XX Royal Duties and Interests
“Montre ce qui est en toi! C’est le moment, c’est l’heure, on retombe dans le néant! Tu as la parole! à ton tour! fournis la mesure, dis ton mot! revèle ta nullité, ou ta capacité. Sors de l’ombre! Il ne s’agit plus de promettre, il faut tenir. Le temps d’apprentissage est terminé!”
—Henri Frederic Amiel.
“Stop thine ears to whatsoever men think of thee; accept it for nothing, but regard only the judgment of God.”
—Pico Della Mirandola.
“Let me never hear the word ‘trouble.’ Only tell me how the thing is to be done, to be done rightly, and I will do it if I can.”—Queen Victoria of England.279
“Look at the duty nearest hand, and what’s more, do it.”
—Jane Welsh Carlyle.
Being at Lowther Lodge on the 21st of May, I was sent for by the Crown Princess of Germany, who was most kind and gracious. “I have read all your books. I always buy them as soon as ever they come out, and I have so much wished to see you.” She told me that she had been to Hurstmonceaux to visit my mother’s grave, and that she had one of her strong presentiments as to the place coming back into our family, adding, “And I do so hope it will.” She talked of the dear Madame de Bunsen with the greatest affection, and then of the many branches of the Bunsen family. When my little audience of about ten minutes was over, she said with great sweetness, “I am afraid I am keeping you much too long from all your other friends.” She pressed me to come to stay with her at Potsdam. I said that I was going to Berlin to visit the Bunsens. She said, “Oh, but you must come to me; I can show quite as many things, and I can certainly show you a great many more people than the Bunsens can.” I said that I feared my visit to Berlin would be during her approaching absence in Switzerland. She said, “Well, you can go to the Bunsens in the summer when I am away, and then in the winter you can come again to see me: Berlin is not so very far off.”
As spring advanced my Life of the Baroness Bunsen was so far completed as to be ready for the inspection of her children. I therefore decided to take it to them in Germany. Feeling how impossible it would be to meet all the various wishes and tastes of such a hydra-headed family, I determined only to feel bound by the wishes of the two unmarried daughters, Frances and Emilia, and any one of their brothers whom they might choose. They selected George.
I turned first towards the Rhineland to visit the Dowager Princess of Wied, and profit by her recollections of one who had ever been one of the most valued of her friends.
On the last day of May I reached Cologne, and found there a succession of telegrams from the Princess of Wied desiring me to come to her. She did not exactly say that she expected me to stay beyond the day, so I did not like to take my luggage, and was sorry, when I found my room ready and that I was expected for a long visit, that I had sent it on.
Early on June 1, I went to Bonn. The place struck me much from its being so embowered in green and flowers. In a villa thus surrounded I found the well-known authoress Fräulein von Weling,280 whom I surprised in bargaining for ready-plucked chickens at her door. She is a very interesting person, received me with that cordial simplicity which is so charming in Germans, and in a minute had put on her bonnet to go with me to the cemetery by a quiet walk through nursery-gardens. The churchyard itself is half hidden in pinks and roses. In the centre stands an old chapel of extreme beauty, transferred stone for stone by the King of Prussia from a solitary position in the fields. Buried in flowers is the grave where the dear friends of my childhood rest side by side. Close by is that of their brother-like friend, the noble old Brandis, his invalid wife, and his son Johannes. Farther off, but still near, are the graves of the old Arndt, Niebuhr and his Gretchen, Schumann, and the widow and son of Schiller. Then we went to Bunsen’s house, with the three-windowed room where he died, the garden with its view over the Rhine to the Sieben Gebirge, and the pavilion where he gave his last birthday feast.
It is a long ascent of an hour and a half from Neuwied through orchards and meadows radiant with wild-flowers to Segenhaus, standing on the crest of the mountain, which is literally “the House of Blessing” to all around it. The beautiful spacious rooms, full of books and pictures, look down over a steep declivity upon an immense view of the Rhineland. The Princess came in immediately with a most warm welcome—a noble, beautiful woman in a black dress, something like that one sees in pictures of Spanish Queens-Dowager, with snow-white hair drawn back under a long black veil. After a life of love, having lost all those who gave its greatest charm, she still finds much happiness in making herself the mother of her people, and the centre of good to the Rhineland from her high forest-home. After a few minutes spent in explaining the towns in the vast map-like view below us, she said, “There is a lady here who is anxious to make your acquaintance, and who was delighted to hear that you were coming: it is the Queen of Sweden.” At that moment the doors were thrown open, and the Queen entered—of middle age, with a beautiful expression, and possessing, with the utmost regal dignity, the most perfect simplicity and even cordiality of manner. She desired me to sit by the Princess upon a divan facing her. She said that I must consider her at once as a friend; that, in a life of great troubles, the “Memorials” had been her greatest comfort; that she never went anywhere without them; that my mother had been for several years the intimate friend to whom she always had recourse, and in whose written thoughts she could always find something which answered to her own feeling and the difficulty of the moment. She asked after “Mary Lea,” and how old she was now. She also talked much and naturally of my Bunsen work, and entirely entered into all the difficulties of meeting the views of so large a family of varying dispositions.
The Princess took me away to see her own room with her family portraits and photographs. She spoke of her daughter, the Princess of Roumania,281 “in her terrible position between Russia and Turkey.” Then she said, “I want to prepare you for something. At my daughter’s court there is a blind Roumanian noble who has an only daughter. She is deaf and dumb. I could not bear that they should never communicate, so I have taken her home with me, and I am teaching her to speak by making her hold her hand on my throat as I speak very slowly; and she is already learning, and, though it takes almost all my time, I am already rewarded by her making sounds which are intelligible to me.” When we went back into the other room, the young lady was there, a most strange being, making sounds inarticulate, but intelligible to the Princess. When she saw that the Princess was going to speak, she rushed across the room and held her hand on her throat, which had an almost terrible effect, like garrotting.
After tea the Queen ordered her donkey, which was brought round by a handsome Swedish chasseur. We went out into the forest. The Queen rode: the Princess led the donkey: I walked by the side, and only the chasseur followed. We actually went on thus for three hours, through beautiful forest glades with exquisite sylvan views, the whole reminding me of descriptions in Auerbach’s “Auf der Höhe.” The Queen never ceased talking or asking. She wished to know the whole story of my mother’s trances at Pau, of Madame de Trafford, of Prince Joseph Bonaparte—“a sort of cousin of my husband’s.” She talked much and most touchingly of her own life and its anxieties. “What I feel most,” she said, “is the impossibility of ever being alone. I have much happiness, much to be thankful for, but I feel that what one has really to look forward to must come after death, and I do not wish to live.” With her truly “la grandeur est un poids qui lasse,” as Massillon said. When alone with her sister at the Segenhaus in the quiet forest-life, she finds most happiness, and they live in a higher world, mentally as well as physically. As we went down a steep bank the donkey stumbled, and the Queen cried out. “Pardon me that I have seemed to be afraid,” she said; “I have been so very ill, that my nerves are quite shattered;” and in fact a severe illness, long supposed to be mortal, had at this time obliged her for several years to leave Sweden in the winter, to be under a great doctor at Heidelberg. She asked me to come to Norway to visit her. “You must also know my husband,” she said, “and my four sons, my four blessings of God.” She repeatedly expressed her wish that I should be at Rome in the winter with the Prince Royal. “I am sending him out to learn his world.” She asked most warmly after Lea, and sent a message to her—“I know her so well.” She also desired I would give her tender sympathy to Hilda Hare,282 “For can I not feel for her? my second boy is at sea.” She gave a charming description of her first tour through Norway to her coronation. “I sat in my carriole by myself, and a peasant sat upon the little portmanteau behind which held my things, and told me all about the places and people.” We walked on and on through the vast woods, with lovely glimpses of country through the open glades, and masses of huge foxgloves where the wood was cut down, and one really forgot the queen, the almost tête-à-tête of three hours with a queen, in the noble great-souled woman, whose high ideal of life and all that it should be seemed for the time to ennoble all the world to one.
At the top of a high declivity the Princess unlocked a small gate. Within, in a little circular grove of lime-trees, were two marble crosses over the grave of the Prince of Wied and his martyr-like son Otto.283 “And here,” said the Princess very simply, “is my grave also.” The plan of these green mausoleums has been adopted by the present family, and two more are planted to be ready for two generations.
Behind the palace of the Princess is the great white château of Monrepos, where her son lives with his wife, who is Princess Royal of the Netherlands. Above the lower range of windows is a line of huge stags’ heads, trophies of the chase of some former prince in the forest. The House of Wied are “ehenwürdig,” and so may always marry royalty.
I said something about never having seen the kitchen-garden of a German house, so when we came home the Princess took me to hers. The Queen then walked with us. The Princess prunes and grafts her own roses, &c., but she seems to have no perception whatever of any beauty in wild-flowers. We went in, and I was shown to a room, whence I came down to that in which the court ladies were assembled. It was rather formidable, but the Countess Ebba von Rosen, dame du palais of the Queen, talked pleasantly in English. Doors were thrown open, and the Queen and Princess entered and we went in to supper. The Queen made me sit by her: the four court ladies sat opposite: the Princess, on the other side of the Queen, made tea. Thick slices of bread and butter, like those of English school-feasts, and mutton-chops were handed round. When we went into the other room, I wrote down some names of books as desired, and then at 9.30 took leave. The Princess most cordially invited me to return, and the Queen again pressed me to visit her in her own country. The vision of the Queen’s serene noble face as she took leave has ever since remained with me, and I parted from both the royal sisters with a stronger feeling of affectionate regard than I have ever felt towards any one else upon so short an acquaintance.”
Journal and Letters to Miss Leycester and Miss Wright.
“June 2.—I slept at Neuwied, and then crossing the Rhine in the morning mist, passed a few hours at Boppart, where the colouring of the river and old houses and the peculiar grey hills was most lovely. Charles de Bunsen met me at the station of Mosbach, and took me to his villa, much like one in Italy, with the same rich intermingled vegetation of fruit and flowers growing around it.”
“June 4.—Yesterday, a very sultry day, we went to Wiesbaden. The heavy trees in the gardens looked dripping even more with heat than with rain, and there is a splendid dulness in the great rooms, formerly the gambling-house, and in the park beyond, with the many chairs under the trees on which people sit to listen to the band; but the fountain is pretty.
“Mrs. de Bunsen284 was very amusing in her account of the crowded musical festival at Baireuth. When they complained that there were not enough carriages there, a native replied, ‘Pardon me! of carriages there are quite enough, but of people there are too many.’
“In and out, whilst I have been here, has come the next neighbour—‘the Herr Major.’ He is quite a character, and devotes his whole life to his garden. From Holland he—a poor man—ordered some fruit-trees for a very large sum, but they have been a total failure and have borne nothing. The other day Charles, driving with him, passed these trees, and knowing they were a sore subject, turned his head the other way and pretended not to see them. ‘Oh, thank you, dear friend; I appreciate what you are doing,’ said the Herr Major, enthusiastically clasping his hand. When the boys of Mosbach stole his fruit, he put up an electric wire on the wall which caused a bell to ring in his bedroom whenever any one got over it. A few nights ago the bell rang violently; the Herr Major took his stick and rushed down the garden in his night-shirt: it was only his own bulldog, which had jumped over the wall to pay a visit to a friend in Mosbach. Another time, when his fruit was stolen, the Herr Major issued a placard offering a reward of a hundred marks to any one who would deliver up the thief. The placard was read by two men sitting outside a beer-house, who were the men who had stolen the fruit. They immediately agreed upon their course of action; one man delivered the other up to justice, and he was sentenced to pay ten marks or to three days’ imprisonment; the other claimed the hundred marks, of which they had ninety to divide and to spend in drinking for whole days together to the health of the Herr Major.”
“June 15.—I have had a charming week at Herrenalb, whither Charles and Theodore de Bunsen accompanied me. It was a real pleasure to be again with the dear Frances and Emilia de Bunsen, who are so like sisters to me, and the kind pleasant Sternbergs. We were occupied almost entirely with my book, the sisters taking it in turn to talk over all the different parts, but there were also delightful intervals of forest rambles, and sittings out under the old apple-trees with Emilia. Reinhold von Ungern Sternberg came for the Sunday with Herr von Klüden, the ‘Bräutigam’ of his sister Dora. The place is just what my sweetest mother would most have enjoyed for a summer residence—no grand scenery, but very high forest-clad hills all round the rich green meadows, with the crystal Alb tossing through them. The village of quaint black and white houses clusters round the old-fashioned inn and the water-cure establishment in the buildings of the suppressed monastery, of which a beautiful ruin of red sandstone—‘The Paradise’—still stands in the churchyard. In all directions are well-kept walks and drives, and comfortable seats at every picturesque point. The people are most friendly and primitive, all the men taking off their hats, and all greeting strangers with a friendly ‘Morgen’ or ‘Tag.’
“A terrible sensation has been created by the attack on the Emperor, and still more by the first false report of his death. Men and women were alike in tears, and the national disgrace is intensely felt. I hope, if the Emperor is better, that I may see the Crown Princess again at Berlin.
“I spent four hours at Heidelberg, and revisited all our old haunts, the gardens most lovely in their luxuriance of green. Thence I had intended to go to Weimar to visit the Grand Duchess, but at Eisenach received a telegram from her lady-in-waiting, the Countess Kalkreuth, to put off my visit, as they were gone off to Berlin, the Empress Augusta being sister of the Duke of Weimar. A wet morning at the Wartburg and an afternoon at Erfurth brought me to Jena. There my cousin Alexander Paul met me at the station, a pleasant, fat, frank Prussian officer, with a face very like that of the first Napoleon.285
“There is much charm in this old town of Jena and its simple population, increased by the five hundred students of the university. The houses of Schiller, Alex. v. Humboldt, &c., have inscriptions in honour of those who lived there: the streets wind picturesquely around the old Schloss and its gardens, and the trumpet still sounds every quarter of an hour from the tall grey tower of the noble old church. From my own window in Alexander’s house in the Cahl’sche Allée, I see on one side a robber castle, on the other a wonderful old church of the time of the ‘Heilige Bonifacius.’
“On Thursday afternoon we went to Dornberg, where three castles crown the cliff above the village with a narrow terrace running in front of them along the edge of the precipice. One castle is occasionally inhabited by the Grand Duke; another, very old and picturesque, was given by Carl August to Goethe, and having been inhabited by him in the last years of his life, still contains much furniture of his time: the third was the palace of—the Sleeping Beauty in the Wood.
“Yesterday we went a fatiguing excursion to Schwartzberg, the palace of the Prince of Rudolstadt, by which we saw the finest parts of Thuringia. A railway took us to Schwarza, where, in a ball on the top of the church steeple, is a dart thrown by a Cossack as the Russian army passed through Germany. Thence we took an omnibus to the little Chrysopraz Hotel at Blankenberg, where, after beer and brown bread and butter under the trees, we walked up the Schwarzthal to Oppelei, where a Swiss cottage has been built by the Prince to indemnify a forester, whose daughter he had made his mistress! Hence, by a steep path, we ascended the Treppstein, whence there is a lovely view over the hollow in the forest-clad mountains, in the midst of which the great castle of the Prince of Rudolstadt rises above the little town. The Prince is not unpopular, though his life has an Eastern license. On the day when he succeeded to his tiny sovereignty he happened to be at Berlin. ‘Bonjour, souverain,’ said the Emperor when he met him, and, when he took off his hat—‘Pray put on your crown.’
“We dined at the charming little inn, where thousands of wild stags often assemble under the windows in the evenings, when the place is comparatively empty, but take flight into the woods before the summer guests. In returning, we were much amused with the old ‘Herr Apotheke’ of Rudolstadt, who had come out with a tin case to gather simples, and who insisted upon stopping to drink a tankard of beer wherever one was to be had.
“To-day we have been in a different direction, by rail to Roda, a charming little Thuringian town, and thence by carriage to the Fröhliche Wiederkunft, the old moated castle built by Friedrich Johann, father of Friedrich der Weise, on the spot where he met his family on his return from a long captivity abroad. The old Princess Therèse of Saxe-Altenbourg now lives there, she and her sisters—the Queen of Hanover, the Grand Duchess of Oldenbourg, and the Grand Duchess Constantine of Russia—having been daughters of the old Duke Josef, by whom the castle was restored. The news of the King of Hanover’s death had just arrived. ‘How many tears,’ said the old man who showed the castle, ‘did the old Duke my master shed in that chair over the King’s misfortunes.’ The story of the founder is most quaintly told in paintings on panels round one of the rooms, and there are pictures and memorials of Luther and of Friedrich Johann and his wife Sibylla over and over again.”
“June 23.—A vision of many great towns is all that I carry away from the varied journey which has brought me to Hildesheim—the old cities of Wittenberg and Eisleben, with their glorious works of Lucas Cranach and varied memorials of Luther and Melancthon: Magdeburg, great and noisy, with its dull, restored cathedral: Halberstadt, also restored, but glorious in spite of its injuries, and with intensely picturesque streets of old houses: the romantic beauty of imperial Goslar: stately Quedlinburg, where German princesses constantly reigned as abbesses: beautiful Thale, at the entrance of the Harz, with its exquisite combination of wood and rock and water: Brunswick and its many market-places, full of old houses: dull Hanover, with the great deserted gardens of Herrenhausen.
“Aunt Marcia (Frau Paul von Benningsen286) and my cousins Jane and Clementine met me here at the station.”
“Berlin, June 27.—My visit at Hildesheim had much of quiet interest. The town is wonderfully picturesque, and I was glad to make acquaintance with my cousins, who are perfectly grandes dames and highly educated young ladies, though they cook and do almost all the housework themselves. I drew in the early mornings, and went to dinner each day with them at 12.30.
“The Hildesheim churches are magnificent, but spoilt, ruined, by so-called restoration—the old pavements torn up, the old ornaments removed and replaced by tawdry and vulgar imitation of Munich wall-painting.
“On Monday George de Bunsen met me with his carriage at the Berlin station, and brought me through the Thier-Garten, like a bit of wild forest, to the charming airy Villa Bunsen, standing in its own garden on the extreme outskirts of the town. Here I have a most luxurious room, filled with royal portraits, and every possible luxury. We dined al fresco on the broad terrace amid the flowers. On the next evening there was a party of about fifty people—tea, and the garden and terrace lighted up, a very pretty effect; the ladies in bright dresses, the men with uniforms and orders, moving and sitting amongst the shrubs and flowers, amid which endless little supper-tables were laid at a late hour. Many were the historic names of those to whom I was introduced—Falk of the Falk laws, Mommsen the historian, Austin the poet, Mohl, and many ministers and generals. I found also Arthur Balfour, and many waifs and strays of old acquaintance. The ‘Congress’ is going on, but excites little or no general interest, and is scarcely mentioned here, German affairs being far too important.
“Berlin interests me extremely, though without preparation it can be of small interest. It is almost entirely modern. In the sixteenth century it must have been a tiny electoral town, the houses encircling the old Schloss by the Spree in the time of the Great Elector, whose statue, a grand though rococo work, stands close by on the bridge. Friedrich I., who got a kingdom by bribery, added the enormous castle, which, ludicrous as it then was in a kingdom of five millions, is now satisfactory in a kingdom of twenty millions. Close by, Frederick the Great built two domes, merely as features in the distant view of an otherwise featureless city, and to these his son added buildings which turned them into churches. Under Friedrich Wilhelm III. and IV. the great classical revival took place and endless fine buildings arose. The library is one of the few buildings which date from Frederick the Great. The architects were an endless time disputing over the designs, and at last he said, ‘Damn you all, don’t waste any more time; this commode opposite me is of a very good design, copy that,’ and accordingly the design of the commode was copied.
“The Museum was begun when the country was poor and had no money to spend. After the French war, when the country became rich, the design expanded and became magnificent. Of the sculptures, four works deserve especial attention—the ‘Adorante,’ the exquisite bronze boy who, in the early morning, stretches out his arms in adoration: the noble vivid bust of Julius Caesar in basalt, with agate eyes, so speaking though voiceless, so never to be forgotten, of which Rauch had three copies in different parts of his house that it might never be long absent from his mind: the bust of Sappho, with banded hair, recognised as the poetess from a Hermes; and the Augustus statue, more noble than that of Livia’s villa, because taken in earlier youth, when his one feeling was that he was born to command, and when no furrow of disappointment or care was yet traced on his brow.
“The collection of casts is most interesting, as showing the important statues of each subject, Venus, Minerva, Mercury, &c., side by side for instruction or contrast.
“The pictures are a grand collection, spoilt by over-cleaning. Especially worthy of remembrance are an Adoring Madonna by Filippino Lippi, with God the Father above in glory; two noble portraits by Giorgione; one by Lorenzo Lotto (possibly of Sansovino); some marvellously graphic pictures, eloquently expressed in well-considered touches, by Franz Hals; and a noble Holbein of ‘Kaufmann Georg Gigge aus Basel.’
“Last night we went late to the Zoological Garden. The most interesting thing was a solemn congregation of ibises listening in a row, each bird with one foot in the air, and its head attentively on one side, to an ibis preacher, who never ceased a continuous discourse to them, standing on a stone. The elephant is said to be five hundred years old; what a solemn silent witness! Apropos of the future of beasts, George de Bunsen talked much of the absence of all allusion to any future in the Old Testament—that it grew up, partly in the Talmud, partly in the Apocryphal writers, in what Luther beautifully calls ‘the great empty leaf between the Old and New Testaments.’
“Montbijou, the curious little one-storied palace of Sophia Charlotte, wife of Friedrich I., is now a museum for relics of the House of Brandenbourg. The chairs, sledges, and table of Friedrich I. are very curious; the wheel-chairs of his unhappy second wife: the wax figures of his grand-daughters as babies; and their portraits as grown women—queens and duchesses. Here also are three masks from the dead face of the lovely Queen Louisa, that taken immediately after death most exquisitely beautiful.”
“June 30.—The day after I last wrote, I went with the Bunsens and Mr. Waddington, the French Minister287 (come for the Congress of Berlin) to Charlottenbourg. The palace there is charming—the large gardens, the groves of orange-trees in tubs, the great lawns sweeping away into woods, and above all the mausoleum in one of the thick groves, with the tombs of Queen Louisa and her husband. Hither the old Emperor and all the royal family come still once a year, on the anniversary of her death, to look upon the beautiful form of his young mother, snatched away in the very zenith of beauty and popularity, not living to see the re-establishment of the kingdom in whose cause she sacrificed her life. Exquisitely, perfectly beautiful is the intense repose of her lovely countenance, in what I must ever feel to be the most beautiful and impressive statue in the world. The statue of the King is very fine too, but in her angelic presence he is forgotten. And such was the feeling for her, that though he did not marry again for many years after he had lost her in his youth, his people at first would not believe it, and then never forgave it. Mr. Waddington felt nothing in the presence of this sublime statue. ‘Yes, it is very clever, it is a very clever figure indeed,’ he said. Never was any remark more completely out of tune, making it difficult for one to believe in the great power of the man.
“The next day I went to Potsdam—quite a place by itself in the world, with its endless great ultra-German palaces and stiff gardens, arid and dusty, though surrounded by many waters. Without Carlyle’s ‘Frederick the Great,’ they would be mere dead walls enclosing a number of costly objects; illuminated by the book, each room, each garden walk, thrills with human interest. In the Residenz Schloss are the rooms in which Frederick the Great passed his winters, with massive silver furniture and priceless ornaments, amid which the portrait of Wilhelmina in her childhood is a touching feature. In the Garrison Kirche is the tomb of the great king. The terrace at Sans Souci, in this dried-up land, is quite lovely with its fountains and orange-trees. Close behind is the famous windmill.
“When I returned to the station, I was surprised to find the Bunsens’ servant, sent on with my evening clothes, that I might accept an invitation (by telegram) to dine with the Crown Princess. I had only eight minutes before the royal train came up, and it was an awful scramble to wash and dress in a room the servant had taken at the station. However, when the royal train set off, I was in it. The palace-station of Wildpark was a pretty sight, red cloth laid down everywhere, and sixteen royal carriages waiting for the immense multitude of guests—quantities of ladies in evening dress (all black for the King of Hanover) and veils, splendid-looking officers, an Armenian archbishop and bishop in quaint black hoods and splendid diamond crosses. I went in a carriage with the Greek minister, and we whirled away through the green avenues to the great Neue Palais, with the sun striking warm on the old red and grey front. Count Eulenborg, Master of the Household, stood on the steps to receive us, and we passed into an immense hall, like a huge grotto, decorated with shells and fountains, where several of the court ladies were.
“At the end of the hall were some folding-doors closely watched by two aides-de-camp, till the rapping of a silver stick was heard from a distant pavement, when the doors were flung open, and Count Eulenborg came out, preceding the Prince and Princess. She immediately went up to Mrs. Grant (General Grant’s wife) and several other ladies, and then began to go the round of the guests. I had more than my fair share of her kindly presence. ‘Oh, Mr. Hare, I am so glad to see you again so soon. How little I expected it, and how sad the causes which have brought it about!’ And she went on to speak of how, at our last meeting, the Duchess of Argyll had been sitting with her at tea, and how three days after she died. ‘And for me it was only the opening act of a tragedy,’ she said. She talked of the shock which the news of the attack upon the Emperor was to her, coming to her in the picture-gallery at Panshanger, and of her hurried journey to him. The Crown Prince came up then, and led her away to dinner. Mrs. Grant was on his other side (General Grant, a very vulgar officious man, was also there). I had been directed to a place near the Archbishop and Bishop of Armenia, but as they only spoke Armenian, I was glad that a very handsome, agreeable aide-de-camp eventually took his place between me and them. The dinner was excellent, in a huge long marble hall, with windows opening to the ground on the terrace above the flower-garden. Occasionally I met a bright kindly smile as the Princess looked to see how I was getting on. There were about fifty guests, servants waiting noiselessly, not a footfall heard.
“After dinner we all went out on the terraces, and there the Crown Princess had the goodness to come again to me. She talked of all I had seen at Berlin, and of Sweden and Queen Sophie. She talked also of Queen Louisa, her husband’s grandmother, preferring her statue at Potsdam even to that at Charlottenburg, and wished to have sent an aide-de-camp with me to see it. She was so good as to desire that I should return to Potsdam, and when I showed her that I could not, said, ‘Oh, but you will now find your way again to Berlin to see me.’ The scene on the terraces was very pretty, looking upon the bright flowers beneath in the subdued light of a fine evening in this transparent atmosphere, the whole air scented with lime-flowers.
“At a quarter to nine all the carriages came again to take us away: Count Eulenborg announced them. In the ante-chamber I found the Crown Princess again. I kissed her hand, and she shook mine with many kind words, and sent affectionate messages to the Queen of Sweden.
“How we whirled away through the green avenues to Potsdam, where all the people turned out to see the cavalcade! I travelled back to Berlin with the young and very handsome Prince Friedrich of Hohenzollern (brother of the Prince of Roumania and the Comtesse de Flandres), who was saved in the annihilation of his regiment of guards in the second battle of Metz by being sent back with the standard.”
“July 5.—I spent Sunday at beautiful old Lübeck, full of colour and rich architecture, rising spire upon spire above the limpid river. In the streets and market-place are the quaintest towers, turrets, tourelles, but all end in spires. A great fat constable went about on Sunday morning, keeping everybody from following any avocation whatever during church-time: when the services were over, they might do what they liked.
“Then came the long weary journey across West Holstein—peat flats varied by marshy swamps—and a night at Schleswig, a white, colourless old town moored as if upon a raft in the marshes, where the Princess of Wales’ grandmother and other royal potentates lie in exposed coffins upon the floor of the ugly rugged old cathedral, which has a belfry like a dovecot. Everywhere roses grew in the streets on the house-walls. The children were hurrying along, carrying the shoes they were to wear in school.
“Peat and marsh again for many hours, the interminable straight lines of landscape only broken by the mounds, probably sepulchral, which are so common here. A straight line with humps at intervals would do for a view almost anywhere in Jutland, Fuhnen, or Seeland. After hours upon hours of this engaging scenery, we crossed the Middelfardt at Fredericia into Fuhnen, which we traversed by rail, and embarked again on the Great Belt at Nyborg. Then came four hours’ more rail in Seeland, and, at 10.30 P.M., long lines of light glistening on streets of water showed that we had reached Copenhagen. Here I met the two daughters of Sir Henry Holland (Caroline and Gertrude), with whom I had arranged to go on to Norway, and their niece, Miss Chenda Buxton. As they had already been waiting for me several days, I felt obliged to give up a visit to Baron Troll (the stepson of Madame de Bülow) and the château of Gaüno, but I had three full days for Copenhagen, and greatly enjoyed them, the air being that of the high mountains in Switzerland with a mixture of sea—the most bracing place I ever was in. There is a ‘Dragon Tower,’ which is quite ideally Danish; and the old palace of the Danish kings, Rosenborg, surrounded by a moat, is fairy-like in the beauty of its old age, in the midst of a stately and brilliant old garden, and filled with historical memorials, which carry you back into marvellous depths of Danish history, in which the Christians and Friedrichs, always alternating with each other, are most bewildering. The museums also are full of interest, especially the Thorwaldsen collection, with casts of all the works of the great sculptor, and many most grand originals, especially interesting to me, as being described in Madame de Bunsen’s letters from Rome in their first conception and progress.
“One day we went out to Roeskilde, to the great church near a fiord where the kings are buried. Some of the older sovereigns have grand tombs, but those of later date than the grandfather of our Charles I. lie in their black and silver coffins unburied upon the floor of the church, with very odd effect.”
“Stockholm, Grand Hotel Rydberg, July 13.—On the evening of the 5th we crossed to Helsingfors in Sweden by a very rough passage of ten minutes, and had a wild evening walk in the storm, looking upon the opposite Danish coast, and Helsingborg with the great traditional castle of Hamlet, whose father was really a pirate-chief in Jutland.
“A journey of twenty-four hours brought us to Stockholm. We only lingered on the way to see the very fine Cathedral of Lund, the Oxford of Sweden. The scenery is not beautiful, but pretty—an exaggerated Surrey, low hills and endless fir-woods, with tiny glistening lakes.
“Stockholm has deeply interested us, and there is an odd feeling in being at a place and knowing that it is for once and once only in a lifetime. It is a modern city of ugly streets, but in a situation quite exquisite, on a number of little rocky islets between Lake Malar and the Baltic, surrounding, on the central islet, the huge palace, which is very stately and imposing from its size, and the old church of Riddarholmen, where Gustavus Adolphus and many other kings and queens are buried under the banner-hung arches. Next to the palace, the stateliest building is certainly this hotel, where our windows overlook all that is most characteristic in the place, the bridge which crosses the junction of the Baltic and Lake Malar, the mighty palace dominating the central island, the great white seagulls poised upon the blue waters, and the steam-gondolas, filled with people, darting to and from one island to another. These are the chief means of communication, and we make great use of them, the passages costing twelve öere, or one penny.
“We shall not go to see the midnight sun at Hammerfest; it would be very fatiguing, and indeed there can be little to see which we have not here; for we have only about two hours’ night in Stockholm, and by 2 A.M. it is light enough to read the smallest print. This has a very odd effect at first, but one soon gets used to it.
“Alas! we have been here a week, and, except one day, it has rained almost incessantly. One pities the poor Swedes in losing their short summer, for there are only about three months without snow, and every day is precious. The streets are sopping, but we have managed several excursions in the covered gondolas to quiet damp old palaces on the banks of lonely fiords. On our one fine day we went to Upsala by rail, and saw the cathedral where Gustavus Wasa lies aloft on a great tomb between his two pretty little wives, and we drove on to Old Upsala, where Odin, Thor, and Freya reigned as human beings and were buried as gods. In the tomb of Thor—a grassy mound—the Government still gives the mead of ancient times to foreign visitors. It is a very delightful place, like a dip in the Sussex downs, the quaint church, of immemorial antiquity, probably once a pagan temple, nestling behind the mounds of the heroes.
“Yesterday we heard a hundred Upsala students, the best singers in the world, sing the best national music in the Caterina Church. The King was there, a noble royal figure. He is the sovereign of the age, artist, poet, equally at home in all modern languages and several ancient ones, profoundly versed in all his duties and nobly performing them. The Crown Prince was with him, a fine young fellow, spoilt in appearance by his mother’s Nassau mouth, and the Prince Imperial, who is here with his cousins on a visit. The Queen is still away. I had many introductions here, but as the Court is at the country palace of Drottningholm, have not thought it worth while to present them; generally, however, Swedes are quite charming, especially in their manner to strangers.
“Cheating or imposition in hotels or elsewhere is utterly unknown; the only fear is lest you should not be charged enough. We asked what we should do with our luggage if we went to Dalecarlia—‘Oh, you can leave it anywhere under a bush, no one would touch a thing,’ and I am sure that it is so.
“The Hollands are delightful companions, full of interest in everything, glad to draw, reading up all the history, learning Swedish, holding historical and retrospective examinations once a week. We do a great deal of ‘lessons’ together. Certainly that one’s travels should ‘leave a good taste’ behind entirely depends upon one’s companions. And we are never even reduced to the state which I find alluded to in a French guide-book—‘Dans une voiture découverte, quand il y a une personne de mauvaise humeur, les autres admirent le paysage.’ Mr. and Mrs. Eric Magnusson are in this hotel, and we see a good deal of them. He is an Icelander, but now a Professor at Cambridge, and sent here by the University to investigate and inspect the Runic inscriptions.”
“July 15.—Yesterday we steamed down Lake Malar to Gripsholm, a very quaint castle with domed red towers, full of ancient pictures, and with the wonderful old room and bed where Queen Catherine Jagellonica (delightful name!), whose tomb we saw at Upsala, gave birth to her son Sigismund, afterwards King of Poland.”
“Throndtjem, July 28.—Surely this old cradle of Northern Christianity is one of the most beautiful places in the world. No one had ever told us about it, and we came here only because it was the Throndtjem of sagas and ballads, and expecting a wonderful and beautiful cathedral; but it is really a dream of loveliness, so exquisite in the soft silvery morning lights on the fiords and purple mountain ranges, and the nearer hills covered with bilberries and breaking into steep cliffs, that one remains in a state of transport, which is at a climax when all is engraven upon an opal sunset sky, and when ships and buildings meet their double in the still transparent water. Each old wide street of curious wooden houses displays a new vista of sea, of rocky promontories, of woods dipping into the water, and at the end of the chief street is the grey massive cathedral of St. Olaf, where Northern art and poetry have exhausted their loveliest and most poetic fancies around the grave of the national hero. Here alone in Scandinavia I have gone back perpetually to the old days of my life, and felt how happy the mother would have been here, so much—almost everything—being within her own walk; and I seem to see our trio spending a quiet month at this homelike hotel (where the landlord and landlady—highly educated people of good family—receive their guests like friends in a country-house), and sallying forth to draw in all the sheltered coves and wooded rocks by the side of fiord or river. The air too is most bracing, an arctic feeling combined with the brightest sunshine.
“My companions and I get on perfectly, and I am filled with admiration of Miss Holland’s strong, decided nature, and her perfect knowledge of all she wishes and intends, combined with great good-nature. Both sisters take boundless interest in all they see, and the journeys seem shortened by alternate lessons in history, Norsk, &c., and games of different kinds, even charades, one side of the carriage acting against the other!
“But I must go back to Kristiania, which was steaming in intensity of heat when we reached it, the wet of Stockholm having cleared in Norway into cloudless sunshine which had hatched all the mosquitoes. There is no beauty in the mean little town, which was built by Christian IV. (brother of our Anne of Denmark), and has a good central church of his time. We went by rail to Kongsberg, a primitive place with a nice little hotel kept by a Dane, where, however (and at many other places), we were annoyed by the ludicrously consequential advent of General Grant and Co. Here we hired a carriage and carriole for a five days’ excursion in Tellemarken. What a drive!—by silent lakes or through deep, beautiful, ever-varying woods of noble pine-trees, rising from thickets of juniper, bilberries, and cranberries. The loveliest mountain flowers grow in these woods—huge larkspurs of rank luxuriant foliage and flowers of faint dead blue, pinks, stagmoss—wreathing around the grey rocks, and delicate lovely soldanellas drooping in the still recesses. But what a road, or rather what a want of one!—hills of glassy rock, up which our horses scrambled like cats, abysses where they gathered up their legs and flung themselves down headlong with the carriages on the top of them, till at the bottom we were all buried in dust, and picked ourselves up, gasping and gulping, and wondering we were alive, to begin the same pantomime over again.
“Our midday halt was at Bolkesjö, where the forest opens to green lawns, hill-set, with a charming view down their smooth declivities upon a many-bayed lake with mountain distances. Here, in a group of old brown farm-buildings, covered with rude picturesque painting and sculpture, is a farmhouse inhabited by its primitive owners through many generations. The little rooms and their furniture are painted and carved with mottoes and texts, and portraits with autographs of royal visitors hang on the walls. The entrance to the cellar was under the bed. ‘Ajö, ajö,’ exclaimed Miss Buxton, in our newly acquired Norsk, as the old landlady descended into it to get us some ale.
“We arrived at the little châlet of Tinoset on the wrong day for the steamer down its lake, and had to engage a private boat. The little lake was lashed by the wind into furious purple billows, and the voyage was most wretched. A horrid male creature from Middlesborough, whom we surnamed the ‘Bumble Bee,’ accompanied us. I was brutal enough to make him over to Miss Holland, by saying, ‘This lady will be deeply interested to hear all you have to say,’ and to her he buzzed on perpetually. He told us that the people of Middlesborough were astonished—and no wonder—at his building in the midst of that hideous red manufacturing place a black and white timber house in imitation of one at Coventry, and designing to be carved on its barge-board the charming inscription—
‘Ye beastes who passe admire ye goode
Which thys manne didde whereer he coulde.’
“From our landing-place at Strand we had several hours’ drive along an unprotected precipice to the Rjukan-foss, the 560 feet high fall of a mountain torrent into a black rift in the hills. It is a boiling, roaring abyss of waters, with drifts of spray which are visible for miles before the fall can be seen itself, but the whole is scarcely worth the trouble of getting there, though a little mountain inn, with a well-earned dinner of trout and ale, and a quiet hour amongst the great grey larkspurs, furnish pleasant recollections.
“As we returned to Kongsberg, we stopped to see Hitterdal, the date-forgotten old wooden church so familiar from picture-books. Here we were told by our landlady that she would not give us any dinner—‘Nei, nei, nothing would induce her; perhaps the woman at the house with the flag would give us some.’ So, hungry and faint, Miss Holland and I sallied out as avant-couriers to the house with the flag. All was silent and deserted except for a dog, who received us furiously. Having pacified him, and finding the front door locked, we made good our entrance at the back, examined the kitchen, pried into all the cupboards, lifted the lids of all the saucepans, and not till we had searched everything for food ineffectually, were met by the lady of the house, a pleasant young lady, speaking English perfectly, who informed us, with no small surprise at our conduct, that we had been committing a raid upon her private residence. Afterwards we found a lonely farmhouse, where also there had once been a flag, where they gave us a very good dinner. Two young girls, whom we had first met at the Rjukan-foss, dined with us, and made us acquainted with their parents. The father, an old man who smoked an enormously long pipe, turned out to be the Bishop of Christiansand.
“On the 25th we started from Kristiania for Throndtjem, the whole journey of three hundred and sixty miles very comfortable and only costing thirty francs. There is no great beauty in the scenery, but pleasant variety—rail to Eidswold, with bilberries and strawberries in birch baskets for sale at the railway-stations: a vibrating steamer on the long dull Miosen lake: railway again, with some of the carriages open at the sides: a night at Koppang, a large station, where several people, strangers to each other, are expected to share the same room. On the second day the scenery improves; the railway sometimes runs along, sometimes over the river, till the gorge of mountains opens beyond Storen into a rich open country, with turfy mounds which reminded us of the graves of the hero-gods of Upsala, till, beyond the deep cleft in which the river Nid runs between lines of old painted wooden warehouses, rises the burial-place of St. Olaf, the centre of Northern Christianity, the shrine of Northern faith, the stumpy-towered cathedral of Throndtjem.
“The most northern railway station and the most northern cathedral in Europe.”
“August 8.—To the last the unspeakable beauty of Throndtjem grew upon us. It is not at first sight of its wide streets of low timber houses, or even of its fiord with purple mountain background, or of its glorious cathedral in the wide-spreading churchyard, which is the town-garden as well as the centre of all its sympathies, that you learn to admire it, but after many sunsets have turned the fiord into rippling gold, and sent an amethystine glow over the mountains, and after many rambles along the shores to rocky points and bosky hillocks.
“After much indecision, we determined to return from Throndtjem by road, and engaged two carriages at Storen, with a pleasant boy named Johann as a driver. At every ’station’ we changed horses, which were sent back by a boy who perched on the luggage behind, and we marked our distances by calling our single carriole horses after the kings of England. Thus, setting off from Storen with William the Conqueror, we drove into the Romsdal with Edward VI., but (after a drive with Lady Jane Grey) setting off again with Bloody Mary, our kings of England failed us long before our driving was over, and we used up the kings of Rome also. It was a very wild interesting life, and there was a great charm in going on and on into the unknown, meeting no one, dining on trout and pancakes at a station at midday, sleeping in odd, primitive, but always clean rooms, and setting off again at 5.30 or 6 A.M. There are bears and wolves in the forest, but we never saw any. Their skins, shot during the winter, are hanging up in almost all our sleeping-places. The prices are extraordinarily low, and the homely, cordial people kissed our hands all round on receiving the smallest gratuity, twopence halfpenny being a source of ecstatic bliss. But the journeys were tremendous, as we were sometimes called at four, and did not get in till twelve at night.
There was for a long time nothing especially fine in the scenery, except one gorge of old weird pine-trees in a rift of purple mountain, and the high moorland above Jerkinn, where the great ranges of white Sneehatten rise above the yellow grey of the Dovre Fyeld, hoary with reindeer moss. From Dombaas, we turned aside down the Romsdal, which soon became beautiful, as the road wound above a chrysopraz river, broken by many rocky islets, and swirling into many waterfalls, but always equally radiant, equally transparent, till its colour is washed out by the melting snows in a ghastly narrow valley which we called the ‘Valley of Death.’
“The little inn at Aak is very delightful, with a large garden on the hillside, and the views indescribably glorious—of the tremendous peaks of pink granite, or fields of pathless snow embossed against a sky delicately blue above, but melting into clearest opal.... There was much in the place, as at Throndtjem, which recalled my former life, and I seemed to go back into a lost past, to read a page long pasted down and put away. In both places we should have stayed for weeks; in both, I could see our trio sallying out every morning with campstools and books, making friends with the natives, or in the quiet of home life, with its home occupations in the little inn.
“And now, after many more stations, we have passed through Lilliehammer, and are again on the Miosen lake, speeding through the closing days of our tour.”
“Orkeröd near Moss, on the Kristiania Fiord, August 9.—On reaching Kristiania last night, I found a most gracious telegram from the Queen, through Countess Rosen, desiring that I would spend my last days in Norway with her. So I came this morning by the early steamer. Most beautiful were the long changing reaches of the fiord, with the rocks covered with foliage, already waving towards autumn, the rich russet and golden tints of the trees repeating themselves in the water. At Moss (to the intense astonishment of a very vulgar American family on board, who had given themselves indescribable airs to me) a royal carriage with two chasseurs in cocked hats and plumes was in waiting, and the King’s chamberlain was standing on the pier to receive me. We drove swiftly up a rocky forest road to the large villa which a merchant of Kristiania has lent to the Queen for the benefit to her health from the pine air. Another merchant close by has lent his to the King, as the immense personnel of the court could not possibly live in one house. As we drove up through the garden, a tall figure in a wide-awake hat emerged from one of the windows upon the terrace. ‘Sa Majesté le Roi!’ said the chamberlain; so I jumped out of the carriage, and he came forward at once with ‘Is it Mr. Hare? The Queen has spoken of you so much, that you are not like a stranger. The Queen will be delighted to see you, and so am I. We were so glad to hear that you would come to see us in our quiet country life. You will find nearly the whole family, only my second son, Oscar, has left us to-day. I am especially glad that you will see the Prince Royal, my eldest son, Gustaf. You will have a very little room with us, for we are so full, but you will have a good bed, and that is the essential. Come now and take a walk with me in the garden.’ So we walked and he talked, chiefly about Rome. Then he took me to the Prince Royal, who was sitting under the trees with the Countess Rosen, two maids of honour, and Baron Holtermann, the marshal of the palace. There we sat some time and talked till the Queen emerged from the house. I went towards her, and met her amongst the flower-beds. She looks wonderfully well, far better than at Segenhaus. Nothing could be more cordial or kind than her reception of me. We walked on the terrace for some time, and she talked of the great event since we parted, the attack on the Emperor, and of the Crown Princess.
“Then we went to sit under the trees and we talked of Throndtjem. The Queen described her first journey thither to her coronation. The King had been making a tour round by the North Cape, and she went to meet him. She went in a succession of carrioles by Lilliehammer and then by the Romsdal. At all the little stations people met her with flowers. ‘Art thou the mother of the land?’ they said, ‘art thou the mother of the land? Thou lookest nice, but thou must do more than look nice; that is not the essential.’ She said that even at Throndtjem the peasants touchingly and familiarly always called her ‘Du.’ ‘Art thou the mother of these tall boys?’ they said, and they would pray aloud that she might be blessed—in her husband, in her children, and in her home. One old woman asked the Countess Rosen to beg the Queen to go upon the roof of the house—‘then we shall all see her.’ The Queen also described her last journey back from Segenhaus. Her two horses, her dog, and her donkey travelled with her.
“Soon the beautiful donkey of our Segenhaus walk was brought round, with its crimson trappings, and the Queen mounted, and went off through the forest to the King’s house. I went in a kind of large open car with the Countess Rosen, the maids of honour, and the chamberlain. We reached the King’s villa before the Queen, and all drew up in two lines in the porch to receive her. There were also a great number of the people of Moss to see her arrive, as it is known she always does so at this hour. The King gave his arm to the Queen, and we all went to luncheon in a garden pavilion. Here the two youngest Princes came in,—Carl, a very handsome boy of seventeen, and Eugène, of twelve. The King called me to come up to a tiny round table at the end of the room on a daïs, where he and the Queen were alone, and made me sit with them on their divan. He said, ‘I shall now leave out your Mr. and only call you Hare, and upon that we will all drink healths;’ and he made me clink my glass with his and the Queen’s. The King talked much of the Prince Royal and his education, of all the languages he thought he ought to learn, and (perfectly without ostentation) of his own very great facility for learning—’catching’—languages, and of the great advantage it had been to him through life. I had had no food since six o’clock in the morning and was almost fainting with hunger, so, in spite of the honour of sitting with the King and Queen, I greatly envied the court at their good luncheon below, as their Majesties (and consequently I) had only coffee cups for their soup, and a tiny slice of bread and cheese apiece.
“Then the Queen mounted her donkey again, the King lifting her up, while the young Princes, climbing the pillars of the verandah behind their mother, made a pleasant family group. The cap of the Queen’s chasseur fell off, and the King picked it up for him and playfully pushed it tight down upon his head. Then the King and Princes started to walk, and I for a long drive with the Countess Rosen and some of the court. And now I am resting and the Queen has sent me a number of English newspapers to read. A propos of the picture of Lord Beaconsfield receiving the Garter in the Illustrated, the King said, ‘Now, let us talk a little politics. I like and admire most things English, but I will not conceal from you that I do not admire Lord Beaconsfield. I did not think his conduct about Cyprus was quite straightforward.’”
“August 10.—At four o’clock yesterday the whole court met in the drawing-room, so many gentlemen turning up from hidden corners, that it made twenty-four persons in all. The Prince Imperial recognised me immediately when he came in, and was exceedingly cordial and friendly. I was really glad to see him again. He is as nice as he can be, but as to appearance, his photographs flatter him, as he has such a bad complexion and his legs are too short. He is, however, quite delightfully frank and winning. He kissed the Queen’s hand very prettily and gracefully as she came in, looking very well with large bunches of natural double geranium upon the white lace of her dress and in her hair. He took the Queen, the King took Countess Rosen, and we all followed to dinner. I was desired to sit by the Prince Royal. His peculiar features are redeemed by a good expression when animated. He talks no English and atrocious French, and was difficult to get on with at first. Prince Carl, the third son, is very handsome, and seems to have a charming disposition. After dinner the princes were to go out fishing, and the head fisherman sent to say that there would be no room for little Prince Eugène, as there were so many of the Prince Imperial’s suite to be taken. Prince Carl came to the Queen and begged that Eugène might not be told, he would be so disappointed, and that he might stay at home in his place; and the Queen said, ‘Charles is always like that; he never can be persuaded to think of himself.’ I tried to talk of Rome to the Prince Royal, but whenever a maid of honour on the other side claimed his attention, was glad to subside into conversation with an old chamberlain. The King drank healths at dinner, the Prince Imperial’s, mine, Count Murat’s. The Prince Royal asked me to clink glasses with him. ‘Do you like that custom?’ he said. A Swedish noble, appointed to wait on the Prince Imperial, stood up when the King drank his health. Then I saw the other side of the King—in very cold stern rebuke. ‘In good society gentlemen do not stand up when their healths are drunk,’ and that in the severest tones. The Queen looked surprised, and a momentary chill fell upon the whole party. I am sure that the Swede, who was a very bumptious young man, had done or said something before which had displeased the King.
“When the princes were gone to their fishing, the Queen made me come and sit by her. She returned at once to the subject of the Prince Royal and her great anxiety that I should be much with him abroad. ‘He must learn his world,’ she said, ‘he knows so little of it. He is thoroughly good, but what he wants is enthusiasm, he wants to be incited to knowledge, to learning his future out of the past, and oh! you can help him so much, and if you will, I shall always be so grateful to you: but remember, and I know it will always help you to be kind to my boy if you do remember, what my boy’s future must in all probability be. Oh, Mr. Hare, do when there is a chance, sow some little seeds of good in my son’s young heart, and remember that what you do is not only done for the Prince Royal, not even for his mother, who entirely trusts you, but for the thousands upon thousands of people whom he may one day be called upon to influence. Whatever happens, if you will only interest yourself for my boy, you will believe in his mother’s gratitude.’
“The Queen continued to talk long in this manner with the utmost animation, till the Countess Rosen, suddenly seeing some sign of illness unobserved by us, ran round and said, ‘Dear Majesty, you must not now speak any more,’ and led her away with a charming mixture of motherly affection and playful deference.
“When Countess Rosen returned, she said, ‘The King desired that as soon as the Queen had ceased speaking to you, you should go to him: he especially wishes to talk to you alone.’ I found the King under a tree in the garden, reading a book (the ‘Odes of Horace,’ I think), and, fearing to disturb him, I pretended to occupy myself with the flowers, but he perceived me at once, closed the book, and coming to me, took my arm, and walked up and down on the terrace. ‘The Queen has been speaking to you of our son,’ he said; ‘I know what the Queen has been saying, and I wish to continue her conversation. He is a good boy, but he has not been tried; he has no idea what the world is like, nor of the many temptations which lie in wait for a young man, above all for a prince. Now the Queen and I are quite agreed that it is our wish that you should be as much to our son as possible, and I wished to see you alone that you might believe that all that his mother wishes, his father wishes also.’ The King then talked in detail of the Prince’s probable life in Rome, of the places and people he must see. ‘Please understand at once that my son must go to the Quirinal,’ he said. He went on to talk more earnestly of England, of the difficulties of all the lines to be drawn, and of all the individual persons whom it might be well for the Prince to see, and also some to be avoided. He wished the Prince to have a quiet month in England, to accustom himself to language and people, before going to London: he thought of Torquay; I suggested St. Leonards. He talked of Lady Waterford, whom he remembered many years ago, and admired almost more than any woman living, and wished that she might be persuaded to give an invitation to his son.
“Speaking of the course of study which would be best for the Prince led the King to talk of the great pleasure a thorough knowledge of Latin had been to himself, both for its own sake and as making all other languages easy to him.
“The King talked much of the anxieties at Berlin, and of the cloud over the royal life there. ‘Oh, how thankful I ought to be, how thankful I continually am, for our quiet corner, for a reign which is one of love. I never felt this more than in the Queen’s lonely carriole journey to her coronation at Throndtjem, and it was renewed lately in our son’s journey to Tellemarken. And though our people care for us, they do not flatter us. When the Queen was in the little village churches, near the different small stations where she passed her Sundays, the simple village curates of those mountain districts did not hesitate to preach to their Queen of all that she ought to do, of all that her life ought to be for herself and others, and oh! we are so grateful to them.’
“While we were talking, the court ladies were playing at croquet on the lawn. The King afterwards joined them, and I took a short walk with Baron Holtermann, marshal of the palace, and then went in and sat down to read in the drawing-room. Presently the King put in his head from the Queen’s room—‘Yes, he is here,’ he said, and then he called me to come in to the Queen. They then both of them took my hands and spoke to me in a most touching manner about the Prince Royal. The Queen also spoke of the uncertainty of her life, and of renewed meetings in distant Norway, and of her hope of seeing me in another world. She gave me her portrait. I could not but feel it a very solemn moment and very affecting. They took me out on the balcony of the room for one quiet moment. ‘Remember how we trust you,’ they said. And we looked down upon the fountain playing and the burnt grass and brilliant flowers in the moonlight and then we went back to the public rooms.
“The Prince Imperial and the Swedish princes now returned from fishing, singing at the pitch of their voices through the woods, and we all went upstairs to supper. Their Majesties and the whole court had—Swedish fashion—each a great bowl of sour milk, with a great hunch of bread and two preserved peaches in a glass. The Prince Royal, by whom I again sat, fortunately asked for sweet milk, so I was able to do so also. Then the King and princes went to the other house, and I took a sad farewell of the beloved Queen. If ever there was a woman who united the truest, widest spirit of Christianity with every earthly grace, it is Queen Sophie of Nassau.
“The Queen’s dresser was turned out of a room for me—a good room, but with neither soap nor bath, no chance or understanding of hot water, and the looking-glass quite unavailable! Swedes are accustomed to none of these things as necessaries in houses where they visit.
“At 8 A.M. Baron Holtermann fetched me to walk through the woods to the King’s house to breakfast, after which I walked with the King to the pier at the end of the garden. There the younger princes kissed their father, and the Prince Imperial (who was going away at the same time and whom the King would accompany to Kristiania) took leave of the court. It was an intensely hot day, the town of Moss and the shore of the fiord seeming to steam with hot mist and the flowers all drooping. A little steam-pinnace took us all to the luxurious steamer, where there was boundless space for sitting or walking or whatever we liked. The voyage was very long—five hours. I sat reading ‘Ticknor’s Memoirs,’ and the King and Prince Imperial came occasionally to talk to me. I found in the book an account of the Prince’s grandmother, Comtesse de Téba, in her prime, which interested the King very much. He said, ‘The Prince Imperial keeps me in a perpetual state of mental tension: he does ask me such questions. I am always wondering what he will say next. He is almost too intelligent a young man. He has just asked me to tell him how long a steamer takes to get up steam. I have seen hundreds of steamers getting up steam, but I never thought before how long it took. However, I have had to think now, and it takes five quarters of an hour. Oh, the Prince Imperial is very good mental exercise.’
“Half-way down the fiord, the Prince Imperial insisted upon it that he must bathe. At first the King said it was impossible, that the moment of his arrival at Kristiania was fixed, that the people were waiting to see him, that the steamer could not be delayed—in fact, that it was out of the question. But while the King was discoursing, the Prince Imperial stripped off every article of clothing he had on, and after rushing up and down the deck perfectly naked, jumped into the sea over the poop and swam like a fish. The King then was obliged to stop the steamer, as he could not leave the Prince Imperial in the middle of the fiord, and he told an aide-de-camp to undress and go to pick out the Prince. The Prince lay on the breast of the waves laughing at the King till the aide-de-camp reached him, and then he dived, disappeared for some time, and came up on the other side of the vessel. The Prince Royal then undressed and went in too, and two aides-de-camp, and they all swam and pursued each other like mermen. When at last the Prince was persuaded to re-embark, he sang and shouted in most uproarious spirits. Then came luncheon. The King proposed the Prince’s health—‘Mon cher hôte et mon cher neveu’—and then he proposed mine, saying, ‘I drink to your meeting with the Prince Royal at Rome, and you will be kind to my boy?’
“We entered Kristiania in triumph—all the towers, houses, and masts of the vessels in the harbour decorated with flags, cannon firing, and crowds of people on the quays. At the station were crowds too, waiting for the royal carriages as they drove up. There was quite a procession of them. I went in the second carriage with Count Murat. At the station I had just time to present the Miss Hollands, then I took leave of the king.”
“August 17.—The Prince Imperial travelled with us from Kristiania. It was an ovation to him the whole way—crowds at all the stations, and shouts of ‘Hoch, Hoch!’ instead of ‘Hurrah.’
“We parted company with the Prince at Helsingor, whence we went to Fredensborg, a dull château and pretty garden, and then to Frederiksborg, really magnificent, one of Christian IV.’s grandest buildings, on three islands in a lake.
“We have since seen Bremen with the grand calm face of the gigantic Roland-Säule raised above the busy market, and Münster with its old cathedral and Congress-hall, and now we are at Tournai, where there is a noble cathedral, contrasting in its serious thoughtfulness of design with the frippery and sameness of Cologne. And to-day, being in the octave of St. Roch, Tournai is hung with flags for a really beautiful procession—crosses, banners, images, reliquaries carried aloft by troops of young girls in white and blue and little boys in mediaeval dresses. Some of the tiny children in golden oak-chaplets, and with great golden oak-bouquets or golden lilies, are quite beautiful.
“And to-day, too, we pass out of the peculiar existence of the last two months into ordinary working life again. Great is the thankfulness I feel for all, especially for my kind and pleasant companions.”
I spent the late summer of 1878 very quietly at home, busied in completing the Life of the Baroness Bunsen. Many guests came and went, amongst them Miss Wright, whose constant kindness and affection had been so much to me for many years. Whilst with me she was very ailing, but it was only supposed to be rheumatism, and doctors, who examined her carelessly, sent her from Holmhurst to Buxton, which was fatal to her, for her real disorder was heart-complaint. I never shall forget the bitter anguish of the shock, gently and tenderly broken as it was by Mary Lefevre, when I read that I should never see again the loving devoted friend of so many years, who alone was always ready to help me in any difficulty, always glad to fight a battle for me, and whose humble nature so terribly overrated me, making me, however, long to struggle up in reality to that higher shelf on which I saw she had mentally placed me. Hers was one of—
“The many lives, made beautiful and sweet
By self-devotion and by self-restraint,
Whose pleasure is to run without complaint
On unknown errands of the Paraclete.”289
Wonderfully, though simply and unconsciously, did she fulfil the ideal of a holy life which is given us in the 15th Psalm. But it was not till she was gone, till her outpouring of gentle tenderness was silenced for ever, that one realised all she had been, and that her loss left a void for life which could never be filled up. Constantly have I gone back with useless self-reproach—would that I had done more to make her happy! would that I had always been more grateful in reciprocating so much kindness!—and most constantly have I been reminded—
“How each small fretting fretfulness
Was but love’s over-anxiousness,
Which had not been had love been less.”
Years have passed away as I write, but I can scarcely bear to speak of her, even to write of her, even now. “How holy are the holy dead! How willingly we take all the blame to ourselves which in life we were so willing to divide.”290 “Nevermore” is one’s echo of regret, but “too late” is that of repentance.
Dear Lady Williamson passed away from us in the same autumn, deeply loved too, but in her blindness and deafness one felt that her life—her entirely noble and beautiful life—was lived out, which one could not feel dear “Aunt Sophy’s” to be. She seemed to die, her life unfulfilled.
Throughout the autumn I had heard frequently from the Queen of Sweden and Norway, through the medium of her principal lady in waiting, the Countess Ebba von Rosen. The entire confidence and noble friendship expressed in these letters made it impossible for me to hesitate, when, after the Prince Royal had spent some time in Paris, it became the strong wish of her Majesty that I should join him at Rome. It was in entire concert with the King and Queen that I drew up the scheme of a series of peripatetic lectures for the Prince, in which, by describing historic events on the places with which they were connected, I hoped to fix those events and their lessons in his recollection. Their Majesties also agreed to the plan of my inviting others to join the excursions of the Prince. It was, however, with great misgiving that I left England, feeling that I gave up my pleasant home and congenial occupations in England for the constant companionship of a young man who had not, in our short previous acquaintance, made a very favourable impression upon me, and who might—should he take that line—resent my exertions in his behalf, and look upon me rather as a spy for his parents than as a friend to himself. When I once reached Rome, however, these fears were soon set at rest, and during the whole nine months which I passed in constant intimacy with the Prince, I never once had to reproach him with want of consideration for myself personally, but, on the contrary, always received from him marks of the utmost esteem and affection.
On the evening of November 16 I left Holmhurst, having worked at the index of my Bunsen Memoirs till within ten minutes of my departure. Upon the passage of the Mont Cenis I came in for terrible snowdrifts. Suddenly, after passing the tunnel, the walls of snow increased on each side of the train so as almost to block out the light, and, with a dull thud, the train came to a standstill near the wretched village of Oulx. An avalanche had fallen upon the luggage train which was pioneering our way, and three poor men were engulfed in it. The cold was terrific, and the suffering was increased in my case, because, having usually been much tried by the overheating of foreign trains, I had brought no carriage-rug or other wraps with me. After some time a way was cut through the snow walls to a miserable tavern, where sixteen ladies decided to sleep or cower in one wretched room and twelve gentlemen in another, but I gladly made my way back to the carriage before the passage was blocked again. It was then two in the afternoon, and wearily the day wore on into night, and still more wearily passed the night hours, with snow always falling thickly. I had a little brandy in the carriage, but no food. The suffering from cold was anguish. There were several invalid ladies in the train, for whom I felt greatly, knowing what this catastrophe would have been in times past before I was alone. Before morning two more avalanches had fallen behind us and the return to France was cut off. The telegraph wires were all broken, and the guard assured us that it was possible we might be detained days, or even weeks. At midday, cold and hunger made me try the hovel once more, but the filth and smells again drove me back to the carriage. At 4 P.M., however, on the second day, a welcome shouting announced that our deliverance was at hand. No trains arriving at Turin, our position was suspected, and the town-firemen were sent out en masse to cut a way for us. At 6 P.M. we were released from our twenty-eight hours’ imprisonment, but the way was so dangerous, that we did not reach Turin till long after midnight.
To Miss Leycester.
“26 Piazza di Spagna; Rome, Nov. 25, 1878.—You will imagine how touching—I shall never grow used to it—was the slow approach by rail round the walls of Rome, crossing all the little lanes we knew so well in our drives, and seeing, one after another, S. Paolo, the Caius Cestius, the Porta S. Sebastiano, S. Giovanni in Olio, Porta Maggiore, the Minerva Medica, and then the vast space once occupied by the beautiful Villa Negroni, but now parcelled out for straight streets and stuccoed houses.
“Yet, considering it is four years since I was here last, the changes are not great yet: the same old man with peaked hat and long beard and the same pretty girls stand waiting as models: the same old stonecutter is grinding away under the Tempietto, and Francesco threw open Miss Garden’s door and announced (simply) ‘Il Signorino,’ as if I had been there the day before.
“On Sunday, Umberto and Margherita of Savoy made a triumphal entry into Rome, and I went to the Palazzo della Consulta to see them arrive at the Quirinal. It was an exquisitely beautiful evening—not a breath of air stirring the many flags: the obelisk and statues and the grand fountain of Pius VII. were in deep shadow, but the sun was glinting through the old ilexes in the Colonna Gardens and illuminated S. Peter’s and the town in the hollow. There was an immense crowd of every class, from ex-guardia nobile to peasants in the costumes of Sora and Aquino, and through them all the vast procession of sixty carriages moved to the palace, with flags flying, and flowers falling, and cannon thundering, and the one little bell of the royal chapel tinkling away as hard as it could, because the other churches would make no sign. ‘I Sovrani,’ as all the people called them, looked very proud and happy, and Queen Margherita marvellously graceful, and pleased to see the millions of marguerites, which people were wearing in honour of her. The little Principe de Napoli is quite hideous, but they say well brought up under an English governess, and King Umberto in every way seems to wish to reform his dissolute father’s court, as well as to screen his memory, having taken the whole of his enormous debts upon himself, besides paying off Victor Emmanuel’s eight ‘domestic establishments’ out of his private purse. The King and Queen came out upon the balcony of the Quirinal, and were triumphantly received. (Next after the royal carriages had come a fourgon with the bouquets presented at the station.) Last night there was a torchlight procession, tens of thousands bearing torches, with music, banners, and gigantic marguerites, who passed through the Piazza di Spagna on their way to the Quirinal. Still, taxes are rather increasing them otherwise; the misery of the formerly prosperous Romans is extreme, and many think a revolution imminent.
“Monsignor Prosperi is dead. I wonder if you remember about that most extraordinary person, who was supposed to have the evil eye. The Romans believe that all the many misfortunes of this year, and the attacks on royalty, &c., are because it fell to his turn to cantare la missa at S. Maria Maggiore on the first day of the year. No end of shipwrecks and railway accidents are attributed to him, and so the poor man’s death is a subject of general rejoicing. It is recollected that after the last visit he ever paid, the servant of the house fell down on the stairs, and cut his eye open with the Monsignore’s visiting-card which he held in his hand.”
On arriving in Rome, I had found a tolerable little apartment for myself in 29 Piazza di Spagna, and the Prince Royal established in the charming sunny first floor of the Palazzo Rocca-Giovine in the Forum of Trajan. Thither I used daily, often twice a day, to go to the Prince. From the first he welcomed me very cordially, and I could see that he was really glad of my coming, still I was uncertain whether there would ever be more than an interchange of courtesy and duty between us. I never hoped to be able to give him the real affection I afterwards so sincerely felt. Somewhat to my consternation, I was desired by the King to fix my first lecture for the Prince for one of the very first days after my arrival, in order that Baron Holtermann, marshal of the palace, who was returning to Stockholm, might take back a full account of “how it went” to their Majesties. The Queen added her special request that I would say nothing except in English, in order to force the Prince-Royal to learn that language.
As being the central feature and axis of ancient Rome, I chose the Capitoline for my first lecture. General and Mrs. Stuart and Lady Agnes Douglas met me there at the top of the steps, and waited for the Prince, who arrived on foot with Baron Holtermann and two other Swedish gentlemen. I doubt at first whether they understood a word I said in English, and the being obliged constantly to translate into French or bad German did not add to the liveliness of the lecture. Our procession passed from point to point in the most funereal manner. The Prince made no observation whatever, Romulus, the Tarpeian Rock, Marcus Aurelius passing equally unnoticed; only when we came to Palazzo Caffarelli he said, “Oh, that was where Mim Bunsen was born:” it had touched a chord of human interest.
I wonder what sort of account of this lecture Baron Holtermann can have taken to the Swedish court; but we did better next time, when, on the Palatine, the Prince’s spirits quite rose over all the murders of the emperors and empresses. In the latter part of the winter, the lectures, which took place three times a week, were quite an enjoyment, he was so merry, so kind and pleasant to every one, so glad to know everything.
Very soon, after consultation with M. de Printzsköld, the Queen’s chamberlain, who had accompanied the Prince to Rome, I proposed going twice a week to read English with the Prince in the late afternoon, which was gladly accepted, and on those occasions we read “Mademoiselle Mori” alternately, and translated “Tolla” into English. It was in the little conversations which inevitably interspersed themselves with these readings that I first learnt to know my Prince really well. The readings themselves he found it very difficult to attend to, and the exercises he prepared for me were much against the grain, so we did not make much progress till I obtained an order from the Queen that the equerries should do the same exercises as the Prince, which roused his ambition, and he went ahead at once, and always did much better than his companions. I think it is Adam Smith who says that “the great secret of education is to direct vanity to proper objects.” After our lessons, I always dined with the Prince, sitting on his right hand. Afterwards the Prince and his Swedish gentlemen smoked, and as soon as it was possible to do it, I took my leave, except on evenings when I went out into the world with the Prince. But for the most part the Prince’s evenings were spent at home, the Italian court showing him no attention, and scarcely any of the Roman princes inviting him, except during the Carnival. Old Lady Morton was throughout exceedingly kind and helpful where the Prince was concerned, and gave several parties for him. At these, the Prince’s distant cousins, Princess Gabrielli, Countess Primoli, and Countess Campello, the round fat elderly daughters of Lucien Bonaparte, were always present.291 They were pleasant sensible women, especially Countess Primoli (Princess Charlotte Bonaparte). Having all married beneath their rank, they always made a point of going in and out of a room in the order of their age, which had often a funny effect.
Of all the people who welcomed me back to Rome, the most cordial were the blind Duke and the Duchess of Sermoneta, whom I was delighted to find established for the winter in the upper floor of the old Caëtani Palace. Since her marriage, the Duchess had contrived to conciliate the whole Caëtani family, not only to herself, but to each other. She had also ransacked the unknown corners of the palace, and had found endless old hangings, old portraits, &c., things almost valueless in themselves, but which gave the bare walls a look of historic antiquity. I often took the Prince to the evening receptions of the Duchess, at which, as at all the princely Roman houses, some tea and very sour lemonade were considered quite sufficient as refreshments. Without the Prince, I often dined with the Sermonetas at their homely early excellent Italian dinner, and an oasis in commonplace life was meeting there the Abbot Marcaldi of La Cava, the Abbot Pescitelli of Farfa, and a most beautiful old Don Pietro Tailetti, canon of St. Peter’s—like a mediaeval picture. They had all wished to see me, from their pleasure in the chapter on the Benedictine rule in “Days near Rome.”
To Mary Lea Gidman.
“Dec. 11, 1878.—I always see the Prince now with increased satisfaction and an increasing certainty that he likes having me with him. I also feel that I am able to be to him all that the Queen of Sweden wished, of which at first I was uncertain. In our walks he asks so many questions about what he sees, that I have to work hard in the evenings before to prepare myself to answer properly, for I find that I have forgotten much of the detail of my Roman history, &c.... Last week we went for the whole day to Corneto, eating an excellent breakfast provided by the Prince’s cook in the train. Professor Helbig, who had preceded us, met us at the station with a little omnibus. With this we went up into the high hills above old Tarquinii, and then descended with torches into the great sepulchres, where the dead of two thousand years ago are seen (in terra-cotta figures as large as life) sitting round at imaginary banquets, while the walls are covered with paintings of their deeds in life—hunting, fishing, dancing, &c., as fresh in colour as when they were painted. Then we went to visit a Countess Bruschi, who had a great collection of jewels and other beautiful things found in the tombs. This lady was the only person to whom we revealed who the Prince Royal was; but whilst we were at dinner the secret transpired, for there came from the Bruschi palace a bouquet of the most magnificent roses, like a sheaf, carried by two footmen, and another bouquet of camellias, arranged in a huge citron; and then the governor of the town arrived to make a little speech, to which the Prince gave a suitable answer, which I had to translate into Italian; and then all the people found out, and came to look at the Prince.”
On Christmas Day I received a telegram from the Queen of Sweden expressing her good wishes, and thanks for the kindness shown to her son. From a letter received about the same time from Countess Rosen I extract:—
“Stockholm, Dec. 18, 1878.—H.M. the Queen charges me to convey to you her thanks for your letters, which are very welcome. The Queen says you manage to tell just what interests her most about the doings of the Crown Prince. Both the Queen and the King thank you heartily for all your kind interest in the Crown Prince, and they perceive already that you have succeeded in gaining a good and useful influence over him, and that you have kindled up his interest for all that now surrounds him. The Queen is charmed if you write often, but she is afraid that it takes up too much of your time, which is much taxed already through all that you do for the Prince....
“The Queen begs you to write with perfect frankness, even when everything is not quite as one would wish it to be. Be sure that what you say will never be misunderstood.”
To Miss Leycester.
“Dec. 5, 1878.—I think my last letter may have expressed some of the depression I certainly felt as to the uncertainty of my position with the Prince Royal, and I know with how much pleasure you will hear that these clouds have completely cleared away. I have increasing, indeed I have now perfect satisfaction in my position with the Prince, and in the internal conviction that I can and may be to him all that the Queen has wished. The great secret is, I suppose, that I am becoming really very fond of him. He not only daily unfolds new gifts and graces for every one, but he is hourly pleasanter and more charming in all his relations to me, and I have now the certainty that I am most welcome to him; but indeed he has always treated me with entire confidence, though you will easily understand that had he possessed the slightest shadow of small-mindedness, he must have looked upon me with a sort of suspicion, from the intimacy with which his parents have honoured me, and my constant letters—which he knows must be about himself—to the Queen.
“To-day my lecture for him was on the Aventine. At S. Sabina I sent in notice of their visitor to the Abbot and the Father-General of the Dominicans, and in his honour the two ladies of our party, Countess Barnekow and Lady Agnes Douglas, were allowed to penetrate the inmost recesses of the convent, and to visit the cell of S. Dominic, with his exquisitely beautiful picture, and the cell of S. Pius V. As we came out of the church, the Abbot presented the Prince with a large basket of oranges and apples, and some leaves from the sacred tree of S. Dominic, and the Father-General with photographs of the convent pictures and view. Afterwards we visited the lovely Priorato garden, still full of flowers, and S. Prisca, and the wild, beautiful Vigna dei Gesuiti.”
It was one of the wise and kind thoughts of the Queen at this time to make it appear to the Prince that an eagerly coveted permission to go to Bucharest and Athens upon leaving Rome was granted in consequence of my petition in his favour. And indeed it was granted—as a Christmas gift—in consequence of my letters to the Queen as to the progress he was making, &c. I often wonder whether my letters to the court of Sweden of this winter have been preserved: I wrote such volumes, often illustrating them with sketches, &c.—“Memoires pour servir pour la vie du Prince Royal.”
To Miss Leycester.
“Dec. 19, 1878.—Ere this you will probably have received Madame de Bunsen’s Life ‘from the author.’ There is much in it which will interest you, some things you will not like. So it is with everything and everybody. But I am quite satisfied that it is the most truthful portrait I could have painted, and I trust it may worthily commemorate my dear old friend.
“The news of Princess Alice’s death, announced in a sermon on Sunday, was quite a shock, as I had not heard of her being ill; and she was so kind to me when here, and so interested and amused in correcting ‘Walks in Rome.’
“My dear Prince is very well and happy and enjoying everything. I see him daily, generally for half each day, but have very little new to say about it. I have found a passage about Charles I., by Cowley I think, which expresses just what I hope may be said of him some day: ‘Never was there a more gracious Prince or a more proper gentleman. In every pleasure he was temperate, in conversation mild and grave, in friendship constant, to his servants liberal, to his Queen faithful and loving, in battle brave, in sorrow and captivity resolved, in death most Christian and forgiving.’
“The Queen writes through the Countess Rosen that she is delighted that I am going with the Prince to Florence, and that it was quite the Prince’s own idea; but she fears I shall find him rather a dull companion there, as he has very little taste for picture-galleries.”
“Jan. 6, 1879.—I was very glad to part with 1878—a year of many sorrows—dear Miss Wright’s death the greatest. On the last evening I went to Mrs. Terry’s, where Miss Trollope sang exquisitely ‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot’ in the last minutes of the year.
“My last lecture for the Prince was upon the last days of S. Paul, going to the pyramid of Caius Cestius, the last surviving witness of his life, to the desolate Tre Fontane, and then to the huge basilica which sprung from his martyrdom. At the Tre Fontane the Prince found a beautiful piece of old marble railing and a fine fragment of pietra-dura pavement, used to wall in a flower-bed; bought them, and he and I lugged them back to the carriage between us. He is now very happy, and (though there are black days) enjoys everything very much. We have increased our little party by the handsome widowed ‘Anne, Countess of Dunraven,’ and the charming Countess Schulenberg, a North Prussian.
“The Prince and I dined with Lady Morton the other day, meeting Prince and Princess Altieri, Prince and Princess Sulmona, Countess Apponyi, &c. I was very glad that he should meet this completely ‘black’ party, as he has had few opportunities of meeting that phase of politics. On Thursday the Duchess Sermoneta gives another party for him, to which she has taken the fancy to ask all the ‘learned’ people in Rome. My poor Prince will not make much of them, but will be amused with many, especially with Donna Ursilia Lovatelli, who likes to converse in Sanscrit, and who had to be told that she must not bring with her more aides-de-camp than the Prince (four); as her ‘court,’ as she calls it, which likes to follow her, sometimes numbers sixty persons. Madame Minghetti will also bring her court, which is far more Bohemian, amusing, and agreeable.
“But daily I feel more the force of something which I think was said by Charles V. of France: ‘On doit nourrir les princes des vertus, afin qu’ils surmontent en mœurs ceux qu’ils doivent surmonter en honneurs.’”
“Dec. 29.—I am glad to hear of my book, which I have not seen, though it reached Stockholm long ago. It is a pleasure to have an outburst of approval from the Bunsens. Of reviews I think little, knowing how they scarcely ever have anything to do with the merits or demerits of a work, but only with the wish of an editor to advantage or injure an author: besides, the newspapers all copy one another, only changing the words.
“We have had burning sun and intense scirocco here, which of course means a great deal of rain, and there have been torrents each day, but lovely effects between, such masses of cloud rolling over St. Peter’s, with brilliant light falling through upon the many-domed town, and tremendous conflagrations at sunset. I spent Christmas Eve at the Palazzo Colonna, where the Duchess Marino had an immense Christmas-tree for her servants and friends, and a merry party of children. A prettier sight than the tree was the little Duchess herself, in a white silk dress, with a long lace veil looped upon her head and enveloping her figure, ceaselessly carrying presents to servants, poor women, &c. She is really charming, with simple, sincere, cordial manners, and her husband is most pleasant, the very best type of an Italian gentleman. Donna Olympia Colonna was at the tree—very bridal-looking, bright, and pretty.
“With the Prince I have ever more entire satisfaction. I constantly see more of him, and have daily increasing affection for him. Of course the position is not perfect, but I expect this in everything, and am quite sure of his absolute confidence to a degree which I never expected. I am happy in feeling that Rome is doing for him all that the Queen hoped, but which I did not, and that he will return to her indescribably improved in every way. I suppose people who have children of their own are familiar with it, but I could not have conceived before the interest of watching the gradual unfolding and expansion of a character to which one utterly devotes oneself; and with him all was new, it was entirely fallow ground to work upon.
“One day we went to Frascati by rail, taking with us Count and Countess Barnekow and Count and Countess Lievenhaupt, Swedes, and Lady Agnes Douglas. While Lady Agnes did the honours of some of the villas, M. de Printzsköld and I got an excellent though thoroughly Roman dinner ready at the little inn, and afterwards the ladies had donkeys, the Prince a horse, and we others walked up to Tuseulum. Here the Prince was very happy picking up mosaics in the long grass, and eventually insisted on excavating, and lugging back to Rome in his arms, a great mass, as big as that in the verandah at Holmhurst. We came down by the great desolate villa of Mondragone, and returned to Rome in the evening laden with fern and butcher’s-broom, which, with its bright scarlet berries, is the Roman apology for holly.
“The Prince hates the churches, and generally has to be bribed to bear them with equanimity by the promise of a little marble-hunt in some vineyard afterwards, when it is amusing to see the whole party fall to grubbing simultaneously among the artichokes. It has been hard work refusing the endless people who want to go with us, but besides Lady Dunraven we have only admitted pretty little Miss Trollope, the historian’s daughter. I like Princess Teano very much, and am charmed with her anxiety to make the very most of all she sees, and Lord Hylton’s boy, George Jolliffe, is delightful, brimming with enthusiasm and intelligence.”
Journal.
“Feb. 20, 1879.—Each day, as I have known the Prince Royal better, I have liked him more. He has no sense of beauty and no care for it, and he has naturally very few of my tastes, but he has the most transparent, truthful, simple, loyal character I have ever known, and he has ever been unspeakably kind and affectionate to me. We have been wonderfully thrown together, even all the little circumstances intended by others to divide us having acted the other way, and made us cling to each other with truest friendship.
“All the earlier part of the winter I continued my lectures for him, in which we visited almost every remarkable object in Rome. Our party was much increased latterly, one of its most interesting elements being the Prussian Countess Schulenberg, with whom I formed a great friendship. I wish now that I had written down the many conversations of interest I had with her; she left suddenly in January to take care of a sick cousin in Germany.
“One of the last evenings of the year was spent in the Palazzo Colonna with the sweet little Duchess of Marino. She is a great addition and enlivenment to the dull egotistical Roman society, and is brimming with good intentions and high aspirations, many of which she is really able to carry out. Greatly, for instance, did she astonish modern Rome, with its vulgar attempts at exclusiveness, by opening her rooms for a grand party in the noble old Roman style, in which princes and sculptors met on equal terms, and artists were as cordially received as if they were ambassadors.
“Amongst the acquaintance who came to me with the New Year were the Dutch Minister and Madame de Westenberg, his American wife, from whom I have received much cordiality. Other people with whom I have been intimate are the admirable Swedish Count and Countess Barnekow, the latter especially charming, and full of life and intelligence. The Count has been taking the post of consul here this year, but they have been welcomed in all societies. There is something quite charming in their relation to their children—little girls—and their influence over them. Of these, the second, Elisabet, was compelled at six years old to have her finger amputated. The mother prepared her for it, and told her how terribly it would add to her distress if she did not bear the operation bravely. The child said she could bear it if only they did not tell her it was nothing: she knew it was dreadful, but if no one attempted to deceive her she could bear a dreadful thing. She sat on the surgeon’s knee while the finger was being taken off; she never uttered a sound, and when the operation was over, she kissed him to show she bore no malice!
“On the 16th of January I went, away with my Prince for a tour in Tuscany. I very soon found that for me the trial of the tour would be his hatred of fresh air. He never would have the carriage window opened, even on the hottest day and with steaming hot-water pans. Otherwise all was luxury, kindness, and comfort. We arrived at Perugia on the most glorious evening I ever remember: violet mists were rolling through the valleys, the snow mountains were rosy in the sunset. It was such a scene as can only be enjoyed in Italy, and in Italy can only be found in Umbria, perhaps only at Perugia. But the Prince was much more interested in an illuminated church where there was a function in honour of S. Mauro. Next day we drove to Assisi, where he was far more delighted at buying a little old silver box in a sidestreet than with all the old churches and monasteries. He travelled under the name of the Comte de Tullgarn, and at Perugia no one found out who he was, which made him very happy. At Florence, however, he was unfortunately discovered, and we found great preparations—two smart carriages waiting at the station, twenty-six candles and three lamps burning in our rooms, with prices in proportion, and a serenade of music outside the windows.
“Therefore, as soon as we arrived, I began to look up Florentine acquaintance, and called on the charming Marchesa Elisabetta Torrigiani, who lives with her four sons, three of them married, in the greatest harmony, in the fine old Torrigiani palace. We dined with them, and were greatly delighted with the three beautiful daughters-in-law, especially the Marchesa Cristina, wife of Don Filippo, a member of the once-sovereign house of Malaspina. The Marchese Pietro placed his carriage at our disposal. The family of Corsini were also most civil to us, and their head, the Marchesa Lajatico, gave a great ball in honour of the Prince. Other parties were given to us by the Marchesa Cavoni, Baron de Talleyrand, Sir Digby and Lady Murray, and the Fenzis. One evening we spent with the C. de Bunsens, who asked many interesting people, including Sir James Lacaita, Villari the historian, and the old Duc de Dino, to meet us. One beautiful day we drove out to Castagnuolo, where we were entertained in the ancient hill-set villa by the Marchese della Stufa and Mrs. Ross, and the Prince fed all the rare birds, and visited the farm and the wine-making.
“On leaving Florence, the Prince and I had a really happy day together at Pisa. M. de Printzsköld was then sickening with Arno fever, and when we were at Siena was unable to go out with us: with the others we drove to the mediaeval castle of Belcaro, whose owner, the Marchese Camajori, had long been slightly known to me, and wandered much about the old streets and into the shops of the antiquaries.”
We returned to Rome on the 25th. My regular lectures were over then, but as the Prince missed our little parties, I had some for him to the villas and galleries. At this time, as often afterwards, those who surrounded the Prince gave me the opportunity of testing the truth of Lord Chesterfield’s observation, that “courts are the best key to characters; there every passion is busy, every character analysed,” as well as the dictum of La Bruyère, that at court “les joies sont visibles mais fausses, et les chagrins cachés mais réels.”
To Miss Leycester.
“Rome, Feb. 3, 1879.—I feel as if it must be dull reading letters only about the Prince, but as I have not even the possibility of seeing much of any one else, what else can I say? I am obliged to give up everything to his lessons, his invitations, and to trying to help him to make the most of all he sees. He enjoyed Pisa, where I saw the Limosins,296 and we drove through the forest of San Rossore to the Gombo, where the Prince and I sat long in the warm afternoon upon the little pier above the sea waves, which the dear Mother enjoyed so much there in 1857. I often wonder if she knows what I am doing now, but I feel sure she would be glad and satisfied that so much time should be given up to one who must one day influence tens of thousands. I have many struggles now and much to contend with in the position, but with the Prince himself have nothing but satisfaction. I tumbled downstairs on Saturday night, and was so much hurt as to be all yesterday without seeing him: so to-day at eleven the donna announced—‘Un signorino.’ I was sitting for my picture and was afraid of moving, so waited for the visitor to come round from behind my chair, when behold the Prince, who had escaped from his gentlemen, seized a little carriage in the street, and come off to me. I mention this as an example of the ever-pleasant terms I am on with him, and which make it impossible not to be fond of him.
“I am glad you like the Bunsen Memoirs on the whole. I knew you would not agree with details. She always wondered, as I have always done, how those who really love their Saviour, and wish to follow His precepts, can reconcile themselves to setting up the great idol of Sabbatarianism, the sin against which He was most eager and earnest in warning His disciples, and against which more of His teaching was directed than any other single offence. She also thought, as I have always done, that, next to churches (often misused), theatres (also often misused) were instruments which could be made most widely useful in leavening great numbers of people at once; and therefore she considered that an immaculate company and a play of high principles ought always to be encouraged.”
“Feb. 13.—I have had a series of lectures for the Prince in the Vatican galleries and St. Peter’s, and at the latter, by kindness of Monsignor Théodoli, had all the chapels of the crypt illuminated, and the precious plate and vestments (Charlemagne’s robes, &c.) exhibited. We climbed up to the cross, but the ladies of our little party succumbed on the different roofs, except Lady Dunraven, who went with us to the ball.
“On the 4th I was with the Prince at a ball at the Palazzo Caffarelli, the German embassy, which is much done up since Bunsen’s days and exceedingly magnificent. The great hall was entirely surrounded with palm-trees, under one of which I stood, with the Swedish Countess Barnekow, to watch the procession come in and the state quadrille—which Queen Marguerite danced with M. de Keudel, and my Prince with Mme. de Keudel—alone on the long sides of the room, with a perfect tourbillon of ambassadors and ambassadresses at the narrow ends. A much prettier ball was that at Palazzo Caëtani. This the Prince had to open with the Queen, so we had to be there by eleven, but because the King and Queen were to be there, all the great nobles stayed away, so for once Palazzo Caëtani did not shine. The Queen looked lovely, but, ever since the attack on the King, has been more nervous than ever, perpetually picking at her gloves, twisting her fan, and shaking out the folds of her dress. Her beautiful hair was full of marguerites in diamonds. The King looked glaring and demoniacal, yet really is going on very well, and does all he can to sweep away the abuses and immoralities of his father’s court, unpopular as it makes him with his father’s sycophants. Yesterday I was with the Prince at a great ball at Prince Altieri’s—the blackest of the ‘black’ houses—where I had the great pleasure of seeing again my sister’s dear friend the Duchess Sora, who has lived in a sort of exile hitherto, ever since the Sardinian occupation of Rome.
“Yesterday morning I went with the Prince to the antiquity market in the Campo de’ Fiore. We left the carriage in the courtyard of the Cancelleria, and made a raid upon the old bookstalls, till our arms were quite full, and then we deposited our burthens and made another. The Prince is getting on wonderfully with his English, and will talk fluently by the time he reaches London. I see him ceaselessly. He has been twice to my lodgings to-day, and I have been out with him besides. He dances till 4 A.M. every night now (it is Carnival), but is never tired, and up at eight.”
“Feb. 24.—My present work is likely to end for a time on Thursday, when my dear Prince goes to Naples and Sorrento. On looking back, I have unmixed satisfaction that I came. He leaves Rome quite a different person from the Prince I found here—much strengthened, and I am sure much improved in character, as well as speaking and reading English and French (which he did not know before), and being able to take a lively animated part in a society in which he was previously a cypher. Of course, I personally have been able to do very little more than introduce him and constantly throw him with those who have influenced him, and I have been most ably seconded and helped in everything I wished for him by Lady Morton, the Sermonetas, Princess Teano, and—in her own way—by Lady Paget. To me he has been unfailingly pleasant. I have never had a difficulty with him.
“We have been together several times in the Vatican, with Monsignor Pericoli, at the sale of Pius IX.’s things—quantities of things, from valuable pictures and sculptures to empty jam-pots; but touching in many ways, especially the boxes of the well-worn Papal slippers. All is obliged to be sold, as the produce is divided into three parts—one to the family, one to the cardinals-in-waiting, and the third to the Church. The Prince bought some valuable amethysts, and I have the Papal despatch-box engraved with his arms, a picture which hung in his room, and a pair of the Papal slippers.
“For the last ten days we have been in all the dirt and squalor of the silly, filthy Carnival, which is more mesquin and contemptible than ever; but the Prince is only twenty, and it has amused him. I have only been obliged to go with him to the Corso one day, when we went to one-o’clock luncheon with the Dutch Minister, and were astonished to find every shutter closed, chandeliers and candles lighted, ladies in white satin and diamonds, gentlemen in evening dress; in fact, midnight at midday! so that the Prince and I felt rather shy. However, Mrs. Bruce cheered us by appearing in a bonnet.”
I saw much at this time of Madame Minghetti, the wife of the senator, still wonderfully beautiful and captivating, though a grandmother. Her rooms were draped with every possible nuance of colour which can harmonise together, great palm-trees and bananas shaded the sofas and arm-chairs, and the heavy curtains only let in witching rays of half light upon a gorgeous gloom. Here, in her receptions in the early Sunday afternoon, she would sit upon the floor and sing, break off in the middle of a line to receive or embrace some one, and, in an instant, be again in her place, singing as before and taking up the line which was left unfinished.
Another new friend was the pretty lively Princess of Salm Reifferscheid, whom, with her husband, I invited to accompany us to Tivoli, when the Prince gave me a carriage and told me to ask whom I liked. At Tivoli our party had a charming day, riding on eleven donkeys, penetrating into the depths of the cascades, having luncheon in front of the temple, and sitting in the sun opposite the cascatelle. At sunset we were at the Villa d’Este, and went down into the hollow to look up at the grand old villa, golden through the dark cypresses.
I saw, however, comparatively little of those who usually make the pleasure of my Roman winter, and devoted myself to the Prince. There is no use—none—in trying to be, or to do, two things at once.
Journal.
“Here is a story which I have heard lately:—
“Lady Vernon297 dreamt. She dreamt that she saw the butler, with a knife in one hand and a candle in the other, crossing the entrance hall, and she woke with a great start. After a little she composed herself to sleep again, and she dreamt—she dreamt that she saw the butler, with a knife in one hand and a candle in the other, on the middle of the staircase, and she woke with a great shock. She got up; she thought she could not be quite well, and she took a little sal-volatile. At last she fell asleep again, and she dreamt—she dreamt that she saw the butler, with a knife in one hand and a candle in the other, standing at her bedroom door; and she awoke in a great terror, and she jumped out of bed, and she said: ‘I’ll have an end of this, I’ll have an end of these foolish imaginations,’ and she rushed to the door, and she threw the door wide open. And there at the door stood the butler, with a knife in one hand and a candle in the other. And when he suddenly saw Lady Vernon in her white night-dress, with her hair streaming down her back, he was so dreadfully frightened that he dropped the candle on the ground and rushed off down the staircase, and off to the stables where there was a horse ready saddled and bridled, on which he meant to have ridden away when he had murdered Lady Vernon; and he rode away without ever having murdered her at all, and he was never, never, never heard of again.”
On the 3rd of March, a well-known partnership of upwards of sixty years was closed at Rome by the death, in his little apartment at 55 Via Sistina, of William Howitt the author leaving his sweet old Mary298 alone with her unmarried daughter Margaret. Though never very remarkable, the many books of William and Mary Howitt were always excellent, and the writers were deeply respected. I attended Mr. Howitt’s funeral on the 5th, walking with Mrs. Terry, Baron Hoffmann, and Prince George of Solms, immediately after the daughter and son-in-law. The ceremony was a very touching one, and the coffin buried in wreaths of camellias, lilies, and violets. As William Howitt was a Quaker, the service was different from ours, but hymns were beautifully sung over his coffin in the chapel and at the grave, where the American clergyman, Dr. Nevin, gave a really touching and beautiful address, as the daughter was pouring basket after basket of flowers into the open grave.
I dined with the Prince on the day before that fixed for his departure to Naples. When our last moment together came, he took me into his room and parted from me there, with many most affectionate words, and gave me the Order of St. Olaf, which the King of Sweden and Norway had conferred upon me, begging me to wear it for his sake.299 I left him with the truest affection, and with, I think, unbounded confidence and regard on both sides.
From the Countess Rosen.
“February 23.—As the Prince’s stay in Rome is now drawing to its close, their Majesties charge me once more to express to you their most heartfelt thanks for all your kindness to the Prince, all the good and useful influence you have had over him, and all your arrangements to combine the useful with the amusing in order to kindle his interest. Their Majesties have always been so happy to know that you were at his side and smoothed all his difficulties. In his own letters the Prince shows that he has learnt to love and appreciate you, and is thankful for all you have done for him.”
To Miss Leycester.
“Feb. 28, 1879.—You ask if I was alarmed over my lectures with the Prince, and found them difficult. No, not very. From the first I thought of what Johnson told Sir J. Reynolds, and I tried to do the same. He told him that he had ‘early laid it down as a fixed rule to do his best on every occasion, and in every company: to impart whatever he knew in the most forcible language he could put it in, and that by constant practice and by never suffering any careless expressions to escape him, or attempting to deliver his thoughts without arranging them in the clearest manner, it had become habitual to him.’ So you see that I have been fortifying myself by wise advice! And I am sure that it is the way in which things are said that fixes them in the mind.”
Journal.
“Fabj. Altini, the sculptor, says Thorwaldsen declared clay to be the life of art, plaster its death, and marble its resurrection.
“Mrs. F. Walker told me how she went out one evening at Freshwater to meet her brother-in-law and niece as they were returning from an excursion along the cliffs. On her way she saw a lady in deep mourning, with a little boy, emerge apparently from a side path to the one on which she was, and walk on before her. She noticed the lady’s peculiarly light step. Mother and son stopped at a little railed-in enclosure at the top of the hill, and gazed over the railings; then they went on again in front of her. At length, beyond them, Mrs. Walker saw Mr. Palmes and his daughter coming to meet her. Between her and them she saw the lady and boy suddenly disappear—apparently go down some side path leading to the sands; but, when she came to the place, there was no path, the cliff was perfectly precipitous. Miss Palmes equally saw the lady and boy coming towards her, and was greatly agitated by their sudden disappearance.
“Afterwards they found that the same sight was constantly seen there. It was the little boy’s grave into which the two had gazed. He had fallen over the cliff just there and been killed, and was buried by his mother’s wish inside that little circular railing.”
The Prince was in Rome for one night on his way from Naples to Munich, I went to him in the early morning, and was with him till 2 P.M., when he left, spending the time in driving about with him, chiefly to the antiquity shops, in which he always had the greatest delight. The very day after he left I fell in with other royalties, of whom at first I seemed likely to see a great deal. I was at the Princess Giustiniani Bandini’s, when the Hereditary Grand Duke and Duchess of Saxe-Weimar were announced—a very simple homely pair. The lady-in-waiting, hearing my name, most cleverly recollected all about me, and I was presented, and very cordially and kindly received. A few days after, Princess Teano asked me to meet them at dinner. Only the Keudells of the German Embassy and the Minghettis dined besides the family, but an immense party came in the evening. The Hereditary Grand Duke is a weak-looking little man with a very receding forehead. The Grand Duchess (who was his cousin) is a fine big woman—“bel pezzo di carne”—with intense enjoyment and good-humour in everything. “How can anybody be ill, how is it possible that anybody can be unhappy in Rome!” Both talked English perfectly. They arranged then that I should show them the Palatine. But a few days afterwards I heard from the Duchess Sermoneta that the Grand Duchess had said to her that, owing to the furious jealousy of the German archaeologists, she was unable to go with me.
Journal.
“March 17, 1879.—At Mrs. Terry’s I have met again her sister, Mrs. Julia Ward-Howe, the American poetess. When she wanted me to talk to her and I did not, she said, ‘In your case, Mr. Hare, I must pervert a text of Scripture—“to do good and to communicate forget not.”’
“I have seen much, almost daily, of Lord Hylton’s young son, George Jolliffe, for whom I have an affection ever increased by his confidence in me, which makes me feel more of responsibility as an instrument of possible good in his case than I have ever done in any other. He is a delightful companion in Rome, so full of interest and enthusiasm in all we see.... We went together yesterday to the Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne, where the old blackened portico was hung with bright tapestry, and the whole staircase and rooms strewn with box, because it was the day on which S. Filippo Neri raised the Massimo child from the dead. Most surprising were the masses of people—cobblers and contadini elbowing cardinals up the long staircase, washerwomen on their knees crowding princesses round the altar. Prince Massimo, in full evening dress, received in the anteroom of the chapel, and the Princess (daughter of the Duchesse de Berri) invited every one she knew to have ices and coffee.
“I went afterwards to Miss Howitt, who talked cheerfully about her father. ‘Rome might possibly not be the place to live in, but it certainly was the place to die and be buried in.’ She spoke of the extraordinary shots made at her father’s life by the English newspapers—how one of them described her mother’s daily walk on the Pincio by the side of a Bath-chair which ‘contained an ancient man,’ &c., the fact being that her mother never walked, that her father always walked, and moreover that there was no Bath-chair in Rome.
“Last night I was at the British Embassy till 1 A.M. I conquered shyness sufficiently to go and talk to the Grand Duchess, though she sat in a row of princesses. The younger Marchesa Lajatico was there—most graceful and charming.”
“March 20.—A young American drove me to the meet at Centocelle. It was a lovely day of soft scirocco, fleecy clouds floating over the pale pink mountain distances and the Campagna bursting into its first green, across which the long chains of aqueduct arches threw their deep shadows. Crowds of people and carriages were out, but we followed Princess Teano, who knew all the ups and downs of the ground, and drove with young Lady Clarendon so cleverly, that we were in at the death in the great ruins of Sette Basse.”
“March 21.—Tea with Countess Primoli (Princess Charlotte Bonaparte) in her little boudoir at the end of a long suite of quaint old-fashioned rooms. She talked very pleasantly, but with too constant reference to the Empress and Prince Imperial as ‘my family.’ I went afterwards to see the Favarts at Ville Lante. It is a beautiful place, and the noble face of Madame Favart is worthy of its setting. Consolo was there and played marvellously on the violin, every nerve seeming to vibrate, every hair to leap in unison with his chords.”
“March 23.—Once more I am on the eve of leaving Rome, more sorry to part with my little winter rooms than I ever expected to be; even my ugly squinting donna, ‘Irene,’ having proved very good and faithful. The time here has been full of interests, independent of royal ones—one of them, the going out to India of Frank Marion Crawford, the son of my dear friend Mrs. Terry. He would probably have done no work in Europe, though he has evinced an ambitious perseverance by voluntarily pursuing the study of Sanscrit—‘because it was so difficult,’ and this has enabled him to accept a vacant professorship in the University at Bombay.”300
“Florence, March 27.—I left Rome on Tuesday—a lovely morning, and I looked my last at the glorious view from the Medici Terrace with a heavy heart.
“Now I am in the old Palazzo Mozzi at Florence, as the guest of the Sermonetas. On the side towards the Via dei Bardi the palace rises up gaunt and grim like a fortress, but at the back it looks into a beautiful garden, with terraces climbing up the steep hillside to the old city wall. The rooms are large and dreadfully cold, but the Duchess has made them very picturesque with old hangings and furniture. The Duke talks incessantly and cleverly. I asked him why his Duchess signed ‘Harriet Caëtani,’ not ‘Sermoneta,’ and he explained how all the splendour of the family arose from the fact that they were Caëtani; that many of the greatest of the old families, such as the Frangipani, had no titles at all: that even the Orsini had no title of place, and that it was only modern families, like the Braschi, who cared to air a title. The oldest title in Italy was that of Marchese, which came in with the French: Duke came with the Imperialists; but the title of Prince, for which he had the utmost contempt, was merely the result of Papal nepotism: Borghese was the first Prince created.
“The Duke declared that the word ‘antimonial’ was really ‘antimonacal.’ The alchemists who lived in the old convents used to throw out of the windows the water which they had used in their search after the philosopher’s stone: pigs drank the poisoned water and died: monks (monaci) ate the pigs and died also: hence the expression.
“The Duke is very adverse to open windows: ‘If I want the air I can go out into the piazza,’ he says. To his relations, for the most part, he greatly objects—‘Questi sono i flagelli di questo mondo.’ A monk or nun, he says, is ‘Un insétto chi puo vivere senza aria a senza acqua.’
“We have been at a large party at the Palazzo Torrigiani, and it has been a great pleasure to see again the many members of the large, pleasant, amiable Florentine society.”
Having undertaken to devote myself exclusively to the Prince Royal had made me give up all my usual employments during this Roman winter of 1878-79. The chief event in my life disconnected with the Prince was my being asked to open the session of the British and American Archaeological Society. This I long refused, urging that many others were more worthy and competent, but it was insisted upon, and, to my great surprise, I found myself speaking to a crowded meeting words which I had written down before, but which I never found any need of referring to. Here they are (for I have preserved them nowhere else) from the notes I made:—
“The Secretary of this Society conferred upon me a most unexpected honour when he asked me to open this meeting. I could have wished that he had selected some one more worthy of that honour, for not only am I unaccustomed to public speaking, but I may truly say that I never made a speech in my life. I will therefore hope that my many deficiencies—my more than many deficiencies, may be either overlooked or pardoned.
“But, though the Secretary could have found many persons in Rome better able to address you, with more power of doing justice to their subject than myself, he could not have found one to whom Rome was dearer, about whose heart all its sympathies were more tenderly and closely entwined. Long and intimate family association, perhaps the very fact of having a birthplace in the once beautiful Villa Strozzi, have added to that sense which comes to so many, of looking upon Rome as a second home—a home as familiar almost, quite as tenderly beloved, as the home in far-away England. How truly Chateaubriand has said that those who have nothing left in life should turn their footsteps to Rome: there the very stones can waken into speech; there the very dust beneath our feet can kindle into memories of a past ever fresh and ever sacred. To those who come here first as strangers, the decay, the stagnation, the ruin of everything may be oppressive; they may see only the bareness of the stuccoed streets, they may grumble at the rough pavements, they may be wearied with the petty discomforts and difficulties of daily and practical life:—but no matter! If they only stay here long enough, the love of Rome will insidiously creep upon them; they will feel it difficult to tear themselves away from it; and, when they have left it, it will ever come back to them—in silent hours, in visions of the night—grand ruins lying in silent slumbrous solitude; desolate vineyards flower-carpeted; beautiful villas, where the ancient ilex avenues are peopled with marble statues, relics of a mythical past which in Rome seems almost as real as the present; and above all, the recollection of a mighty purple dome embossed upon a sky whose sunset glory recalls the splendours of the New Jerusalem—first a sapphire, then a chalcedony, then an emerald, then a chrysopraz, last an amethyst.
“In regard to how many Roman scenes do we echo such thoughts as Clough has expressed in his beautiful lines to the Alban Mount:—
‘Alba, thou findest me still, and, Alba, thou findest me ever,
Now from the Capitol steps, now over Titus’s arch,
Here where the large grassy spaces stretch from the Lateran portal,
Towering o’er aqueduct lines lost in perspective between,
Or from a Vatican window, or bridge, or the high Coliseum,
Clear by the garlanded line cut of the Flavian ring.
Beautiful can I not call thee, and yet thou hast power to o’ermaster,
Power of mere beauty; in dreams, Alba, thou hauntest me still.’
“What Madame Swetchine says of life, that you find in it exactly what you put into it, is also true of Rome, and those who come to it with least mental preparation are those least fitted to enjoy it. That preparation, however, is not so easy as it used to be. In the old days, the happy old days of vetturíno travelling, there were so many quiet hours, when the country was not too beautiful, and the towns not too interesting, when Gibbon, and Merivale, and Milman were the pleasantest of travelling companions, and when books of art and poetry served to illustrate and illuminate the graver studies which were making Italy not only a beautiful panorama, but a country filled with forms which were daily growing into more familiar acquaintance. Perugia and Spoleto, Terni and Civita Castellana, led fitly up then to the greater interests of Rome, as courtiers to a king. But in the journeys of the present, the hurried traveller has not these opportunities of preparation, and must rest upon his home-knowledge, and such reading as he can find time for in Rome itself. To such travellers—to those, I mean, who wish to take away from Rome something more than a mere surface impression—I would give one piece of advice gathered from long experience: Never see too much; most of all, never see too much at once; never try to ‘do’ Rome. Better far to leave half the ruins and nine-tenths of the churches unseen, and to see well the rest, to see them not once, but again and often again, to watch them, to learn them, to live with them, to love them, till they become a part of your life and your life’s recollections.
“Thus, too, in the galleries. What can be carried away by those who wander over all the Vatican at once but a hopeless chaos of marble limbs, at best a nightmare of Venuses and Mercurys and Jupiters and Junos? But if the traveller would benefit by the Vatican, let him make friends with a few of the statues, and pay them visits, and grow into greater intimacy:—then will the purity of their outlines, the majestic serenity of their godlike grace, have power over him, raising his spirit to a perception of creations of beauty of which he had no idea before, and enabling him to discern the traces of that noblest gift of God which men call ‘genius’ in the humblest works of those who, while they have found the true and right path which leads to the great end, are still very far off.
“I would urge those who are sight-seeing at Rome to read twice about that which they see, before they see it, to prepare themselves for the sight, and after they have seen it, to fix the sight in their recollection. I would also urge all archaeologists to believe that it is not in one class of Roman interests alone that much is to be learnt; that those who devote themselves exclusively to the relics of the kings and the Republic, to the walls, or to the vexed questions concerning the Porta Capena, and who see no interest in the reminiscences of the Middle Ages, and the memorials of the saints and of the popes, take only half the blessing of Rome, and the half which has the least of human sympathy in it. They are blind of one eye, because they see with the other: they are like the foolish Athenians, who have lately pulled down the noble Venetian towers on the Acropolis because they were not Greek.
“Besides this, one should recollect that important relics of Pagan Rome are to be found elsewhere—at Nismes and Treves beyond the Alps, and at many places in Northern Italy; but the memorials of Christian Rome, and of its early bishops and martyrs, are to be found only in Rome and its neighbourhood.
“Those who wish to fix the scenes and events of Roman history securely in their minds will do best to take them in groups. Suppose, for instance, that people wish to study the story of St. Laurence. Let them first visit the beautiful little chapel in the Vatican, where the whole story of the saint’s life is portrayed in the lovely frescoes of Angelico da Fiesole. Let them stand on the green sward by the Navicella, where he distributed the treasures of the church in front of the house of St. Ciriaca. Let them walk through the crypto-porticus of the Palatine, up which he was dragged to his trial. Let them lean against the still existing bar of the basilica, where he knelt to receive his sentence. Let them visit S. Lorenzo in Fonte, where he was imprisoned, and baptized his fellow-prisoners in the fountain which gives the church its name. Let them go hence to S. Lorenzo Pane e Perna, built upon the scene of his terrific martyrdom, which is there portrayed in fresco. Let them see his traditional chains, and the supposed gridiron of his suffering at S. Lorenzo in Lucina; and, lastly, at the great basilica of S. Lorenzo fuori le Mura let them admire the mighty church which for 1200 years has marked the site of that little chapel which Constantine built near the lowly catacomb grave in which the martyr was laid by his deacon Hippolytus.
“Let us turn to a very different character. Let us turn to Rienzi. How vivid will his story seem to those who go first to the old tower of the Crescenzi near the Bocca della Verità, which belonged to his ancestors, and then to the street behind S. Tommaso where he was born—the son of a publican and a washerwoman, for to such humble offices were the Crescenzi then reduced. They will find Rienzi again at the little church of S. Angelo in Pescheria, whither he summoned the citizens at midnight to hold a meeting for the re-establishment of ‘the Good Estate,’ and in which he kept the Vigil of the Holy Ghost—and at the Portico of Octavia, on whose ancient walls he painted his famous picture allegorical of the sufferings of the Romans under the oppression of the great patrician families, thus flaunting defiance in the eyes of the Savelli, who could look down upon the picture from the windows of their palace above the Theatre of Marcellus. At S. Giorgio in Velabro the pediment still remains under the old terra-cotta cornice where an inscription proclaimed that the reign of the Good Estate was begun. We must follow Rienzi thence, bareheaded, but in full armour, to the Capitol, and to the Lateran, where he took his mystic bath in the great vase of green basalt in which Constantine is falsely said to have been baptized. We must think of his flight, after his short-lived glories were over, by the light of the burning palace, down the steps of the Capitol, and of his wife looking out of the window to witness his murder at the foot of the great basaltic lioness, which looks scarcely older now than on the night on which it was sprinkled with his blood. Lastly, we may remember that his body was hung, a target for the stones of those by whom he was so lately adored, in the little piazza of S. Marcello in the Corso, and that, in strange contradiction, it was eventually burnt by the Jews in the desolate mausoleum of Augustus, surrounded by Roman emperors, in a fire of dried thistles, till not a fibre of it remained.
“Let us take one more character from a much later time. Let us take Beatrice Cenci. In the depths of the Ghetto, ghastly and grim, still stands the old palace of Francesco Cenci, whose colossal rooms and dark passages were the scene of her long misery. Hard by is the little church which one of that wretched family built in the hope of expiating its crimes. As we walk through the wearisome Tor di Nona on our way to S. Peter’s, we may think of the old tower which gave the street its name, in which the beautiful young girl is said to have undergone for forty hours the torture of the ‘vigilia,’ followed by the still more terrific agony called ‘tortura capillorum.’ At Sta. Maria Maggiore we may look upon the stern face of Clement VIII., the cruel judge who knew no mercy, and who, in answer to all pleadings in their behalf, bade that the whole Cenci family should be dragged by wild horses through the streets of Rome. The ancient Santa Croce palace still stands, in which the Marchesa Santa Croce was murdered by her two sons on the night in which a last effort was being made for the pardon of Beatrice—an event which sealed her fate. In the Corte Savelli we may think of her terrible execution. Before the high altar of S. Pietro in Montorio she reposes from her long agony. And finally, we must go to the Palazzo Barberini, where, in the picture which Guido Reni is said to have painted in her prison, we may gaze upon the pale composure of her transcendent loveliness.
“It is by thus entwining one sight with another, till they become the continuous links of a story, that they are best fixed in the mind. They should also be read about, not merely in guide-books, but in the works of those who, from long residence in Italy and the deep love which they bear to it, have become impressed with the true Italian spirit. Amongst such books none are more delightful than the many volumes of Gregorovius, from his ‘History of the City of Rome’ to his enchanting ‘Lateinische Sommer,’ and his graphic little sketches of the burial-places of the Popes. I have often been laughed at for constantly recommending and quoting novels in speaking of Rome and its interests; yet in few graver works are such glimpses of Rome, of Roman scenery, Roman character, Roman manners to be obtained as in Hawthorne’s ‘Marble Faun,’ which English publishers so foolishly call ‘Transformation;’ in ‘Mademoiselle Mori;’ in the ‘Improvisatore’ of Hans Christian Andersen; in the ‘Daniella’ of George Sand; and, will my audience be unutterably shocked if I add, in the Pagan-spirited ‘Ariadne’ of Ouida. The writers of these books have really known Rome and loved it, and yet several of them have only spent one or two winters here. The same knowledge, the same inspiration, is open to all of us, and the reason why English and American visitors so seldom carry away from Rome more than they bring to it is because they have never seen it at all; because the life in a hotel, with its English and French dinners, its English or French-speaking waiters, its newspapers and reading-rooms, is not a Roman life; because the shop-keepers in the Via Condotti, their washerwomen, or their masters of music and languages, are the only Italians these visitors have come in contact with; because their sights are doled out to them by conceited couriers or ignorant ciceroni; because they have no ideas of the peasants and their costumes beyond the models of the Via Felice and the Trinità de’ Monti.
“And all this might be so different! Can one look at the amethystine mountains which girdle in the Campagna around Rome without wishing to penetrate their recesses? In the mountain towns which hang like eagles’ nests to their rocks there are not only costumes, but every one wears a costume: there the true Italian life may be seen. By the railway which leads to Naples it is very easy now to reach many of these beautiful places and to have glimpses of a true Italy. The grand temples of Cori, the rock-perched Norba, and mysterious beautiful flower-peopled Ninfa may now be visited in one day from the station of Velletri, returning to Rome in the evening. At Sora near Arpino, the gloriously situated home of Cicero and of Marius, and at San Germano, close to Monte Cassino and to Aquino with its beautiful Roman arches of triumph, there are now very tolerable hotels; and oh! believe me, there is no enjoyment more intense than that of spring days on these lonely mountain heights carpeted with sweet basil and thyme, or in these old desolate cities where the women come up from the fountains with great brazen conche poised upon their black locks, like animated caryatides.
“But I would also urge those who cannot make these excursions to do at least something which will give them an individual interest, a personal property in Rome itself. Let them collect marbles or plants, or even photographs, or let them make sketches, choosing perhaps some special line of interest, either the ancient Roman remains, or the memorials of the saints, or the mediaeval tombs, thus appropriating and having their own little personal share in the great field of archaeology. I remember that two English ladies,301 long valued members of the society here, made a perfect collection of drawings of all the mediaeval towers in Rome, whether campanile of the churches, or old brick fortresses of the Anicii and Frangipani. I have known another lady, a much honoured American resident in this place,302 who spent much of her time in making a perfect collection of drawings and photographs of all Italian subjects connected with Dante. And, depend upon it, that the very fact that these persons thus created for themselves a private centre around which all other interests should circle, gave them a wider grasp and an easier remembrance for all that came across them.
“Archaeology is generally regarded as a dead and dry study, though it need not be so. But its animating power is history, and to bring it into life it must be combined with history, not in its narrowest, but in its widest sense. To a life-long student of classical details, it may be a matter of vital importance whether a stone on the Palatine is of the time of the kings or the Republic; but to the casual visitor to Rome, to the ladies who form so great a portion of my present audience, this can scarcely be a question of thrilling excitement. To the unlearned, I believe it to be of more interest to reflect upon the gladiatorial combats and the Christian martyrdoms in the Coliseum than to discuss the exact manner in which its sheltering velarium was sustained.
“Let our Roman archaeology, then, be unlimited as to ages, let it grasp as much as it can of the myriad human sympathies which Rome has to offer or awaken; for thus, and only thus, can it do a great work, in arousing highest thoughts and aims, as it opens the ancient treasure-house and teaches the vast experience of more than two thousand years. Then, as John Addington Symonds says:—
‘Then from the very soil of ancient Rome
You shall grow wise, and walking, live again
The lives of buried peoples, and become
A child by right of that eternal home,
Cradle and grave of empires, on whose walls,
The sun himself subdued to reverence falls.’
“Let archaeology help the beauties of Rome in leaving their noblest impress—in arousing feelings which are worthy of the greatest of Pagan heroes, of the sweetest of Latin poets, of the most inspired of sculptors and painters, as well as of Paul of Tarsus, who passed into Rome under the arch of Drusus, upon whom the shadow of the pyramid of Caius Cestius fell as he passed out of Rome to his martyrdom, in that procession of which it is the sole surviving witness, and who here in Rome is sleeping now, with thousand other saints, till, as St. Ambrose reminds us, he shall awaken here, in Rome, at the great resurrection.
“Rome, as Winckelmann says, is the high-art school which is open to all the world. It can supply every mental requirement, if people will only apply at the right corner of the fountain. This is what an archaeological society ought to help us to find: this is what I trust the British and American Archaeological Society may help us to find.”
Journal.
“April 29, 1879, London.—I have heard again the curious story of Sir T. Watson from Mrs. T., to whom he told it himself, so will write it down.
“Sir Thomas Watson, better known as Dr. Watson, was a well-known physician. During the last years of his life he was in failing health, and only saw patients at his own house, but till then he went about in England wherever he was sent for. One day he was summoned to attend an urgent case at Oxenholme in Cumberland. There was only one carriage in the train which went through to Oxenholme, and in a compartment of that carriage he took his seat. He tipped the guard, and said he should be glad to be alone if he could.
“The train at Euston was already in motion, when a young lady came running down the platform, with a porter laden with her hand-bags and cloaks. The man just contrived to open the carriage door, push the young lady in, throw in her things after her, and the train was off. The young lady, a very pretty, pleasing young lady, took the seat opposite Dr. Watson. Being a polite, gallant old gentleman, very soon Dr. Watson began to make himself agreeable: ‘What beautiful effects of cloud there were. How picturesque Harrow church steeple looked through the morning haze,’ &c. &c., and the young lady responded pleasantly. At last, as their acquaintance advanced, Dr. Watson said, ‘And are you travelling far?’ ‘Oh yes,’ said the young lady, ‘very far, I am going to Oxenholme in Cumberland.’ ‘How singular,’ said Dr. Watson, ‘for that is just where I am going myself. I wonder if you happen to know Lady D. who lives near Oxenholme.’ ‘Yes,’ said the young lady, ‘I know Lady D. very well.’ ‘And Mrs. P. and her daughters?’ said Dr. W. ‘Oh yes, I know them too.’ ‘And Mr. Y.?’ There was a moment’s pause, and then the young lady very naïvely and ingenuously said, ‘Yes, I do know Mr. Y. very well; and perhaps I had better tell you something. I am going to be married to him to-morrow. My own parents are in India, and I am going to be married from his father’s house. Since I have been engaged to him, I have made the acquaintance of many of his friends and neighbours, and that is how I know so many people near Oxenholme, though I have never been there before.’
“Dr. Watson was charmed with the simple candour of the young lady. They went on talking, and they became quite friends. The train arrived at Rugby, and they both got out and had their bun in the refreshment-room. They were in the carriage again, and the train was already moving, when, in great excitement, the young lady called out: ‘Oh stop, stop the train, don’t you see how he’s urging me to get out. There! that young man in the brown ulster, that’s the young man I’m going to be married to.’ Of course it was impossible to get out, and the young lady was greatly distressed, and though Dr. Watson assured her most positively that there was no one standing where she described, she would not and could not believe him.
“Then Dr. Watson said, ‘Now, my dear young lady, you’re very young and I’m very old. I am a doctor. I am very well known, and from what you have been seeing I am quite sure, as a physician, that you are not at all well. Now, I have my medicine chest with me, and you had better let me give you a little dose.’ And he did give her a little dose.
“The train arrived at Stafford, and exactly the same thing occurred. ‘There, there! don’t you see him! that young man with the light beard, in the brown ulster, don’t you see how he’s urging me to get out.’ And again Dr. Watson assured her there was no one there, and said, ‘I think you had better let me give you another little dose;’ and he gave her another little dose.
“But Dr. Watson naturally felt that he could not go on giving her a dose at every station all the way to Oxenholme, so he decided within himself that if the same thing happened at Crewe, the young lady’s state indicated one of two things: either that there was some intentional vision from Providence, with which he ought not to interfere; or that the young lady was certainly not in a state of health or brain which should allow of her being married next day. So he determined to act accordingly.
“And at Crewe just the same thing happened. ‘There, there! don’t you see him! he’s urging me more than ever to get out,’ cried the young lady. ‘Very well,’ said Dr. Watson, ‘we will get out and go after him,’ and, with the young lady, he pursued the imaginary figure, and of course did not find him. But Dr. Watson had often been at Crewe station before, and he went to the hotel, which opens on the platform, and said to the matron, ‘Here is this young lady, who is not at all well, and should have a very quiet room; unfortunately I am not able to remain now to look after her, but I will leave her in your care, and to-morrow I shall be returning this way and will come to see how she is.’ And he slipped a five-pound note into the woman’s hand to guarantee expenses.
“Dr. Watson returned to the railway carriage. There was another young lady there, sitting in the place which the first young lady had occupied—a passenger who had arrived by one of the many lines which converge at Crewe. With the new young lady he did not make acquaintance, he moved his things to the other side of the carriage and devoted himself to his book.
“Three stations farther on came the shock of a frightful accident. There was a collision. The train was telescoped, and many passengers were terribly hurt. The heavy case of instruments, which was in the rack above the place where Dr. Watson had first been sitting, was thrown violently to the other side of the carriage, hit the young lady upon the forehead and killed her on the spot.
“It was long before the line could be sufficiently cleared for the train to pass which was sent to pick up the surviving passengers. Many hours late, in the middle of the night, Dr. Watson arrived at Oxenholme. There, waiting upon the platform, stood the young man with the light beard, in the brown ulster, exactly as he had been described. He had heard that the only young lady in the through carriage from London had been killed, and was only waiting for the worst to be confirmed. And Dr. Watson was the person who went up to him and said: ‘Unfortunately it is too true that a young lady has been killed, but it is not your young lady. Your young lady is safe in the station hotel at Crewe.’”
To Miss Leycester.
“Holmhurst, May 3.—I have had a visit from the people who formerly lived here, so surprised at the changes—at the continuation of the walk in the firwood, &c., but most at the number of pictures and books everywhere inside the house, a clothing of walls which they evidently thought most unsuitable in a dining-room and passages, and most of all were they rather shocked at finding an ancient Madonna and Child of the Luca della Robbia school over the kitchen fireplace, though in an Italian house you might almost expect one there.
“I have nothing else interesting to tell you, so I will send you some scraps from my notebook. Lord Brownlow, at a public meeting, heard a schoolmaster say—‘Education is that which enables you to despise the opinions of others, and conduces to situations of considerable emolument.’ Miss Cobbe told me—‘Conscience is that which supplies you with an excellent motive for doing that which you desire to do, and which, when it is done, leaves you filled with self-satisfaction.’
“Mrs. L. (who has plantations in South America) has been telling me of a nigger preacher there who said in the pulpit, ‘I am so blind I cannot see; I’ve left my specs at home,’ and all the congregation thought he was giving out the line of a hymn, and sung it lustily.”
“May 13, 1879, 34 Jermyn Street, London.—This morning I went with Mrs. Duncan Stewart and a very large party to Whistler’s studio—a huge place in Chelsea. We were invited to see his pictures, but there was only one there—‘The Loves of the Lobsters.’ It was supposed to represent Niagara, but looked as if the artist had upset the inkstand and left Providence to work out its own results. In the midst of the black chaos were two lobsters curvetting opposite each other and looking as if they were done with red sealing-wax. ‘I wonder you did not paint the lobsters making love before they were boiled,’ aptly observed a lady visitor. ‘Oh, I never thought of that,’ said Whistler! It was a joke, I suppose. The little man, with his plume of white hair (‘the Whistler tuft,’ he calls it) waving on his forehead, frisked about the room looking most strange and uncanny, and rather diverted himself over our disappointment in coming so far and finding nothing to see. People admire like sheep his pictures in the Grosvenor Gallery, following each other’s lead because it is the fashion.”
“May 14, Sunday.—An immense luncheon at Mrs. Cavendish Bentinck’s. I sat near Mr. Herbert, the artist of the great fresco in the House of Lords. He described things over which he became almost inspired—how in the Bodleian he found an old MS. about the Magdalen which made him determine to go off at once to St. Maximin in Provence (near La Sainte Baume, the mountain hermitage where she died) to see her skull: that when he reached St. Maximin, he found that the skull was in a glass case upon the altar, where he could not really examine it, and he was told that it was never allowed even to kings and emperors: that he represented with such fervour his object in making the pilgrimage, that at last the priests of the church consented to his sending twelve miles for a vitrier and having the case removed: then he was allowed to place a single candle behind, and in that moment, as he described it, with glowing face and voice trembling with emotion—‘I saw the outline of her profile; the Magdalen herself, that dear friend of our Blessed Lord, was revealed to me.’
“Miss Leslie, who was sitting near, asked how it was known that the Magdalen came to St. Maximin. ‘How can you help knowing it,’ said Mr. Herbert, ‘when it is all written in the Acts of the Apostles!!’”
“May 15.—Dined with Lord and Lady Aberdeen—a very large party, seventy-four pots of flowers upon the table. The dinner was very fine, but rather uninteresting—the after-dinner better.
“May 16.—I received the sad news that poor Sir Alexander Taylor was on his death-bed in Lady Dashwood’s house at Hampstead, and went to him. He knew me and was pleased to see me, but immediately relapsed into unconsciousness. It was sad to stand by the utter wreck of one whom I had known so well.”
“May 17.—News of poor Sir Alexander’s death. Even at such a solemn time one could not help smiling at his characteristic last words—‘Present my duty to the Princess Amalie’ (of Schleswig-Holstein).304
“At luncheon at Lady Florentia Hughes’s I met George Russell, who told me a story which Lord and Lady Portsmouth had just brought back from Devonshire.
“‘On the railway which runs from Exeter to Barnstaple is a small station called Lapford. A farmer who lives in a farmhouse near that station awoke his wife one night, saying that he had had a very vivid dream which troubled him—that a very valuable cow of his had fallen into a pit and could not get out again. The wife laughed, and he went to sleep and dreamt the same thing. Then he wanted to go and look after the cow. But the wife urged the piercing cold of the winter night, and he went to sleep instead, and dreamt the same thing a third time. Then he insisted upon getting up, and, resisting his wife’s entreaties, he went out to look after the cow. It was with a sense of bathos that he found the cow quite well and grazing quietly, and he was thinking how his wife would laugh at him when he got home, and wondering what he should say to her, when he was aware of a light in the next field. Crawling very quietly to the hedge, he saw, through the leafless branches of the hawthorns, a man with a lanthorn and a spade, apparently digging a pit. As he was watching, he stumbled in the ditch and the branches crackled. The man, hearing a noise, started, threw down the spade, and ran off with the lanthorn.
“‘The farmer then made his way round into the next field and came up to the place where the man had been digging. It was a long narrow pit like an open grave. At first he could make nothing of it, then by the side of the pit he found a large open knife. He took that and the spade, and began to set out homewards, but, with an indescribable shrinking from the more desolate feeling of the fields, he went round by the lane. He had not gone far before he heard footsteps coming towards him. It was two o’clock in the morning, and his nerves being quite unstrung, he shrank from meeting whoever it was, and climbed up into the hedge to conceal himself. To his astonishment, he saw pass below him in the moonlit road one of the maids of his own farmhouse. He allowed her to pass, and then sprang out and seized her. She was most dreadfully frightened. He demanded to know what she was there for. She tried to make some excuse. “Oh,” he said, “there can be no possible excuse; I insist upon knowing the truth.” She then said, “You know I was engaged to be married, and that I had a dreadful quarrel with the man I was engaged to, and it was broken off. Well, yesterday he let me know that if I would meet him in the middle of the night, he had got something to show me which would make up for all the past.”—“Would you like to know what he had to show you? It was your grave he had to show you,” said the farmer, and he led her to the edge of the pit and showed it to her.
“‘The farmer’s dream had saved the woman’s life.’”
“May 19.—The Prince (of Sweden and Norway) has arrived with his suite at Claridge’s. He received me most cordially and affectionately. We made many plans for sight-seeing and people-seeing, but in England I have no responsibility; Count Piper, the Swedish Minister, has it all.
“I dined at charming Lady Wynford’s, sitting near Lord Delamere, who was very full of a definition he had heard of the word ‘deputation.’ ‘A noun of multitude, which signifies many, but not much.’ It was attributed to Gladstone, who said, ‘I only wish I had made it.’ Lord Eustace Cecil produced a definition of ‘Independent Member’ as ‘a Member on whom nobody can depend.’
“There was an immense gathering at Lady Salisbury’s afterwards; my Prince there and much liked. There, for the first time, I saw the Empress Augusta of Germany.”
“May 22.—A party at Lady Denbigh’s to meet Princess Frederika of Hanover, a very sweet-looking and royal woman of simple and dignified manners.”
“May 24.—Lady Salisbury’s party at the Foreign Office, the staircase, with its interlacing arches and masses of flowering shrubs, like the essence of a thousand Paul Veroneses. My Prince was there in a white uniform.”
“May 27.—At dinner at Sir John Lefevre’s I met Mr. Bright. He has a grand old lion-like head in an aureole of white hair, and his countenance never seems to wake from its deep repose, except for some burst of enthusiasm on a subject really worth while. He spoke of Americans, ‘who say an infinity of foolish things, but always do wise ones.’ Mr. Bryce of ‘The Holy Roman Empire’ was there, a bearded man with bright eyes, who talked well. Afterwards there was a party at Lady Beauchamp’s to meet Prince and Princess Christian. How like all the princesses are to one another.”
“May 29.—A dinner at Lord Carysfort’s and ball at Lady Salisbury’s. I presented so many relations to the Prince that he said that which astonished him more than anything else in England was ‘the multitude of Mr. Hare’s cousins.’”
“May 30.—With the Prince to Westminster Abbey, after which Arthur met us in the Jerusalem Chamber and took us into the Deanery. In the evening with the Prince to Lady Margaret Beaumont’s.”
“June 6.—With the Prince Royal to the Academy.”
“June 7.—To the National Gallery with the Prince.”
“June 8.—Luncheon with the Prince. We drove afterwards to see Lady Russell. Pembroke Lodge looked enchanting with its bright green of old oaks and its carpet of bluebells—a most perfect refuge for the latter years of an aged statesman. Lady Russell was waiting for us at the entrance, with Lady Agatha and Rollo. On the lawn we found many other members of the family, with Mr. Bouverie and Mr. Froude the historian. I presented them all, and we walked in the grounds. At tea Lord Bute came in from a neighbouring villa—always most pleasant and cordial to me.”
“June 11.—Dined with old Lady Harrington, and left as early as I could to go to Mrs. Schuster’s, where Sarah Bernhardt was to act. She appeared first in the great scene of the ‘Phédre’—her face bloodless, her arms rigid, her voice monotonous and broken. Gradually, under the influence of her love, she became animated, but the animation began at the tips of her fingers, till it burst all over her in a flood of irrepressible passion.
“She did not seem to see her audience or to think of them. For the time being she was only her part, and, when it was over, she sank down utterly exhausted, almost unconscious.
“She appeared again in a small part, in which she was a great lady turned sculptress. The part was nothing; she had little more to say than ‘Let me see more of your profile; turn a little more the other way;’ yet the great simplicity of her perfect acting made it deeply interesting, and, in the quarter of an hour in which the scene lasted, she had done in the clay a real medallion which was a striking likeness.”306
“June 12.—Dined with Madame du Quaire—her table like a glorious Van Huysum picture from the fruit and flower piece in the centre. The hostess is famous for the warmth and steadfastness of her friendships. Mrs. Stewart says—‘Fanny du Quaire is the only person I know who would do anything for her friends. If it were necessary for my peace that I should have poison, I should send for Fanny du Quaire, and she would give it me without flinching.’”
“June 13.—Dined at Sir Charles Trevelyan’s. I took down a lady whose name seemed to be ‘Mrs. Beckett.’ I did not interest her, and she talked exclusively to Lord O’Hagan, who was on the other side of her. Towards the close of dinner she said to me, ‘We have been a very long time at dinner.’—‘To me it has seemed quite endless,’ I said.—‘Well,’ she exclaimed, ‘I do not wonder that you were chosen to speak truth to Princes.’
“I asked her how she knew anything about that, and she said, ‘I have lived a long time in a court atmosphere myself. I was for twelve years with the late Queen of Holland.’—‘Oh,’ I said, ‘now I know who you are; you are Mrs. Lecky!’ and it was the well-known author’s wife.”307
“June 14.—Luncheon with Lady Darnley, and a long quiet talk with her afterwards, then a visit to young Lord Lansdowne in his cool, pleasant rooms looking upon the garden.
“Dined with Count Piper, the Swedish Minister,308 to meet the Prince Royal. I sat by Madame de Bülow, who is always pleasant. The only other lady unconnected with the Embassy was Mademoiselle Christine Nilsson, who sang most beautifully afterwards till Jenny Lind arrived. Then the rivalry of the two queens of song became most curious, Nilsson planting herself at the end of the pianoforte with her arms akimbo, and crying satirical bravas during Jenny’s songs, and Jenny avenging herself by never allowing Nilsson to return to the pianoforte at all. The party was a very late one, and supper was served, when the Prince offered Jenny his arm to take her down. She accepted it, though with great diffidence; which so exasperated Nilsson, that with ‘Je m’en vais donc,’ utterly refusing to be pacified, she swept out of the room and out of the house, though how she got away I do not know.”
“June 15.—A quiet luncheon with Lady Reay. Afterwards to Mrs. Duncan Stewart, who told me:—
“‘A great friend of mine was living lately in Brittany, and, while there, made acquaintance with a lady and her daughter who were staying in the same place—the mother a commonplace woman, the daughter a pleasant interesting girl.
“‘A short time after, the mother and daughter came to England, and my friend, who was in very delicate health at the time, invited them to visit her. The mother was prevented coming at first, but sent her daughter and said that she would follow.
“‘One day my friend was sitting in her boudoir, of which the door was ajar, very little open. The girl had gone to her own room, which was immediately above the boudoir, saying that she had letters to write.
“‘Suddenly my friend was aware that something was coming in at the door, not pushing it wider open, but gliding through the opening which already existed, and, to her horror, she saw, perfectly naked, propelling herself serpent-like upon her belly, with her hair rising like a crest over her head, and her eyes, without any speculation in them, staring wide open, the figure of a young girl, whom she recognised as her guest.
“‘With snake-like motion the girl glided in and out of the furniture, under the chairs, sofas, &c., but touching nothing, and with her eyes constantly fixed upon my friend, with an expression which was rather that of fear than anything else. At length she glided out of the room as she came in.
“’As soon as my friend could recover herself a little, she pursued the girl to her room and quietly opened the door. To her horror, all the articles of crockery in the room, jug, basin, &c., were dispersed about the floor at regular intervals and in a regular pattern, and through them all, in and out, without touching them, the girl was gliding, snake-like, with her head erect, and her vacant eyes staring.
“‘My friend fled to her room and began to think what she should do; but such was her horror that she thinks she fainted; at any rate the power of action seemed to fail her. When she could move, she thought it her duty to go up to the girl’s room again, and perhaps was almost more horrified than before to find the room in perfect order and the girl seated dressed at the table, writing. She sent for the girl’s mother, who was terribly distressed. She allowed that her daughter had had these utterly inexplicable attacks before, but long ago, and she had hoped that she was cured of them.’
“Mrs. Stewart told this story to Mr. Fergusson the great naturalist, who only said, ‘I am not the least surprised: there is nothing extraordinary in it. There have been many other instances of the serpent element coming out in people.’”
“June 16.—Met the Prince early at Paddington, whence we had a saloon carriage to Oxford, with Sir Watkin Wynne as director to watch over us. We went a whole round of colleges and to the Bodleian, where Mr. Coxe exhibited his treasures. Then the Prince wished to see the boats, so we walked down to the river. Just before us I saw an undergraduate in boating costume and ran after him.
“‘Can you take us on board the University barge?’
“‘No-o-o-o, I think not.’
“‘But my companion is the Prince Royal of Sweden and Norway.’
“Upon which the boy very soon found that he could take a Prince anywhere, and proud he probably was afterwards to narrate to whom he had been acting cicerone. In the barge, a number of undergraduates were looking at the Prince’s portrait in the Graphic. He looked at it too, over their shoulders, but they did not recognise him.
“It was a fatiguing day, and I felt greatly the utter apathy and want of interest in all the Swedes, who scarcely noticed anything, admired nothing, and remembered nothing.”
“June 18.—Again to Oxford with the Prince. This time the town was in gala costume, and we drove through a street hung with flags, and through crowds of people waiting to see the Prince, to the Vice-Chancellor’s Lodge at Pembroke. Here the Prince dressed, and I went on at once with his gentlemen to the Theatre, where places were reserved for us just under the Vice-Chancellor’s throne. My Swedish companions were amused with the undergraduates’ expression of their likes and dislikes, till the great moment came and the great doors were thrown open, and, amid a flood of sunlight, the procession streamed in headed by all the gold maces. Immediately after the Vice-Chancellor came my Prince, looking tall and handsome in his white uniform with the crimson robe over it, and perfectly royal. I knew that he felt nervous, but he could not have been half as nervous as I was. He played his part, however, perfectly. He received his degree standing by the Vice-Chancellor’s side, and the whole body of undergraduates sang a little impromptu song, to the effect of ‘He’s a charming Swedish boy.’
“We adjourned from the Theatre to the green court of All Souls, where, in the sunlit quadrangle, I brought up, one after another, all the principal persons to be presented to the Prince—Lord and Lady Dufferin, Rachel and Sir Arthur Gordon, Lord Selborne, the Dean of Christ Church and Mrs. Liddell, &c. There was a luncheon for 300 in the All-Souls library, and afterwards we drove with Mrs. Evans, the Vice-Chancellor’s wife, to the Masonic fête in the lovely Wadham garden, and then paid official visits, before leaving, to the Vice-Chancellor and Dean.
“In the evening I was with the Prince at Mrs. E. Guiness’s ball, on which £6000 are said to have been wasted. It was a perfect fairy-land, ice pillars up to the ceiling, an avenue of palms, a veil of stephanotis from the staircase, and you pushed your way through a brake of papyrus to the cloak-room.”
“June 19.—We dined with the Aberdeens. I went before the Prince, and was with Aberdeen to receive him at the door, and then presented a quantity of people—Lord and Lady Carnarvon, Lord and Lady Brownlow, Lady Balfour, Dowager Lady Aberdeen, &c. The London Scottish Volunteers played soft music during dinner. Soon afterwards the Prince went away to the Scandinavian ball, rather disappointing many people who came to see him in the evening.”
“June 20.—Oh, what a shock it has been that, while the balls last night were going on, telegrams announced the death of the dear young Prince Imperial! I am sure I cried for him like a nearest relation; there was something so very cordial and attaching in him, and there is something so unspeakably terrible in his death. The Prince was overwhelmed, and could not dine at Lowther Lodge, where there was a large party expressly to meet him, but he was quite right.”
“June 21.—We can think of nothing else but the Prince Imperial and the awful grief at Chislehurst. Immediately on hearing the telegram, Lord Dorchester wrote to M. Pietri a letter of condolence. M. Pietri was away in Corsica, and the Empress opened his letter. It begged Pietri to offer deep sympathy to the Empress in her overwhelming affliction. She felt her son was dead, and when Lord Sydney and Mr. Borthwick arrived, they found her in tears; but when she heard the awful truth that her darling had been deserted and assegaied, she gave terrible shrieks and fainted away.
“Most of the day she was unconscious. Those who went to Chislehurst describe the scene as too heart-rending. The old servants could not rest, and walked in the garden in groups, wringing their hands and crying ‘O mon pauvre petit Prince! O mon pauvre cher petit Prince!’
“In the morning I went with the Prince to Lambeth,—all of us very sad and tearful. I had mentioned a rather later hour to the Archbishop, so that he was not ready to receive us, and Lord and Lady Charles Clinton, who were there, were dreadfully shy. When the Archbishop came, he showed us his library treasures, and climbed up the high Lollards’ Tower to take the Prince to the prison of the early Reformers; but I felt how fearfully dull the Archbishop must think all the Swedes, who made no observation whatever upon anything they saw.”
“June 23.—With the Prince to the Rose and Crown Coffee-House. Lord and Lady Aberdeen and Lady Cairns met us there. It is a beautifully managed institution, and fresh and clean to a degree. All the workmen crowded in for dinner before we left, but I would not let Aberdeen let them know who was there till the last moment, when the news gave great satisfaction; but they behaved beautifully—no crowding or staring: the Prince wrote his name in their book.
“Luncheon afterwards with Lord and Lady Garvagh, meeting only Madame Rouzaud (Christine Nilsson).”
“June 25.—Dinner at Lord Sandwich’s—a particularly good party. I sat by Lady Elcho, whose mind seems to be in perpetual moonlight, very calming and refreshing.”
“June 26.—To the Tower of London with the Prince, who was very good-humoured and absurd. It is a long fatiguing sight. Our being at Trinity Square was curious in its results, as persons were just then visiting it (the site of the block at which More, Fisher, Laud, Strafford fell) with a view to its destruction, and the fact, afterwards adduced before the House of Lords, that the Prince Royal of Sweden and Norway was at that very moment being taken to see it as one of the great historical sites of London, proved its salvation.
“How wearisome it is to steer the Prince through people’s little intrigues. They have to-day involved a letter of six sheets to the Queen of Sweden. Yesterday I was free, as he went with the ‘Four-in-Hand Club,’—an odd arrangement for me to have to make for him.”
“June 27.—Went with the Prince by appointment to Hertford House, where Sir R. Wallace received us. His riches are untold and indescribable. He showed them very pleasantly, and had much that was interesting to tell about them.”
“July 3.—To Syon with the Lockers and Leslies. So few people came at first, owing to the wet, that we were most cordially welcomed by the Duke and Lady Percy. Soon it cleared and half London began to pour in; but the long wide galleries never seem crowded. I reached the conservatories with Mary and Lily Hughes, and the gardener showed us some bamboos which, he said, grew twelve inches a day!”
“July 4.—Oh, the constant variety of the tangle of London life! This morning was occupied by a special farewell service in Henry VII.’s chapel at Westminster for Arthur Gordon and Victor Williamson going out to Fiji. Arthur Stanley preached, standing behind the altar over Edward VI.’s grave, a most pagan little sermon about Alexander and Priam and the sacred fire of Troy as a comfort to wandering souls! We all received the Sacrament together, and then took leave of the travellers in the Chapter-House.”
“July 5.—A reprieve from duties to the Prince, who has gone to Windsor and Aldershot. I had the great happiness of seeing Lady Castletown and Mrs. Lewis Wingfield again after four years. It is delightful to see any one who ‘knows how’ to enjoy themselves: every one wishes it, but scarcely any one has an idea how it is to be done.
“At dinner at Sir Rutherford Alcock’s I heard the startling news of the death of Frances, Lady Waldegrave.311 To me she was only a lay figure, receiving at her drawing-room door, but I remember her thus ever since I was a boy at Oxford, when she was living at Nuneham. In spite of her faults, she had many and warm friends: Lord Houghton sobbed like a child on receiving the news in the midst of a large party. News which affected me more personally was the death of dear young Charlie Ossulston312 from cholera in India.... I heard it at the Speaker’s party, which was most beautiful, with windows wide open to the river in the glory of full moonlight, with which the many lamp-reflections were vainly contending, gold against silver, upon the wavelets.”
“Sunday, July 6.—To Bedford Chapel to hear Mr. Stopford Brooke preach on the world as an arena and men as gladiators. ‘But who are the witnesses on the encircling seats?’ These he described, from dwellers in the present life to a crowd, such as that painted ‘by artists of illimitable ideas but limited powers,’ of the glorious army of apostles, confessors, and martyrs, who all diverge from Christ as a centre.”
“July 10.—A charming party at Syon, where I walked about with dear old Lady Barrington. A very pleasant dinner at Lord Brownlow’s, where was a whole succession of beautiful ladies—the lovely hostess herself, Lady Pembroke, Lady Lothian, Lady de Vesci, Lady Wharncliffe, Mrs. Reginald Talbot, &c. These high-bred beauties are indeed a contrast to those known as the ‘professional beauties.’ Most exquisite singing in the evening, then a party at the Duchess of Cleveland’s to meet the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh.”
“July 11.—Dined at Sir Dudley Marjoribanks’—Brook House a beautiful interior with marvellous china. There was such a procession of Earls and Countesses, that it fell to my share to take Mrs. Gladstone in to dinner. Disraeli had said to her, ‘Now do take care of Mr. Gladstone; you know he is so precious.’”
“July 12.—The dear Prince Imperial’s funeral. I was very sorry not to go, but my Prince evidently thought I could not, having known him so well and yet having no recognised place.
“Our whole hearts are with the Empress. How many instances there have been of her perfectly noble character since she has been in England. None are more striking than that which regarded M. Guizot. He had hated the Imperial government, he had reviled the Emperor: there was no ill which he did not wish him. But his youngest son, Guillaume, got into serious money troubles, and eventually he borrowed a large sum—£4000 it is said—from the Emperor. It was concealed from his father. Long, very long afterwards, when the Emperor was dead, M. Guizot found it out. It was agony to him. It was most difficult to him to pay the money, but he determined to do it at any sacrifice, and he wrote to tell the Empress so. The Empress answered by telegraph—‘L’Impératrice donne, mais elle ne prête pas.’”
“July 15.—Lady Ashburton had asked the Hereditary Grand Duke of Baden to dinner as well as my Prince, so I went to help her by acting Master of the Ceremonies and receiving the royalties in the hall of Kent House. While I was waiting, watching at the window, a fair young man arrived unattended and ran upstairs. I took no notice of him. Then I received the Prince Royal properly, escorted him as far as Lady Ashburton’s curtsies, and came back to wait for the young Grand Duke. At last Lady Ashburton sent down to tell me he was there, had been there the whole time: he was the young man who ran upstairs.
“I had much talk with him afterwards—a tall, simple, pleasing-mannered youth, much more responsive than my Prince, and good-looking, though very German in appearance. There were glees at dinner, sung in the anteroom, and a large party and concert in the evening.”
“July 16.—A beautiful party at Holland House. There was quite a mass of royalty on the lawn—the Prince and Princess of Wales and their little girls (in pink trimmed with red), the Edinburghs, the Connaughts, the Tecks, with their little girl and two nice boys in sailor’s dress, the Duchess of Mecklenbourg, the Prince of Baden, and my Prince. The royal children were all in raptures over some performing dogs, which really were very funny, as a handsome Spitz looked so ecstatically delighted to ride about on the lawn on a barrel pushed by a number of other dogs.
“Dined at Lord Muncaster’s, where I sat by Lady Cairns and Mrs. Cross, both worth listening to. The Muncasters, by M. Henri’s aid, have given quite an old Flemish interior to a handsome commonplace house in Carlton Gardens.
“A concert afterwards at Lady Brownlow’s—all the three beautiful sisters were there, and most lovely in their different phases.”
“July 18.—Luncheon with young Lady Morley and dinner with her mother-in-law, then to a concert at Stafford House. The Duchess (of Sutherland) talked much and affectionately of my sister, whom so few remember now. The Spanish Students were ranged with their instruments on the broad landing of the staircase, and the whole scene was like that of the play of ‘Hamlet.’ The Prince of Wales walked about and talked, winning good opinions by the attention with which he always seems to listen to whoever is speaking to him.”
“July 19.—Went down with the special train to Hatfield, and drove up from the station to the house with old Lady Ailesbury. An immense party of Dukes and Duchesses, &c., were already collected to welcome the royalties, Lady Salisbury receiving them in a large rough straw garden-bonnet. The Hereditary Grand Duke of Baden arrived early, and I was sent off with him to see the old Elizabethan buildings, the stables, &c. He is extremely pleasing, responsive, and conversable, and his admiration of the place was most intense and natural. I walked about with different friends till the royal party drove up in six carriages. They were all going to stay at Hatfield till Monday, fifty people, besides servants. I came back at eight.”
“July 21.—Met the Prince Royal at Waterloo Station, where a great many people were collected to see him off. Lady Marian Alford joined us, and we floated into Hampshire in a royal saloon carriage. I went to my Prince in the little private compartment, and had a long talk with him, in which all the growing mists of the London season seemed to be swept away at once, and our intimate trust and affection for each other restored upon its old footing.
“Carriages from Lady Waterford met us at Holmsley, and we had a pleasant but rather cold drive through the forest. In the gothic porch of Highcliffe, Lady Waterford was waiting with Mr. and Lady Jane Ellice, and Miss Lindsay. Alwyn Greville came in the evening, and a few people to dinner. The ladies sang, Miss Lindsay recited, and the Prince also sang a little.”
“July 22.—A misty day, but still, and Highcliffe delightful.
“The King had said so much to the Prince about Lady Waterford, that he is at his very best here, and he has had well-worth-while conversation with Lady Marian. We drove with Colonel Thursby’s four-in-hand to Herne Park, and in the afternoon looked for fossils on the cliffs, where M. de Printzsköld sank up to his knees in a bog of black mud. In the evening there was a little ball, opened by the dear Lady herself with the Prince.... The Prince was enchanted with everything, and said he would rather sit by either of ‘the three ladies’ at Highcliffe313 than by the most beautiful young lady in England.”
“July 23.—The Prince was so anxious that I should go with him to Devonshire that I consented to leave Highcliffe with him after breakfast. We had a pleasant journey through the rich Somersetshire orchards, and during a wait at Templecombe, a ramble with the Prince to the church. We have met the Swedish equerries again, and life is not always quite as easy as it has been without them: however, though we have our ups and downs, we have also our downs and ups, and ‘si gravis, brevis,’ is a proverb one can always remember.”
“July 24.—Torbay is bluer than I ever saw the Bay of Naples, and the sun shines on the red rocks of Paignton and the white sails flitting over the limpid water. My windows look into the grounds of Rockend—the steep field, the little wood, the very windows of the house connected with many of the miseries of my childhood.314 I have wandered on the terraces—to the rock walk; the seat where I used to see Uncle Julius and Aunt Esther sitting in the first year of their marriage; ‘Cummany’s Corner,’ where ladies-finger and coronilla grow still; the tower where Aunt Lucy used to meditate and pray. Almost all the friends—and enemies too—of my childhood have passed away now, and it is in places like this which recall them so vividly, that I feel the longing Webster describes in the ‘Duchess of Melfi’:—
“‘O that it were possible we might
But hold some two days’ conference with the dead!
From them I should learn something I am sure
I never shall learn here.’”
“July 26.—I took leave of the Prince in his bedroom before he was dressed. Our real separation must come soon; and though in many ways I shall feel wonderfully set free when my responsibility is over, my heart always yearns toward him.”
“Lyme Hall, August 6.—After two days at Thornycroft in familiar scenes, I have come to Lyme to receive the Prince Royal. Only Mr. and Mrs. Davenport are here, with their pretty daughter, engaged to marry Tom Legh.”
“August 7.—The Prince arrived from Manchester. I went to receive him at Disley Station and to present Mr. Legh, who had never seen him before. James II.’s rooms were prepared for him.”
“August 8.—I sat out much of the day with Mrs. Legh, while the Prince played at lawn-tennis, and in the afternoon I drove with Mrs. Legh and Mrs. Davenport along the hills and moor, while he rode with the others. He is much delighted with the great Lyme dogs, and is to have one of them; to his great disappointment the wild cattle have almost ceased to exist. He will only be interested in facts, never in vision or its emotions, and it is no use to tell him that—
“‘Man’s books are but man’s alphabet,
Beyond and on his lessons lie—
The lessons of the violet,
The large gold letters of the sky:
The love of beauty, blossomed soil,
The large content, the tranquil toil.’”315
“August 9.—Left Lyme with the Prince and the Davenports in a saloon carriage to Crewe. I sat alone with the Prince most of the time in the inner compartment. We parted at Crewe intending to meet again in three days’ time.”
“Betton House, August 10.—With the dear old Tayleurs. To church at Mucklestone, and afterwards to Mr. Hinchcliffe’s charming vicarage garden. From the church tower Margaret of Anjou watched the battle of Blore Heath, and in the village the same family (with the same name) still officiate as blacksmiths, one of whose members shoed the Queen’s horse backwards to be ready for her escape if it was needed, and thus saved her.”
“August 11.—To Buntingsdale, beautiful as in childish remembrance,316 with the real scent of the lime-trees, which has often come back to me in dreams.”
“Glamis Castle, August 13.—I arrived at Glamis at 9 P.M., and found an immense party in the house—Sir James and Lady Ramsay, Lord and (the very charming) Lady Sydney Inverurie, Lord and Lady Northesk, and many others. Lord Strathmore has made great preparations, and the Prince would have had the most royal reception here which he has met with anywhere; but, to the great inconvenience of every one, he has put off leaving Hopetoun, where he is, being ill with toothache.
“I have been sitting out much with Lady Sydney Inverurie, who went for her wedding tour to—Japan! She is most amusing about her children and the agony they keep her in as to how to answer their questions. One had just asked her ‘Who cut God’s hair?’ and upon her describing the events of Eden, asked why Adam and Eve did not climb over the walls and get out the other way, because the angel could not come after them, as God had commanded him to stay at the gate.”
“August 15.—I have greatly enjoyed this visit at Glamis, and am glad to feel the cousinly tie drawn closer to the Lyon boys individually as well as collectively. Miss Macdonald was very amusing in her stories.
“A Bishop (Wilberforce of course) remonstrated with a country curate in his diocese for driving tandem. The curate said, ‘Well, my Lord, I cannot see that there is more harm in my driving my horses before each other than in my driving them side by side.’ ‘Oh, yes,’ said the Bishop, ‘there really is a fitness in things; for example, if I put my hands so (folding them together), no one can reproach me, but if I put them so (cutting a snooks), they might reproach me very much indeed.’
“In the winter the Duchess of Leinster had a large Christmas party for her servants, and took particular pains to make it agreeable for them. Afterwards she asked her old housekeeper how she had enjoyed it. ‘Oh, your Grace, I should have enjoyed it very much indeed, if something most dreadful had not happened, which has made me perfectly miserable.’—‘What can it have been?’ said the Duchess. ‘Oh, it was something so dreadful, I really cannot tell your Grace: I was so dreadfully insulted by the butler, I really cannot repeat his words.’—‘Oh, but you really must,’ said the Duchess. ‘Well, your Grace, if I really must, I must tell your Grace that I was coming out from supper, and I had only had the wing of a pheasant and a little bit of jelly, and I met the butler, and he said to me “Is your programme full?” Now your Grace will allow that that was so insulting that pleasure was not to be thought of afterwards.’
“Miss Erica Robertson said:—
“‘Bishop Wilberforce was going, in a visitation tour, to stay at a very humble clergyman’s house. The maid was instructed that, if he spoke to her, she was never to answer him without saying “My Lord.” When the Bishop had written his letters, he asked who would take them to the post. “The Lord, my boy,” said the terrified maid.’”
“August 24.—I left Glamis on Monday, and went by Dalmally to Oban through the Brender Pass—beautiful exceedingly, the mountains so varied and encircling such varied waters.
“On Thursday, at dawn, I saw all the mountains meeting their shadows in the still waters of Oban Bay, and determined to go to Staffa. It was a crowded, rolling, smelly steamer, and I was very miserable, but rather better than worse when the fresh air in the Atlantic made up for the additional rolling. At twelve we reached Iona—different from what I expected, the island larger and the ruins smaller, and without the romantic effect of those on Holy Island. Still, of course, the interest is intense of the cradle of Scottish Christianity, the Throndtjem of Scotland. I found some pleasant boys, sons of a Glasgow merchant, sketching, and made great friends with them. An agony of Atlantic swell brought us to Staffa, but oh! how grand it is!—the grandest cathedral of nature, black with age and roofed with golden vegetation, rising out of the blue sea and lashed by the white foam. I drew a little on the basaltic columns opposite Fingal’s Cave, whilst the mass of the passengers were landing and scrambling about the cavern, and then my boy friends and I climbed the long staircases to the top, where the breezy downs are enamelled with flowers, and the view is most sublime—of the Atlantic, the islands in their fantastic shapes, the distant ghost of shadowy mountains in Skye, and the turbulent waves beneath. I never saw any single place which makes such an impression of natural sublimity.
“How the interests and emotions of life are mingled! In the train, on leaving Glamis, I heard of the death of my dear uncle-like cousin Lord Bloomfield, and while I was drawing Dunolly Sir John Lefevre was passing away! Though the delicate thread which bound his life to earth was so indescribably frail, it had lasted so long, that it is difficult to realise that his loving sympathy and the holy example of his beautiful, humble, and self-forgetful life are removed from us. He was the best man I have ever known and the truest friend. His sweet courtesies were unbounded. His advice was always worth taking, for it was always unselfish, always carefully considered, and it always came from the heart. While I honoured him like a father, he was so genial that I could also love him as an intimate friend.”
“Ascot, August 25, 1879.—I am thankful to have come here to the Lefevres’ to-day, so filled with crushing sorrow to all my dear cousins, though no one can help being comforted in the beautiful recollections of the beloved father—of his boundless love to all, and his painless passage, full of thankfulness and love to the last, to the full fruition of that love in the unseen.
“I walked with his children to the church, where his coffin already lay317 in the chancel covered with garlands. Lord Eversley and Emma Lefevre were there, and many others. The grave was in a sheltered corner of the churchyard, a sunny peaceful spot, and there, with aching hearts, we laid him.”
“Ledbury Court,318 Sept. 13.—This is just the sort of place which is pleasantest—great comfort and no pretension, rather under than over a very good income. The house, many-gabled and quaint, is in the old street of the town, but you drive into a large paved court with a porter’s lodge and pavilion, and clipped bay-trees in tubs like those of an old hotel in the Faubourg St. Germain. Behind, pleasant modern rooms and an oak library open upon lawns with brilliant flowers, beyond which a deer-park extends up wavy hills to a high terrace with a noble view over the western counties.
“On Wednesday we went to the musical festival at Hereford. The cathedral is entirely ruined by restoration—a disgusting polychrome roof, and a piteous glazed-tile floor replacing the ancient pavement consecrated by five centuries. After the Oratorio we went to luncheon with the Bishop, Dr. Attley, and at the palace I met many old friends.
“Yesterday we went to Eastnor. Lord and Lady Somers were away, but we saw the gardens, which would be beautiful if they were not spoilt by too many pines and araucarias, and the house, a hideous castle of Otranto, so unworthily occupying a noble situation. It contains a few fine pictures, but the rooms are frightful.”
“Holme Lacy, Sept. 14.—My visit at Ledbury was a very happy one, Libbet so cheerful and pleasant, Charlie Adeane so engaging and affectionate, dear Lady Hardwicke so delightful, and Alick Yorke so amusing.
“I came here last night, met at the station by Sir Henry Stanhope. It has been a magnificent place, but was injured as much as possible by the late possessor with the assistance of the ignorant architect who built Lord Dudley’s house in Park Lane, who tried hard to turn it from a French château into a Grecian villa. Some of the ceilings, however, are quite glorious, and there are many fine portraits.... Lady Scudamore Stanhope, ‘the most popular woman in the county,’ was Sir Adam Hay’s eldest daughter Dora.”319
“Cheltenham, Sept. 15, 1879.—I do not know when, if ever, I have seen anything so beautiful as the park at Holme Lacy. All Sunday afternoon I wandered with Sir Henry Stanhope in its glorious glades, with fern nine feet high, grand old oaks, white-stemmed beeches, and deep blue depths of mossy dingle. The garden too is quite a poem—such a harmony of colour backed by great yew hedges and grand old pine-trees. Seven hundred people on an average come to see it on the days it is shown, and no wonder.... We went to service at an old church full of tombs of the family, and afterwards to the rectory close by, where there is a wonderful old pear-tree, of which the branches always take root again when they fall off, and cover an immense extent, sometimes producing as much as 2000 gallons of perry.
“In coming hither I stayed to see Gloucester—scarcely worth while, all is so modernised. Yet the cathedral tower and crypt are beautiful, and the Norman nave fine. I saw there the tomb of an ancestor, Sir Onesiphorus Paul, of whom I knew nothing before, but it appears from his epitaph that he was ‘the first to put into practice the humane designs of Howard as to prison discipline.’”
“Cheltenham, Sept. 16.—Mrs. Orlando Kenyon is staying here with the Corbetts. She was a Cotton, and is a very charming person. She described going with her cousin Miss Cotton (now Dowager Marchioness of Downshire) to Peover for a ball. Just as they were setting off news arrived of the death of her cousin’s grandfather, old Mr. Fulke Greville. However, as the visit was settled, it was decided that it should take place, only that Miss Cotton should not go to the ball and her cousin should. They slept together at Peover. In the night Miss Cotton woke Mrs. Kenyon and said, ‘I have had such an extraordinary dream. I have seen my mother moving backwards and forwards between the doors at the end of the room, not walking, but apparently moving in the air—floating with a quantity of gossamer drapery round her; and when I close my eyes, I seem to see her still.’ In the morning the cousins returned to Combermere.
“Just before dinner a servant called Mr. Cotton (Mrs. Kenyon’s father) and said Lord Combermere wanted to speak to him. ‘Oh,’ said Miss Cotton, springing forward, ‘then I am sure some news has come by the post,’ and she tried to insist upon following her uncle, but he would not allow her. Mr. Cotton came back greatly agitated, but insisted on their all going in to dinner. It was a most wretched meal. Afterwards he told the son and daughter that their mother had died (just after her father’s funeral) very suddenly, just when she had appeared at Peover.
“We went yesterday to Southam, the beautiful old house of the De la Beres. After the De la Beres became extinct, it was bought by Lord Ellenborough, and it contains a mixture of relics of the two families—charming old furniture and pictures, including a grand Holbein of Edward VI. One of the De la Beres saved the life of the Black Prince at Crecy, and a Prince of Wales’s helmet and feathers over a chimney-piece commemorate the fact. Three Miss Sergisons of Cuckfield Park inhabit the house now—kindly, pleasant old ladies.”
“Llanover, Sept. 20.—From Cheltenham I went to the Vaughans at Llandaff. It is a hideous drive from Cardiff, but at length you ascend a little hill which is crowned by a knot of buildings—deanery, canonry, a few houses, a cross, and the picturesque ruins of the old palace, while the lofty steeples of the really beautiful cathedral shoot up from the depths below. It is, in fact, far more picturesque than many more important places, and the graveyard around the cathedral, and many picturesque corners inside, make it very attractive.
“Kate took me to Castle Coch—a restored castle of Lord Bute, beautifully situated. We went to the Palace and saw Mrs. Oliphant, the charming old wife of the Bishop of Llandaff. Bishop Perry and his very amusing wife took us with them to dine at Dufferin with a brother of Lord Aberdare, whom we found there.
“Yesterday I went for an hour to Caerphilly on the way here to Llanover, where I arrived at 7 P.M. The Hereditary Grand Duke of Baden had already arrived and gone up to his room. I first saw him when the party was assembled for dinner—Lord and Lady Raglan, Miss Johnes, Mr. Ram, Mr. and Mrs. Sandford, and Mr. and Mrs. Herbert of Llanarth, with two sons, daughter, and daughter-in-law. The Duke received me most cordially and pleasantly.
“After a very long dinner we all went into the hall, when, from the curtains at the end, all the servants tripped in, each footman leading a maid by each hand, in most picturesque Welsh costumes, made obeisance to the Prince, went backwards, and then danced the most complicated and picturesque of reels, with ever-varying figures. Lady Llanover’s own maid was the great performer, and nothing could exceed her consummate grace and dignity. Then a board was brought in and placed in the centre of the floor and three candles upon it, around and between which the footmen and the harper’s boys performed the wonderful candle-dance with the greatest agility.
“Lady Llanover’s excess of courtesies and overwhelming deference were rather oppressive to us all, and evidently frightened the poor boyish Prince dreadfully last night; but this morning she did not come down, and we have got on splendidly, and he delighted in being talked to like other people, and was as natural and nice as he could be. He is certainly a most bewitching Prince, so full of animation and fun, so right-minded and so courteous and simple.
“In three carriages we went to Llanarth to luncheon. I went with the royal carriage, which, with its smart scarlet postillions, certainly went slow enough; for the dear old lady, to do the Prince more honour, had engaged for the occasion not only the two horses used for the weddings at Abergavenny, but also the two used at funerals, and the steeds of death outweighed those of mirth, and kept us down to a funereal pace.
“Llanarth is a sunny, well-kept place. Its great relic is the portrait of Pope’s Arabella Fermor, whose sister was a direct ancestress of the present possessors. After luncheon, we all ranged on the steps and were photographed, and then went on to Raglan, where Lord and Lady Raglan (she a very charming person) did the honours of the really beautiful ruin. To my surprise, I heard the Duke beginning to compare it to Hurstmonceaux, not knowing my connection with the latter. I drove back with him, and told him many stories, and we made pleasant friendly acquaintance. He ran after me when we came in, and kept me to talk to him quietly, and spoke very nicely and kindly of his mother’s liking for my books. He has one of the most open, frank countenances I have ever looked upon.”
“Llanover, Sept. 21.—This morning the Herberts went to mass at Llanarth, and we (English Church) had a queer service in the drawing-room, with a congregation of eight, and a clergyman in a surplice, &c. He gave a capital little sermon, but illustrated his text, ‘Pray without ceasing,’ by the story of the Welsh Prince for whom all the birds sang when they were asked. He was taken captive, and the birds immediately became silent. Then his captors commanded them to sing, but still all the birds in Wales held silence. Then they asked the captive Prince to desire them to sing, and he, kneeling down, prayed that God would open the mouths of the birds, upon which they all sang lustily. This was to prove that prayer was worth while even in the smallest things of life!
“The poor Prince has been victimised to-day to see all the relics of Mrs. Delany, the fetish of this house, and was afterwards taken to the lake to see two coracles, the boats of ancient Wales, in which Ivor and Arthur Herbert besported themselves.”
“Holmhurst, Sept. 27.—On Monday, all Llanover was in motion for the Prince’s departure, more scarlet cloth than ever all over the place, the Welsh harpers harping at the door, the Welsh housemaids, in high hats and bright scarlet and blue petticoats, waiting with bouquets in the park, and every guest in the house compelled to go to the station to see the Prince off. Highly comical was the scene on the platform—the yards of red cloth hurriedly thrown down by two footmen wherever the poor boyish Prince, in his brown frieze suit and wideawake hat, seemed likely to tread. I wished to have travelled to Windsor by Gloucester, which is two and a half hours’ less journey; but no, that was impossible: the Queen of England sometimes has her own way; the Queen of South Wales always.
“Mrs. Herbert of Llanarth was sent to travel with the Prince to Malvern, Mr. Ram to Worcester, I to Oxford. However, one could hardly see too much of him, he is such a nice Prince—kind, courteous, clever, intelligent, simple, and sincere. Captain Sommer, the gentleman in waiting, is also a most superior person.
“I reached Ronald Gower in the evening. He met me at the Windsor station, and took me to his really charming little house, which is full of lovely things. It is an odd ménage, with the artistic valet, Robert Stubbs, supreme. It was a great pleasure to take up with Ronald the links of a much-relaxed, never-forgotten friendship, and to find him far nicer than I had remembered him.
“We spent Tuesday at Cliveden, a pouring day, but it did not matter. The Duchess of Westminster320 is Ronald’s favourite sister, and was very pleasant and cordial to his friend. She is gloriously handsome, though so large. We talked for four hours without ceasing, and she took us into every corner of the beautiful house full of charming pictures, and then put on an ulster and hood and walked with us through the torrents of rain to the conservatories. One felt that she was a person to whom one could say anything without being misunderstood, and who would become an increasingly true friend. Her daughter, Lady Beatrice Cavendish, was there, and the handsome young husband, Compton Cavendish, Lord Chesham’s son, came in to luncheon and tea. All saw us off at 5 P.M. in the little cart with Piggy the pony.
“On Wednesday morning we went into the castle to see Lady Ponsonby, who lives in the old prison over Edward III.’s gateway—most curious, and fitted up in admirable taste, despairing to Mr. Ayrton.”
“Osterley Park, Nov. 13.—I came here yesterday, most kindly welcomed by the good old Duchess of Cleveland, who is delightful. The greatness of her charm certainly lies in the absence of charm: no one ever had less of it. But what bright intelligence, what acute perceptions, what genuine kindness, what active beneficence! I found Julia, Lady Jersey, here, and Mr. Brandling, and a Mr. and Mrs. Bramston, relations of the Cleveland family. After dinner, the Duchess made me sit exclusively by her, saying kindly that she could not waste any of my short visit. She talked in a very interesting way of the great Duke of Wellington, and then of the present Duke. She said that when she asked the latter if the great Duke had never shown him any kindness, he said, ‘No, he never even so much as patted me on the shoulder when I was a boy, but it was because he hated my mother.’
“After luncheon to-day I walked with Brandling and Colonel Bramston to Boston Hall, the fine old house of the Clitherows.
“As Lady Caroline Paulet, the Duchess of Cleveland used to be very proud of her little foot. She wore an anklet, and would often sit upon a table, and let it fall down over her foot to show it. It was inscribed, ‘La légèreté de Camille et la vitesse d’Atalante.’ One day Lady Isabella St. John, who was equally proud of her little foot, said, ‘I wish you would let me try if I can get your anklet over my foot, Lady Caroline.’ And she put it on, and, to Lady Caroline’s great disgust, kicked it off, to show how easily her foot would go through it.
“In those long-ago days—one cannot imagine it now—she used to be very décolletée, and the Duchess Elizabeth (Miss Russell), who did not like her, once flung a napkin at her across the table, saying, ‘Caroline, here is something to cover your nakedness with.’
“How many and amusing are the anecdotes remembered of that Duchess Elizabeth, who went on receiving a pension from the Duke of Bedford, as his cast-off mistress, after she was married to the Duke of Cleveland. She had been a washerwoman. She left Newton House, where she lived as a widow, to her nephew Mr. Russell, whose grandson married a Lushington. She gave £70,000 to her niece Laura when she married Lord Mulgrave, and the marriage very nearly went off because the Normanbys stuck out for £100,000. ‘Laura is not my only niece, remember that,’ she said, and then they became frightened. She used to call Lord Harry Vane ‘My ‘Arry.’ One day, with Mr. Francis Grey, the conversation turned upon Venus. ‘I do not like her,’ she said; ’she had a bad figure, and by no means a good character.’ Her companion laughed and said, ‘She mistakes her for a living person,’ and so she did.”
“Nov. 14.—Life is very pleasant in this fine old house, and its long sunny gallery full of books and pictures is a delightful resort on winter mornings. We breakfast at ten, during which Mr. Spencer Lyttelton, who is frequently here, does his best to shock people for the day, but is certainly very clever and amusing. I never saw any one who called a spade a spade as he does, but I believe he likes every one to think him worse than he is. This morning I walked with Brandling in the long shrubberies, the great trees casting perfectly blue shadows upon the park white with hoar-frost and the lake thinly coated with ice.
“In the afternoon we went to Ham House—a most curious visit. No half-inhabited château of a ruined family in Normandy was ever half so dilapidated as this home of the enormously rich Tollemaches. Like a French château too is the entrance through a gateway to a desolate yard with old trees and a sundial, and a donkey feeding. All the members of the family whom I knew were absent, but I sent in my card to Mr. Algernon Tollemache, who received us. As the door at the head of the entrance-stair opened, its handle went through a priceless Sir Joshua of Louisa, Countess of Dysart: it always does go through it. We were taken through a half-ruined hall and a bedroom to an inner room in which Mr. Algernon Tollemache (unable to move from illness) was sitting. It presented the most unusual contrasts imaginable—a velvet bed in a recess backed by the most exquisite embroidery on Chinese silk; an uncarpeted floor of rough boards; a glorious Lely portrait of the Duchess of Lauderdale; a deal board by way of washing-stand, with a coarse white jug and basin upon it; a splendid mirror framed in massive silver on a hideous rough deal scullery table without a cover; and all Mr. Tollemache’s most extraordinarily huge boots and shoes ranged round the room by way of ornament.
“The vast house is like a caravansary; in one apartment lives young Lord Dysart, the real owner; in another his Roman Catholic mother, Lady Huntingtower, and her two Protestant daughters; in a third, his great-aunt, Lady Laura Grattan; in a fourth, his uncle, Mr. Frederick Tollemache, who manages the property; in a fifth, Mr. and Mrs. Algernon Tollemache, who made a great fortune in Australia.
“We were sent over the house. All was of the same character—a glorious staircase with splendid carving in deep relief; the dismal chapel in which the different members of the family, amongst them Lady Ailesbury321 and Lady Sudeley,322 have been married, with the prayer-book of Charles I., in a most wonderful cover of metallic embroidery; marvellous old rooms with lovely delicate silk hangings of exquisitely beautiful tints, though mouldering in rags; old Persian carpets of priceless designs worn to shreds; priceless Japanese screens perishing; beautiful pictures dropping to pieces for want of varnish; silver grates, tongs, and bellows; magnificent silver tables; black chandeliers which look like ebony and are solid silver; a library full of Caxtons, the finest collection in the world except two; a china closet with piles of old Chelsea, undusted and untouched for years; a lovely little room full of miniatures, of which the most beautiful of all was brought down for us to examine closer. ‘Do you see that mark?’ said Mr. Tollemache. ‘Thirty years ago a spot appeared there upon the miniature, so I opened the case and wetted my finger and rubbed it: I did not know paint came off(!). Wasn’t it fortunate I did not wipe my wet hand down over the whole picture: it would all have come off!’323
“And the inhabitants of this palace, which looks like that of the Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, have wealth which is inexhaustible, though they have scarcely any servants, no carriage, only bread and cheese for luncheon, and never repair or restore anything.
“All the family have had their peculiarities. The late Lord Huntingtower was at one time separated from his wife, and when he was persuaded that he ought in common justice to allow her to return to Ham, he assented, but he draped the gates and portico with black cloth for her reception, and he put a band of black cloth round the left leg of every animal on the estate, the cows in the field, the horses in the stable, even the dogs and the cats. His grandfather, Lord Huntingtower, was more extraordinary still. When he bought a very nice estate with a house near Buckminster, he bought all the contents of the house at the same time. There was a very good collection of pictures, but ‘What do I want with pictures? All that rubbish shall be burnt,’ he said. ‘But, my lord, they are very good pictures.’ ‘Well, bring them all down here and make a very great fire, and I will see them burnt.’ And he did.
“There is a ghost at Ham. The old butler there had a little girl, and the Ladies Tollemache kindly asked her to come on a visit: she was then six years old. In the small hours of the morning, when dawn was making things clear, the child, waking up, saw a little old woman scratching with her fingers against the wall close to the fireplace. She was not at all frightened at first, but sat up to look at her. The noise she made in doing this caused the old woman to look round, and she came to the foot of the bed, and grasping the rail with her hands, stared at the child long and fixedly. So horrible was her stare, that the child was terrified, and screamed and hid her face under the clothes. People who were in the passage ran in, and the child told what she had seen. The wall was examined where she had seen the figure scratching, and concealed in it were found papers which proved that in that room Elizabeth, Countess of Dysart, had murdered her husband to marry the Duke of Lauderdale.”324
“Holmhurst, Nov. 24.—Here I am at home again, and we are very busy increasing the walks round the tiny property with the money which dear Aunt Sophy left. They will present quite a miniature variety of scenery now—the ilex walk recalling Italy, and the fir-wood the Black Forest, but the thick wood at the bottom, and its tiny glens and brook and bridges, could only be in England. In this wood we are trying to coax a thousand interesting flowers to ‘grow wild,’ and puzzle the botanists of the twentieth century.
“I spent the last three days of my absence with Hugh Pearson in his canonry at Windsor, a delightful old house overlooking the steep ascent of the hill, where different members of the royal family are constantly dropping in to visit the dearest man in the world, as the princesses of George III.’s time did to visit Mrs. Delany—and no wonder!
“Willie Stephens325 and I had much interesting talk with the beloved H. Pearson; after being with other people, there is an ease in talking to him which is like exchanging a frock-coat for a shooting-coat.
“On Friday poor Prince Alemayu of Abyssinia (King Theodore’s son) was buried in Windsor Castle. After he came from Abyssinia the Queen adopted him, and he had no one else to look to, for his mother died of consumption on her way to England, and his only other near relation, his uncle, the present King, would certainly have cut his head off at once if he had returned to Abyssinia. He was at Rugby at Jex Blake’s house, and then at a private tutor’s to prepare him for the army, but he always passed his holidays in the castle with Lady Biddulph, and was like a younger brother to Victor Biddulph, her son. Every one liked him. Lately he had been at a tutor’s near Leeds, where he became ill of inflammation of the lungs, probably rapid consumption. Lady Biddulph did not believe in the danger, but Mrs. Jex Blake went to him, and her account of his last hours was most touching. He said to her, ‘No doubts: no doubts at all,’ and then he died.
“On Thursday he was brought to Windsor, and we went to look at his coffin in the little mortuary chapel, draped with black and white, in front of Princess Charlotte’s monument.
“The funeral was at twelve on Friday. The chapel was full. Most exquisitely beautiful was the singing—the gradual swell of ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life’ as the procession formed at the west door and moved slowly up the nave into the choir. The coffin was piled with flowers upon a violet and white pall. Lady Biddulph and her children knelt on one side. Prince Christian, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (as guardian of the Prince), and Mr. Lowe were amongst the mourners. The Dead March was played most grandly as the procession moved out again to the little graveyard by the west door, where the snow had fallen thick upon the flowers by which the newly-made grave was surrounded.
“I have heard a very eerie story from Lady Waterford:—There is a place in Scotland called Longmacfergus. Mr. and Mrs. Spottiswoode lived there, who were the father and mother of Lady John Scott, and they vouched for the story. The villagers of Longmacfergus are in the habit of going to do their marketing at the little town of Dunse, and though their nearest way home would be by crossing the burn at a point called ‘the Foul Ford,’ they always choose another and longer way by preference, for the Foul Ford is always looked upon as haunted. There was a farmer who lived in Longmacfergus, and who was highly respected, and very well-to-do. One night his wife was expecting him back from the market at Dunse, and he did not appear. Late and long she waited and he did not come, but at last, after midnight, when she was very seriously alarmed, he knocked violently at the door and she let him in. She was horrified to see his wild and agonised expression, and the awful change which had taken place in his whole aspect since they parted. He told her that he had come home by the Foul Ford, and that he must rue the day and the way, for he must die before morning. He begged her to send for the minister, for he must see him at once. She was terrified at his state, and implored him rather to send for the doctor, but he said, ‘No, the minister—the minister was the only person who could do him any good.’ However, being a wise woman, she sent for both minister and doctor. When the doctor came, he said he could do nothing for the man, the case was past his cure, but the minister spent several hours with the farmer. Before morning he died, and what he said that night to the minister never was told till many years after.
“Naturally the circumstances of the farmer’s, death made the inhabitants of Longmacfergus regard the Foul Ford with greater terror than before, and for a few years no one attempted to use it. At last, however, there came a day when the son of the dead farmer was persuaded to linger longer than usual drinking at Dunse, and after being twitted by his comrades for cowardice in not returning the shortest way, he determined to risk it, and set out with a brave heart. That night his wife sat watching in vain for his return, and she watched in vain till morning, for he never came back. In the morning the neighbours went to search for him, and he was found lying dead on the bank above the Foul Ford, and—it is a foolish fact perhaps, but it has always been narrated as a fact incidental to the story, that—though there were no marks of violence upon his person, and though his coat was on, his waistcoat was off and lying by the side of his body upon the grass; his watch and his money were left intact in his pockets.
“After his funeral the minister said to the assembled mourners and parishioners, that now that the second death had occurred of the son, he thought that he should be justified in revealing the substance of the strange confession which the father had made on the night he died. He said that he had crossed the wooden bridge of the Foul Ford, and was coming up the brae on the other side, when he met a procession of horsemen dressed in black, riding two and two upon black horses. As they came up, he saw amongst them, to his horror, every one he had known amongst his neighbours of Longmacfergus, and who were already dead. But the man who rode last—the last man who had died—was leading a riderless horse. As he came up, he dismounted by the farmer’s side, and said that the horse was for him. The farmer refused to mount, and all his former neighbours tried to force him on to the horse. They had a deadly struggle, in which at last the farmer seemed to get the better, for the horseman rode away, leading the riderless horse, but he said, ‘Never mind, you will want it before morning.’ And before morning he was dead.”
It was with a feeling of strangeness that, in the autumn of 1879, I felt that my royal duties were over. I did not see the Prince of Sweden again after his return from Scotland.
I have heard since at intervals from the Prince (whose career I always follow with deepest interest), and from the beloved Queen, by the hand of Countess Rosen; but their letters have referred rather to the past than to the present or future: my part in the Prince’s life is probably over.