not let him die, and she breathed her life into his: she was willing to offer her life for his."
After this Esmeralda wrote to us (to Rome) that the condition of Francis was quite hopeless, and that her next letter must contain the news of his death. What was our surprise, therefore, when the next letter was from Francis himself (who had never written to us before), not merely saying that he was better, but that he was going to be married immediately to a person with whom he had long been acquainted. At the time of this marriage, Esmeralda went away into Sussex, and afterwards, when she returned to London, she never consented to see Mrs. Francis Hare.
My sister's cheque-books of the last year of her life show that during that year alone her brother Francis had received £900 from her, though her income at the most did not exceed £800. He had also persuaded Esmeralda to take a house called "Park Lodge" in Paddington, with an acre and a half of garden. The rent was certainly low, and the arrangement, as intended by Esmeralda, was that her brother should live in two or three rooms of the house, and that the rest should be let furnished. But tenants never came, and Francis lived in the whole of the house, after furnishing it expensively and sending in the bills to his sister, who paid them in her fear lest anxiety about money matters might make him ill again.
At the end of March Esmeralda received a letter from Madame de Trafford, of which she spoke to Mrs. Dunlop. She said, "Madame de Trafford has written to me in dreadful distress. She says she sees me in a very dark, narrow place, where no one can ever get at me, and where no one will ever be able to speak to me any more." Esmeralda laughed as she told this, and said she supposed it referred to the prison to which Augustus said she would have to go for her extravagance; but it was the grave of which Madame de Trafford spoke.
In March, Esmeralda talked to many of her friends of her plans for the future. She said that in consequence of the expense of keeping up the house, she should be obliged to part with Grosvenor Street, and that she should go abroad—to Rome, and eventually to Jerusalem. She did more than merely form the plan of this journey. She had the dresses made which she intended to wear in the East, and for three nights she sat up arranging all her papers, and tying up the letters of her different friends in separate parcels, so that they might more easily be returned to them. To Mary Laffam, her then maid, who assisted her in this, she said, "Mary, I am going on a very, very long journey, from which I may never return, and I wish to leave everything arranged behind me."
In the beginning of May Esmeralda went with her aunt to spend three weeks in Sussex. After she returned to Grosvenor Street, she was very ill with an attack like that from which she had suffered at Dijon several years before. Having been very successfully treated then in France, she persuaded her aunt to obtain the direction of a French doctor. The remedy which this doctor administered greatly increased the malady. This was on Tuesday 19th.
On Thursday 21st my sister was so much weakened and felt so ill, that she dismissed the French doctor, and sent again for her old doctor, Squires, who came at once. He was much shocked at the change in her, and thought that she had been terribly mistreated, but he was so far from being alarmed, that he saw no reason why her house should not be let, as arranged, on the following Tuesday, to Mademoiselle Nilsson, the Swedish songstress, and said that the change would do her good.
About this time, by Esmeralda's request, my aunt wrote to tell Madame de Trafford of the illness, but she did not then express any alarm. On Saturday the good and faithful Mrs. Thorpe[378] saw Esmeralda, and was much concerned at the change in her. She remained with her for some time, and bathed her face with eau-de-Cologne. Esmeralda then took both Mrs. Thorpe's hands in hers, and said no one could do for her as she did. Mrs. Thorpe was so much alarmed at Esmeralda's manner, which seemed like a leave-taking, that she went down to our Aunt Eleanor and tried to alarm her; but she said that as long as the house could be let on Tuesday to Mademoiselle Nilsson, the doctor must be perfectly satisfied, and there could not possibly be anything to apprehend.
Sunday passed without any change except that, both then and on Saturday, whenever her brother Francis was mentioned, Esmeralda became violently agitated, screamed, and said that he was on no account to be admitted.
Father Galway was away, but on Monday Esmeralda sent for Father Eccles, and from him she received the Last Sacraments. When I asked my aunt afterwards if this did not alarm her, she said, "No, it did not, because Esmeralda was so nervous and so dreadfully afraid of dying without the Last Sacraments, that whenever she felt ill she always received them, and the doctor still assured her that all was going on well."
That night (Monday, May 25), a nun of the Misericorde sat up in the room. Aunt Eleanor went to bed as usual. At half-past four in the morning she was called. The most mysterious black sickness had come on, and could not be arrested. Dr. Squires, summoned in haste, says that he arrived exactly as a clock near Grosvenor Square struck five. He saw at once that the case was quite hopeless, still for three hours he struggled to arrest the malady. At the end of that time, Esmeralda suddenly said, "Dr. Squires, this is very terrible, isn't it?"—"Yes," he replied, throwing as much meaning as possible into his voice, "it is indeed most terrible." Upon this Esmeralda started up in the bed and said, "You cannot possibly mean that you think I shall not recover?" Dr. Squires said, "Yes, I am afraid it is my duty to tell you that you cannot possibly recover now."—"But I do not feel ill," exclaimed Esmeralda; "this sickness is very terrible, but still I do not feel ill."—"I cannot help that," answered Dr. Squires, "but I fear it is my duty to tell you that it is quite impossible you can live."
"It was then," said her doctor, "that her expression lost all its anxiety. Death had no terror for her. She was almost radiant." The serenity of her countenance remained unchanged, and to her last moment she was as one preparing for a festival.
After a pause she said, "Tell me how long you think it possible that I should live." Dr. Squires said, "You might live two days, but it is quite impossible that you should live longer than that." She at once asked for writing materials, and with a firm hand, as if she were well, she wrote a telegraphic despatch bidding Madame de Trafford to come to her at once. (The office was then closed, and when it was opened, it was already too late to send the despatch.) Then Dr. Squires kindly and wisely said, "I fear you have little time to lose, and if you wish to make any changes in your will, you had better make them at once." My sister answered, "Oh, I must alter everything. I never thought it possible that I should die before my aunt, and I wish to leave things so that my death will make no difference to her." The doctor, seeing a great change coming on, was afraid to leave the room even to get a sheet of paper, and he wrote upon a scrap of paper which he picked up from the floor. My sister then made a very simple will, leaving everything to her (Protestant) aunt, Miss Paul, except her interest in Park Lodge and a chest of plate which she left to Francis, and her claims to a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds,[379] which she left to me.
When Esmeralda had dictated the page containing these bequests, her doctor wisely made her sign it in the presence of her servants before she proceeded to dictate anything else. Thus the first portion of her will is valid, but before she had come to the end of another page containing small legacies to the Servites, to the Nuns of the Precious Blood, &c., the power of signature had failed, and it was therefore valueless.
Esmeralda then said almost playfully, "You had better send for the Nuns of the Precious Blood, for they would never forgive me, even after all is over, if they had not been sent for," and a maid went off in a cab to fetch the Abbess Pierina. It was then that a priest arrived from Farm Street to administer extreme unction, and Dr. Squires, seeing that he could do nothing more, and that my sister was already past observing who was present, went away.
The Abbess Pierina says that she arrived at the house about nine o'clock, and saw at once that Esmeralda was dying. A priest was praying by the bedside. She remained standing at the foot of the bed for about ten minutes, then she went up to Esmeralda, who said, "I am dying." A few minutes afterwards, in a loud and clear voice, she called "Auntie," and instantly fell back and died.
Thus the day which she looked for as her Sabbath and high day came to her, and she passed to the rest beyond the storm—beyond the bounds of doubt or controversy—to the company of those she justly honoured, and of some whom she never learnt to honour here, in the many mansions of an all-reconciling world. Let us not look for the living amongst the dead. She exchanged her imperfect communion with God here for its full fruition in the peace of that Sabbath which knows no evening.
During the whole of the last terrible hours our poor deaf aunt was in the room, but she had sunk down in her terror and anguish upon the chair which was nearest the door as she came in, and thence she never moved. She never had strength or courage to approach the bed: she saw all that passed, but she heard nothing.
Soon after all was over, the Abbess Pierina came down to my aunt, and revealed—what none of her family had known before—that Esmeralda had long been an Oblate Sister of the Precious Blood, and she begged leave to dress her in the habit of the Order. All the furniture of the room was cleared away or draped with white, and the bed was left standing alone, surrounded night and day by tall candles burning in silver sconces, with a statue of "Our Lady of Sorrows" at the head, and at the foot the great crucifix from the oratory. Esmeralda was clothed in a long black dress, which she had ordered for her journey to Jerusalem, but had never worn, and round her waist was the scarlet girdle of the Precious Blood. On her head was a white crape cap and a white wreath, as for a novice nun.
As soon as Aunt Eleanor was able to think, she sent for her sister, Mrs. Fitz-Gerald, who arrived at 11 A.M. She, as a strong Protestant, said that she could never describe how terrible the next three days were to her. All day long a string of carriages was ceaselessly pouring up the street, and a concourse of people through the house, nuns of the Precious Blood being posted on the different landings to show them where to go. Each post brought letters from all kinds of people they had never heard of before, asking to have anything as a memorial, even a piece of old newspaper which Esmeralda had touched.
On the day after we arrived at Holmhurst from Germany (Sunday 31st), I went up to try to comfort my broken-hearted aunt at the house in Grosvenor Street. The rooms in which I had last seen Esmeralda looked all the more intensely desolate from being just finished, new carpets and chintzes everywhere, only the last pane of the fernery in the back drawing-room not yet put in. My aunt came in trembling all over. It was long before she was able to speak: then she wrung her hands. "Oh, it was so sudden—it was so sudden," she said; and then she became more collected, and talked for hours of all that had passed. Those present said that for the whole of the first day she sat in a stupor, with her eyes fixed on vacancy, and never spoke or moved, or seemed to notice any one who went in or out.
The coffin was already closed, and stood in the middle of the room covered with a white pall, and surrounded by burning candles and vases of flowers. Upon the coffin lay the crucifix which both Italima and Esmeralda held in their hands when they were dying. Near it was the bed, with the mark where the head had lain still unremoved from the pillow.
On Monday afternoon there was a long wearying family discussion as to whether the remains were to be taken to Kensal Green in the evening, to remain throughout the night in the cemetery chapel. Francis insisted that it should be so. Our Aunt Fitz-Gerald declared that if it was done she would not go to the funeral, as she would not follow nothing. I agreed with Mrs. Fitz-Gerald, and the nuns of the Precious Blood were most vehement that the body should not be removed. Eventually, however, Francis carried his point. At 9 P.M. we all went up for the last time to the room, still draped like a chapel, where the coffin lay, covered with fresh flowers, with the great crucifix still standing at the foot between the lighted candles. Then what remained of Esmeralda was taken away.
The next day (June 2) was the funeral. At the cemetery the relations who came from the house were joined by Mr. Monteith, Lady Lothian, Lady Londonderry, Lady Georgiana Fullerton, the Abbess Pierina, and all the nuns of the Precious Blood, with several nuns of the Misericorde.
The chapel was full of people, but it is very small, and a very small part of it is used for seats. The larger part was spread with a rich crimson carpet, in the midst of which rose a kind of catafalque, upon which lay the coffin, covered with a long purple velvet pall, embroidered in golden letters—"May all the holy saints and angels receive her soul." Round this were six candles burning in very tall brass candlesticks. After the priest had gone round with the holy water and incense, a door at the east end of the church was thrown open and the pall removed, when the light poured in upon the coffin and its silver ornaments and the large silver cross lying upon it. Then we all passed out round the shrubberies to the grave, where the vault was opened just behind the beautiful seated statue of "Our Lady of Sorrows" under the cross, which Esmeralda had herself erected. Upon the coffin was engraved—
Anne Frances Maria Louisa Hare,
E. de M.
(Enfant de Marie),
Oblate of the Order of the Precious Blood.
Born October 9, 1832.
Died May 26, 1868.
As the priest said all the leading sentences, the nuns, with clear voice, sang the responses. The whole service occupied nearly an hour and a half. We drove home in total silence: Aunt Fitz-Gerald led Auntie into the desolate house.
Thus was my sweet sister Esmeralda taken from us—being removed from the evil to come.
"Souls of the Holy Dead!
Though fancy whispers thus to musing hearts,
We would not call ye back, whence ye are fled,
To take your parts
In the old battle-strife; or break
With our heartache—
The rest which ye have won and in Christ's presence take."
"Glory to Thee in Thine Omnipotence,
Who dost dispense,
As seemeth best to Thine unerring will
The lot of victory still;
Edging sometimes with might the sword unjust,
And bowing to the dust
The rightful cause, that so much seeming ill
May Thine appointed purposes fulfil."
—SOUTHEY.
"Sprechen ist silbern, Schweigen ist golden."
—Swiss Inscription.
"If you your lips would keep from slips,
Of five things have a care:
To whom you speak, of whom you speak,
And how, and when, and where."
—Old Distich.
AT eleven o'clock on the morning of my sister's death, our aunt, Mrs. Fitz-Gerald, arrived in Grosvenor Street. She wrote to me afterwards:—
"When Eleanor sent for me, after I recovered the shock, I went immediately to Grosvenor Street, and the first thing I asked before going up to Eleanor was, 'Is Mr. Hare (Francis) upstairs?' The maid made answer, 'Oh, no; Miss Hare would not hear of seeing him, and forbade us to let him enter the house, declaring that he had her death to answer for.' I could not believe this statement, and I called another servant into the dining-room, who repeated exactly the same thing, saying also that things had taken place in that house which were fearful, and that they were afraid of their lives. I was the innocent cause of Francis coming to sleep in the house, as I did not think it was right that Eleanor should be left alone with the dead body of your sister. I did not know till the following morning, when the servants told me, that people had been walking about the house the whole night, and that the Rev. Mother (Pierina) had forbid them to leave the kitchen, hear what they would."[380]
Upon this, and all succeeding nights until the funeral, the three maids persistently refused at night to go upstairs, saying that they had seen a spirit there, and they remained all through the night huddled up together in a corner of the kitchen. By day even they manifested the greatest terror, especially Mary Laffam, the lady's-maid, who started and trembled whenever she was spoken to, and who entreated to be allowed to go out when she heard the lawyer was coming, "for fear he should ask her any questions." If they had the opportunity, they always made mysterious hints of poison, and of Esmeralda's death having been caused by unnatural means. To the Rev. Mother Pierina, Mary Laffam said at one time that Miss Hare had told her she knew that she should die of poison.[381] All the servants constantly repeated to the Rev. Mother their conviction that Miss Hare was poisoned. They talked a great deal, especially Mary Laffam, who horrified the Abbess by saying that Miss Hare had herself said in her last moments, "I am poisoned and I die of poison."[382] In consequence of all that the servants had said to Mrs. Fitz-Gerald of their certain conviction that my sister had been poisoned, she was most anxious, before my return to England, for a post-mortem examination, but Francis violently opposed this, and he carried his point.
The opinion that my sister's death was caused by poison was shared by many of those who came to see her after death. They could not but recollect that though Dr. Squires then said he believed her to have died of ulceration of the intestines, up to the day before the death he had said that she might be removed, that the house might be let, and had suggested no such impression. For two days after death, black blood continued to stream from the mouth, as is the case from slow corrosive poison, and three eminent physicians, on hearing of the previous symptoms and the after appearances (Dr. Hale, Sir Alexander Taylor, and Dr. Winslow), gave it as their opinion that those were the usual symptoms and appearances induced by corrosive poison. Mrs. Baker (Marguerite Pole) wrote to me on June 24:—"The idea of poison is the one I formed the first moment I saw the body, as for some years I was practically versed in medicine, and I was at a loss how to account for various appearances in a natural way—i.e., from illness."
When I arrived at the house on May 31 (the death having taken place on the 26th), I found all its inmates agitated by the various reports which were going about. Mrs. Fitz-Gerald was full of a dreadful message which she believed to have been given by my dying sister to the Abbess Pierina. "When I am dead, go to my brother Francis, and tell him that he was the cause of my death, and that he will have to answer for it." This message was also repeated to me by Mrs. Baker and by Mrs. William Hare, and was always spoken of as having been given to the Rev. Mother herself. On each occasion on which I heard it spoken of, I said that the message had much better not be given to Francis, as he was in such a weak state of health that it might do him serious injury; and that probably when my sister gave it, she was in a state of semi-delirium, brought on by her extreme weakness. I entirely declined to question the servants, consequently I heard nothing directly from them, only their words as repeated by Mrs. Fitz-Gerald, and the many persons to whom the Mother Pierina had related them.
I never had any interview with or heard anything directly from Pierina herself. The reason of this was that, three days after the death, she had a violent scene with Mrs. Fitz-Gerald, who had intercepted her in the act of carrying off two large heavy silver candelabra from the oratory, and some valuable point-lace, which she had ripped off the altar-cloth and concealed in her pocket. She also took away a quantity of small articles (rosaries, crucifixes, &c.), which were afterwards returned with the more valuable articles by order of Monsignor Paterson, who wrote to express his extreme grief and annoyance at her conduct. My own impression still is that Pierina was a simple and devout character, who would not willingly do anything she believed to be wrong, but that she was really convinced (as she said) that it was a duty to take away these things, which had been dedicated to the service of a Roman Catholic altar, in order to prevent their being applied to secular uses in a Protestant household. After this, however, which occurred before my arrival, the Abbess Pierina was never allowed to return to the house, so that I never saw her.
Immediately after the death, all the small articles in my sister's room had been hastily removed, in order that the room might be draped with white, and to give it as much as possible the appearance of a chapel. On the day before the funeral, I saw Mrs. Fitz-Gerald, who was in the inner drawing-room, after opening a davenport and looking into a blotting-book, suddenly burst into tears. "Oh," she said, "the whole mystery is revealed now; it is all quite plain; you may see what it was that killed your sister," and she held up a letter from Francis, written on the Friday evening before her death—a cruel letter, telling her in the harshest terms that she was totally ruined, that she might sell her house and her plate, and all else that she possessed, for she had nothing whatever left to live upon; but that, as he did not wish her to starve, she and her aunt might come to live with his wife. This letter Esmeralda must have received on Saturday morning, soon after writing the affectionate note to Francis, which was read afterwards at Guildford in proof of the happy terms on which she was living with him. But it was her peculiar habit, when she was ill or suffering, to put letters aside, whoever they might be from, and not to read them till she felt better; it is therefore quite possible that she did not open this letter till Monday, when it gave the fatal blow. This was my impression at the time, and then and always afterwards, when others spoke of poison, I said, "There were strange signs of poison, and many people think she was poisoned, but it is my firm conviction that she did not die of poison, but of a broken heart—a heart broken by her brother Francis."
On the 6th of June I spent the whole morning in the office of my sister's solicitor examining accounts and papers, and the afternoon at Coutts' Bank to find out what was left. The result of the investigation was to show that in October my sister possessed £12,000 clear, besides a great quantity of plate, diamonds, and other valuables, and the house in Grosvenor Street paid for and clear from debt, as well as the property in the Palazzo Parisani at Rome. At the time of her death she possessed, interest and principal combined, £216, and debts to a considerable amount, while the diamonds and plate seemed to have disappeared without leaving a trace behind them.
Several days afterwards, while I was taking an envelope out of the envelope-box on the table, I saw a bit of bluish paper sticking up between the partitions of the box. I absently poked it up with a paper-knife, and then found that it was a pawn-ticket from Attenborough for £120 upon diamonds. Turning out a quantity of old Times from a cupboard, I afterwards found there a pawn-ticket for £100 upon plate; later I found a third ticket for £82 upon some diamond earrings. Attenborough told me that Francis had brought his sister there at different times and placed the plate and diamonds in pawn.
Whilst I was still in Grosvenor Street, many of my sister's Catholic friends came to see me. Mrs. Montgomery came three times. I had never liked her, and had greatly deprecated my sister's intimacy with her, but in the presence of what I believed to be a common grief I could not refuse to receive her, and she was apparently most sympathising and even affectionate. The second time she came she sat by me on the sofa and spoke of Esmeralda's death as making a blank in her whole future life. She said what a comfort and happiness it would be to her if she were ever able to be of use to me in any way,—in any way to supply the place of her I had lost.... Yet ten days after![383]
Mrs. Dunlop came several times. On June 8 she would not get out of her carriage, but begged me to come down to her and speak to her in it. She then said, "Now I know you would not speak of these things to any one else, but you know you may trust me: now do tell me, was it not most extraordinary that Francis should, in spite of her forbidding him, force his way into his sister's house just upon the one day on which he knew his aunt was away? Now of course you would not speak of this to every one, but Esmeralda loved me as a sister. You know you may trust me." She went on very long in the same strain. At last I was so shocked that I got up and said, "Mrs. Dunlop, I see what you wish me to say. You wish me to say that I think my brother poisoned my sister. Recollect that I do not think so. I distinctly think that he was the cause of her death, but I think that she died of a broken heart," and so saying I left her.
In the face of this Mrs. Dunlop afterwards asserted that I had told her that Francis poisoned my sister. In fact, I shall always believe that the whole of the poisoning story, as it appeared at the trial which ensued, originated, sprung up, and fructified with Mrs. Dunlop, the most unscrupulous of the conspirators concerned. "Where the devil cannot go, he sends an old woman," is an old German proverb.
Mary Stanley
On June 9 I received a letter from my adopted mother's niece, Mary Stanley, saying that some friends had come up to her at a party, and spoken of the cruel way in which Mr. (Francis) Hare had been treated by his Protestant relations. When she asked an explanation, they said that Mrs. Montgomery had asserted (it was at Lord Denbigh's) that the doors of the house in Grosvenor Street were forcibly closed upon Mr. and Mrs. Francis Hare during Miss Hare's illness, and that she was influenced in her last moments to cancel a will in which she had left all her money to her brother Francis; also that neither Francis nor his wife were then allowed to enter the house or to see their aunt, and that they had nothing to live upon, owing to their having been disinherited by Miss Hare, who supported them during her life. Mary Stanley, a Roman Catholic, shocked at such falsehoods promulgated by a member of her own creed, and seeing the discredit it was likely to bring upon her party, strongly urged my writing to Mrs. Montgomery, who had professed such intimate friendship for me, stating that I had heard such a report was circulated, though not by whom, and after putting her in possession of the facts, as my sister's dearest friend, urging her to contradict it.
Having an inward distrust of Mrs. Montgomery, and a shrinking from any communication with her, I did not then write as Mary Stanley wished.
On June 11 Mary Stanley came down to Holmhurst, and again vehemently urged my writing to Mrs. Montgomery in defence of Miss Paul. On June 12 I yielded to her repeated solicitations, and wrote—Mary Stanley and my adopted mother looking over the letter and approving it sentence by sentence. When it was finished, Mary Stanley said, "That letter is perfect: you must not alter a word: it could not be better." The letter was as follows:—
"Holmhurst, June 13, 1868.—Dear Mrs. Montgomery, I have heard on good authority that a report has been circulated in London to the effect that the doors were perfectly closed upon Mr. and Mrs. Francis Hare during Miss Hare's illness, and that she was influenced in her last moments to cancel a will in which she had left all her money to her brother Francis; also that neither Francis nor his wife are now allowed to enter the house or to see their aunt, and that they have nothing to live upon, owing to their being disinherited by Miss Hare, who supported them during her life.
"As it is a pity that this impression should be allowed to gain ground, and as you were latterly the most intimate friend my dearest sister possessed, I venture to put you in possession of the facts.
1. "In her previous will my sister had not even mentioned Francis' name. She had left £4000 to me, a very large legacy to Lady G. Fullerton, legacies to other friends, and the remainder to her aunt. Francis was not even alluded to.
2. "Francis was not allowed to see my sister during the last days of her life at her own especial request: the very mention of his name made her scream with horror. In her last moments she left a solemn message with the Superior of the Precious Blood, to be given him after her death. This message was of so terrible a kind that, owing to Francis' critical state of health and the uncertainty of his life, he has hitherto been spared the pain of hearing it.
3. "Francis and his wife are not allowed, by the lawyer's direction, to see my aunt until the whole terrible story of my sister's sudden death is cleared up. In the month of November, besides Grosvenor Street, bought and paid for, she possessed £12,000 in money; when she died she was absolutely penniless, except £216, interest and principal combined, and she was overwhelmed with debts. There is no trace of any part of her fortune except of £2000 which was lost on the Stock Exchange through brokers to whom Francis introduced her.
4. "My dear sister's accounts at Coutts' show only too clearly that Francis had the greater part of her income. He will henceforward receive nothing from his aunt, who is totally ruined, and will scarcely have enough left to buy daily bread, as £2400 of her own little fortune is gone owing to signatures which Francis persuaded her to give.
"I am sure you will forgive my troubling you thus far with our family affairs, but I am certain that many, knowing your intimacy with my sister, may ask you for information, and I wish you to be in a position to give it. Believe me yours very truly,
"Augustus J. C. Hare."
In writing this letter, I had no idea of the significance which it might be made possible to attribute to the sentence No. 3—"Until the whole story of my sister's sudden death is cleared up." My own mind dwelt entirely and fixedly upon the impression that my sister's terribly sudden death was caused by the cruel shock of Francis' ungrateful letter coming to her in her weak state. To have it cleared up would be in my mind to have it clearly ascertained that she was poisoned, as most people believed, because in that case it would be certain that Francis might be held guiltless of her death, since—putting other reasons aside—he had never once been allowed to enter the house during the last days of the illness, and therefore could have nothing to do with it.
The statements about the money were perfectly correct; my sister's solicitor vouched for them. I believed all the other statements to be correct also, for I wrote them, not upon what I had heard from one person, but from what I had heard repeatedly and from many. I did not know till long afterwards that "the message" was not given by my sister herself to the Superior of the Precious Blood, but that the Superior had received it through the servants. It will be borne in mind that I had never myself seen the Superior, except in the group of mourners round the grave.
It was not till after I had written the letter to Mrs. Montgomery that I was able to read all the details of my sister's former will, annulled upon her death-bed. All that I had said and more than that was true. The will was of great length and detail, but Francis was not even alluded to. It began by leaving £4000, the family diamonds, miniatures, and plate, with various other valuables, to me, but it also left me residuary legatee. There was a legacy of £4000 to Lady Georgiana Fullerton, or, if she were dead, to her husband, Alexander Fullerton; £200 to Lady Lothian; £200 to Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Galton; £200 to Father Galway—in all about £5000 to Roman Catholics. Besides these, there were considerable legacies to Victoire, to Flora Limosin and her daughter, to Clémence Boissy,[384] and £200 annuity to her aunt. There were small legacies to various nuns—Serafina della Croce, Pierina of the Precious Blood, the "Saint of St. Peter's," &c.
From the virulence and avarice afterwards displayed by the Roman Catholics, and by the fact of their bringing an action to get the exact sum, £5000, we could only conclude that they had discovered that my sister had originally left them that sum and that they determined to extort it from the Protestant part of the family, in spite of the fact that she had really left nothing, so that even the last will was valueless, and that, if it had not been so, I should have been the chief sufferer, having been residuary legatee under the old will.[385]
In less than a week from the time of my sending the letter to Mrs. Montgomery, I received one from a lawyer, who had long been mixed up with Francis' affairs, stating that unless I at once withdrew and apologised for every part of that letter, an action for libel would be brought against me. Knowing that Francis was utterly insolvent, my family and I treated this as an idle threat, and declining any correspondence with the person in question, referred him to my solicitor. Mrs. Montgomery and Mrs. Dunlop had persuaded Francis to these proceedings, and Mrs. Montgomery had at once begun to stir up strife by taking the letter to him.
On hearing what had happened, Mary Stanley wrote:—
"July 16, 9 A.M.—You may imagine that my indignation is boundless. I can scarcely believe it. There must be some mistake, because there is no sense in it. You were not in England when the will was made: it is Miss Paul, if any one, from whom they ought to extort money, if they wish it.
"2 P.M.—All morning I have been out in your service. I went first to Farm Street, to see if I could see any of the priests who knew anything of the matter, but only two were in, who knew nothing. Then I went to Lady G. Fullerton, she was out; to Lady Lothian, she was out; then to find out Monsignor Paterson's direction, and happily I found it and him. I wish you could have heard all he said. The moment I mentioned the name principally concerned he stopped me—'You need say no more; I can believe anything of that person.' Nothing could be stronger than his words about her.... He was just as indignant at the whole transaction as you and I are. He said Francis, finding all else fail, was now trading on his faith. The Abbess Pierina had told him all that your sister said on her deathbed, and Monsignor Paterson desired me to say that you had only to command his services, and he would keep her to her words."
Meanwhile the action for libel was declared, an action which openly avowed its object, to extort £5000. Meanwhile, also, it was found that Mr. and Mrs. Monteith of Carstairs had joined the conspirators, and were hand in hand with Mrs. Dunlop and Mrs. Montgomery. Soon after I reached home, Mrs. Monteith had written to me, expressing her great devotion to my sister's memory, and begging me to send all the sad details connected with her death. I answered to the effect that those who were present could better tell the story of my sister's death. Had I written to Mrs. Monteith, doubtless my letter to her would have been used in the action, instead of that which I wrote, when I fell into the more skilful trap laid by Mrs. Montgomery. The Monteiths before this were intimate friends of mine. I had spent a week at Carstairs in the preceding October. With Francis they were previously unacquainted. Therefore it could have been only the interests of their Church which incited them to the course they pursued.
On the 18th of July Mary Stanley wrote:—
"At last I have got into the enemy's camp. I found Mrs. Dunlop this morning, and for an hour heard her version, and was aghast at the violence with which she spoke. I am very glad I have seen her, because it gives me a fresh insight into the state of things. She said Francis himself was absolutely passive, and allowed his friends to act for him; that he was now living on charity, and of course his friends must defray the cost of prosecution.
"She also said that Mrs. Montgomery's letter was used for the prosecution only because it happened to be more convenient than Mrs. Dunlop's evidence. They were resolved to prosecute you.
"I was so afraid of doing mischief, I scarcely knew what to say, but the general point I urged was that I had heard from a Catholic priest to whom I had spoken on the subject that the accusation of poison originated with the Abbess, who had told my informant that Miss Hare had said so to her!—and that my informant was ready to hold her to these words."
I do not think that any words could describe my misery at this time—"battered and fretted into great sorrow of heart," as Carlyle would say. It was naturally of far more consequence to me than to any one else to screen the miserable Francis, whom I alone had cared for and helped during the long years of his prison life, and who was now—as a last resource—consenting to extort what was equivalent to hush-money from me—either hush-money to save the family from the exposure of his own past life, or a provision for life from the Roman Catholic conspirators, if they were successful in the scheme to which he lent himself. Yet I possessed nothing, and even if I could have brought myself to let the Roman Catholics so far triumph, I could not have allowed my adopted mother to impoverish herself by the purchase of their silence. And all the time there was the unutterable weariness of contradicting all the false reports, of making over and over again the statement that if my sister were poisoned, then Francis, who had never seen her during her illness, was innocent of her death, but that if she were not poisoned, then the moral cause of it must be attributed to him; and mingled through the whole were silent bursts of indignant misery over the cruel sufferings which Esmeralda had undergone, and the calumnious falsehood of her friends, with anguish over her so recent death.
When it became quite evident that the only real object of the conspiracy was to extort money from me, because I was supposed to be, as Mrs. Dunlop expressed it, "the richest of the family," I did all I could to save family scandal by offering to withdraw the letter to Mrs. Montgomery altogether. My solicitor made every possible offer on my part, but was always answered that they must have "pecuniary compensation,"—in fact, it was always made a question of buying back the letter to Mrs. Montgomery. The conspirators, as Mrs. Dunlop said, were "resolved to prosecute," and wished to use the letter to Mrs. Montgomery because "it was more convenient to use than anything else." They would listen to nothing, consider nothing. Is it not Whyte-Melville who says, "I never knew but one woman who could understand reason, and she wouldn't listen to it?"
When we knew that the trial was inevitable, we did what we could to prepare for it. I was strongly advised to put the case entirely into the hands of my sister's solicitor, who was already acquainted with all the dark page of Francis' past life, rather than to give it to my adopted mother's respectable, old-fashioned solicitor, who was totally unacquainted with it. I afterwards regretted this course, as the one remark made by the latter, "that the Abbess should now be allowed to deliver her message," showed greater perspicuity than anything which was done by the former. He, on the contrary, insisted that there should be no communication at all with Pierina till just before the trial, and begged that I would not see her at all; he also allowed himself entirely to lose sight of the servants, in spite of my repeated entreaties. His plan seems to have consisted in ferreting out all the proofs of what Francis' conduct had been for many years past, and of the way in which he preyed upon his sister during the last year of his life, as shown by his own letters and my sister's accounts, which were in our hands.
In the "declaration of the action for libel" it was set forth as the necessary "injury" that it had caused Francis to be avoided by all his friends and acquaintances. Upon this we sued for particulars. Francis returned a list of the persons whom he declared to have been led to avoid him—"Mrs. Montgomery, Mrs. Dunlop, Mr. Monteith, Mrs. Monteith, Marchioness of Lothian, and Miss Bowles," a list which included the very persons (several of whom he had not known before) who were at that time in constant communication with him, and were bringing on and subscribing for the action, which was nominally on his behalf. On Tuesday, July 28, the Roman Catholic lawyer asked permission to fix the day for the trial. This courtesy was not refused. He fixed the day instantly and summoned his witnesses, but he did not let us know till Saturday, August 1, that the trial was to be on Monday, August 3, when, owing to the want of a London post on Sunday, it was most difficult, almost impossible, to summon the witnesses on our side.
On Friday, July 31, my acting solicitor went to Monsignor Paterson and took down his deposition as to Pierina's account to him of the death-bed. Monsignor Paterson then deposed that "the message" had been given by my sister in the form already described, and that my sister had also said she was "poisoned, and knew that she died of poison." Upon receiving this evidence, my solicitor naturally felt sure of his cause. He then went to see the Abbess Pierina in Mecklenburgh Square, when, to his utter amazement, she totally denied ever having received the message; but (being terrified by threats as to the "legal consequences" which might accrue to her) she did not then say that the message had been given to the servants and by them delivered to her to give to Francis.
On Saturday afternoon, August 1, Monsignor Paterson again saw Pierina, and, to his amazement, was informed that the message which he had so positively declared to have been given to the Abbess was not what Miss Hare said to her, but what Miss Hare had said to the maids, who had told her. Monsignor Paterson wrote this immediately to my solicitor, who (owing to the want of London post on Sunday) only received it in court.
On Saturday, August 1, the announcement came that the trial would take place at Guildford on Monday the 3rd. On Monday morning Mary Stanley and I drove early to the Waterloo station to go down to Guildford. There were so many passengers for the trial that a special train was put on. At the station I was close to Mr. Monteith, who had come from Scotland to represent his wife, and young Gerard, who was to open the prosecution, but there was no speech between us. Sir Alexander Taylor went down with us, and at Guildford we were joined by many other friends.
The heat of that day was awful, a broiling sun and not a breath of air. We had a little room to meet in at the hotel. Almost immediately I was hurried by my solicitor to the room where our senior counsel, the great Hawkins, was breakfasting at the end of a long table. He complained of the immense mass of evidence he had had to go through. He said—what I knew—that such a trial must expose terrible family scandals—that it would be a disgrace not to snatch at any chance of bringing it to a close—that probably the judge would give it for private investigation to some other Queen's counsellor—that, in fact, it was never likely to be a trial.
When I came down from Mr. Hawkins, Mary Stanley and I were taken to court. There were so many cases to be tried, that ours could not come on for some time. As Leycester Penrhyn was there, who was chairman of the Quarter Sessions at Guildford, we were given places on the raised daïs behind the judge, and there we all sat waiting through many hours. In that intensely hot weather, the court-house, with its high timber roof and many open windows, was far cooler than the outer air, and we did not suffer from the heat. But the judge, Baron Martin, whom I have heard described as far more at home on a racecourse than on the judgment-seat, was suffering violently from diarrhœa, was most impatient of the cases he had to try, and at last snatched his wig from his head and flung it down upon the ground beside him.
About three o'clock in the afternoon we were assured that it was quite impossible our case could be brought on that day, as there were still so many others to be tried, and we were advised to go out and rest. So Mary Stanley and I went back to the hotel and remained there in a cool room. Presently, to our horror, a messenger came running down from the court and said, "Your case is on, and has been on twenty minutes already." We rushed to the court and found the whole scene changed. All the approaches to the court were crowded, literally choked up with witnesses and Roman Catholic spectators. The court itself was packed to overflowing. As I was hurried through the crowd, I recognised the individuals forming the large group of figures immediately behind the judge. There were Pierina of the Precious Blood and her attendant nuns in their long black veils and scarlet girdles; there, in her quaint peaked head-dress, was the nun of the Misericorde who had watched through the illness; there was the burly figure of Mr. Monteith; the sallow face of Mrs. Dunlop; her husband the Admiral; Mrs. Montgomery, beautiful still; Lady Lothian in her deep mourning and looking very sad at being subpœnaed, which was a terrible pain to her; Dr. Squires, Mr. Seyer, and Miss Bowles.
When I was brought in, all seemed to be confusion, every one speaking at once; Mr. Hawkins was in vain trying to put in a word, the judge was declaiming that he would have an end of the trial, whilst Serjeant Parry for the prosecution was in a loud voice reading the letter to Mrs. Montgomery and giving his comments upon it.
The proceedings had commenced by the judge saying that he considered the case one which it would be most undesirable to discuss in a public court; and suggesting, indeed trying to enforce, that it should be left to the arbitration of some friend of the family. Repeatedly Baron Martin urged the expediency of a private investigation, saying that he "felt it his duty to make the suggestion, and that he thought the learned counsel (Parry) might act upon it." But the lawyers for the opposition refused any compromise whatever, for they knew what the evidence of Pierina and the servants was to be.
Serjeant Parry then opened his speech by describing between whom the action was taking place. He drew a picture of the nominal prosecutor's life in which he dwelt on "the brilliant examination at Sandhurst," but touched lightly upon the time which he had passed in the gaieties both of the Continent and of this country, after which he became "not embarrassed, but reduced in circumstances." He then said that Esmeralda had recently had a tolerable fortune, and was doubtless "supposed at her death to be in possession of it, but she was not, for she entered into speculations which had proved unsuccessful, so that she died a comparatively poor woman." He then described the death-bed will. He asserted that the only cause of the death was inflammation of the bowels. He then said that he should proceed to read the letter, "supplementing it with evidence to prove that the defendant was actuated by the wickedest malice."
It was at this point that we arrived in court. When a little silence was obtained, Parry began to read the letter, and having concluded the first sentence, said, "When the defendant states that a report has been circulated in London, &c., he states a deliberate falsehood. No such report ever was heard by him, and I will not say it is the effect of his imagination, it is simply an invention for the purpose of damaging the character of his brother."[386]
Serjeant Parry then read the paragraph saying that in the first will Francis was not even alluded to. "I have reason to believe that this also is totally false," he said, and that with the will itself lying open upon the table before him.
Parry passed over the third paragraph of the letter, without any criticism except an absolute denial, but he read a note written by my sister before she received Francis' fatal letter, in proof of the affectionate terms on which they were living. That the "mention of his name made her scream with horror," he declared to be utterly false, and he asserted (for the first time stating facts) that the Abbess Pierina would deny that any message was given by my sister to her. Finally, Parry denied that there was any truth in the statement that Francis had received money from his sister, beyond the sum of £300.
As Serjeant Parry concluded his speech, Mrs. Montgomery was called into the witness-box. While the preliminary questions were being put to her, the confusion in court increased; a letter was brought in to Mr. Harrison and handed on by him to Mr. Hawkins. It was the letter from Monsignor Paterson, written on Saturday evening, which announced that Pierina would deny and belie the deposition he had made. Immediately Mr. Hawkins turned round to me and said, "Our cause has received a fatal blow; the Abbess Pierina is about to deny all the evidence she has given before—deny all that she has said to Monsignor Paterson, and will swear that your sister's death-bed passed in total silence, save for the single word 'Auntie,' and under these circumstances it is perfectly useless to go on; our antagonists will get the money they long for; for money is all they really care for."—"But," I said, "we can bring endless persons and Monsignor Paterson's own deposition to prove what the Abbess's former statements have been."—"No," said Mr. Hawkins, "you cannot bring a witness to prove a witness."—"But," I said, "we can prove every other part of the letter."—"That will do no good," said Mr. Hawkins; "if you fail in proving a single point, you fail in proving the whole, and the Roman Catholics will get the money; besides, you cannot prove every other part of the letter, for where is the maid, Mary Laffam?—she is not here." And in truth, Mary Laffam (whose evidence was all-important, who was to swear to the screaming at the very mention of Francis' name, who was constantly present during the illness) was mysteriously missing, and no trace of her could then be found. Two days afterwards she was traced, and it was discovered that she had been sent abroad by the Roman Catholic confederates to be out of the way—sent by them to the Augustinian Abbey of Charentan in France.
During the discussion which was now taking place, the utmost excitement prevailed in court. Almost every one stood up. Mr. Hawkins urged—"Are your adopted family prepared to pay what the Roman Catholics claim?"—"Certainly not."—"Then you must submit to a verdict."—"I leave it in your hands." So I wrote on a bit of paper, "Say no more than this. I withdraw anything that may be legally taken as libellous in the letter to Mrs. Montgomery." Then the group opened, and Mr. Hawkins again stood up and said that he was in a position to withdraw the letter—if it contained any libellous statements to apologise for them. At the same time "his client could not submit to be told that he had either acted maliciously or invented anything: he was absent from England at the time of his sister's death, and had throughout acted entirely upon information he had received from those upon the spot."
"I will have an end of this, gentlemen," exclaimed the judge—"I give a verdict for forty shillings."
"Make it ten guineas, my Lord," shouted the Roman Catholic lawyer, who had previously interrupted Serjeant Parry by saying "We will have money, we will have money." "There shall be an end of this, gentlemen," said the judge; "I give a verdict for forty shillings," and he walked out of court. And so this painful ordeal came to an end. It was not till afterwards that I was aware that the verdict of forty shillings obliged me to pay the costs of both sides—£199 to my lawyer, and £293 to the Roman Catholic lawyer, which was afterwards reduced by a taxing-master to £207, 9s. 1d.
As soon as we left the court and returned to the hotel, our solicitor came in, and, before all those of our family who were present, declared how, by my desire, he had repeatedly offered to withdraw the letter to Mrs. Montgomery, but how money was always demanded as its price, and how money was proved throughout to be the only real object of those who brought the action. In looking back, therefore, upon the whole of this terrible affair, I only see three ways in which the trial could have been avoided:—
1. If Miss Stanley had had the courage to go openly to Mrs. Monteith and Lady Lothian, and say boldly that she, a Roman Catholic, was the cause of my writing the letter to Mrs. Montgomery; that as to the "report," I acted entirely and exclusively on information which she gave; that at first I had hesitated to do as she wished, but that she had continued to urge it; and that she, a Catholic, had looked over the letter before it was sent, and begged me not to alter a word of it.
2. If my solicitor had acted upon the one piece of advice given by Mr. Phelps, and weeks before the trial had requested Pierina to deliver her "message," we should then have known that the message was not given to her except through the medium of the servants, and therefore that by English law the wording of the letter was indefensible.
3. If my solicitor had been less supine in summoning witnesses—if he had at once subpœnaed Mary Laffam and the other maids on our side, and had also summoned my Aunt Fitz-Gerald, who would have been willing and glad to give her evidence, and whose very appearance would have made Francis shrink from allowing the Roman Catholic confederacy to continue the trial.
Mary Stanley and I went early to the Guildford station to wait for the train which was to take us back to London. We had not been long on the platform before all the Roman Catholic party emerged upon it. I went at once to meet and pass them, thinking it better at once to establish the terms on which we were to remain through life. The Mother Pierina alone lingered behind the rest, and, with streaming eyes and outstretched hands, came towards me. "Oh, I thought it would have been for peace," she said. I could not refuse to take her hand, when Mr. Monteith, turning round, roughly seized her by the shoulder and led her away, saying, "Reverend Mother, I must insist that you do not speak to that ... person." Afterwards, when she was entering the railway carriage after the others, Mrs. Dunlop seized Pierina and pushed her out of the carriage, almost throwing her down upon the platform, and slammed the carriage-door in her face. Admiral Dunlop immediately forced his wife to get out of the carriage and apologise to the Reverend Mother. I did not know till long afterwards the reason of Mrs. Dunlop's violence, which was the persistence with which Pierina throughout that day had dwelt upon the wicked unfairness of having the trial in the absence of Mary Laffam, who was the witness really responsible for all that had been said. On August 19 Mary Stanley wrote to me:—
"Yesterday I saw Sister Pierina. She said how extremely grieved she had been for you. She said the lawyer on the Catholic side read the evidence to all the party at Guildford, and that she then expressed her dissent, saying that it was not in accordance with what Mary Laffam had said to her and others, and that in justice to you, she, Laffam, ought to be present. All through that day (which she said was most dreadful to her) she asserted and reasserted this, and that you were not fairly dealt with, and to me she complained sadly of the un-christian spirit in which the affair had been carried on: Mrs. Dunlop, she said, was far the worst.
"Pierina denies nothing. She could only say, when asked about the message, that none was given directly to her, and that to her your sister had only said, 'Tell Francis that he has been the cause of my death.' She was forbidden to say to whom the message was given. So far from going over to the other side, she was at war with them the whole day, and told me she did not believe any of that party would ever come near her again; and I met Monsignor Paterson on Sunday, who told me that Mrs. Dunlop had been to him to complain bitterly of her."
Afterwards the feeling of the conspirators, especially of Mrs. Dunlop and Mrs. Montgomery, became so violent against the Mother Pierina (on account of her persisting in the injustice of the trial), that they not only stopped their own subscriptions to her charities, but induced others to do so, and eventually, by the interest of Mr. Monteith with Monsignor Talbot and other Roman authorities, they brought about her recall and persecuted her out of England altogether.
On August 7, Monsignor Paterson wrote a long letter to Mary Stanley, explanatory of his conduct in the affair. It contained the following remarkable passage:—
"A day or two after Miss Hare's death, which took me quite by surprise, I went to her house, and there saw Sister Pierina, who told me she had been summoned, and found Miss Hare actually dying; that she seemed very suffering, and had some difficulty in resigning herself to the will of God. I remember also hearing that she expressed distress at some conduct on the part of Mr. Francis Hare, and I thought that other expressions used implied a suspicion on her part of some kind of foul play. Of course, had I taken this au sérieux, it would have made a great impression, but I set it down, after a moment's reflection, as a random (perhaps almost delirious) expression, such as people who are very ill sometimes use with very little meaning at all."
Strange certainly that an eminent Roman Catholic priest should call at his friend's house, hear that she had died suddenly, and that she had said on her death-bed that she died from "foul play," and yet be able so easily to dismiss the subject from his mind!
Soon after the trial I wrote a long account of the whole proceedings to Archbishop Manning. His answer was very kind but very evasive—"Miss Hare's death was most sad ... the trial must have been most painful," he "sympathised deeply," &c., but without giving a direct opinion of any kind.
It was not till some months later that I became acquainted with a secret which convinced me that, though my sister's end was probably hastened by the conduct of her brother Francis, yet poison was the original cause of her death. When we next visited Pisa, Madame Victoire told me how, when my sister was a little girl of six years old at Paris, she and her own little girl, Victoria Ackermann, were sitting on two little stools doing their needlework side by side. Suddenly there was a terrible outcry. Little Anna Hare had swallowed her thimble. The whole house was in consternation, doctors were summoned in haste, the child was given emetics, was held upside down, everything was done that could be done to bring the thimble back, but it was too late. Then the doctors inquired what the thimble was like, and on seeing the thimble of the little Victoria, who had received one at the same time, were satisfied that it was not dangerous, as the thimble being of walnut-wood, would naturally dissolve with time, and they gave medicines to hasten its dissolution. But, in the midst of the confusion, came Mrs. Large, the nurse, who confessed with bitter tears that, owing to her folly, the thimble was not what it was imagined to be. She had not liked to see the child of the mistress with the same thimble as the child of the maid, and had given little Anna one with a broad band which looked like gold but was really copper. When the doctors heard this, the accident naturally assumed a serious aspect, and they redoubled their efforts to bring back the thimble. But everything failed; the wooden thimble dissolved with time, but the copper band remained. Gradually, as Esmeralda grew stronger, the accident was forgotten by all but her mother, Mrs. Large, and Madame Victoire, who observed from time to time, in childish illnesses of unusual violence, symptoms which they alone could recognise, but which were such as would arise through slight injury from poison of verdigris. As my sister grew, the copper ring grew also, attenuated to the minutest thread, but encircling her body. From time to time she was seriously affected by it, but her mother could not bear it to be spoken of, and her repulsion for the subject communicated itself to Esmeralda herself. She was warned to evade a damp climate or the use of vegetables. When she was seized with her violent illness at Dijon, the symptoms were all such as would be caused by poison of verdigris. She then went to Pisa, where Madame Victoire was alarmed by what she heard, and insisted upon the best advice being procured, and a medical examination. The doctors who saw her, even then spoke to Madame Victoire of her state as very serious, and requiring the most careful watching. When Esmeralda went to Rome to the canonisation in the summer of 1867, she returned by Pisa. The faithful Madame Victoire then sent for a famous medical professor of the University of Bologna to meet her, and insisted upon her being examined by him. He afterwards told Madame Victoire privately that though, by intense care, Miss Hare might live for many years, her life, in case of accident, hung on a thread, and that it was highly improbable that she would live long, for that the copper ring was beginning to tell very seriously upon her constitution, and that when she died it would probably be suddenly of black sickness, with every appearance of poison—poison of verdigris. And so it was.
One of the principal actors in the scene at Guildford was soon after called to account before a higher tribunal than any that earth can afford. On the 18th of November (1868) I received (at Rome), to my great surprise, a letter from Madame Flora Limosin, of the Hôtel de Londres at Pisa (Victoire's youngest daughter), saying that Francis was about to arrive there from Hyères. He had been sent away from England some time before, having then £80 in his possession. Whether this sum was obtained by a Roman Catholic subscription, I have never been able to learn, but from this time the Roman Catholic conspirators ceased to help him: he had failed as the instrument for which they required him, and they now flung him aside as useless. His folly at Guildford, in lending himself to their designs, had also alienated the whole of his own family, even to the most distant degrees of relationship. Not knowing where to turn, he could only think of two persons who would receive him in his destitution. His mother's faithful maid Madame Victoire and her daughter Flora were still living at Pisa, and to them, when he had only £20 left, he determined to make his way. On landing at Spezia, though even then in a dying state, he would not enter a hotel, because he felt that if he entered it he would never have strength to leave it again, and he sat for hours upon his luggage on the platform of the station till the train started. For the sake of their old companionship in childhood, and of the kindness she had received from my father, Flora Limosin not only received Francis, but also the person to whom he was married, and gave them some quiet rooms opening upon the garden of the Hôtel de Londres, where he was nursed by the faithful friends of his infancy.[387] He was attended by Padre Pastacaldi, who administered to him the last offices of the Church, and says that he died penitent, and sent me a message hoping that I forgave him for all that had passed at Guildford. He died on the 27th of November, utterly destitute, and dependent upon the charity of his humble friends. He was buried by them in a corner of the Campo Santo at Pisa, near their own family burial-place, where the letters F. H. in the pavement alone mark the resting-place of Francis George Hare, the idolised son of his mother.[388]
"Nothing but the infinite pity is sufficient for the infinite pathos of human life."—John Inglesant.
"Never here, for ever there,
Where all parting, pain, and care,
And death, and time shall disappear—
For ever there, but never here!
The horologe of Eternity
Sayeth this incessantly,—
Forever—never!
Never—forever!"
—LONGFELLOW.
"Dic nobis ... Quid vidisti in via?
... Gloriam vidi Resurgentis."
—From the Paschal Mass.
"C'est une âme qui se racconte dans ces volumes: 'Autrefois, aujourd'hui.' Un abîme les sépare, le tombeau."—Victor Hugo.
THE autumn of 1868 was indeed filled for me with utter misery and "weariness of spirit." If it were not that my dear Mother had gone hand and hand with me through the terrible time of the trial and the weeks which followed, I could scarcely have survived them. To please her, I went away for a time, at the end of August, to our old friend Mrs. Francis Dawkins near Havant, and to Ripley Castle and Flaxton in Yorkshire; but I had no spirits to enjoy, scarcely to endure these visits.
It added to the complication of troubles that the poor Aunt Eleanor, for whose sake alone I had brought all the trouble upon myself, now began to take some perverted view,—what I have never ascertained. She went to live with her brother George Paul, who had lately returned from America, and for ten years I never saw her to speak to.
I was most thankful when we left England for Italy on the 12th of October, and seemed to breathe freely when we were once more in our old travelling life, sleeping in the primitive inns at Joigny and Nuits, and making excursions to Citeaux and Annecy. Carlyle says, "My father had one virtue which I should try to imitate: he never spoke of what was disagreeable and past," and my Mother was the same; she turned her back at once upon the last months, which she put away for ever like a sealed volume. We spent several weeks at Florence in the Via della Scala, whence, the Mother being well, I went constantly to draw in the gallery of sketches by Old Masters at the Uffizi. But, in the middle of November, I felt already so ill, that I began to dread a possibility of dying where my Mother would not have any one to look after her, and on the 16th we hurried to Rome, where I had just time to look out lodgings for my Mother, and establish her and Lea in the Piazza Mignanelli, when I succumbed to a violent nervous fever. Most terrible are the sufferings which I recollect at this time, the agonising pains by day, and the nights of delirium, which were truly full of Coleridge's "pains of sleep," in which I was frequently haunted by the sardonic smile of the horrible Mrs. Dunlop, and otherwise by dreams which were, as Carlyle would say, "a constant plunging and careering through chaos and cosmos." In the second week of December I rallied slightly, and could sit with Mother in the sun on the terrace of Villa Negroni. By the 14th I was able to walk a little, and went, supported on each side, to the quiet sunny path by the Tiber which then existed opposite Claude's villa. Just in front of us a carter was walking by the side of his cart, heavily laden with stones. Suddenly the wheel of the cart went too near the steeply sloping bank of the Tiber and tipped over; the horse tried in vain to recover itself, but the weight of the stones was so great that it was dragged down, and slowly, slowly, screaming as only animals do scream, disappeared with the cart under the swollen yellow waters; while the driver stood helplessly upon the bank shrieking and wringing his hands.
Weak as I was, this terrible scene naturally brought back all my fever, which now turned to typhoid, and I soon became delirious. By the following Sunday my life was despaired of. But in the small hotel where we had stayed at Florence, we had met an American, Dr. Winslow, with his wife and daughters, to whom my Mother had shown kindness, and who had been struck with our entire union and devotion to each other. Dr. Winslow arrived in Rome when I was at the worst, and the first news he heard was that I was dying. He at once gave up his Roman sight-seeing and everything else, and devoted himself to me, coming many times a day and nursing me with such wonderful care, that I eventually recovered, though it was February before I was at all myself again. It was an unspeakable blessing that my Mother continued well during my long illness, and was so kindly looked after by Mrs. Woodward and Miss Wright that I had no anxiety about her; though in the spring, when we had moved to the Via Babuino, she had one of her strange illnesses, ending in a tranquil unbroken sleep which lasted two days and nights. It was about this time that she was called to bear a loss which in earlier years would have been utterly crushing, that of her sister-friend Lucy, who expired peacefully in her quiet home at Abbots-Kerswell, with only her faithful maid watching over her. In her hermit-life, my Aunt Lucy had become farther removed from us each year, but two years before my Mother had found great happiness in visiting her, and her beautiful letters were a constant enjoyment. Still it is a merciful dispensation that to those who are themselves on the border-land of heaven, bereavements fall less bitterly, separations seem so short; and, to my Mother, the loss of the dearest friend of her early life was only a quiet grief: she had "only gone from one room into the next." My Aunt Lucy Hare had never liked me, but I had none of the bitter feeling towards her which I had towards my Aunt Esther: she truly loved my Mother, and I could admire, though I could not enter into, the various graces of her character, which were none the less real because they were those of a Carmelite nun in Protestant form.
To Roman antiquaries this spring was rendered important from the discovery of the site of the Porta Capena,—the site of which was long a vexed question,—by Mr. J. H. Parker, the Oxford publisher, who devoted much of his fortune to archæological pursuits. Pius IX. granted him permission to excavate without in the least believing anything would come of it. But when he came to inspect the discoveries he exclaimed, "Why, the heretic's right," and complained bitterly that his own archæologists, whom he paid highly, should have failed to find what had been discovered by a foreigner. Mr. Parker carefully marked all the pieces then found of the Servian Wall, and numbered them in red; but the guardia, seeing the red marks, thought they meant something revolutionary, and destroyed them. When he found them gone, Parker was furious. "Is it," he said, "due to the absurdities of an effete religion, or is it perhaps the insolence of some rival archæologist?" (meaning Rosa).
As we returned through France in the spring of 1869, we diverged to Autun and Nevers, the last of the pleasant expeditions the dear Mother and I made together in summer weather. The greater part of our summer was spent quietly at home, and was chiefly marked for me by the marriage of my dear friend Charlie Wood to Lady Agnes Courtenay.
To MISS WRIGHT.
"Holmhurst, July 10, 1869.—Your description made me see a pleasant mental picture of the cousinhood assembled at your party. For myself, I cannot but feel that all social pleasures will henceforward become more and more difficult for me, as the Mother, though not ill, becomes daily more dependent upon me for all her little interests and amusements, so that I scarcely ever leave her even for an hour. It is an odd hermit-like life in the small circuit of our little Holmhurst, with one or two guests constantly changing in its chambers, but no other intercourse with the outside world. At last summer has burst upon us, and looks all the brighter for the long waiting, and our oak-studded pastures are filled with gay groups of haymakers, gathering in the immense crop. The garden is lovely, and my own home-sunflower is expanding in the warmth and stronger and better than she has been for months past."
"Holmhurst, August 1.—I cannot be away from home at all this summer, partly because I cannot leave Mother, who (though very anxious to promote my going away) is really becoming more dependent upon my constant care and companionship; and partly because I cannot afford the inevitable small expenses of going anywhere, our finances having been completely prostrated by the Roman Catholic robberies last year. Indeed, I have never been poorer than this year, as I have had nothing, and when I put two threepenny bits into the Communion plate to-day, felt exceedingly like the widow with the two mites, for it was literally all that I possessed! However, this is not so very dreadful after all, and I daresay another year matters will come round."
In September, however, when Charlotte Leycester came to take care of my Mother, I did go to the North.
To MY MOTHER.
"Ridley Hall, Sept. 1, 1869.—Though I have got into a great scrape with Cousin Susan by calling blackberry jelly, 'jam,' and though I was terribly scolded the other day for saying 'thanks,'—'such new-fangled vulgarity,'—this visit at Ridley has been very pleasant. First, there never was more perfect ideal weather, so fresh and bright, so bracing, and the colouring of the woods and moorlands, and the glorious tumbling amber-coloured rivers so beautiful. Then I feel much stronger and better than I have done for two years past, and Cousin Susan, who thought me most ghastly when I arrived, is quite satisfied with the results of her grouse, pheasants, and sherry. On Wednesday Lady Blackett came to spend the day, and, after she was gone, Cousin Susan and I made a long exploring expedition far beyond the Allen Water, up into the depths of Staward valley—most romantic little paths through woods and miniature rocky gorges to a ruined bridge and 'Plankey Mill,' and then up a steep wood path to the moor of Briarside. Cousin Susan had never been so far since she lived here, and we were walking, or rather climbing, for three hours, attended by the white dogs. These have chairs with cushions on each side the fireplace in her new sitting-room. One is in bad health, has medical attendance from Hexham at half-a-guinea a visit, and uninitiated visitors must be rather amazed when they see 'my poor little sick girl' whom Cousin Susan is constantly talking of.... On Sundays there is only service here in the morning: the clergyman giving as his curious reason for not having it in the afternoon, that 'perhaps it might annoy the Dissenters.' ... This evening it has thundered. Cousin Susan, as usual on such occasions, hid herself with her maid under the staircase (the safest place in case of thunderbolts), and held a handkerchief over her eyes till it was over; but her nerves have been quite upset ever since, and we are not to have the carriage to-morrow for fear the storm should return."
"Ford Castle, Sept. 8.—It was almost dark as I drove up the beautiful new road over the high bridge to the renovated castle, which is now all grand and in keeping. I found the beautiful mistress of the house in her new library, which is a most delightful room, with carved chimney-piece and bookcases, and vases of ferns and flowers in all the corners and in the deep embrasures of the windows. She is full of the frescoes in her school. 'I want to paint "Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign." I think he must be a little boy on a step with other children round him—a very little boy, and he must have some little regal robes on, and I think I must put a little crown upon his head.'"
"Sept. 10.—Every day of a visit at Ford always seems to contain more of charm and instruction than hundreds of visits elsewhere. The great interest this time has been Lady Canning's drawings—many hundreds of them, and all so beautiful that you long to look at each for hours. All yesterday evening Lady Waterford read aloud to us—old family letters, from old Lady Hardwicke and from Lady Anne Barnard. 'My great-aunt, Lady Anne Barnard,' she says, 'wrote a book very like your Family Memoirs, only hers was too imaginative. She called all her characters by imaginary names, and made them all quite too charming: still her book is most interesting. She was very intimate with Mrs. Fitzherbert, and describes all her first meetings with George IV. and the marriage, and then she went with her on her famous expedition to Paris. She got possession of all the real letters of the family and put them into her book, but she embellished them. She got hold of a letter Uncle Caledon wrote to my aunt when he proposed to her, but when Uncle Caledon read the book and found a most beautiful letter, he said, "My dear, I never wrote all this."—"No, my dear," she answered, "I know you did not, but then I thought your real letter was not warm enough." Lady Anne Barnard wrote "Auld Robin Gray," and she used to describe how some one translated it into French, and how, when she went to Paris, she saw every one looking at her, she could not imagine why, till she heard some one say, "Voilà l'auteur du fameux roman de Robin Gray.'"[392]
"Sept. 10.—We have all been to luncheon at Carham, sixteen miles off, and the latter part of the drive very pretty—close to the wide reaches of the Tweed, with seagulls flitting over it, and Cuyp-like groups of cattle on the shore, waiting for the ferryboats to take them across to Coldstream Fair. Carham is one of the well-known haunted houses: the 'Carham light' is celebrated and is constantly seen. We asked old Mrs. Compton of eighty-three, who lives there now, about the supernatural sights of Carham. 'Och,' she said, 'and have ye niver heard the story of the phantom carriage? We have just heard it this very morning: when we were waiting for you, we heard it drive up. We are quite used to it now. A carriage drives quickly up to the door with great rattling and noise, and when it stops, the horses seem to paw and tear up the gravel. Strange servants are terribly frightened by it. One day when I was at luncheon I heard a carriage drive up quickly to the door: there was no doubt of it. I told the servant who was in waiting to go out and see who it was. When he came back I asked who had come. He was pale as ashes. "Oh," he said, "it's only just the phantom coach."
"'And then there is the Carham light. That is just beautiful! It is a large globe of fire in the shape of a full moon: I have seen it hundreds of times. It moves about in the woods, and sometimes settles in one place. The first time I saw it I was driving from Kelso and I saw a great ball of fire. I said to the driver, "What is that?"—"Oh, it's just the Carham Light," he said. When Dick[393] came in, he said he did not believe it—he had never seen it; but that night it came—bright as ever. All the gentlemen went out into the woods to examine it; but it moved before them. They all saw it, and they were quite convinced: it has never been explained.'
"We had tea with the charming old lady. 'I've just had these cakes made, Lady Waterford,' she said, 'because they were once very weel likit by some very dear to you; so I thought you would like them.'
"Lady Waterford sends you a riddle:—
'Mon premier est un tyran, mon second une horreur,
Mon tout est le diable lui-même.
Mais si mon premier est bon, mon second ne fait rien,
Et mon tout est le bonheur suprême.'"[394]
"Foxhow, Ambleside, Sept. 12, 1869.—How lovely the drive into Foxhow from Windermere; but, after the grand ideas of my childhood, how small everything seems, even the lake and the mountains! We drove in at the well-remembered gate by Rotha Cottage, and along those lovely Swiss pasture-meadows. It was like a dream of the past as one turned into the garden, all so exactly the same and so well remembered, not only from our last brief visit, but from that of twenty-six years ago. Dear Mrs. Arnold is little altered, and is so tenderly affectionate and charming, that it is delightful to be with her. She likes to ask all about you and Holmhurst, and says that her power of producing mind-pictures and dwelling upon them often brings you before her, so that she sees you as before, only older, in your home life. It is quite beautiful to see the intense devotion of her children to their mother and her happiness in them, in Fan especially. All the absent ones write to her at least three times a week.
"We have just been in a covered car to Rydal Church: how beautiful the situation! How well I remembered being sick as a child from the puggy smell of its hideous interior. It was just as puggy to-day, but I was not sick. There was a most extraordinary preacher, who declared that the Woman on the seven mountains was Rome on her seven hills—'allowed to be so by all authorities, Jewish, and even Romanist,'—that the dragon was only the serpent in its worshipped form, and that both were identical with the Beast and represented the pagan religion; that the Woman flying into the wilderness before the Beast was Early Christianity flying from pagan persecution, and that when she came back, to St. John's astonishment she was seated on the Beast, i.e., she had adopted all the pagan attributes, the cross, the mother and child—well-known objects of worship at Babylon, and Purgatory—a tenet of pagan Rome!"
"Foxhow, Sept. 14.—My Mother will have thought of this pouring weather as most unpropitious for the Lake Country, but in reality it has not signified very much, as each day it has cleared for a few hours, and the lights and shadows have been splendid. On Sunday afternoon Edward (Arnold) and I went up Loughrigg. All the little torrents were swollen by the storms, and the colours of the dying fern and the great purple shadows on Helm Crag and Bow Fell were most beautiful. It is a most picturesque bit of mountain, and it all strikes me, as I remember it did in 1859, as more really beautiful than anything in Switzerland, though so contracted.
"Yesterday afternoon we walked to Grasmere, and I stayed looking at the interesting group of Wordsworth tombs, whilst Edward paid a visit. Afterwards the lake looked so tempting, that Edward rowed me down it, sending the boat back by a boy. We landed at the outlet of the Rotha on the other side, and had a beautiful walk home by a high terrace under Loughrigg. If one remained in this country, one could not help becoming fond of Wordsworth, his descriptions are so exact. Edward has repeated many of his poems on the sites to which they apply, and they are quite beautifully pictorial. Mrs. Arnold is very happy in the general revival of interest in his poetry.... Nothing can be more enjoyable and united than the family life here, the children and grandchildren coming and going, and so many interesting visitors. Truly dear Mrs. Arnold's is an ideal old age, so hedged in by the great love and devotion of her descendants."[395]
"Dalton Hall, Lancashire, Sept. 17.—I always enjoy being here with the Hornbys. Yesterday we drove in the morning to Yealand, a pretty village so called from the Quakers who colonised it. In the afternoon we went to Levens. It is a lovely country, just upon the outskirts of the Lake District, with the same rich green meadows, clear streams, and lanes fringed with fern and holly. We passed through Milnthorpe, and how well I remembered your shutting me up and making me learn a Psalm in the inn there, instead of letting me go out to draw! The country is very primitive still. An old clergyman who officiated till lately in the neighbouring church of Burton Moss had only three sermons, one of which was laid in turn on the pulpit desk by his housekeeper every Sunday morning. When he had finished, he used to chuck it down to her out of the pulpit. One of these sermons was on 'Contentment,' and contained—apropos of discontent—the story of the Italian nobleman whose tombstone bore the words, 'I was well, I wished to be better, and now I am here.'"
It was a great pleasure this autumn to see again in London the New Zealand Sir George Grey. I remember his saying how he wished some one would write a poem on Pharaoh pursuing the Israelites to the Red Sea, from the point of view that in pursuing them he was pursuing Christianity; that if the Israelites had perished, and not Pharaoh, there would have been no Redemption.
JOURNAL (The Green Book).
"Holmhurst, Oct. 13, 1869.—After the storms of last year, this summer has been peaceful and quiet. My sweet Mother, though often ailing, has been very gently and quietly happy. She seems older, but age has with her only its softening effects—casting a brighter halo around her sweet life, and rendering more lovable still every precious word and action.... We are more than ever to each other now in everything."
We left home in 1869 on the 14th of October, intending to cross the Channel at once, but on arriving at Folkestone, found such a raging sea, that we retreated to Canterbury to wait for better weather. This enabled us to pay a charming visit to Archdeacon and Mrs. Harrison, who had been very familiar to us many years before, when the Stanleys lived at Canterbury. It was the last visit my Mother ever paid, and she greatly enjoyed it, as it seemed almost like a going back into her Hurstmonceaux life, a revival of the ecclesiastical interests which had filled her former existence. Whenever any subject was alluded to, Archdeacon Harrison, like Uncle Julius, went to his bookcase, and brought down some volume to illustrate it. Thus I remember his reading to us in the powerful sermons of Bishop Horsley. One of the most remarkable was upon the Syro-Phœnician woman. Another is on the French Nuns, in defence of their institution in England, saying, with little foresight, how unlikely they were to increase in number, and how very superior they were to those women "who strip themselves naked to go out into the world, who daub their cheeks with paint, and plaster their necks with litharge."
Apropos of the proverb about Tenterden Steeple and Goodwin Sands, Archdeacon Harrison described how it was in allusion to two things totally disconnected. Tenterden Steeple and Goodwin Sands are very far apart, and of course have no connection whatever: yet perverse persons used to say that Tenterden Steeple was the cause of Goodwin Sands, as money which ought to have been used to prevent the accumulation of Goodwin Sands was diverted to the building of Tenterden Steeple. The place where you may hear most about it is "Latimer's Sermons." Latimer is inveighing against the persons who denounced the study of the Bible as the cause of the misfortunes of the time, and says that they had as much connection as Tenterden Steeple and Goodwin Sands, and so forth.
To MISS WRIGHT.
"Munich, Nov. 1, 1869.—We made it four days' journey from Paris to Strasbourg. First we went to Bar-le-duc. I had longed to see it, from a novel I read once, and it is well worth while—the old town rising above the new like the old town of Edinburgh—tall grey houses pierced with eight or ten rows of windows, a river with a most picturesque bridge, and in the church 'Le Squelette de Bar,' a wonderful work of Richier, the famous sculptor of S. Mihiel, commemorating the Princes of Bar (Henri I., II., III., &c.), sovereigns of whom I wonder if you ever heard before: I never did.
"We slept next at Toul, where there is a fine huge dull cathedral, a beautiful creche by Ignace Robert, and a lovely convent cloister of flamboyant arches. Living at Toul is wonderfully cheap; our rooms for three were only four francs, and dinner for three four francs.[396] We wonder people do not emigrate to Lorraine instead of to Australia; it would be far cheaper, and infinitely more amusing. If it had been warmer, we should have gone to Domremy and S. Mihiel, but we feared the cold. We were a day at Nancy: how stately it is! At Strasbourg we found that the storks had left, and we thought it the least interesting place on the road, yet most people stay only there.
"We had three days at Carlsruhe, and found dear Madame de Bunsen most bright and well and charming, with much to tell that was worth hearing, and the fullest sympathy and interest in others. Generally one feels that conversation weakens the mind; with the Bunsens it never fails to strengthen it. Madame de Bunsen talked much of the difficulties which had crowded round her when she herself was to begin the Memoir of her husband. Bunsen had said to her, 'You must tell the story of our common life; you are able to do it, only do not be afraid.' Thus to her the work was a sacred legacy. First, as material, her son George brought her Bunsen's letters to his sister Christiana, which she had given to him, and which he had fortunately never given to his father for fear he should destroy them. Then she had written to Reck, the early Göttingen friend and confidant of all Bunsen's early life, and had been refused all help without any explanation! Then Stockmar, Brandeis, &c., sent all their letters; thus the work grew. But there were no journals, she had made no notes, there was only her recollection to fall back upon. Madame de Bunsen regretted bitterly the destruction of Uncle Julius's letters by his widow, especially those written in his early life to his brother Augustus, which would have been 'the history of the awakening of a new phase of opinions.' I made quantities of notes from the intensely interesting reminiscences Madame de Bunsen poured forth of her own life.[399]
"We were one day at Stuttgart, which I had never seen, and was delighted with—so handsome, really a beautiful little capital, and we reached Munich in time to have one day for the International Exhibition of Paintings, which was well worth seeing—finer, I thought, than ours. The German artists have surely far more originality than the artists of other nations. Three pictures especially remain in my mind—'The Chase after Luck,' a wild horseman with Death riding behind him in pursuit of Luck, a beautiful figure scattering gold and pearls whilst floating on a bladder, full speed across a bridge which ends in a rotten plank over a fathomless abyss: 'The Cholera in Rome,' the Angel of Death leading the Cholera—a hideous old woman—down the street under the Capitol by moonlight, and showing her the door she is to knock at: 'L'Enfant qui dort à l'ombre du lit maternel, et les Anges qui savent d'avance le sort des humains, et baissent avec larmes ses petites mains.' It is interesting to see how familiar the German common people are with their artists: the great names of Kaulbach, Henneberg, &c., are in every mouth; how few of our common people would know anything of Landseer or Millais!"
"Vicenza, Nov. 14.—The descent into Italy by the Brenner was enchanting—the exchange of the snow and bitter cold of Germany for vineyards and fruit-gardens, still glorious in their orange and scarlet autumnal tints. We were greatly delighted with Botzen, where the delicately wrought cathedral spire against the faint pink mountains tipped with snow is a lovely subject.
"At Verona we spent several days, thinking it more captivating than ever. Mother was able to enjoy the Giusti gardens, and I went one day to Mantua. It is wonderful. The station is two miles off, and the drive into the town across an immense bridge over the lake is most striking[401]—the towers all reflected in the still waters, and the fishing-boats sailing in close under the houses. Then, in the town, the intense desolation of one part—courts and corridors and squares all grass-grown and utterly tenantless—is a striking contrast to the other part, teeming with life and bustle. The Palazzo del Té is marvellous—only one story high, gigantic rooms covered with grand frescoes opening on sunny lawns with picturesque decaying avenues. I wandered over the vast ducal palace with three American ladies, who 'guessed' that 'when Mantua was in its prime, it must have been rather an elegant city.'"
"Hôtel de Londres, Pisa, Dec. 7.—From Verona we went to Vicenza, where we stayed nearly a week in the old-fashioned palazzo which is now turned into the Hôtel de la Ville. We found some old Roman acquaintances there—Mrs. Kuper and her daughter, great Italian travellers, famous linguists, and excessively amusing companions. With them I went many delightful walks in the lovely country near Vicenza, which is quite the ideal Italy one reads so much of and so seldom sees—splendid mountain background with snowy peaks; nearer hills golden with decaying chestnuts and crimson with falling vine-leaves; old shrines and churches half hidden in clematis and vine, and a most interesting town with a fine picture-gallery—Montagna (not Mantegna) being the great master. I took to the plan of trying to make ever so slight sketches from pictures, and find them, bad as they are, far more interesting than photographs. We had permission to walk in the lovely gardens of the old Marchese Salvi, close to the hotel, a great pleasure to the Mother.
"The Kupers preceded us to Padua and engaged comfortable rooms for us there, to which we followed. Here was another kind of interest in the quaint churches; the Prato della Valle with its stone population; the University, where we went to hear a lecture and saw the 3000 students assembled; and the society of some pleasant young Paduans—M. Fava and Count Battistino Medine, introduced by the Kupers. But alas! Mother became very unwell indeed during the latter part of our stay at Padua, and I was made very unhappy by her constant cough and inability to take food. So I was thankful when we were able to come on to this comfortable hotel, where Flora and the faithful Victoire are incessant in their attentions. I am still anxious about my sweet Mother, who is very ailing and unable to go out; otherwise I always like staying at Pisa, with its clean quiet streets and the interest of the Campo Santo, so full of beautiful relics and memories. Many delightful hours have I spent there, and what a school of art and history it is! And then the Spina is always so graceful and striking against the crimson sunset which turns the muddy Arno into a river of fire.[407] Then, only think, I have made a new friend, and, strange to say, an American, with the uninteresting name of Robert Peabody. I do not know when, if ever, I have seen any one I like so much—so clever, so natural, so unworldly, so large-minded, so good-looking. The Mother thinks my sudden friendships most fantastic, but I have no doubt about this one; and as Mother was much better last week, I went away with him for four days to Siena and S. Gemignano, and we were entirely happy together, though it poured cats and dogs the whole time, and thundered and lightened as if the skies were coming down. I do not think you have ever been half excited enough about Siena: it seems to me such a sublime place—the way it rises out of that desolate earthquake-riven country, the cathedral so grandly solemn, and such a world of interest circling around all the scenes in S. Catherine's life. I tried to draw the famous Sodoma, and longed to stay months, but we only did stay two days, and then away we went in a baroccino over the hills to S. Gemignano. You must never come to Italy again without going there: I am beginning now to fancy that no one has seen Italy who has missed S. Gemignano. It is a perfect sanctuary of art, the smallest town ever seen, but with thirteen tall mediæval towers in fullest preservation, crowning the top of the little hill like a huge group of ninepins, and with churches covered with frescoes by Filippo and Simone Memmi, Beccafumi, Ghirlandajo, and all that wonderful school. The great saint of the place is Santa Fina—a poor girl, who had a spine complaint, lay for years on a backboard, bore her intense sufferings with great patience, and finally died a most peaceful and holy death—perhaps the one Roman Catholic saint whose story is unspoilt by miracles. I first heard about her from Lady Waterford, and had always longed to see her native place. The Ghirlandajo fresco of her death is most touching and real, portraying the bare cottage room, the hard-featured Tuscan nurse, the sick girl on her backboard—all like a scene in a Tuscan cottage now; and, above, the angels floating away with their newly-gained sister. But the people of S. Gemignano forgot the picture when they quaintly told us that 'all the little flowers and shrubs were so enchanted with her exemplary patience, that they began to sprout around her bed, and by her twenty-eighth year (when she died) she was lying in quite a garden of beautiful flowers.'"
In recollection I feel grateful for this short absence from my Mother with Robert Peabody, as it procured for me my last tiny letter from her—cheerful and tender as all her letters were now. But after the beginning of December I seldom left her, and the next six weeks were spent entirely in her room, in watching and cheering her through a time of great suffering, whilst the rain never ceased to fall in torrents. I was often able to amuse her with stories of my companions at the table-d'hôte.
JOURNAL.
"Pisa, Nov. 27.—The chief interest here has been from travellers in the hotel—a Mr. and Mrs. D., kind, vulgar people, who have seldom been out of London, except to Paris, and who do not speak a word of any foreign language; at least Mr. D. does speak certain words, and uses them all together to all the foreigners he meets, without any regard to their meaning—'Lait pain thé bongjour toodyswee;'—a haughty pretty Polish girl and her governess, and a clever pretty Polish Comtesse de M. with her young husband. The last lady keeps the whole table alive with her stories, told with the utmost naïveté, and in the prettiest manner.
"'I will tell you about my going to Ferrara. When I arrived I was gasping with hunger. We drove up to the hotel. "Could we have any dinner?"—"J'en suis désolé, Madame, but the cook is out." We drove to another. "Could we have any dinner?"—"J'en suis au désespoir, Madame, mais il n'y a pas de feu." We drove on. Another hotel. We ordered our dinner, and when it was put on the table, it was so dreadful, I gave one look and ran out of the room. And then the sights of Ferrara! We went to the castle. It was horrible—a ghastly dungeon with bare walls and chains and one glimmering ray of light. "This," said the guide, "was the dungeon of Ugo and Parisina; here they suffered and here they died." Oh, mon Dieu, quel horreur! I wished to go somewhere else. They took me to a convent—again a ghastly room, a fearful prison. "This, Madame, was the prison of Tasso"—encore des horreurs! Oh, then I would have a carriage. I asked the driver where he would take me. "Ma, Signora, allo Campo Santo." Ah! quelle triste ville la ville de Ferrare! But when we got to Bologna, and I asked where we should go, c'était toujours la même chose—toujours au Campo Santo, and at Pisa here, it is encore au Campo Santo!
"'At Ferrara, in the prison of Tasso, they show on the wall an ode written by Lord Byron. The rest of the wall is white, but the place where the ode is written is brown. "Why," I asked, "is that part of the wall brown?"—"Ah!" said the custode, "that is the sweat of the English. All the English will touch the writing of their compatriot, and then they perspire from their hot fingers, and thus it is brown." In the same room is a great hole; the wall has crumbled away: it is gone: the room will fall. "And what is that?" I asked. "Ah! that is made by the English, who all insist upon taking away a morsel of the prison of Tasso." And thus it was at Verona; when I saw Juliet's tomb, they told me it was only an imitation; for as for the real one, the English ladies had chopped it all up and were wearing it in bracelets. Oh, comme c'est ennuyant de voyager, il faut tourner la tête pour regarder les tableaux, et on casse le cou par ici: il faut regarder par la fênetre pour voir la vue, et on casse le cou par là: il faut regarder au plafond pour voir les fresques, et on casse le cou de tous les côtés à la fois. And then the journey to Switzerland! Mais aller en Suisse, jamais! What do you want to see mountains for? to admire their height? Ah! then how stupid to go up! Why, of course they become shorter every step you go. No, you should go into the depths to see the mountains. Les plaines pour moi!... Jusqu'à mon mariage je ne suis jamais sortie à pied, mais depuis mon mariage je suis devenue ... raisonable.'
"I asked the Polish ladies if the language they spoke was Russian. It was like throwing a bomb into the camp. They detest the Russians, and would not speak to a pleasant Countess Boranoff, née Wasilikoff, who has been staying here.... But of all my Pisan acquaintance there is none like Robert Peabody! He has been at an atelier in Paris for two years studying as an architect, and had a charming life there with his fellow-students, making walking tours in France, &c. When he first went to Paris, he did not know a word of French, and made out his washing bills by drawing little pictures, socks, shirts, drawers, &c., and the washerwoman put the prices opposite them."
On December 10 occurred the terrible floods of the Arno.
To MISS LEYCESTER.
"Pisa, Dec. 11, 1869.—How little you will be able to imagine all we have been going through in the last twenty-four hours! We have had a number of adventures in our different travels, but this is by far the worst that has ever befallen us. Now I must tell you our story consecutively.
"For the last three days the Mother has been very ill. On Thursday she had an attack of fainting, and seemed likely to fall into one of her long many days' sleep.... The rain continued day and night in torrents. Yesterday made it three weeks since we arrived, and in that time there had been only two days in which the rain had not been ceaseless. The Arno was much swollen: I saw it on Thursday, very curious, up to the top of the arches of the bridges.
"Yesterday, Friday, Madame Victoire came to dine with Lea. Afterwards she came up to see us as usual, and then Flora's children came to be shown pictures. I think it must have been half-past three when they took leave of us. Lea went with them down the passage. Soon she came back saying that little Anna said there was 'such an odd water coming down the street, would I come and see,' and from the passage window I saw a volume of muddy water slowly pouring down the street, not from the Arno, but from towards the railway station, the part of the street towards Lung' Arno (our street ends at the Spina Chapel) remaining quite dry. The children were delighted and clapped their hands. I meant to go and see the water nearer, but before I could reach the main entrance, in half a minute the great heavy waves of the yellow flood were pouring into the courtyard and stealing into the entrance hall.[408]
"It was as suddenly as that it came upon us.
"The scene for the next half-hour baffles all description. Flora and her mother stood on the principal staircase crying and wringing their hands: the servants rushed about in distraction: Lea, pale as ashes, thought and cried that our last moment was come; and all the time the heavy yellow waters rose and rose, covering first the wheels of the omnibus, the vases, the statues in the garden, then up high into the trees. Inside, the carpets were rising and swaying on the water, and in five minutes the large pieces of furniture were beginning to crash against each other. I had rushed at the first alarm to the garde meuble, and (how I did it I cannot imagine) dragged our great box to the stairs: it was the only piece of luggage saved from the ground-floor. Then I rushed to the salle-à-manger, and shouting to Flora to save the money in her bureau, swept all the silver laid out for dinner into a tablecloth, and got it safe off. From that moment it was a sauve qui peut. I handed down rows of teapots, jugs, sugar-basins, &c., to the maids, who carried them away in lapfuls: in this way also we saved all the glass, but before we could begin upon the china, the water was up to our waists and we were obliged to retreat, carrying off the tea-urns as a last spoil. The whole family, with Amabile and all the old servants, were now down in the water, but a great deal of time was wasted in the belief that a poor half-witted Russian lady was locked into her room and drowning, and in breaking open the door; but when at last a panel of the door was dashed in, the room was found full of water and all its contents swimming about, but the lady was ... gone out for a walk!
"As I was coming in from the lower rooms to the staircase with a load of looking-glasses, a boat crashed in at the principal entrance, bringing home the poor lady and two other English, who had been caught by the flood at the end of the street, and had been for some time in the greatest peril: the boatmen having declined to bring them the few necessary steps until they had been paid twenty francs, and then having refused altogether to bring a poor Italian who had no money to give them. At this moment Madame Victoire insisted on taking the opportunity of the boat to return to her own house. It was a dreadful scene, all the women in the house crying and imploring her to stay, but she insisted on embarking. She did not arrive without hairbreadth escapes. When she reached her own house, the current was so strong, and the boat was dashed so violently against the walls, that it was impossible for her to be landed; but the flood was less violent beneath her larger house which is let to the Marchese Guadagna, from which sheets were let down from the upper windows, and she was fastened to them and raised: but when she reached the grille of the first-floor windows, and was hanging half-way, the current carried away the boat, and at the same moment the great wall opposite S. Antonio fell with an awful crash. However, the Guadagna family held tight to the sheets, and Madame Victoire was landed at last, though she fell insensible on the floor when she entered the window.
"The walls were now falling in every direction with a dull roar into the yellow waters. The noise was dreadful—the cries of the drowning animals, the shrieks of the women, especially of a mother whose children were in the country, wringing her hands at the window of an opposite house. The water in our house was rising so rapidly that it was impossible to remain longer on the side towards the principal staircase, and we fled to the other end, where Pilotte, a poor boy in the service, lay dangerously ill, but was obliged to get up from his bed, and, though quite blind from ophthalmia, was far more useful than any one else. Since her mother left, Flora had been far too distracted to think of anything; still we saved an immense number of things, and I was able to cut down pictures, &c., floating on a sofa as if it were a boat. The great difficulty in reaching the things was always from the carpet rising, and making it almost impossible to get out of the room again. The last thing I carried off was the 'Travellers' Book!' It was about half-past 5 P.M. when we were obliged to come out of the water, which was then terribly cold and above the waist.
"Meantime the scene in the street was terrible. The missing children of the woman opposite were brought back in a boat and drawn up in sheets; and the street, now a deep river, was crowded with boats, torches flashing on the water, and lights gleaming in every window. All the thirty poor hens in the hen-house at the end of the balcony were making a terrible noise as they were slowly drowned, the ducks and pigeons were drowned too, I suppose, being too frightened to escape, and many floated dead past the window. The garden was covered with cushions, chairs, tables, and ladies' dresses, which had been washed out of the lower windows. There was great fear that the omnibus horse and driver were drowned, and the Limosins were crying dreadfully about it; but the man was drawn up late at night from a boat, whose crew had discovered him on the top of a wall, and at present the horse exists also, having taken refuge on the terrace you will remember at the end of the garden, where it is partially above water. The street was covered with furniture, great carved wardrobes being whirled down to the Arno like straws. The cries of the drowning animals were quite human.
"All this time my poor sweet Mother had been lying perfectly still and patient, but about 6 P.M., as the water had reached the highest step of the lower staircase and was still mounting, we had our luggage carried up to the attics, secured a few valuables in case of sudden flight (as no boat would have taken luggage), and began to get Mother dressed. There was no immediate danger, but if another embankment broke, there might be at any moment, and it was well to be prepared. Night closed in terribly—pouring rain again, a perfectly black sky, and waters swelling round the house: every now and then the dull thud of some falling building, and, from beneath, the perpetual crash of the furniture and floors breaking up in the lower rooms. Mother lay down dressed, most of the visitors and I walked the passages and watched the danger-marks made above water on the staircase, and tried to comfort the unhappy family, in what, I fear, is their total ruin. It seemed as if daylight would never come, but at 6 A.M. the water was certainly an inch lower.
"It was strange to return to daylight in our besieged fortress. There had been no time to save food, but there was one loaf and a little cheese, which were dealt out in equal rations, and we captured the drowned hens as the aviary broke up, and are going to boil one of them down in a tiny saucepan, the only cooking utensil saved. Every one has to economise the water in their jugs (no chance of any other), and most of all their candles.... How we are ever to be delivered I cannot imagine. The railways to Leghorn, Spezia, and Florence must all be under water."
"Dec. 14.—It seems so long now since the inundation began and we were cut off from every one: it is impossible to think of it as only three days.
"Nothing can be more dreadful than the utter neglect of the new Government and of the municipality here. They were fully warned as to what would result if Pisa was not protected from the Arno, but they took no heed, and ever since the dikes broke they have given no help, never even consenting to have the main drains opened, which keeps us still flooded, refusing to publish lists of the drowned, and giving the large sums sent for distribution in charity into the hands of the students, who follow one another, giving indiscriminately to the same persons, whilst others are starving. On Saturday night there ceased to be any immediate alarm: the fear was that the Arno might break through at the Spina, which still stands, and which, being so much nearer, would be far more serious to us. The old bridge is destroyed. All through that night the Vicomte de Vauriol and the men of the house were obliged to watch on the balconies with loaded pistols, to defend their property floating in the garden from the large bands of robbers who came in boats to plunder, looking sufficiently alarming by the light of their great torches. The whole trousseau of the Vicomtesse is lost, and her maid has 4000 francs in her box, which can still be seen floating open.... But the waters are slowly going down. Many bodies have been found, but there are still many more beneath the mud. In the lower rooms of this house the mud is a yard deep, and most horrid in quality, and the smell of course dreadful. I spend much of my time at the window in hooking up various objects with a long iron bed-rod—bits of silver, teacups, even books—in a state of pulp."
"Dec. 19.—My bulletin is rather a melancholy one, for my poor Mother has been constantly in bed since the inundation, and cannot now turn or move her left side at all.... I have also been very ill myself, with no sleep for many days, and agonies of neuralgia from long exposure in the water.... However, I get on tolerably, and have plenty to take off my thoughts from my own pain in attending to Mother and doing what I can for the poor Limosins.... In the quarter near this seventy bodies have been found in the mud, and as the Government suppresses the number and buries them all immediately, there are probably many more. Our friends at Rome have been greatly alarmed about us."
"Dec. 27.—Mother has been up in a chair for a few hours daily, but cannot yet be dressed. The weather is horrible, torrents of rain night and day—quite ceaseless, and mingled with snow, thunder, and lightning. It is so dark even at midday, that Mother can see to do nothing, and I very little. The mud and smell would prevent our going out if it were otherwise possible. It has indeed been a dismal three months, which we have all three passed entirely in the sick-room, except the four days I was away.... Still the dear Mother says 'we shall have time to recount our miseries in heaven when they are over; let us only recount our mercies now.'"
To MISS WRIGHT.
"33 Via Gregoriana, Rome, Jan. 19, 1870.—You will have heard from others of our misfortunes at Pisa, of Mother's terrible illness, and my wearing pains, and in the midst of all this our awful floods, the Arno bursting its banks and overwhelming the unhappy town with its mud-laden waves. I cannot describe to you the utter horror of those three days and nights—the rushing water (waves like the sea) lifting the carpets and dashing the large pieces of furniture into bits like so many chips,—the anxious night-watchings of the water stealthily advancing up step after step of the staircase,—the view from the upper corridor windows of the street with its rushing tourbillon of waters, carrying drowning animals, beds, cabinets, gates, &c., along in a hideous confusion;—from our windows of the garden one maze of waters afloat with chairs, tables, open boxes, china, and drowned creatures;—the sound of the falling walls heavily gliding into the water, and the cries of the drowning and their relations. And then, in the hotel, the life was so strange, the limited rations of food and of water from the washing jugs, and the necessity for rousing oneself to constant action, and far more than mere cheerfulness, in order to prevent the poor people of the hotel from sinking into absolute despair.
"When the real danger to life once subsided and the poor drowned people had been carried away to their graves, and the water had changed into mud, it was a strange existence, and we had still six weeks in the chilled house with its wet walls, and an impossibility of going out or having change. However, there is a bright side to everything, and the utter isolation was not unpleasant to me. I got through no end of writing work, having plenty also to do in attending on my poor Mother; and you know how I can never sufficiently drink in the blessedness of her sweet companionship, and how entirely the very fact of her existence makes sunshine in my life, wherever it is.
"All the time of our incarceration I have employed in writing from the notes of our many Roman winters, which were saved in our luggage, and which have been our only material of employment. It seems as if 'Walks in Rome' would some day grow into a book. Mother thinks it presumptuous, but I assure her that though of course it will be full of faults, no book would ever be printed if perfection were waited for. And I really do know much more about the subject than most people, though of course not half as much as I ought to know.
"One day I was away at Florence, where I saw Lady Anne S. Giorgio and many other friends in a very short time. How bright and busy it looked after Pisa.
"Last week Pisa devoted itself, or rather its priests, to intense Madonna-worship, because, owing to her image, carved by St. Luke, the flood was no worse. Her seven petticoats, unremoved for years, were taken off one by one and exchanged for new, and this delicious event was celebrated by firing of cannon, processions, and illuminations all over the town. In the midst, the Arno displayed its disapproval by rising again violently and suddenly; the utmost consternation ensued; the population sat up, doors were walled up, the doll-worshippers were driven out of the cathedral (which lies very low) at the point of the bayonet by the Bersaglieri under General Bixio. To us, the great result of the fresh fright was, that the Mother suddenly rose from her bed, and declaring that she could not stay to endure another inundation, dressed, and we all set off last Wednesday morning, and arrived at midnight after a prosperous journey, though the floods were certainly frightful up to the very walls of Rome.
"Oh, how glad we were to get here—to feel that after all the troubles of the last few months we were safe in the beloved, the home-like city. It is now only that I realise what a time of tension our stay at Pisa has been. We breathe quietly. Even the calm placid Mother feels the relief of not having to start up at every sound and wonder whether 'L'Arno é sbordato.'
"I always feel as if a special Providence watched over us in respect of lodgings. It has certainly been so this time, as we could never have hoped, arriving so late, to obtain this charming apartment, with full sun, glorious view, and all else we can wish. You can fancy us, with all our own pictures and books, the mother in her chair, the son at his drawing-table, and Lea coming in and out.
"But on Friday we had a terrible catastrophe. In the evening at the hotel the poor Mother fell violently upon her head on the hard stone floor and was dreadfully hurt. You will imagine my terror, having gone out at 8 P.M., to find every one in confusion on my return, that Dr. Winslow had been sent for, and that I had been searched for everywhere. For some hours the Mother was quite unconscious, and she can still see nothing, and I am afraid it will be some days before any sight is restored; but all is going on well, and I am most thankful to have been able to move her to her own house.
"Do you know, I am going to renounce the pomps and vanities of the world this winter and not 'go out' at all. I have often found that it has rather fatigued Mother even to hear of my going out, and it is far easier to give a thing up altogether than partially. In the daytime I can see people. My American friend Robert Peabody is here, and the most delightful companion, and there are endless young men artists, quite a colony, and of the pleasantest description.
"The weather is very fine, but very cold. I went to-day to St. Peter's (Il Giorno della Scatola), and the procession was certainly magnificent. The Bishop who attracts most attention is Monsignor Dupanloup of Orleans, who at first displayed great courage in opposing the Infallibility doctrine, but is allowing his opposition to be swamped. Many of the Bishops are most extraordinary—such a variety of forms and colours in costume, blue and violet veils, green robes and hats, and black caps with gold knobs like the little Shems and Hams in Noah's Ark. But the central figure of Pius IX. looks more than ever solemn and impressive, the man so lost in his intense feeling of the office, that it is impossible to associate him, mentally, with the Council and its blasphemies. Of the Council itself we hear nothing, and there is little general interest about it. Lord Houghton asked Manning what had been going on: he answered, 'Well, we meet, and we look at one another, and then we talk a little, but when we want to know what we have been doing, we read the Times.'"
To MISS LEYCESTER.
"Jan. 31.—We have had another anxious week, though once more all is going on well. On Monday the Mother was well enough to see visitors, but that night was in terrible suffering, and the next day had a slight paralytic seizure ... followed by long unconsciousness; but it was all accounted for the next morning when we found the roof white with snow. She continued in great suffering till Friday, when the weather suddenly changed to scirocco, and she at once rallied. That day I was able to have my lecture on the Quirinal and Viminal—all new ground. There was a large gathering in spite of weather, so many people had asked to come. I have yielded to the general wish of the party in arranging weekly meetings at 10 A.M., but it makes me feel terribly ignorant, and—in the intervals of tending Mother—I am at work all the week instructing myself upon the subject of my lecture."
"Feb. 19.—The Mother is still sadly weak, and always in an invalid state, yet she has not the serious symptoms of the winter you were here. She is seldom able to be dressed before twelve, and can do very, very little—to read a few verses or do a row of her crotchet is the outside. I scarcely ever leave her, except for my lectures. I had one on the Island yesterday. The weather is splendid and our view an indescribable enjoyment, the town so picturesque in its blue morning indistinctness, and St. Peter's so grand against the golden sunsets. As usual, the Roman society is like the great net which was let down into the deep and brought up fish of every kind.... The Mother is quite happy and bright in spite of all her misfortunes, but we have had to feed her like a bird in her blindness. I wonder if you know the lines of Thomas Dekker (1601)—
'Patience! why, 'tis the soul of peace;
Of all the virtues, 'tis nearest kin to heaven;
It makes men look like gods. The best of men
That e'er wore earth about Him was a sufferer,
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit;
The first true gentleman that ever breathed."
To MISS WRIGHT.
"Rome, Feb. 27.—My life this winter has been one of constant watching and nursing; the Mother has been so very powerless and requires such constant care: but she is, oh! so sweet and patient always. You need not pity me for not going out; after the day's anxiety I find the luxury of the evening's rest so very great.
"My Friday lectures now take place regularly, and I hope they give pleasure, as they are certainly crowded. I am amused to see many ultra-Catholics come time after time, in spite of my Protestant anecdotes. How I wish the kind Aunt Sophy were here to share these excursions."
On the 12th of March I spent a delightful afternoon with a young artist friend, Henry Florence, in the garden of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, drawing the gloriously rich vegetation and the old cypresses there. My Mother was tolerably well, and the air, the sunshine, and the beauty around were unspeakably enchanting. "I never saw any one enjoy things as you do," said Florence, and I spoke of my thankfulness for having the power of putting away anxieties when they were not pressing, and of making the utmost of any present enjoyment, even though it be to "borrow joy at usury of pain."[409] "Perhaps it may be the last day," I said. It was. There is an old proverb which says, "The holidays of joy are the vigils of sorrow." That night my dearest Mother had the terrible paralytic seizure which deprived her of the use of her left arm and side, and from which she never recovered.
To MISS LEYCESTER.
"Rome, March. 16, 1870.—My darling Mother is to-day in a happy peaceful state, no longer one of suffering, which is—oh! such rest to us. She is now able to articulate, so that I always, and others often, understand her.... I sleep close by upon the floor and never leave her. On Monday night we were pleasantly surprised by the arrival of Amabile, the maid from Pisa, who is quite a tower of strength to us—so kind, gentle, and strong. Mrs. Woodward comes and goes all day. Every one is kind and sympathising."
"March 23.—Mother talks constantly of Albano and her great wish to be there amongst the flowers, but for many weeks, perhaps months, this must be impossible."
"March 28.—It has been the same kind of week, alternately saddened by the strange phases of illness, or cheered by slight amendments; but Mother has had many sad nights, always worse than her days, without rest even for a minute. Her mind is only too clear. She will translate hymns, 'Abide with me,' &c., into Italian; the great difficulty is to keep it all in check. From 4 to 10 P.M. the nervous spasms in the paralysed arm are uncontrollable, and she can only endure them by holding tight to my arm or Lea's. All yesterday, however, I was away from her, tending poor young Sutherland, who has been dreadfully ill at the Hôtel de Londres of typhoid fever, and who is quite alone and helpless."
"April 3.—The Mother goes on very slowly, but I hope has not had an unpleasant week. She never seems to find the time long, and always looks equally placid and happy. Physically she is certainly more comfortable now she is entirely in bed. Her chief trouble is from the returning vitality of the poor arm; the muscles knot all round it, and move on slowly by a quarter of an inch at a time, as the life advances: passing the shoulder was agony, and I dread the passing the elbow. Meantime, the rest of the arm is an independent being, acting by its independent muscular action, and is obliged to be constantly watched, as it will sometimes lay its heavy weight upon her chest, once clutched her by the throat and nearly strangled her, at others annoys her by stealing her pocket-handkerchiefs! She has been able to hear a psalm and some prayers read aloud every evening, and occupies herself with her own inexhaustible stores of mental hymns and verses incessantly. Mrs. Woodward's daily visit is one of her little pleasures, and she has also seen Mrs. Hall several times.
"My young cousin Edward Liddell[410] returned lately from Naples, and on Monday became very ill of fever, pronounced typhoid, and likely to become typhus and very infectious, so, as he had no one else to look after him, I have been nursing him ever since. It was so fortunate for me that Mother was really better at this time, or I do not know what we could have done, as though he had one good nurse, she was quite worn out, and there was no other to be procured. So now we take it in turns, four hours at a time, and I chiefly at night, when she goes home to her children. I am writing in the darkened room, where Edward lies powerless, with all his hair cut off and his head soaked in wet towels, almost unable to move, and unable to feed himself. I am sorry not to be able to go out while Marcus Hare is here, and he is much disappointed. He arrived suddenly from Naples and embraced me as if we were still children."
"April 10.—My dear Mother is much the same. It has been a peaceful week with her, though there is no improvement.... The paralysed arm is quite useless, and has a separate and ungovernable individuality. This is why she can never be left alone. Its weight is like a log of lead, and sometimes it will throw itself upon her, when no efforts of her own can release her. Odd as it sounds, her only safe moments are when the obstreperous member is tied up by a long scarf to the post of Lea's bed opposite and cannot injure her. Mentally, she is always quiet and happy, and I believe that she never feels her altered life a burden. She repeats constantly her hymns and verses, for which her memory is wonderful, but she has no longer any power of attention to reading and no consecutive ideas. All names of places and people she remembers perfectly. As Dr. Winslow says, some of the organs of the brain are clearer than ever, others are quite lost.
"As the fear of infection caused him to be left alone, I have been constantly nursing Edward Liddell. All last week his fever constantly increased, and he was so weak that he could only swallow drops of strong soup or milk, perpetually dropped into his mouth from a spoon. Had this been ever relinquished, the feeble flame of life must have become extinct. Last Monday morning I had gone home to rest, when the doctor hastily summoned me back, and I found new symptoms which indicated the most immediate danger; so then, on my own responsibility, I telegraphed for Colonel and Mrs. Augustus Liddell (his father and mother), and soon had the comfort of hearing that they were en route. That evening the alarming symptoms returned with such frightful vehemence that both nurse and doctor thought it impossible that he could survive the night. Then and for three nights after I never left Edward for a moment, bathing his head, feeding him, holding him, and expecting him every instant to die in my arms, and in the day only I returned to pay Mother visits. Anything like his sweetness, gentleness, thankfulness, I never saw in any one, and his perfect readiness for heaven made us feel that it was the less likely that his life would be given back to us; and you may imagine, though I had scarcely known him before, how very close a cousinly tie has been drawn in these hours of anguish. He received the Sacrament on Thursday. On Friday there was a very slight improvement, but more delirium. For four days and nights he lay under a vast poultice of snow, which had to be replenished as often as it melted, and making snow with a machine has been perhaps the most laborious part of my duties. Each night I have watched for the faint streak of dawn, wondering if he could live till morning, and feeling as if I were wrestling for his life. Yesterday morning, when I knew his parents were coming, it was quite an agony of suspense; but they arrived safe, and I was able to give him up living to his mother's care. I have had every day to write to Mrs. Fraser Tytler, to whose daughter Christina he had not been engaged a month, and of whom he has thought touchingly and incessantly.
"I am not much knocked up, but thankful even for myself that Mrs. Augustus Liddell is come, as my cough is so much increased by having to be so often out on the balcony at night, up to my elbows in the snow manufacturing. I do not think I could have held out much longer, and then I do not know what would have become of Edward."
"April 17.—Last Sunday I had so much more cough, and was so much knocked up with my week's nursing, that kind Lady Marian Alford insisted on taking me early on Monday in her own carriage to Albano for change. It was like travelling with the Queen, everything so luxurious, charming rooms, and perfect devotion everywhere to 'la gran donna da bene,' her personal charm affecting all classes equally.
"Lady Marian had a very pleasant party at Albano, Lord and Lady Bagot and their daughter, Mr. Story,[412] Miss Boyle,[413] Miss Hattie Hosmer,[414] and Mr.[415] and Lady Emily Russell. The first afternoon we drove along the lake to Lariccia, where we went all over the wonderful old Chigi palace, and then on to the Cesarini garden at Genzano, overhanging the lake of Nemi. The next morning we went to the Parco di Colonna and Marino, and then in a tremendous thunderstorm to Frascati, where we dined in the old Campana Palace, returning to Rome in the evening. I like Mr. Odo Russell and his simple massive goodness extremely. I hear that Pius IX. says of him, 'Non é un buono cattolico, ma é un cattivissimo protestante.' Miss Hosmer had said to him, 'You're growing too fat: you ought to come out riding; it will do you no end of good;' to which he replied in his slow way, 'No, I cannot come out riding.'—'And why not?' said Miss Hosmer. 'Don't you know,' he said, 'that I am very anxious to be made an ambassador as soon as possible, and, since that is the case, I must stay working at home.'
"'I like midges, for they love Venice, and they love humanity,' said Miss Mary Boyle.
"On Wednesday, finding both my patients better, I acceded to Marcus's entreaties and went with him and some friends of his to Tivoli for the day. Most gloriously lovely was it looking! My companions scrambled round the waterfalls, whilst I sat and what Robert Peabody calls 'water-coloured' opposite the Cascatelle. In the evening we went to the Villa d'Este and saw the sun set upon the grand old palace through its dark frame of cypresses.
"This morning I went for the first time to see the bishops of the Council; rather a disappointing sight, though they are a fine set of old men. Some of the American costumes are magnificent.
"Monday is the end of Edward's twenty-one days' fever, and I am still very anxious for the result. As he says, I feel rather, since the arrival of his parents, like a hen who has nursed a duckling which has escaped: but I go every day to look at him."
"April 30.—It is no use worrying oneself about the journey yet. It must always be painful and anxious. On returning to America, Dr. Winslow's last words to me were, 'Remember, if she has any fright, any accident, any anxiety, there will be another seizure,' and in so long a journey this can scarcely be evaded. She must have more strength before we can think of it. Her own earnest wish is to go to Albano first, but I dread those twelve miles extra. We always had this house till May 15, and hitherto there has been no heat.
"On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Mother was carried down by two women in her dressing-gown, wrapped round with shawls, to a little carriage at the door. They were perfectly still sunny days, no bronchitis to be caught. The first day we only went round the Pincio, the second to the Parco di San Gregorio, the third to the Lateran and Santa Croce: she chose her own two favourite drives.
JOURNAL.
"May 3, 1870.—Walked with Miss J. Pole Carew and her governess from the Villa Albani to Sant' Agnese to look for the blood-red lily, seven feet high, which smells so terribly that no one is able to pick it. The governess (Miss Nicholson) said how the twisted palms carried in the Roman Catholic ceremonies seemed to her like a type of their faith. So much would be beautiful and impressive in the lives of the martyrs and the memories of the early Church, if, like the palms, so beautiful when they are first brought to Rome, they were not twisted and overladen, to the hiding and destruction of their original character."
To MISS LEYCESTER.
"May 8.—Last Sunday we drove to the Villa Borghese, which is now in its fullest most luxuriant summer green. When we came back, the Tombola was taking place in the Piazza del Popolo, so that gate was closed, and we had to go round by Porta Salara. The slight additional distance was too much for Mother, so that she has been unable to be up even in her chair for several days. This will show you how weak she is: how terrible the return journey is to look forward to.
"She certainly never seems to realise her helplessness, or to find out that she can no longer knit or do the many things she is accustomed to.... She likes hearing Job read, because of the analogy of sufferings, but she does not at all admire Job as a model of patience! Hymns are her delight, and indeed her chief occupation. She has great pleasure in the lovely flowers with which our poorer friends constantly supply us, especially in the beautiful roses and carnations of the faithful Maria de Bonis (the old photograph woman), who is as devoted as ever."
"May 15.—The weather has been perfect. In all our foreign or home experience I do not recollect such weeks of hot sunshine, yet never oppressive; such a delicious bracing air always. The flowers are quite glorious, and our poor people—grateful as only Italians are—keep the sick-room constantly supplied with them.
"But, alas! it has been a very sad week nevertheless, and if I once allowed myself to think of it, my heart would sink within me. My dearest Mother has been so very, very suffering; in fact, there have been very few hours free from acute pain, and, in spite of her sweet patience and her natural leaning towards only thanksgiving, her groans and wails have been most sad and the flesh indeed a burden.... You will easily imagine what it is to me to see this state of intense discomfort, and to be able to do nothing to relieve it; for I am quite convinced that nothing can be done, that medicine must be avoided as much as possible in her worn-out system, and that we must trust entirely to the effect of climate and to a returning power of taking nourishment. Dr. Grigor told her that it was a case of most suffering paralysis, usually producing such dreadful impatience that he wondered at her powers of self-control. But from my sweetest Mother, we never hear one word which is not of perfect patience and faith and thanksgiving, though her prayers aloud for patience are sometimes too touching for us to bear. She has not been out for ten days, as she has really had no strength to bear the lifting up and down stairs, and she has seen nobody except our dear Mrs. Woodward and Mary Stanley."
To MISS WRIGHT.
"Rome, May 22, 1870.—The Mother can recover no power in her lost limbs, in which she has, nevertheless, acute pain. Yet, deprived of every employment and never free from suffering, life is to her one prolonged thanksgiving, and in the sunshine of her blessed state of outpouring gratitude for the silver linings of her clouds, it is not for her nurses to repine. In her case daily more true become the lines of Waller—
'The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made.'
But when even her short excursions to the Pincio or Villa Borghese produce the most intense exhaustion, no stranger can imagine how we can dream of attempting the immense homeward journey. Still, knowing her wonderful power of will and what it has accomplished, I never think anything impossible, and all minor details of difficulty become easier when one has a fixed point of what must be. We shall at any rate try to reach Florence, and then, if she suffers seriously and further progress is quite impossible, we shall be on the way to Lucca or Siena. If we ever do reach Holmhurst, of course it will be for life, which makes the leaving this more than second home very sad to me.
"I have had many pleasant friends here this winter, especially the Pole Carews, who are a most charming family. Latterly also I have seen much of Mrs. Terry, who is a very interesting and delightful person. Since the world has drifted northwards, I have seen more of the few friends who remain, and with the Terrys have even accomplished a very old desire of going to Bracciano. It is a beautiful drive across the Campagna, and then comes the ascent into the steep old town, and under the many gates and fortalices of the castle, to a courtyard with painted loggias. Armed with an order from Princess Odescalchi, we went all over the rooms with their curious ugly old pictures and carving, and sat in the balconies looking down upon the beautiful transparent Bracciano lake, twenty miles in circumference, all the mountains reflected as in a mirror. Mrs. Terry is charming: after we had talked of sad subjects she said—'But we have spoken enough of these things; now let us talk of butterflies and flowers.' In spite of all other work, I have sold £75 worth of sketches this winter, chiefly old ones, so am nearly able to pay our rent."
To MISS LEYCESTER.
"Rome, May 26, 1870.—The Mother is better for the great heat, thermometer standing at 85°, but Rome always has such a fresh air that heat is never overpowering, and in our delightful apartments we never suffer, as we can have so much variety, and if Mother does not go out, she is moved to the balcony overhanging the little garden at the back, where she sits and has her tea under a vine-covered pergola. If we are permitted to reach Holmhurst, I fear all will not be benefit. I much dread the difficulty there will be in keeping Lea from being wholly engrossed again by household affairs, and I cannot see how Mother could do without her almost constant attendance, which she has now. Also, we shall greatly miss the large bedroom opening into a sitting-room, where I can pursue my avocations, able to be with her at the faintest call, and yet not quite close to the groans.... But all this is long, long looking forward: there seems such a gulf between us and England.... Yet we think of attempting the move next week, and on Friday sent off six large boxes with the accumulations of many years, retaining also a list of what must be sent back if we never reach England.
"The Signorina and Samuccia, Clementina and Louisa, Rosina and Madame da Monaca, have all been to say good-bye, and all kiss Mother with tears on taking leave, overcome by her helpless state and sweet look of patience."
"May 29.—Emmie Penrhyn's letter was an especial pleasure to the Mother, and what she said of the centurion's servant, grievously 'tormented.' Certainly she is grievously tormented. The pain really never ceases, and the individual motion of the helpless arm is terrible.... I think with misery of the disappointment the return to Holmhurst will be to her. She cannot realise that it will not be, as it has always been, the home of her well months, talks of how she shall 'frolic out into the garden,' &c. I feel if we ever reach it, it is going, not to England, but to Holmhurst for life.... We have been to the cemetery under Caius Cestius, and the sentinel allowed her little carriage to pass across the turf, so that she was able to look once more upon the well-known grave, embosomed in its roses and aloes. Yesterday we went to take leave of the old Miss Haigs at their beautiful villa. The three old ladies embraced Mother, and presented her, like three good fairies, one with roses, another with geraniums, and the third with two ripe strawberries."
"Florence, June 1.—Monday was a terribly fatiguing day, but Mother remained in bed, and was very composed, only anxious that nothing should occur to prevent our departure, and to prove to us that she was well enough. At five Mrs. Woodward came and sat by her whilst Lea and I were occupied with last preparations. At 7 P.M. Mother was carried down and went off in a little low carriage with Mrs. Woodward and Lea, and I followed in a large carriage with Miss Finucane and the luggage. There was quite a collection of our poorer friends to see Mother off and kiss hands. At the railway the faithful Maria de Bonis was waiting, and she and Mrs. Woodward stayed with Mother and saw her carried straight through to the railway coupé which was secured for us. We felt deeply taking leave of the kindest of friends, who has been such a comfort and blessing to us, certainly, next to you, the chief support of Mother's later years. 'Oh, how beautiful it will be when the gates which are now ajar are quite open!' were her last words to Mother.
"The carriage was most comfortable.... Mother slept a little, and though she wailed occasionally, was certainly no worse than on ordinary nights. The dawn was lovely over the rich Tuscan valleys, so bright with corn and vines, tall cypresses, and high villa roofs. She was carried straight through to a carriage, and soon reached the succursale of the Alleanza, where the people know us and are most kind. In the afternoon she slept, and I drove up to Fiesole, where I had not been for twelve years, with Mr. and Mrs. Cummings, American friends."
"Bologna, June 5.—I fear, after my last, you will be grievously disappointed to hear of us as no farther on our way. We can, however, only tell from hour to hour how soon we may be able to get on, and I find it entirely useless to make plans of any kind, as we are sure not to be able to keep them. On Tuesday a great thunderstorm prevented our leaving Florence, and on Wednesday and Thursday Mother was in such terrible suffering that it was impossible to think of it. On Friday evening there was a rally, and we came on at once, Mrs. Dallas helping us through the difficulties of the Florence Station, and Mr. and Mrs. Cummings following us here. I think I mentioned that Dr. Grigor said travelling at night, when there was no sun, was the only chance of her reaching England alive. Mother begs I will tell Charlotte that 'No words can describe her sufferings or my anxieties, but that she has been brought through wonderfully hitherto, and that she still hopes to reach England—in time.'"
JOURNAL.
"Bologna, June 5.—Mr. Cummings says the great Church of S. Petronio here reminds him of the great Church universal—so vast the space, and so many chapels branching off, all so widely divided that in each a separate sermon and doctrine might be preached without distressing its neighbour, while yet all meet in the centre in one common whole, the common Church of Christ.
"An old American lady in the train had passed a summer at Vallombrosa. She said it was a place where to live was life and where one could be happy when one was unhappy."
To MISS LEYCESTER.
"Susa, June 8, 1870.—The Mother continued in a most terribly suffering state all the time we were at Bologna—agonies of pain which gave no rest. Yesterday afternoon it was so intense that she implored me to try the railway as a counter-irritant, and we set off at half-past ten at night. But the train shook fearfully, and the journey was absolute torture to her. We have never had such a painful time. Lea and I were obliged to sit on the floor by turns, holding the poor hand, and trying to animate her courage to bear up, but her cries were terrible. We reached Turin at 5 A.M., where, in spite of all promises to the contrary, she had to be carried all round the station; but fortunately for the next hour the train was easier and she suffered less. She was carried by two men out of the station, and down the wet muddy road here, where she has a good room, and soon fell asleep from exhaustion. We arrived at 6.30 A.M., and shall stay till to-morrow morning. Her state is certainly one of incomparably more suffering than at Rome, and she feels the change of climate dreadfully."
"Aix-les-Bains, June 9.—Last night, to my great relief, Colonel and Mrs. Cracroft and Miss Wilson arrived at Susa, and were the greatest possible help to us. We had obtained a permesso for the Mother to be taken straight through to the Fell railway carriage, and her little procession started at 7 A.M., and she was carried from her bed to her seat in the railway. The Cracrofts sat all round us in the carriage, which was much better than strangers, and Miss Wilson was most kind in keeping her hands bathed with eau de Cologne, &c. She suffered much for the first two hours, but the train was wonderfully smooth and easy, so that really the dreaded Mont Cenis was the least distressing part of the journey. About the middle of the pass she revived a little, and noticed the flowers, which were lovely—such gentianellas, auriculas, large golden lilies, &c. At S. Michel she bore the being carried about tolerably, so we were able to come on here, and arrived about four. Mother desires I will say to Charlotte, 'Hitherto the Lord hath helped me.'"
"Macon, June 12.—No farther on our way than this. Mother was rather less suffering on Friday, and she bore the move from Aix and the dreaded change at Culoz better than we expected, but in the latter part of our four hours' journey she was fearfully exhausted, and arrived here (at the hotel looking out on the Saone and the wide-stretching poplar plains) in a sad state.... It is impossible to move on yet.
"Yesterday, while she was sleeping, I drove to Cluny, the queen of French abbeys. A great deal is left, and it is a most interesting and beautiful place. I also saw Lamartine's little château of Monceaux, described in his 'Confidences.' All his things and his library were being sold under the chestnut-trees in front of the house. I just came up in time to buy the old apple-green silk quilt[420] from the bed of his saint-like mother, described in 'Le Manuscrit de ma Mère.'"
"Montbard, June 13.—Mother was so anxious to attempt coming on, that we left Macon at half-past eleven to-day, arriving here at four. To our dismay, when she had been taken out of the carriage and laid flat upon the platform, and the train had gone off, we found the station hotel closed. However, she was well carried on a chair down a lane to the so-called Hôtel de la Poste—an old-fashioned farm-house in a garden of roses; everything clean, pretty, and quaint; no sound but cocks and hens crowing and cackling; delicious farm-house bread, butter, and milk. Montbard is the place where Buffon lived in a very picturesque old château and gardens. Mother seems revived by the intense quiet and fresh country air. The old landlord and his wife are quite pictures—such clever, kind old faces, reminding one of La Sarte in 'Citoyenne Jacqueline.'"
"Paris, June 14.—This morning was like a respite! Mother lay so quiet that I was actually able to draw as in the old days, which now seem in the far distance; and I took a little carriage to the lovely cloistered château of Fontenay, which I had long wished to see, and where I had luncheon with the charming owner, Madame de Montgolfier, and her two sons, people who own immense factories in the valley and devote their whole lives to the good of their workpeople. On my return I found Mother so far better that we could prepare her for the one o'clock express. She had a bath-chair to the station, and bore it well; but she was terribly tried by the five hours' journey, and being very ill carried at Paris, arrived at the hotel utterly prostrated. We hope to go on to-morrow, but all is most uncertain."
"Dover Station, June 16.—We are here, with intense thankfulness. Mother looked so ill and aged this morning we did not hope to move her, but she had a sudden rally in the middle of the day, so at 6 P.M. we were able to prepare her, and had her carried through the station to a carriage before the mob of people came.... We dreaded arriving at Calais, but she was carried in an arm-chair to the steamer, which was fortunately at the near quay and no steps. Of course our little procession was the last to arrive, and every place was taken; but Miss Charlotte Cushman,[423] who had comfortably established herself in the cabin, with a calm dignity which is irresistible at once directed the men to put Mother down in her place, and went up on deck.
"The sea was like glass—lovely moonlight and sunrise, and we seemed to be at Dover before we left Calais. A sailor carried Mother in his arms to the railway carriage, in which we were allowed to go as far as the station platform, and here we are. A porter has fetched cups of tea, and we have four hours to wait.
"We shall be glad of a visit from you as early as you like to come next week. I should not like you to defer coming long, as, though I have no special cause for apprehension, still in Mother's critical state every day is precious. You will find her terribly altered in all respects, though the mind and memory are quite clear at the moment. None of her doctors give any hope whatever of amendment; but you will understand the position much better when you see it, only I am anxious that you should help me to face what is inevitable, instead of striving after what cannot be. Let us seek to alleviate suffering, not struggle after an impossible cure which may hasten the end."
To MISS WRIGHT.
"Holmhurst, June 17.—I know you will truly rejoice with and for us that we have arrived in safety, and that my poor suffering Mother has her great wish of seeing her little home once more. You will imagine what the journey has been, as she is now utterly helpless, nearly blind, and never free from acute suffering in the spine and arm, which is often agony. At Rome it was generally thought quite impossible that she could survive the journey, and nothing but her faith and patience, and her self-control, have enabled us to get through it. We never could make a plan, but just seized the happy moment when she was a shade better, and at once pushed on a step. She was, of course, carried everywhere, and people were wonderfully kind; we had always somebody to go with us and smooth the difficulties of the railway stations—either old friends or people who were at my lectures at Rome and met us accidentally.
"When we arrived, all the old servants were terribly overcome to see their beloved mistress carried in so changed and helpless. She is still very ill, but unspeakably thankful to be here, and to feel that the journey is done. My life is, and must continue to be, one of constant watching."
"July 21.—Our letters are now our only intercourse with the world beyond the gates of Holmhurst, which I never leave; but indeed I can seldom leave the house before 8 P.M., when I walk round the fields while Mother is prepared for the night. Though it is now the only thing I ever think of, it is very difficult to occupy and cheer her days, for she cannot bear any consecutive reading. Sometimes I read, and tell her what I have read as a kind of story. She is seldom up before 3 P.M., and then is carried down to the lawn in her dressing-gown, and up again at four, when she is sometimes able to look at a book for a few minutes. That which is oftenest in her hand is the little 'Invalid's Friend' which you gave her, and she desires me to tell you how often she finds comfort in it.... For the last fortnight we have been entirely alone, which has been really best for her, as, though she has enjoyed seeing those she loved, each departure has made her worse.
"I write much at my 'Walks in Rome' in her room, and my ancient history is so imperfect I have plenty to study, which acts as a sort of mental tonic."
From my JOURNAL (The Green Book).
"June 26.—My darling often talks to me in her hymns. To-night, when I left her, she said with her lovely sweetness, 'Good-night, darling.
"Go, sleep like closing flowers at night,
And Heaven your morn will bless."'
"'I never wish to leave you,' she said the other day. 'I never wish for death; always remember that. I should like to stay with you as long as I can.' And another day, 'I must call you "my daughter-son," as Mrs. Colquhoun did hers: as long as I have you, I suppose I can bear anything; but if you were taken away, or if I had never had you, my life would be indeed desolate: I could not have lived on.... I try so not to groan when you are here, you must not grudge me a few groans when you are out of the room.'"
"July 18.—'I had such a sweet dream of your Aunt Lucy last night. I thought we were together again, and I said, "How I do miss you!" and she said she was near me. I suppose I had been thinking of—
"Saints in glory perfect made
Wait thine escort through the shade."
I think perhaps I had been thinking of that. Dear Aunt Lucy, how she would have grieved to see me now!'"
"July 19.—'Yes, I know the psalms; many in your Uncle Julius's version too. Many a time it keeps me quiet for hours to know and repeat them. I should never have got through my journey if I had not had so many to repeat and to still the impatience.'"
To MISS WRIGHT.
"Holmhurst, July 31, 1870.—I continue to work on steadily at my book in the sick-room. I have just got Murray's Roman Handbook, and am amazed to see how much better it is than I expected; but I am glad I have not seen it before, as, though I have already given even all his newest information, I have told it so oddly differently.
"The sweet Mother continues much the same. She is carried out each fine afternoon to sit for an hour near the weeping ash-tree on the lawn, and enjoys the sunshine and flowers.... In this quiet garden, and never going beyond the gates, everything seems very far off, and I am beginning to have quite a sympathy with the hermits, and to wonder the race does not continue: it is certainly more reasonable than that of the monks. A great peace seems to have fallen upon us. As I see my helpless Mother's quiet happiness, and share it, I think of Richard Crashaw's lines—
| 'How many unknown worlds there are |
| Of comforts, which Thou hast in keeping! |
| How many thousand mercies there |
| In Pity's soft lap lie a-sleeping! |
| Happy she who has the art |
| To awake them |
| And to take them |
| Home, and lodge them in her heart.'" |
From my JOURNAL (The Green Book).
"August 8.—It is inexpressibly touching to me how Mother now seems to have an insight into my past feelings which she never had before, and to understand and sympathise with childish sufferings which she never perceived at the time, or from which she would have turned aside if she had perceived them. To-day, after her dinner, she said most touchingly, watching till every one went away and calling me close to her pillow—'I want to make my confession to you, darling. I often feel I have never been half tender enough to you. I feel it now, and I should like you to know it. You are such a comfort and blessing to me, dearest, and I thought perhaps I might die suddenly, and never have told you so. I cannot bear your being tied here, and yet I do not know how I could do without you, you are so great a blessing to me.'
"And oh! in the desolate future what a comfort these few words will contain! But I said—'No, darling, I am not tied: you know it is just what I like. I know you could not do without me, but then I could not do without you, so it is just the same for both of us.'"
"August 26.—To-day is the anniversary of my adoption, what Mother used to call my Hurstmonceaux birthday. She remembered it when I went to her, and said touchingly—'God be thanked for having given me my child, for having preserved him, for having strengthened him. May he live to His glory, and may I die to His praise.... Pray that He may forgive the past, watch over the present, and guide the future.' Later she said—'It is very seldom that a woman's future is settled at thirty-five, as mine was. I was not only a widow, but my adopting a child showed to all the world that I should never marry again.... I can only make a meditation,' she said; 'I have no strength to make a prayer.... I have long been obliged to pray in snatches—in moments.... I am so glad that I know so many psalms, hymns, and collects; they are such a comfort to me now. I could think of nothing more, but these I dwell upon.... Sometimes when I can think of nothing else I take the Lord's Prayer, and lie still to make a meditation upon each separate clause.' When I left her at night she said fervently—'Good-night, my own dear love, my blessing: may I be your blessing, as you are mine.'"
In our quiet life, the news of the war in France, the siege of Paris, &c., reached us like far-off echoes. My mother cared little to hear of it, but shared with me in anxiety as to the fate of the excellent people we had so lately left at Montbard and Fontenay, which were overrun by the Prussians. On September 8 the Empress Eugenie took refuge at Hastings, and two days after walked up the hill past our gate. She was joined at Hastings by the Prince Imperial. I little thought then that I should afterwards know him so well.
JOURNAL.
"Sept. 10, 1870.—Lea has just been saying, 'You may go and count the trees to-day, for I've nothing for you for dinner. The butcher's never been, good-for-nothing fellow! he's gone gawking after that Empress, I'll be bound.'"
Almost all my Mother's nieces and many old friends came to see her in the summer, generally staying only two or three days, but her dear cousin, Charlotte Leycester, came for the whole of September. While she was here at Holmhurst I was persuaded to go away for two days, and went to see Dean Alford at his cottage of Vine's Gate in the Kentish Hills. He was more charming than ever, and more eccentric, never wearing stockings, and shoes only when he went out. I was miserable, in my short absence, with anxiety, which cost me far more than the refreshment of change could replace; but I was led to go to see the Dean by one of those strange presentiments for which I have never been able to account. It was my last sight of this dear friend, with whom I have been more really intimate than with perhaps any one else, in spite of the great difference of age and position. Dean Alford died in the following winter, but it was at a time when, in my own intense desolation, all minor sorrows fell dumb and dead. But his grave, in St. Martin's Churchyard at Canterbury, is always a very sacred spot to me.
Henry AlfordI must record a visit which we received soon after my return home, as it led to a friendship which was one of the great pleasures of many following years. One morning, as I was sitting in my Mother's room as usual, a card with "Mrs. Grove, Oakhurst," was brought up to me, and, as I opened the drawing-room door, I saw an old lady with the very sweetest and dearest face I ever set eyes upon, in a primitive-looking hat and apron, and with a basket on her arm, and I fell in love with her at once. She came often afterwards to see my Mother, who greatly appreciated her; and after my Mother's sweet life passed away, it is difficult to say how much of my home interest was associated with Oakhurst, with the ready sympathy and old-fashioned knowledge of this dear Mrs. Grove, and with her daughter, Mrs. Baillie Hamilton, and her two grand-daughters, now Mrs. Spencer Smith and Mrs. Hamilton Seymour. Alas! as I write this,[424] the dear Mrs. Grove, in her great age, is herself rapidly fading heavenwards—but so gently, so surrounded by the love which her own loving-kindness has called forth, that death is indeed coming as a friend, gently and tenderly leading her into the visible presence of the Saviour, in whose invisible presence she has so long lived and served.
JOURNAL (The Green Book).
"Holmhurst, Oct. 20, 1870.—Mother said to-day, 'I always think that walking through the Roman picture-galleries is like walking through the Old and New Testament with the blessed company of apostles and martyrs beside one.... I am so fond of that prayer "for all sorts and conditions of men," not only for my invalid state, but it is all so appropriate to the present time—the petition for peace and unity, &c.'"
"Oct. 23, Sunday.—'Alas! another Sunday in bed,' said Mother this morning.
"'But, darling, you need not regret it; all the days are Sundays to you.'
"'Yes; but to-day I woke early, and have said all my little Sunday hymns and psalms.'
"Truly with her, 'Les prières de la nuit font la sérénité du jour.'"[425]
"Oct. 26.—'My dear child is never cross to me, never; and always appears just at the very moment I want anything.'"
To MISS WRIGHT.
"Holmhurst, Oct. 28, 1870.—I am so glad you have been here, and can fancy our perfectly quiet, eventless life, the coming and going in the Mother's sick-room, and her gentle happiness in all the little pleasures which are spared to her. Since you were here she has been not so well, from the wet and cold, I suppose, the sight dimmer and the other powers weaker; but the symptoms are ever varying, and, when it is thus, I almost never leave her—watch her sleeping and try to amuse her waking.
"To-day my absent hour was sadly engaged in attending the funeral of my dear old friend, Mrs. Dixon,[426] who died quite peacefully last Saturday, a long illness ending in two days of merciful unconsciousness. She was buried at Ore, in Emma Simpkinson's grave. Many deeply mourn her, for few were more sincere and cordial, more affectionate and sympathising."
JOURNAL (The Green Book).
"Nov. 1, 1870.—My darling has had two months of comparative freedom from pain, with many hours of real pleasure, in which she was often carried down and sat out in her bath-chair amongst the flower-beds in the sunshine. Sitting under the ash-tree shade, she has been able to see many friends—Mrs. Wagner, Mrs. Grove, old Mrs. Vansittart Neale at ninety, and Lady Waldegrave. Charlotte Leycester was here for six weeks, and the Mother was then so far better that it was a great source of enjoyment to both the cousins. Since then she has ailed more frequently, and has had occasional recurrence of the old pain in her arm. I have sat constantly writing in her room, laying aside 'Walks in Rome' for a time, and devoting myself to writing the Family Memorials. For the dear Mother has wished me to continue the work she began long ago of writing the life of Augustus and Julius Hare. I represented that, as one of these died before I was born, and I had never appreciated the other as she had done, it would be impossible for me to do this, unless she would permit me to make her, who had been the sunshine of my own life, the central figure of the picture. At first she laughed at the idea, but, after a day or two, she said that, as, with the sole exception of Charlotte Leycester, all who had shared her earlier life had passed away, she could not oppose my wish that the simple experience of her own life, and God's guidance in her case, might, if I thought it could be so, be made useful for others. And, as she has accustomed herself to this thought, she has lately taken real pleasure in it. She laughs at what she calls my 'building her mausoleum in her lifetime,' but has almost grown, I think, to look upon her own life and her own experience as if it were that of another in whom she was interested, and to read it and hear it in the same way. She has given me many journals and letters of various kinds which I might use, and has directed the arrangement of others. I have already written the two earliest chapters of her married life, and read most of them to her, but she stopped me at last, saying that they interested her too deeply. She frequently asks now—'Are you writing the Memorials, or only "Walks in Rome"?' and it is a proof how clear her understanding still is, that some weeks ago she wisely directed me, if the work was ever carried out, to evade all wearying discussion by consulting no one, and that I should on no account show it to any one of the family, especially the Stanleys, till it was finished, when they might judge of it as a whole.
"Sometimes the dear Mother has herself been able to write some of her 'Ricordi,' as she calls them, and, with her trembling hand, has filled a whole little volume with the recollections of her youth, but this has often been too much for her.... After her tea at four o'clock, I have generally read some story to her till she has gone to bed, and after that a chapter and some hymns. There is a passage in one of George Eliot's autobiographical sonnets, in which, referring to her mother, she speaks of 'the benediction of her gaze'; how often have I experienced this!"
"Nov. 4.—Last night I read to the Mother Luke xvii. and a hymn on 'Rest' which she asked for. When I was going to wish her good-night she said—'I do hope, darling, I am not like the ungrateful lepers. I try to be always praising God, but I know that I can never praise Him enough for His many, many mercies to me.' I could not but feel, in the alarm afterwards, if my dearest Mother never spoke to me again, what beautiful last words those would have been, and how characteristic of her. Oh, goodness in life brings us near to God: not death! not death!
"At 2 P.M. I was awakened by the dreadful sound which has haunted me ever since the night of March 12 in the Via Gregoriana—of Lea rushing along the passage and flinging open the door—'Come directly'—no time for more words—and of running through the dark gallery and finding the terrible change—another paralytic seizure—calling up John and sending him off to Battle for the doctor, and kneeling by the bedside, consoling her if possibly conscious, and watching for the faint dawn of visible life, that the first words might be tender ones, the first look one of love, ... and it was so—that my darling's first words were something tender, indefinite, but spoken to me. The entire unconsciousness was not long. When the doctor arrived the face was almost natural, but he saw that it had been a regular seizure. By 8 A.M. she was nearly herself again, and anxious to know what could have happened. She had been frightened by seeing the doctor. She appeared to have no pain, and there is no additional injury to the powers. To-day has been a constant watching, rather a warding off from her of any possible excitement than anything else.... In all the anguish of anxiety, I cannot be thankful enough for what we have, especially the freedom from pain."
"Nov. 9.—No great change—a happy painless state, the mind very feeble, its power gone, but peaceful, loving, full of patience, faith, and thankfulness."
"Nov. 16.—And since I wrote last, the great, the most unutterable desolation, so long looked for, so often warded off, has come upon me. Oh! while they can still be attained, let me gather up the precious fragments that remain.
"On Thursday the 10th my darling was much better, though her mind was a little feeble. I felt then, as I feel a thousand times now, how extraordinary people were who spoke of the trial my darling's mental feebleness would be to me. It only endeared her to me a thousandfold—her gentle confidence, her sweet clinging to me to supply the words and ideas which no longer came unsought, made her only more unspeakably lovable. On that day I remember that my darling mentioned several times that she heard beautiful music. This made no impression on me then.
"Friday the 11th, I sat, as usual, all morning in her room correcting my book. I forget whether it was that morning or the next that my darling on waking from sleep said that she had had such a pleasant dream of her childhood and Adderley and 'old Lady Corbet,' who first taught her to 'love what was beautiful.'[427] At 2 P.M. Mother was up, and sat in her arm-chair by the fire. She was partly dressed, and wore her pretty old-fashioned cap with the strings tied in a bow on the top of the head, and a little red cloak which Miss Wright had given her: I remember thinking she looked so pretty, and telling her so. I was out at first, while she wrote a little letter to Fanny Tatton,[428] and talked to Lea about the texts she had been reading. At four, she had her tea, and then I sat at her feet, and my darling talked most sweetly about all the places she had admired most in her life—of Llangollen in her childhood, and of Capel Curig, of her visit to Rhianva, and of many places abroad, Narni with its woods and river, and more especially Villar in the Vaudois, of which I had been making a drawing, which she had desired to have set up that she might look at it. Then she asked to have one of her old journals read, and I read one of Rome, and she spoke of how much happiness, how many blessings, she had connected with Rome also, though much of suffering. She was especially bright and sunny. I remember saying to her playfully, 'Take a little notice of me, darling; you do not take enough notice of me,' and her stroking my head and saying, 'You dear child,' and laughing.
"At six o'clock my sweetest one was put to bed.
"Afterwards I read to her a chapter in St. Luke—'Let this cup pass from me,' &c., and sat in her room till half-past nine. When I went downstairs I kissed her and said, 'Have a good good night, darling.' I cannot recollect that she spoke, but I remember looking back as I opened the door, and seeing my sweet Mother lying on her side as she always did, and her dear eyes following me with a more than usually tender expression as I left the room.
"I have often thought since of a sentence in Carlyle's 'Life of Sterling'—'Softly, as a common evening, the last of our evenings passed away, and no other would come to me for evermore.'
"When I went upstairs again at half-past ten, I went, as I always did, to listen at her door, and, hearing a noise, went in. Terrible illness had come on and continued for hours.... The next thirty-six hours I never left her for an instant, and they all seem to me like one long terrible night. I remember very little distinctly, but at eight on Saturday morning she was certainly much better. The doctor came at ten, and she was able to speak to him. He looked very grave over the lowness of her pulse, but she continued better for some hours, and slept a great deal in the afternoon. Towards evening I thought her not so well, though the doctor, who came at half-past nine, considered her state much less anxious. I was then possessed with the feeling that our parting was very near. Lea also called me downstairs to hear the extraordinary sound that was going on. It was indeed strange. It was as if hundreds of thousands of crickets were all chirping together. They appeared everywhere in swarms on the hearths downstairs. The noise was so great that I felt if it continued we should be driven out of the place: it was quite deafening; but they only came that night, they never were heard before, and the next day they had totally disappeared.[429] I persuaded Lea to lie down on her bed, where she soon fell asleep. All through the night I sat by my darling on the pillow. I think the last thing she said was that the other arm, the well arm, pained her very much, and we feared paralysis, but more pressing symptoms diverted attention. At half-past one I called Lea again. I shall never know in this world whether my Mother was really conscious, if she even knew anything either of her own great physical suffering, or of what passed that night. I believe God helped me to say and do all she would have wished. Each hour I was more sure of what was coming. Towards dawn, kneeling on the bed, I said some of the short prayers in the Visitation of the Sick, but she was then fading rapidly, and at last I repeated the hymn 'How bright those glorious spirits shine,' which we had always agreed was never to be used except as the solemn sign that our parting was surely come. I am not sure if my darling knew that she was dying before: I am sure, if she could still hear, that she knew it then. I am sure that she was conscious at the end and that she speechlessly took leave of us. Her expression was calm and serene, but very grave, as if she realised for the first time that I might not travel with her into the solitude she was entering. It was about a quarter of an hour before the end that all suffering ceased, her paralysed side seemed to become quite well; the lame hand, which had been so tightly clenched since the 13th of March, unfolded then upon the 13th of November, and gently met the other in prayer. The eyes were closing, but opened once more—as a look—a look of youth and radiance, stole over the beloved features at the last, when there was no struggle, only just a gentle sigh or two. Lea, who was leaning over the bed on the other side, held her spectacles to the mouth. There was no breath. I could scarcely believe that she was gone. I still held her in my arms. But oh! in my unutterable desolation I could give God thanks that the end was like this. The first stroke of the church-bell sounded as she passed into the real life.
"When the sweet eyes closed and the dear face lost its last shadow of colour, I kissed my own Mother for the last time and came away. The first snowflakes of winter were falling then. They do not signify now: no snow or cold can ever signify any more.
"But oh! the agony, the anguish!
"And since then her precious earthly form has been lying, with her hands folded on her breast as if she were praying—the dear lame hand quite well now. The room is draped with white and filled with flowers. Two large white camellias stand at the head of the bed and overshadow her pillow, and on the table, draped with white, are her own particular objects, her bronze wolf, her little gold tray with her spectacles, smelling-bottle, &c., and all her special hymn-books. At first when I went in, in my great agony, I did not draw down the sheet. But now I draw it down and look at my dearest one. There is a look of unearthly serene repose upon the worn features, which is almost too beautiful.
"'Days without night, joys without sorrow, sanctity without sin, charity without stain, possession without fear, satiety without envyings, communication of joys without lessening, and they shall dwell in a blessed country, where an enemy never entered, and from whence a friend never went away.'[430]
"But yet—oh my darling! my darling!"
To MISS LEYCESTER.
"Sunday morning, Nov. 13.—My darling Mother has entered into the real life.
"She grew gradually weaker hour by hour, and I think she suffered less. She knew me always, and liked to keep her eyes constantly fixed upon me, but she could not speak. At half-past nine, she seemed sinking, and I repeated over to her, as she desired me to do when she was dying, the hymn 'How bright those glorious spirits shine.' I think she heard it.... Soon after she opened her eyes and gave me a long, long look of her own perfect lovingness, then turned to Lea, to me again, and we heard a few gentle sighs. I had just time to ring the bell close to my hand as I sat on the pillow, and as John and Harriet[431] (who had been waiting in the passage) passed sobbing into the room and stood at the foot of the bed, my sweet darling gently breathed her last in my arms, once more—quite at the last—opening her eyes, with a look of perfect bliss, as if gazing at something beyond us. It was so gentle a breathing out of her spirit, we scarcely knew when it was over. She died in my arms, with my kiss upon her forehead, at half-past ten. I know how tenderly my Mother's dearest, most tenderly loved friend feels for me, and that I need not ask her to pray for my Mother's poor child Augustus."
"Nov. 14.—It seems so strange to look out of the window and see the same sheep feeding in the same green meadows, the same flowers blooming, and yet such a change over all. I feel as if it were I who had died yesterday.
"What a long, long day it was! A thousand times I was on the point of running into the room to say some little loving word to her who has been the recipient of every thought, every pleasure for so many, many years, and then the crushing blank, the annihilation came all afresh. Indeed, I feel it afresh every quarter of an hour, and when I am calmed after one thing in which my great desolation is especially presented to me, something else calls it all forth again. Oh, my darling! my darling! can it be? oh! how can it be?
"The dear earthly form lies with its hands sweetly folded as if she were praying. I go in often. I am always going in; but it does not remind me of her, though it is most peaceful, and the servants and others have the greatest comfort from looking at it.
"It is as a dream that yesterday morning, quite after it was over, I could say 'The day before yesterday my darling did this, my darling said that.' On Friday she was so bright, so happy, only her memory a little astray, but I was already forming a thousand little schemes for supplying this lost power, so that it should not be apparent to others, and to me nothing, I felt, could ever matter if the sunshine of my dear Mother's sweet presence was with me under any change."
"Tuesday, Nov. 15.—Your most dear letter has come.... How much, even in the first anguish of my desolation, I have felt what it would be to you also. You will always be most tenderly entwined with her sacred memory; indeed, I can scarcely think of you apart. For the last few years especially your companionship has been her greatest joy, and in your absence she has never passed many hours without speaking of you, never any, I think, without thinking of you. The grief she most dreaded was that she might have to mourn for you, for I think she rightly felt that—great as the sorrow would be—your physical powers would enable you to bear the separation better than she could have done.
"This morning I feel a little better, and can dwell more upon my darling's being perfected, upon the restoration of all her powers, upon her reunion to those she loved in former times of her life; and I have a perfect treasure-store in my journals for years of her sacred words of blessing, and advice, and thought for me, many of them, I know, intended to be my comfort now.
"I will send you many of the letters about her. I wonder why people should dread letters of sympathy. To me the letters are nothing, but what I long for is not to hear that people sympathise with me, but to know how they loved her.
"To-day it is thick snow. Oh! she would have been so ill; now she is not ill."
"Tuesday evening, Nov. 15.—To-day a change came over the dear face—a look of unspeakable repose and beauty such as I never saw on any face before. The servants told me of it, and so it was; it is the most wonderful expression—serene, solemn, holy beauty.
"All the letters are a great—not comfort—nothing can ever be that, but I like to see how she was loved, and I look forward to them. There were thirty to-day, and yet I thought no one could know. What comes home to one is simple sympathy. One cannot help envying the people who can be comforted in real sorrow by what one may call Evangelical topics. It seems so perfectly irrelative to hear that 'man is born to trouble,' that 'it is God that chasteneth,' &c.
"I recollect now that on Saturday morning I was obliged to send off some proof-sheets.[432] She asked what I was doing, and then said, 'I shall so enjoy reading it when it is all finished, but I must have my little desk out then, because I shall not be able to hold the book.' We have only just remembered this, which proves that there must have been a slight rally then. It was all so short, so bewildering at last, that things will only come back gradually.
"I shall be glad when the incessant noise of workmen[433] downstairs ceases. It is so incongruous in the house now, but could not be helped. My darling did not mind it; indeed it seems to me, on looking back, as if she never found fault with anything; often she did not hear it, and when she did, 'I like that pleasant sound,' she said."
"Nov. 16.—There were forty letters to-day, many wanting answers, so I can only write a little, but it is a comfort to me to send you any memories of those precious last days as they occur to me, and as the first mist of anguish clears up, so many things recur.
"You asked about Romo. Indeed it overwhelms me to think of it. The dear little beast is so touching in his attempts to comfort me. He comes and licks my hand and rubs himself against me, as he never was in the habit of doing. In the first sad moments after the dear eyes closed, Lea, by an old Northern custom, would send down to 'tell the dog and the bees' (the bees would have died, she thinks, if they had not been told), and Romo understood it all, and did not howl, but cried plaintively all morning.
"I forget whether I spoke of the music. For the last four days my darling had said at intervals that she heard beautiful music. Thursday and Friday I thought nothing of it; on Saturday it began to have a solemn meaning.
"I have been to-day to Hurstmonceaux. It was necessary. There was deep snow the first part of the way, but beyond Battle no snow at all, leaves still on the trees, and quite a summer look. It was more overpowering to me than I expected to pass Lime, and I almost expected to see her come across the field and open the wicket-gate to her beloved walk to the school. The Haringtons[434] were most kind in placing Hurstmonceaux Place at our disposal for the funeral, and removed all scruples about it by saying how really thankful they were to be able to show their affection for the Mother in that way. I went up twice to the church. The road thither and the churchyard looked most beautiful, and the spot chosen, on the edge towards the level, with the view she always thought so like the Campagna. I am allowed to enclose a little space, which will contain my grave also.
"I called on Mrs. W. Isted,[435] and found her quite overpowered, sitting with my darling's photograph. 'It is not only her own loss, dearly as I loved her, but the deaths of all my others come back to me, which she helped me to bear.'"
"Nov. 17.—Do you know that through a mist of tears I have been forced to go on sending off proof-sheets of 'Walks in Rome'? One of the last things she spoke of was her hope that I would not let her illness hinder the book. The dedication to her, already printed, will seem touching to those who read it. She herself read that when the first volume was finished. But her great pleasure of the last few weeks was in the chapters of the 'Memorials' which I was writing of her Alton life. To continue them with the copious materials she has left will now be my one great interest. She has left me perfectly free to make what use I like of all, and one day made me write down from her dictation an expression to that effect. The Alton life is certainly the most perfect ideal of a country clergyman's life that can well be conceived."
"Nov. 19.—I cannot leave home yet.... Leycester, Mamie, and many others have written, as she always said they would, that their hearts and houses are open to receive me, but this must be later. Indeed, I shall cling to all she loved, and in the ever-living remembrance of her shall be able to love all. I had even a kind note from Mrs. Maurice[436] to-day: she said I should.
"Henry Papillon came yesterday, touchingly wishful to look upon the dear face once more, and he was even more struck than I expected with its immortal beauty.... To-day was a great wrench. This morning the precious earthly form was sealed away from us."
"Nov. 22.—I went through yesterday in a dream. I did not realise it at all. Lea left Holmhurst in an agony of sobs and tears, but I did not; I had so often thought of it, I seemed to have gone through it all before, and then I had already lost sight of my darling.
"Lea, John, Johnnie Cornford, and I went in the little carriage first; Harriet, Anne, Rogers, Joe, and Margaret Cornford[437] followed her. We reached Hurstmonceaux Place about half-past twelve. In half-an-hour they all began to arrive: each and all of my dear cousins were most kind to me."
JOURNAL (The Green Book).
"Dec. 4, 1870.—I have been unable to write in my journal, the hundred and ninety-two letters which I have had to answer have taken all the time.... And I live still. I used to think I could not live, but I am not even ill; and yet how my life is changed, all the interest, all the happiness, all the sunshine gone, only the systematic routine of existence left.
"My poor Lea is already beginning to be interested in her chickens and her farm-life, and to think it all 'such a long time ago.' But to me it seems as if it had only just happened, and the hour in which her sweet eyes closed upon me has swallowed up all the hours which have come since, and is always the last hour to me.
"I think it was about the third day afterwards that Lea came into my room and told me that the look of wonderful beauty and repose which appeared at the last had come back again to the dear features. And so it was. It was the sweetest look of calm, serene repose. The colour had all faded out of my darling's cheeks, which had lost every sign of age, and were smooth and white as if they were chiselled in marble. Her closed eyelids, her gently curving mouth expressed the sweetest restfulness. The dear lame hand, quite supple at last, had closed softly upon the other. And this lovely image of her perfected state was lent to me till the last, when the beloved features were closed away from me for ever.
"It was on the Saturday that Lea and I went in together for the last time. Lea cried violently. I was beyond tears. We covered away together all that was dearest to us on earth. I placed a lock of my hair in her hands, and laid her favourite flowers by her. Monday a day of rain and storm-cloud. I shall always associate the road to Hurstmonceaux with the drive on that winter's morning with swirling rain-clouds, and the waters out on the distant Levels gleaming white through the mist. Coming down the hill near Boreham how many memories of my dearest one came back to me,—of her anxiety to put me out to walk at Standard Hill,—of her admiration of the three pines on the hill-top; and then, near Lime, of walks with her on dewy summer mornings, when I went with her in my childhood to pick ground-ivy and violets in the fields behind Lime Cross.
"The coffin lay in the centre of the drawing-room at Hurstmonceaux Place, upon a high raised stand draped with white. All around it hung a lovely wreath of flowers from Holmhurst, and at the foot masses of flowers kindly sent by the present owners of Lime. Mrs. H. Papillon[438] had sent a beautiful cross of white chrysanthemums, and some one else a wreath, and in the centre, linking all with a reminiscence of her sister Lucy, lay a bunch of withered violets from Abbots Kerswell. Here, over the coffin of her whose life was perfect peace, the two great enemies in the parish of Hurstmonceaux shook hands and were reconciled.
"At two the eighteen bearers, all chosen from labourers whom she had known, filed in in their white smock frocks and took up the precious burden. Lea and I followed immediately, then Leycester, Vere, and Emmie Penrhyn; Arthur, Augusta, and Mary Stanley; Morgan and Mamie Yeatman; Dr. Vaughan, Frederick Fisher, Mrs. Hale, and a long line of neighbours, clergy, and servants, walking two and two.
"Down the well-known avenue and lanes, the bearers advanced, looking like a great band of choristers. I saw nothing, but some of the others remarked that as we came away from the house a beautiful silver cloud and rainbow appeared over it.
"Arthur and Augusta left the procession at the foot of the hill and passed on before; so he met us at the gate.
"In the centre of the chancel, where I had seen the coffin of Uncle Julius, there the coffin of my own darling lay, but it was covered with no gloomy pall, only garlanded with flowers, the garlands of her new life.
"At the grave, Lea stood on one side of me, Emmie on the other. Arthur read most touchingly, and in the words of that service one was lifted up, not drawn down: but indeed I felt it very little, I only saw it in a dream.
"Afterwards I think they all came up and kissed me. Then they went away, and Lea and I walked back alone through the shrubbery to Hurstmonceaux Place, and so came home.
"To our most desolate home.
"On the Saturday after we went to Hurstmonceaux again. The Sunday services at the church were most beautiful. In the morning 'How bright those glorious spirits shine' was sung, and in the evening, almost in the dark, 'Pilgrims of the night.' Mr. Munn[439] preached on 'Bury me with my fathers—in the cave of Machpelah,' &c., speaking of how she was brought from a distant place, and how, in foreign lands, her great wish had been to be laid at Hurstmonceaux, and so to what I wished of the peculiar connection of my darling's life with Hurstmonceaux, and of how the different scenes in the parish which called up the remembrance of her sweet words and acts connected with them, might also call up the recollection of those truths to which her gentle life was a living witness. When Lea and I went out to the grave afterwards, we found two poor women—Mrs. Medhurst and Mrs. Harmer—standing there dressed in black, and the little mound covered with flowers.
"I saw it once again next day, and made a little wall of holly and ivy round it. Oh, my darling!—and then we returned here again, to the ordinary life, only the door of the sacred chamber stands open, and the room is cold and empty, and my heart and my life are desolate. 'The sanctuary of sorrow' seems to me an expression full of significance."
To MISS LEYCESTER.
"Holmhurst, Dec. 1, 1870.—Madame de Staël shows how she must have suffered when she wrote—'Le reveil, quel moment pour les malheureux!' To-day is the first of a month in which my darling has no share: each day there is something in which I seem to part with her afresh. My life is so changed that it seems impossible to believe that it is such a short time since I was so happy—only, between the present dumb blank and the happy time are those terrible thirty-six hours of illness, and in the thought of them I am more than satisfied that she cannot go through them again. Each minute of those hours comes back to me now so vividly—the acuteness of the numb misery, which really had no hope, with the determination that she should see nothing but smiles to the last, for my whole life afterwards would be long enough for tears.
"Poor Lea sits with me now for an hour every day after tea, and we talk of every moment of those last days.
"It is most bitterly cold: she would have been so ill."
"Dec. 17.—Mrs. Tom Brassey passed me to-day, riding with a party. She made them go on, and stopped to speak to me, then burst into tears, and spoke most feelingly of old Mr. Brassey's death, to whom I believe she was truly attached. Then she revealed the enormous wealth to which they have fallen heirs. They expected to have no more, as the father had already given each of his sons an immense sum, but old Mr. Brassey has left six millions! She feels the awful responsibility of such a heritage, and spoke admirably and touchingly—said she trusted each of the three brothers would set out with the determination to spend it worthily of their father, and then of all their plans already made for the good of others. It seemed odd to come back from discussing all this to the great anxiety as to whether my income would amount to £500, and if I should be able to live on at Holmhurst.
"It is actually five weeks this evening since my darling was here, and we were entering upon the utter anguish of that last night. Sometimes the agony comes back to me, so that I am obliged to do something which requires close attention to set it aside; but at other times—generally—I can think with composure of the five weeks she has spent well, and warm, and happy."
Mrs. Arnold to Augustus J. C. Hare.
"Dingle Bank, Nov. 21, 1870.—You will be in such deep grief that I hardly know how to write to you; and yet I so loved the dear Mother you have lost, so reverenced her goodness and sweetness and holiness, that I cannot but hope you may like a few words from me of truest sympathy, and indeed I can feel for you. To those at a distance it is the thought of a dear friend transplanted from earth to heaven, but to you there is the thought of the daily companionship, the loving nursing, the perpetual consciousness of what you were to her. In this, however, in the sense of the continual help and comfort and love that she received from you, will be your great consolation.
"I have never lost the impression made on me by her own more than resignation when she spoke to me at Rugby of her own separation from what was dearest to her upon earth—there seemed such joy in his happiness, such a realising of it to herself, that earthly clouds and shadows disappeared.
"I will not say more now, but for her dear sake, and that of my long and affectionate interest in you, I hope you will sometimes let me hear of you."
LADY EASTLAKE to Augustus J. C. Hare.
"7 Fitzroy Square, Dec. 4.—I have seen a notice in the Times which has sent a pang through my heart, and hasten to tell you how intensely I feel for you. None but those who know the bitterness of a great sorrow can really sympathise with you, for only they can measure the length and breadth of the suffering. I know of no consolation but the conviction that God knows all and does all, and that He will reunite in His good time to the Beloved One. Sorrow is a mighty force, and its fruit ought to be commensurate: we sow truly in tears, but the reaping in joy is, I believe, reserved for another state. Still there is much to be done by sorrow's husbandry even here, and assuredly were the fruits of the Spirit to be attained without suffering, God would not put His poor children through it.
"I fear that life must look very joyless before you, and that all things for a time must seem altered, your very self most so. I can only say be patient with yourself, and take every mitigation that offers itself. I should be very glad to hear from you when you have heart and leisure. You have seen me in bitter anguish, and will not be shy of one who has drunk of that cup to the very dregs. God's holy will be done!"
A.
ABERDEEN, John, 7th Earl of,
iii. 43.
Ackermann, Félix,
i. 36,
97,
158;
ii. 192,
195,
423;
iii. 53-56, 338, 349.
—— Madame Victoire,
i. 31,
96,
339-340,
354-356;
ii. 192,
195,
405,
422-423,
499;
iii. 52-64, 189, 253, 308, 310-312,
339,
351.
—— Victoria,
iii. 308,
311.
Acland, Sir Thomas,
ii. 149.
Acuto,
ii. 426,
438-441.
Adeane, Henry John,
i. 214.
Adelaide de France, Madame,
iii. 23.
—— Queen of England,
i. 289,
294.
Aitkens, Mr., of Kingston-Lyle,
ii. 140.
Alacoque, Marguerite Marie,
ii. 445.
Albert, the Prince Consort,
i. 302;
ii. 286-288.
Albrecht, Archduke of Austria,
ii. 35-36.
Alcock, Mrs., story of,
iii. 118-123.
Alderley,
i. 61,
66;
ii. 292,
293.
Aldermaston,
ii. 219.
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.
Alfriston,
i. 505.
Alice, H.R.H. the Princess, of Hesse,
ii. 288.
Allan, Charles Stuart,
ii. 515.
——John Hay,
ii. 515.
Alnwick,
ii. 353;
iii. 33.
Alston, Carlotta,
i. 2.
——Mary Margaret,
i. 2,
5.
Alton Barnes,
i.
45-48,
191-192,
278;
iii. 110.
Amboise,
ii. 495.
Anderson, Mr., of Bradley,
ii. 320.
Angoulême, Marie Thérèse de France, Duchesse d',
ii. 298;
iii. 43-44.
Antibes,
iii. 145-149.
Antonelli, Cardinal,
ii. 72;
iii. 71.
Aponte, Dom Emmanuele,
i. 6-8.
Aram, Eugene,
ii. 332-334.
Arcachon,
ii. 465.
Arkcoll, Mr. Thomas,
ii. 228,
244.
Arles,
iii. 184.
Arnold, Edward,
iii. 329.
——Matthew,
i. 177,
512.
——Mrs.,
i. 177;
iii. 327-329, 418.
——Dr. Thomas, of Rugby,
i. 160.
Ars, Jean Marie Vianney, le Curé d',
ii. 417-420.
Ars, visit to,
iii. 134-136.
Ashdown,
ii. 229.
Atbelstan, Mr.,
ii. 270.
Aumale, Henri, Duc d',
iii. 18.
Autun,
iii. 320.
B.
BABINGTON, Mrs. Catherine,
ii. 351.
Bacon, Mrs. Nicholas,
iii. 169.
Baden, Frederick William, Grand Duke, and Louisa, Grand Duchess of,
iii. 109.
Baden-Baden,
i. 384.
Bagot, Mr. Charles,
iii. 132.
—— Lucia, Lady,
iii. 32.
—— Lord and Lady,
iii. 368.
Balcarres, Colin, 3rd Earl of,
iii. 25.
—— James, 5th Earl of,
iii. 24.
Bamborough Castle,
ii. 271,
354;
iii. 8,
170.
Bankhead, Charles, secretary of legation at Constantinople,
i. 26.
—— Maria Horatia Paul, Mrs.,
i. 27,
28,
296.
Bar le Duc,
iii. 333.
Barnard, Lady Anne,
iii. 14,
27,
324-326,
???.
Barnard Castle,
ii. 275,
340.
Barraud, Madame and Mademoiselle,
ii. 116,
125-128.
Barrère, Madame,
iii. 87.
Barrington, Hon. Adelaide,
ii. 139.
—— Hon. Augusta,
ii. 139.
—— George, 5th Viscount,
ii. 310.
—— Jane, Viscountess,
ii. 138,
140.
—— Shute, Bishop of Durham,
ii. 139.
—— William Keppel, 6th Viscount,
ii. 139,
140.
—— Mrs. Russell,
i. 282.
Bassi, Laura,
i. 7.
Bayley, Mrs.,
iii. 132-134.
Beaujour, Château de,
ii. 500-503.
Beckett,
ii. 138-140,
227,
229.
Beckwith, Mrs., of Silksworth,
ii. 412.
Belgium, tour in,
i. 377.
Belhaven, Hamilton, Lady,
ii. 335-337, 354-355 358;
iii. 35-36.
Belhaven, Lord,
ii. 354,
358;
iii. 35,
45-46.
Bellagio,
iii. 106.
Belsay,
ii. 347.
Benalta, family story of,
ii. 454-460.
Bengivenga, Francesca,
iii. 200.
Bennet, Hon. Frederick,
ii. 268-269.
—— Hon. George,
ii. 268-269.
Bentley, Harriet,
iii. 406,
412.
Benzoni, the sculptor,
iii. 83.
Berchtesgaden,
iii. 231.
Bergeret, Madame, story of,
iii. 177-182.
Berkeley Castle,
i. 287.
Berri, Caroline, Duchesse de,
iii. 15-17, 43-44.
Berry, the Misses,
i. 299-300.
Betharram,
ii. 487.
Biarritz,
ii. 488.
Bidart,
ii. 489.
Birtles,
iii. 117.
Blackett, Sir Edward and Lady,
ii. 266-267,
341,
346;
iii. 170,
323.
Blackwood, Sir Arthur,
iii. 243.
Blake, Sir Francis,
iii. 31.
—— William, the artist,
iii. 14.
Blenkinsopp Castle,
ii. 353.
Blessington, Harriet Power, Countess of,
i. 20,
37;
ii. 408.
Blomfield, Charles James, Bishop of London,
i. 470.
Blommart, Miss Elizabeth,
ii. 489.
Bodryddan,
iii. 123.
Bologna,
i. 7-9;
iii. 380.
Bolvilliers, Comtesse de,
i. 343-351.
Bonaparte, Cardinal Lucien,
iii. 287.
Bonis, Madame Maria de,
iii. 373,
378.
Bonnyrigg,
ii. 341.
Borghese, Adèle, Princess,
ii. 58.
—— Guendolina, Princess,
ii. 58,
59.
—— Marc-Antonio, Prince,
ii. 58,
375.
Borghese, Pauline, Princess,
ii. 336.
—— Teresa, Princess,
ii. 58;
iii. 85,
193.
Bosanquet, Charles, of Rock,
ii. 278.
—— Mrs., of Rock,
ii. 279.
Bothwell Castle,
iii. 48.
Bourbon, Louis Henri Joseph, Duc de,
iii. 21-23.
Bourges,
ii. 310.
Bowes,
ii. 276.
Bowes, Lady Anna,
ii. 172,
173.
—— John, of Streatlam,
ii. 173,
178,
179,
274-276.
—— Mrs. John,
ii. 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.
—— Miss Mary,
i. 293;
iii. 368,
370.
Bozledeane Wood,
i. 361.
Bracciano,
iii. 375.
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.
Brassey, Henry and Albert,
ii. 391.
—— Mrs. Thomas,
iii. 417.
Brewster, Sir David,
iii. 40.
Bridgeman, Lady Selina,
ii. 389.
Brimham Rocks,
ii. 339.
Brinkburn Abbey,
ii. 365.
Brodie, Sir Benjamin,
i. 248.
Brougham and Vaux, Henry, 1st Lord,
iii. 143-144.
Brown, Dr., Professor at Aberdeen,
i. 11.
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett,
ii. 91,
409.
—— Robert,
ii. 408.
Brownlow, John, and Earl,
ii. 137.
Bruce, Rev. J. Collingwood, the antiquarian,
ii. 318;
iii. 49.
—— Hon. Mrs. Robert,
iii. 203.
Brymer, Archdeacon (of Wells),
i. 338.
—— Marianne Wilkinson, Mrs.,
i. 338.
Buchanan, Miss Helen,
iii. 81.
Bufalo, the Venerable Gaspare del,
ii. 425,
442.
Bulkeley, Anna Maria Hare, Mrs.,
i. 3,
494.
Bulman, Mrs.,
ii. 346.
Bunsen, Charles de,
ii. 109.
—— Chevalier, afterwards Baron,
i.
161-163,
164,
465,
504.
—— Emilia de,
iii. 109.
—— Frances de,
ii. 293;
iii. 109.
—— George de,
i. 481.
—— Rev. Henry de,
ii. 328.
—— Madame, afterwards Baroness,
i. 465;
ii. 293,
333-336.
—— Matilda de,
ii. 293.
—— Theodore de,
i. 464;
ii. 294.
Buntingsdale,
i. 144,
208;
ii. 326-327.
Burney, Miss,
ii. 436.
Burns, Robert, the poet,
ii. 169.
Burr, Mrs. Higford,
ii. 220.
Butler, Rev. W. J., Vicar of Wantage,
ii. 222-224.
—— Mrs.,
i. 501.
C.
CAEN,
i. 319.
Caerlaverock Castle,
ii. 164.
Caiëtani, Don Filippo.
ii. 58.
—— Don Onorato,
iii. 87.
Calotkin, Count,
i. 15.
Cambo,
ii. 490.
Cameron, Mr., and Lady Vere,
ii. 8.
Cameron, Lady Vere,
ii. 481-482.
Campbell, Charlotte Malcolm, Lady,
i. 88.
—— Colin,
i. 309,
310,
313.
Canevari, G. B., the portrait painter,
ii. 75.
Cannes,
iii. 136-150.
Canning, Charlotte, Countess,
ii. 360;
iii. 323.
Canterbury,
i. 357-366;
ii. 23-25;
iii. 331-332, 394.
Capel, Monsignor,
ii. 486.
Capheaton,
ii. 350.
Capri,
ii. 81.
Carew, Miss Julia Pole,
iii. 372.
—— Mrs. Pole,
iii. 375.
Carham,
iii. 326.
Carlsruhe,
i. 6;
iii. 109.
Carlyle, Thomas,
i. 166.
Carmichael, Sir William,
iii. 46.
Caroline, Empress of Austria,
ii. 42.
—— of Brunswick, Queen of England,
iii. 14-15.
Carr of Hedgeley, family of,
ii. 286.
Castel Fusano,
ii. 390.
Castlecraig,
iii. 46.
Castro, Don Alessandro del,
iii. 193.
Cavendish, Admiral, and Mrs. George,
ii. 94,
97.
—— Louisa, Hon. Mrs.,
i. 212.
—— Lord Richard,
i. 212.
Cecchi, Cardinal,
ii. 68.
Cecil, Lord Eustace,
i. 241.
Cecinelli, Lucia,
i. 53.
Cenci, Count Bolognetti,
iii. 49,
85,
87.
Challinor, Mrs. Hannah,
i. 150.
Chambord, Henri, Comte de,
iii. 16-18.
Charles X., King of France,
iii. 43.
Charlotte, Queen of England,
ii. 436-437.
Charlotte, Princess, of Belgium,
ii. 36,
37.
Charltons of Hesleyside, the,
ii. 343.
Chartwell,
i. 507;
ii. 321.
Chase Dieu, Le,
iii. 150.
Chequers,
ii. 8.
Chesters,
ii. 341;
iii. 49.
Chetwode, Mrs. George,
i. 157.
Chevreuse,
ii. 125.
Chichester, Miss Catherine,
ii. 94,
286.
Chillingham,
ii. 267-271,
364;
iii. 33.
Chingford,
i. 312,
400.
Chipchase,
ii. 343.
Cholmondeley, Mary Heber, Mrs.,
i. 142.
Christina, Queen, of Spain,
ii. 57.
Civita Castellana,
ii. 54.
Clarendon, Caroline, wife of the 5th Earl of,
ii. 139.
Clayton, Mrs. Anne,
ii. 318-319.
—— George Nathaniel,
ii. 318,
353.
—— Isabel, Mrs. G. Nathaniel,
ii. 318.
—— John, of Chesters,
ii. 318,
343.
—— Miss,
ii. 274,
318,
341-344.
—— Mr. Matthew,
ii. 318-319.
Cleveland, William Henry, 1st Duke of,
iii. 46.
Clifford, Captain,
ii. 81.
Clinton, Lady Charles,
ii. 477.
—— Lady Louisa,
i. 383.
—— Miss Louisa,
i. 59,
257,
387-388.
Clive, Mrs. Archer,
ii. 452-453.
Cluny,
iii. 383.
Clutterbuck, Marianne Lyon, Mrs., of Warkworth,
ii. 17,
284,
352.
Clyde, Falls of the,
iii. 99.
Cobham, Claude Delaval,
iii. 152-153.
Coigny, Augustin, Duc de,
iii. 18-19.
Cole, Miss Florence,
ii. 45,
54.
—— Miss Louisa,
ii. 46.
Colegrave, Mrs. Francis,
ii. 94,
286.
Coleman, Miss Sarah,
i. 173.
Collatia,
ii. 390.
Collins, Staunton,
i. 153,
190.
Colonna, Isabella de Toledo, Princess,
iii. 190.
Colquhoun, J. E. C.,
i. 507;
ii. 322.
—— John Archibald,
iii. 322.
Compton, Mrs.,
iii. 326.
Conington, John, Professor of Latin,
ii. 4.
Conwy, Shipley,
iii. 129.
—— Colonel Shipley,
iii. 130.
Copeland Castle,
ii. 364.
Corbet, Lady, of Adderley,
iii. 401.
Cork and Orrery, Edmund, 8th Earl of,
i. 293.
Costa le Cerda, Vicomte,
ii. 115-116,
121.
Cottrell-Dormer, Mr. and Mrs., of Rousham,
ii. 150.
Coulson, Colonel,
ii. 354.
—— Hon. Mrs.,
ii. 354.
—— Misses Mary and Arabella, of Blenkinsopp,
ii. 176,
222.
Courmayeur,
ii. 409,
458.
Courtenay, Lady Agnes,
iii. 318.
—— "Sir William" (Nichols Tom),
i. 361-365.
Cousin, M. Victor,
iii. 146.
Cowburne, Mrs.,
i. 128,
209.
Coxe, Rev. Henry Octavius, Bodleian Librarian,
ii. 157.
Cracroft, Colonel and Mrs.,
iii. 382.
Cradock, Hon. Mrs. (Harriet Lister),
i. 512;
ii. 137-138.
Craster, family of,
ii. 279.
Crecy,
ii. 380.
Creslow Pastures,
ii. 220.
Cresswell, Sir Cresswell,
ii. 353.
Crichton Castle,
ii. 172.
Croyland,
iii. 164.
Cuffe, Sir Charles,
ii. 58.
Cummings, Mr. and Mrs.,
iii. 380.
Cushman, Miss Charlotte,
iii. 204-207, 386.
D.
DALLAS, Mrs.,
iii. 380.
Dalton Hall,
iii. 131.
Dalzell,
ii. 359.
Dalzel, Mrs. Allen,
iii. 172.
—— Aventina, Mrs.,
ii. 17-19,
172,
357;
iii. 172,
174-176.
Dampierre,
ii. 125.
Darley, George,
i. 164.
Darling, Mr., of Bamborough, ii, 272.
Dasent, Sir George,
i. 67,
448.
Dashwood, Anna Maria Shipley, Mrs.,
i. 17,
26,
157;
iii. 125,
127-128.
—— Bertha, Lady,
ii. 466,
477.
—— Sir Edwin,
ii. 466.
D'Aubigné, M. Merle,
i. 453.
Davenport, Edward, of Capesthorne,
ii. 142.
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.
Dawkins, Mrs. Francis,
ii. 297;
iii. 71-75, 314.
Deimling, Herr Otto,
i. 162.
Denfenella,
ii. 168.
Denison, Lady Charlotte,
iii. 42.
—— Mr. Stephen,
ii. 272.
Derby, Edward Smith Stanley, 13th Earl of,
iii. 131.
Derwentwater, James Radcliffe, Earl of,
ii. 266,
351.
De Selby, Mrs.,
iii. 71-80.
—— Mrs. Robert,
iii. 191.
Des Voeux, Miss Georgiana,
ii. 371-372;
iii. 139.
Devonshire, Georgiana, wife of William, 5th Duke of,
i. 5,
6.
Dickens, Charles,
ii. 276.
Dilston,
ii. 320.
Dixon, Louisa Simpkinson, Mrs.,
iii. 397.
Dixon-Browne, Mr. and Mrs., of Unthank,
iii. 169.
Dolceacqua,
ii. 253.
Dolgorouki, Prince Nicole,
iii. 68,
84.
Doncaster,
ii. 261.
Doria, Donna Guendolina,
ii. 71.
—— Prince,
ii. 424.
—— Donna Olimpia,
ii. 72.
—— Donna Teresa,
ii. 70.
D'Orsay, Count,
i. 18,
29,
37;
ii. 408.
Dowdeswell, Miss,
iii. 76,
82.
Dresden,
i. 429.
Duckworth, Robinson, afterwards tutor to Prince Leopold and Canon of Westminster,
i. 446,
472;
ii. 4,
33.
Dudley, John, Earl,
i. 20.
Dumbleton, Miss Harriet,
i. 269.
Dumfries,
ii. 163.
Dunlop, Harriet, Mrs.,
iii. 258,
260,
281-282,
288,
291,
292,
298,
304,
306,
317.
Dunottar,
ii. 166.
Dunstanborough Castle,
ii. 269-270,
364;
iii. 35,
36.
Duntrune,
ii. 165.
Dupanloup, Monsignor, Bishop of Orleans,
iii. 360.
Durham,
ii. 262.
Durham, Beatrix, Countess of,
ii. 364-366;
iii. 35-39.
—— George-Frederick, Earl of,
ii. 364-365;
ii. 35-36.
Dyrham Park,
i. 315.
E.
EARDLEY, Sir Culling,
ii. 298.
Eastbourne,
i. 63,
210,
256,
376,
505.
East Hendred,
ii. 230.
Eastlake, Elizabeth Rigby, Lady,
iii. 154-155, 418.
Eccles Greig,
ii. 168.
Egerton, Lady Blanche,
iii. 32,
33.
—— Rev. Charles,
i. 136.
Elcho, Anne, Lady,
ii. 356;
iii. 42.
Ellisland,
ii. 169.
Ellison, Mr. Cuthbert,
i. 50.
—— Mrs., of Sugbrooke,
iii. 169.
Elsdon,
ii. 345.
Ely,
iii. 8.
Erskine, Rev. J., and Mrs.,
iii. 200.
—— Thomas, of Linlathen,
ii. 165,
278.
Escrick,
ii. 437.
Eslington,
ii. 320,
364.
Este,
iii. 229.
Eugene Beauharnais, Prince,
i. 20.
Eugenie, the Empress,
i. 492;
iii. 392.
Evans, Rev. Mr.,
iii. 3.
Eversley, Viscount,
ii. 217.
Evreux,
i. 326.
Exeter, Henry Philpotts, Bishop of,
ii. 264.
F.
FACCHINI, Giacinta, "the Saint of St. Peter's,"
ii. 429-430;
iii. 253-254.
Falconnet, Mademoiselle Judith,
ii. 59.
Falkirk Tryste,
iii. 48.
Farley Hungerford,
i. 271-272.
Feilden, Rev. H. Arbuthnot, and Mrs.,
iii. 78-80.
Feilding, Lord and Lady,
i. 340.
Fellowes, Susan Lyon, Mrs.,
ii. 272,
311.
Ferney Voltaire,
i. 453.
Ferrara,
ii. 47;
iii. 345.
Ferronays, M. de la,
ii. 68.
Feuchères, Sophia Dawes, Madame de,
iii. 21-23.
Fiano, Duke of,
ii. 424;
iii. 269,
286.
—— Giulia, Duchess of,
ii. 59.
Fielding, Copley,
i. 164,
505.
Filiol, Sybil,
i. 156.
Fina, S.,
iii. 343.
Finucane, Miss,
iii. 209,
378.
Fisher, Frederick,
iii. 67,
414.
FitzClarence, Lady Frederick,
iii. 29-30.
Fitz-Gerald, Edward Fox,
i. 29.
—— Jane Paul, Mrs. Edward,
i. 29;
iii. 267,
269,
271,
272.
—— Pamela, wife of Lord Edward,
i. 29.
Fitzherbert, Mrs.,
iii. 323.
Fitzmaurice, Mrs.,
iii. 225.
Fletcher, Miss, of Saltoun,
ii. 355;
iii. 40,
42,
43.
—— Lady Charlotte,
ii. 356;
iii. 43-45.
Flodden Field,
ii. 281.
Florence,
ii. 84;
iii. 103,
315.
Florence, Henry,
iii. 363.
Fontainebleau,
i. 451.
Fontaines,
iii. 183.
Fontarabia,
ii. 493.
Fontenay,
iii. 385.
Ford Castle,
ii. 280-282, 360-363;
iii. 323-326.
Foster, Dr., Bishop of Kilmore, and Mrs.,
ii. 233-234.
—— Miss,
ii. 234-239.
Fotheringham, Mrs., of Fotheringham,
ii. 165.
Francesca Romana, S.,
iii. 224-225.
Francesco II., King of Naples,
iii. 96-97, 85.
Franklin, Lady,
iii. 2.
Fray, Miss,
i. 268.
Frederick, Crown Prince of Prussia, afterwards Emperor of Germany,
ii. 374.
—— the Great,
ii. 148.
Fribourg, in Switzerland,
ii. 112.
Fritwell Manor,
ii. 151.
Fry, Elizabeth, Mrs.,
i. 229;
ii. 437.
Fullerton, Lady Georgiana,
ii. 400,
403,
444.
G.
GABET, M.,
ii. 421.
Gabriac, Marquis de,
ii. 115.
—— Marquise de,
ii. 67.
Gaebler, M. Bernard,
i. 160.
Galicano, the Hermitage of,
ii. 98.
Galway, Rev. Father,
ii. 398-404,
427;
iii. 262,
286.
Garden, Miss Henrietta,
i. 108;
iii. 192,
213,
220.
Gaskell, Mrs., the authoress,
ii. 224;
iii. 117.
Gasperoni, the robber chieftain,
ii. 54.
Gaussen, M.,
i. 453.
Gayford, Mrs.,
i. 53,
369.
Gemmi, adventure on the,
i. 462.
Geneva,
i. 452;
ii. 378.
George III., King of England,
ii. 434-436.
George IV., King of England,
iii. 14,
15,
176,
324.
Ghizza, Ancilla,
iii. 234.
Giacinta, the "Saint of St. Peter's,"
ii. 429-430;
iii. 253-254.
Gibside,
ii. 180.
Gibson, John, the sculptor,
iii. 76-78.
Gidman, John,
i. 131;
ii. 33,
83,
386;
iii. 232,
406,
412.
—— Mary Lea,
i. 205-207,
210;
ii. 33,
468,
489;
iii. 193,
195,
316,
399,
403,
409,
412,
413,
414.
Gioberti, Signor,
iii. 167.
Gladstone, Mrs.,
ii. 381.
Glamis Castle,
i. 22.
Glamis, John Lyon, 6th Lord,
i. 23.
—— John Lyon, 7th Lord,
i. 23.
—— John, 8th Lord,
i. 23.
Glastonbury,
i. 98.
Goldschmidt, Madame (Jenny Lind),
i. 230;
iii. 146-149.
Goldsmid, Nathaniel,
ii. 68;
iii. 168.
—— Mrs. Nathaniel,
iii. 69,
71-75, 93.
Goldstone Farm,
i. 149,
208.
Gondi, Count,
iii. 252.
Gordon, Hon. John,
iii. 43.
Gore, Lady,
i. 278.
Gosan, Lakes of,
ii. 41.
Gosford,
ii. 356.
Grande Chartreuse, La,
ii. 258.
Grant, Dr., Bishop of Southwark,
ii. 432.
—— Frederick Forsyth,
i. 440;
ii. 151,
168.
Granville, Mr. Court, and Lady Charlotte,
ii. 353.
Gregory, Mrs.,
ii. 482-486.
Gregory XVI., Pope,
iii. 74.
Gresford,
i. 96;
ii. 448.
Grey, Anna Sophia Ryder, Lady, of Falloden,
ii. 279,
363.
—— Charles, 2nd Earl,
iii. 36.
—— Lady Charlotte, widow of the Hon. Gen. Sir Henry Grey of Falloden,
ii. 251,
371,
377;
iii. 139,
154.
—— Lady Elizabeth,
ii. 276,
366.
—— Hon. and Rev. Francis,
ii. 276-278,
366.
——, Sir George, of Falloden,
ii. 279,
363;
iii. 36.
—— Sir George, of New Zealand,
ii. 214-217;
iii. 330.
—— Lady Georgiana,
ii. 332,
334-335,
337-339.
—— Henry George, 3rd Earl,
iii. 35,
36.
—— Rev. Harry,
i. 253.
—— Mr. John, of Dilston,
ii. 266.
—— Maria, Countess,
iii. 35-36.
Greville, Mrs., née Locke,
ii. 94.
Grigor, Dr.,
iii. 373.
Grimaldi,
ii. 250.
Grimaldi, the Marchesa,
ii. 320.
Grote, Harriet Lewin, Mrs.,
i. 368;
ii. 218.
Grove, Mrs.,
iii. 394.
Guildford, the trial at,
iii. 294.
Guizot, M. François Pierre Guillaume,
i. 320.
Gunnora, Duchess of Normandy,
i. 319.
Gurney, Miss Anna,
i. 230.
—— Mrs. Catherine,
i. 229.
H.
HAIG, the Misses,
iii. 378.
Hale, Dr. Douglas,
ii. 369,
497???.
—— Mrs.,
ii. 497???;
iii. 414.
Halifax, Miss Caroline,
i. 284.
Hall, Mrs. Richard,
iii. 159,
195,
197.
Hallam, Arthur,
i. 509.
Hallein, mines of,
ii. 42.
Hallingbury,
iii. 7.
Hallstadt,
ii. 40.
Hamilton Palace,
ii. 358.
Hamilton, Alexander, 10th Duke of,
ii. 336,
359.
—— Mrs. Cospatrick Baillie,
iii. 395.
—— Lady Emily,
iii. 48.
Hamilton, Hon. Margaret Dillon, Mrs.,
i. 382.
—— Mary, Duchess of,
ii. 358.
Hampden, Great,
ii. 8.
Hanover, King George of,
ii. 152,
153.
Harcourt, Archbishop,
iii. 157.
Hardwicke, Susan, Countess of,
ii. 403.
—— Elizabeth, Countess of,
iii. 24-27, 323.
Hare, Anna-Maria Clementina,
i. 11,
13.
—— Anne Frances Maria Louisa,
i. 39,
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 Eserick, 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;
fifth winter at Rome, 333-386;
death of his adopted mother, 400.
Hare, Augustus William, Rector of Alton-Barnes,
i. 6,
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.
—— 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.
—— Francis George (the elder),
i.
6-21,
26,
29-42,
49-53,
84-85,
95,
157-159;
ii. 57.
—— Francis George (the younger),
i. 35, 92-94,
160, 373-375;
ii. 400-402,
448;
iii. 240,
248,
257-259,
276,
278,
282-313.
Hare, Mrs. (Anne Frances Paul),
i.
33-42,
51,
53,
95,
160,
260-261,
276,
339-355,
370-376;
ii. 55-57,
214, 397-406";
iii. 53,
54.
—— George,
i. 91-94.
—— Georgiana, afterwards Mrs. Frederick Maurice,
i.
13,
16,
82-83,
280.
—— Gustavus Cockburn,
i.
13,
123,
287,
481.
—— Mrs. Gustavus (Annie Wright),
i. 123.
—— Mrs. Henckel,
i. 3,
89,
90.
—— Henry,
i. 91.
—— Julius Charles,
i. 6,
10,
14,
49,
50,
59,
67-75,
77,
80-81,
99,
104-107,
109-111,
122,
156,
157,
176,
179,
251-253,
261-262,
357,
466-469,
476,
478,
480-484.
—— Mrs. Julius (Esther Maurice),
i.
178-190,
201-203,
210,
238-240,
251,
260,
285,
357,
445,
467;
ii. 128-129, 393-394.
—— Marcus Augustus Stanley,
i. 74,
86-88;
iii. 366,
370.
—— Marcus Theodore,
i. 6,
14,
85,
96,
175,
190,
192,
194-196,
—— Mrs. Marcus (Hon. Lucy Anne Stanley),
i. 49,
74,
167,
175,
178,
192,
194-196,
201-204;
iii. 318-319.
—— Miss Marianne,
i. 4,
10,
89,
95,
291.
—— Mary Margaret Alston, Mrs.,
i. 494;
ii. 156.
—— Reginald John,
i. 13.
—— Theodore Julius,
i. 160,
204.
—— Rev. Robert, Rector of Hurstmonceaux,
i. 4,
5.
—— Rev. Canon Robert,
i. 2,
6,
494.
——, William Robert,
i. 38,
373-375;
ii. 401-402, 411,
452-453,
514;
iii. 241-250.
Harnham,
ii. 351.
Harnish,
i. 170.
Harris, Hon. Reginald Temple,
i. 264,
277,
282.
Harrison, Archdeacon Benjamin, and Mrs.,
iii. 331-332.
Harrow,
i. 214.
Hastings,
i. 122.
Hatfield,
i. 307,
313.
Hawker, Misses Jane and Adelaide,
iii. 106-107, 146.
Hawkestone,
i. 148,
208;
ii. 327.
Hawtrey, Dr. Edward Craven, Provost of Eton,
ii. 230-232.
—— Miss,
ii. 231.
Hay, Adam, of King's Meadows,
ii. 137;
iii. 46,
146.
—— Miss Ida,
ii. 372.
—— Sir Adam,
ii. 357;
iii. 146.
Heber, Rev. Reginald, Rector of Hodnet, and Bishop of Calcutta,
i. 44.
—— Mrs. Reginald (Emilia Shipley),
i. 45;
iii. 125.
Hedley, Rev. W., Dean of University College, afterwards Rector of Beckley,
i. 405.
Heidelberg,
i. 380.
Heiligenkreutz,
ii. 38.
Henckel, Mrs.,
i. 90.
Herries, Marcia, Lady,
iii. 237.
Hesleyside,
ii. 343.
Hibbert, Caroline Cholmondeley, Mrs.,
iii. 117.
Hickledon Hall,
ii. 283.
Higginson, Miss Adelaide,
i. 479.
—— Lady Frances,
i. 479.
High Force, the,
ii. 340.
Hill, Ann, Viscountess,
i. 148.
—— Sir Rowland,
i. 147.
—— Viscount,
i. 145.
Hobart, Vere Henry, Lord, and Mary Catherine, Lady,
ii. 389.
Hodnet,
i. 143;
ii. 327.
Hogg, James, the Ettrick Shepherd,
ii. 314-315.
Holmhurst,
ii. 241-246, 259, 368;
iii. 320.
Holy Island,
ii. 271-272.
Hood, Henry,
iii. 152.
Hope, Lady Mildred,
ii. 14.
Hornby, Mrs., of Dalton,
iii. 80,
131,
329-330.
Horsley, Bishop,
iii. 332.
Hosmer, Miss Harriet, the sculptress,
iii. 76,
368.
Hos Tendis,
i. 4.
Houblon, Mr., and Mrs. Archer,
ii. 390;
iii. 7.
Houghton, Robert Monckton, 1st Lord,
iii. 229,
360.
Hour, the Holy,
ii. 499.
Housesteads,
ii. 343.
Howard, Edward Henry, Monsignor, afterwards Cardinal,
ii. 67.
—— Lady Victoria,
iii. 145.
Howick,
iii. 34,
35.
Hughan, Miss Janetta,
ii. 284.
Hughes, Miss, "Sister Marion,"
i. 473-474.
Hull, Henry Winstanley,
i. 164,
196-197,
501.
Hulne Abbey,
iii. 33.
Hunt, Sir J.,
iii. 31.
Hurstmonceaux,
i.
1-4,
9-12,
54-60,
93,
156-158,
164-166,
187-190,
258-260,
437-438,
475-478,
504-507;
ii. 14,
227-228;
iii. 410-411, 413-416.
Hutt, William, M.P. for Gateshead,
ii. 180.
Hyères,
ii. 370.
I.
IGNATIUS, Brother,
iii. 81-82.
Ingilby, Elizabeth Macdowell, Lady, of Ripley,
ii. 283,
337.
—— Miss,
ii. 332.
Irongray Church, the,
ii. 164.
J.
JACKSON, Dean of Christ Church,
i. 15.
Janin, Jules,
iii. 6.
Jelf, Dr., Canon of Christ Church,
ii. 152-153.
Jersey, Sarah, Countess of,
iii. 8-9.
Jerusalem, Bishopric of,
i. 163.
Jeune, Dr. Francis, Master of Pembroke College, afterwards Bishop of Peterborough,
ii. 6;
iii. 161-168.
Jocelyn, Lady Frances Cowper, Viscountess,
iii. 140.
Johnson, Mr., of Akeley Heads,
ii. 264-265.
Jolliffe, Colonel Hylton,
i. 25.
Jones, Anna Maria Shipley, Lady,
i. 6,
13,
16;
ii. 144.
—— Mr., of Branxton,
ii. 280.
—— Sir William,
i. 6.
Jowett, Rev. Benjamin, tutor and Master of Balliol,
i. 402,
404,
420,
439,
472;
ii. 221,
222.
Joyce, Miss,
iii. 95.
K.
KEITH, Lady,
iii. 26.
Kershaw, Rev. E., and Mrs.,
ii. 388.
Kielder,
ii. 342.
Kilvert, Rev. Robert,
i. 167,
172,
213.
Kilvert, Thermuthis Coleman, Mrs. Robert,
i. 168.
King's Meadows,
ii. 357.
Kirk-Newton,
ii. 362.
Knaresborough,
ii. 332.
Knebel, Mademoiselle,
ii. 387.
Knox, Mrs. John,
ii. 274.
Königsfelden,
iii. 108.
Kuper, Mrs. and Miss,
iii. 338,
339.
L.
LABRE, the Venerable,
ii. 443.
Landor, Julia Thuillier, Mrs.,
ii. 92,
407.
—— Walter Savage,
i. 16,
18,
26,
37,
265-268,
270,
277,
289,
510;
ii. 111-112, 407-409.
Laire, M., the antiquary,
i. 324.
Lamarre, M.,
ii. 404-405.
Lamartine, Alphonse de,
iii. 383.
Langford, Elizabeth, Viscountess,
iii. 129.
Larmignac, Mademoiselle Martine de,
ii. 193,
505.
Large, Mrs.,
iii. 309,
310.
Lawley, Hon. and Rev. Stephen,
ii. 433.
Lawrence, Sir Thomas,
i. 21.
Lea, Mary,
i. 50,
54,
60,
78,
117,
122,
124,
150,
171,
205,
487.
Lefevre, Sir John Shaw,
ii. 213,
454.
Legh of Lyme, Emily Wodehouse, Mrs.,
iii. 113,
116.
Lehmann, Dr.,
i. 9,
11.
Leigh, Miss Theodosia,
i. 178.
Lennox, Lady Arthur,
ii. 354.
——- Miss Ethel,
ii. 354.
Le Puy,
iii. 149.
L'Estelle,
ii. 480,
487.
Le Strange, Hamon Styleman, of Hunstanton,
ii. 137.
Leslie, Lady,
ii. 322-324.
Leuk, Baths of,
i. 460.
Leycester, Miss Emma Theodosia,
i. 114,
500;
ii. 477-481.
—— Mr. and Mrs. Henry, of White Place,
ii. 156-157.
—— Judge Hugh,
i. 141.
—— Maria, youngest daughter of Rev. Oswald,
i. 33.
—— Miss Charlotte,
i. 114,
317,
376, 450,
454-458, 480,
487, 499;
ii. 33,
161,
289,
479;
iii. 200,
208-221, 322, 397, 398.
—— Miss Georgiana,
iii. 200.
—— Mrs. Oswald (Elizabeth White),
i.
102,
126-142,
209,
228-229,
272-274.
—— Rev. Oswald, Rector of Stoke upon Terne,
i. 44,
126,
207-208.
—— Ralph, of Toft,
i. 317.
—— Mrs. Susannah, wife of Ralph Leycester of Toft,
i. 66.
Lichfield,
ii. 330.
Liddell, Miss Amelia,
ii. 264,
271.
—— Hon. Colonel Augustus,
iii. 367.
—— Hon. Mrs. Augustus,
iii. 367.
—— Miss Charlotte,
ii. 264,
271.
—— Charlotte Lyon, Mrs.,
i. 283;
ii. 263,
271;
iii. 8,
171.
—— Edward,
iii. 365-368.
—— Hon. George,
ii. 262,
263,
318,
321.
—— Hon. Mrs. George,
ii. 263,
318.
—— Hon. Hedworth,
ii. 364.
—— Henry, Head-master of Westminster and Dean of Christ Church,
i. 283;
ii. 9,
157.
—— Rev. Henry, Rector of Easington, and trustee of Bamborough Castle,
i. 283;
ii. 263;
iii. 8-10, 171.
—— Maria Susannah Simpson, Lady,
i. 25.
—— Hon. Thomas,
ii. 139.
—— Rev. William,
ii. 264.
Lime, at Hurstmonceaux in Sussex,
i.
57-60,
66-75.
Limosin, Madame Flora,
iii. 311,
339,
349.
Lincluden Abbey,
ii. 164.
Lind, Madame Jenny,
i. 236.
Lindsay, Lady Margaret,
iii. 27.
Liszt, Franz,
ii. 389.
Londonderry, Frances Anne, Marchioness of,
iii. 9.
—— Mary, Marchioness of,
iii. 270.
Lothian, Lady Cecil Talbot, widow of the 7th Marquis of,
i. 339,
356;
ii. 398-404, 409,
444;
iii. 153,
270,
287,
294,
298.
—— William Schomberg, 8th Marquis of,
iii. 47.
—— Constance, Marchioness of,
iii. 47.
Louis, King, of Bavaria,
ii. 374.
Lovat, Simon, Lord,
ii. 351.
Lucca, Bagni di,
ii. 93.
Lucchesi, Marchese,
iii. 17.
Lucerne,
ii. 33.
Lucy, Mrs., of Charlecote,
ii. 14.
Lushington, Dr.,
ii. 298-309.
Lyall, William Rowe, Dean of Canterbury,
i. 359.
Lyme Hall,
iii. 113.
Lyncombe,
i. 261.
Lyne, Rev. Leycester,
iii. 81.
Lynn-Linton, Mrs.,
i. 268.
Lyon, Sir John, of Glamis,
i. 23.
—— Sir John, first Baron Kinghorn,
i. 22.
—— Thomas, of Hetton,
ii. 317.
—— Mrs. Thomas, of Hetton,
ii. 317.
Lyons,
i. 451.
M.
MACAULAY, Lord,
i. 515;
ii. 218.
Macmurdo, General,
iii. 176.
Macon,
iii. 383.
Macsween, Alexander,
i. 171.
Mainsforth,
ii. 309.
Makrina, La Madre, of Minsk,
ii. 72-74.
Malcolm, Miss Ann Emilia,
i. 435.
—— Lady,
i. 435.
—— Miss Kate,
i. 435.
Malmesbury, James Edward, 2nd Earl of,
iii. ???.
Manners, Lady John,
ii. 284.
Manners-Sutton, Archbishop,
iii. 157.
Mannheim,
i. 53,
383.
Manning, Archdeacon Henry, afterwards Cardinal,
i. 98,
339;
ii. 395;
iii. 1,
308,
360.
Mantua,
iii. 337.
Marbourg,
i. 425.
Marie Amelie, Queen of the French,
i. 274.
Marie-Anne, Sœur,
ii. 443.
Marie Antoinette, Queen of France,
ii. 298; prison of,
ii. 125.
Marlborough, John, 1st Duke of,
i. 1.
Marsh, Miss Catherine,
i. 407;
ii. 289;
iii. 245-247, 250.
Martin, Baron,
iii. 297.
Masham, Mrs.,
ii. 309.
Massie, Mrs.,
iii. 113.
Mastai-Ferretti, Conte,
ii. 236-240.
Matfen,
ii. 266,
346.
Matthias, Maria de, foundress of the "Order of the Precious Blood,"
ii. 426,
438-442;
iii. 86,
238-239.
Maurice (Annie Barton), Mrs. Frederick,
i. 70.
—— Esther Jane,
i. 73,
176-178.
—— Rev. Frederick Denison,
i.
70-72,
111,
280.
—— Georgiana Hare, Mrs. Frederick,
iii. 412.
—— Harriet,
i. 179.
—— Mary,
i. 179,
182.
Maurice, Priscilla,
i.
70-73,
112,
181-182,
410.
Maximilian, Archduke and Emperor,
ii. 36.
Medine, Count Battistino,
iii. 338.
Melun, M., Protestant pasteur at Caen,
i. 321.
Mentone,
ii. 246-258;
iii. 185.
Merlini, Don Giovanni, Father-General of the Precious Blood,
ii. 425,
427,
442.
Merode, Monsignor de,
iii. 70.
Meyer, M. Carl Friedrich,
i. 382.
Mezzofanti, Cardinal,
i. 9.
Milligan, William Henry,
i. 416,
420,
422,
493,
499;
ii. 1,
2,
131.
Milman, Henry Hart, Dean of St. Paul's,
ii. 231.
Milner, Elizabeth Mordaunt, Lady,
i. 96.
Mohl, M. Julius,
ii. 118.
—— Madame,
ii. 118-121;
iii. 5-7.
Monceaux, Château de,
iii. 383.
Monk, Miss,
iii. 203.
Montagu, Lady Elizabeth,
ii. 437.
Montbard,
iii. 383.
Mont Blanc, the tour of,
i. 458.
Monteith, Robert, of Carstairs,
iii. 95,
288,
293,
295.
—— Wilhelmina Mellish, wife of Robert Monteith of Carstairs,
ii. 427;
iii. 289,
290,
294.
Monte Cassino,
ii. 78.
Montgolfier, Madame de,
iii. 385.
Montgomery, Hon. Mrs. Alfred,
iii. 71,
96,
239,
280,
282,
284,
289, 294, 301.
Moore, Archdeacon Henry, of Stafford,
i. 164;
ii. 132.
Morlot, Cardinal Archbishop of Paris,
ii. 121-122.
Morpeth,
ii. 277,
365.
Morini, Padre Agostino,
iii. 256.
Morley, Albert-Edmund, 3rd Earl of,
iii. 145.
—— Harriet, Countess of,
iii. 139.
Mounteagle, Lady,
iii. 158.
Mount-Edgecumbe, Caroline, Countess of,
ii. 356.
—— Katherine, Countess of,
iii. 138.
—— William Henry, 4th Earl of,
iii. 137,
145.
Munich,
iii. 336.
Munn, Rev. John Reade,
iii. 415.
Murray, John, the third,
ii. 133,
134,
260.
N.
NAPLES,
ii. 80.
—— Francesco II., King of,
iii. 90-97
—— Marie of Bavaria, Queen of,
iii. 86,
94.
—— Marie Thérèse Isabelle, Queen of,
iii. 86,
189.
Napoleon I.,
i. 91.
Napoleon III., Emperor of the French,
ii. 508.
Narni,
iii. 100.
Naworth,
ii. 354.
Naylor, Anna Maria Mealey, Mrs. Hare,
i.
13,
82-83,
280,
287.
—— Bethaia,
i. 4.
—— Francis,
i. 1.
—— Francis Hare,
i. 5,
11.
—— Georgiana Shipley, Mrs. Hare,
i. 5-12.
—— Miss Grace,
i. 1,
260.
—— Robert Hare,
i. 2.
Neri, S. Filippo,
iii. 201.
Neuchâtel,
ii. 113.
New Abbey,
ii. 164.
Newbattle Abbey,
iii. 47.
Newcastle-on-Tyne,
ii. 318.
Newman, Rev. John Henry, afterwards Cardinal,
iii. 1-2.
Nice,
ii. 370.
Nicholas I., Emperor of Russia,
ii. 74,
506.
Nicholson, Miss,
iii. 372.
Normanby, Maria Liddell, wife of the 1st Marquis of,
ii. 93,
204,
212.
Northcote, Captain and Mrs.,
ii. 364.
North Berwick,
ii. 357.
Norwich,
i.
116-120,
229.
Nunnington Hall,
i. 16.
Nuremberg,
i. 435.
O.
OBERLIN,
ii. 109.
Oberwesel,
iii. 232.
Ogle, Miss, the authoress,
ii. 350.
Orvieto,
ii. 84,
385.
Ossulston, Charles, Lord,
ii. 268-269.
Otterburn,
ii. 344.
Oxenham, Rev. W.,
i. 236.
Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of,
iii. 153.
—— Countess of,
i. 18.
P.
PADUA,
iii. 338-339.
Pæstum,
ii. 83.
Pallavicini, Carolina, Princess,
ii. 59.
Palmer, Mr. William,
ii. 207.
Palmerston, H. Temple, 1st Earl of,
i. 12.
Panizzi, Sir Antonio,
ii. 132;
iii. 142.
Pantaleone, Dr.,
ii. 374-376.
Paolucci di Calboli, Marchese Annibale,
ii. 388.
—— Marchese Raniero,
ii. 388.
Papillon, Rev. Henry,
iii. 412.
—— Mrs. H.,
iii. 414.
Paray le Monial,
ii. 445,
499.
Paris,
i.
318-319,
327;
ii. 114-128.
Parisani, Palazzo,
i. 261,
340,
373;
ii. 55-56;
iii. 190.
Parker, John Henry,
ii. 9;
iii. 319.
—— Mrs. J. H.,
i. 473.
—— Lady Katherine,
iii. 145.
Parry, Catherine, Lady,
i. 279.
—— Sir Edward, the Arctic voyager,
i. 114,
279.
—— Edward, Bishop of Dover,
i. 279.
—— (Isabella Stanley) Lady, first, wife of Sir Edward,
i. 114.
—— Serjeant,
iii. 298,
299,
303.
Pastacaldi, Padre,
iii. 313.
Paterson, Mrs., of Linlathen,
ii. 165.
—— Monsignor,
iii. 294,
295,
301,
302,
307.
Patrizi, Cardinal,
iii. 76.
Pattenden, Deborah,
i. 211.
Paul, Anne Frances,
i. 25,
26,
30.
—— Eleanor-Maria,
i. 42,
351-352;
ii. 69-70, 94,
103-106,
206,
411-415;
iii. 262,
266,
315.
—— Elizabeth Halifax, Lady,
i. 284,
295,
453.
—— Frances Eleanor, Lady,
i. 21,
26.
—— Jane,
i. 28,
295.
—— Sir John Dean, Bart.,
i. 21,
30,
50,
84,
284,
295.
—— Sir John Dean, the younger,
i. 495.
—— Maria Horatia,
i. 27,
296.
—— Mary, Lady, widow of Berkeley, Napier of Pennard,
i. 84.
—— William Wentworth,
i. 295.
Payne, Mrs.,
iii. 87.
Peabody, Mr. George,
ii. 372-374.
—— Robert,
iii. 341,
344,
360,
370.
Peakirk,
iii. 165.
Pearson, Rev. Hugh, Rector of Sonning,
i. 120,
411,
470;
ii. 221.
Peebles,
ii. 357.
Peglia,
ii. 253.
Peglione,
ii. 253,
255,
372.
Pellerin, Monsignor,
ii. 68-69.
Pellew, Hon. George, Dean of Norwich,
i. 231.
Pencaitland,
ii. 356.
Pennyman, Lady,
ii. 337-338.
Penrhyn, Lady Charlotte,
i.
48,
141-142,
408-409.
—— Edward,
i. 48,
69,
208,
408,
464,
514;
ii. 259-260.
—— Miss Emma,
i.
383-384,
408,
464;
iii. 377,
414.
—— Mr. and Mrs. Leycester,
iii. 414.
Percy, Lord Henry,
iii. 145.
—— Hugh Heber,
iii. 159.
—— Mrs. Heber (Emily Heber),
ii. 159.
—— Dr. Hugh, Bishop of Carlisle,
ii. 160.
Petit, Miss Emma,
ii. 328.
—— Rev. J. L., the ecclesiologist,
ii. 256-258, 330.
Pietra Santa,
ii. 102.
Pile, Mr. Robert,
i. 60;
iii. 112.
—— Mrs. Robert,
i. 60,
192,
278.
Piombino, Prince and Princess,
ii. 428.
Piper, Mrs.,
i. 103,
260.
Pisa,
ii. 101;
iii. 52,
190,
310-312,
338-358.
Pitcairn, Mrs.,
ii. 289.
Pius IX., Pope,
i. 341;
ii. 61-64, 289, 428;
iii. 70, 71, 80, 93, 167, 190, 319, 360.
Playfair, Sir Hugh Lyon, Provost of St. Andrews,
ii. 170.
Plumptre, Rev. Edward, Dean of Wells,
i. 179.
—— Rev. Dr. Frederick Charles, Master of University College,
i. 405,
441,
474,
—— Harriet Maurice, Mrs. E.,
i. 179.
Pole, Lady Louisa,
i. 354.
—— Miss Marguerite,
i. 352-357;
iii. 248.
—— Sir Peter Van Notten,
i. 352.
Polignac, Duc de,
iii. 43.
Ponsonby, Miss Melita,
ii. 358.
Porson, Dr. Richard,
ii. 376.
Portman, Hon. Walter,
i. 306,
332,
452.
Port Royal,
ii. 125.
Porto Fino,
ii. 254.
—— Venere,
iii. 51.
Poulevey, Père de,
ii. 416.
Powell, Lucilla Maurice, Mrs.,
i. 179.
Prague,
i. 432.
Praslin, Duchesse de,
i. 245;
iii. 19-20.
Prât, Marquis and Marquise de,
ii. 115.
Preignier, Marquise du,
ii. 118.
Prentiss, Mr.,
i. 164.
Prosperi, Monsignor,
iii. 70.
Pusey, Dr. Edward Bouverie,
iii. 70.
R.
RAMSAY, Mrs.,
iii. 193,
198.
Rathdonnell, Lady,
iii. 83.
Ratisbon, Le Père,
ii. 68.
Ravenna,
ii. 48.
Ravensworth, Henry Liddell, Earl of,
ii. 453.
Ravignan, Père de,
i. 353,
355.
Reedswire, the,
ii. 345.
Reisach, Cardinal de,
iii. 96.
Rianzares, Duc de,
ii. 57.
Richmond, Elizabeth Liddell, Mrs.
Brook,
ii. 208,
209,
213.
——George, the artist,
ii. 214.
Ridley Hall,
ii. 172-178, 266, 272, 341;
iii. 170.
Rignano, Emilio, Duke of,
ii. 70.
Rimini,
ii. 49.
Ripley Castle,
ii. 283,
332-336.
Robinson, Miss,
ii. 310-317.
Rockend,
i.
85-87,
251.
Roddam, Mr. and Mrs., of Roddam,
ii. 280,
282,
364.
Roleston, Mary Pierina, Abbess of the Precious Blood,
ii. 425,
438-442;
iii. 238,
266-268, 270, 274, 275, 287, 295, 298, 305, 306.
Rome,
ii. 54-76, 387-391 422-432;
iii. 65-100, 313-319, 359-378.
Rosam, Miss,
i. 504.
Rothbury,
ii. 365.
Rousham,
ii. 150.
Routh, Dr. Joseph Martin, President of Magdalen,
i. 447-450.
Rowley, Charlotte Shipley, Hon. Mrs.,
iii. 129.
Royat, Baths of,
iii. 150.
Ruskin, John,
ii. 107-109, 277, 484.
Russell, Lady Frankland,
ii. 8,
240.
—— Sir John, of Chequers,
ii. 240.
—— Mr. and Lady Emily,
iii. 368.
Rutherford, of Egerton, Mr. and Mrs.,
ii. 322-324.
Ruthven, Mary, Lady,
ii. 335-337, 354-356;
iii. 39,
42-43, 47.
Rutson, Albert,
ii. 7,
9,
16.
Rye House, the,
i. 314.
Ryton,
ii. 320.
S.
SACKVILLE, S. Stopford, of Drayton,
ii. 137.
Sainte Aldegonde, Madame,
iii. 71.
St. Andrews,
ii. 19,
170.
S. Bernard, Le Grand,
i. 459.
S. Denis,
i. 327.
S. Emilion,
ii. 494.
S. Gemignano,
iii. 342-344.
S. Giorgio, Lady Anne,
ii. 86-90;
iii. 192-193, 358.
—— Contessa Carolina di,
ii. 90-91;
iii. 191.
S. Pierre, Le Curé de,
ii. 420.
S. Remo,
ii. 377.
Salette, La,
ii. 512.
Salis, Comtesse de,
ii. 233-237.
Salt, Miss Harriet,
ii. 328.
—— Miss Sarah,
ii. 256-258,
328.
Salzburg,
ii. 40;
iii. 231.
Sandwich Islands, Emma, Queen Dowager of the,
iii. 2-3, 109.
Santa-Croce, Catherine Scully, Princess of,
ii. 59-61.
—— Donna Vincenza,
iii. 91.
Sartines, M. de,
ii. 145.
Savona,
iii. 186.
Saxon Switzerland,
i. 430.
Saye and Sele, 14th Baron,
ii. 152.
Schouvaloff, Count,
ii. 65.
Scott, Sir Walter,
ii. 166,
309,
312-314.
Sculthorpe,
i. 4.
Sedgwick, Professor Adam,
i. 120,
164.
Selman, Sarah,
i. 3.
Sepolti Vivi, the,
iii. 73-76.
Serafina della Croce,
iii. 234-235, 287.
Serlupi, Marchese,
iii. 190,
197.
Sermoneta, Margherita, Duchess of,
ii. 58.
—— Michelangelo, Duke of,
ii. 58;
iii. 87.
Servites, Order of the,
ii. 445.
Sestri,
iii. 187.
Seymour, Mrs. Hamilton,
iii. 395.
Shaw-Lefevre, Miss Maria,
ii. 392.
—— Miss Mary,
ii. 392.
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mrs.,
i. 39
—— Lady,
ii. 278.
Sheffield, George,
i. 421,
446,
493;
ii. 5-8, 33-38, 132 156.
Shipley, Anna Maria,
i. 13.
—— Anna Maria Mordaunt, Mrs.,
i. 5.
—— Emilia,
i. 84.
—— Jonathan, Bishop of St. Asaph,
i. 5.
—— Mrs. Louisa,
i. 20,
95,
96.
—— William, Dean of St. Asaph,
iii. 123-129.
Shrewsbury, 16th Earl, and Countess of,
i. 230.
Siddons, Mrs.,
i. 133;
ii. 310.
Siena,
iii. 341-342.
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.
—— John, of Bradley,
i. 22.
Skiddaw, ascent of,
ii. 165.
Sloper, Rev. John,
i. 84.
Smith, Goldwin,
i. 415,
448.
—— "Sir Hugh,"
i. 437.
—— Mrs. Spencer,
iii. 395.
—— Rev. Sydney,
i. 515;
ii. 316,
317.
Somerton, Caroline, Viscountess,
ii. 139.
Sonning,
i. 411,
470.
Sora, Agnese, Duchess of,
ii. 59,
405,
424,
428;
iii. 95,
253.
—— Rudolfo, Duke of,
ii. 59,
428;
iii. 95.
Sorrento,
ii. 81,
396.
South Wraxhall Manor,
i. 272.
Southgate,
i. 297.
Souvigny,
iii. 152.
Soveral, M. and Madame de,
iii. 198.
Spencer, 5th Earl, and Countess,
ii. 213.
Splugen, Passage of the,
iii. 107.
Spoleto,
iii. 101.
Spy, the family,
i. 370-376.
Squires, Dr.,
iii. 262-264, 297.
Staël, Madame de,
iii. 416.
Stanhope, Hon. Edward,
ii. 137.
Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn,
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.
—— Lady Augusta,
ii. 390,
497-498???;
iii. 110,
153,
158,
414.
—— Catherine Maria, afterwards Mrs. C. Vaughan,
i. 66,
69,
118,
210,
281,
291.
—— Captain Charles Edward,
i. 156,
281.
—— 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.
—— Mrs. Edward (Catherine Leycester),
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.
—— Hon. Louisa,
i. 412;
ii. 140-141.
—— Maria Josepha, 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.
—— Captain Owen,
i. 281.
Stanley, William Owen of Penrhos,
i. 502.
—— Mrs. W. Owen,
i. 502.
Stapleton, Lady,
iii. 124.
Star, Thomas,
i. 169.
Stephanie, Grand Duchess of Baden,
i. 383,
385.
Sterling, Rev. John,
i. 70.
Stewart, Robert Shaw,
iii. 48,
49.
Stirling, Mrs., of Glenbervie,
iii. 48.
—— Mrs., of Kippenross,
iii. 40-42.
—— Mrs., of Linlathen,
ii. 165.
Stirling-Graham, Miss Clementina, of Duntrune,
ii. 165.
Stisted, Mrs., of the Bagni di Lucca,
ii. 94.
Stoke upon Terne,
i. 61,
124-151;
ii. 160,
327.
Stonebyres,
ii. 360.
Stonehenge,
ii. 155.
Stoney, Mr. Robinson,
i. 24.
Story, Miss Amelia,
ii. 466.
—— William, the sculptor,
iii. 368.
Stowe, Mrs. Beecher,
i. 515.
Strathmore, Charles, 6th Earl,
i. 23.
—— John, 5th Earl,
i. 23.
—— John, 9th Earl of,
ii. 172.
—— John, 10th Earl of,
ii. 173,
178.
—— Mary Eleanor Bowes, wife of the 9th Earl of,
i. 24;
ii. 172,
275.
—— Mary Milner, widow of the 10th Earl of,
i. 53;
ii. 178-180.
Streatham Castle,
ii. 178,
274.
Strettel, Mr. and Mrs.,
ii. 254.
Strickland, Mr., of Cokethorpe,
ii. 151.
Stuart, Charles Edward,
ii. 515.
—— Lady Euphemia,
i. 23.
—— Lady Jane,
i. 22.
—— John Sobieski Stolberg,
ii. 515.
—— Lady Louisa,
i. 301.
—— de Rothesay, Elizabeth, Lady,
ii. 280-282,
360.
Stuttgart,
iii. 336.
Suffolk, Charles John, 17th Earl of,
iii. 139,
145.
—— Isabella, Countess of,
iii. 139,
149.
Sumner, John Bird, Archbishop of Canterbury,
i. 407.
Surtees of Mainsforth, the historian and poet,
ii. 309,
313.
—— of Mainsforth, Mrs.,
ii. 309-317.
Sutherland, Anna Hay-Mackenzie, Duchess of,
iii. 245.
Sutton Place,
ii. 217.
Swinburne, Sir John,
ii. 350.
T.
TADDINI, Conte Luigi,
iii. 83.
Tait, Archibald Campbell, Bishop of London, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury,
iii. 35-36, 39.
—— Crawford,
iii. 39.
—— Mrs.,
iii. 35-36, 39.
Talbot, Monsignor,
ii. 67;
iii. 190,
238,
252.
Tambroni, Clotilda, Professor of Greek at Bologna,
i. 6-9.
Tankerville, Charles, 5th Earl of,
iii. 33.
—— Charles, 6th Earl of,
ii. 267-271, 365.
—— Olivia, Countess of,
ii. 267-271;
iii. 32,
33.
Tatton, Miss Fanny,
iii. 401.
Tayler, Rev. Charles,
i. 98.
Tayleur, Miss Harriet,
i.
143-144,
501;
ii. 326;
iii. 113.
—— Miss Mary,
i.
143-144,
501;
ii. 326.
—— Mr. and Mrs., of Buntingsdale,
i. 143.
—— William, of Buntingsdale,
ii. 326.
Taylor, Dr., afterwards Sir Alexander,
ii. 466,
467;
iii. 295.
—— E. Cavendish,
iii. 203.
—— Julia Hare, Mrs., afterwards Lady,
i. 90;
ii. 466,
476.
Teano, Ada, Princess,
iii. 193.
Teesdale,
ii. 340.
Temple, Harry,
i. 12.
Tennyson, Alfred, the Poet Laureate,
i. 258.
Tenterden steeple,
iii. 332.
Terry, Mrs.,
iii. 375,
376.
Thirlwall, Connop, Bishop of St. David's,
i. 164,
437,
482.
Thomas, John, Bishop of Peterborough,
ii. 338.
Thornton, Harriet Heber, Mrs. John,
ii. 144-149.
Thornycroft,
ii. 161.
Thorpe, Mrs.,
iii. 237,
262.
Tivoli,
iii. 370.
Torcello,
iii. 230.
Torchio,
iii. 236-237.
Torlonia, Duke of,
ii. 295-297.
Torre, Contessa della,
ii. 448-449.
Toul,
iii. 333.
Tours,
ii. 464.
Townshend, Mrs.,
i. 96.
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.
Trenca, M. et Madame,
ii. 247.
Trench, Mrs. Richard,
ii. 434.
Trent,
iii. 231.
Trevelyan, Sir Charles,
ii. 348.
—— Paulina, Lady,
ii. 277,
348-350.
—— Mrs. Spencer,
ii. 351.
—— Mrs. Raleigh,
ii. 351.
—— Sir Walter,
ii. 277,
348-351.
Treves,
i. 385.
Tronchin, Colonel, of Geneva,
i. 453.
Trotter, Captain,
i. 315.
—— Hon. Charlotte Liddell, Mrs.,
i. 315.
Troutbeck, John, afterwards Minor Canon of Westminster,
i. 414,
419,
446.
Tufton,
i. 278.
Turin,
ii. 106.
Turner, Miss,
iii. 114-115.
Tusculum,
ii. 391.
Tytler, Christina Fraser,
iii. 368.
U.
UGOLINI, Cardinal,
iii. 71.
Ungern Sternberg, Baroness Theodora von,
iii. 109.
Unthank,
iii. 169.
Usedom, Baron and Baroness von,
i. 435;
iii. 104-106.
V.
VAL ANZASCA,
ii. 109.
Val Richer,
i. 320.
Vallombrosa,
ii. 84;
iii. 381.
Valsamachi, Emily Shipley, Countess,
ii. 145,
159,
160,
327.
Van de Weyer, Madame,
ii. 232.
—— M. Sylvain,
ii. 231-232.
Vatche, the, in Buckinghamshire,
i. 2,
3,
493;
ii. 156.
Vaucher, Mademoiselle,
ii. 379.
Vaudois, the,
ii. 109.
Vaughan, Dr. Charles, afterwards Dean of Llandaff,
i. 214,
281,
336;
ii. 213,
260,
414.
—— Mrs. Charles (Catherine Maria Stanley),
i. 281,
315,
336;
ii. 213,
261;
iii. 170.
Vauriol, Vicomte de,
iii. 354.
Veii,
ii. 391.
Venables, Rev. E., afterwards Canon and Precentor of Lincoln,
i. 240.
Vernon, Augustus Henry, 6th Lord,
iii. 140.
Verona,
iii. 230,
337.
Verulam, Elizabeth, Countess of,
iii. 139.
Vetturino travelling,
ii. 46-49.
Vicenza,
iii. 338.
Victor-Emmanuel, King of Italy,
ii. 376.
Victoria, Queen of England,
ii. 286-288.
Victorine, Madame,
iii. 89-90.
Vienna,
ii. 36.
Vigne, Père la,
i. 338.
Vine's Gate,
iii. 393.
W.
WADDINGTON, Dean of Durham,
ii. 265.
—— M., Minister of Foreign Affairs and Ambassador in London,
i. 319;
ii. 109.
Wagner, Rev. George,
i. 79,
80.
—— Mrs.,
i. 79;
ii. 427;
iii. 397.
Wake, Sir Baldwin,
ii. 151.
Waldegrave, Sarah, Countess,
iii. 397.
Wales, Albert Edward, Prince of,
ii. 381.
—— Alexandra, Princess of,
ii. 381.
Walker, Frederick J.,
i. 309,
332,
398.
"Walks in Rome,"
iii. 388,
397,
408.
Wallington,
ii. 277,
347-352.
Walpole, Sir Robert,
i. 2.
Waltham Abbey,
i. 311.
Wantage,
ii. 222.
Warburton, Mrs. Eliot,
i. 510,
511-513;
ii. 12.
—— Miss Sydney,
i. 510.
Warkworth,
ii. 278,
352.
Warren, Miss Anna,
ii. 144.
—— Penelope Shipley, Mrs.,
i.
165-166;
ii. 143-144;
iii. 125.
Waterford, John, Marquis of,
ii. 280.
—— Henry, Marquis of, ii, 362.
—— Louisa, Marchioness of,
ii. 280-282, 360-363;
iii. 10-13, 23-31, 323-327.
Way, Albert,
i. 503;
ii. 133.
Wayland Smith's cave,
ii. 230.
Webster, Charlotte Adamson, Lady,
iii. 177.
Weeping Cross,
ii. 328.
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.
Wells,
i. 308.
Wells, Lady Louisa,
ii. 356;
iii. 140.
Wemyss, Francis, 8th Earl of,
iii. 44.
—— Louisa, Countess of,
ii. 359.
Wenlock, Caroline, Lady,
ii. 389;
iii. 153.
West Woodhay,
i. 84,
95.
Weymouth,
ii. 229.
Whately, Richard, Archbishop of Dublin,
i. 228,
283.
Whewell, William, Master of Trinity,
i. 164,;
iii. 158.
Wickham, William, of Binstead Wyke,
ii. 217.
Wilberforce, Samuel, Bishop of Oxford, afterwards of Winchester,
i. 470;
iii. 153.
Wilcot House,
i. 278.
William IV., King,
i. 69,
294.
Williams, Captain,
iii. 28,
32.
—— Sir John and Lady Sarah,
i. 302.
Williamson, Hon. Anne Liddell, Lady,
ii. 207,
208,
211,
212,
400,
403.
—— Captain Charles, ii, 210,
212.
—— Victor Alexander,
ii. 137,
210,
214,
403.
Wilson, Miss,
iii. 382.
—— Mrs.,
i. 407.
Winslow, Dr.,
iii. 318,
359,
366,
370.
Winton Castle,
ii. 354.
Wiseman, Nicolas Patrick, Cardinal,
ii. 486.
Wishaw House,
ii. 358.
Wodehouse, Miss Emily,
i. 120.
—— Canon and Lady Jane,
i. 120.
Wood, Alderman,
iii. 15.
—— Hon. Charles Lindley,
ii. 137-138, 214,
251-253,
283,
325;
iii. 320.
Wood, Sir Charles,
ii. 283.
—— Lady Mary,
ii. 251.
—— Mrs. Shakespeare,
iii. 190,
203.
Woodward, Mrs.,
iii. 209,
211,
213,
318,
364,
365,
374,
378.
Wordsworth, William, the poet,
i. 177,
499.
Worting House, near Basingstoke,
i. 13.
Wright. Miss Sophia,
ii. 392;
iii. 140,
192,
318.
Y.
YEATMAN, Mr. and Mrs. Morgan,
iii. 414.
Yetholm,
iii. 31.
Yorke, Lady Elizabeth,
i. 214.
Z.
ZERMATT,
i. 460.
END OF VOL. III.
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[1] See Lord Chesterfield's Letters.
[2] Dr. Johnson, "The Idler," No. 84.
[3] Epitaph at Hurstmonceaux.
[4] Principal of New Inn Hall, and afterwards Rector of Hurstmonceaux.
[5] The 4th Earl of Crawford.
[6] In her marriage contract (of 1792) with Lord Edward Fitz Gerald, Pamela was described as the daughter of Guillaume de Brixey and Mary Sims, aged nineteen, and born at Fogo in Newfoundland. In Madame de Genlis's Memoirs, it is said that one Parker Forth, acting for the Duke of Orleans, found, at Christ Church in Hampshire, one Nancy Sims, a native of Fogo, and took her to Paris to live with Madame de Genlis, and teach her royal pupils English. An Englishman named Sims was certainly living at Fogo at the end of the last century, and his daughter Mary sailed for Bristol with an infant of a year old, in a ship commanded by a Frenchman named Brixey, and was never heard of again.
[7] Edward Fox Fitz Gerald died Jan. 25, 1863: his widow lived afterwards at Heavitree near Exeter, where she died Nov. 2, 1891.
[8] I have dwelt upon the first connection of Madame Victoire Ackermann with our family, not only because her name frequently occurs again in these Memoirs, but because they are indebted to notes left by her for much of their most striking material. I have never known any person more intellectually interesting, for the class to which she belonged, than Victoire. Without the slightest exaggeration, and with unswerving rectitude of intention, her conversation was always charming and original, and she possessed the rare art of narration in the utmost perfection.
[9] Francis Hare and his father had both been born abroad.
[10] See the chapter called "Home Portraiture" in "Memorials of a Quiet Life."
[11] Edward Leycester had taken the name of Penrhyn with the fortune of his father's cousin, Lady Penrhyn of Penrhyn Castle. His wife was Lady Charlotte Stanley, daughter of the 13th Earl of Derby.
[12] Second daughter of Sir John Stanley, afterwards 1st Lord Stanley of Alderley, and niece of the Rev. Edward Stanley, Maria Leycester's brother-in-law.
[13] Edward Stanley, Rector of Alderley and afterwards Bishop of Norwich, had married my mother's only sister, Catherine Leycester ("Kitty"), who was seven years older than herself.
[14] "Maurice was by nature puzzle-headed, and, though in a beautiful manner, wrong-headed; while his clear conscience and keen affections made him egotistic, and, in his Bible reading, as insolent as any infidel of them all."—Ruskin, "Præterita."
[15] R. Holt Hutton.
[16] The child was only three.
[17] George Herbert.
[18] This half-aunt of mine was living in 1894, having long been the widow of the Rev. F. D. Maurice. I had not seen her for more than thirty years before her death. I could not say I adored all the Maurices: it would have been an exaggeration. So she did not wish to see me.
[19] The Rev. R. Chenevix Trench, afterwards Archbishop of Dublin. The fact was, his were very pleasant children, and therefore I liked them; but I was expected to like all children, whatever their characters, and scolded if I did not.
[20] My uncle Julius Hare's Recollections.
[21] From the notes of Francis Hare's life by Madame Victoire Ackermann.
[22] See Crabbe Robinson's Diary.
[23] He died Rector of North Creake, April 1894.
[24] Merry Wives of Windsor.
[25] Afterwards Mrs. Chatterton.
[26] Ann, Viscountess Hill, died Oct. 31, 1891.
[27] Recollections of Canon Venables, his sometime curate.
[28] Long afterwards I learned that it is recorded in legal proceedings, how Giles de Fienes (of Hurstmonceaux) brought a suit against Richard de Pageham for the violent abduction of his wife Sybil, daughter of William Filiol, on August 30, 1223. I suppose Richard employed the gipsies as his intermediaries.
[29] She had told Landor so.
[30] The Rev. Adam Sedgwick, Prebendary of Norwich and Woodwardian Professor of Geology, died Jan. 27, 1873.
[31] Mrs. Vaughan.
[32] De Quincey says that Wordsworth was the only poet he ever met who could do this, and certainly it is my experience.
[33] To be without (a husband) is bare but it's easy.
[34] Harriet survived all her sisters for many years, as the wife of Edward Plumptre, Dean of Wells. She died in 1890. A charming account of her has appeared in Boyd's "Twenty-five Years at St. Andrews:" I thought her most unlike it.
[35] Actual cases.
[36] Memoires de "Madame," Lettre du 18 Juillet 1700.
[37] R. Browning.
[38] He afterwards married my cousin Lady Elizabeth Yorke.
[39] Robert Smith, who afterwards married my connection Isabel Adeane.
[40] Afterwards Lord Radstock.
[41] Son of the Bishop of London, Alfred Blomfield, afterwards himself Bishop of Colchester.
[42] Afterwards 4th Earl of Mount Edgecumbe.
[43] Afterwards 14th Lord Saye and Sele.
[44] This account is not the least exaggerated. I remember the storm as one of the most awful things I ever saw. At this time and long afterwards I was always very ill in a thunderstorm.—1894.
[45] Dr. Whately.
[46] This eccentric Lord Shrewsbury lived in great pomp at Alton Towers, with an intense parade of magnificence. Once a large party staying there included a French Countess of very noble lineage. One day after breakfast he went up to her in his courteous way and said, "Madame, what will you be pleased to do to-day? will you walk, or ride, or drive?"—"Oh, it is a delightful day, I should like to drive."—"Then, madame, would you prefer an open or a close carriage?"—"Oh, an open carriage, if you please."—"And, madame, how many horses will you have?"—"Oh, four-and-twenty horses of course," she said laughing, "you know I never go out without four-and-twenty horses." The afternoon came, and at the appointed hour Lord Shrewsbury came to the lady and said, "The carriage is at the door, madame, the horses are there, but I must apologise for having only one outrider." She rushed to the window, and, to her horror, saw a carriage to which four-and-twenty grey horses were harnessed, each pair being furnished with a postillion. Utterly terrified, the lady declared that nothing should make her drive with them, but her fellow-guests assured her she must. So at last she got in, and the twenty-four horses took her for a short drive in the park. Then Lord Shrewsbury had pity upon her, and twenty-two were unharnessed, and she finished her drive with a pair.—Mr. E. Hussey's Reminiscences.
[47] A very kind friend of mine, afterwards Precentor of Lincoln.
[48] William Wentworth Buller of Strete Raleigh in Devonshire.
[49] Hon. R. J. Harris Temple, eldest son of the second marriage of the second Lord Harris with Miss Isabella Helena Temple of Waterstown.
[50] "No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad."—Carlyle, "Sartor Resartus."
[51] There is really no end to the absurd calumnies which I have heard circulated during my life about dear old Mr. Landor, the kindest, most refined, most courteous, and most genial, though most irascible of men. But nothing that ever was said about him was so utterly absurd as Mr. Adolphus Trollope's statement that he neglected the use of the letter h in conversation. I lived with him in close intimacy for years, and I never once traced the slightest indication of his ever dropping the aspirate; indeed, no one was more particular in inculcating its proper use.
[52] The vaults of St. Martin's Church have been emptied since.
[53] Hugh Stuart Brown.
[54] Eldest daughter of Vice-Admiral Sir Courtenay Boyle, brother of the 8th Earl of Cork. The brothers had married sisters, daughters of W. Poyntz of Midgeham—our distant cousins.
[55] Née Caroline Amelia Poyntz.
[56] Miss Mary Boyle died in 1890.
[57] Mrs. FitzGerald's.
[58] My Uncle Wentworth married the Countess Marie Benningsen, whose father was one of those who murdered the Emperor Paul of Russia. They had four children.
[59] Thomas à Kempis.
[60] "Walks in London."
[61] Parnell, "Rise of Woman."
[62] August 4, 1851.
[63] A well-known starting-point in the valley below where the Holborn Viaduct now is.
[64] Seventh daughter of the 1st Lord Ravensworth, whose wife was my grandmother's only sister.
[65] Grandson of my adopted grandfather's elder brother.
[66] Madame de Staël.
[67] Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, 5th son of George III.
[68] The 8th Earl of Denbigh, as Lord Feilding, married, 1st, Louisa, daughter of David Pennant, Esq., and Lady Emma Pennant.
[69] The whole of this account was corrected by Lord Feilding, then Earl of Denbigh.
[70] "He spoke of the twin brothers George and James Macdonald as two simple, single-minded, and veracious men, and more than this, as eminently godly men. He described how the healing of their sister occurred. She had lain for long bedridden and entirely helpless. One day they had been praying earnestly beside her, and one of the brothers, rising from prayers, walked to the bed, held out his hand, and, naming his sister, bade her arise. She straightway did so, and continued ever after entirely healed, and with full use of her limbs."—J. C. Shairp, "Thomas Erskine."
[71] Cecil, widow of the 7th Marquis.
[72] Under Dean Powys.
[73] How seeing many people and characters makes one sympathise with the observation of the Duchesse d'Orleans: "En fait de dévotion, je vois que chacun suit son humeur; ceux qui aiment à bavarder veulent beaucoup prier; ceux qui ont l'âme libérale veulent toujours faire des aumônes; ceux qui sont gais pensent très bien servir Dieu, en se rejouissant de tout, et en ne se fachant de rien. En somme, la dévotion est, pour ceux qui s'y adonnent, la pierre de touche qui fait connaître leur humeur."
[74] Grote's History was coming out at this time, and I had got into terrible disgrace with the Stanleys from knowing nothing about it.
[75] The Spitz dog.
[76] There are 6000 Béguines in Belgium, nuns bound by no vow, and free to return to the world if they wish. While they wear the habit of their Order, they live in a colony, but in separate houses, and devote their whole lives to temporal works of mercy.
[77] Carl Friedrich Meyer, for some time German secretary and librarian to Prince Albert.
[78] Louisa, eldest daughter of Sir William Clinton of Cokenach.
[79] Louisa Dorothea, widow of Lieutenant-General Sir William Clinton, was daughter of the 1st Baron Sheffield, and younger sister of Maria Josepha, 1st Lady Stanley of Alderley. We had always visited her on the way to Norwich.
[80] Afterwards (1878) Master of Balliol. He died October 1893.
[81] Dr. Plumptre.
[82] Authoress of "Sickness, its Trials and Blessings," &c.
[83] Afterwards Canon of Windsor.
[84] Mother of Mrs. Marcus Hare.
[85] William Henry Milligan, afterwards of the Ecclesiastical Commission Office.
[86] Minor Canon of Westminster (1894).
[87] Eldest son of Sir J. Barrow.
[88] Fourth son of Sir Robert Sheffield of Normanby in Lincolnshire.
[89] Kingsley's "Saint's Tragedy," which Uncle Julius had read aloud to us, and afterwards Montalembert's Life, had made me very familiar with her story.
[90] An old monastic farm on the Levels, between Hailsham and Eastbourne. The internal interest of the Wartburg has long since been "restored" away, and its rooms blaze with gilding and colour.
[91] See p. 289.
[92] I was altogether a disappointment to Professor Jowett. I did not get on in the line in which he wished me to get on, and in what I was able to do in after life he had no interest whatever. He dropped me after I left Oxford. I seldom saw him again, and he never knew, perhaps, how grateful I felt for his long-ago kindness. Professor Benjamin Jowett died at Headley Hall, in Hampshire, October 1, 1893.
[93] Of Eccles Greig, near Forfar.
[94] It would be impossible to discover a more perfect old "gentleman" than Dr. Plumptre, though he was often laughed at. When he was inquiring into any fault, he would begin with, "Now pray take care what you say, because whatever you say I shall believe." He had an old-fashioned veneration for rank, and let Lord Egmont off lectures two days in the week that he might hunt—"it was so suitable."
[95] Dr. Hawkins.
[96] Dean Gaisford.
[97] Walter Berkeley, 4th son of the 1st Viscount Portman.
[98] This was so at that time: now it would be thought nothing of.
[99] Wife of John Henry Parker, the publisher, a peculiar but excellent person.
[100] The portrait of Mrs. Hare Naylor by Flaxman, now at Holmhurst.
[101] Afterwards Mrs. Owen Grant.
[102] Coleridge.
[103] The High Church author, son of my father's first cousin, Charles Shipley.
[104] I have always thought that Sir John Paul must have been rather mad. After he had done his best to ruin all his family, and had totally ruined hundreds of other people, he said very complacently, "This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes."
[105] My mother in her youth had often visited the ladies at Plas Newydd—Lady Eleanor Butler (ob. 1829, æt. 90) and Miss Sarah Ponsonby (ob. 1831, æt. 76). They always wore men's hats and waistcoats, short petticoats and thick boots.
[106] William Owen Stanley, twin brother of Edward-John, 2nd Lord Stanley of Alderley.
[107] "Quite untrue, probably."—Note by the Dean of Llandaff, formerly head-master of Harrow, who read this in MS.
[108] Hon. Carolina Courtenay Boyle
[109] The declaration had already been made in private to Lady Stratford de Redcliffe at Constantinople.
[110] Rectors of St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, and St. Barnabas', Pimlico.
[111] Daughters of the Dean of Bristol.
[112] Daughter of my great-great-uncle T. Lyon of Hetton.
[113] How little those who idolise him in theory attend to the precept of their beloved Luther: "If anywhere Sunday is made holy for the mere day's sake,—if any one anywhere sets up its observance as a Jewish foundation, then I order you to work on it, to dance on it, to do anything that shall remove this encroachment on Christian liberty."—Table-Talk.
[114] Count Aurelio Saffi died 1890, and is buried at Forli.
[115] Princess Charlotte of Belgium.
[116] Since well known from the tragic death of the Crown Prince Rudolph.
[117] Now a crowded resort of royalty.
[118] In 1895 I retain the lakes of Gosau in recollection as amongst the most beautiful places I have ever visited.
[119] From "Northern Italy."
[120] From "Central Italy."
[121] From "Central Italy."
[122] From "Central Italy."
[123] From "Days near Rome."
[124] Teresa, Princess Borghese, survived by two years the ruin of her house, and died July 1894.
[125] Whose beautiful tomb, by Miss Hosmer, is in the Church of S. Andrea delle Fratte at Rome.
[126] Whose fine portrait of himself is in the Uffizi at Florence.
[127] From "Days near Rome."
[128] From "Southern Italy."
[129] The familiar term expressing "a rascal of a boy."
[130] From "Southern Italy."
[131] From "Southern Italy."
[132] From "Central Italy."
[133] From "Central Italy."
[134] From "Northern Italy."
[135] Ruskin, in his "Præterita," describes his father's astonishment when he brought the maid of honour's petticoat, parrot, and blackamoor home, as the best fruit of his summer at the court of Sardinia.
[136] From "Northern Italy."
[137] Walter Savage Landor was tried for libel at the suit of a lady, to whom he had once shown great kindness, but of whom he had afterwards written abusively. He fled from England to evade the severe fine imposed upon him, which, however, was afterwards paid.
[138] Wordsworth, Lines written in Thomson's "Castle of Indolence."
[139] She had passed some time at Neuchâtel with her father in 1818, and had seen much of the society there.
[140] The Marquise de Gabriac was daughter of the Maréchale Sebastiani, and only sister of Madame Davidoff.
[141] He died at Lille, July 1891, aged 85.
[142] From "Paris."
[143] This story of the dream was only told me by the Duchess Wilhelmine of Cleveland in 1887.
[144] From "Paris."
[145] From "Days near Paris."
[146] A year afterwards I had occasion to visit Panizzi upon other business, and I shall never forget the sharpness with which the astute old man, recollecting the Archdeacon's letter, and entirely refusing to recognise any other claim upon his time, turned upon me with, "Well now, what do you know?—how many languages? what?—answer at once;" and I could with difficulty make him understand that I did not want the clerkship. Sir A. Panizzi died April 8, 1879. It was this Antonio Panizzi who had the honour of being hanged in effigy by the Government of Modena, after having escaped from an imprisonment (which would doubtless have ended in his corporeal execution), for his efforts for the regeneration of Sicily. He was declared liable for all the expenses of the process, and the Cabinet of Modena, in all simplicity, wrote to him in his security at Liverpool calling upon him to pay them!
[147] Ten guineas for a sheet, containing twenty-four pages of the close double-columned type of Murray's Handbooks.
[148] John, 2nd Earl Brownlow.
[149] Of Hunstanton, eldest son of Mrs. Wynne Finch.
[150] Second son of the 5th Earl Stanhope.
[151] Now Sackville of Drayton Manor.
[152] Fourth son of Sir Adam Hay of King's Meadows.
[153] Fourth son of Sir Hedworth Williamson of Whitburn, and of the Hon. Anne, 2nd daughter of the 1st Lord Ravensworth.
[154] Eldest son of Sir Charles Wood, M.P., afterwards Viscount Halifax, and of Lady Mary, 5th daughter of the 2nd Earl Grey.
[155] Hon. Mrs. Cradock, wife of the Principal of Brazenose—formerly a Maid of Honour.
[156] Maria Josepha, daughter of the 1st Earl of Sheffield, and widow of the first Lord Stanley of Alderley.
[157] Grandfather of the first Lord Knutsford.
[158] Mrs. Pelham Warren died in Nov. 1865.
[159] Mrs. Thornton, a most kind and admirable person, died Jan. 1889.
[160] Mrs. Dormer went to live at Flamborough in Yorkshire after the death of her husband, and died there, Oct. 1892.
[161] Afterwards 14th Baron Saye and Sele.
[162] His handwriting was so illegible, that printers charged half-a-crown a sheet extra for setting up each sheet of his "copy."
[163] The universally beloved Henry Octavius Coxe, Bodley's librarian and Rector of Wytham, born 1811, died July 8, 1881.
[164] The Countess Valsamachi, formerly Mrs. Reginald Heber, was one of the three daughters of Dean Shipley, and first cousin to my father.
[165] Mr. Thomas Erskine died March 28, 1870, having survived both his sisters.
[166] Miss Clementina Stirling Graham died at Duntrune, August 23, 1877, aged ninety-five.
[167] Earl of Dalhousie.
[168] My college friend Frederick Forsyth Grant.
[169] This is described in Lord Auckland's Correspondence.
[170] In May 1860.
[171] Fénélon.
[172] The voice which passed the lips of Madame de Trafford was often like the voices of the Irvingites.
[173] Sometimes Madame de Trafford spoke of her spirits as "Les Maricots."
"L'asciar l'amico!
Lo seguitai felice
Quand'era il cielo sereno:
Alle tempeste in seno
Voglio seguirlo ancor:
Ah cosi vil non sono."
—METASTASIO.
[175] Principal of New Inn Hall at Oxford.
[176] Our cousins through the Shipleys and Mordaunts.
[177] Grandson of Helena Selman, my great-grandmother's only sister.
[178] I wrote to Sir George Grey several times after this meeting, but never saw him again till 1869 in Miss Wright's rooms in Belgrave Mansions.
[179] Sydney Smith's daughter.
[180] Prescott, Washington Irving, Sir J. Stephen, Leigh Hunt, De Quincey, Macaulay, Hallam.
[181] Ritter, Humboldt, Arndt.
[182] De Tocqueville.
[183] Afterwards Dean of Lincoln.
[184] The Rev. W. J. Butler, then Dean of Lincoln, and his wife, died within a few weeks of each other in Jan. 1894.
[185] Wife of the Rev. William Gaskell, Unitarian minister of the Chapel in Cross Street, Manchester. He died June 1884, aged eighty. She died very suddenly in Nov. 1865.
[186] It is right to say that a very different account of Count de Salis is given by many of his descendants from that which I wrote down from the narrative of Dr. Hawtrey.
[187] Mrs. Fane de Salis told me (in 1891) that her mother-in-law had described to her being with Miss Foster on the Pincio when the handsome guardsman, Count Mastai, came courting.
[188] Hazeley Court.
[189] Maison Helvetia.
[190] From "South-Eastern France."
[191] From "South-Eastern France."
[192] From "Northern Italy."
[193] From "South-Eastern France."
[194] Rev. J. L. Petit.
[195] From "Northern Italy."
[196] Susan, 5th daughter of Thomas Lyon of Hetton, married the Rev. J. Fellowes of Shottesham.
[197] The heroine of the wreck of the Forfarshire, Sept. 5, 1838.
[198] Only son of John, 10th Earl of Strathmore, and Mary Milner.
[199] Mary Eleanor Bowes, 9th Countess of Strathmore.
[200] Paulina, daughter of the Rev. Dr. Jermyn.
[201] Mrs. Clutterbuck was Marianne, youngest daughter of the Hon. Thomas Lyon of Hetton, my great-grandmother's youngest brother.
[202] Afterwards Lord Wilfred Seymour.
[203] Arthur Stanley's account.
[204] Montesquieu.
[205] Notably the ballad of "Featherstonhaugh," which Sir Walter inserted as ancient in his "Border Minstrelsy," introducing one stanza in the poem of "Marmion" itself.
[206] My great-great-uncle, Thomas Lyon of Hetton, younger brother of the 9th Earl of Strathmore, married Miss Wren (grand-daughter of Sir Christopher), heiress of Binchester.
[207] Mr. John Clayton survived till July 1890, leaving personalty valued at £728,000, and real property supposed to be worth £20,000 a year. The last member of his generation, the universally beloved Mrs. Anne Clayton, died October 30, 1890.
[208] Rev. J. Collingwood Bruce, author of "The Roman Wall," &c. He lived till 1893, and is commemorated by a tomb in St. Nicholas, Newcastle.
[209] Mr. Andersen had two daughters, my great-great-grandmother Mrs. Simpson, and the Marchesa Grimaldi, great-grandmother of Stacey Grimaldi, who was at this time trying to establish his claims to the Principality of Monaco.
[210] Bradley was inherited and sold by Lord Ravensworth, and its pictures removed to Eslington.
[211] The living of Blanchland was afterwards given by the Governors of Bamborough to Mr. Gurley on his marriage with my cousin, Mary Clutterbuck.
[212] The widow of Reginald Heber.
[213] The curious old muniment room at Ripley is now modernised, indeed destroyed.
[214] Dr. John Thomas, Bishop of Peterborough, and afterwards of Salisbury—some time tutor to George III.
[215] General Scott had married the Hon. Alethea Stanley, sister of Mrs. Marcus Hare
[216] It was rebuilt on a large scale in 1893.
[217] Well known from the ballad of "The Death of Parcy Reed."
[218] See the ballad of "Chevy Chase."
[219] Sir Charles Trevelyan, Sir Walter's cousin and heir, who read this, asked me to add a note, and to say that though it is quite true that Sir Walter was a miser, he was only a miser for philanthropic purposes. He gave £60,000 at once for a railway which he thought would benefit the district in which he lived, and his charities, though eccentric, were quite boundless.
[220] Paulina, Lady Trevelyan, daughter of the Rev. Dr. Jermyn, died in 1866. Sir Walter married afterwards a Miss Loft, and survived till 1879, but I never saw him again.
[221] 1888.—Alas that I should have to add a note to say that the mummy-case has been since discovered not to have belonged to a queen at all, but to the court-jester!
[222] Charlotte, eldest daughter of Lord Stuart de Rothesay, married (1835) Charles John, afterwards Viscount and Earl Canning and Governor-General of India, and died at Calcutta, Nov. 18, 1861.
[223] From "The Story of Two Noble Lives."
[224] His great-grandmother, Lady Susan Lyon and my great-grandmother, Lady Anne, were sisters.
[225] From "South-Eastern France."
[226] The celebrated Porson was given to such utter fits of absence that he forgot he was married and dined out on the very day of the ceremony.
[227] From "South-Eastern France."
[228] From "North-Eastern France."
[229] Now (1895) pulled down.
[230] From "North-Eastern France."
[231] From "Days near Rome."
[232] Rev. E. Kershaw, afterwards chaplain to Earl De la Warr.
[233] Caroline, daughter of Richard, Lord Braybrooke, widow of the first Lord Wenlock.
[234] From "Days near Rome."
[235] From "Days near Rome."
[236] All Mrs. Julius Hare's family of her generation have passed away: all to whom the story of my child life as connected with her could give any pain.
[237] From "Southern Italy."
[238] Placed on the doors of Catholic churches and chapels.
[239] He died on the 17th of the following September.
"Oh, let him pass! he hates him much
That would upon the rack of this rough world
Stretch him out longer."—King Lear.
[240] From "Northern Italy."
[241] Adèle, Madame Davidoff. See pp. 65, 115.
[242] From "South-Eastern France."
[243] The Venerable Gaspare del Bufalo, to whose influence the foundation of the Order of the Precious Blood was due.
[244] Don Giovanni Merlini of the Crociferi.
[245] Mary Pierina Roleston, Superior of the Order of the Precious Blood in England.
[246] Alas! after the Sardinian occupation of Rome, the Soras, then Prince and Princess Piombino, were induced to sell all the grounds of Villa Ludovisi, the noblest ornament of Rome; its magnificent groves of ilex and cypress were cut down, and hideous stucco houses built over its site.
[247] Lady Wenlock died May 1868.
[248] "The Remains of Mrs. Richard Trench," by her son Richard Chevenix Trench, Dean of Westminster, afterwards Archbishop of Dublin.
[249] The Rt. Hon. George Grenville, father of Catherine, Lady Braybrooke.
[250] I give, of course, the words of Pierina.
[251] Paray le Monial, now so constant a resort of pilgrimages, was, up to this time, almost unknown.
[252] From "South-Western France."
[253] These were the very early days of Arcachon.
[254] Born Julia Hare of Hurstmonceaux, a first cousin of my father.
[255] Edwin Dashwood was the son, and the first Mrs. Story had been the daughter, of Emily Hare of Hurstmonceaux, sister of Mrs. Taylor.
[256] From "South-Western France."
[257] Her brother and sister, who had died long before.
[258] From "South-Western France."
[259] This I afterwards carried out in six unpublished volumes of the Memoirs of the Hare Family.
[260] Spenser, "Faerie Queene."
[261] From "South-Western France."
[262] Wife of Sir George Robinson of Crauford.
[263] From "South-Western France."
[264] From "South-Western France."
[265] From "South-Western France."
[265a] From "South-Western France."
[266] Now terribly modernised and spoilt.
[267] "What is a miracle? Can there be a thing more miraculous than any other thing?... I have seen no man rise from the dead: I have seen some thousands rise from nothing."—Carlyle.
[268] I do not think that this characteristic anecdote is preserved elsewhere.
[269] Emma, widow of King Kaméhaméha IV., who died Nov. 30, 1863. She was born Jan. 2, 1836, being daughter of George Naca, a native chief, and of Fanny Yong. Charles Rooke, a rich doctor, adopted her, and left her all his fortune. Having seen three kings succeed her husband, and been equally honoured and respected by all, Queen Emma died in March 1885.
[270] From "Walks in London."
[271] From "The Story of Two Noble Lives."
[272] From "The Story of Two Noble Lives."
[273] Colonel Alexander Higginson of the Grenadier Guards, celebrated for his silence, was keeping the door. He said not a word in answer to all her entreaties, but dropped his sword as a barrier in front of the Queen.—Note from Mrs. Owen Grant, niece of Colonel A. Higginson.
[274] Caroline, daughter of Francis I., king of Naples, widow of the Duc de Berri, younger son of Charles X.
[275] The Duc de Bordeaux (Comte de Chambord).
[276] The Archduchess Marie Therese, daughter of Francis IV., Duke of Modena.
[277] Louis Henri Joseph, Duc de Bourbon, father of the Duc d'Enghien, the last member of the House of Condé, who fought a duel with Charles X. in 1776. He married Marie Thérèse d'Orleans in 1770.
[278] Marie Amelie, Duchesse d'Orleans, afterwards Queen of the French, was daughter of Ferdinard I., king of the Two Sicilies, and sister of Francis I., father of the Duchesse de Berri.
[279] The Duc de Bourbon left Madame de Feuchères two million francs, the château and park of St. Leu, the château and estate of Boissy, and all their dependencies: also a pavilion at the Palais Bourbon, valued at fifteen million francs.
[280] Elizabeth, wife of Philip Yorke, 3rd Earl of Hardwicke, and daughter of James, 5th Earl of Balcarres.
[281] Colin, 3rd Earl of Balcarres.
[282] Anne, only daughter of Sir Robert Dalrymple of Castleton.
[283] The tune which then existed. The Hon. Mrs. Byron, a friend of Lady Anne Barnard, afterwards gave the words to Lieutenant William Leeves, 1st Foot Guards, who composed the air to which they are now sung, in imitation of old Scotch music. Lieutenant Leeves afterwards took orders and became Rector of Wrington in Somersetshire, where he was the intimate friend of Mrs. Hannah More, who lived in his parish. He died in 1828.
[284] From "The Story of Two Noble Lives."
[285] Augusta, daughter of George, 4th Earl of Glasgow.
[286] Lucia, eldest daughter of Lord Dover.
[287] Second daughter of the 1st Earl of Ellesmere.
[288] Maria, daughter of Sir Joseph Copley of Sprotborough.
[289] Hamilton, daughter of Walter Campbell of Shawfield, younger sister of Lady Ruthven.
[290] My third cousin, George, 2nd Earl of Durham.
[291] Beatrix, second daughter of the Marquis of Abercorn. She died Jan. 1871.
[292] Mary, widow of the 5th Lord Ruthven, and daughter of Walter Campbell of Shawfield.
[293] Catherine, daughter of Archdeacon Spooner. Her memoirs were published by her husband, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1879.
[294] Daughter of the 4th Duke of Portland, afterwards Viscountess Ossington
[295] Lady Anne Anson, second daughter of the 1st Earl of Lichfield.
[296] Afterwards 7th Earl of Aberdeen.
[297] Fourth daughter of the 7th Earl of Wemyss.
[298] The "custom more honoured in the breach than the observance."—Hamlet.
[299] William Henry, 1st Duke of Cleveland, who died in 1842.
[300] Adam, fourth son of Sir Adam Hay of Haystoun, who had been one of my greatest friends at Christ Church. He died May 1871.
[301] Lady Constance Talbot, daughter of the 19th Earl of Shrewsbury.
[302] Daughter of the 7th Earl of Leven.
[303] A Roman friend, brother of Sir Michael Shaw Stewart.
[304] From "Central Italy."
[305] Madame Victoire Ackermann. See vol. i.
[306] From "Central Italy."
[307] From "Central Italy."
[308] His mother was Susan, daughter of William Leycester, my mother's first cousin. She was murdered during the Indian Mutiny, with her husband and child.
[309] The famous S. Francesca Romana had been a member of the Ponziani family.
[310] The Rev. Henry Arbuthnot Feilden married Ellinor, one of the daughters of Edmund Hornby, Esq., of Dalton Hall in Lancashire—a very old friend and connection of our family. Her sister Charlotte afterwards married my first cousin—Oswald Penrhyn.
[311] Mr. Leycester Lyne, celebrated as a preacher and for his follies in playing at monasticism. His mother was a Leycester of White Place, descended from a younger branch of the Leycesters of Toft.
[312] Afterwards Lady Rathdonell.
[313] Thérèse de la Rochefoucauld, wife of Prince Marc-Antonio Borghese.
[314] Francesco II.
[315] Marie Thérèse Isabelle, daughter of Archduke Charles of Austria.
[316] Marie, daughter of Duke Maximilian of Bavaria.
[317] Princess Mathilde of Bavaria.
[318] Foundress of the Order of the Precious Blood.
[319] Prince Camillo, who married a princess of Savoy-Carignan.
[320] The mystery of Madame Victorine was never cleared up. In the summer of 1867 she suddenly expressed a wish to leave, though full of gratitude and affection for my sister, and she implied that she need no longer continue in service. Probably she has returned into the sphere of life from which she evidently came. She called herself Victorine Errard.
[321] A celebrated convent in Rome, where the French nuns have a school, which is very popular.
[322] Because it was on the day before the Crucifixion that Our Lord said "This is my body," &c.
[323] King Francesco II., died December 1894.
[324] From "Days near Rome."
[325] From "Days near Rome."
[326] Frederick, Viscount Kilcoursie, son of the 8th Earl of Cavan.
[327] From "Days near Rome."
[328] From "Florence."
[329] Queen Emma died in 1885.
[330] Jean Baptiste Marie Vianney.
[331] All this picturesque side of Cannes has since been spoilt and vulgarised.
[332] From "South-Eastern France."
[333] From "South-Eastern France."
[334] Afterwards Sir Antonio Panizzi.
[335] Emily, only daughter of Sir Charles Taylor of Hollycombe, afterwards Lady Brougham and Vaux.
[336] The name of his daughter, who died in 1839.
[337] From "South-Eastern France."
[338] From "South-Eastern France."
[339] From "South-Eastern France."
[340] From "South-Eastern France."
[341] From "Biographical Essays."
[342] See vol. i. p. 359.
[343] See Shakespeare, "Measure for Measure."
[344] Mrs. Whewell.
[345] See vol. ii. p. 6.
[346] Mrs. C. Vaughan. Dr. Vaughan was now Vicar of Doncaster.
[347] Frances Vere, 2nd wife of Sir Edward Blackett of Matfen, and daughter of Sir William Lorraine.
[348] Rev. Henry and Mrs. Liddell of Easington.
[349] Née Aventina Macmurdo. See vol. ii. p. 18.
[350] Daughter-in-law of Mr. and Mrs. Dalzel. Their son, a very distinguished young man, died before them.
[351] Mrs. Dalzel died in October 1871.
[352] Charlotte, eldest daughter of Robert Adamson, Esq., and widow of Sir Godfrey Vassall Webster, Bart.
[353] As taken down from the narration of old Mr. Frewen of Brickwall, an intimate friend of the Webster family, who generously bought in all their family portraits at the time of their ruin, and kept them till they had the power of redeeming them.
[354] From "South-Eastern France."
[355] From "South-Eastern France."
[356] From "Northern Italy."
[357] From "Central Italy."
[358] Mme. Victoire Ackermann. See vol. i.
[359] Such was a constant cause of detention in early days of Italian railways, though it seems impossible now.
[360] For the Queen Dowager, who died of the cholera at Albano in the summer of 1867.
[361] Contessa Carolina di S. Giorgio.
[362] See vol. ii. p. 86.
[363] Of the Japanese martyrs.
[364] It is therefore not fair to say that the desecration of the Roman churches has only occurred since the Sardinian occupation.
[365] The Hon. Carolina Courtenay Boyle, maid of honour.
[366] My cousins, Lord and Lady Bloomfield, and the Dowager Lady Barrington, with her daughter Augusta, were spending the winter in Rome.
[367] This beautiful villa and its lovely grounds have been entirely destroyed under the Sardinian Government.
[368] "Look at a pious person, man or woman, one in whom the spirit sways the senses: look at them when they are praying or have risen from their knees, and see with how bright a ray of divine beauty their faces are illuminated: you will see the beauty of God shine on their faces: you will see the beauty of an angel."—SAVONAROLA, Sermons.
[369] There is a passage in Rudyard Kipling which exactly describes my mother's state at this time. "The mind was quickened, and the revolving thoughts ground against each other, as millstones grind when there is no corn between."
[370] From "Northern Italy."
[371] Prince Lucien, son of the Roman Prince Charles Lucien (nephew of Napoleon I.) and of Zenaide, only child of Joseph, King of Naples and Spain.
[372] Emma Simpkinson reached England before us, but was then rapidly waning heavenwards. She spent the last few weeks of her life at St. Leonards, where we had the great comfort of being able to cheer and watch over her, and she is buried in the cemetery at Ore.
[373] Afterwards Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
[374] From "Northern Italy."
[375] From "Northern Italy."
[376] Afterwards Sir Arthur Blackwood, Secretary to the Post-Office. He died 1893.
[377] "The Saint of St. Peter's." See vol. ii. p. 429.
[378] The maid of our old friend Mrs. Chambers of Hodsock Priory.
[379] She showed her clearness of mind by mentioning this picture, which she had not seen for years; but much trouble afterwards resulted from this clause in her will.
[380] Letter of Mrs. Fitz-Gerald, which would have been used at Guildford had the trial proceeded.
[381] Statement of Pierina to Miss Stanley.
[382] Statement made by Pierina to Monsignor Paterson, and repeated by him before the trial to Miss Stanley and my solicitor.
[383] Mrs. Alfred Montgomery died at Naples in January 1893.
[384] It was touching to us, and like Esmeralda's forethought, to find a clause in the will stating that in case of her former maid, Clémence, dying first, the annuity should be continued to her crippled helpless mother-in-law (whom Esmeralda had never seen), in order that Clémence might die without any burden on her mind.
[385] Every precaution had been taken by Esmeralda to prevent her fortune from falling to her brother Francis. In case of my dying unmarried, everything was to go to her cousin Charles Williamson; and in case of his death without children, to his brother Victor Williamson.
[386] At this point the agitation of Mary Stanley, who had been my informant, was so great, that she startled the court by something like a shout of denial.
[387] As Flora Ackermann, Madame Limosin had been brought up in my father's family, and, with her sister Victoria, had been treated like his own children.
[388] Now (1895) every one who took part in the trial at Guildford is dead, except the priests, and, I believe, the Abbess Pierina. The person whom Francis Hare had married during the last months of his life vanished, immediately after his death, into the chaos from whence she had come.
[389] From "South-Eastern France."
[390] From "South-Western France."
[391] From "The Story of Two Noble Lives."
[392] Lady Anne Barnard died in 1825.
[393] Her son-in-law, Mr. Hodgson Hinde.
[394] Mariage.
[395] I never saw Mrs. Arnold again: she died in the autumn of 1873.
[396] In the following year a siege by the Germans made Toul a familiar name throughout Europe.
[397] From "North-Eastern France."
[398] From "North-Eastern France."
[399] I little foresaw then the immense service these notes would be to me in writing the Life of Baroness Bunsen herself eight years after.
[400] From "Northern Italy."
[401] The approach to Mantua has since been altered, and is now commonplace.
[402] From "Northern Italy."
[403] From "Northern Italy."
[404] From "Northern Italy."
[405] From "Central Italy."
[406] From "Central Italy."
[407] The Spina has since been rebuilt and spoilt by the Sardinian Government.
[408] The great dikes of the Arno had burst a long way off, so that the flood came upon us from behind. Only the eastern bank of the Arno was flooded.
[409] Monckton Milnes.
[410] Eldest son of Colonel Augustus Liddell and grandson of my great-aunt Lady Ravensworth.
[411] From "Days near Rome."
[412] William Story, the sculptor and poet.
[413] Miss Mary Boyle, celebrated for her dramatic powers.
[414] The sculptress.
[415] Afterwards Ambassador at Berlin.
[416] From "Days near Rome."
[417] From "Days near Rome."
[418] From "Florence."
[419] From "Northern Italy."
[420] Now at Holmhurst.
[421] From "South-Eastern France."
[422] From "South-Eastern France."
[423] The well-known and admirable American actress.
[424] In April 1880.
[425] Diderot, "Sarrasins."
[426] Eldest sister of my old Harrow master, and of Emma Simpkinson, often mentioned in these Memoirs. In my childhood she lived at Hurstmonceaux.
[427] "When the thoughts of youth return, fresh as the scent of new-gathered blossoms, to the tired old age which has so long forgotten them, the coming of Death is seldom very distant."—OUIDA, "In Maremma."
[428] A much-loved cousin and friend; her mother was a Grey, and my Mother's first-cousin.
[429] This is said often to happen in case of a death. At Holmhurst it was most remarkable. They never appeared after that night till the night of October 18, 1882, when my dear old nurse was dying. I have been laughed at for narrating this, but the noise of crickets at a death is spoken of in Ecclesiastes xii. 5—"And the grasshopper shall be a burden, because man goeth to his long home."
[430] Jeremy Taylor.
[431] Harriet Bentley, Lea's niece—her much-attached housemaid.
[432] Of "Walks in Rome."
[433] Putting up a heating apparatus in the passages.
[434] The tenants of Hurstmonceaux Place, the old home of the family.
[435] A poor woman at "Lime Cross," constantly visited by my Mother.
[436] My father's half-sister, who had seldom treated me even with humanity.
[437] All old servants.
[438] A neighbour and the wife of an old college friend.
[439] Rector of Ashburnham.
Etext transcriber's note:
The following changes were made:
Gasparoni=>Gesparoni
Beauharnois=>Beauharnais
Lyell=>Lyall
