Erratum
Page 405, for “Shackborough” read “Shuckborough.”
“Story of my Life.”
—End of Vol. V.
THE STORY OF MY LIFE
VOL. VI
The Story of My Life
BY
AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE
AUTHOR OF “MEMORIALS OF A QUIET LIFE.”
“THE STORY OF TWO NOBLE LIVES.”
ETC. ETC.
VOLUME VI
LONDON
GEORGE ALLEN, 156, CHARING CROSS ROAD
1900
[All rights reserved]
XXIV Beyond the Top of the Hill
“Un jour tout sera bien, voilà notre espérance!
Tout est bien aujourd’hui, voilà l’illusion.
..........
Que tout soit mal ou bien, faisons que tout soit mieux.”
—Rousseau.
“Il faut travailler en ce monde, il faut souffrir el combattre. On aura bien le temps de se reposer toute l’érnité.
“Si nous comprenions bien notre bonheur, nous pourrions presque dire que nous sommes plus heureux que les saints dans le ciel. Ils vivent des leurs rentes; ils ne peuvent rien gagner; tandis que nous, nous pouvons à chaque instant augmenter notre trésor.”
—Le Curé d’Ars.
“La debolezza umana piange, sorride l’imortale speranza.”
—Epitaph at Pisa.
There is an old print at Holmhurst which represents life in its successive stages as the ascent and descent of a hill. At fifty the top of the hill is reached and the descent begins. I have passed the top, and every year must bring less power of work and action, though I scarcely feel older now than I did at five-and-twenty. But certain marks in the forehead show that age has left his card upon one; we do not know when he called, but the visit has been paid. Well, it is the more necessary to do all we can whilst power lasts, never talking, but acting, and recollecting that a duty once divined binds one from that moment; while as for the abuse, public and private, received for anything attempted out of the ordinary groove, we ought ever to follow the simple advice of Sœur Rosalie, “Faites le bien, et laissez dire.”
Certainly the longer one lives one feels how, of all shams, the religious sham is the worst—the man who talks “goody” without any heart to sympathise with sorrow or shame, and who thus can never help those who struggle sadly against vice and meanness, whilst tremulously aiming at a nobler life. The same, in a wider sense, is true of almost all sermons one hears—
“Two lips wagging, and never a wise word.”418
So few clergymen feel what they say, that it only does harm. It was a saying of Pope Pius II., “Bad physicians kill the body, unskilful priests the soul.”
It ought not to be, but it certainly is true that the Church and Religion are two; and, apropos of sermons and religious discussions, another saying of Pope Pius often comes back to me, “The nature of God can be better grasped by believing than disputing.” “Let us not be the slaves of any human authority, but clear our way through all creeds and confessions to Thine own original revelation.” With Thomas Chalmers, can I not feel this?
I have endless compensations for a lonely life in my pretty little home, my sufficient means, my multitudes of friends. Besides, it is as Madame d’Houdetot wrote to Madame Necker, “Vous savez que le seul être malheureux est celui qui ne peut ni aimer, ni agir, ni mourir, et je suis bien loin de cette situation.” I often feel, however, that this book would give a very false idea of my life. I recount my many visits and what I hear there because it is amusing, and I leave unnoticed the months and months when nothing happens, and in which I am probably employed in quiet work at Holmhurst. With every one naturally it must be true that
“The life of man is made of many lives,
His heart and mind of many minds and hearts.”419
This, however, is enough of sentimentalising. I will return to facts.
Journal.
“Jan. 9, 1886.—I am just come back from a very pleasant visit at Battle Abbey, where I met the Powerscourts, Lord and Lady George Campbell (she lovely and like a beautiful Gainsborough), Lord Hardinge and a very nice daughter, Lord Wolmer and Lady Maude, Sir Prescott Hewitt, a young Ryder, and Lady Dorothy Nevill. The latter was most amusing, and well understands the famous principle—‘Glissez, mortels, n’appuyez pas.’ She and the Duchess of Cleveland, who was in very good vein, were quite charming together.”
To Miss Leycester.
“Holmhurst, Feb. 20, 1886.—Do you know that, except for ten days, I have been at home just three months to-day, and nearly all the time quite alone. I cannot say how much I have enjoyed the quietude of study and communing with great and wise people through many books. There is certainly the greatest pleasure in thus acquiring new thoughts, and, in a small way, fresh knowledge: indeed, I always feel that to give myself up to overwork is quite as great a temptation to me as over-idleness to some people.
“Each different literary work I have had has seemed to me, at the time, more interesting and engrossing. The little accidental discoveries are so amusing. Amongst those of this week, who do you think invented a wheel-barrow?—Blaise Pascal.
“My diversion has been reading masses of old family letters, unearthed by Lady Hartopp. They are very curious, and a complete portrait of the family at the beginning of the century. My grandfather, Mr. Hare Naylor, must have been quite odious—so imperious and arrogant: Lady Jones, the incarnation of a rod in pickle, but with very fine qualities: great-uncle Robert, the rector, more of a rowdy farmer than anything else. Penelope Shipley (Mrs. Warren), a very fine unselfish creature: Dean Shipley, selfish and dictatorial: Francis Hare, a self-indulgent dandy: Julius, a miracle of boyish learning, talking like a Solon: Augustus (it must be allowed), very priggish, but very amiable: Marcus, indulged in everything by his aunts: the second Mrs. Hare Naylor, foolish and querulous, but by no means an unjust stepmother. The religious letters of consolation which the whole party write to one another when little Anna dies are so stilted as to be truly comic. What is touching is that over the harsh letters of her fierce elder sister, the beloved memory of the first Mrs. Hare Naylor ever broods as a softening influence: however much trouble the Hare brothers give her, no pains or expense are too great for them, because ‘they were hers.’”
On the 9th of February I went up to London for Miss Jolliffe’s wedding, and came in for—a revolution! On returning from the City, I found Trafalgar Square one mass of people, and many orators addressing them, but expected nothing more. Soon, however, a Socialist leader named Burns suggested a reign of terror and offered himself as captain. Thousands of men—well fed, well dressed, but still the scum of London—rushed down Pall-Mall, breaking windows as they went—a very carnival of outlawry. Their passions grew with their progress, and in St. James Street they wrecked the University Club, which had expelled Hyndman, one of their leaders, from its society. They seized certain carriages, turning out the ladies they contained, and stripped a footman of his livery. They pulled Lady Claude Hamilton out of her carriage and boxed her ears, but when, after this, she denounced them as dogs who ought to be flogged as curs, they applauded her courage, and let her go on. Breaking windows and wrecking many shops in Piccadilly, they entered the Park at Hyde Park Corner and left it at Stanhope Gate. Then they rushed on through South Audley Street, which they left much like Paris after the excesses of the Commune. How truly Milton said—
“License they mean when they cry Liberty.”
I went the next day to see Lady Foley, whose house in Grosvenor Square had been on their line of route. It had not only no pane of glass unbroken, but not even fragments of glass left, and stones heaped in the library enough to mend a good piece of road with. Lord Percy’s house, next door, was so ruined that they went away next day.
For the two following days London had indeed a miserable aspect—windows all broken, streets littered with fragments, shops shut, streets paraded constantly by bands of entirely victorious and triumphant ruffians, and shop-keepers, in some cases, guarding their property with revolvers.
The call for a fresh edition of my “Walks in Rome” made me suddenly determine to go to Italy at the end of February. At Florence I was the constant guest of the ever-kind Duchess Dowager of Sermoneta, with whom I made delightful excursions in the hills.
To Miss Leycester.
“Hotel Paoli, Florence, March 7, 1886.—France was covered with snow from end to end, yet next day we were speeding through lemon-groves laden with fruit, and carpeted with a blaze of iris and scarlet geranium in full flower. Here, after reading about the snowstorms in England, I am glad in the gardens of Arcetri to sit to draw in the shade of the cypresses, and all the hills are pink with almond-blossom. I spent one evening with the Duchess at Palazzo Torrigiani, alone with the family there, which is the most perfect type of a grand old Italian household, consisting of between eighty and ninety persons. The kind and charming old Marchesa Elisabetta has four sons, who have all married as soon as they came of age, yet none have gone farther than to an apartment of their own under the maternal roof, and eighteen children and grandchildren dine with her daily, besides other guests. The four daughters-in-law all live in the utmost harmony; the Marchesa Giulia, wife of the eldest son Pietro, and the Marchesa Margherita, who was a Malespina (which in Italy means great things), quietly giving precedence to the Marchesa Cristina, who is a princess (Scilla) by birth. All sat with work round a table, visitors dropped in, and it was most easy and pleasant.
“Another day, the Duchess, Miss Phillimore, and I went out by the steam-tram to spend a day at the Marchese della Stufa’s421 old castle of Castagnolo. We had an amusing luncheon of Italian dishes, guitar music and singing, a walk to pick violets, with which the hedges are full, a visit to the green-houses and aviaries of rare birds, and we were taken back to the tram-line, where the station is built of sunflower-stalks, which are like bamboo in their qualities.”
I reached Rome on the 10th of March, warmly welcomed by a large circle of friends. In the hotel were Mrs. Tilt and Letitia Hibbert, very familiar to me in early days at Birtles, and with them and their very charming sister-in-law, Mrs. Frank Hibbert (née Cholmondeley), I made delightful excursions to familiar places—Tivoli, Frascati, Albano. Sir John Lumley was now reigning at the Embassy and making it delightful to his countrymen.
To Miss Leycester.
“Hotel d’Italie, Rome, March 17, 1886.—What lovely June weather this is, so very hot, so unspeakably beautiful.... I find an immense deal to do in correcting and writing, chiefly, however, in taking away from my ‘Walks in Rome,’ so very much is destroyed; indeed, Lanciani, the archaeologist in power, says, ‘If they go on like this for twenty years, there will be nothing left of older Rome but St Peter’s and the Coliseum—if those.’”
“March 21.—What expeditions we have had! On Monday we walked through the glen at Ariccia and round the glorious old woods of the Parco Chigi, full of cyclamen, cytisus, blue squills, green iris, and masses of dark violets. Then, whilst the others went on to the convent of Palazzuola, I sat to draw above the still lake, and, when they came back, we went to the grand pine-groves of the Villa Barberini, to Castel Gandolfo, and through the ilex galleries in time for the evening train.... I have dined out every day, just as in London.”
“March 31.—I wish I could transport you suddenly into the glorious radiance of this cloudless sunshine and deepest of blue skies. To me Rome has never seemed so delightful in climate as after three months of fog and sleet at Holmhurst.... Amid all the changes elsewhere, I can always turn with comfort to the Palatine, and have spent many happy mornings there amongst the gigantic ruins, and the groves of laurustinus and lentisc, and the huge fenochii, meditating on my past and its past.”
On April 22 I went to Perugia, finding in Brufani’s excellent hotel Mrs. Robert Drummond and her daughter, and two charming Americans, Miss Isabel and Miss Lorraine Wood, domesticated at Dresden. For the next fortnight we toured about together. As to some of the most restful and happiest days of my later years, I look back to the extreme comfort of Perugia, and the perfect view from the windows of my room, unspeakably glorious at all hours, but most of all when the rising sun was lighting up the tops of the distant mountains, whilst all the detail of the intermediate plain was lost in soft white haze. Equally delightful was the old-fashioned inn at Orvieto, and the drives into the hills and to Bagnorea and the Lago di Bolsena, returning in the carriage laden with branches of honeysuckle and masses of anemones, violets, cyclamen, and other spring flowers. From Siena, too, we made again the interesting excursions to Monte Oliveto and S. Gimignano.
Crossing the St. Gothard to Basle, I turned aside to visit the whole of the Jura country, greatly overrated, I thought, by former travellers. Burgundy was much more interesting, with its fine churches and its noble inhabited châteaux of Ancy le Franc and Tanlay. As I was dining in the tiny primitive inn at the latter, the tradesmen who held the minute shops in the village were disputing as to the superiority of their different trades. The carpenter certainly won the day by winding up with, “Et la Vierge s’est mariée avec un charpentier: elle était bien libre de son choix, et elle a choisi—un charpentier!” Nearly the whole of June I stayed in Paris, working at the archaeological details of the town for my book, and seeing no one.
“Montbard, May 23, 1886.—I wonder if my date conveys anything to you? I had determined to evade this place if it were possible, yet here I am for two days at the place so connected with the agonising anxiety of our last journey, where Mother in her illness was laid flat upon the railway platform, to find, when the train was gone, that the little hotel was closed, and where she was carried through the lanes to an old farmhouse. There the people were most kind to us, and she almost enjoyed it, and dear Lea was very happy, and of its inmates both were often so anxious to hear during the after-summer of the German invasion. The old host and hostess are dead now, and the two boys, whom I saw when I went to luncheon with Mme. de Montgolfier, are married, and have twelve children between them!”
“Sens, May 28.—The weather has changed to bitter wind, but it has seemed appropriate to the wild country of Avallon and Vezelay. Auxerre is very interesting and beautiful, especially the great abbey of S. Germain and the marvellously simple and pure cathedral. Old affection for Thomas à Becket took me thence, through the sweet acacia forests, to Pontigny, since which I have been very comfortable for two nights at a charming inn close under the shadow of this old archiepiscopal cathedral.”
“Hotel Noël Peter, Paris, June 6.—I am very glad to have accomplished a long-wished-for visit to the historic sites of Clairvaux and the Paraclete, though there is nothing whatever to see in either of them! How I have worked since I have been here! My book is written, but I have to go through every part of it on the spot. I breakfast at seven and work till eleven, then luncheon and work again till four o’clock, when I come in dead-tired, only to go out again to have food at a restaurant, and to bed at eight.”
“June 16.—Two desperately hard days at Versailles and two at the Louvre, looking over and collating. Certainly no place of residence need be cheaper than Paris. Life seems to cost nothing at all, a week here being equivalent to a day in London, or even at Rome. It is an oddly lonely life, as, except for ten minutes, I have seen no one to speak to since May 11: however, there would certainly have been no time for it.”
In July I was in London, and then at Buckhurst, in glorious summer weather, to meet Lord and Lady Lathom.
Journal.
“August 13, 1886.—Two days ago Lady Ossington took me to Lady Evelyn Campbell’s wedding with James Baillie Hamilton in Henry VII.’s Chapel. They have married on his vocation, which played all the time of the ceremony, and on which their future depends for the bread and butter of life, at present supplied to them by America for looking after it. They have also a camp, in which they propose to train boys for hardships in the colonies, and the sweet little bride began her own hardships by having to walk two miles to this, through the wet grass and fern of a desolate moor, carrying in a basket the cold chicken and bread which her sisters had put up for her supper.
“I have been reminded how James Baillie Hamilton was at Harrow at Hayward’s house, which in my time used to be Harris’s, and to have then the reputation of being haunted. He told Catherine Vaughan that one night whilst he was there, Albert Grey, also a senior boy in the house, rushed into his room wild with horror, and said that when he was in bed he had seen by the moonlight a most terrible figure come in, a kind of nondescript, and that as it approached a chill as of death came over him. Eventually it had seemed to go into a corner of the room and disappear there. Something was arranged for Albert Grey for that night, and the friends never told at Harrow what had occurred. Years afterwards, at his camp, Baillie Hamilton met a boy called Anderson, who had been in Hayward’s house. He told how he and another boy slept in the same room. One night he heard his companion in an agonised tone say, ‘Oh, do light the candle: there is something most dreadful in the room.’ He lighted it, and found his friend sitting on the edge of his bed, trembling from head to foot. He said that the door had opened, and a horrible nondescript figure had come in, when the most terrible chill, as of death, had come over him. After a time, all seeming as usual, the boys put out the light. They had hardly done so, when Anderson himself saw the figure—the appalling figure, come towards him, and the same deathly icy chill seized him. They lighted the candle again, when the apparition vanished.
“One of the curates at Llandaff was going to the place where Miss Hayward, sister of the Harrow Master, lived, and Catherine asked him to inquire if she remembered the circumstance. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘that is exactly what happened; and that room is never used now.’
“On the evening of the wedding-day I went to Chichester, where the Bishop’s palace, venerable and grey, but buried in myrtles and coronillas, and radiant with brilliant flowers, lies close under the shadow of the beautiful cathedral spire. The Bishop (Durnford), at eighty-seven, is the very type of a christian scholar, perfectly charming in conversation, equally at home in classical and in French, English, and Italian reminiscence and quotation, and touchingly filled with a generous and kindly spirit to all he meets with. Circling around him were various relations, a brother-in-law—a pleasant old clergyman Mr. Keate, nieces, two sons, Dick and Walter, the latter the pleasantest and frankest of young Eton masters, and the daughter, Miss Durnford, who is mistress of the house, and whose active energy makes all right wherever she goes, and very cheerily right too. The profuse family use of adjectives and verbs, which they unearth for themselves, was very entertaining. ‘We seem to be going to have a regular Belshazzar,’ said Walter Durnford when something more than usual appeared for luncheon.
“There is much to interest in the palace, which has a charming early English chapel and a grand old kitchen. The cathedral retains the human interest of its old pavement and a few tombs, sadly mutilated or tinkered up: one of a Lady Arundel is very fine. There are curious paintings of Cadwallador and of Henry VIII. giving charters on one of the walls, by a painter of Henry VIII.’s time, who also decorated the ceiling of the very fine old dining-room in the palace. Round the town, much of the old wall remains, making a pleasant walk; but the most curious building is St. Mary’s Hospital, like a church, with a great single nave divided at the sides by chapels, which form the little two-roomed houses of ten old women, presented by the Bishop and custos, who live there rent-free in great comfort, with firing, and twelve shillings a week for their maintenance. At the end is the chapel, only separated from the rest by an old oak screen.
“With the Bishop and his party I went to Midhurst, a most attractive old town in lovely country, and we walked through an ancient wood above the Rother to the grand ruins of Cowdray, full of recollections of the Poyntz family, who, as its possessors, came in bitterly for the curse of sacrilege. When Mr. Poyntz went out in a boat at Bognor with his two sons, and the boat upset whilst Mrs. Poyntz was watching it from the hotel-window, the boys clung to the tail of their father’s coat as he held the side of the boat in the waves, and he—who could not swim—had the agony of feeling one after the other leave go and sink, without being able to help them. He himself was eventually saved by the boatmen. In the church of Easebourne, which stands in the park, near the fine old building called the Priory, is a touching tomb by Chantrey, erected to this Mr. and Mrs. Poyntz by their three daughters—Ladies Clinton, Exeter, and Spencer. As they were co-heiresses, Cowdray was obliged to be sold, and was bought by the Egmonts.”
“Highcliffe, August 25.—I arrived here for my usual happy summer week with Tina, Lady Waterford, who has been a curious contrast to the lady of the place, but in herself very pleasant. She described how Cromwell, determined to take ‘the golden vale of Tipperary,’ said he would take it ’by Hook or by Crook’—the two villages on either side the river—and thence the proverb.
“There has been a bee-show on the lawn here, Mr. Bellairs and young Evan Maberly going amongst the bees, taking them up, and treating them just as they pleased; but it looked horrible when their hats were covered with a crawling mass, and bees were hanging to nose and ears.
“Lady Jane Ellice says that at Harewood there is one of the most splendid collections of china—quantities of it. Formerly it all used to be kept in the gallery in which the family live, on bureaux, tables, &c. One evening it was all left in its usual place, and the next morning the whole collection—everything—quite unbroken, was found on the ground. There was never the least explanation. The china has ever since been kept in cases.”
“Lychett Heath, Poole, August 30.—My visit at Highcliffe was a very happy one. ‘We have not had a single quarrel, scarcely even a dispute,’ said Lady Waterford when I came away.
“This is the beautiful house of the Eustace Cecils. The modern house is exquisitely placed amongst sandy, heathery hills, with a lovely view, across a rich wooded foreground, of the various reaches and windings of Poole harbour. I have had much pleasant talk with Lord Eustace, and like him immensely. We had a delightful excursion to-day, taking the train to Wool, and then driving in a car to Lulworth Cove, and walking up the fine wild hills, with noble sea-views, behind it. Then we went on to Lulworth Castle, stern and stately, quadrangular with round towers at the corners, standing on a terraced base, with beautiful park and woods around. We saw the pictures, a few good family portraits of the Welds, and Charles X.’s room which he inhabited when in exile.
“Thomas Weld of Lulworth, who took orders after the death of his wife, became a bishop, and finally (1830) a cardinal. As a layman he had been perfectly devoted to hunting, and, on establishing himself at Rome, the first thing he did was to procure a very nice horse and hunt vigorously. The Pope (Pius VIII.) sent for him and said, ‘Cardinals must not hunt.’ So, for his health’s sake, Cardinal Weld took to a vehement course of walking; but the Pope sent for him again and said, ‘Cardinals must not walk’—adding, ‘If it is necessary for your health that you should walk, there is a place outside the walls where cardinals do walk up and down; you can go there.’ But Cardinal Weld died of it.
“We had tea with the Bond family and the Misses Weld of Lulworth at Binden Abbey, a Cistercian ruin, of which little remains beyond foundations near some very curious fish-ponds.”
“August 31.—I should find it difficult to say how perfectly congenial I find Lord Eustace, or how much I could look upon him as a friend. In many ways he is like Charlie (Halifax), but is no ceremony-lover. No, he says he always admires Gallio—’such an excellent straightforward man,’—and even agrees with him on the special occasion on which we hear of him.”
“Hardwick Hall, Suffolk, Sept. 17.—I have been spending several happy days with the Lowthers at Campsea Ashe, pleasant in every way, with much agreeable conversation. One day, when it turned on the origin of words, Mr. Lowther described how the expression of ‘never set the Thames on fire’ originated in the reproach to an unenthusiastic cook, who would never set her tamise on fire.
“We went to Aldeburgh, sailing in a yacht down an estuary to a point where the sea has eaten up what was once the site of a considerable town, of which only the picturesque ‘Moot Hall’ remains, stranded on the beach. It was a still, hot, glowing day, with a sea like that of the Ancient Mariner.
“Yesterday we went to an old house, Parham Hall, which is a poem in itself. In this flat country it stands in a wide moat, in a desolate grassy hollow, surrounded by old trees, the richly sculptured oriels and gables, grey, battered, and moss-grown, rising straight from the waters.”
“Holmhurst, Sept. 26.—From Campsea Ashe I went to visit Gery Cullum, a friend I have long known, but never till lately been intimate with. One of his nieces met me at the station at Bury St. Edmunds, and brought me in a dogcart through that quaint town, past abbey gateways and the church where Mary, sister of Henry VIII., is buried, to the fine old house of Hardwick, which stands beyond a park well wooded with cedars and indigenous box, and which, with its bright flowers and sculptured terraces, well deserves the name of Allegro, as contrasted with Penseroso, the old neighbouring house of Rushbrooke.
“There is a great charm about the interior—not fine, but very large and most thoroughly comfortable—a small low hall with good portraits of James I. and Elizabeth as a child, &c.; a dining-room with family portraits; a library with curious MSS. The gardens are gorgeous in colour, and there are delightful walks beyond, with pines of all descriptions.
“The first day, knowing my love of being taken about, Gery arranged an excursion to Hengrave, a very fine old house, with an exceedingly rich front and stately garden, belonging to Lady Gage,429 and close beside it a church filled with curious tombs.
“On Sunday we went to service at Hawsteads, where the church has fine old monuments of Drurys and Cullums, and we sat in a high James I. pew to listen to a ranting Irish preacher, who lost himself completely in the mazes of his own nonsense, and finally made us laugh by the emphasis with which he announced, ‘As it is written, my brethren, in the Duke of Bookeronomy,’ &c.
“On Monday we picnicked in the park of Penseroso, the old house of Rushbrooke, standing in a wide moat, into which a former mistress of the place, an unfaithful wife, was thrown by her husband, and upon which she is said to float nightly. Her picture hangs above the magnificent staircase, and the window whence she was thrown is pointed out at the end of a suite of desolate unfurnished rooms. The house belonged to Lord Jermyn, and, whatever his relation to Henrietta Maria may have been, two magnificent cabinets of hers are here, which Lord Bristol, to his despair, inadvertently sold, with the house, to its present possessors. Here also the church has fine tombs.
“Apropos of the dispersion of family relics, Gery told me how young Mrs. Le Strange of Hunstanton had inadvertently given away an old Persian carpet, an absolute rag, to an old woman in the village, regarding it as useless lumber. The next night she saw the most awful apparition, whom she recognised from a portrait as her husband’s grandmother, old Mrs. Styleman, looking most ferocious and diabolical. Soon an old neighbour called and said, ‘How could you venture to give away the famous carpet: you will have old Mrs. Styleman coming from the grave to remonstrate about it;’ and then it was explained that Mrs. Styleman, who had been a great heiress, and had possessed a number of beautiful things, had lived to see almost all of them dispersed and sold, owing to the extravagance of the family into which she married. At last only the carpet remained—at that time a thing of some value, and in her old age she said, ‘Now if ever you sell that, I swear before God that I will haunt you till it is replaced.’ Mrs. Le Strange bought back the carpet and laid it down in its former place, and old Mrs. Styleman has never appeared since.
“From Hardwick I went to Mrs. Robert Drummond in the lovely little black and white Upton Court of the fourteenth century, which she is renting near Eton. Over the entrance is the little figure of a monk, and in the wide porch rude old oak settees. It was a sanatorium of Merton Abbey, and the quaint old fish-tanks of the monks remain.
“We went to Ockwells, the desolate and decaying old house of the Norris’s, and finding the door off its hinges, entered, and went in and out of the deserted rooms, in one of which a coat of mail was hanging up.430
“And now I am at home again, furiously busy, alone, but never finding the day half long enough for all I have to do. ‘Rien ne vous serait plus laborieux qu’une grande oisiveté, si vous aviez le malheur d’y tomber. Dégouté premièrement des affaires, puis des plaisirs, vous seriez enfin dégouté de l’oisiveté elle-même.’ These are words of Louis XIV., admirable and worth thinking of.”
“Ickwellbury Oct. 14.—A visit to Mrs. Harvey. Parts of the house are said to date from Henry II. The Ickwell is the oak-well, a pretty bubbling spring in the garden.”
“Nov. 18.—An agreeable party at Worth (Mrs. Montefiore’s), the most luxurious of modern houses, where a bit of the Law in a little bottle is screwed upon the door of every bedroom. Mr. Algernon Tumour, who is here, stated, and considered he proved, that the average life of a five-pound note is only a single day.”
“London, Nov. 27.—Charlie Halifax says that a tenant of Carlo Milnes Gaskell (of Thornes) was found dead—murdered evidently—in one of his woods. A very bad character in the neighbourhood, who was known to hate the dead man, and who had been seen near the wood at the time of his death, was arrested and tried for the murder. All the evidence was against him, but he got off because, instead of measuring the footprints near the body and then the boots of the accused, the boots had been taken to the spot and fitted into the footprints, which allowed of its being said that they had been manufactured by pressing the boots into the soft earth. The man was always afterwards suspected of the murder, but he got work in a factory. If the subject was spoken of, he became very violent, and prayed that the devil might take him if he was guilty. One day, after he had been declaiming thus, he was caught by the mill machinery and torn to pieces. The iron claw which had caught him and pulled him in is that always known as ‘the Devil.’”
“London, Dec. 6.—Luncheon with Miss Seymour to meet Madame du Quaire,431 who talked of the Praslin murder. She was with the old Duchesse de Grammont soon after, and Madame Alfred de Grammont was there. They began to discuss the division of money apportioned to different members of a family according to the French system, and they spoke of a member of the Praslin family whom they thought stingy. One of them added up her different expenses, ending with—‘et puis les dix-mille francs pour l’Angleterre.’ At this Madame Alfred, who is très-bête, suddenly broke in with,’ Avez vous été au Bois de Boulogne ce matin?’ ‘It was then,’ said Madame du Quaire, ’that I first learnt that the Duc de Praslin was alive, and that they knew it.” The next day the Duc de Grammont came to call upon me, and I told him of the conversation, adding—“I know now that the Duke is alive.” He neither allowed it nor denied it. A few days after, however, the Duke came again and said, “J’ai une petite faveur à vous demander.” It was that I would never repeat to his mother what I had said to him: it might upset her. Of course I promised, but then I knew the Duke was alive.’
“‘The Duke did not wish to marry Mademoiselle de Luzy: that is an invention. He only murdered the Duchess because she was such a bore. He certainly did not wish to marry any one else.’
“Miss Seymour432 said that the Queen of the Belgians, speaking of the Praslin murder to Mrs. Augustus Craven, said, ‘How dreadful to find one was being murdered by one’s husband: one could not even cry out.’
“Madame du Quaire was reminded of her friend Madame Solkoff, whose hair was quite snow-white whilst she was still quite young. ‘She was a Miss Childe, you know, a daughter of that Mrs. Childe who had a salon—un salon très répandu—at Paris. She eloped with a Polish Count, to whom her family objected most intensely, and she was disinherited. Very soon after her marriage it became known that it had turned out very ill, and that the young Countess was very unhappy. Eventually it became impossible for her to remain with her husband, and she went to live at Cracow with her mother-in-law, who had a very fine old palace there, and was very kind to her. She had a large apartment of her own in her mother-in-law’s house, her bedroom being approached through her sitting-room. She was still only twenty-two, when she was found one morning insensible on the floor of her sitting-room in her night-dress, and with the floor all around her saturated with blood from a terrible wound in her head. Her cabinets and jewel-cases were all broken open and rifled. The interrogatoire came, and she was examined. She said that in the night she heard a noise in her sitting-room, and going to see what it was, had found a man breaking open her drawers; that she had received a blow, and knew no more. It was in vain that she was questioned as to whom she had seen; she affirmed that she could not possibly tell who it was. But her hair was turned snow-white from that night. It was not till she knew he was dead that she allowed it was her husband she had seen.’
“Speaking of reading novels when young, Madame du Quaire said that she remembered at eleven years old reading ‘La Princesse de Babylone,’ and being found convulsed with laughter at the description of a dinner-party given by the Witch of Endor. She was described as having the guardianship of Nebuchadnezzar, who was browsing near her, and that at her party, ‘par délicatesse pour lui,’ she would allow nothing to appear which—in his unfortunate position—could wound his feelings—no beef, &c., &c.
“Madame du Quaire talked of the prevailing passion for Buddhism, and said, ‘I am not even going to attempt to believe in it, for it is not necessary to salvation: there is such a tremendous quantity that I am obliged to swallow, that I cannot possibly undertake anything—“che non e d’obligo” as the Italian priests say.’
“Madame du Quaire had met Lady Colin Campbell at dinner and sat opposite to her, but she did not know her. She could not help being attracted by the necklace she wore, it was so very extraordinary. After a time it seemed to be moving by itself. She fancied at first that this must be a delusion, but, putting up her glasses, she certainly saw the necklace writhing round Lady Colin’s throat. Seeing her astonished look, Lady Colin said, ‘Oh, I see you are looking at my snake: I always wear a live snake round my throat in hot weather: it keeps one’s neck so cool;’ and it really was a live snake.”
“Dec. 8.—Sat by Sir George Dasent at breakfast. A Mr. Frere passed through the room. ‘He comes from Roffham,’ said Sir G., ’one of those places of which the name has such a rough East Anglian sound, and he is member of the family which possessed the Paston Letters without knowing it. There were six volumes of letters. Two of them were sent up, by request, for Queen Charlotte to look at, and they were lost. She was very accurate herself, that old woman, especially about things that were lent to her, and there is no doubt that she had given them to one of her ladies to return: anyhow they were lost. Afterwards, however, duplicate copies of many of the lost letters were found to be still in the possession of the family, and their existence quite disproved an assertion that the letters had been forgeries.
“‘They were wonderful people, those old Pastons. They used to thrash their daughters like anything if they did not behave themselves, and then, when they had flogged them well, they would say, “And now they must have silk dresses, rich, red, and beautiful!”’
“Dec. 9.—Dined with M. B., who told me of Lady Vane433 being quite worn-out by the ghastly noises at their place in Cumberland: it was as if some one were always trying to climb up a disused chimney in the wall, and then falling violently down again. But lately, when Sir Henry Vane was away, she had the wall opened. Inside she found a wide and very lofty closet, narrowing into a funnel as it reached the roof, where it opened by a very small hole to the sky. In it were human bones, a broken water-bottle, and the cover of an old Bible, which bore a date. Lady Vane had the bones gathered up and put into a box, which was left in a corner of Sir Henry Vane’s room till his return.
“When Sir Henry Vane came home, he was exhausted by a long journey and went at once to rest. Lady Vane did not intend to tell him of her discovery till the next day. But suddenly, late in the afternoon, she heard a tremendous noise in her husband’s room. She rushed in, and found Sir Henry in a state of the greatest agitation. He said, ‘I have seen the most frightful apparition—a woman in that corner,’ pointing to where the box of bones had been deposited.
“From old family archives they found that, some years before, exactly at the date upon the Bible cover, a woman had been walled up in the house. She had made desperate efforts to escape up the funnel of the disused chimney, and had always fallen down again. Sir Henry and Lady Vane themselves buried the bones in the churchyard, and the house has been at peace ever since.”
“Thorncombe, Dec. 13.—Miss Montgomery is here, a lady of the most impassive countenance, though she is the authoress of ‘Misunderstood.’”
“Warwick Castle, Jan. 30, 1887.—A delightful visit to this beautiful place. I came off suddenly on a telegram from Lady Warwick,434 and found several pleasant people, besides the family. More than ever have I been charmed by Lady Warwick, who has the rarest of all attractions—absolute simplicity, and ‘rien n’est difficile comme le simple,’ as Madame de Maintenon used to say. Then most glorious in position is the castle, with the river close underneath, so that the family feed the swans daily from the aërial balcony outside the breakfast-room window. Pilgrim-visitors constantly pour through the rooms with the pictures, of which the finest are a grand Morone, and a Raffaelle finished by Ghirlandajo. The visitors are conducted through the rooms by the housekeeper, who is a great character in her way. When the Prince of Wales was here, she showed him a relic which ‘belonged to King James III.’—‘Ah! the old Pretender,’ said the Prince. ‘We do not think so, your Royal Highness,’ she replied very stiffly. The pictures at Warwick are a real enjoyment, not only important and valuable, which is generally thought enough, but each individually lovely and suggestive. And the happy family life is perfection—such a sharing of interests, the hunting sons not entirely engrossed by it, and no single member of the family talking scandal or looking for motes in their neighbours’ eyes. The old town is charming, with the Leicester hospital, and the great church, chiefly renaissance, but with a fine gothic choir. One evening there was a dance, and after it Mrs. Bob Lyttelton (Miss Santley), who lives in the town, sang most gloriously.
“We have driven to see the exceedingly curious old house of Badeley Clinton, of which my distant cousin, Mr. Dering, has married the widowed owner. It is a most singular and poetical place, and there are many curious stories about it. Handsome, refined, and naturally, not affectedly, poetical and picturesque, Edward Dering is wonderfully suited to the place, and its very solitariness facilitates his leading a life there of almost mediaeval saintliness.”435
On the 26th of February 1887 I left England again for my French work, and spent a month in Paris at a primitive and economical inn in the Rue d’Amboise. Living here, I spent my days entirely amongst the historic quarters, seeing nothing of the Boulevards or Rue de Rivoli, but making great progress with a work—my “Paris”—which had no interruptions, and in which I became increasingly interested as I knew more of my subject. On the fine days of early March many excursions were very pleasant, involving long walks to the Abbaye du Val, Nogent les Vierges, &c. Unfortunately the weather changed before I set out on a tour through the Bourbonnais; and in Provence, where many long excursions were necessary, the mistral was quite terrific. Mounting into the wild fastnesses of the Maritime Alps above S. Maximin, to visit the cave in which the Magdalen is believed to have died, I caught a terrible chill, from which I was afterwards very ill at Manosque. But the kindly though rough proprietors of the inn—M. and Mme. Pascal—persuaded me to try the remedy of taking no nourishment whatever except hot tea, and letting nature lie absolutely at rest for forty-eight hours, and, as often since, I found this quite answer, though during that time I drove in an open carriage for eight hours to visit the Roman remains at Riez.
“Avignon, April 3, 1887.—It has been a suffering week, owing to the biting, rending, lacerating mistral, which has seemed perpetually to tear one’s vitals inside out, and to frizzle them afterwards. Thursday I went by rail to Montelimar, and then in a carriage with a horse which either galloped furiously or would not go at all, over the sixteen miles of mountain-road to Grignan, where Madame de Sévigné lived so much with her daughter, and where she died. It is a really grand and striking place—the immense château rising on a solitary rock, backed by a lovely mountain distance, and the town at its foot surrounded by cork forests. All was ruined at the Revolution, but the shell of the rich palace-castle remains—‘un château vraiment royal,’ as Madame de Sévigné calls it. In a solitary spot near is the cave, with old ilex-trees, where she used to sit, and, even with blinding dust and wind, the colouring was most beautiful.
“On Saturday, I had to spend five hours at Cavaillon, and wondered how to dispose of myself. But, on reaching the cathedral, the whole population was pouring in to take part in the funeral of a famous doctor who had been a great benefactor of the place. Every one there was presented by the family with a huge wax-candle, as long as a walking-stick, and asked to ‘assist.’ I had one, and walked and stood with my burning candle for two hours! It was a striking sight, thousands taking part, and the old bishop pronouncing the elegy of the deceased, whom he described as quite a saint. But oh! how it poured, and blew, and swelched, and how deep was the white mortar-mud of Provence!”
“Arles, April 13.—The visit to this place—perhaps more than any other connected with happy days of our long-ago travels, and which I have always avoided hitherto since I have been alone—has unexpectedly proved a great pleasure. And I am glad, now I have seen so much, that I still think Arles by far the most interesting place in the south of France, and the excursion to Montmajour and Les Baux, which I made again on Saturday, quite incomparable—the former, as far as I have seen the world, one of its most beautiful ruins, the latter so glorious as to scenery. Yesterday there was what the French call a bull-fight in the amphitheatre, but there is nothing terrible: no horses, only men enticing bulls with handkerchiefs, and when they run at them, vaulting like chamois over the barriers; while the arcades of Roman masonry are filled with vast multitudes, chiefly ‘belles Arlesiennes’ in their picturesque costume—a very fine sight.”
“Aix in Provence, April 15.—All Provence, as you perhaps know, is full of the same very early Church legend, that a number of the earliest Christians, escaping from Jerusalem after the Ascension, landed here on the coast and became the earliest missionaries of Gaul. Of these, Mary Salome and Mary Cleopas are supposed to have stayed at Les Saintes Maries in the Camargue, Lazarus to have gone to preach at Marseilles, Restitutus at S. Restitut, Maximin at S. Maximin; but Mary Magdalen went farther, spent years of penitence, and died in a cave at the top of the mountains, which is certainly one of the most curious places of pilgrimage in Europe. So it was to La Sainte Baume that I went yesterday, starting at 6 A.M. by rail to S. Maximin, and there engaging a carriage to Nant, where the road comes to an end. Thence it is an ascent of an hour and a half through the steep lonely rocky forest, covered with blue hepaticas, over stones, rocks, and quagmires. Near the top it began to hail and rain furiously, and the cold was most intense, snow still lying in great masses; but the cave is very curious, and the view magnificent over the lower mountains, beyond the masses of Alpine forest. How it poured! I sheltered at the worst times under some rocks, and got safely down to the sunlit valley about five, then had to wait at S. Maximin till nine o’clock for a train, and did not get back here till nearly one.”
“Grenoble, April 22.—On Wednesday evening, after returning from Briançon to Gap, I engaged a carriage thence to Corps, at the foot of the mountain of La Salette. It was supposed to be three hours’ drive, but took five and a half hours, and we did not arrive till nine o’clock, having spent the last two hours in pitch darkness, with a single lanthorn, driving along the edge of the most terrific precipices, with a driver who had never been there before! Still we arrived at last at the very miserable inn. On Thursday morning I set off early on foot to La Salette, three hours of weary steep ascent of the mountains, rather fine in their snowy solitudes, but affording just a slight panic to a solitary traveller owing to the bears which still prowl about there. In the latter part of the way the snow was above my waist, but a little gulley (turned into a watercourse from the meltings) was cut through it. When at length I reached the convent, I was received with great astonishment, as no one had visited those solitudes since April 6. All around, and up to the first floor of the building, was deep massy snow, not a rock to be seen. I was comfortably fed, however, and saw the strange place to which 15,000 pilgrims come annually. You know the story, how two children declared that the Virgin had appeared to them, and told them that the bad language of the neighbouring villages was so shocking that she could no longer restrain the avenging hand of her Son unless a church was built. You will remember how Madame de Trafford never varied in her account, that she was herself botanising in those mountains in one of her eccentric expeditions, and came suddenly out of a fog upon two children, to whom she spoke of the shocking language she had heard, saying it was sure to be punished, and why was there no church? &c.: then the fog became very thick again, and when it cleared, the children were gone.”
“Cambrai, April 30.—How I thought of you to-day when I was by the tomb of Fénelon, which has a striking statue. But how ugly, how treeless, how black with coal-dust is all this north-east of France. I always imagined the Ardennes were pretty, but the beauty is only in the Belgian part. Nothing can be more frightful than Sedan, Charleville, Mezières, Valenciennes, and this place is also hideous; though perhaps all has looked worse than usual under a black sky and incessant rain.
“On Thursday I saw Domremy, which is well worth a visit, and can be little altered from the time of Jeanne Darc. Seen across the flat meadows, backed by a low range of hills like Hawkestone, and with a winding stream (the infant Meuse) like the Terne, it is really a little like Stoke. The mere hamlet ends in the little church, hung all over inside, and very prettily, with wreaths and banners, sent from all quarters in honour of Jeanne; and close by is her quaint old cottage, carefully preserved, with some of its old beams, an ancient armoire, &c., and its original garden. It is now in the hands of Sisters of Charity, who manage an orphanage joining her garden and established to her memory.
“It is really a great reward for many misères de voyage that I have now seen almost everything in Eastern France, and may soon think of publishing that part of my work.”
During the latter part of this French tour I had an unpleasant adventure, which excited more attention than I ever anticipated at the time. On April 19 I had gone from Gap to visit Embrun, a curious little town in the Alpes Dauphinoises. I had not long left the station before I was aware that I was watched and followed wherever I went. However, at last I contrived to dodge my pursuer, and made, from behind a wall, the sketch of the cathedral which I wanted, and then had dinner at the hotel. When I was returning to the station, separated by a desolate plain from the town, I saw, by the faint waning light, the same figure following wherever I went. It was dark when the train by which I was to leave was to start. I had taken my place, and the train was already in motion, when it was stopped, and an official accompanied by a gendarme entered the carriage and demanded what I had been doing at Embrun. “Visiting the cathedral.” “Why should I visit the cathedral?” and so on, through a long series of questions of the same kind. My passport was demanded, and, though not usually considered necessary for English travellers, I happened to have one. It was, however, refused as an identification, not being dated in the present year. Fortunately, I recollected having in my pocket-book an order from the Préfet de la Seine authorising me to draw in all the palaces in Paris and elsewhere in France, and this was considered sufficient. The train was allowed to move on just as a crowd was collecting.
At Briançon (where I spent the following day), I carefully abstained from drawing, as it was a fortified town. But on April 23 I left the station at Vizille to visit the old château of the famous Lesdiguières, two miles distant. I had seen the château, and began to occupy the quarter of an hour which remained before the omnibus started for the station by sketching it from the village street, when I was pounced upon by a gendarme. “Who has authorised you to sketch the château of Vizille?”—“No one.”—“If you can draw this, you may also have drawn other places. You will go with me to the gendarmerie;” and I was marched through the long street of Vizille, followed by a crowd, and with the hand of the gendarme occasionally grasping me by the shoulder. At the gendarmerie a superior officer appeared, and, with the most extreme insolence of manner, demanded what I had been doing in France, &c. “What had I drawn?”—“Churches and mountains.”—“Ah! mountains! then it has been very easy for you to make a little mark in the drawing, known only to yourself, meaning here is a fortress, and there a fortress.”—“But I am an Englishman.”—“Oh, you are, are you? Then I am all the more glad that we have taken you, for we shall probably soon be at war with England, and then you will make your sketches useful to your Government; so you will consider yourself under arrest.” The letter of the Préfet de la Seine was treated as worthless because it had no seal. The passport was rejected altogether with contempt. After this, all further protestations and remonstrances were answered by an insolent shout of—“Taisez vous donc, vous êtes en état d’arrestation.”
Then the first gendarme was sent with me to the station, where my portmanteaux were opened and ransacked, the contents being tossed out upon the platform. Two suspicious articles were found. First, a slight sketch of the gorge at Sisteron (not the fort; the fort is on the other side of the rock), and, far worse, three volumes of the Guide Joanne for France. “What did I want with guidebooks?”—“To study the country.”—“Ah! that is just what I thought;” and all the officials of the station were called in to witness the discovery. The gendarme then declared that I must return with him and be locked up at Vizille, but a train coming up at that moment, I made a dash into it, and probably thinking a public scrimmage impolitic, the gendarme allowed the station-master to fasten my boxes and bring me a ticket. The gendarme then took his place opposite to me in a first-class carriage.
At 5 P.M. the train arrived at Grenoble. At the station the gendarme of Vizille summoned a gendarme of the town, and I was conducted as a prisoner by the two to the Hotel Monnet. The gendarme of Vizille then left me in care of the other, shut up in a room of the hotel, where the gendarme of Grenoble sat silent opposite to me till 6.30. I thought that then the other gendarme would come back from the Préfecture with an order that I was to be freed from further annoyance. Not a bit of it! He came back with an order that all my possessions were to be carefully ransacked, and all the contents of my boxes were turned out upon the floor. All suspected articles—all my sketches, manuscripts, letters, and all the volumes of the Guide Joanne were then put into my smallest portmanteau, which one of the gendarmes carried, and I was marched between the two to the old palace of the Dauphins, where the courts are. Here two clerks (or secretaries of the Préfecture) subjected me to a long examination—who I was, what was my employment, where I had been, &c. The English letters found in my blotting-book (ordinary family letters) were translated into French by a clerk who understood English. All my drawings (chiefly of church architecture) were examined in detail, and their objects inquired into. The terrible Guides Joanne were passed in review and, after an hour, I was told I was free, but without a single word of apology or regret. Indeed, I should not have got away then if at last one of the clerks had not said in his insolent manner, “Est que vous êtes donc un tel, qu’il n’y a une seule personne dans toute cette partie de la France qui peut répondre de vous?” And goaded to desperation I answered, “Well, yes, there is one person, it is a lady; she is only a few miles from here now (at Aix les Bains): it is the Queen of England.” On parting, the gendarme of Vizille was told in my presence that he had only done his duty in arresting me for having ventured to draw the Château of Lesdiguières; and he left, carrying off in his pocket (by accident no doubt) a sealed packet which he had taken from my dressing-case, saying, “Nous allons ouvrir ça devant ces messieurs, ça doit être des instruments pour tirer des plans.” I called the next day upon my examiners to ask them to obtain restitution of the packet, but they declined to take any trouble. One of their comrades, looking up from his writing, said insolently, “Puisque vous avez été arrêté hier, est-ce qu’on ne vous a encore condamné?”
I wrote this story in the train, and posted it at one of the stations to the editor of the Times, who inserted it in the paper, so that when I reached home I found England ringing with it, and a question asked in the House about it. I also complained to the Foreign Office, and Lord Salisbury sent me afterwards the French answer to the inquiries made. They allowed the facts of the examination, but denied that I had ever been arrested, though the leading feature through the whole had been that whenever I attempted to speak I had been silenced by a shout of “Taisez-vous donc; rappelez-vous donc que vous êtes en arrestation.” The sealed packet was never restored.
I returned home on May 3, and at the beginning of June was at Scotney Castle.
Journal.
“Scotney, June 1, 1887.—We have been for the day at Glassenbury, the old moated house of Mr. Atkin Roberts, in a wooded hollow of the hills, surrounded by fine old trees, but of damp and dismal aspect. There is a lime avenue there, haunted by a lady—once Miss Roberts—who is always looking for her husband, for as she was riding away with him down the avenue on their wedding-day, he was thrown from his horse and killed on the spot. She never afterwards left the paternal home, where there are pictures of her, unmarried and as a widow. Some hundred years ago the last Roberts of Glassenbury had only daughters, and of these the last married the then Duke of St. Albans. The Duke was a gambler and a spendthrift, and sold all her fine things—her diamonds, her plate, her china; but she was determined that he should not make away the place, and that she would leave it to those who would take care of it; the question was—to whom?
“One day she had sent for a painter to come to Glassenbury to paint a coat of arms on her carriage, and, when she showed him the arms, he said, ‘Why, your Grace, those are the very arms I was employed to paint at a place in Ireland, to which I went quite by accident, having been shipwrecked on the coast close by.’ The Duchess inquired, and found that the people in Ireland, for whom he had painted the arms, were very distant relations, and she settled the property upon the Irish Colonel Roberts, who left it to the present owner, his nephew, formerly Atkin.
“Sir Arthur Birch, who has some high appointment at the Bank of England, has lately been at Scotney, full of a very singular circumstance. He had two clerks, an elderly Mr. Sperati and a Mr. Lutwich, and they were very intimate friends. One Whit-Monday evening, as he was sitting with his wife by the fire in his house in Burlington Gardens, Mr. Lutwich, with a very scared look, bade her mark the exact time, ‘for,’ said he, ‘I have just seen Sperati; he has just appeared in this room, as distinctly as I ever saw him in my life. He wore a very old coat of his, which I know quite well, and had a very peculiar silver-knobbed stick in his hand; I am certain he is dead, and I must go to his house and see.’
“But the wife urged him so much not to go then, and to wait till the next morning, that he assented.
“As he was on his way in the morning to Sperati’s house, he met Sperati’s brother, who said, ‘I was on my way to tell you sad news; my brother died last night at nine o’clock, very suddenly, of heart-disease.’ It was exactly the hour at which Mr. Lutwich had seen him.
“Mr. Lutwich went on to the house, and saw the butler, whom he knew well. He said, ‘I have an especial reason for asking about an old coat which I remember well, and which your master use to have—has he worn it lately?’—‘Well, it is strange you should ask about it, sir, because, though he has not worn it for some time, he had it on last night.’—’And do you remember what stick he had in his hand?’—‘Yes, perfectly, sir, it is in the hall now,’ and it was the very stick with which he had appeared.
“Mrs. Papillon had been telling the Husseys of a very famous female mesmerist living in Park Street. Late one night this person had a visitor who urged her very much to consent to go at once to a mysterious patient, to whom she could only travel blindfolded. She hesitated for some time, but finally, being very much urged, she assented. A well-appointed carriage was at the door, in which she was driven to the railway. In the train she was blindfolded. Several hours were passed in travelling by train. Then she was taken out to a carriage and driven for some distance. On arriving at a house, she was led up a staircase and into a large room. As her bandage was removed, she saw two ladies in black just leaving the room. A gentleman was lying in bed, very dangerously ill of typhoid fever. She mesmerised him and he fell asleep. When he awoke, a great change for the better was perceptible. He said, ‘I feel better; I could drink a glass of beer.’ She said, ‘Give him the beer.’ He drank it, and fell into a restful, natural sleep.
“Then the lady was blindfolded again and conveyed back in the same way in which she came. When she reached her own house in Park Street, a cheque for a very large amount was left in her hands. The next day she read in the paper that the Prince of Wales—then most dangerously ill at Sandringham—had rallied, and fallen into a deep natural sleep from the moment of drinking a glass of beer.
“Mr. Hussey told me that an old Mr. and Mrs. Close of Nottingham were very rich and great misers, and they both made wills leaving all they possessed each to the other. However, as they died within a few hours of each other, that made very little difference to anybody.
“When the heirs-at-law arrived at Nottingham—young people full of spirits—they were greatly excited and brimming with curiosity. It was known that there were splendid diamonds, and that vast wealth of every kind existed, but at first nothing seemed to be forthcoming. Cupboards and drawers were ransacked in vain. Nothing particular was found.
“At last, in a room at the top of the house a great trunk was discovered. ‘Here,’ they said, ‘it all is; we shall find all the treasures now.’ But when the trunk was opened, the upper part was found to be full of nothing but scraps of human hair, as if for years the off-scourings of all the old hair-brushes had been collected; then below that was a layer of very dirty old curl-papers; and the bottom of the box was full of still more dirty old corsets of ladies’ dresses, and—the box was alive! When young Mrs. Close had dived into the box, she exclaimed, ‘What disgusting old creatures our relations must have been! This horrible mess might infest the whole house; we must have it burnt at once.’ So she had some men up, and the trunk carried down into the courtyard of the house, and a huge bonfire made there, and the trunk upset into it.
“As it was burning, she stood by, and heedlessly, with her stick, pulled one of the curl-papers towards her, and poked it open at her feet. It was a £50 note! In an agony, she scrimmaged at the fire, and raked out all she possibly could, but it was too late; most of the notes were burnt; she only saved about £800.
“Naturally her husband was furious, and of course he was very unjust. ‘Any one but you would have examined the box carefully; there never was such an idiot of a woman,’ &c. And every time he saw the burnt heap in the courtyard, he burst forth afresh. So she sent for the dustman round the corner, and had all the ashes carefully cleared away.
“Still nothing had been found of the diamonds. They had certainly existed; there were always the diamonds to fall back upon. But though they searched everywhere, nothing could be found of them. At last they asked the only old lady with whom Mrs. Close had visited if she knew of any one who could help them. ‘Yes, certainly,’ she said; ‘there’s old Betty Thompson at the almshouses, she was always in and out of the house as charwoman; she knew more of Mrs. Close and her ways than any one else.’ So away they went to the almshouses, and asked Betty Thompson. ‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘she knew very well that there were diamonds, very fine diamonds indeed, but small good they ever did to old Mrs. Close, for she always kept them sewn up and hidden away in her old stays.’
“The stays had all perished in the fire; the diamonds would not have burnt, but then the very ashes had been thrown away; there was no trace left of them. The bank-notes were all very old—the few that were saved—but they were quite good; but there was very little else left of the great inheritance.”
To Louisa, Marchioness of Waterford.
“Jermyn Street, June 16, 1887.—London is in gala costume, the streets flooded with flowers, and the West End thoroughfares lined by stands, with seats covered with red and gay awnings. I am perpetually thinking of what Arthur Stanley’s ecstasy would have been on looking forward to having so many kings and queens, besides no end of other royalty, in the Abbey at once. On Saturday I was at Osterley, where the gardens were quite lovely and delicious in the heat, and yesterday there was a pleasant party at Lord Beauchamp’s, with little comedies to amuse Princess Mary, who was exceedingly gracious and kind to me.
“Alas! we are expecting the news of Theodore Walrond’s death—a man apparently as healthy in body as in mind till his last illness set in, and quite universally beloved.”
“June 17.—Yesterday I had luncheon with Miss Geary at her very pretty house in Grosvenor Street, and met Lady Elgin and a charming, fresh, sensible Miss Boscawen. I dined at Lady Manners’, where I made rather friends with Lord Apsley: afterwards there was a large brilliant party at Mrs. Portman’s.
“To-day my two young American friends, Sands and Martin, gave a most pleasant luncheon. I sat by Lady Middleton, who talked charmingly and gratefully of the happiness of married life—the pleasure to a woman of entire self-renunciation: then of her own life, which she would not exchange for any in the world, though she has had to give up all her own inclinations, and to throw herself absolutely and entirely into the interests of hunting. She said she never allowed an ill word on the field, and if she heard one, rode even for miles till she caught up the culprit to say so.”
“June 19.—Lady Dorothy Nevill has been most funny about a burglary at Lady Orford’s. While the family were away, a man came to the door, who said he was sent to measure the dining-room chimney-piece, and asked the old woman who was taking care of the place to go up to the top of the house to get him a piece of tape for the purpose. When she came down, the man was gone, and so were two of the best pictures. ‘I could swear to the pictures anywhere,’ said the old woman afterwards, ‘for they were of members of the Orford family.’ ‘They were the Virgin Mary and St. Sebastian,’ added Lady Dorothy, ‘and I leave you to imagine how far they were ever likely to have been members of the Orford family!’
“At breakfast I sat by Sir George Dasent. I spoke of his wonderful memory. He said, ‘When I was a boy, my father saw me writing—writing with a pen was never a strong point with me—but still I was busy at it, and he asked me what I was doing. I said, “Writing down what I’ve read.”—“Don’t write it down, my boy,” he said; “carry it all in your head; it is much better,” and I have always done so.’
“He spoke of the folly of interfering in any street rows. ‘It had been a wet day, and you know when the pavement is wet—why I cannot tell—you can see much farther than at other times, and down the whole length of Eaton Place I saw a man knock a woman down; she got up, and he knocked her down again. He knocked her down several times running. At last I got up to him and said, “You villain, to knock a woman down like that; how can you dare to do it?”—“Now you just go along with you,” said the woman; “he only gave me what I deserved.”—“Oh, if you like being knocked down, it’s another matter,” I said.’
“‘One day in the street,’ he related, ‘I passed a party of Germans abusing each other with most outrageous language, and I said, “Remember there are police here as well as in Germany.” When I got near St Peter’s Church, I was aware that one of the Germans was following me, and he came up and said, “I am come to demand satisfaction.”—“Very well, you shall have satisfaction,” I said, and I beckoned a policeman from the other side of the street, who came across saying, “What can I do for you, sir?” for all the police know me. So I said, “You will just take this man up, and I will go with you and appear against him.” So we went on our way, the policeman, the German, and I. When we had gone some way, the policeman said, “It’s giving you a great deal of trouble, sir, isn’t it, to go to the police-station; couldn’t we manage it here?’ So I said, “Yes, perhaps we may as well try him here. If he kneels down in the gutter in the mud and prays for forgiveness, we will let him off.” So I said in German, “He (the policeman) says that if you kneel down in the gutter and beg for forgiveness, he will let you off.”—“May not I kneel on the pavement?” he said. “No, that will not do; you must kneel in the mud, with your hands up so. “So down in the mud he went and said, “I am very sorry for vat I have done,” and we let him go.’
“Chief-Justice Morris said he was sitting on the bench in Ireland, and after a case had been tried, he said to the jurymen, ‘Now, to consider this matter, you will retire to your accustomed place,’ and two-thirds of them went into the dock.
“Another time he said to a culprit, ‘I can produce five witnesses who saw you steal that cow.”—‘Yes,’ said the prisoner, ‘but I can produce five hundred who did not.’
“Sir George Dasent said he should not go to the Abbey on the Jubilee Day. His legs were so infirm now, that a touch would upset him, and, when once down, he could not get up again. He had once been knocked down by a newspaper—‘retributive, you might say.’”449
“June 20.—The streets are all hung with scarlet and blue draperies, and Waterloo Place is embowered in a succession of triumphal arches. The crowds are tremendous. The foot-passengers have already expelled the carriages from the principal thoroughfares, and two million more people are expected to arrive to-day.
“I dined last night with Charlie Halifax, meeting Lady Morton, the Arundel Mildmays, and Sir Hickman Bacon—a pale frail youth, so High-Church that he could not take part in any Jubilee gaieties whilst —— (one of their especial clergy) was imprisoned. Charlie was very funny in his tantrums against the bishops. ‘I hate them all except Lincoln, and—as cowards—I despise them.’ He said he would not go to the service in the Abbey, because he considers it desecrated by having seats erected over the altar!”
To Miss Leycester.
“June 21, 1887.—Nothing can have been more sublimely pathetic than the whole ceremony (of the Jubilee)—more inexpressibly touching and elevating. The Abbey, too, did not look spoilt: all the tiers of seats, all the galleries disappeared utterly: nothing was visible between the time-worn pillars and under the grey arches but the masses of people they contained.
“I went at 8 A.M. It was not a moment too soon. Cabs charged two pounds to the Abbey, but I walked very comfortably. The tickets had little maps of the Abbey, with the entrance for the bearer marked on each. Mine was by a door on the north-east behind St. Margaret’s, and there I waited, with a small crowd, till nine struck, and some iron gates were opened by the police, when we ran down an awned passage to where a staircase of rough timber led up by the great Norris tomb to our places.
“Mine was simply perfect, a splendid place, from whence—
‘To see the lords of human kind go by,’
as Goldsmith says. I would not have changed it with any other in the building. In the theatre it would have been the royal box—a little red gallery to hold four, over the tomb of Aylmer de Valence; in front of the gallery on the left of the sanctuary; close above the princesses of Austria, Spain, and Portugal; opposite the kings; with a view of the peers and peeresses in the right transept, and so near the Queen that one could see every play of her expression. My companions were a doctor of music in his red gown and two females of the middle class, who were very good-natured in lending me their glasses.
“The time of waiting did not seem long: all was so full of interest.
“The Abbey blazed with colour—crimson uniforms, smart ladies, ushers stiff with gold embroidery, yeomen of the guard in plumed helmets. Only, for another coronation, I would clothe the supporting pillars of the galleries with red cloth. The grey wooden supports looked cold, and their angular outlines drew attention to them amongst the rounded forms of the pillars, whereas the red seats and galleries disappeared altogether, or only served as admirable setting and background to the picture. The grand old tombs—Aylmer de Valence, Edmond Crouchback, Anne of Cleves—stood detached from the red, and in front of the altar the mosaic pavement of Henry III. was left exposed—not covered, like the rest of the floor, by red carpeting. Near the altar were two benches on each side—’tabourets’—for queens and princesses in front, kings and princes behind. Farther back stood, on a daïs, the coronation chair, facing the altar, covered and hidden by red, and with the royal robe of state hanging over it and trailing down from the daïs on the side towards us: before it was a fald-stool and kneeling cushion.
“Every moment the vast edifice became more filled with colour, but the peers and peeresses arrived very gradually. Lady Exeter, beautiful still, sat long alone in the marchionesses’ seats, Lord and Lady Cross in the ministerial benches, and two or three duchesses in that appointed for them. Then the Argylls came in, he gorgeous in the uniform of—MacCallum More. Behind I recognised the Spencers, Powerscourts, Stanhopes, Charlie Halifax, and Lord Londonderry with the white ribbon of the Order of St. Patrick. The Lord Chancellor, preceded by mace and bag, now came in and took his place in the centre of the front row, with Lord and Lady Salisbury and the Duchess of Marlborough on his right hand. A figure which attracted more attention than any other was that of Maria, Lady Aylesbury, except her three Cambridge cousins and her two pages, the sole survivor of all those represented in the great picture of the Queen’s coronation.
“At 11.15 a burst of music announced the first procession, and Princess Frederica and the Tecks were conducted to the stalls, with two of the Edinburgh children, and three gorgeous Eastern princes451 to the places immediately below us. Then the Queen of Hawaii, in a black dress covered with green embroidery, and with the famous yellow feathers only allowed to Sandwich Island royalty, was seated just opposite to us, with her princess-sister452 (the heiress of the throne) in black velvet covered with orders, and with a great white ostrich fan:—not together, however, as every one was to sit according to rank, and an intermediate place after queens had to be reserved for the Duchess of Mecklenbourg-Strelitz.
“A long tension of waiting followed, but at twelve a rising of the white-robed choristers in their south-western gallery announced the second procession, and a flood of royalty poured in beneath us. Opposite sat the kings of Greece, Denmark (his father), the very handsome king of the Belgians, whose beard is beginning to turn grey, the king of Saxony, the Crown Princes of Austria, Portugal, Würtemburg, and Sweden, the Duc d’Aosta, and Prince George of Greece—a charming boy in a naval uniform. Beneath us were the Crown Princess of Portugal, Doña Eulalia of Spain, the hereditary Duchess of Mecklenbourg, and Princess Philip of Saxe-Coburg. One of these royal ladies—Doña Eulalia, I think—had a white lace mantilla instead of a bonnet, with very pretty effect. But really one of the finest features of the whole was the coming in of the Queen of the Belgians—so simple, royal, imperial—saluting everybody in comprehensive though slight inclination, infinitely graceful and regal in every attitude.
“At last a blaze of trumpets announced the Queen’s procession. It was headed by canons, the Bishop of London, the two Archbishops in most gorgeous copes, and the Dean of Westminster in a heavy old embroidered cope to his feet, which made him look like a figure risen from one of the old altar-tombs. Then—alone—serene—pale (not red)—beautifully dressed in something between a cap and bonnet of white lace and diamonds, but most becoming to her—perfectly self-possessed, full of the most gracious sweetness, lovely and lovable—the Queen! All the princesses in the choir, with the Queen of the Belgians at their head, curtseyed low as she took her place upon the throne, from which the long robe of state trailed so that it looked part of her dress.
“When she was seated in lonely splendour, the princes poured in upon her right, and the princesses on her left, and took their places on gilt chairs on either side—a little behind. The bevy of granddaughters, in white and pale blue, was very pretty—so many, all curtseying as they passed the Queen, and she smiling most sweetly and engagingly upon them with the most loving and motherly of looks.
“Then came the burst of the ‘Te Deum.’ The silver trumpets at St. Peter’s seemed as nothing to the trumpet-shout which gave effect to the exultant sentences, pealing triumphantly through the arches, and contrasting with the single voices of solitary choristers thrilling alone at intervals—voices far, far away, like the tenderest echo. The Queen did not shed a tear, and held a book all the time, but once sat down as if it was too much for her, and often looked round at the Crown Princess—who stood nearest, very sweet and sympathetic—with a look of ‘What this is to us!’ Princess Beatrice and the Grand Duchess Sergius cried the whole time.
“A striking figure throughout the entire service was the Crown Prince of Germany, especially when kneeling erect like a knight, in jackboots, but with folded hands and a simplicity of unwavering devotion.
“Very solemnly, audibly everywhere, the Archbishop of Canterbury read the prayers—the thanksgiving for all the mercies of the reign, the petition for eternal life. There was another psalm, sung most gloriously, then an anthem with a burst of trumpets in the ‘To be king for the Lord thy God.’ Lastly, the benediction, in which the Queen bent low, lower, lower, as the ‘Amen,’ sung over and over again, died away in vanishing cadences.
“When it was quite silent, in a great hush, she rose up, and a beautiful ray of sunshine shot through the stained windows and laid itself at her feet, and then passed on and gilded the head of the Prince of Wales.
“She beckoned to him afterwards, and he came and kissed her hand, but she kissed him twice most affectionately. Then came the Crown Prince and the Grand Duke of Hesse, who kissed her hands, and then the Duke of Connaught. When the Queen saw him, maternal feelings overcame those of royalty, and she embraced him fervently, and then, evidently fearing that the last two princes might be hurt, she called them back, and kissed them too, and so all the princes, who came in order. She was especially cordial to Prince Albert Victor, and heartily kissed Lord Lorne, who had bent down, as if he did not expect it.
“Meantime the Crown Princess stood by the step of the throne on the other side, and I think the most touching part of the whole was when she bent low to kiss her mother’s hand and was folded in a close embrace, and so all the daughters and the grand-daughters—such a galaxy of graceful girls—bent to kiss the hand, and were kissed in turn.
“Then the Queen went away, bowing all down the choir, and the flood of her youthful descendants ebbed after her.
“I felt I scarcely cared to see the procession afterwards, but it was very fine. How a past age is repeating itself! One sees this in comparing the newspaper accounts of the procession yesterday with the contemporary tracts about the entry of Queen Elizabeth, telling how ‘in all her passage she did show her most gracious love towards the people in general,’ and how the citizens, when they saw her, ‘took such comfort, that with tears they expressed the same.’ I am one of the 400 asked to meet the 100 royalties at the Foreign Office, but cannot manage arranging levée dress properly in time.”
“June 23, 1887.—This is a postscript to my last.
“Nothing could exceed the orderliness, good-nature, and merriment of the immense crowd at the illuminations on the evening of the Jubilee day. I took Letitia Hibbert and her friend Miss Robertson to see the best from Hyde Park, and then along the Green Park, where movement was quite easy, and the effect of the houses bathed in a halo of coloured light very beautiful through the dark massy foliage.
“Yesterday I went at 3 P.M. to Hyde Park. A dense mass of people walled in the vast enclosed space, but all in the utmost good-humour, though many came forward with—‘Oh, do give me your ticket: oh, do now, just for once.’ Inside the outer barrier was a second, within which people walked, and whence they saw. I was indignant at first at not being admitted farther, but when I saw the Archbishop of Canterbury refused, was quite contented to share the fate of the first subject in the realm. However, eventually we were both passed into the immense space where the children were playing, not apparently the least over-done by the hot sun, or tired from having been on the move since 10 A.M., and having been provided, on arriving, with nothing but a bag containing a meat-pie, a bun (they say the buns would have reached from London to Brentford in a direct line), and an orange, with instructions to put the bag in their pockets when done with! Each of the 30,000 children also had a ‘Jubilee mug’ of Doulton ware. Every now and then volleys of tiny coloured balloons were sent up, like flights of bright birds floating away into the soft blue, and, as the royalties arrived, a great yellow balloon, with several people in its car, bore a huge ‘Victoria’ skywards.
“I found my cousin Lady Normanton lost, and stayed with her and a very pleasant ex-governess of Princess May, most indignant at her adored pupil having received no Order out of the numbers distributed. Between half-past four and five life-guards heralded a long procession of carriages, with the Indian princes, the foreign queens and kings, and our own royal family in force. A number of Eastern chieftains were riding six abreast, and very like Bluebeard one or two of them looked. Finally came the Queen, smiling, good and gracious beyond words, and with a wonderful reception everywhere. ‘I have made Socialist speeches for years,’ said one man, ‘and the last two days have shown me how useless they have been, and always must be in this country.’
“As the Queen passed up the green drive by which we were standing, all the 30,000 children sang ‘God save the Queen,’ and a thanksgiving hymn, which I think must have been, not for their tea (for they never had any), but for hers, which I hope she enjoyed out of the great fourgons we saw arriving, and must much have needed. All the royal ladies’-maids and other servants also passed by in carriages on their way to the station, by the Queen’s wish, that they should share in the sight.
“Having escorted Lady Normanton to the safe solitudes of Wilton Place, I rushed off to Windsor, arriving at nine. Certainly the grandeur of the London illuminations paled before the intense picturesqueness of those in the old royal city. I had no time to go to Eton, where the Queen had entered—like Queen Elizabeth—under an arch on the battlements of which Eton boys were lustily trumpeting. But the bridge, brilliant in electric light, also ended in an arch, kept dark itself, beyond which every house in the steep, sharply-winding street was seen adorned with its own varied devices of coloured light, from basement to attics, whilst the walls were hung with scarlet draperies, and brilliant banners of scarlet and gold waved across the roadway.
“I stayed on the bridge to see the thousand Eton boys cross, marching in detachments, with white and blue uniforms alternately, carrying their (then unlighted) torches, and then went after them to the castle, where I was one of the few admitted, and pushed on at once to the inner court under the Queen’s apartments.
“Most unspeakably weird, picturesque, inspiring, beautiful, and glorious was the sight, when, with a burst of drums and trumpets, the wonderful procession emerged under the old gate of Edward III., headed by a detachment of the Blues, then the boys, six abreast, carrying lighted torches, till hundreds upon hundreds had filed in, singing splendidly ‘God save the Queen.’ All the bigger boys formed into figures of blazing light in the great court, weaving designs of light in their march—‘Welcome,’ ‘Victoria,’ &c., in radiant blaze of moving living illumination; whilst the little boys, each carrying a coloured Chinese lantern on a wand, ascended in winding chains of light the staircases on the steep hill of the Round Tower opposite the Queen’s window, till the slope was covered with brilliancy and colour. The little boys sang very sweetly in the still night their song of welcome, and then all the mass of the boys below, raising their flaming torches high into the air, shouted with their whole hearts and lungs, ‘Rule Britannia!’
“It was an unspeakably transporting scene, and I am sure that the beloved figure in the white cap seated in the wide-open central window felt it so, and was most deeply moved by the sight and sound of so much loyal and youthful chivalry.
“Then, in a great hush, she almost astonished them by leaving her place and suddenly reappearing in the open air in the courtyard amongst them, and making them a queenly and tender little speech in her clear beautiful voice—‘I do thank you so very very much,’ &c.
“You may imagine the hurrahs which followed, the frantic emotion and applause whilst she called up and spoke to Lord Ampthill and one or two other boys whose parents had been especial friends.
“And then, in figures of light from their torches, as she reappeared at the window, the vast assembly formed the word ‘Good-night.’ Nothing could possibly have been more picturesquely pretty.
“Immediately afterwards the whole of the great central tower was flooded with red light, which seemed to turn it into blood, and I went with J. Dundas to the North Terrace, whence we looked down upon the fireworks—fire-fountains, comets, cascades of golden, sapphire, and amethyst rain.
“It was 2 A.M. when I got back to London, but well worth the fatigue.”
London Journal.
“June 23, 1887.—Sat at breakfast by Sir George Dasent. ‘Did you ever know,’ he said, ‘the late old Bengal tiger at Asbburnham?453 He asked me down there, and when I went he said, “You are here, sir, under false pretences. I have discovered that you are a member, sir, of that most disreputable society called the ‘Historic MSS. Commission:’ they are a society of ruffians, sir.”—“Surely, Lord Ashburnham, a great many eminent persons are members of that society,—Lord Salisbury, for instance, surely he is not a ruffian.”—“Yes, sir, he is a ruffian when he is acting for that society: and you, sir, you are a ruffian too—you tamper with title-deeds, sir,” and it was quite in vain to assure him that our society had no interest whatever in title-deeds of the last hundred years.
“‘I told Lady Ashburnham what he said, and she answered, “You must not mind: he is the most kind-hearted of men, but he has—his savage moments!”
“‘Afterwards he was very kind to me, and showed me all his treasures, especially his glorious Anglo-Saxon MSS.
“‘When I was at Hornby, I went up with the present Duchess of Leeds into a tower into which a former Duchess had carried a quantity of books, because, she said, “there were enough downstairs.” They had been taken up at haphazard, and some of them were of extraordinary value: there were wonderful editions of Aretino there, excessively improper, but nobody could read them. The tower had been open to the bats and owls, and when we took out the books, many of them were matted together in one solid mass: they bore the name of Hewit Osborne, the apprentice who jumped from London Bridge to save the life of his master’s daughter, and, afterwards marrying her, founded the family; he was a great Italian scholar.’”
“July 1.—Sir G. Dasent says that the late Queen of Sweden said to him that she could not imagine how it was that her eldest son had done all he could to alienate the affections of his people, and was adored, and the second all he could to conciliate them, and was detested. The eldest (the late King) was a Hercules. ‘His Majesty will rise at 3 A.M. to-morrow and will ride thirty miles (to Gripsholm), and wishes you to accompany him,’ was a frequent announcement to guests and courtiers; and when they reached Gripsholm, all was prepared for a great elk-hunt, and when that was finished, and they were gasping for rest, came the announcement, ‘His Majesty will rise at 2 A.M. to-morrow, and will ride forty miles,’ &c.
“Luncheon with Lady Stradbroke, who told me that as she was walking up Grosvenor Crescent during the illuminations, a group of country people were inspecting the devices. ‘Ah!’ she heard one of them explain, ‘V. R.—that’s for very respectable.’”
“July 3.—Yesterday was very hot—a hotter scirocco, said Roman Mr. Story, than any he had felt in Italy. There was a great volunteer review, which brought the usual picturesque procession of the Queen, with her glittering life-guards, through the Park.
“On Friday I went with Florentia Hughes to a great garden-party of the Baroness Coutts at Holly Lodge—a most lovely place, with steep hilly gardens and splendid herbaceous flowers.”
“July 6.—Yesterday I went with the Indian princes by special train to Woburn. Everything was arranged en grand seigneur—nothing to be paid anywhere—a train with saloon carriages, in which we floated into Bedfordshire without stopping, and thirty-two carriages, beautifully equipped, sent to meet us at the station. In one of these I drove through the lanes lined with dog-roses with Lord Normanby and Miss Grosvenor. ‘I am always mistaken for Princess Mary, so must keep up her character,’ said the latter, and bowed incessantly, right and left, to the village crowds, who were quite delighted with her. We had a long wait before luncheon, Europe and Asia separated by a great gulf which no one seemed able to bridge over. Lady Tavistock did her best, but the party hung fire, and, though a magnificent banquet, with all the gold plate displayed, took part of the time, there was not much to animate us, and we lounged on the lawn, tried to be agreeable and were not, and admired the beautiful Indians, with their gorgeous dresses and languid eyes, till another chain of carriages took us back through the Ampthill woods to another station.”
“July 7.—Miss Holford was married this afternoon to Mr. Benson at St. George’s before an immense crowd. There was a great breakfast afterwards—though so late—at Dorchester House, where all London flocked through the rooms to admire the presents, which were indescribably splendid. The scene on the beautiful white marble staircase was charming, especially when the bride went away, her father and mother leading her down on either side, and all the tiny bridesmaids and pages—nieces and nephews between six and seven—gambolling in front, with huge baskets of dark red roses. Above, under the circular arches, between the pillars of coloured marbles, and against a golden wall background, the overhanging galleries were filled with all the most beautiful women in London leaning over the balustrades.
“Dined at the Speaker’s—lovely lights sparkling along the shore, and the splash of the river and distant hum only making one feel more the silence of night. We sat out upon the haunted terrace afterwards—such stars, and a moon rising behind the towers of Lambeth.”
To Louisa, Marchioness of Waterford.
“June 30.—On Saturday I went to Osterley, meeting beautiful Lady Katherine Vane454 with her brother and sister at the Victoria Station, and going down with them. Troops of people emerged from the train close to the gate in the park wall, and we all flocked together along the gravel walks through the hot meadows to the house, where the shade was very refreshing. Lady Jersey was receiving under the portico, and groups of Indian princes with their interpreters were busy over strawberries and cream in the corners of the great stone hall. I went, with several people who had an equally tender remembrance of the kind old Duchess of Cleveland, who lived there so long, to visit the little library where she always sat in winter—quite deserted now, and all the books sold—and then joined the many groups of people on the lawns and the green glade which ends in a porticoed summer-house like a Claude-Lorraine picture. Others went in a boat upon the lake. The Jerseys pressed me to stay to dinner with Lord and Lady Muncaster; so Lady M. and I both got a volume of a very dull novel, over which we had a pleasant rest when all the crowd were gone. Never were such airy people as the Jerseys, a line of six windows open on one side and two doors on the other all dinner-time. Lady Hilda Brodrick and one of Lady Jersey’s brothers were my neighbours, and very pleasant.
“On Sunday I had luncheon at Lord Breadalbane’s, to have a quiet sight of my Prince. It is a wonderful house—deeply coved ceilings with frescoes like those in an old Venetian palace, and wide spaces round the outside planted with groves of plane-trees. The Breadalbanes have thought it worth while to make a new dining-room (though sacrificing two old ceilings), as they have taken all the rest of the lease, after which the house reverts (it is Harcourt House) to the Harcourts of Nuneham. The Duchess of Roxburgh, an Indian prince, and several other ladies dropped in, so there were three tables for luncheon. In the middle, Lady Breadalbane455 got up and went round to each table, almost to each guest, to see that they had all they could possibly want, and to say the pleasantest things to them in the prettiest way: she certainly is a queen of hostesses. Afterwards my Prince came to me, and we walked up and down upon the terrace. He was most affectionate, as he always is when we meet, and talked of all people and things as if we had never parted, but reproached me much with never coming to him in Norway, urging very much that I should write at any time, or even telegraph that I was coming for any length of stay. Some day, when I am free from my French work, I will go. He evidently wished that I should say something to Lady Breadalbane of the great difference her excessive kindness had made during all this visit to England, so I was very glad to do so. ‘We have done our best,’ she said, ‘and I am very glad it has gone off so well; but it has not been my doing, but all owing to those who have helped me.’ The Indian had brought a suit of flannels with him in a carpet-bag, and changed into them, and when my Prince went to get ready to play at tennis with him, I came away.
“On Monday (27th) we had our large drawing-party down the river. Meeting at Westminster Bridge, we all took tickets to ‘Cherry-Tree Yard’ at Rotherhithe. Just as we were going to embark, the ticket-man very good-naturedly emerged, and coming to me said, ‘I do not know if you are aware, sir, that you are taking all these ladies into a most rough and dangerous part of London.’ I said we were only going to draw at the wharf, when he was satisfied. But when we arrived, they would not let us stay on the wharf. A man said, ‘I know of a most respectable public-house where you can go: all the artists draw from thence.’ And there we all sat, in great shade and comfort, under a wide verandah, directly overhanging the river and overlooking the Pool, with all the fine shipping which comes up to that picturesque reach of the Thames—‘Dutch Crawls’ inclusive.
“I dined with the Eustace Cecils, meeting, amongst others, Professor and Mrs. Flower, of whom the former was holding Arthur Stanley’s hand when he died.
“At a quarter to five yesterday I went to Buckingham Palace—no string, no crowd, no difficulty. By my ticket I had to enter through the hall and rooms beyond it—the most picturesque way. The terrace was already full of people, but the space is so vast there never could be a crowd, and the scene was beautiful, looking down upon the sunlit lawns, the lake and fountain, and the thousands of gaily-dressed people—the splendid uniforms and lustrous robes and sparkling jewels of the Indians glistening amongst them. It was impossible to find any one one looked for, but one came upon hundreds of unexpected friends. Very few young men seemed to have been asked, but there were galaxies of pretty girls. One ancient Indian chief in white, with a flowing beard and a robe of cloth of gold over his shoulders, was told he might salute the Queen. He said he must do it after his fashion, which was to wipe the dust from her feet with his handkerchief, and then kiss it.
“The beloved Queen, though very hot and tired (she had been before to revisit her birthplace at Kensington), looked very sweet and smiling, and walked indefatigably from side to side of the long avenues of people, shaking hands with different ladies. There was the usual procession of princes and princesses, including the white-haired Duchess of Mecklenbourg and the ever-pretty group of Hesse princesses. The Princess Beatrice’s baby assisted at the party in her perambulator, pushed by a nurse in white. A good deal of my time was taken up by the Duchess of Cleveland insisting that she could have no refreshment but lemonade, and that being quite a quarter of a mile off; but I could not get it after all, through people ten deep in the refreshment tents. Some of the guests were rowed by the Queen’s boatmen in their gorgeous mediaeval costume upon the lake, with very pretty effect. The palace is very handsome on the garden side.”
“July 8, 1887.—I made rather friends at the Speaker’s with his eldest boy, Willie Peel, and walked about with him on the terrace. He is in all the first flush of people-seeing, and thinks everybody full of originality; yet how few ever say more than something they have heard or read long ago, and dug up out of some remote corner of their brain. He is, however, delightful, and being evidently ambitious, will some day be very distinguished, I should think.
“How often one wishes one could enter society again, with one’s past conversation like a white page, that where one could not say good of any one, one had always kept silence. I sympathise with General Gordon saying that one reason why he never desired to enter social life was the very great difficulty of knowing people and not discussing others.”
“July 9.—At Lambeth garden-party I sat with ——, whose marriage, an admirable one, was quelched by worldly motives on the other side, sadly, long ago. She spoke of the married happiness of her brilliant and popular namesake ‘Yes, life for her is always delightful now; but I—but I!’—‘Where do you live?’—‘I don’t live, I exist.’
“I sat at dinner by Lady C, a very singular religious ‘talker,’ who plunged at once into—‘I trust you are interested in the good work.’—‘What good work?’—‘Raising the classes,’ and so on, and so on, endless well-meant nonsense, in very grand expressions, till I longed to say to her, and did, in other words, what Madame de Sévigné said to some one, ‘Thicken me your religion a little; it is evaporating altogether by being subtilised.’ I tried to dwell upon the really higher life (for she had talked of her own neglected education), of teaching herself first as much as possible, that she might help herself to teach her young son. I suppose that, for her, would be the higher life. How much, in this generation, ’religious people’ are apt to forget John Wyckliff’s motto, ‘He who liveth best, prayeth best.’”
“Sunday, July 10.—Sat in the afternoon in the garden at Lowther Lodge, seeing a long diorama of people drop in and have tea.
“Afterwards I ascended the great brick mansions close by to see Mrs. Procter (Barry Cornwall’s widow), who is not the least aged in mind, and apparently not in body. People thought she would be broken by her daughter’s death; but constitutions, especially of the old, seldom take any notice of heart-blows, though there is something touching in the way she speaks of her lost daughters as ‘my Edith,’ ‘my Adelaide.’ People call her ‘Our Lady of Bitterness,’ but her words have no touch of sharpness. No one is more agreeable still: no one has more boundless conversational powers: indeed, she often says of herself that ‘talking is meat, drink, and clothing’ to her. Her sense of humour is exquisite; she never speaks bad grammar herself, so she can never tolerate it in others. She wears a front of blonde cendré, and boldly speaks of it as a wig. Mr. Browning came in, and they were most amusing together. ‘My wife thought you would not perhaps like to meet Mr. Labouchere, Mrs. Procter?’ said Mr. Thompson of the Pall Mall Gazette, rather interrogatively. ‘Your wife was quite right: had I found, on coming to dine with you, that Mr. Labouchere was expected, I should have been compelled to ask you at once to call me a cab.’—‘Ah! Labby, Labby!—Hie, cabby, cabby!!’ cried Mr. Browning in the quaintest way.456 Mr. Browning goes to see Mrs. Procter every Sunday afternoon, giving up all else for it.
“Mrs. Procter has the almost lost art of conversation in the fullest degree. Lord Houghton recollects how she was asked to meet Macaulay at one of Rogers’ breakfasts. Afterwards she said to Rogers, ‘But where was Macaulay?’—‘Why, he sat opposite to you!’—‘Was that him? Why, I always heard he was such a tremendous talker.’—‘So he is,’ said Rogers; ’but you see I talked so much myself, I only left one opening, and that you took.’”
“July 11.—Dined with the Seymour Hughes’s, where General Higginson was full of indignation about the mismanagement of royal invitations—that it was impossible for the Lord Chamberlain to do it alone, but that he might have a committee—three or four men of the Kenneth Howard kind—who would see that the right people were asked. The Prince of Wales had said to one lady, ‘I did not see you at the garden-party,’ and she had answered, ‘No, I was not asked; but my dressmaker was.’”
“July 15.—Dined with Mrs. Portman—a very large party. She told me that, close to her country-house, a labourer had watched some boys bathing, and thought how delightful was the way in which they dived, floated, &c., and, though he could not swim, he determined that, on the very first chance, he would enjoy the same amusement. Soon after, he was sent to cut rushes with two other men. When his work was finished, he remembered his wish, and did not even wait to undress, but, pulling off his boots, jumped into the water with his clothes on. Soon he got into a hole and began to sink. He called for help, and another of the men jumped in, and was sucked into the hole also, and so the third. Mr. Fitzhardinge Portman came up when it was all over, and said, ‘I will ride on and break it to Mrs. W.,’ the wife of one of the men. As he reached the cottage, Mrs. W. came out to meet him and said, ‘I know what you have come to tell me, sir. Poor W. is dead.’—‘How can you know it?’—‘Why, sir, just now my little girl came running in all awestruck, and said that she had met a figure all in white in the wood-path down which she always ran to meet her father; and then I knew it was a warning.’
“There was a beautiful ball at Lowther Lodge—the Princess Christian there and the garden illuminated, and looking, in that dress, as big as the Green Park. I sat out with Lady Strathmore, full of all the discomforts of a great inheritance—such endless details to be filled up: such endless new responsibilities; and just what seems the wrong things always left away.
“I heard such a charming story of little Jane Smith the other day. Her nurse told her to say her prayers. She wouldn’t; she said God wouldn’t expect her to. ‘But He always expects it,’ said the nurse. ‘No, He doesn’t,’ replied little Jane, ‘for I told Him the other day I couldn’t say them, I was so sleepy, and He said, ‘Don’t mention it, Miss Smith.’”
“July 15.—Rain on St. Swithin’s Day. Lady Lyndhurst says, ‘Do you know that he was three times Lord Chancellor of England, and that the only man who has filled that office three times since was my lord.’
“Went to see Mrs. Ross,457 a breeze from Castagnuolo in London. She was full of the enchantment of a visit to Lacaita at Leucaspide, and of a tour she had made to Otranto; to Lecce, where all the professors had met to receive ‘una donna molta istruita’ at the museum, where she had not known anything whatever of the subjects they discoursed upon, but, by judicious silence and an occasional ‘si,’ had now the highest opinions; to Manfredonia, where the inn is now kept by one Don Michele, to whom the would-be sojourners have to be formally presented, when he accepts or rejects them, with ‘mi piace’ or ‘non mi piace.’ On one of these excursions she heard the sound of an instrument hitherto unknown to her from a hollow below the road, and going down, found a boy playing on a long pipe of birch-bark. ‘Cosa è questo?’—‘Il fischio della primavera;’ and she bought it for ten centimes—the sweetest of music and of instruments; but it only lasts a week, and can only be obtained with the spring.
“Afterwards I sat with Miss Seymour, who talked of the political state of France, and of Kisseloff saying, ‘Ils se croient toujours malades quand ils n’ont pas la fièvre.’
“Then to Mrs. Liddell (of Christ-Church). Princess Christian had just been there for a committee for women’s work. Mrs. Liddell said she went about immensely amongst the poor of Windsor, and had a district. Once, when she went for a month to Berlin, she said to one of her poor women that she was going away, but that she would be well looked after, as she had got some one to take her place. ‘Yes, but it will not be the same to me; for I shall have no one to tell my troubles to.’
“Mrs. Liddell had some capital oil-portraits. She asked who I thought they were by. I supposed by young Richmond. ‘No; by my daughter Violet.’”
“July 16.—Luncheon with Lady Knightley and then to Osterley—a soft warm day; the flowers, from the long drought, quite magnificent under the dark cedars by the lake.
‘Look how the roses
Hold up their noses,’
said old Lord Ebury, with whom I walked about, and who begged Miss Grosvenor not to leave him till she had found him an innamorata; which she eventually did in the person of Lady Balfour of Burleigh, very pretty in her attentions to the old man. Then the Duchess of Mecklenbourg came, and also sat under the trees. Lady Wynford brought Mr. Graham Vivian and me home, and I went to a Cinderella ball at Lady Guinness’s—quite splendid; and though it began at ten and ended at twelve, very crowded and successful, showing that the introduction of an earlier hour for balls would be perfectly easy.”
“July 17.—Met Mr. Reeve, the editor of the Quarterly. Mr. Tedder reminded me of Mark Pattison’s speaking (in the Academy) of ‘those old three-deckers—the Edinburgh and the Quarterly; the latter of which sets to sea under the guidance, apparently, of the Ancient Mariner.’
“I had luncheon yesterday with Mrs. Cyril Flower, the most amusingly decided of women, and met young Lady Wenlock, pining to return to India, where she enjoyed so much the languid life, or rather, as she called it, the time for thought which the heat gave her.
“A most pleasant dinner at Charlie Balfour’s, meeting a group of real friends—Guy Sebright and his nice wife, Basil Levett and his sweet Lady Margaret, and Sir John Maxwell, who is most simple, clever, and pleasant,—delightful to be with. Minnie Balfour was full of Mrs. Slingsby, whose curious old house in Yorkshire is so strangely haunted. One hot night, very late, when her husband was away, Mrs. Slingsby sat out on the terrace, and below her, in the park, saw the most brilliant light apparently burning on the grass. She went down to it, reached it, and it disappeared. Exactly that day year, she watched for it and saw it again. That time she went behind it, and saw it between herself and the house.
“Lady Heathcote Amaury, whom I took down to dinner, said, ‘You know young Lady Onslow was a daughter of Lord Gardner. She told me that her father rented a place called Chilton from Colonel ——. When he took it, Colonel —— said, “As you are taking the place for some time, I think perhaps it is my duty to tell you that the state bedroom is haunted. A young ancestor of mine, dressed in a blue coat and breeches, with a rose in his button-hole, comes in, arranges his hair at the mirror, looks at the occupant of the room, throws up the window, and vanishes through it. He does nobody any harm, and is excessively pleasant-looking, still I ought not to let you take the place without telling you.”
“‘Lord Gardner said he did not care a bit; but the state bedroom had very remarkable furniture,—a magnificent bed with curtains looped up by gilt cherubs, and, after Lady Gardner heard the story, she got leave to change the furniture, and the old hangings were carefully put away, and modern furniture used instead.
“‘Soon after some cousins of Lord Gardner, two ladies belonging to the elder branch of the family, came from Scotland to stay, and were put into that room. When they came down next morning, Lord Gardner asked the elder if she had rested well after her journey. She answered, “Yes, indeed, and I have had the most delightful dream: I dreamt that the room I was in was furnished in the most beautiful way, with gilt cupids, hangings, &c.,—and really what I dreamt was so charming that I longed for you some time to be able to furnish the room just in that way. And then—I seemed to be awake, but of course I could not have been—I saw a young man of most beautiful countenance come into the room, dressed in a blue coat, &c., which was quite in keeping with the room, and he went up to the glass and arranged his hair, then he looked at me with a charming expression upon his face, but just when he seemed going to speak, and I was longing to know what he would say, he threw open the window, and disappeared through it.”
“‘Lady Onslow said, “You may imagine the breathless interest with which we listened.”’
“July 17.—Supper at the Miss Hollands’. Met Mr. Turner, rather a remarkable American. The sight of white roses made him say, ‘A white rose comes home to me, Miss Holland, and I will tell you why. Many years ago, in Philadelphia, I met a party of cousins, and we all spent the evening together. A young cousin of mine—very pretty—was there, who was lately married, and I was very glad to see her, and we talked much together—so much together all evening that it was a matter of comment—of foolish comment. When we parted, she gave me a white rose, and she said, “You must keep that rose as long as we live.” I took the rose home and pressed it. From time to time I heard from her afterwards, but I never saw her, and I forgot the rose. Long afterwards I was in Philadelphia again, and in the evening, opening a book, something fell out on the floor: it was the white rose. I felt it an omen, and I said to myself, “It is long since I heard of her; something has happened. I will just go round to Uncle Joe’s and inquire.” I went, and found that Uncle Joe knew nothing; but whilst I was there the news arrived that she was dead.
“‘The white rose, when it fell, had told me that already.
“‘I believe in such things. I possess a looking-glass that I have long had in my keeping. One day, there seemed no reason why, I saw it slide from the table: it fell. The corner was broken off. I had it mended. Almost immediately a cable was brought in announcing the death of a near relation. Some time after it fell again. The other corner was broken off. I said, “What is going to happen now?” The next day I heard of the deaths of three intimate friends. So I said, “It will never do to go on like this,” and I had the glass sawn down, and so framed and padded with india-rubber at the back, that, if it fell, it was scarcely possible it could be broken. Well, that—stopped it.’
“Mr. Turner gave a very curious account of the early state of many American settlements—that the rivers or any running stream generally marked the track for civilisation. It was easier to make a path along them than anywhere else; a road followed, eventually a railway. Along one of these tracks, many years ago, came annually a venerable old man. People expected him—watched for his coming. He always came from the east, and he was never observed to return: yet he came again from the east in the following year. He was a kind of primitive missionary, bringing Bibles, which he cut up, leaving parts in the different houses he passed. Thus he would leave the Gospel of St. John one year, and the next would call for it, and leave the Acts in its place. He had a pocket-full of apple-seed, and wherever he stopped in the middle of the day, he made a hole with his stick, and dropped one of his seeds into it. People called him ‘Old John Apple-seed.’ Mr. Turner had seen many fine apple-trees along the banks of streams, of which it was remembered that they were planted by old John Apple-seed.
“Mr. Turner described how primitive many of the early lines of railway were, made at the rate of three miles a week. At Harrisburg several of these lines met, and it was a very dangerous point. A poor half-witted man found his vocation in life by joining trains at this point, and running in front screaming, ‘The engine is coming: the engine is coming.’ And thus he would run for miles, keeping just in front of the train, and if he saw a child, would seize it and throw it out of the way, and would often seize a woman by the shoulder, and would almost lift her off the line; but at last, after many years, whilst saving another, he was killed himself.”
“July 18.—A party at Lady Bantry’s, where Lady Helen Stewart recited a poem much like the above story. Dined with the Grants. Old Lady Frances Higginson458 frightened a mincing curate out of his life who said to her, ‘Will you take some potatoes?’ by saying in her most abrupt way, ‘God bless my soul, aren’t you going to give me some?’”
“July 20.—At luncheon at the Higginsons’, I met the Storys from Rome, very happy in London, but ‘it is surely a bad arrangement of Nature,’ he said, ‘that one should have so many coats and only one body. I should like to have several—a body to work with; and a young smart body to go into society with; and the old body, which always sleeps so well, to go to bed with.’
“At luncheon at Lady Airlie’s I met Henry Cowper,459 Mr. Morley, Lady Tweeddale, and Miss Betty Ponsonby. Henry Cowper talked of the friendship between Bright and Tuke. They had always been intimate. Then they loved the same woman. In his great friendship Tuke gave way, and the lady became the first Mrs. John Bright. Afterwards they were greater friends, and saw more of each other than ever: Bright would do anything for Tuke. But the conversation was chiefly about Gladstone, giving instances of his marvellous personal charm—of his way of telling things, bearing out Goethe’s words—
‘Märchen! doch so wunderbar,
Dichterkünster machen’s wahr.’
“Tea with Mrs. Ford—always interesting. She talked much of Dr. Morell Mackenzie—well known to her. When he arrived at Berlin, he found six great doctors waiting for him at the palace. They took him to a room filled with knives, &c. ‘What are these for?’—‘For your choice in operating upon the Crown Prince.’—‘But I can only operate upon him in one way, that is my own;’ and he explained it. Four of the doctors agreed with what he said, two violently opposed it. He was taken at once to Bismarck, who said, ‘Do not consult me: ask me as many questions as you like about la haute politique, but about this I can say nothing.’ Then he was taken to the Emperor, to whom he explained his views. The Emperor listened to all, and then only said quietly—turning to those who were with him—‘Let the Englishman act.’ He then went at once to the Crown Prince. He performed the operation with his own forceps, steeped in cocotine, which deadens, absolutely paralyses the throat, and seizing the wart, dragged—not cut—it out. It seemed like a terrible responsibility for England, as if the life of the Crown Prince was in its hands.
“Mr. Browning described how he had been asked to dinner by two elderly ladies—sisters. He did not know them, but it was very kind of them to ask him, and he went. He met a very singular party at their house—Gladstone, Mrs. Thistlethwayte, and others. Going down to dinner, the lady who fell to his share suddenly said to him, ‘You are a poet, aren’t you?’—‘Well, people are sometimes kind enough to say that I am.’—‘Oh, don’t mind my having mentioned it: you know Lord Byron was a poet!’
“Browning is unlike Tennyson; he does not write from inspiration, but by power of work. He says he sets himself a certain number of lines to write in a day, and he writes them. Sometimes he says, ‘To-morrow morning I will write a sonnet; and he writes it. Nevertheless he is always greater in aspiration than achievement. Mr. Carlyle could not bear his poems. ‘What did the fellow mean by leaving that cart-load of stones at my door?’ he said to Alfred Tennyson when Browning left one of his poems there.
“London is now always asking itself ‘What is the cause of this long drought?’—‘Because we have had fifty years’ rain (reign).’
“Went to the Halifax’s in the evening to meet the Indian princes, and then to Lady Lamington’s party, made exceedingly pretty by its arcaded garden on the roof.”
“Langleybury, August 2.—I am staying with Harry Loyd, who at twenty-six is certainly as near perfection as any one can possibly be in every relation of life—son, brother, friend, landlord, county magnate. His mother and four sisters live with him, and their hospitalities are boundless.”
“August 28.—Little Holmhurst has been full of summer guests—gentle Lady Donoughmore and Lady Margaret Hamilton, Lady Airlie and Lady Griselda Ogilvie, Basil Levett and his Lady Margaret, Lady Sherborne, and lastly George Jolliffe and Lady Bloomfield, the latter a constant ripple of interesting anecdote.”
“Tatton Park, Sept. 2, 1887.—The large party in this large pleasant hospitable house has included the Archbishop of Canterbury and Mrs. Benson, with their daughter—the ‘modest philosopher,’ as Miss Egerton aptly calls her. We have been to Manchester to see the exhibition of all the works of artists of Victoria’s reign—a very fine collection, from the vapid works of Etty and the hard commonplaceness of the earlier Landseers to the noble ‘Christ or Diana’ of Long, which struck most of us as the grandest and most expressive work amongst such multitudes. There is a curious contrast between the last and this Lady Egerton, who cannot enjoy life enough herself, or contribute enough to making it enjoyable for others.
“We have just been across the park to the old Hall, where a fine timber roof remains, very richly carved; and we have driven to Tabley and its old isleted hall in the lake, so mysteriously beautiful, which the family abandoned two hundred and fifty years ago, leaving all its contents in the deserted house, so that you still see the open spinnet with the mouldering keys, the lace half worked on the cushion, the flax half spun on the distaff in the little low rooms, with their carved furniture and fireplaces, opening, in two stories, around the great timbered hall.
“Raglan Somerset is here, unspeakably funny, so décousu in his conversation, which never stops for an instant. I like also Lord and Lady Rayleigh: he is learned, but perfectly simple, and she, née Balfour, is thoroughly pleasant and unsophisticated. Miss Mary Egerton, very handsome, with her grey hair and youthful animated countenance, is a delightful addition to the party. But the great, the real pleasure to me, has been finding Derek Keppel (Lord Bury’s second son and brother-in-law of the only daughter of the house) almost domesticated here: I like him so very much, certainly better than any one I know in the same degree. It is Sunday, and we have been to the new church at Aston, built by Lord and Lady Egerton without an architect, and so pleasant to look upon inside that an old man said, ‘Why, sir, one can be cheerful in it, even when one is saying one’s prayers.’”
“Woodlands, Glassbury, Sept. 7.—I came here through the lovely Church Stretton country, stopping at picturesque Shrewsbury on the way to stay with the Bishop of Lichfield and Augusta. Yesterday we went by rail through the beautiful but drippingly wet valleys to visit the Venables near Builth. Our host was the well-known and severe critic in the Saturday—a pleasant old man to visitors, but evidently awful to the younger members of his family.
“Augusta had many interesting reminiscences of Lord Beaconsfield. One day, at luncheon, she offered him the mustard. ‘I never take mustard,’ he replied in his sepulchral voice. ‘Oh, don’t you?’ she said airily. ‘No,’ he continued in solemnest tones. ‘There are three things I have never used: I have never touched mustard; I have never had a watch; and I have never made use of an umbrella.’—‘Well,’ said Augusta, ‘I can understand the mustard—that is a mere matter of taste; but surely going without the other things must have been sometimes rather inconvenient.’—’And why should I want them?’ continued Disraeli more sepulchrally than ever. ‘I live under the shadow of Big Ben, and there is a clock in every room of the House of Commons, so that I cannot possibly require a watch; and as I always go about in a close carriage, I can never want an umbrella.’ Disraeli was always full of these small affectations.”
“Woodlands, Sept. 8.—This is a charming visit, and the place is delightful—close to the glistening Wye, with green hills—‘mountains’ in Welsh—folding around, exquisite in the soft haze of early morning.
“Augusta has been giving an interesting account of Champlatreux in France, belonging to the Duc d’Ayen, a representative of the De Noailles family. In the château is preserved the precious volume of the ‘Imitation of Christ,’ which the young Duchesse de Noailles used in the prison of the Luxembourg, where she devoted herself to keeping up the courage of her mother-in-law and daughter. When the three generations of the House of Noailles were summoned together to the scaffold, the Duchesse was reading aloud to her fellow-prisoners from the chapter of the ‘Chemin de la Croix.’ She turned down the page at that point and gave the book to one of her companions in prison, begging her, if she ever escaped, to convey it, as a memorial, to the De Noailles family.”
“Sept. 10.—Two pleasant days with Graham Loyd in his charming cottage at Sketty near Swansea, and a great cementing of friendship with him. The first day he took me by a terrible path overhanging an unprotected chasm opposite the Mumbles. All the population of Swansea seem to pour out to drink in the neighbourhood of the Mumbles. ‘You want to close the public-houses at Swansea, that men may get drunk at the Mumbles,’ said Judge Bradwin, in opposing the Sunday-closing movement. At the same time he said that he did not see any more reason why men should call beer a ‘pernicious liquor’ than that they should call water a ‘drowning fluid.’
“We have been to luncheon at Clyne, where Graham Vivian has an unkempt but beautiful place, full of fine Italian treasures, and have dined at Singleton with Lady Hussey Vivian.460 Besides this, we have had a wonderful drive, by heath, sandhill, and precipice, through the strange district of Gower, where all the houses are whitewashed, and where there are constant wrecks on the rock-girt coast, though a great bell tolls eerily through the night on a sandbank, with the waves for its ringers.”
“Sept. 12.—Two days at the Deanery at Llandaff, where family furniture and pictures—familiar from Alderley, Norwich, Canterbury, Oxford days—give a homelike aspect.
“Kate said that when she was in Madeira last year, a Mr. Husband, a dentist from Hull, was staying in the same hotel. She had heard that he had seen a ghost there, and she asked him about it. It was only on being very much pressed that he told how that one night, when he was in his bed in the hotel, a young man in lawn-tennis dress came in, stood at the foot of the bed, and pointed with his finger at the pillow. Mr. H. was not frightened, only annoyed, and asked the young man what he wanted. He did not speak, and continued to point at the pillow. At last Mr. Husband was so irritated that he said, ‘Well, if you will neither speak nor go away, take that,’ and dealt him a blow, but his hand only seemed to sink into cold icy vapour, and the apparition vanished.
“Next day Mr. Husband told the landlord of the hotel what had happened, when he said, ‘Your story is very extraordinary, because a young man, who was staying here for some time, and was treated by a doctor for a very slight ailment, died in that bed under very suspicious circumstances; and, as long as he was about, that young man was never seen out of lawn-tennis dress.’
“Afterwards Mr. Husband heard of that young Mr. Hyndeman from other people in Madeira. They remembered him perfectly. He was very silent and shunned all society, and he was never out of lawn-tennis dress.”
“Sept. 16.—A happy visit at cheerful merry Hardwick, which unites the charms of an interesting house, of exquisite gardens, and most varied and amusing society. There is a curious picture there of Elizabeth Drury reclining on her side with her hand under her head, which perhaps led to the story that she died of a box on the ear. She was a great friend of Wotton and of Donne, who wrote verses to her, and also her epitaph.”
“Sept. 19.—A visit to the Ordes at Hopton, in the flat marshy country near Yarmouth—a happy united family, with a very beautiful eldest daughter, Evelyn. Hopton village is the Blunderstone of ‘David Copperfield.’ Charlie Orde took me to Caister, the grandest fragment of a castle I ever saw—so very lofty a tower rising abruptly from the edge of a very wide moat. On Sunday we saw the great low-lying lake of Flitton, which belongs to one of the Buxtons.”
To Miss Leycester.
“Sept. 22.—On Monday I went to Sculthorpe, near Fakenham, where I saw the site of the old manor-house, part of the property which came to Bishop Hare through his marriage with Mary-Margaret Alston. It has the odd name of Hos Tendis. Only the foundation-walls exist now, with remains of the moat, overhung with old apple-trees. The church is a very fine one, and the existing manor-house, Cranmer, is an exceedingly handsome, pleasant house inside. Sir Laurence Jones, who lives there, had brought out quantities of old Hare and Alston deeds to show me: it was odd to see them there, but they had been sold with the property.
“My kind host, the Rector, Herbert Jones, the squire’s uncle, was the picture of old-fashioned courtesy. His wife, a Gurney, sister of Mrs. Orde at Hopton, is well known for her archaeological writings. They took me, with their niece Miss Laura Troubridge and her betrothed, Adrian Hope, to the beautiful old brick and terra-cotta house of Wolterton, with a very fine gateway.
“Yesterday we went to Houghton, in a well-timbered park—a house full of stately magnificence. The present Lord Cholmondeley has sold many of its treasures, but, though much has been taken away, it is especially interesting because nothing has been added since the time of Sir Robert Walpole. George, Lord Walpole, destroyed the grand staircase of the house, so that you now have to enter through the basement, instead of in state by the grand hall on the first floor, where Sir Robert and his companions used to carouse, and where the chairs which they used still remain, with the rings in the ceiling which supported the scales for weighing deer. The pictures are interesting—Sir Robert over and over again, with his beloved first wife, Catherine Shorter, and his inferior second wife Maria Skerret; his daughter and heiress, who brought the place to the Cholmondeleys; and his sister Dorothy, who still walks as a ghost at Rainham, where she was the wife of Lord Townshend, who is said to have walled her up in a spot where bones have been found, supposed to be hers.
“In one of the drawing-rooms is a glorious picture of the Duchess of Ancaster, who was sent to bring Princess Charlotte of Mecklenbourg-Strelitz to England when she came to marry George III. ‘Pug, pug, pug!’ cried the people when they saw her appearance as she was entering London. ‘Vat is dat they do say—poog?’ said the Princess, ‘vat means poog?’—‘Oh, that means, God bless your Majesty,’ promptly replied the Duchess, without the slightest hesitation. The pictures which are not portraits are wretched, chiefly bad copies.
“In the grounds is the little garden of Catherine, Lady Walpole, which in her time was surrounded by a yew hedge. Now the yews have grown into tall trees and are interweaving overhead above the little grassy circle.
“I came last night to the Locker-Lampsons at Cromer, finding Julia, Lady Jersey, Brandling, Lady Kathleen Bligh, and Rollo Russell here. To-day we have been to Blickling, where we found Lady Lothian and Lady Pembroke walking in the radiantly beautiful garden of the grand old house. Lady Lothian showed it all delightfully—the staircase, with its carved figures on the banisters; the tapestried rooms; the long library with a very rich ceiling, the room itself in exquisite harmony with its ranges of wonderful old books. At tea in the dining-room Baroness Coutts appeared, and many other unexpected persons dropped in.”
Journal.
“Salisbury, Sept. 28.—A very delightful visit to Canon Douglas Gordon461 and Lady Ellen, full of old-fashioned peculiarities and brimming over with real excellence. One son, George, is at home, a successful young architect, and two daughters, of whom the eldest is a good artist. The Canon is interesting in his recollections—amongst many others, of the Queen Dowager, whom, as Rector of Stanmore, he saw constantly; and a portrait of her with the last words she ever wrote beneath it—her gift to him—hangs over the drawing-room chimney-piece. Near it is a very old oil-picture of Balmoral, interesting because the sight of that picture first decided the Queen to buy the place, which she had not then visited: it also shows how exactly her large modern house follows the main lines of the old Scotch castle.
“Canon Gordon says that instantly after the Queen Dowager’s death, when they were all in tears, and all the servants were waiting in the hall for the last news of their mistress, they were startled by a tremendous knocking at the door and a trumpet blowing, and three men entered with the announcement, ‘We are the royal embalmers, and we are come to perform our duty!’ They had actually been waiting outside—waiting for the first announcement of the death. In this case, however, they were sent away, as Queen Adelaide had left especial orders that her body was not to be embalmed.
“In the Canonry garden here is a fine mulberry-tree. The only fact remembered about the old Canon who planted it is that whilst it was being placed in the ground the cathedral bell rang for service, and the gardener said, ‘You’ll be late for church, sir: the bell is ringing.’ To which the Canon rejoined, ‘Church be d—d; but I’ll see this mulberry planted.’ A lesson to be careful of what one says.
“Yesterday I went to Wilton in the pony-carriage with Miss Gordon, who left me there. Lady Pembroke462 soon came in in her riding-habit, and took me at once through the beautiful brilliant gardens ending in the old building still called ‘Holbein’s Porch,’ though it is now far away from the house to which it once belonged. Then we walked on the sunny lawns swept by the massy branches of grand old cedars and intersected by three rivers, over one of which is a beautiful Palladian bridge like that at Prior Park.
“Somehow Lady Pembroke is a person with whom one begins to talk intimately very soon, and her own conversation is most original and delightful. But she spoke much of her wish that religion was ’not so very odd,’—of her intense craving to know something, anything tangible, about a future state. She had been seeing the Roman Mr. Story lately, who has been much amongst spiritualists, had heard speaking spirits, and had the very utmost faith in them. The spirits all confirmed faith in a future state. Once a bad spirit came; its language was perfectly horrible: in life it had been a pirate!
“Returning to the house, we saw the Vandykes, which are most glorious. There is a very curious contemporary picture of the coronation of Richard II. in the presence of his patron saints and of the heavenly host. Lady Pembroke talked on and on, and when I got up to go, kept me: but it was most interesting, and I would willingly have listened for many hours more. Eventually she went with me to the end of the grounds, and let me out at a postern-gate in the wall.
“To-day we have been to tea with the Pigott family, who live in George Herbert’s rectory (which he built) at Bemerton. It is a lovely spot, with the little church (vulgarised inside by glazed tiles), beneath the altar of which he is believed to rest. The garden reaches to the clear rushing Madder, full of trout and grayling, and has a beautiful view of the cathedral across the water-meadows. We saw the register with the notice of the burial of ‘Mr. George Herbert, Esquire, parson of this place,’463 and his old study with its very thick walls: but he was only at Bemerton two years, leading a life ‘little less than sainted, though not exempt from passion and choler,’ as his brother, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, tells us in his memoirs. Americans come in crowds to see the place, and can often repeat half his poems. Mr. Pigott asked one of them to spend the night there, and in the morning inquired how he had slept. ‘Sleep,’ he said, ‘do you suppose I could sleep in George Herbert’s house? Why, I sat up all night thinking of him.’”464
“Oct. 2.—Again at Highcliffe with Lady Waterford, whose conversation is as charming as ever.
‘And thy eternal summer shall not fade,’
is a line of Shakspeare which seems ever to apply to her. Here are some fragments from her lips:—
“‘That is like the priest who, when he was remonstrated with for eating meat on Friday, said, “All flesh is grass.”
“‘When I was young, I delighted in Tittenhanger.465 We used to post down from London—a most delightful drive then. I thought it all charming—the old house, and a wood with bluebells, and the Colne, a mere dull sluggish stream, I suppose, but it had frogs and bulrushes, and I found it enchanting. A few years ago I thought I would post down to Tittenhanger in the old way, but it was a street all the way to Barnet, and when the people saw the white horses and postillion in blue, they came crowding round; for, though it was only my little maid Boardman and me, they thought, “Now we shall see them: now we shall see the newly-married pair.”
“The Duc d’Aumale is married. He married Mademoiselle Clinchamps, who was lady-in-waiting to the Princess of Salerno, the Duchesse d’Aumale’s mother. She does the honours of his house, but it is a sort of morganatic marriage.... Madame Adelaide was married too to one of the generals.... I remember the Aumales riding through the green avenues near Ossington; Mary Boyle was with them. She was a most excellent horsewoman, but a great gust of wind came, and the whole edifice of her chignon was blown off before she could stop it. The little Prince de Condé was very young then, and he was riding with her. He picked it up and said, “I will keep it in my pocket, and then, when we reach Thoresby, you can go away quietly and get it put on;” and so she did. That young Condé used to say, “I am not le grand Condé; I am le petit Condé.”... Madame de Genlis used to write to Louis Philippe—“Sire et cher enfant.”
“‘That Lord Shrewsbury466 you were speaking of received Henri V. at Alton Towers—received him as king of France, and dressed up all the people of the different lodges to represent the different nations of Europe giving him welcome. It was he who made the beautiful gardens. There is a bust of him there, and inscribed beneath it—“He made the desert to smile.” “And I don’t wonder at it,” said Lady Marian (Alford) when she saw the bust: he was so comically hideous.’”
Whilst I was away on my visits, I had left my dear old cousin Charlotte Leycester provided with companions at Holmhurst during the annual summer visit of several months, which had never failed since my mother’s death. I felt that thus my mother’s home, thus her own especial room, were fulfilling what she would most have wished for them. And (though, unlike my gentle mother, Calvinistic, vehement, with a habit of constantly “improving the occasion,” and utterly intolerant still of all that did not agree with her in religious matters), the beloved and beautiful old cousin, at nearly ninety, was this year more than ever occupied by plans and thoughts for the good of all around her, more full of spiritual meditation herself, lifting her own heart and mind into celestial dwelling-places. For her truly one might say, “The poetry of earth is never dead,” and I often found that I knew little of the natural charms of my own little home till she had shown them. “Speak to the earth and it shall teach thee” is a verse of Job for which she had a constant application, and the shrubs and flowers—at Holmhurst always planted in the same places—were intimate and familiar friends to her—
“Still within this life,
Though lifted o’er its strife.”467
Sunday was always her great delight—a Sunday to be dealt with as John Knox would have used it, and a church service freed from anything of ritual, but with an extempore preacher if possible. She felt, “I always like my victuals hot when I can get them,” as an old woman said in reference to her preacher. Latterly, however, Charlotte Leycester was scarcely able to hear sermons, though, as she wrote to me during my last absence,—“I always enjoy the sermon, though I do not hear it; for, as our old friend George Herbert says, ‘God takes a text, and preaches patience,’ and I can generally catch all texts quoted, which helps me to follow the drift, like finding one stone after another in crossing a current.”
When turned to her reminiscences of the past, her conversation was often very interesting. I remember her telling me this summer of her visit to Paris in 1827, and going to the Royal Chapel, into which came the king, Louis XVIII., and the Duchess d’Angoulême with full evening dress in the morning and feathers on her head. When the king entered, a great picture of our Lord hung opposite where he was to sit, to which the master of the ceremonies seemed to introduce him—“Le roi.” “At Rosny, a beautiful old château with chestnut avenues, to which we drove out one October evening after dining at Mantes, we saw the Duchesse de Berri. Most amusing the travelling then was, with the postillions in blue and in great jack-boots, into which they had to be lifted, with the blowing of their horns at every village we passed through.”
A few days after I reached home, two more volumes of mine were published, “Paris” and “Days near Paris.” They had been the engrossing work of the last two years. My hourly thought had been for them, and I had taken all the pains I could with them. I knew their faults, and know them still; but all the same I am conscious, and I am sure it is not conceit, that no better general books on those subjects have ever been written,—certainly in French there is nothing of the kind. I suppose it is one of the penalties of a lonely life, of having no near belongings, that it seemed—perhaps a little bathos as regarded the subjects which had filled one’s life—that no one spoke of them; that day after day passed on, and no one ever mentioned their existence. And then came a Review—a leading article indeed—in the Athenæum, not of mere abuse of the books, though no words were strong enough for that, but of such bitter personal malignity against myself, as gave one the shuddering conviction that one must indeed have an enemy as virulent as he was unscrupulous. “Turn author,” says Gray, “and straightway you expose yourself to pit, boxes, and gallery: any coxcomb in the world may come in and hiss if he pleases; ay, and what is almost as bad, clap too, and you cannot hinder him.” Most of the Reviews of my books have been unfavourable, but the books have always contrived to outlive them; and generally, when they have been found fault with, I have felt almost grateful for such lessons of humility, and have longed to say with Goethe, “Pray continue to make me acquainted with my own work.” Even honest reviewers, however, seldom read beyond the first chapter of a book; that they usually read, and occasionally criticise; but even then the tendency to save themselves trouble generally causes a great deal of copying. I have always found that a first Review has influenced all the others except the very best. The excessive injustice and untruthfulness this time made me understand the pain which Chatterton felt, especially when it was said that the hundred and forty-seven quotations, which I had been at such pains to find for my “Versailles,” were “all taken second-hand from Dussieux’ History” of that palace, though I am assured that not one (!!) of them is to be found there, except the few taken from S. Simon, the especial historian of Versailles, to which any one writing about it would naturally apply.
“Every white will have its black,
And every sweet its sour,”
and though serious disappointments are always a most bitter medicine, life becomes much the same again after they are once swallowed and assimilated. I know they must be good for one, like all the other humiliations of—is it?—yes, I suppose in a right spirit it may be, le chemin de la croix. Still I often wonder whether the writer of such an article, when he knows it is false and unjust, as this writer must have done, does it with pleasure in taking away an author’s innocent enjoyment in the birth of his book-child. In most cases of personal injustice and injury, I am sure that it answers to take some secret opportunity of doing something very kind towards the aggressor—it “takes out the taste;” but when the intentional injury is anonymous, one is deprived of even this consolation. Yet, to a certain extent, an inner consciousness of high aims and disinterested intentions may raise a screen against the base scurrilousness with which every one is assailed at some time in their lives. Fortunately, also, I have never quite—though very nearly—had to put in practice the maxim that—
“Those who live to please must please to live.”
It is curious, certainly, how one has only to turn to the pages of a book which collects Reviews of past authors, like “Alibone’s Dictionary,” to find plentiful consolation. I chanced to open it on Thackeray, and found the Edinburgh Review, after abusing “Esmond” in the most contemptuous tones, saying patronisingly, “If Esmond had been confined within as short limits, it might have taken rank with the ‘Defence of Natural Society,’ but a parody three volumes long becomes tiresome.” The same Edinburgh Review advised Byron to abandon poetry and apply his talents to some better use; and declared Coleridge’s “Christabel” to be “a thing utterly destitute of value.” I think it is Montaigne who says, “Aucun chemin de fleurs ne conduit à la gloire.”