VOLUME VI

LONDON

GEORGE ALLEN, 156, CHARING CROSS ROAD

1900

[_All rights reserved_]

Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.

At the Ballantyne Press

CONTENTS

PAGE

BEYOND THE TOP OF THE HILL 1

IN PLEASURE AND PAIN 118

AT HOME AND ABROAD 192

SOCIAL REMINISCENCES 252

A KNOCKING AT THE DOOR 295

WRITING THE GURNEY MEMOIRS 337

IN MANY PLACES 393

FAREWELL 526

INDEX 539

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

VOL. VI

CHARLOTTE LEYCESTER. (_Photogravure_) _Frontispiece_

PAGE

THE DEANERY, BATTLE 5

L’ARICCIA 10

GALLERIA DI SOTTO, ALBANO 11

LAKE OF BOLSENA 12

S. DOMENICO, SIENA 13

MONTE OLIVETO 14

SENS 15

THE PARACLETE 16

THE PORCH, HOLMHURST 27

RIEZ 36

GRIGNAN 37

CLOISTER OF CAVAILLON 38

MONTMAJOUR 40

LES BAUX 41

LES S. MARIES DE LA CAMARGUE 42

LA SALETTE 43

DOMREMY, VILLAGE STREET 45

HOUSE OF JEANNE DARC 46

EMBRUN 47

CHÂTEAU DE VIZILLE 49

QUAYS OF GRENOBLE 51

SCOTNEY CASTLE 55

AT WESTMINSTER 64

THE GARDEN, HOLMHURST 98

THE MANOR WALK, HOLMHURST 110

ROSNY 113

ALNWICK CASTLE 137

HOLMHURST FROM THE SHRUBBERY 140

S. FLOUR, FROM THE SOUTH 147

CHÂTEAU DU ROI, S. EMILION 148

AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE, 1888. (_Photogravure_) _To face_ 150

S. NECTAIRE 151

GATE OF LA GUERANDE 153

PONT S. LOUIS, MENTONE 165

IN S. FRANCESCO NEL DESERTO 169

THE ROCKY VALLEY, HOLMHURST 171

FROM THE WALKS, HOLMHURST 174

ST. MICHAEL’S MOUNT 176

CEMETERY OF PERA, CONSTANTINOPLE 195

THE BATHS, BROUSSA 213

OBER-AMMERGAU 218

TOMB OF LADY WATERFORD, FORD 251

THE OAK WALK, HOLMHURST 254

THE VENETIAN WELL, HOLMHURST 255

BISHOP’S BRIDGE, NORWICH 260

SASSO 265

AT BORDIGHERA 266

AT REBEKAH’S WELL, NEAR S. REMO 267

AT S. REMO 268

GLEN AT S. REMO 269

CLAUDIAN AQUEDUCT 274

REMAINS OF TEMPLE OF JUPITER LATIARIS, MONTE CAVI 281

VENETIAN POZZO 292

BROADHURST 322

GROOMBRIDGE PLACE 323

AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE (_Photogravure_) _To face_ 336

EARLHAM HALL 338

MONT S. MICHEL 344

S. JEAN DU DOIGT 345

AT CARNAC 346

LES ROCHERS 347

QUEEN ANNE AT HOLMHURST 349

BELLA’S LOGHOUSE, ALDERLEY MERE 352

STOKESAY 382

PITCHFORD 383

IN THE WALKS, HOLMHURST 395

THE TERRACE DOOR, HOLMHURST 426

THE NAYLOR LANDING, HOLMHURST 430

THE ARSON STEPS, HOLMHURST 450

IN THE WALPOLE CORRIDOR, HOLMHURST 469

WARBLETON PRIORY, ON APPROACHING 471

WARBLETON PRIORY, SEEN FROM BEHIND 472

PORCH OF HOSPICE, HOLMHURST 477

THE AVE-VALE STEPS, HOLMHURST 481

IN THE CHURCHYARD, HURSTMONCEAUX 489

THE AVE-VALE GATE, HOLMHURST 492

IN THE UPPER CORRIDOR, HOLMHURST 503

THE PORCH, HOLMHURST 511

XXIV

BEYOND THE TOP OF THE HILL

“Un jour tout sera bien, voilà notre espérance! Tout est bien aujourd’hui, voilà l’illusion.

* * * * *

Que tout soit mal ou bien, faisons que tout soit mieux.” --ROUSSEAU.

“Il faut travailler en ce monde, il faut souffrir el combattre. On aura bien le temps de se reposer toute l’érnité.

“Si nous comprenions bien notre bonheur, nous pourrions presque dire que nous sommes plus heureux que les saints dans le ciel. Ils vivent des leurs rentes; ils ne peuvent rien gagner; tandis que nous, nous pouvons à chaque instant augmenter notre trésor.”--LE CURÉ D’ARS.

“La debolezza umana piange, sorride l’imortale speranza.”--_Epitaph at Pisa._

There is an old print at Holmhurst which represents life in its successive stages as the ascent and descent of a hill. At fifty the top of the hill is reached and the descent begins. I have passed the top, and every year must bring less power of work and action, though I scarcely feel older now than I did at five-and-twenty. But certain marks in the forehead show that age has left his card upon one; we do not know when he called, but the visit has been paid. Well, it is the more necessary to do all we can whilst power lasts, never talking, but acting, and recollecting that a duty once divined binds one from that moment; while as for the abuse, public and private, received for anything attempted out of the ordinary groove, we ought ever to follow the simple advice of Sœur Rosalie, “Faites le bien, et laissez dire.”

Certainly the longer one lives one feels how, of all shams, the religious sham is the worst--the man who talks “goody” without any heart to sympathise with sorrow or _shame_, and who thus can never help those who struggle sadly against vice and meanness, whilst tremulously aiming at a nobler life. The same, in a wider sense, is true of almost all sermons one hears--

“Two lips wagging, and never a wise word.”[418]

So few clergymen _feel_ what they say, that it only does harm. It was a saying of Pope Pius II., “Bad physicians kill the body, unskilful priests the soul.”

It ought not to be, but it certainly is true that the Church and Religion are _two_; and, _apropos_ of sermons and religious discussions, another saying of Pope Pius often comes back to me, “The nature of God can be better grasped by believing than disputing.” “Let us not be the slaves of any human authority, but clear our way through all creeds and confessions to Thine own original revelation.” With Thomas Chalmers, can I not feel this?

I have endless compensations for a lonely life in my pretty little home, my sufficient means, my multitudes of friends. Besides, it is as Madame d’Houdetot wrote to Madame Necker, “Vous savez que le seul être malheureux est celui qui ne peut ni aimer, ni agir, ni mourir, et je suis bien loin de cette situation.” I often feel, however, that this book would give a very false idea of my life. I recount my many visits and what I hear there because it is amusing, and I leave unnoticed the months and months when nothing happens, and in which I am probably employed in quiet work at Holmhurst. With every one naturally it must be true that

“The life of man is made of many lives, His heart and mind of many minds and hearts.”[419]

This, however, is enough of sentimentalising. I will return to facts.

* * * * *

JOURNAL.

“_Jan. 9, 1886._--I am just come back from a very pleasant visit at Battle Abbey, where I met the Powerscourts, Lord and Lady George Campbell (she lovely and like a beautiful Gainsborough), Lord Hardinge and a very nice daughter, Lord Wolmer and Lady Maude, Sir Prescott Hewitt, a young Ryder, and Lady Dorothy Nevill. The latter was most amusing, and well understands the famous principle--‘Glissez, mortels, n’appuyez pas.’ She and the Duchess of Cleveland, who was in very good vein, were quite charming together.”

* * * * *

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

“_Holmhurst, Feb. 20, 1886._--Do you know that, except for ten days, I have been at home just three months to-day, and nearly all the time quite alone. I cannot say how much I have enjoyed the quietude of study and communing with great and wise people through many books. There is certainly the greatest pleasure in thus acquiring new thoughts, and, in a small way, fresh knowledge: indeed, I always feel that to give myself up to overwork is quite as great a temptation to me as over-idleness to some people.

“Each different literary work I have had has seemed to me, at the time, more interesting and engrossing. The little accidental discoveries are so amusing. Amongst those of this week, who do you think invented a wheel-barrow?--Blaise Pascal.

“My diversion has been reading masses of old family letters, unearthed by Lady Hartopp. They are very curious, and a complete portrait of the family at the beginning of the century. My grandfather, Mr. Hare Naylor, must have been quite odious--so imperious and arrogant: Lady Jones, the incarnation of a rod in pickle, but with very fine qualities: great-uncle Robert, the rector, more of a rowdy farmer than anything else. Penelope Shipley (Mrs. Warren), a very fine unselfish creature: Dean Shipley, selfish and dictatorial: Francis Hare, a self-indulgent dandy: Julius, a miracle of boyish learning, talking like a Solon: Augustus (it must be allowed), very priggish, but very amiable: Marcus, indulged in everything by his aunts: the second Mrs. Hare Naylor, foolish and querulous, but by no means an unjust stepmother. The religious letters of consolation which the whole party write to one another when little Anna dies are so stilted as to be truly comic. What is touching is that over the harsh letters of her fierce elder sister, the beloved memory of the first Mrs. Hare Naylor ever broods as a softening influence: however much trouble the Hare brothers give her, no pains or expense are too great for them, because ‘they were hers.’”

* * * * *

On the 9th of February I went up to London for Miss Jolliffe’s wedding, and came in for--a revolution! On returning from the City, I found Trafalgar Square one mass of people, and many orators addressing them, but expected nothing more. Soon, however, a Socialist leader named Burns suggested a reign of terror and offered himself as captain. Thousands of men--well fed, well dressed, but still the scum of London--rushed down Pall-Mall, breaking windows as they went--a very carnival of outlawry. Their passions grew with their progress, and in St. James Street they wrecked the University Club, which had expelled Hyndman, one of their leaders, from its society. They seized certain carriages, turning out the ladies they contained, and stripped a footman of his livery. They pulled Lady Claude Hamilton out of her carriage and boxed her ears, but when, _after_ this, she denounced them as dogs who ought to be flogged as curs, they applauded her courage, and let her go on. Breaking windows and wrecking many shops in Piccadilly, they entered the Park at Hyde Park Corner and left it at Stanhope Gate. Then they rushed on through South Audley Street, which they left much like Paris after the excesses of the Commune. How truly Milton said--

“License they mean when they cry Liberty.”

I went the next day to see Lady Foley, whose house in Grosvenor Square had been on their line of route. It had not only no pane of glass unbroken, but not even fragments of glass left, and stones heaped in the library enough to mend a good piece of road with. Lord Percy’s house, next door, was so ruined that they went away next day.

For the two following days London had indeed a miserable aspect--windows all broken, streets littered with fragments, shops shut, streets paraded constantly by bands of entirely victorious and triumphant ruffians, and shop-keepers, in some cases, guarding their property with revolvers.

The call for a fresh edition of my “Walks in Rome” made me suddenly determine to go to Italy at the end of February. At Florence I was the constant guest of the ever-kind Duchess Dowager of Sermoneta, with whom I made delightful excursions in the hills.

* * * * *

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

“_Hotel Paoli, Florence, March 7, 1886._--France was covered with snow from end to end, yet next day we were speeding through lemon-groves laden with fruit, and carpeted with a blaze of iris and scarlet geranium in full flower. Here, after reading about the snowstorms in England, I am glad in the gardens of Arcetri to sit to draw in the shade of the cypresses, and all the hills are pink with almond-blossom. I spent one evening with the Duchess at Palazzo Torrigiani, alone with the family there, which is the most perfect type of a grand old Italian household, consisting of between eighty and ninety persons. The kind and charming old Marchesa Elisabetta has four sons, who have all married as soon as they came of age, yet none have gone farther than to an apartment of their own under the maternal roof, and eighteen children and grandchildren dine with her daily, besides other guests. The four daughters-in-law all live in the utmost harmony; the Marchesa Giulia, wife of the eldest son Pietro, and the Marchesa Margherita, who was a Malespina (which in Italy means great things), quietly giving precedence to the Marchesa Cristina, who is a princess (Scilla) by birth. All sat with work round a table, visitors dropped in, and it was most easy and pleasant.

“Another day, the Duchess, Miss Phillimore, and I went out by the steam-tram to spend a day at the Marchese della Stufa’s[421] old castle of Castagnolo. We had an amusing luncheon of Italian dishes, guitar music and singing, a walk to pick violets, with which the hedges are full, a visit to the green-houses and aviaries of rare birds, and we were taken back to the tram-line, where the station is built of sunflower-stalks, which are like bamboo in their qualities.”

* * * * *

I reached Rome on the 10th of March, warmly welcomed by a large circle of friends. In the hotel were Mrs. Tilt and Letitia Hibbert, very familiar to me in early days at Birtles, and with them and their very charming sister-in-law, Mrs. Frank Hibbert (_née_ Cholmondeley), I made delightful excursions to familiar places--Tivoli, Frascati, Albano. Sir John Lumley was now reigning at the Embassy and making it delightful to his countrymen.

* * * * *

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

“_Hotel d’Italie, Rome, March 17, 1886._--What lovely June weather this is, so very hot, so unspeakably beautiful.... I find an immense deal to do in correcting and writing, chiefly, however, in taking away from my ‘Walks in Rome,’ so very much is destroyed; indeed, Lanciani, the archaeologist in power, says, ‘If they go on like this for twenty years, there will be nothing left of older Rome but St Peter’s and the Coliseum--_if_ those.’”

* * * * *

“_March 21._--What expeditions we have had! On Monday we walked through the glen at Ariccia and round the glorious old woods of the Parco Chigi, full of cyclamen, cytisus, blue squills, green iris, and masses of dark violets. Then, whilst the others went on to the convent of Palazzuola, I sat to draw above the still lake, and, when they came back, we went to the grand pine-groves of the Villa Barberini, to Castel Gandolfo, and through the ilex galleries in time for the evening train.... I have dined out every day, just as in London.”

* * * * *

“_March 31._--I wish I could transport you suddenly into the glorious radiance of this cloudless sunshine and deepest of blue skies. To me Rome has never seemed so delightful in climate as after three months of fog and sleet at Holmhurst.... Amid all the changes elsewhere, I can always turn with comfort to the Palatine, and have spent many happy mornings there amongst the gigantic ruins, and the groves of laurustinus and lentisc, and the huge fenochii, meditating on my past and its past.”

On April 22 I went to Perugia, finding in Brufani’s excellent hotel Mrs. Robert Drummond and her daughter, and two charming Americans, Miss Isabel and Miss Lorraine Wood, domesticated at Dresden. For the next fortnight we toured about together. As to some of the most restful and happiest days of my later years, I look back to the extreme comfort of Perugia, and the perfect view from the windows of my room, unspeakably glorious at all hours, but most of all when the rising sun was lighting up the tops of the distant mountains, whilst all the detail of the intermediate plain was lost in soft white haze. Equally delightful was the old-fashioned inn at Orvieto, and the drives into the hills and to Bagnorea and the Lago di Bolsena, returning in the carriage laden with branches of honeysuckle and masses of anemones, violets, cyclamen, and other spring flowers. From Siena, too, we made again the interesting excursions to Monte Oliveto and S. Gimignano.

Crossing the St. Gothard to Basle, I turned aside to visit the whole of the Jura country, greatly overrated, I thought, by former travellers. Burgundy was much more interesting, with its fine churches and its noble inhabited châteaux of Ancy le Franc and Tanlay. As I was dining in the tiny primitive inn at the latter, the tradesmen who held the minute shops in the village were disputing as to the superiority of their different trades. The carpenter certainly won the day by winding up with, “Et la Vierge s’est mariée avec un charpentier: elle était bien libre de son choix, et elle a choisi--un charpentier!” Nearly the whole of June I stayed in Paris, working at the archaeological details of the town for my book, and seeing no one.

* * * * *

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

“_Montbard, May 23, 1886._--I wonder if my date conveys anything to you? I had determined to evade this place if it were possible, yet here I am for two days at the place so connected with the agonising anxiety of _our_ last journey, where Mother in her illness was laid flat upon the railway platform, to find, when the train was gone, that the little hotel was closed, and where she was carried through the lanes to an old farmhouse. There the people were most kind to us, and she almost enjoyed it, and dear Lea was very happy, and of its inmates both were often so anxious to hear during the after-summer of the German invasion. The old host and hostess are dead now, and the two boys, whom I saw when I went to luncheon with Mme. de Montgolfier, are married, and have twelve children between them!”

* * * * *

“_Sens, May 28._--The weather has changed to bitter wind, but it has seemed appropriate to the wild country of Avallon and Vezelay. Auxerre is very interesting and beautiful, especially the great abbey of S. Germain and the marvellously simple and pure cathedral. Old affection for Thomas à Becket took me thence, through the sweet acacia forests, to Pontigny, since which I have been very comfortable for two nights at a charming inn close under the shadow of this old archiepiscopal cathedral.”

* * * * *

“_Hotel Noël Peter, Paris, June 6._--I am very glad to have accomplished a long-wished-for visit to the historic sites of Clairvaux and the Paraclete, though there is nothing whatever to see in either of them! How I have worked since I have been here! My book is written, but I have to go through every part of it on the spot. I breakfast at seven and work till eleven, then luncheon and work again till four o’clock, when I come in dead-tired, only to go out again to have food at a restaurant, and to bed at eight.”

* * * * *

“_June 16._--Two desperately hard days at Versailles and two at the Louvre, looking over and collating. Certainly no place of residence need be cheaper than Paris. Life seems to cost nothing at all, a week here being equivalent to a day in London, or even at Rome. It is an oddly lonely life, as, except for ten minutes, I have seen no one to speak to since May 11: however, there would certainly have been no time for it.”

* * * * *

In July I was in London, and then at Buckhurst, in glorious summer weather, to meet Lord and Lady Lathom.

* * * * *

JOURNAL.

“_August 13, 1886._--Two days ago Lady Ossington took me to Lady Evelyn Campbell’s wedding with James Baillie Hamilton in Henry VII.’s Chapel. They have married on his vocation, which played all the time of the ceremony, and on which their future depends for the bread and butter of life, at present supplied to them by America for looking after it. They have also a camp, in which they propose to train boys for hardships in the colonies, and the sweet little bride began her own hardships by having to walk two miles to this, through the wet grass and fern of a desolate moor, carrying in a basket the cold chicken and bread which her sisters had put up for her supper.

“I have been reminded how James Baillie Hamilton was at Harrow at Hayward’s house, which in my time used to be Harris’s, and to have then the reputation of being haunted. He told Catherine Vaughan that one night whilst he was there, Albert Grey, also a senior boy in the house, rushed into his room wild with horror, and said that when he was in bed he had seen by the moonlight a most terrible figure come in, a kind of nondescript, and that as it approached a chill as of death came over him. Eventually it had seemed to go into a corner of the room and disappear there. Something was arranged for Albert Grey for that night, and the friends never told at Harrow what had occurred. Years afterwards, at his camp, Baillie Hamilton met a boy called Anderson, who had been in Hayward’s house. He told how he and another boy slept in the same room. One night he heard his companion in an agonised tone say, ‘Oh, _do_ light the candle: there is something most dreadful in the room.’ He lighted it, and found his friend sitting on the edge of his bed, trembling from head to foot. He said that the door had opened, and a horrible nondescript figure had come in, when the most terrible chill, as of death, had come over him. After a time, all seeming as usual, the boys put out the light. They had hardly done so, when Anderson himself saw the figure--the appalling figure, come towards him, and the same deathly icy chill seized him. They lighted the candle again, when the apparition vanished.

“One of the curates at Llandaff was going to the place where Miss Hayward, sister of the Harrow Master, lived, and Catherine asked him to inquire if she remembered the circumstance. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘that is exactly what happened; and that room is never used now.’

“On the evening of the wedding-day I went to Chichester, where the Bishop’s palace, venerable and grey, but buried in myrtles and coronillas, and radiant with brilliant flowers, lies close under the shadow of the beautiful cathedral spire. The Bishop (Durnford), at eighty-seven, is the very type of a christian scholar, perfectly charming in conversation, equally at home in classical and in French, English, and Italian reminiscence and quotation, and touchingly filled with a generous and kindly spirit to all he meets with. Circling around him were various relations, a brother-in-law--a pleasant old clergyman Mr. Keate, nieces, two sons, Dick and Walter, the latter the pleasantest and frankest of young Eton masters, and the daughter, Miss Durnford, who is mistress of the house, and whose active energy makes all right wherever she goes, and very cheerily right too. The profuse family use of adjectives and verbs, which they unearth for themselves, was very entertaining. ‘We seem to be going to have a regular Belshazzar,’ said Walter Durnford when something more than usual appeared for luncheon.

“There is much to interest in the palace, which has a charming early English chapel and a grand old kitchen. The cathedral retains the human interest of its old pavement and a few tombs, sadly mutilated or tinkered up: one of a Lady Arundel is very fine. There are curious paintings of Cadwallador and of Henry VIII. giving charters on one of the walls, by a painter of Henry VIII.’s time, who also decorated the ceiling of the very fine old dining-room in the palace. Round the town, much of the old wall remains, making a pleasant walk; but the most curious building is St. Mary’s Hospital, like a church, with a great single nave divided at the sides by chapels, which form the little two-roomed houses of ten old women, presented by the Bishop and custos, who live there rent-free in great comfort, with firing, and twelve shillings a week for their maintenance. At the end is the chapel, only separated from the rest by an old oak screen.

“With the Bishop and his party I went to Midhurst, a most attractive old town in lovely country, and we walked through an ancient wood above the Rother to the grand ruins of Cowdray, full of recollections of the Poyntz family, who, as its possessors, came in bitterly for the curse of sacrilege. When Mr. Poyntz went out in a boat at Bognor with his two sons, and the boat upset whilst Mrs. Poyntz was watching it from the hotel-window, the boys clung to the tail of their father’s coat as he held the side of the boat in the waves, and he--who could not swim--had the agony of feeling one after the other leave go and sink, without being able to help them. He himself was eventually saved by the boatmen. In the church of Easebourne, which stands in the park, near the fine old building called the Priory, is a touching tomb by Chantrey, erected to this Mr. and Mrs. Poyntz by their three daughters--Ladies Clinton, Exeter, and Spencer. As they were co-heiresses, Cowdray was obliged to be sold, and was bought by the Egmonts.”

* * * * *

“_Highcliffe, August 25._--I arrived here for my usual happy summer week with Tina, Lady Waterford, who has been a curious contrast to the lady of the place, but in herself very pleasant. She described how Cromwell, determined to take ‘the golden vale of Tipperary,’ said he would take it ‘by Hook or by Crook’--the two villages on either side the river--and thence the proverb.

“There has been a bee-show on the lawn here, Mr. Bellairs and young Evan Maberly going amongst the bees, taking them up, and treating them just as they pleased; but it looked horrible when their hats were covered with a crawling mass, and bees were hanging to nose and ears.

“Lady Jane Ellice says that at Harewood there is one of the most splendid collections of china--quantities of it. Formerly it all used to be kept in the gallery in which the family live, on bureaux, tables, &c. One evening it was all left in its usual place, and the next morning the whole collection--everything--quite unbroken, was found on the ground. There was never the least explanation. The china has ever since been kept in cases.”

* * * * *

“_Lychett Heath, Poole, August 30._--My visit at Highcliffe was a very happy one. ‘We have not had a single quarrel, scarcely even a dispute,’ said Lady Waterford when I came away.

“This is the beautiful house of the Eustace Cecils. The modern house is exquisitely placed amongst sandy, heathery hills, with a lovely view, across a rich wooded foreground, of the various reaches and windings of Poole harbour. I have had much pleasant talk with Lord Eustace, and like him immensely. We had a delightful excursion to-day, taking the train to Wool, and then driving in a car to Lulworth Cove, and walking up the fine wild hills, with noble sea-views, behind it. Then we went on to Lulworth Castle, stern and stately, quadrangular with round towers at the corners, standing on a terraced base, with beautiful park and woods around. We saw the pictures, a few good family portraits of the Welds, and Charles X.’s room which he inhabited when in exile.

“Thomas Weld of Lulworth, who took orders after the death of his wife, became a bishop, and finally (1830) a cardinal. As a layman he had been perfectly devoted to hunting, and, on establishing himself at Rome, the first thing he did was to procure a very nice horse and hunt vigorously. The Pope (Pius VIII.) sent for him and said, ‘Cardinals must not hunt.’ So, for his health’s sake, Cardinal Weld took to a vehement course of walking; but the Pope sent for him again and said, ‘Cardinals must not walk’--adding, ‘If it is necessary for your health that you should walk, there is a place outside the walls where cardinals do walk up and down; you can go there.’ But Cardinal Weld died of it.

“We had tea with the Bond family and the Misses Weld of Lulworth at Binden Abbey, a Cistercian ruin, of which little remains beyond foundations near some very curious fish-ponds.”

* * * * *

“_August 31._--I should find it difficult to say how perfectly congenial I find Lord Eustace, or how much I could look upon him as a friend. In many ways he is like Charlie (Halifax), but is no ceremony-lover. No, he says he always admires Gallio--‘such an excellent straightforward man,’--and even agrees with him on the special occasion on which we hear of him.”

* * * * *

“_Hardwick Hall, Suffolk, Sept. 17._--I have been spending several happy days with the Lowthers at Campsea Ashe, pleasant in every way, with much agreeable conversation. One day, when it turned on the origin of words, Mr. Lowther described how the expression of ‘never set the Thames on fire’ originated in the reproach to an unenthusiastic cook, who would never set her _tamise_ on fire.

“We went to Aldeburgh, sailing in a yacht down an estuary to a point where the sea has eaten up what was once the site of a considerable town, of which only the picturesque ‘Moot Hall’ remains, stranded on the beach. It was a still, hot, glowing day, with a sea like that of the Ancient Mariner.

“Yesterday we went to an old house, Parham Hall, which is a poem in itself. In this flat country it stands in a wide moat, in a desolate grassy hollow, surrounded by old trees, the richly sculptured oriels and gables, grey, battered, and moss-grown, rising straight from the waters.”

* * * * *

“_Holmhurst, Sept. 26._--From Campsea Ashe I went to visit Gery Cullum, a friend I have long known, but never till lately been intimate with. One of his nieces met me at the station at Bury St. Edmunds, and brought me in a dogcart through that quaint town, past abbey gateways and the church where Mary, sister of Henry VIII., is buried, to the fine old house of Hardwick, which stands beyond a park well wooded with cedars and indigenous box, and which, with its bright flowers and sculptured terraces, well deserves the name of Allegro, as contrasted with Penseroso, the old neighbouring house of Rushbrooke.

“There is a great charm about the interior--not fine, but very large and most thoroughly comfortable--a small low hall with good portraits of James I. and Elizabeth as a child, &c.; a dining-room with family portraits; a library with curious MSS. The gardens are gorgeous in colour, and there are delightful walks beyond, with pines of all descriptions.

“The first day, knowing my love of being taken about, Gery arranged an excursion to Hengrave, a very fine old house, with an exceedingly rich front and stately garden, belonging to Lady Gage,[429] and close beside it a church filled with curious tombs.

“On Sunday we went to service at Hawsteads, where the church has fine old monuments of Drurys and Cullums, and we sat in a high James I. pew to listen to a ranting Irish preacher, who lost himself completely in the mazes of his own nonsense, and finally made us laugh by the emphasis with which he announced, ‘As it is written, my brethren, in the Duke of Bookeronomy,’ &c.

“On Monday we picnicked in the park of Penseroso, the old house of Rushbrooke, standing in a wide moat, into which a former mistress of the place, an unfaithful wife, was thrown by her husband, and upon which she is said to float nightly. Her picture hangs above the magnificent staircase, and the window whence she was thrown is pointed out at the end of a suite of desolate unfurnished rooms. The house belonged to Lord Jermyn, and, whatever his relation to Henrietta Maria may have been, two magnificent cabinets of hers are here, which Lord Bristol, to his despair, inadvertently sold, with the house, to its present possessors. Here also the church has fine tombs.

“Apropos of the dispersion of family relics, Gery told me how young Mrs. Le Strange of Hunstanton had inadvertently given away an old Persian carpet, an absolute rag, to an old woman in the village, regarding it as useless lumber. The next night she saw the most awful apparition, whom she recognised from a portrait as her husband’s grandmother, old Mrs. Styleman, looking most ferocious and diabolical. Soon an old neighbour called and said, ‘How could you venture to give away the famous carpet: you will have old Mrs. Styleman coming from the grave to remonstrate about it;’ and then it was explained that Mrs. Styleman, who had been a great heiress, and had possessed a number of beautiful things, had lived to see almost all of them dispersed and sold, owing to the extravagance of the family into which she married. At last only the carpet remained--at that time a thing of some value, and in her old age she said, ‘Now if ever you sell that, I swear before God that I will haunt you till it is replaced.’ Mrs. Le Strange bought back the carpet and laid it down in its former place, and old Mrs. Styleman has never appeared since.

“From Hardwick I went to Mrs. Robert Drummond in the lovely little black and white Upton Court of the fourteenth century, which she is renting near Eton. Over the entrance is the little figure of a monk, and in the wide porch rude old oak settees. It was a sanatorium of Merton Abbey, and the quaint old fish-tanks of the monks remain.

“We went to Ockwells, the desolate and decaying old house of the Norris’s, and finding the door off its hinges, entered, and went in and out of the deserted rooms, in one of which a coat of mail was hanging up.[430]

“And now I am at home again, furiously busy, alone, but never finding the day half long enough for all I have to do. ‘Rien ne vous serait plus laborieux qu’une grande oisiveté, si vous aviez le malheur d’y tomber. Dégouté premièrement des affaires, puis des plaisirs, vous seriez enfin dégouté de l’oisiveté elle-même.’ These are words of Louis XIV., admirable and worth thinking of.”

* * * * *

“_Ickwellbury Oct. 14._--A visit to Mrs. Harvey. Parts of the house are said to date from Henry II. The Ickwell is the oak-well, a pretty bubbling spring in the garden.”

* * * * *

“_Nov. 18._--An agreeable party at Worth (Mrs. Montefiore’s), the most luxurious of modern houses, where a bit of the Law in a little bottle is screwed upon the door of every bedroom. Mr. Algernon Tumour, who is here, stated, and considered he proved, that the average life of a five-pound note is only a single day.”

* * * * *

“_London, Nov. 27._--Charlie Halifax says that a tenant of Carlo Milnes Gaskell (of Thornes) was found dead--murdered evidently--in one of his woods. A very bad character in the neighbourhood, who was known to hate the dead man, and who had been seen near the wood at the time of his death, was arrested and tried for the murder. All the evidence was against him, but he got off because, instead of measuring the footprints near the body and then the boots of the accused, the boots had been taken to the spot and fitted into the footprints, which allowed of its being said that they had been manufactured by pressing the boots into the soft earth. The man was always afterwards suspected of the murder, but he got work in a factory. If the subject was spoken of, he became very violent, and prayed that the devil might take him if he was guilty. One day, after he had been declaiming thus, he was caught by the mill machinery and torn to pieces. The iron claw which had caught him and pulled him in is that always known as ‘the Devil.’”

* * * * *

“_London, Dec. 6._--Luncheon with Miss Seymour to meet Madame du Quaire,[431] who talked of the Praslin murder. She was with the old Duchesse de Grammont soon after, and Madame Alfred de Grammont was there. They began to discuss the division of money apportioned to different members of a family according to the French system, and they spoke of a member of the Praslin family whom they thought stingy. One of them added up her different expenses, ending with--‘et puis les dix-mille francs pour l’Angleterre.’ At this Madame Alfred, who is _très-bête_, suddenly broke in with,’ Avez vous été au Bois de Boulogne ce matin?’ ‘It was then,’ said Madame du Quaire, ‘that I first learnt that the Duc de Praslin was alive, and that they knew it.” The next day the Duc de Grammont came to call upon me, and I told him of the conversation, adding--“I know now that the Duke is alive.” He neither allowed it nor denied it. A few days after, however, the Duke came again and said, “J’ai une petite faveur à vous demander.” It was that I would never repeat to his mother what I had said to him: it might upset her. Of course I promised, but then I _knew_ the Duke was alive.’

“‘The Duke did not wish to marry Mademoiselle de Luzy: that is an invention. He only murdered the Duchess because she was such a bore. He certainly did not wish to marry any one else.’

“Miss Seymour[432] said that the Queen of the Belgians, speaking of the Praslin murder to Mrs. Augustus Craven, said, ‘How dreadful to find one was being murdered by one’s husband: one could not even cry out.’

“Madame du Quaire was reminded of her friend Madame Solkoff, whose hair was quite snow-white whilst she was still quite young. ‘She was a Miss Childe, you know, a daughter of that Mrs. Childe who had a salon--_un salon très répandu_--at Paris. She eloped with a Polish Count, to whom her family objected most intensely, and she was disinherited. Very soon after her marriage it became known that it had turned out very ill, and that the young Countess was very unhappy. Eventually it became impossible for her to remain with her husband, and she went to live at Cracow with her mother-in-law, who had a very fine old palace there, and was very kind to her. She had a large apartment of her own in her mother-in-law’s house, her bedroom being approached through her sitting-room. She was still only twenty-two, when she was found one morning insensible on the floor of her sitting-room in her night-dress, and with the floor all around her saturated with blood from a terrible wound in her head. Her cabinets and jewel-cases were all broken open and rifled. The _interrogatoire_ came, and she was examined. She said that in the night she heard a noise in her sitting-room, and going to see what it was, had found a man breaking open her drawers; that she had received a blow, and knew no more. It was in vain that she was questioned as to whom she had seen; she affirmed that she could not possibly tell who it was. But her hair was turned snow-white from that night. It was not till she knew he was dead that she allowed it was her husband she had seen.’

“Speaking of reading novels when young, Madame du Quaire said that she remembered at eleven years old reading ‘La Princesse de Babylone,’ and being found convulsed with laughter at the description of a dinner-party given by the Witch of Endor. She was described as having the guardianship of Nebuchadnezzar, who was browsing near her, and that at her party, ‘_par délicatesse pour lui_,’ she would allow nothing to appear which--in his unfortunate position--could wound his feelings--no beef, &c., &c.

“Madame du Quaire talked of the prevailing passion for Buddhism, and said, ‘I am not even going to attempt to believe in it, for it is not necessary to salvation: there is such a tremendous quantity that I am obliged to swallow, that I cannot possibly undertake anything--“_che non e d’obligo_” as the Italian priests say.’

“Madame du Quaire had met Lady Colin Campbell at dinner and sat opposite to her, but she did not know her. She could not help being attracted by the necklace she wore, it was so very extraordinary. After a time it seemed to be moving by itself. She fancied at first that this must be a delusion, but, putting up her glasses, she certainly saw the necklace writhing round Lady Colin’s throat. Seeing her astonished look, Lady Colin said, ‘Oh, I see you are looking at my snake: I always wear a live snake round my throat in hot weather: it keeps one’s neck so cool;’ and it really was a live snake.”

* * * * *

“_Dec. 8._--Sat by Sir George Dasent at breakfast. A Mr. Frere passed through the room. ‘He comes from Roffham,’ said Sir G., ‘one of those places of which the name has such a rough East Anglian sound, and he is member of the family which possessed the Paston Letters without knowing it. There were six volumes of letters. Two of them were sent up, by request, for Queen Charlotte to look at, and they were lost. She was very accurate herself, that old woman, especially about things that were lent to her, and there is no doubt that she had given them to one of her ladies to return: anyhow they were lost. Afterwards, however, duplicate copies of many of the lost letters were found to be still in the possession of the family, and their existence quite disproved an assertion that the letters had been forgeries.

“‘They were wonderful people, those old Pastons. They used to thrash their daughters like anything if they did not behave themselves, and then, when they had flogged them well, they would say, “And now they must have silk dresses, rich, red, and beautiful!”’

* * * * *

“_Dec. 9._--Dined with M. B., who told me of Lady Vane[433] being quite worn-out by the ghastly noises at their place in Cumberland: it was as if some one were always trying to climb up a disused chimney in the wall, and then falling violently down again. But lately, when Sir Henry Vane was away, she had the wall opened. Inside she found a wide and very lofty closet, narrowing into a funnel as it reached the roof, where it opened by a very small hole to the sky. In it were human bones, a broken water-bottle, and the cover of an old Bible, which bore a date. Lady Vane had the bones gathered up and put into a box, which was left in a corner of Sir Henry Vane’s room till his return.

“When Sir Henry Vane came home, he was exhausted by a long journey and went at once to rest. Lady Vane did not intend to tell him of her discovery till the next day. But suddenly, late in the afternoon, she heard a tremendous noise in her husband’s room. She rushed in, and found Sir Henry in a state of the greatest agitation. He said, ‘I have seen the most frightful apparition--a woman in that corner,’ pointing to where the box of bones had been deposited.

“From old family archives they found that, some years before, exactly at the date upon the Bible cover, a woman had been walled up in the house. She had made desperate efforts to escape up the funnel of the disused chimney, and had always fallen down again. Sir Henry and Lady Vane themselves buried the bones in the churchyard, and the house has been at peace ever since.”

* * * * *

“_Thorncombe, Dec. 13._--Miss Montgomery is here, a lady of the most impassive countenance, though she is the authoress of ‘Misunderstood.’”

* * * * *

“_Warwick Castle, Jan. 30, 1887._--A delightful visit to this beautiful place. I came off suddenly on a telegram from Lady Warwick,[434] and found several pleasant people, besides the family. More than ever have I been charmed by Lady Warwick, who has the rarest of all attractions--absolute simplicity, and ‘rien n’est difficile comme le simple,’ as Madame de Maintenon used to say. Then most glorious in position is the castle, with the river close underneath, so that the family feed the swans daily from the aërial balcony outside the breakfast-room window. Pilgrim-visitors constantly pour through the rooms with the pictures, of which the finest are a grand Morone, and a Raffaelle finished by Ghirlandajo. The visitors are conducted through the rooms by the housekeeper, who is a great character in her way. When the Prince of Wales was here, she showed him a relic which ‘belonged to King James III.’--‘Ah! the old Pretender,’ said the Prince. ‘_We_ do not think so, your Royal Highness,’ she replied very stiffly. The pictures at Warwick are a real enjoyment, not only important and valuable, which is generally thought enough, but each individually lovely and suggestive. And the happy family life is perfection--such a sharing of interests, the hunting sons not entirely engrossed by it, and no single member of the family talking scandal or looking for motes in their neighbours’ eyes. The old town is charming, with the Leicester hospital, and the great church, chiefly renaissance, but with a fine gothic choir. One evening there was a dance, and after it Mrs. Bob Lyttelton (Miss Santley), who lives in the town, sang most gloriously.

“We have driven to see the exceedingly curious old house of Badeley Clinton, of which my distant cousin, Mr. Dering, has married the widowed owner. It is a most singular and poetical place, and there are many curious stories about it. Handsome, refined, and naturally, not affectedly, poetical and picturesque, Edward Dering is wonderfully suited to the place, and its very solitariness facilitates his leading a life there of almost mediaeval saintliness.”[435]

* * * * *

On the 26th of February 1887 I left England again for my French work, and spent a month in Paris at a primitive and economical inn in the Rue d’Amboise. Living here, I spent my days entirely amongst the historic quarters, seeing nothing of the Boulevards or Rue de Rivoli, but making great progress with a work--my “Paris”--which had no interruptions, and in which I became increasingly interested as I knew more of my subject. On the fine days of early March many excursions were very pleasant, involving long walks to the Abbaye du Val, Nogent les Vierges, &c. Unfortunately the weather changed before I set out on a tour through the Bourbonnais; and in Provence, where many long excursions were necessary, the mistral was quite terrific. Mounting into the wild fastnesses of the Maritime Alps above S. Maximin, to visit the cave in which the Magdalen is believed to have died, I caught a terrible chill, from which I was afterwards very ill at Manosque. But the kindly though rough proprietors of the inn--M. and Mme. Pascal--persuaded me to try the remedy of taking no nourishment whatever except hot tea, and letting nature lie absolutely at rest for forty-eight hours, and, as often since, I found this quite answer, though during that time I drove in an open carriage for eight hours to visit the Roman remains at Riez.

* * * * *

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

“_Avignon, April 3, 1887._--It has been a suffering week, owing to the biting, rending, lacerating mistral, which has seemed perpetually to tear one’s vitals inside out, and to frizzle them afterwards. Thursday I went by rail to Montelimar, and then in a carriage with a horse which either galloped furiously or would not go at all, over the sixteen miles of mountain-road to Grignan, where Madame de Sévigné lived so much with her daughter, and where she died. It is a really grand and striking place--the immense château rising on a solitary rock, backed by a lovely mountain distance, and the town at its foot surrounded by cork forests. All was ruined at the Revolution, but the shell of the rich palace-castle remains--‘un château vraiment royal,’ as Madame de Sévigné calls it. In a solitary spot near is the cave, with old ilex-trees, where she used to sit, and, even with blinding dust and wind, the colouring was most beautiful.

“On Saturday, I had to spend five hours at Cavaillon, and wondered how to dispose of myself. But, on reaching the cathedral, the whole population was pouring in to take part in the funeral of a famous doctor who had been a great benefactor of the place. Every one there was presented by the family with a huge wax-candle, as long as a walking-stick, and asked to ‘assist.’ I had one, and walked and stood with my burning candle for two hours! It was a striking sight, thousands taking part, and the old bishop pronouncing the elegy of the deceased, whom he described as quite a saint. But oh! how it poured, and blew, and swelched, and how deep was the white mortar-mud of Provence!”

* * * * *

“_Arles, April 13._--The visit to this place--perhaps more than any other connected with happy days of our long-ago travels, and which I have always avoided hitherto since I have been alone--has unexpectedly proved a great pleasure. And I am glad, now I have seen so much, that I still think Arles by far the most interesting place in the south of France, and the excursion to Montmajour and Les Baux, which I made again on Saturday, quite incomparable--the former, as far as I have seen the world, one of its most beautiful ruins, the latter so glorious as to scenery. Yesterday there was what the French call a bull-fight in the amphitheatre, but there is nothing terrible: no horses, only men enticing bulls with handkerchiefs, and when they run at them, vaulting like chamois over the barriers; while the arcades of Roman masonry are filled with vast multitudes, chiefly ‘belles Arlesiennes’ in their picturesque costume--a very fine sight.”

* * * * *

“_Aix in Provence, April 15._--All Provence, as you perhaps know, is full of the same very early Church legend, that a number of the earliest Christians, escaping from Jerusalem after the Ascension, landed here on the coast and became the earliest missionaries of Gaul. Of these, Mary Salome and Mary Cleopas are supposed to have stayed at Les Saintes Maries in the Camargue, Lazarus to have gone to preach at Marseilles, Restitutus at S. Restitut, Maximin at S. Maximin; but Mary Magdalen went farther, spent years of penitence, and died in a cave at the top of the mountains, which is certainly one of the most curious places of pilgrimage in Europe. So it was to La Sainte Baume that I went yesterday, starting at 6 A.M. by rail to S. Maximin, and there engaging a carriage to Nant, where the road comes to an end. Thence it is an ascent of an hour and a half through the steep lonely rocky forest, covered with blue hepaticas, over stones, rocks, and quagmires. Near the top it began to hail and rain furiously, and the cold was most intense, snow still lying in great masses; but the cave is very curious, and the view magnificent over the lower mountains, beyond the masses of Alpine forest. How it poured! I sheltered at the worst times under some rocks, and got safely down to the sunlit valley about five, then had to wait at S. Maximin till nine o’clock for a train, and did not get back here till nearly one.”

* * * * *

“_Grenoble, April 22._--On Wednesday evening, after returning from Briançon to Gap, I engaged a carriage thence to Corps, at the foot of the mountain of La Salette. It was supposed to be three hours’ drive, but took five and a half hours, and we did not arrive till nine o’clock, having spent the last two hours in pitch darkness, with a single lanthorn, driving along the edge of the most terrific precipices, with a driver who had never been there before! Still we arrived at last at the very miserable inn. On Thursday morning I set off early on foot to La Salette, three hours of weary steep ascent of the mountains, rather fine in their snowy solitudes, but affording just a slight panic to a solitary traveller owing to the bears which still prowl about there. In the latter part of the way the snow was above my waist, but a little gulley (turned into a watercourse from the meltings) was cut through it. When at length I reached the convent, I was received with great astonishment, as no one had visited those solitudes since April 6. All around, and up to the first floor of the building, was deep massy snow, not a rock to be seen. I was comfortably fed, however, and saw the strange place to which 15,000 pilgrims come annually. You know the story, how two children declared that the Virgin had appeared to them, and told them that the bad language of the neighbouring villages was so shocking that she could no longer restrain the avenging hand of her Son unless a church was built. You will remember how Madame de Trafford never varied in her account, that she was herself botanising in those mountains in one of her eccentric expeditions, and came suddenly out of a fog upon two children, to whom she spoke of the shocking language she had heard, saying it was sure to be punished, and why was there no church? &c.: then the fog became very thick again, and when it cleared, the children were gone.”

* * * * *

“_Cambrai, April 30._--How I thought of you to-day when I was by the tomb of Fénelon, which has a striking statue. But how ugly, how treeless, how black with coal-dust is all this north-east of France. I always imagined the Ardennes were pretty, but the beauty is only in the Belgian part. Nothing can be more frightful than Sedan, Charleville, Mezières, Valenciennes, and this place is also hideous; though perhaps all has looked worse than usual under a black sky and incessant rain.

“On Thursday I saw Domremy, which is well worth a visit, and can be little altered from the time of Jeanne Darc. Seen across the flat meadows, backed by a low range of hills like Hawkestone, and with a winding stream (the infant Meuse) like the Terne, it is really a little like Stoke. The mere hamlet ends in the little church, hung all over inside, and very prettily, with wreaths and banners, sent from all quarters in honour of Jeanne; and close by is her quaint old cottage, carefully preserved, with some of its old beams, an ancient armoire, &c., and its original garden. It is now in the hands of Sisters of Charity, who manage an orphanage joining her garden and established to her memory.

“It is really a great reward for many _misères de voyage_ that I have now seen almost everything in Eastern France, and may soon think of publishing that part of my work.”

During the latter part of this French tour I had an unpleasant adventure, which excited more attention than I ever anticipated at the time. On April 19 I had gone from Gap to visit Embrun, a curious little town in the Alpes Dauphinoises. I had not long left the station before I was aware that I was watched and followed wherever I went. However, at last I contrived to dodge my pursuer, and made, from behind a wall, the sketch of the cathedral which I wanted, and then had dinner at the hotel. When I was returning to the station, separated by a desolate plain from the town, I saw, by the faint waning light, the same figure following wherever I went. It was dark when the train by which I was to leave was to start. I had taken my place, and the train was already in motion, when it was stopped, and an official accompanied by a gendarme entered the carriage and demanded what I had been doing at Embrun. “Visiting the cathedral.” “Why should I visit the cathedral?” and so on, through a long series of questions of the same kind. My passport was demanded, and, though not usually considered necessary for English travellers, I happened to have one. It was, however, refused as an identification, not being dated in the present year. Fortunately, I recollected having in my pocket-book an order from the Préfet de la Seine authorising me to draw in all the palaces in Paris and elsewhere in France, and this was considered sufficient. The train was allowed to move on just as a crowd was collecting.

At Briançon (where I spent the following day), I carefully abstained from drawing, as it was a fortified town. But on April 23 I left the station at Vizille to visit the old château of the famous Lesdiguières, two miles distant. I had seen the château, and began to occupy the quarter of an hour which remained before the omnibus started for the station by sketching it from the village street, when I was pounced upon by a gendarme. “Who has authorised you to sketch the château of Vizille?”--“No one.”--“If you can draw this, you may also have drawn other places. You will go with me to the gendarmerie;” and I was marched through the long street of Vizille, followed by a crowd, and with the hand of the gendarme occasionally grasping me by the shoulder. At the gendarmerie a superior officer appeared, and, with the most extreme insolence of manner, demanded what I had been doing in France, &c. “What had I drawn?”--“Churches and mountains.”--“Ah! mountains! then it has been very easy for you to make a little mark in the drawing, known only to yourself, meaning here is a fortress, and there a fortress.”--“But I am an Englishman.”--“Oh, you are, are you? Then I am all the more glad that we have taken you, for we shall probably soon be at war with England, and then you will make your sketches useful to your Government; so you will consider yourself under arrest.” The letter of the Préfet de la Seine was treated as worthless because it had no seal. The passport was rejected altogether with contempt. After this, all further protestations and remonstrances were answered by an insolent shout of--“Taisez vous donc, vous êtes en état d’arrestation.”

Then the first gendarme was sent with me to the station, where my portmanteaux were opened and ransacked, the contents being tossed out upon the platform. Two suspicious articles were found. First, a slight sketch of the gorge at Sisteron (not the fort; the fort is on the other side of the rock), and, far worse, three volumes of the _Guide Joanne_ for France. “What did I want with guidebooks?”--“To study the country.”--“Ah! that is just what I thought;” and all the officials of the station were called in to witness the discovery. The gendarme then declared that I must return with him and be locked up at Vizille, but a train coming up at that moment, I made a dash into it, and probably thinking a public scrimmage impolitic, the gendarme allowed the station-master to fasten my boxes and bring me a ticket. The gendarme then took his place opposite to me in a first-class carriage.

At 5 P.M. the train arrived at Grenoble. At the station the gendarme of Vizille summoned a gendarme of the town, and I was conducted as a prisoner by the two to the Hotel Monnet. The gendarme of Vizille then left me in care of the other, shut up in a room of the hotel, where the gendarme of Grenoble sat silent opposite to me till 6.30. I thought that then the other gendarme would come back from the Préfecture with an order that I was to be freed from further annoyance. Not a bit of it! He came back with an order that all my possessions were to be carefully ransacked, and all the contents of my boxes were turned out upon the floor. All suspected articles--all my sketches, manuscripts, letters, and all the volumes of the _Guide Joanne_ were then put into my smallest portmanteau, which one of the gendarmes carried, and I was marched between the two to the old palace of the Dauphins, where the courts are. Here two clerks (or secretaries of the Préfecture) subjected me to a long examination--who I was, what was my employment, where I had been, &c. The English letters found in my blotting-book (ordinary family letters) were translated into French by a clerk who understood English. All my drawings (chiefly of church architecture) were examined in detail, and their objects inquired into. The terrible _Guides Joanne_ were passed in review and, after an hour, I was told I was free, but without a single word of apology or regret. Indeed, I should not have got away then if at last one of the clerks had not said in his insolent manner, “Est que vous êtes donc un tel, qu’il n’y a une seule personne dans toute cette partie de la France qui peut répondre de vous?” And goaded to desperation I answered, “Well, yes, there is one person, it is a lady; she is only a few miles from here now (at Aix les Bains): it is the Queen of England.” On parting, the gendarme of Vizille was told in my presence that he had only done his duty in arresting me for having ventured to draw the Château of Lesdiguières; and he left, carrying off in his pocket (by accident no doubt) a sealed packet which he had taken from my dressing-case, saying, “Nous allons ouvrir ça devant ces messieurs, ça doit être des instruments pour tirer des plans.” I called the next day upon my examiners to ask them to obtain restitution of the packet, but they declined to take any trouble. One of their comrades, looking up from his writing, said insolently, “Puisque vous avez été arrêté hier, est-ce qu’on ne vous a encore condamné?”

I wrote this story in the train, and posted it at one of the stations to the editor of the _Times_, who inserted it in the paper, so that when I reached home I found England ringing with it, and a question asked in the House about it. I also complained to the Foreign Office, and Lord Salisbury sent me afterwards the French answer to the inquiries made. They allowed the facts of the examination, but denied that I had ever been arrested, though the leading feature through the whole had been that whenever I attempted to speak I had been silenced by a shout of “Taisez-vous donc; rappelez-vous donc que vous êtes en arrestation.” The sealed packet was never restored.

I returned home on May 3, and at the beginning of June was at Scotney Castle.

* * * * *

JOURNAL.

“_Scotney, June 1, 1887._--We have been for the day at Glassenbury, the old moated house of Mr. Atkin Roberts, in a wooded hollow of the hills, surrounded by fine old trees, but of damp and dismal aspect. There is a lime avenue there, haunted by a lady--once Miss Roberts--who is always looking for her husband, for as she was riding away with him down the avenue on their wedding-day, he was thrown from his horse and killed on the spot. She never afterwards left the paternal home, where there are pictures of her, unmarried and as a widow. Some hundred years ago the last Roberts of Glassenbury had only daughters, and of these the last married the then Duke of St. Albans. The Duke was a gambler and a spendthrift, and sold all her fine things--her diamonds, her plate, her china; but she was determined that he should not make away the place, and that she would leave it to those who would take care of it; the question was--to whom?

“One day she had sent for a painter to come to Glassenbury to paint a coat of arms on her carriage, and, when she showed him the arms, he said, ‘Why, your Grace, those are the very arms I was employed to paint at a place in Ireland, to which I went quite by accident, having been shipwrecked on the coast close by.’ The Duchess inquired, and found that the people in Ireland, for whom he had painted the arms, were very distant relations, and she settled the property upon the Irish Colonel Roberts, who left it to the present owner, his nephew, formerly Atkin.

“Sir Arthur Birch, who has some high appointment at the Bank of England, has lately been at Scotney, full of a very singular circumstance. He had two clerks, an elderly Mr. Sperati and a Mr. Lutwich, and they were very intimate friends. One Whit-Monday evening, as he was sitting with his wife by the fire in his house in Burlington Gardens, Mr. Lutwich, with a very scared look, bade her mark the exact time, ‘for,’ said he, ‘I have just seen Sperati; he has just appeared in this room, as distinctly as I ever saw him in my life. He wore a very old coat of his, which I know quite well, and had a very peculiar silver-knobbed stick in his hand; I am certain he is dead, and I must go to his house and see.’

“But the wife urged him so much not to go then, and to wait till the next morning, that he assented.

“As he was on his way in the morning to Sperati’s house, he met Sperati’s brother, who said, ‘I was on my way to tell you sad news; my brother died last night at nine o’clock, very suddenly, of heart-disease.’ It was exactly the hour at which Mr. Lutwich had seen him.

“Mr. Lutwich went on to the house, and saw the butler, whom he knew well. He said, ‘I have an especial reason for asking about an old coat which I remember well, and which your master use to have--has he worn it lately?’--‘Well, it is strange you should ask about it, sir, because, though he has not worn it for some time, he had it on last night.’--‘And do you remember what stick he had in his hand?’--‘Yes, perfectly, sir, it is in the hall now,’ and it was the very stick with which he had appeared.

“Mrs. Papillon had been telling the Husseys of a very famous female mesmerist living in Park Street. Late one night this person had a visitor who urged her very much to consent to go at once to a mysterious patient, to whom she could only travel blindfolded. She hesitated for some time, but finally, being very much urged, she assented. A well-appointed carriage was at the door, in which she was driven to the railway. In the train she was blindfolded. Several hours were passed in travelling by train. Then she was taken out to a carriage and driven for some distance. On arriving at a house, she was led up a staircase and into a large room. As her bandage was removed, she saw two ladies in black just leaving the room. A gentleman was lying in bed, very dangerously ill of typhoid fever. She mesmerised him and he fell asleep. When he awoke, a great change for the better was perceptible. He said, ‘I feel better; I could drink a glass of beer.’ She said, ‘Give him the beer.’ He drank it, and fell into a restful, natural sleep.

“Then the lady was blindfolded again and conveyed back in the same way in which she came. When she reached her own house in Park Street, a cheque for a very large amount was left in her hands. The next day she read in the paper that the Prince of Wales--then most dangerously ill at Sandringham--had rallied, and fallen into a deep natural sleep from the moment of drinking a glass of beer.

“Mr. Hussey told me that an old Mr. and Mrs. Close of Nottingham were very rich and great misers, and they both made wills leaving all they possessed each to the other. However, as they died within a few hours of each other, that made very little difference to anybody.

“When the heirs-at-law arrived at Nottingham--young people full of spirits--they were greatly excited and brimming with curiosity. It was known that there were splendid diamonds, and that vast wealth of every kind existed, but at first nothing seemed to be forthcoming. Cupboards and drawers were ransacked in vain. Nothing particular was found.

“At last, in a room at the top of the house a great trunk was discovered. ‘Here,’ they said, ‘it all is; we shall find all the treasures now.’ But when the trunk was opened, the upper part was found to be full of nothing but scraps of human hair, as if for years the off-scourings of all the old hair-brushes had been collected; then below that was a layer of very dirty old curl-papers; and the bottom of the box was full of still more dirty old corsets of ladies’ dresses, and--the box was alive! When young Mrs. Close had dived into the box, she exclaimed, ‘What disgusting old creatures our relations must have been! This horrible mess might infest the whole house; we must have it burnt at once.’ So she had some men up, and the trunk carried down into the courtyard of the house, and a huge bonfire made there, and the trunk upset into it.

“As it was burning, she stood by, and heedlessly, with her stick, pulled one of the curl-papers towards her, and poked it open at her feet. It was a £50 note! In an agony, she scrimmaged at the fire, and raked out all she possibly could, but it was too late; most of the notes were burnt; she only saved about £800.

“Naturally her husband was furious, and of course he was very unjust. ‘Any one but you would have examined the box carefully; there never was such an idiot of a woman,’ &c. And every time he saw the burnt heap in the courtyard, he burst forth afresh. So she sent for the dustman round the corner, and had all the ashes carefully cleared away.

“Still nothing had been found of the diamonds. They had certainly existed; there were always the diamonds to fall back upon. But though they searched everywhere, nothing could be found of them. At last they asked the only old lady with whom Mrs. Close had visited if she knew of any one who could help them. ‘Yes, certainly,’ she said; ‘there’s old Betty Thompson at the almshouses, she was always in and out of the house as charwoman; she knew more of Mrs. Close and her ways than any one else.’ So away they went to the almshouses, and asked Betty Thompson. ‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘she knew very well that there were diamonds, very fine diamonds indeed, but small good _they_ ever did to old Mrs. Close, for she always kept them sewn up and hidden away in her old stays.’

“The stays had all perished in the fire; the diamonds would not have burnt, but then the very ashes had been thrown away; there was no trace left of them. The bank-notes were all very old--the few that were saved--but they were quite good; but there was very little else left of the great inheritance.”

* * * * *

_To_ LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD.

“_Jermyn Street, June 16, 1887._--London is in gala costume, the streets flooded with flowers, and the West End thoroughfares lined by stands, with seats covered with red and gay awnings. I am perpetually thinking of what Arthur Stanley’s ecstasy would have been on looking forward to having so many kings and queens, besides no end of other royalty, in the Abbey at once. On Saturday I was at Osterley, where the gardens were quite lovely and delicious in the heat, and yesterday there was a pleasant party at Lord Beauchamp’s, with little comedies to amuse Princess Mary, who was exceedingly gracious and kind to me.

“Alas! we are expecting the news of Theodore Walrond’s death--a man apparently as healthy in body as in mind till his last illness set in, and quite universally beloved.”

* * * * *

“_June 17._--Yesterday I had luncheon with Miss Geary at her very pretty house in Grosvenor Street, and met Lady Elgin and a charming, fresh, sensible Miss Boscawen. I dined at Lady Manners’, where I made rather friends with Lord Apsley: afterwards there was a large brilliant party at Mrs. Portman’s.

“To-day my two young American friends, Sands and Martin, gave a most pleasant luncheon. I sat by Lady Middleton, who talked charmingly and gratefully of the happiness of married life--the pleasure to a woman of entire self-renunciation: then of her own life, which she would not exchange for any in the world, though she has had to give up all her own inclinations, and to throw herself absolutely and entirely into the interests of hunting. She said she never allowed an ill word on the field, and if she heard one, rode even for miles till she caught up the culprit to say so.”

* * * * *

“_June 19._--Lady Dorothy Nevill has been most funny about a burglary at Lady Orford’s. While the family were away, a man came to the door, who said he was sent to measure the dining-room chimney-piece, and asked the old woman who was taking care of the place to go up to the top of the house to get him a piece of tape for the purpose. When she came down, the man was gone, and so were two of the best pictures. ‘I could swear to the pictures anywhere,’ said the old woman afterwards, ‘for they were of members of the Orford family.’ ‘They _were_ the Virgin Mary and St. Sebastian,’ added Lady Dorothy, ‘and I leave you to imagine how far _they_ were ever likely to have been members of the Orford family!’

“At breakfast I sat by Sir George Dasent. I spoke of his wonderful memory. He said, ‘When I was a boy, my father saw me writing--writing with a pen was never a strong point with me--but still I was busy at it, and he asked me what I was doing. I said, “Writing down what I’ve read.”--“Don’t write it down, my boy,” he said; “carry it all in your head; it is much better,” and I have always done so.’

“He spoke of the folly of interfering in any street rows. ‘It had been a wet day, and you know when the pavement is wet--why I cannot tell--you can see much farther than at other times, and down the whole length of Eaton Place I saw a man knock a woman down; she got up, and he knocked her down again. He knocked her down several times running. At last I got up to him and said, “You villain, to knock a woman down like that; how can you dare to do it?”--“Now you just go along with you,” said the woman; “he only gave me what I deserved.”--“Oh, if you like being knocked down, it’s another matter,” I said.’

“‘One day in the street,’ he related, ‘I passed a party of Germans abusing each other with most outrageous language, and I said, “Remember there are police here as well as in Germany.” When I got near St Peter’s Church, I was aware that one of the Germans was following me, and he came up and said, “I am come to demand satisfaction.”--“Very well, you shall have satisfaction,” I said, and I beckoned a policeman from the other side of the street, who came across saying, “What can I do for you, sir?” for all the police know me. So I said, “You will just take this man up, and I will go with you and appear against him.” So we went on our way, the policeman, the German, and I. When we had gone some way, the policeman said, “It’s giving you a great deal of trouble, sir, isn’t it, to go to the police-station; couldn’t we manage it here?’ So I said, “Yes, perhaps we may as well try him here. If he kneels down in the gutter in the mud and prays for forgiveness, we will let him off.” So I said in German, “He (the policeman) says that if you kneel down in the gutter and beg for forgiveness, he will let you off.”--“May not I kneel on the pavement?” he said. “No, that will not do; you must kneel in the mud, with your hands up so. “So down in the mud he went and said, “I am very sorry for vat I have done,” and we let him go.’

“Chief-Justice Morris said he was sitting on the bench in Ireland, and after a case had been tried, he said to the jurymen, ‘Now, to consider this matter, you will retire to your accustomed place,’ and two-thirds of them went into _the dock_.

“Another time he said to a culprit, ‘I can produce five witnesses who saw you steal that cow.”--‘Yes,’ said the prisoner, ‘but I can produce five hundred who did not.’

“Sir George Dasent said he should not go to the Abbey on the Jubilee Day. His legs were so infirm now, that a touch would upset him, and, when once down, he could not get up again. He had once been knocked down by a newspaper--‘retributive, you might say.’”[449]

* * * * *

“_June 20._--The streets are all hung with scarlet and blue draperies, and Waterloo Place is embowered in a succession of triumphal arches. The crowds are tremendous. The foot-passengers have already expelled the carriages from the principal thoroughfares, and two million more people are expected to arrive to-day.

“I dined last night with Charlie Halifax, meeting Lady Morton, the Arundel Mildmays, and Sir Hickman Bacon--a pale frail youth, so High-Church that he could not take part in any Jubilee gaieties whilst ---- (one of their especial clergy) was imprisoned. Charlie was very funny in his tantrums against the bishops. ‘I hate them all except Lincoln, and--as cowards--I despise them.’ He said he would not go to the service in the Abbey, because he considers it desecrated by having seats erected over the altar!”

* * * * *

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

“_June 21, 1887._--Nothing can have been more sublimely pathetic than the whole ceremony (of the Jubilee)--more inexpressibly touching and elevating. The Abbey, too, did not look spoilt: all the tiers of seats, all the galleries disappeared utterly: nothing was visible between the time-worn pillars and under the grey arches but the masses of people they contained.

“I went at 8 A.M. It was not a moment too soon. Cabs charged two pounds to the Abbey, but I walked very comfortably. The tickets had little maps of the Abbey, with the entrance for the bearer marked on each. Mine was by a door on the north-east behind St. Margaret’s, and there I waited, with a small crowd, till nine struck, and some iron gates were opened by the police, when we ran down an awned passage to where a staircase of rough timber led up by the great Norris tomb to our places.

“Mine was simply perfect, a splendid place, from whence--

‘To see the lords of human kind go by,’

as Goldsmith says. I would not have changed it with any other in the building. In the theatre it would have been the royal box--a little red gallery to hold four, over the tomb of Aylmer de Valence; in front of the gallery on the left of the sanctuary; close above the princesses of Austria, Spain, and Portugal; opposite the kings; with a view of the peers and peeresses in the right transept, and so near the Queen that one could see every play of her expression. My companions were a doctor of music in his red gown and two females of the middle class, who were very good-natured in lending me their glasses.

“The time of waiting did not seem long: all was so full of interest.

“The Abbey blazed with colour--crimson uniforms, smart ladies, ushers stiff with gold embroidery, yeomen of the guard in plumed helmets. Only, for another coronation, I would clothe the supporting pillars of the galleries with red cloth. The grey wooden supports looked cold, and their angular outlines drew attention to them amongst the rounded forms of the pillars, whereas the red seats and galleries disappeared altogether, or only served as admirable setting and background to the picture. The grand old tombs--Aylmer de Valence, Edmond Crouchback, Anne of Cleves--stood detached from the red, and in front of the altar the mosaic pavement of Henry III. was left exposed--not covered, like the rest of the floor, by red carpeting. Near the altar were two benches on each side--‘tabourets’--for queens and princesses in front, kings and princes behind. Farther back stood, on a daïs, the coronation chair, facing the altar, covered and hidden by red, and with the royal robe of state hanging over it and trailing down from the daïs on the side towards us: before it was a fald-stool and kneeling cushion.

“Every moment the vast edifice became more filled with colour, but the peers and peeresses arrived very gradually. Lady Exeter, beautiful still, sat long alone in the marchionesses’ seats, Lord and Lady Cross in the ministerial benches, and two or three duchesses in that appointed for them. Then the Argylls came in, he gorgeous in the uniform of--MacCallum More. Behind I recognised the Spencers, Powerscourts, Stanhopes, Charlie Halifax, and Lord Londonderry with the white ribbon of the Order of St. Patrick. The Lord Chancellor, preceded by mace and bag, now came in and took his place in the centre of the front row, with Lord and Lady Salisbury and the Duchess of Marlborough on his right hand. A figure which attracted more attention than any other was that of Maria, Lady Aylesbury, except her three Cambridge cousins and her two pages, the sole survivor of all those represented in the great picture of the Queen’s coronation.

“At 11.15 a burst of music announced the first procession, and Princess Frederica and the Tecks were conducted to the stalls, with two of the Edinburgh children, and three gorgeous Eastern princes[451] to the places immediately below us. Then the Queen of Hawaii, in a black dress covered with green embroidery, and with the famous yellow feathers only allowed to Sandwich Island royalty, was seated just opposite to us, with her princess-sister[452] (the heiress of the throne) in black velvet covered with orders, and with a great white ostrich fan:--not together, however, as every one was to sit according to rank, and an intermediate place after queens had to be reserved for the Duchess of Mecklenbourg-Strelitz.

“A long tension of waiting followed, but at twelve a rising of the white-robed choristers in their south-western gallery announced the second procession, and a flood of royalty poured in beneath us. Opposite sat the kings of Greece, Denmark (his father), the very handsome king of the Belgians, whose beard is beginning to turn grey, the king of Saxony, the Crown Princes of Austria, Portugal, Würtemburg, and Sweden, the Duc d’Aosta, and Prince George of Greece--a charming boy in a naval uniform. Beneath us were the Crown Princess of Portugal, Doña Eulalia of Spain, the hereditary Duchess of Mecklenbourg, and Princess Philip of Saxe-Coburg. One of these royal ladies--Doña Eulalia, I think--had a white lace mantilla instead of a bonnet, with very pretty effect. But really one of the finest features of the whole was the coming in of the Queen of the Belgians--so simple, royal, imperial--saluting everybody in comprehensive though slight inclination, infinitely graceful and regal in every attitude.

“At last a blaze of trumpets announced the Queen’s procession. It was headed by canons, the Bishop of London, the two Archbishops in most gorgeous copes, and the Dean of Westminster in a heavy old embroidered cope to his feet, which made him look like a figure risen from one of the old altar-tombs. Then--alone--serene--pale (not red)--beautifully dressed in something between a cap and bonnet of white lace and diamonds, but _most_ becoming to her--perfectly self-possessed, full of the most gracious sweetness, lovely and lovable--the Queen! All the princesses in the choir, with the Queen of the Belgians at their head, curtseyed low as she took her place upon the throne, from which the long robe of state trailed so that it looked part of her dress.

“When she was seated in lonely splendour, the princes poured in upon her right, and the princesses on her left, and took their places on gilt chairs on either side--a little behind. The bevy of granddaughters, in white and pale blue, was very pretty--so many, all curtseying as they passed the Queen, and she smiling most sweetly and engagingly upon them with the most loving and motherly of looks.

“Then came the burst of the ‘Te Deum.’ The silver trumpets at St. Peter’s seemed as nothing to the trumpet-shout which gave effect to the exultant sentences, pealing triumphantly through the arches, and contrasting with the single voices of solitary choristers thrilling alone at intervals--voices far, far away, like the tenderest echo. The Queen did not shed a tear, and held a book all the time, but once sat down as if it was too much for her, and often looked round at the Crown Princess--who stood nearest, very sweet and sympathetic--with a look of ‘_What_ this is to us!’ Princess Beatrice and the Grand Duchess Sergius cried the whole time.

“A striking figure throughout the entire service was the Crown Prince of Germany, especially when kneeling erect like a knight, in jackboots, but with folded hands and a simplicity of unwavering devotion.

“Very solemnly, audibly everywhere, the Archbishop of Canterbury read the prayers--the thanksgiving for all the mercies of the reign, the petition for eternal life. There was another psalm, sung most gloriously, then an anthem with a burst of trumpets in the ‘To be king for the Lord thy God.’ Lastly, the benediction, in which the Queen bent low, lower, lower, as the ‘Amen,’ sung over and over again, died away in vanishing cadences.

“When it was quite silent, in a great hush, she rose up, and a beautiful ray of sunshine shot through the stained windows and laid itself at her feet, and then passed on and gilded the head of the Prince of Wales.

“She beckoned to him afterwards, and he came and kissed her hand, but she kissed him twice most affectionately. Then came the Crown Prince and the Grand Duke of Hesse, who kissed her hands, and then the Duke of Connaught. When the Queen saw him, maternal feelings overcame those of royalty, and she embraced him fervently, and then, evidently fearing that the last two princes might be hurt, she called them back, and kissed them too, and so all the princes, who came in order. She was especially cordial to Prince Albert Victor, and heartily kissed Lord Lorne, who had bent down, as if he did not expect it.

“Meantime the Crown Princess stood by the step of the throne on the other side, and I think the most touching part of the whole was when she bent low to kiss her mother’s hand and was folded in a close embrace, and so all the daughters and the grand-daughters--such a galaxy of graceful girls--bent to kiss the hand, and were kissed in turn.

“Then the Queen went away, bowing all down the choir, and the flood of her youthful descendants ebbed after her.

“I felt I scarcely cared to see the procession afterwards, but it was very fine. How a past age is repeating itself! One sees this in comparing the newspaper accounts of the procession yesterday with the contemporary tracts about the entry of Queen Elizabeth, telling how ‘in all her passage she did show her most gracious love towards the people in general,’ and how the citizens, when they saw her, ‘took such comfort, that with tears they expressed the same.’ I am one of the 400 asked to meet the 100 royalties at the Foreign Office, but cannot manage arranging levée dress properly in time.”

* * * * *

“_June 23, 1887._--This is a postscript to my last.

“Nothing could exceed the orderliness, good-nature, and merriment of the immense crowd at the illuminations on the evening of the Jubilee day. I took Letitia Hibbert and her friend Miss Robertson to see the best from Hyde Park, and then along the Green Park, where movement was quite easy, and the effect of the houses bathed in a halo of coloured light very beautiful through the dark massy foliage.

“Yesterday I went at 3 P.M. to Hyde Park. A dense mass of people walled in the vast enclosed space, but all in the utmost good-humour, though many came forward with--‘Oh, do give me your ticket: oh, do now, just for once.’ Inside the outer barrier was a second, within which people walked, and whence they saw. I was indignant at first at not being admitted farther, but when I saw the Archbishop of Canterbury refused, was quite contented to share the fate of the first subject in the realm. However, eventually we were both passed into the immense space where the children were playing, not apparently the least over-done by the hot sun, or tired from having been on the move since 10 A.M., and having been provided, on arriving, with nothing but a bag containing a meat-pie, a bun (they say the buns would have reached from London to Brentford in a direct line), and an orange, with instructions to put the bag in their pockets when done with! Each of the 30,000 children also had a ‘Jubilee mug’ of Doulton ware. Every now and then volleys of tiny coloured balloons were sent up, like flights of bright birds floating away into the soft blue, and, as the royalties arrived, a great yellow balloon, with several people in its car, bore a huge ‘Victoria’ skywards.

“I found my cousin Lady Normanton lost, and stayed with her and a very pleasant ex-governess of Princess May, most indignant at her adored pupil having received no Order out of the numbers distributed. Between half-past four and five life-guards heralded a long procession of carriages, with the Indian princes, the foreign queens and kings, and our own royal family in force. A number of Eastern chieftains were riding six abreast, and very like Bluebeard one or two of them looked. Finally came the Queen, smiling, good and gracious beyond words, and with a wonderful reception everywhere. ‘I have made Socialist speeches for years,’ said one man, ‘and the last two days have shown me how useless they have been, and always must be in this country.’

“As the Queen passed up the green drive by which we were standing, all the 30,000 children sang ‘God save the Queen,’ and a thanksgiving hymn, which I think must have been, not for their tea (for they never had any), but for hers, which I hope she enjoyed out of the great fourgons we saw arriving, and must much have needed. All the royal ladies’-maids and other servants also passed by in carriages on their way to the station, by the Queen’s wish, that they should share in the sight.

“Having escorted Lady Normanton to the safe solitudes of Wilton Place, I rushed off to Windsor, arriving at nine. Certainly the grandeur of the London illuminations paled before the intense picturesqueness of those in the old royal city. I had no time to go to Eton, where the Queen had entered--like Queen Elizabeth--under an arch on the battlements of which Eton boys were lustily trumpeting. But the bridge, brilliant in electric light, also ended in an arch, kept dark itself, beyond which every house in the steep, sharply-winding street was seen adorned with its own varied devices of coloured light, from basement to attics, whilst the walls were hung with scarlet draperies, and brilliant banners of scarlet and gold waved across the roadway.

“I stayed on the bridge to see the thousand Eton boys cross, marching in detachments, with white and blue uniforms alternately, carrying their (then unlighted) torches, and then went after them to the castle, where I was one of the few admitted, and pushed on at once to the inner court under the Queen’s apartments.

“Most unspeakably weird, picturesque, inspiring, beautiful, and glorious was the sight, when, with a burst of drums and trumpets, the wonderful procession emerged under the old gate of Edward III., headed by a detachment of the Blues, then the boys, six abreast, carrying lighted torches, till hundreds upon hundreds had filed in, singing splendidly ‘God save the Queen.’ All the bigger boys formed into figures of blazing light in the great court, weaving designs of light in their march--‘Welcome,’ ‘Victoria,’ &c., in radiant blaze of moving living illumination; whilst the little boys, each carrying a coloured Chinese lantern on a wand, ascended in winding chains of light the staircases on the steep hill of the Round Tower opposite the Queen’s window, till the slope was covered with brilliancy and colour. The little boys sang very sweetly in the still night their song of welcome, and then all the mass of the boys below, raising their flaming torches high into the air, shouted with their whole hearts and lungs, ‘Rule Britannia!’

“It was an unspeakably transporting scene, and I am sure that the beloved figure in the white cap seated in the wide-open central window felt it so, and was most deeply moved by the sight and sound of so much loyal and youthful chivalry.

“Then, in a great hush, she almost astonished them by leaving her place and suddenly reappearing in the open air in the courtyard amongst them, and making them a queenly and tender little speech in her clear beautiful voice--‘I do thank you so very very much,’ &c.

“You may imagine the hurrahs which followed, the frantic emotion and applause whilst she called up and spoke to Lord Ampthill and one or two other boys whose parents had been especial friends.

“And then, in figures of light from their torches, as she reappeared at the window, the vast assembly formed the word ‘Good-night.’ Nothing could possibly have been more picturesquely pretty.

“Immediately afterwards the whole of the great central tower was flooded with red light, which seemed to turn it into blood, and I went with J. Dundas to the North Terrace, whence we looked down upon the fireworks--fire-fountains, comets, cascades of golden, sapphire, and amethyst rain.

“It was 2 A.M. when I got back to London, but well worth the fatigue.”

* * * * *

LONDON JOURNAL.

“_June 23, 1887._--Sat at breakfast by Sir George Dasent. ‘Did you ever know,’ he said, ‘the late old Bengal tiger at Asbburnham?[453] He asked me down there, and when I went he said, “You are here, sir, under false pretences. I have discovered that you are a member, sir, of that most disreputable society called the ‘Historic MSS. Commission:’ they are a society of ruffians, sir.”--“Surely, Lord Ashburnham, a great many eminent persons are members of that society,--Lord Salisbury, for instance, surely he is not a ruffian.”--“Yes, sir, he _is_ a ruffian when he is acting for that society: and you, sir, you are a ruffian too--you tamper with title-deeds, sir,” and it was quite in vain to assure him that our society had no interest whatever in title-deeds of the last hundred years.

“‘I told Lady Ashburnham what he said, and she answered, “You must not mind: he is the most kind-hearted of men, but he has--his savage moments!”

“‘Afterwards he was very kind to me, and showed me all his treasures, especially his glorious Anglo-Saxon MSS.

“‘When I was at Hornby, I went up with the present Duchess of Leeds into a tower into which a former Duchess had carried a quantity of books, because, she said, “there were enough downstairs.” They had been taken up at haphazard, and some of them were of extraordinary value: there were wonderful editions of Aretino there, excessively improper, but nobody could read them. The tower had been open to the bats and owls, and when we took out the books, many of them were matted together in one solid mass: they bore the name of Hewit Osborne, the apprentice who jumped from London Bridge to save the life of his master’s daughter, and, afterwards marrying her, founded the family; he was a great Italian scholar.’”

* * * * *

“_July 1._--Sir G. Dasent says that the late Queen of Sweden said to him that she could not imagine how it was that her eldest son had done all he could to alienate the affections of his people, and was adored, and the second all he could to conciliate them, and was detested. The eldest (the late King) was a Hercules. ‘His Majesty will rise at 3 A.M. to-morrow and will ride thirty miles (to Gripsholm), and wishes you to accompany him,’ was a frequent announcement to guests and courtiers; and when they reached Gripsholm, all was prepared for a great elk-hunt, and when _that_ was finished, and they were gasping for rest, came the announcement, ‘His Majesty will rise at 2 A.M. to-morrow, and will ride forty miles,’ &c.

“Luncheon with Lady Stradbroke, who told me that as she was walking up Grosvenor Crescent during the illuminations, a group of country people were inspecting the devices. ‘Ah!’ she heard one of them explain, ‘V. R.--that’s for _very respectable_.’”

* * * * *

“_July 3._--Yesterday was very hot--a hotter scirocco, said Roman Mr. Story, than any he had felt in Italy. There was a great volunteer review, which brought the usual picturesque procession of the Queen, with her glittering life-guards, through the Park.

“On Friday I went with Florentia Hughes to a great garden-party of the Baroness Coutts at Holly Lodge--a most lovely place, with steep hilly gardens and splendid herbaceous flowers.”

* * * * *

“_July 6._--Yesterday I went with the Indian princes by special train to Woburn. Everything was arranged _en grand seigneur_--nothing to be paid anywhere--a train with saloon carriages, in which we floated into Bedfordshire without stopping, and thirty-two carriages, beautifully equipped, sent to meet us at the station. In one of these I drove through the lanes lined with dog-roses with Lord Normanby and Miss Grosvenor. ‘I am always mistaken for Princess Mary, so must keep up her character,’ said the latter, and bowed incessantly, right and left, to the village crowds, who were quite delighted with her. We had a long wait before luncheon, Europe and Asia separated by a great gulf which no one seemed able to bridge over. Lady Tavistock did her best, but the party hung fire, and, though a magnificent banquet, with all the gold plate displayed, took part of the time, there was not much to animate us, and we lounged on the lawn, tried to be agreeable and were not, and admired the beautiful Indians, with their gorgeous dresses and languid eyes, till another chain of carriages took us back through the Ampthill woods to another station.”

* * * * *

“_July 7._--Miss Holford was married this afternoon to Mr. Benson at St. George’s before an immense crowd. There was a great breakfast afterwards--though so late--at Dorchester House, where all London flocked through the rooms to admire the presents, which were indescribably splendid. The scene on the beautiful white marble staircase was charming, especially when the bride went away, her father and mother leading her down on either side, and all the tiny bridesmaids and pages--nieces and nephews between six and seven--gambolling in front, with huge baskets of dark red roses. Above, under the circular arches, between the pillars of coloured marbles, and against a golden wall background, the overhanging galleries were filled with all the most beautiful women in London leaning over the balustrades.

“Dined at the Speaker’s--lovely lights sparkling along the shore, and the splash of the river and distant hum only making one feel more the silence of night. We sat out upon the haunted terrace afterwards--such stars, and a moon rising behind the towers of Lambeth.”

* * * * *

_To_ LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD.

“_June 30._--On Saturday I went to Osterley, meeting beautiful Lady Katherine Vane[454] with her brother and sister at the Victoria Station, and going down with them. Troops of people emerged from the train close to the gate in the park wall, and we all flocked together along the gravel walks through the hot meadows to the house, where the shade was very refreshing. Lady Jersey was receiving under the portico, and groups of Indian princes with their interpreters were busy over strawberries and cream in the corners of the great stone hall. I went, with several people who had an equally tender remembrance of the kind old Duchess of Cleveland, who lived there so long, to visit the little library where she always sat in winter--quite deserted now, and all the books sold--and then joined the many groups of people on the lawns and the green glade which ends in a porticoed summer-house like a Claude-Lorraine picture. Others went in a boat upon the lake. The Jerseys pressed me to stay to dinner with Lord and Lady Muncaster; so Lady M. and I both got a volume of a very dull novel, over which we had a pleasant rest when all the crowd were gone. Never were such airy people as the Jerseys, a line of six windows open on one side and two doors on the other all dinner-time. Lady Hilda Brodrick and one of Lady Jersey’s brothers were my neighbours, and very pleasant.

“On Sunday I had luncheon at Lord Breadalbane’s, to have a quiet sight of my Prince. It is a wonderful house--deeply coved ceilings with frescoes like those in an old Venetian palace, and wide spaces round the outside planted with groves of plane-trees. The Breadalbanes have thought it worth while to make a new dining-room (though sacrificing two old ceilings), as they have taken all the rest of the lease, after which the house reverts (it is Harcourt House) to the Harcourts of Nuneham. The Duchess of Roxburgh, an Indian prince, and several other ladies dropped in, so there were three tables for luncheon. In the middle, Lady Breadalbane[455] got up and went round to each table, almost to each guest, to see that they had all they could possibly want, and to say the pleasantest things to them in the prettiest way: she certainly is a queen of hostesses. Afterwards my Prince came to me, and we walked up and down upon the terrace. He was most affectionate, as he always is when we meet, and talked of all people and things as if we had never parted, but reproached me much with never coming to him in Norway, urging very much that I should write at any time, or even telegraph that I was coming for any length of stay. Some day, when I am free from my French work, I will go. He evidently wished that I should say something to Lady Breadalbane of the great difference her excessive kindness had made during all this visit to England, so I was very glad to do so. ‘We have done our best,’ she said, ‘and I am very glad it has gone off so well; but it has not been my doing, but all owing to those who have helped me.’ The Indian had brought a suit of flannels with him in a carpet-bag, and changed into them, and when my Prince went to get ready to play at tennis with him, I came away.

“On Monday (27th) we had our large drawing-party down the river. Meeting at Westminster Bridge, we all took tickets to ‘Cherry-Tree Yard’ at Rotherhithe. Just as we were going to embark, the ticket-man very good-naturedly emerged, and coming to me said, ‘I do not know if you are aware, sir, that you are taking all these ladies into a most rough and dangerous part of London.’ I said we were only going to draw at the wharf, when he was satisfied. But when we arrived, they would not let us stay on the wharf. A man said, ‘I know of a most respectable public-house where you can go: all the artists draw from thence.’ And there we all sat, in great shade and comfort, under a wide verandah, directly overhanging the river and overlooking the Pool, with all the fine shipping which comes up to that picturesque reach of the Thames--‘Dutch Crawls’ inclusive.

“I dined with the Eustace Cecils, meeting, amongst others, Professor and Mrs. Flower, of whom the former was holding Arthur Stanley’s hand when he died.

“At a quarter to five yesterday I went to Buckingham Palace--no string, no crowd, no difficulty. By my ticket I had to enter through the hall and rooms beyond it--the most picturesque way. The terrace was already full of people, but the space is so vast there never could be a crowd, and the scene was beautiful, looking down upon the sunlit lawns, the lake and fountain, and the thousands of gaily-dressed people--the splendid uniforms and lustrous robes and sparkling jewels of the Indians glistening amongst them. It was impossible to find any one one looked for, but one came upon hundreds of unexpected friends. Very few young men seemed to have been asked, but there were galaxies of pretty girls. One ancient Indian chief in white, with a flowing beard and a robe of cloth of gold over his shoulders, was told he might salute the Queen. He said he must do it after his fashion, which was to wipe the dust from her feet with his handkerchief, and then kiss it.

“The beloved Queen, though very hot and tired (she had been before to revisit her birthplace at Kensington), looked very sweet and smiling, and walked indefatigably from side to side of the long avenues of people, shaking hands with different ladies. There was the usual procession of princes and princesses, including the white-haired Duchess of Mecklenbourg and the ever-pretty group of Hesse princesses. The Princess Beatrice’s baby assisted at the party in her perambulator, pushed by a nurse in white. A good deal of my time was taken up by the Duchess of Cleveland insisting that she could have no refreshment but lemonade, and that being quite a quarter of a mile off; but I could not get it after all, through people ten deep in the refreshment tents. Some of the guests were rowed by the Queen’s boatmen in their gorgeous mediaeval costume upon the lake, with very pretty effect. The palace is very handsome on the garden side.”

* * * * *

“_July 8, 1887._--I made rather friends at the Speaker’s with his eldest boy, Willie Peel, and walked about with him on the terrace. He is in all the first flush of people-seeing, and thinks everybody full of originality; yet how few ever say more than something they have heard or read long ago, and dug up out of some remote corner of their brain. He is, however, delightful, and being evidently ambitious, will some day be very distinguished, I should think.

“How often one wishes one could enter society again, with one’s past conversation like a white page, that where one could not say good of any one, one had always kept silence. I sympathise with General Gordon saying that one reason why he never desired to enter social life was the very great difficulty of knowing people and not discussing others.”

* * * * *

“_July 9._--At Lambeth garden-party I sat with ----, whose marriage, an admirable one, was quelched by worldly motives on the other side, sadly, long ago. She spoke of the married happiness of her brilliant and popular namesake ‘Yes, life for _her_ is always delightful now; but _I_--but I!’--‘Where do you live?’--‘I don’t live, I exist.’

“I sat at dinner by Lady C, a very singular religious ‘talker,’ who plunged at once into--‘I trust you are interested in the good work.’--‘What good work?’--‘Raising the classes,’ and so on, and so on, endless well-meant nonsense, in very grand expressions, till I longed to say to her, and did, in other words, what Madame de Sévigné said to some one, ‘Thicken me your religion a little; it is evaporating altogether by being subtilised.’ I tried to dwell upon the really higher life (for she had talked of her own neglected education), of teaching herself first as much as possible, that she might help herself to teach her young son. I suppose that, for her, would be the higher life. How much, in this generation, ‘religious people’ are apt to forget John Wyckliff’s motto, ‘He who liveth best, prayeth best.’”

* * * * *

“_Sunday, July 10._--Sat in the afternoon in the garden at Lowther Lodge, seeing a long diorama of people drop in and have tea.

“Afterwards I ascended the great brick mansions close by to see Mrs. Procter (Barry Cornwall’s widow), who is not the least aged in mind, and apparently not in body. People thought she would be broken by her daughter’s death; but constitutions, especially of the old, seldom take any notice of heart-blows, though there is something touching in the way she speaks of her lost daughters as ‘my Edith,’ ‘my Adelaide.’ People call her ‘Our Lady of Bitterness,’ but her words have no touch of sharpness. No one is more agreeable still: no one has more boundless conversational powers: indeed, she often says of herself that ‘talking is meat, drink, and clothing’ to her. Her sense of humour is exquisite; she never speaks bad grammar herself, so she can never tolerate it in others. She wears a front of _blonde cendré_, and boldly speaks of it as a wig. Mr. Browning came in, and they were most amusing together. ‘My wife thought you would not perhaps like to meet Mr. Labouchere, Mrs. Procter?’ said Mr. Thompson of the _Pall Mall Gazette_, rather interrogatively. ‘Your wife was quite right: had I found, on coming to dine with you, that Mr. Labouchere was expected, I should have been compelled to ask you at once to call me a cab.’--‘Ah! Labby, Labby!--Hie, cabby, cabby!!’ cried Mr. Browning in the quaintest way.[456] Mr. Browning goes to see Mrs. Procter every Sunday afternoon, giving up all else for it.

“Mrs. Procter has the almost lost art of conversation in the fullest degree. Lord Houghton recollects how she was asked to meet Macaulay at one of Rogers’ breakfasts. Afterwards she said to Rogers, ‘But where was Macaulay?’--‘Why, he sat opposite to you!’--‘Was _that_ him? Why, I always heard he was such a tremendous talker.’--‘So he is,’ said Rogers; ‘but you see I talked so much myself, I only left one opening, and that _you_ took.’”

* * * * *

“_July 11._--Dined with the Seymour Hughes’s, where General Higginson was full of indignation about the mismanagement of royal invitations--that it was impossible for the Lord Chamberlain to do it alone, but that he might have a committee--three or four men of the Kenneth Howard kind--who would see that the right people were asked. The Prince of Wales had said to one lady, ‘I did not see you at the garden-party,’ and she had answered, ‘No, I was not asked; but my dressmaker was.’”

* * * * *

“_July 15._--Dined with Mrs. Portman--a very large party. She told me that, close to her country-house, a labourer had watched some boys bathing, and thought how delightful was the way in which they dived, floated, &c., and, though he could not swim, he determined that, on the very first chance, he would enjoy the same amusement. Soon after, he was sent to cut rushes with two other men. When his work was finished, he remembered his wish, and did not even wait to undress, but, pulling off his boots, jumped into the water with his clothes on. Soon he got into a hole and began to sink. He called for help, and another of the men jumped in, and was sucked into the hole also, and so the third. Mr. Fitzhardinge Portman came up when it was all over, and said, ‘I will ride on and break it to Mrs. W.,’ the wife of one of the men. As he reached the cottage, Mrs. W. came out to meet him and said, ‘I know what you have come to tell me, sir. Poor W. is dead.’--‘How can you know it?’--‘Why, sir, just now my little girl came running in all awestruck, and said that she had met a figure all in white in the wood-path down which she always ran to meet her father; and then I knew it was a warning.’

“There was a beautiful ball at Lowther Lodge--the Princess Christian there and the garden illuminated, and looking, in that dress, as big as the Green Park. I sat out with Lady Strathmore, full of all the discomforts of a great inheritance--such endless details to be filled up: such endless new responsibilities; and just what seems the wrong things always left away.

“I heard such a charming story of little Jane Smith the other day. Her nurse told her to say her prayers. She wouldn’t; she said God wouldn’t expect her to. ‘But He always expects it,’ said the nurse. ‘No, He doesn’t,’ replied little Jane, ‘for I told Him the other day I couldn’t say them, I was so sleepy, and He said, ‘Don’t mention it, _Miss Smith_.’”

* * * * *

“_July 15._--Rain on St. Swithin’s Day. Lady Lyndhurst says, ‘Do you know that he was three times Lord Chancellor of England, and that the only man who has filled that office three times since was my lord.’

“Went to see Mrs. Ross,[457] a breeze from Castagnuolo in London. She was full of the enchantment of a visit to Lacaita at Leucaspide, and of a tour she had made to Otranto; to Lecce, where all the professors had met to receive ‘una donna molta istruita’ at the museum, where she had not known anything whatever of the subjects they discoursed upon, but, by judicious silence and an occasional ‘si,’ had now the highest opinions; to Manfredonia, where the inn is now kept by one Don Michele, to whom the would-be sojourners have to be formally presented, when he accepts or rejects them, with ‘mi piace’ or ‘non mi piace.’ On one of these excursions she heard the sound of an instrument hitherto unknown to her from a hollow below the road, and going down, found a boy playing on a long pipe of birch-bark. ‘Cosa è questo?’--‘Il fischio della primavera;’ and she bought it for ten centimes--the sweetest of music and of instruments; but it only lasts a week, and can only be obtained with the spring.

“Afterwards I sat with Miss Seymour, who talked of the political state of France, and of Kisseloff saying, ‘Ils se croient toujours malades quand ils n’ont pas la fièvre.’

“Then to Mrs. Liddell (of Christ-Church). Princess Christian had just been there for a committee for women’s work. Mrs. Liddell said she went about immensely amongst the poor of Windsor, and had a district. Once, when she went for a month to Berlin, she said to one of her poor women that she was going away, but that she would be well looked after, as she had got some one to take her place. ‘Yes, but it will not be the same to me; for I shall have no one to tell my troubles to.’

“Mrs. Liddell had some capital oil-portraits. She asked who I thought they were by. I supposed by young Richmond. ‘No; by my daughter Violet.’”

* * * * *

“_July 16._--Luncheon with Lady Knightley and then to Osterley--a soft warm day; the flowers, from the long drought, quite magnificent under the dark cedars by the lake.

‘Look how the roses Hold up their noses,’

said old Lord Ebury, with whom I walked about, and who begged Miss Grosvenor not to leave him till she had found him an _innamorata_; which she eventually did in the person of Lady Balfour of Burleigh, very pretty in her attentions to the old man. Then the Duchess of Mecklenbourg came, and also sat under the trees. Lady Wynford brought Mr. Graham Vivian and me home, and I went to a Cinderella ball at Lady Guinness’s--quite splendid; and though it began at ten and ended at twelve, very crowded and successful, showing that the introduction of an earlier hour for balls would be perfectly easy.”

* * * * *

“_July 17._--Met Mr. Reeve, the editor of the _Quarterly_. Mr. Tedder reminded me of Mark Pattison’s speaking (in the _Academy_) of ‘those old three-deckers--the _Edinburgh_ and the _Quarterly_; the latter of which sets to sea under the guidance, apparently, of the Ancient Mariner.’

“I had luncheon yesterday with Mrs. Cyril Flower, the most amusingly decided of women, and met young Lady Wenlock, pining to return to India, where she enjoyed so much the languid life, or rather, as she called it, the time for thought which the heat gave her.

“A most pleasant dinner at Charlie Balfour’s, meeting a group of real friends--Guy Sebright and his nice wife, Basil Levett and his sweet Lady Margaret, and Sir John Maxwell, who is most simple, clever, and pleasant,--delightful to be with. Minnie Balfour was full of Mrs. Slingsby, whose curious old house in Yorkshire is so strangely haunted. One hot night, very late, when her husband was away, Mrs. Slingsby sat out on the terrace, and below her, in the park, saw the most brilliant light apparently burning on the grass. She went down to it, reached it, and it disappeared. Exactly that day year, she watched for it and saw it again. That time she went behind it, and saw it between herself and the house.

“Lady Heathcote Amaury, whom I took down to dinner, said, ‘You know young Lady Onslow was a daughter of Lord Gardner. She told me that her father rented a place called Chilton from Colonel ----. When he took it, Colonel ---- said, “As you are taking the place for some time, I think perhaps it is my duty to tell you that the state bedroom is haunted. A young ancestor of mine, dressed in a blue coat and breeches, with a rose in his button-hole, comes in, arranges his hair at the mirror, looks at the occupant of the room, throws up the window, and vanishes through it. He does nobody any harm, and is excessively pleasant-looking, still I ought not to let you take the place without telling you.”

“‘Lord Gardner said he did not care a bit; but the state bedroom had very remarkable furniture,--a magnificent bed with curtains looped up by gilt cherubs, and, after Lady Gardner heard the story, she got leave to change the furniture, and the old hangings were carefully put away, and modern furniture used instead.

“‘Soon after some cousins of Lord Gardner, two ladies belonging to the elder branch of the family, came from Scotland to stay, and were put into that room. When they came down next morning, Lord Gardner asked the elder if she had rested well after her journey. She answered, “Yes, indeed, and I have had the most delightful dream: I dreamt that the room I was in was furnished in the most beautiful way, with gilt cupids, hangings, &c.,--and really what I dreamt was so charming that I longed for you some time to be able to furnish the room just in that way. And then--I seemed to be awake, but of course I could not have been--I saw a young man of most beautiful countenance come into the room, dressed in a blue coat, &c., which was quite in keeping with the room, and he went up to the glass and arranged his hair, then he looked at me with a charming expression upon his face, but just when he seemed going to speak, and I was longing to know what he would say, he threw open the window, and disappeared through it.”

“‘Lady Onslow said, “You may imagine the breathless interest with which we listened.”’

* * * * *

“_July 17._--Supper at the Miss Hollands’. Met Mr. Turner, rather a remarkable American. The sight of white roses made him say, ‘A white rose comes home to me, Miss Holland, and I will tell you why. Many years ago, in Philadelphia, I met a party of cousins, and we all spent the evening together. A young cousin of mine--very pretty--was there, who was lately married, and I was very glad to see her, and we talked much together--so much together all evening that it was a matter of comment--of foolish comment. When we parted, she gave me a white rose, and she said, “You must keep that rose as long as we live.” I took the rose home and pressed it. From time to time I heard from her afterwards, but I never saw her, and I forgot the rose. Long afterwards I was in Philadelphia again, and in the evening, opening a book, something fell out on the floor: it was the white rose. I felt it an omen, and I said to myself, “It is long since I heard of her; something has happened. I will just go round to Uncle Joe’s and inquire.” I went, and found that Uncle Joe knew nothing; but whilst I was there the news arrived that she was dead.

“‘The white rose, when it fell, had told me that already.

“‘I believe in such things. I possess a looking-glass that I have long had in my keeping. One day, there seemed no reason why, I saw it slide from the table: it fell. The corner was broken off. I had it mended. Almost immediately a cable was brought in announcing the death of a near relation. Some time after it fell again. The other corner was broken off. I said, “What is going to happen now?” The next day I heard of the deaths of three intimate friends. So I said, “It will never do to go on like this,” and I had the glass sawn down, and so framed and padded with india-rubber at the back, that, if it fell, it was scarcely possible it could be broken. Well, that--stopped it.’

“Mr. Turner gave a very curious account of the early state of many American settlements--that the rivers or any running stream generally marked the track for civilisation. It was easier to make a path along them than anywhere else; a road followed, eventually a railway. Along one of these tracks, many years ago, came annually a venerable old man. People expected him--watched for his coming. He always came from the east, and he was never observed to return: yet he came again from the east in the following year. He was a kind of primitive missionary, bringing Bibles, which he cut up, leaving parts in the different houses he passed. Thus he would leave the Gospel of St. John one year, and the next would call for it, and leave the Acts in its place. He had a pocket-full of apple-seed, and wherever he stopped in the middle of the day, he made a hole with his stick, and dropped one of his seeds into it. People called him ‘Old John Apple-seed.’ Mr. Turner had seen many fine apple-trees along the banks of streams, of which it was remembered that they were planted by old John Apple-seed.

“Mr. Turner described how primitive many of the early lines of railway were, made at the rate of three miles a week. At Harrisburg several of these lines met, and it was a very dangerous point. A poor half-witted man found his vocation in life by joining trains at this point, and running in front screaming, ‘The engine is coming: the engine is coming.’ And thus he would run for miles, keeping just in front of the train, and if he saw a child, would seize it and throw it out of the way, and would often seize a woman by the shoulder, and would almost lift her off the line; but at last, after many years, whilst saving another, he was killed himself.”

* * * * *

“_July 18._--A party at Lady Bantry’s, where Lady Helen Stewart recited a poem much like the above story. Dined with the Grants. Old Lady Frances Higginson[458] frightened a mincing curate out of his life who said to her, ‘Will you _take_ some potatoes?’ by saying in her most abrupt way, ‘God bless my soul, aren’t you going to _give_ me some?’”

* * * * *

“_July 20._--At luncheon at the Higginsons’, I met the Storys from Rome, very happy in London, but ‘it is surely a bad arrangement of Nature,’ he said, ‘that one should have so many coats and only one body. I should like to have several--a body to work with; and a young smart body to go into society with; and the old body, which always sleeps so well, to go to bed with.’

“At luncheon at Lady Airlie’s I met Henry Cowper,[459] Mr. Morley, Lady Tweeddale, and Miss Betty Ponsonby. Henry Cowper talked of the friendship between Bright and Tuke. They had always been intimate. Then they loved the same woman. In his great friendship Tuke gave way, and the lady became the first Mrs. John Bright. Afterwards they were greater friends, and saw more of each other than ever: Bright would do anything for Tuke. But the conversation was chiefly about Gladstone, giving instances of his marvellous personal charm--of his way of telling things, bearing out Goethe’s words--

‘Märchen! doch so wunderbar, Dichterkünster machen’s wahr.’

“Tea with Mrs. Ford--always interesting. She talked much of Dr. Morell Mackenzie--well known to her. When he arrived at Berlin, he found six great doctors waiting for him at the palace. They took him to a room filled with knives, &c. ‘What are these for?’--‘For your choice in operating upon the Crown Prince.’--‘But I can only operate upon him in one way, that is my own;’ and he explained it. Four of the doctors agreed with what he said, two violently opposed it. He was taken at once to Bismarck, who said, ‘Do not consult me: ask me as many questions as you like about _la haute politique_, but about this I can say nothing.’ Then he was taken to the Emperor, to whom he explained his views. The Emperor listened to all, and then only said quietly--turning to those who were with him--‘Let the Englishman act.’ He then went at once to the Crown Prince. He performed the operation with his own forceps, steeped in cocotine, which deadens, absolutely paralyses the throat, and seizing the wart, dragged--not cut--it out. It seemed like a terrible responsibility for England, as if the life of the Crown Prince was in its hands.

“Mr. Browning described how he had been asked to dinner by two elderly ladies--sisters. He did not know them, but it was very kind of them to ask him, and he went. He met a very singular party at their house--Gladstone, Mrs. Thistlethwayte, and others. Going down to dinner, the lady who fell to his share suddenly said to him, ‘You are a poet, aren’t you?’--‘Well, people are sometimes kind enough to say that I am.’--‘Oh, don’t mind my having mentioned it: you know _Lord Byron was a poet_!’

“Browning is unlike Tennyson; he does not write from inspiration, but by power of work. He says he sets himself a certain number of lines to write in a day, and he writes them. Sometimes he says, ‘To-morrow morning I will write a sonnet; and he writes it. Nevertheless he is always greater in aspiration than achievement. Mr. Carlyle could not bear his poems. ‘What did the fellow mean by leaving that cart-load of stones at my door?’ he said to Alfred Tennyson when Browning left one of his poems there.

“London is now always asking itself ‘What is the cause of this long drought?’--‘Because we have had fifty years’ rain (reign).’

“Went to the Halifax’s in the evening to meet the Indian princes, and then to Lady Lamington’s party, made exceedingly pretty by its arcaded garden on the roof.”

* * * * *

“_Langleybury, August 2._--I am staying with Harry Loyd, who at twenty-six is certainly as near perfection as any one can possibly be in every relation of life--son, brother, friend, landlord, county magnate. His mother and four sisters live with him, and their hospitalities are boundless.”

* * * * *

“_August 28._--Little Holmhurst has been full of summer guests--gentle Lady Donoughmore and Lady Margaret Hamilton, Lady Airlie and Lady Griselda Ogilvie, Basil Levett and his Lady Margaret, Lady Sherborne, and lastly George Jolliffe and Lady Bloomfield, the latter a constant ripple of interesting anecdote.”

* * * * *

“_Tatton Park, Sept. 2, 1887._--The large party in this large pleasant hospitable house has included the Archbishop of Canterbury and Mrs. Benson, with their daughter--the ‘modest philosopher,’ as Miss Egerton aptly calls her. We have been to Manchester to see the exhibition of all the works of artists of Victoria’s reign--a very fine collection, from the vapid works of Etty and the hard commonplaceness of the earlier Landseers to the noble ‘Christ or Diana’ of Long, which struck most of us as the grandest and most expressive work amongst such multitudes. There is a curious contrast between the last and this Lady Egerton, who cannot enjoy life enough herself, or contribute enough to making it enjoyable for others.

“We have just been across the park to the old Hall, where a fine timber roof remains, very richly carved; and we have driven to Tabley and its old isleted hall in the lake, so mysteriously beautiful, which the family abandoned two hundred and fifty years ago, leaving all its contents in the deserted house, so that you still see the open spinnet with the mouldering keys, the lace half worked on the cushion, the flax half spun on the distaff in the little low rooms, with their carved furniture and fireplaces, opening, in two stories, around the great timbered hall.

“Raglan Somerset is here, unspeakably funny, so _décousu_ in his conversation, which never stops for an instant. I like also Lord and Lady Rayleigh: he is learned, but perfectly simple, and she, _née_ Balfour, is thoroughly pleasant and unsophisticated. Miss Mary Egerton, very handsome, with her grey hair and youthful animated countenance, is a delightful addition to the party. But the great, the real pleasure to me, has been finding Derek Keppel (Lord Bury’s second son and brother-in-law of the only daughter of the house) almost domesticated here: I like him so very much, certainly better than any one I know in the same degree. It is Sunday, and we have been to the new church at Aston, built by Lord and Lady Egerton without an architect, and so pleasant to look upon inside that an old man said, ‘Why, sir, one can be cheerful in it, even when one is saying one’s prayers.’”

* * * * *

“_Woodlands, Glassbury, Sept. 7._--I came here through the lovely Church Stretton country, stopping at picturesque Shrewsbury on the way to stay with the Bishop of Lichfield and Augusta. Yesterday we went by rail through the beautiful but drippingly wet valleys to visit the Venables near Builth. Our host was the well-known and severe critic in the _Saturday_--a pleasant old man to visitors, but evidently awful to the younger members of his family.

“Augusta had many interesting reminiscences of Lord Beaconsfield. One day, at luncheon, she offered him the mustard. ‘I never take mustard,’ he replied in his sepulchral voice. ‘Oh, don’t you?’ she said airily. ‘No,’ he continued in solemnest tones. ‘There are three things I have never used: I have never touched mustard; I have never had a watch; and I have never made use of an umbrella.’--‘Well,’ said Augusta, ‘I can understand the mustard--that is a mere matter of taste; but surely going without the other things must have been sometimes rather inconvenient.’--‘And why should I want them?’ continued Disraeli more sepulchrally than ever. ‘I live under the shadow of Big Ben, and there is a clock in every room of the House of Commons, so that I cannot possibly require a watch; and as I always go about in a close carriage, I can never want an umbrella.’ Disraeli was always full of these small affectations.”

* * * * *

“_Woodlands, Sept. 8._--This is a charming visit, and the place is delightful--close to the glistening Wye, with green hills--‘mountains’ in Welsh--folding around, exquisite in the soft haze of early morning.

“Augusta has been giving an interesting account of Champlatreux in France, belonging to the Duc d’Ayen, a representative of the De Noailles family. In the château is preserved the precious volume of the ‘Imitation of Christ,’ which the young Duchesse de Noailles used in the prison of the Luxembourg, where she devoted herself to keeping up the courage of her mother-in-law and daughter. When the three generations of the House of Noailles were summoned together to the scaffold, the Duchesse was reading aloud to her fellow-prisoners from the chapter of the ‘Chemin de la Croix.’ She turned down the page at that point and gave the book to one of her companions in prison, begging her, if she ever escaped, to convey it, as a memorial, to the De Noailles family.”

* * * * *

“_Sept. 10._--Two pleasant days with Graham Loyd in his charming cottage at Sketty near Swansea, and a great cementing of friendship with him. The first day he took me by a terrible path overhanging an unprotected chasm opposite the Mumbles. All the population of Swansea seem to pour out to drink in the neighbourhood of the Mumbles. ‘You want to close the public-houses at Swansea, that men may get drunk at the Mumbles,’ said Judge Bradwin, in opposing the Sunday-closing movement. At the same time he said that he did not see any more reason why men should call beer a ‘pernicious liquor’ than that they should call water a ‘drowning fluid.’

“We have been to luncheon at Clyne, where Graham Vivian has an unkempt but beautiful place, full of fine Italian treasures, and have dined at Singleton with Lady Hussey Vivian.[460] Besides this, we have had a wonderful drive, by heath, sandhill, and precipice, through the strange district of Gower, where all the houses are whitewashed, and where there are constant wrecks on the rock-girt coast, though a great bell tolls eerily through the night on a sandbank, with the waves for its ringers.”

* * * * *

“_Sept. 12._--Two days at the Deanery at Llandaff, where family furniture and pictures--familiar from Alderley, Norwich, Canterbury, Oxford days--give a homelike aspect.

“Kate said that when she was in Madeira last year, a Mr. Husband, a dentist from Hull, was staying in the same hotel. She had heard that he had seen a ghost there, and she asked him about it. It was only on being very much pressed that he told how that one night, when he was in his bed in the hotel, a young man in lawn-tennis dress came in, stood at the foot of the bed, and pointed with his finger at the pillow. Mr. H. was not frightened, only annoyed, and asked the young man what he wanted. He did not speak, and continued to point at the pillow. At last Mr. Husband was so irritated that he said, ‘Well, if you will neither speak nor go away, take that,’ and dealt him a blow, but his hand only seemed to sink into cold icy vapour, and the apparition vanished.

“Next day Mr. Husband told the landlord of the hotel what had happened, when he said, ‘Your story is very extraordinary, because a young man, who was staying here for some time, and was treated by a doctor for a very slight ailment, died in that bed under very suspicious circumstances; and, as long as he was about, that young man was never seen out of lawn-tennis dress.’

“Afterwards Mr. Husband heard of that young Mr. Hyndeman from other people in Madeira. They remembered him perfectly. He was very silent and shunned all society, and he was never out of lawn-tennis dress.”

* * * * *

“_Sept. 16._--A happy visit at cheerful merry Hardwick, which unites the charms of an interesting house, of exquisite gardens, and most varied and amusing society. There is a curious picture there of Elizabeth Drury reclining on her side with her hand under her head, which perhaps led to the story that she died of a box on the ear. She was a great friend of Wotton and of Donne, who wrote verses to her, and also her epitaph.”

* * * * *

“_Sept. 19._--A visit to the Ordes at Hopton, in the flat marshy country near Yarmouth--a happy united family, with a very beautiful eldest daughter, Evelyn. Hopton village is the Blunderstone of ‘David Copperfield.’ Charlie Orde took me to Caister, the grandest fragment of a castle I ever saw--so very lofty a tower rising abruptly from the edge of a very wide moat. On Sunday we saw the great low-lying lake of Flitton, which belongs to one of the Buxtons.”

* * * * *

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

“_Sept. 22._--On Monday I went to Sculthorpe, near Fakenham, where I saw the site of the old manor-house, part of the property which came to Bishop Hare through his marriage with Mary-Margaret Alston. It has the odd name of Hos Tendis. Only the foundation-walls exist now, with remains of the moat, overhung with old apple-trees. The church is a very fine one, and the existing manor-house, Cranmer, is an exceedingly handsome, pleasant house inside. Sir Laurence Jones, who lives there, had brought out quantities of old Hare and Alston deeds to show me: it was odd to see them there, but they had been sold with the property.

“My kind host, the Rector, Herbert Jones, the squire’s uncle, was the picture of old-fashioned courtesy. His wife, a Gurney, sister of Mrs. Orde at Hopton, is well known for her archaeological writings. They took me, with their niece Miss Laura Troubridge and her betrothed, Adrian Hope, to the beautiful old brick and terra-cotta house of Wolterton, with a very fine gateway.

“Yesterday we went to Houghton, in a well-timbered park--a house full of stately magnificence. The present Lord Cholmondeley has sold many of its treasures, but, though much has been taken away, it is especially interesting because nothing has been added since the time of Sir Robert Walpole. George, Lord Walpole, destroyed the grand staircase of the house, so that you now have to enter through the basement, instead of in state by the grand hall on the first floor, where Sir Robert and his companions used to carouse, and where the chairs which they used still remain, with the rings in the ceiling which supported the scales for weighing deer. The pictures are interesting--Sir Robert over and over again, with his beloved first wife, Catherine Shorter, and his inferior second wife Maria Skerret; his daughter and heiress, who brought the place to the Cholmondeleys; and his sister Dorothy, who still walks as a ghost at Rainham, where she was the wife of Lord Townshend, who is said to have walled her up in a spot where bones have been found, supposed to be hers.

“In one of the drawing-rooms is a glorious picture of the Duchess of Ancaster, who was sent to bring Princess Charlotte of Mecklenbourg-Strelitz to England when she came to marry George III. ‘Pug, pug, pug!’ cried the people when they saw her appearance as she was entering London. ‘Vat is dat they do say--poog?’ said the Princess, ‘vat means poog?’--‘Oh, that means, God bless your Majesty,’ promptly replied the Duchess, without the slightest hesitation. The pictures which are not portraits are wretched, chiefly bad copies.

“In the grounds is the little garden of Catherine, Lady Walpole, which in her time was surrounded by a yew hedge. Now the yews have grown into tall trees and are interweaving overhead above the little grassy circle.

“I came last night to the Locker-Lampsons at Cromer, finding Julia, Lady Jersey, Brandling, Lady Kathleen Bligh, and Rollo Russell here. To-day we have been to Blickling, where we found Lady Lothian and Lady Pembroke walking in the radiantly beautiful garden of the grand old house. Lady Lothian showed it all delightfully--the staircase, with its carved figures on the banisters; the tapestried rooms; the long library with a very rich ceiling, the room itself in exquisite harmony with its ranges of wonderful old books. At tea in the dining-room Baroness Coutts appeared, and many other unexpected persons dropped in.”

* * * * *

JOURNAL.

“_Salisbury, Sept. 28._--A very delightful visit to Canon Douglas Gordon[461] and Lady Ellen, full of old-fashioned peculiarities and brimming over with real excellence. One son, George, is at home, a successful young architect, and two daughters, of whom the eldest is a good artist. The Canon is interesting in his recollections--amongst many others, of the Queen Dowager, whom, as Rector of Stanmore, he saw constantly; and a portrait of her with the last words she ever wrote beneath it--her gift to him--hangs over the drawing-room chimney-piece. Near it is a very old oil-picture of Balmoral, interesting because the sight of that picture first decided the Queen to buy the place, which she had not then visited: it also shows how exactly her large modern house follows the main lines of the old Scotch castle.

“Canon Gordon says that instantly after the Queen Dowager’s death, when they were all in tears, and all the servants were waiting in the hall for the last news of their mistress, they were startled by a tremendous knocking at the door and a trumpet blowing, and three men entered with the announcement, ‘We are the royal embalmers, and we are come to perform our duty!’ They had actually been waiting outside--waiting for the first announcement of the death. In this case, however, they were sent away, as Queen Adelaide had left especial orders that her body was not to be embalmed.

“In the Canonry garden here is a fine mulberry-tree. The _only_ fact remembered about the old Canon who planted it is that whilst it was being placed in the ground the cathedral bell rang for service, and the gardener said, ‘You’ll be late for church, sir: the bell is ringing.’ To which the Canon rejoined, ‘Church be d--d; but I’ll see this mulberry planted.’ A lesson to be careful of what one says.

“Yesterday I went to Wilton in the pony-carriage with Miss Gordon, who left me there. Lady Pembroke[462] soon came in in her riding-habit, and took me at once through the beautiful brilliant gardens ending in the old building still called ‘Holbein’s Porch,’ though it is now far away from the house to which it once belonged. Then we walked on the sunny lawns swept by the massy branches of grand old cedars and intersected by three rivers, over one of which is a beautiful Palladian bridge like that at Prior Park.

“Somehow Lady Pembroke is a person with whom one begins to talk intimately very soon, and her own conversation is most original and delightful. But she spoke much of her wish that religion was ‘not so very odd,’--of her intense craving to know something, _anything_ tangible, about a future state. She had been seeing the Roman Mr. Story lately, who has been much amongst spiritualists, had heard speaking spirits, and had the very utmost faith in them. The spirits all confirmed faith in a future state. Once a bad spirit came; its language was perfectly horrible: in life it had been a pirate!

“Returning to the house, we saw the Vandykes, which are most glorious. There is a very curious contemporary picture of the coronation of Richard II. in the presence of his patron saints and of the heavenly host. Lady Pembroke talked on and on, and when I got up to go, kept me: but it was most interesting, and I would willingly have listened for many hours more. Eventually she went with me to the end of the grounds, and let me out at a postern-gate in the wall.

“To-day we have been to tea with the Pigott family, who live in George Herbert’s rectory (which he built) at Bemerton. It is a lovely spot, with the little church (vulgarised inside by glazed tiles), beneath the altar of which he is believed to rest. The garden reaches to the clear rushing Madder, full of trout and grayling, and has a beautiful view of the cathedral across the water-meadows. We saw the register with the notice of the burial of ‘Mr. George Herbert, Esquire, parson of this place,’[463] and his old study with its very thick walls: but he was only at Bemerton two years, leading a life ‘little less than sainted, though not exempt from passion and choler,’ as his brother, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, tells us in his memoirs. Americans come in crowds to see the place, and can often repeat half his poems. Mr. Pigott asked one of them to spend the night there, and in the morning inquired how he had slept. ‘Sleep,’ he said, ‘do you suppose I could sleep in George Herbert’s house? Why, I sat up all night thinking of him.’”[464]

* * * * *

“_Oct. 2._--Again at Highcliffe with Lady Waterford, whose conversation is as charming as ever.

‘And thy eternal summer shall not fade,’

is a line of Shakspeare which seems ever to apply to her. Here are some fragments from her lips:--

“‘That is like the priest who, when he was remonstrated with for eating meat on Friday, said, “All flesh is grass.”

“‘When I was young, I delighted in Tittenhanger.[465] We used to post down from London--a most delightful drive then. I thought it all charming--the old house, and a wood with bluebells, and the Colne, a mere dull sluggish stream, I suppose, but it had frogs and bulrushes, and I found it enchanting. A few years ago I thought I would post down to Tittenhanger in the old way, but it was a street all the way to Barnet, and when the people saw the white horses and postillion in blue, they came crowding round; for, though it was only my little maid Boardman and me, they thought, “Now we shall see them: now we shall see the newly-married pair.”

“The Duc d’Aumale is married. He married Mademoiselle Clinchamps, who was lady-in-waiting to the Princess of Salerno, the Duchesse d’Aumale’s mother. She does the honours of his house, but it is a sort of morganatic marriage.... Madame Adelaide was married too to one of the generals.... I remember the Aumales riding through the green avenues near Ossington; Mary Boyle was with them. She was a most excellent horsewoman, but a great gust of wind came, and the whole edifice of her chignon was blown off before she could stop it. The little Prince de Condé was very young then, and he was riding with her. He picked it up and said, “I will keep it in my pocket, and then, when we reach Thoresby, you can go away quietly and get it put on;” and so she did. That young Condé used to say, “I am not _le grand Condé_; I am _le petit Condé_.” ... Madame de Genlis used to write to Louis Philippe--“Sire et cher enfant.”

“‘That Lord Shrewsbury[466] you were speaking of received Henri V. at Alton Towers--received him as king of France, and dressed up all the people of the different lodges to represent the different nations of Europe giving him welcome. It was he who made the beautiful gardens. There is a bust of him there, and inscribed beneath it--“He made the desert to smile.” “And I don’t wonder at it,” said Lady Marian (Alford) when she saw the bust: he was so comically hideous.’”

* * * * *

Whilst I was away on my visits, I had left my dear old cousin Charlotte Leycester provided with companions at Holmhurst during the annual summer visit of several months, which had never failed since my mother’s death. I felt that thus my mother’s home, thus her own especial room, were fulfilling what she would most have wished for them. And (though, unlike my gentle mother, Calvinistic, vehement, with a habit of constantly “improving the occasion,” and utterly intolerant still of all that did not agree with her in religious matters), the beloved and beautiful old cousin, at nearly ninety, was this year more than ever occupied by plans and thoughts for the good of all around her, more full of spiritual meditation herself, lifting her own heart and mind into celestial dwelling-places. For her truly one might say, “The poetry of earth is never dead,” and I often found that I knew little of the natural charms of my own little home till she had shown them. “Speak to the earth and it shall teach thee” is a verse of Job for which she had a constant application, and the shrubs and flowers--at Holmhurst always planted in the same places--were intimate and familiar friends to her--

“Still within this life, Though lifted o’er its strife.”[467]

Sunday was always her great delight--a Sunday to be dealt with as John Knox would have used it, and a church service freed from anything of ritual, but with an extempore preacher if possible. She felt, “I always like my victuals hot when I can get them,” as an old woman said in reference to her preacher. Latterly, however, Charlotte Leycester was scarcely able to hear sermons, though, as she wrote to me during my last absence,--“I always _enjoy_ the sermon, though I do not hear it; for, as our old friend George Herbert says, ‘God takes a text, and preaches patience,’ and I can generally catch all texts quoted, which helps me to follow the drift, like finding one stone after another in crossing a current.”

When turned to her reminiscences of the past, her conversation was often very interesting. I remember her telling me this summer of her visit to Paris in 1827, and going to the Royal Chapel, into which came the king, Louis XVIII., and the Duchess d’Angoulême with full evening dress in the morning and feathers on her head. When the king entered, a great picture of our Lord hung opposite where he was to sit, to which the master of the ceremonies seemed to introduce him--“Le roi.” “At Rosny, a beautiful old château with chestnut avenues, to which we drove out one October evening after dining at Mantes, we saw the Duchesse de Berri. Most amusing the travelling then was, with the postillions in blue and in great jack-boots, into which they had to be lifted, with the blowing of their horns at every village we passed through.”

* * * * *

A few days after I reached home, two more volumes of mine were published, “Paris” and “Days near Paris.” They had been the engrossing work of the last two years. My hourly thought had been for them, and I had taken all the pains I could with them. I knew their faults, and know them still; but all the same I am conscious, and I am sure it is not conceit, that no better general books on those subjects have ever been written,--certainly in French there is nothing of the kind. I suppose it is one of the penalties of a lonely life, of having no near belongings, that it seemed--perhaps a little bathos as regarded the subjects which had filled one’s life--that no one spoke of them; that day after day passed on, and no one ever mentioned their existence. And then came a Review--a leading article indeed--in the _Athenæum_, not of mere abuse of the books, though no words were strong enough for that, but of such bitter personal malignity against myself, as gave one the shuddering conviction that one must indeed have an enemy as virulent as he was unscrupulous. “Turn author,” says Gray, “and straightway you expose yourself to pit, boxes, and gallery: any coxcomb in the world may come in and hiss if he pleases; ay, and what is almost as bad, clap too, and you cannot hinder him.” Most of the Reviews of my books have been unfavourable, but the books have always contrived to outlive them; and generally, when they have been found fault with, I have felt almost grateful for such lessons of humility, and have longed to say with Goethe, “Pray continue to make me acquainted with my own work.” Even honest reviewers, however, seldom read beyond the first chapter of a book; _that_ they usually read, and occasionally criticise; but even then the tendency to save themselves trouble generally causes a great deal of copying. I have always found that a first Review has influenced all the others except the very best. The excessive injustice and untruthfulness this time made me understand the pain which Chatterton felt, especially when it was said that the hundred and forty-seven quotations, which I had been at such pains to find for my “Versailles,” were “all taken second-hand from Dussieux’ History” of that palace, though I am assured that not one (!!) of them is to be found there, except the few taken from S. Simon, the especial historian of Versailles, to which any one writing about it would naturally apply.

“Every white will have its black, And every sweet its sour,”

and though serious disappointments are always a most bitter medicine, life becomes much the same again after they are once swallowed and assimilated. I know they must be good for one, like all the other humiliations of--is it?--yes, I suppose in a right spirit it may be, _le chemin de la croix_. Still I often wonder whether the writer of such an article, when he _knows_ it is false and unjust, as this writer must have done, does it with pleasure in taking away an author’s innocent enjoyment in the birth of his book-child. In most cases of personal injustice and injury, I am sure that it answers to take some secret opportunity of doing something very kind towards the aggressor--it “takes out the taste;” but when the intentional injury is anonymous, one is deprived of even this consolation. Yet, to a certain extent, an inner consciousness of high aims and disinterested intentions may raise a screen against the base scurrilousness with which every one is assailed at some time in their lives. Fortunately, also, I have never quite--though very nearly--had to put in practice the maxim that--

“Those who live to please must please to live.”

It is curious, certainly, how one has only to turn to the pages of a book which collects Reviews of past authors, like “Alibone’s Dictionary,” to find plentiful consolation. I chanced to open it on Thackeray, and found the _Edinburgh Review_, after abusing “Esmond” in the most contemptuous tones, saying patronisingly, “If Esmond had been confined within as short limits, it might have taken rank with the ‘Defence of Natural Society,’ but a parody three volumes long becomes tiresome.” The same _Edinburgh Review_ advised Byron to abandon poetry and apply his talents to some better use; and declared Coleridge’s “Christabel” to be “a thing utterly destitute of value.” I think it is Montaigne who says, “Aucun chemin de fleurs ne conduit à la gloire.”

XXV

IN PLEASURE AND PAIN

“Why, of all the countless faces which I meet as I walk down the Strand, are the enormous majority failures--deflections from the type of beauty _possible_ to them?”--DEAN CHURCH.

“Before the beginning of years there came to the making of man, Time with a gift of tears, Grief with a glass that ran.” --SWINBURNE.

“From the black depths, the ashes, and the dross Of our waste lives, we reach out to the Cross, And by its fulness measure all our loss.” --WHITTIER.

In the middle of October I went North for a short time.

* * * * *

JOURNAL.

“_Thoresby, Oct. 20, 1887._--A visit here has been charming--its inmates all so filled with kindness and goodness of every description, and Lady Manvers so very agreeable--‘une conversation si nourrie.” Nothing could exceed the dying splendour of the autumnal tints in the forest, of which we saw a great deal, as we sat out through the whole of each morning drawing amongst the tall golden bracken, over which the great antlers of a stag were now and then uplifted. My companions were Lady Mary Pierrepont, very pretty and charming, and Mrs. Trebeck, daughter and sister of a Bishop Wordsworth, who is here with her husband, Canon Trebeck of Southwell, a very singular and admirable muscular Christian. They have asked me to visit them. The first day of my visit I was delighted to meet Lord and Lady Montagu, unusually pleasant people, with a very nice daughter.”

* * * * *

“_Southwell, Oct. 21._--Lord Manvers--kindest of hosts--sent me here, fourteen miles. It is a tiny town clustered around its--chiefly Norman--minster. The beautiful chapter-house has a wreathed door, before which Ruskin stood for an hour when he was here, motionless in rapt contemplation. On one of the old Norman pillars on the right of the nave are remains of a fresco of the Annunciation, evidently painted over an altar of the Virgin: on the other side are traces of a very early organ. In the graveyard is the tomb of Robert Lowe, Lord Sherbrooke’s father. The Sub-dean and his wife are the centre around which the whole little place revolves with its society and charities. The Bishop, who lives in the country, seems rather to despise Southwell and to wish his cathedral had been at Nottingham.

“We went from Thoresby to Rufford,[469] a curious old low-lying house containing much fine tapestry, but where the old furniture is greatly made up. The house has an obstreperous ghost, that especially haunted the room which Augustus Lumley chose as his own, and frightened his pug-dog out of its wits; for beyond that room is a little chamber in which a girl was once shut up and starved to death; but since some bones have been found under one of the passages and received christian burial, the ghost has been laid. There is a portrait of a boy who was taken as a baby from gipsies and brought up in the house, but who disappeared after he grew up and never was heard of again: it was supposed that the impulse was too strong, and that he rejoined the tribe he came from.”

* * * * *

“_Raby Castle, Oct. 25._--The Duchess of Cleveland has been describing Lord Crawford’s interview with a famous clairvoyant. Lord Crawford saw the medium go and hold his head in the fire: the flames played round him and he was quite unhurt. Then the medium said he could make Lord Crawford impervious to fire: ‘Would he like it?’ He said ‘yes,’ and the medium took a large live coal from the fire and put it on the palm of one of his hands, which was entirely unhurt, though the coal was left upon it, and Lord Crawford was told to light his cigar at it, which he did. The clairvoyant then said, ‘Your other hand is not impervious: touch the coal with it,’ and he touched the coal which lay in the palm of his left hand, and one of the fingers of his right hand bears the marks of it still.”

* * * * *

“_Oct. 26._--It has been a great pleasure during this visit that the Duke[470] has come in each morning for talk, generally more or less narrative--in which he rises suddenly from his chair, walks rapidly backwards and forwards to the fire, and then sits down again, always with his sharp fiery restless look; but all he says most interesting. To-day he told of his father’s early life,--sent to Oxford with a tutor, Mr. Lipscombe, then abroad for three years, spent chiefly at Orleans learning French with John, Duke of Bedford (the father of Lord Russell). The Duke of Dorset was ambassador then, and took the two young men to Versailles, where they played billiards with Marie Antoinette. The French aristocracy were quite unconscious then of the coming danger, and would not believe in the serious state of politics. The Duc de Bouillon was the great person, and they stayed with him in the country. They went on to Rome, where Cardinal York was then living. They went to his weekly receptions, where he was always treated as royalty. ‘The Duchesse d’Albanie gave my father a ring,’ said the Duke, ‘but after my father’s death it was stolen from the Duchess Elisabeth by her maid. All young men stayed abroad their three years at that time, and so did my father, then as soon as he came home he was married to my mother, who was the Duke of Bolton’s daughter.

“‘For myself, I went to Paris at eighteen in diplomacy, and was there for many years. I spoke French better than English, and lived entirely in French society. Thiers I knew intimately in all the different phases of his life. He was said to have had an intrigue with Madame Dombes. I don’t know how that may have been, but he married her daughter, and she made him a very good wife. He always began his writing at six, when he had a cup of coffee, and he wrote on--no one being allowed to disturb him--till 12 A.M., which was the hour of _déjeûner_, and it was this which enabled him to write his histories; when he was in office he had not time. He and Guizot were always rivals.

“‘I was in Paris in Louis Philippe’s time, but not under the Restoration. Many of the Dames de la Cour of the older time, however, were still in Paris, and had _salons_--Madame de Noailles, &c. I used to see much of Princess Charlotte de Rohan, who had been privately married to the Duc d’Enghien, and whose excitement was great when Louis Philippe was appointed. I was at Marienbad when the news of that revolution came, and posted back to Paris at once: we expected great difficulty on the way, but there was none. I saw the barricades, however, in the early _émeute_ of Louis Philippe’s time, and the people with their passions roused, and the _gamins_ who used to come under the windows of the Palais Royal and call for the king till he came out and made them a bow: it was the regular thing that was done.

“‘I was at Paris when the Duc de Bourbon hung himself. Cuvier and another great naturalist were sent down to examine into it, and they both said he must have done it himself; but the Legitimists declared it was an arrangement between the Orleanists and Madame de Feuchères, who shared his property between them.

“‘I was at Coppet with Auguste de Staël a few years after Madame de Staël died: he asked Sismondi to meet me there and several others. Old Madame Necker--Madame de Staël’s mother--had a very remarkable _salon_ in Paris: her daughter was Duchesse de Broglie and her grand-daughter married the Comte d’Haussonville, whom I knew very well: but, oh! it is more than half a century ago now that I was at Coppet.’

* * * * *

“_Oct. 27._--Mrs. Forester, wife of the Duke’s nephew, who is here, has told me much that is curious.

“‘An old Mrs. Sauchiehall, unfortunately dead now, told Lady Vane that when she was a girl at Doncaster, at a famous school of that time, she made a very intimate friendship with two other girls, and when they parted, they made each other a solemn vow that if either of the three were in any real trouble in after life, the others would do all they could to help her.

“They parted, and Mrs. Sauchiehall married in Cumberland--married twice, and became a second time a widow. Life had seemed constantly to drift her away from her old friends. At last, at Marienbad, she met one of them, then Mrs. A., and spent some weeks there with her, renewing all their old intimacy.

“Mrs. A. told her that she had always continued to be on terms of the most extreme intimacy with their third friend--Lady B. Her own story had been a very sad one. She had been left a widow with several children, and almost in a state of destitution. In all her troubles, she had continued to confide in Lady B., who never lost sight of her. At one time especially, Lady B. was perplexed as to how she could help her, and spoke of it to her husband, who said, ‘Well, there is at least one thing I could do for her: there is that old place of ours in Dorsetshire, where nobody lives. It is all being kept up for nothing, so if Mrs. A. likes to go and inhabit it, she is quite welcome; only, you know, she ought to be told that it is said to be haunted.’

“Lady B. made the proposal to Mrs. A., who was enchanted, and she moved at once with her children to the house in Dorsetshire, where she seemed to find a refuge from her troubles and every comfort. She asked the servants whom she found in the house about the ghosts, and they said, ‘Oh yes, the great hall and the rooms beyond it are said to be haunted, but we never go there, and the ghosts never come to our part of the house, so we are never troubled by them in the least.’ For several years Mrs. A. lived most happily in the old house, and nothing happened.

“At last, on one of her children’s birthdays, she invited some children from the neighbourhood to come and play with her own children, who begged that, after tea, they might all go and play hide-and-seek in the great disused hall. The children had finished their games, and Mrs. A. was alone in the hall setting things to rights afterwards, about 8 P.M. in the evening, with an unlighted candle in her hand, when she heard some one call out loudly, ‘Bring me a light! bring me a light!’ Then, almost immediately, the door from the inner passage leading to the farther rooms opened, and a lady rushed in, beautifully dressed in white, but with all her dress in flames. She ran across the hall screaming ‘She’s done it! she’s done it!’ and vanished through a door on the other side. Mrs. A. instantly lighted her candle, and ran with it up the passage from which the lady had emerged, but she found all the doors locked. The next night, at exactly the same hour, she came again to the hall, and exactly the same thing happened. She then wrote to Lady B. that she should be obliged to leave the place, unless Lord B. could explain the mystery.

“Lord B. then said that an ancestress of his--a widowed Lady B.--had an only son, who fell in love with the charming daughter of a neighbouring clergyman. The young lady was lovely, fascinating, and very well educated, but the mother regarded it as a mésalliance and would not hear of it. The young man, who was a very dutiful son, consented to gratify his mother by waiting, and went abroad for two years. After that time, as their attachment was unbroken, and he was of age, he married the young lady.

“It was with joyful surprise that the young married pair received a very kind letter from the mother, saying that as all was now settled, she should make a point of welcoming the bride as her daughter, and always living happily with her afterwards. They went home to the mother at the old house which Lord B. had lent to Mrs. A., and were most kindly received. All seemed perfectly smooth. At last a day came on which the mother had invited an immense party to be introduced to and do honour to the bride. The evening arrived, and the young lady was already dressed, when her mother-in-law came into the room, kissed her affectionately, and then said to her son, ‘Now that she is indeed my daughter, I am going to fetch the family diamonds, that I may have the pleasure of decorating her with them myself.’ The diamonds spoken of were really the property of the son, but he had never liked to irritate his mother by claiming them, and rejoiced that his wife should accept them from her.

“The mother then went to fetch the diamonds, the son lighting her. As they were coming back, they heard the voice of the young lady calling to her husband to bring her a light. ‘Oh, I will take it to her,’ cried the mother suddenly, and snatched the candle out of his hand. In another instant the girl rushed by with her white dress enveloped in flames, screaming ‘She’s done it! she’s done it!’ The mother confessed that her hate and jealousy had been too much for her.

“Now the house is pulled down, and a railway passes over its site.

“Another curious story, told by Mrs. Sauchiehall to Lady Vane, was that of a young lady, a great Cumberland heiress, who was engaged to be married, but who pined away from some mysterious and causeless illness. As there was no definite reason for her being ill, so nothing seemed to do her any good, but she wasted constantly, and at last she died. After her death, her old nurse, who had been her devoted attendant, rather surprised those who knew her by insisting upon leaving the place and moving to the south of England. A cousin succeeded to the property, but did not prosper. His wife died, then his children, one after another. A ghostly appearance also frequently took place, and was especially seen by a little boy, the son of the house. At last the whole family became extinct, and quite passed away out of Cumberland memory.

“Many, many years afterwards, Mrs. Sauchiehall was herself at Richmond in Surrey, when she heard that a very old woman, a native of Cumberland, was dying in the workhouse--dying, apparently, with some secret upon her mind, which she could not bring herself to confess, but which never allowed her to rest. ‘Well,’ said Mrs. Sauchiehall to her informant, ‘I am a Cumberland woman myself; I will see what I can do.’ She went to the workhouse, and soon found that the old woman had been the nurse of the young heiress who had died so long before, and heard her confess that she had accepted a large bribe from the cousin who succeeded, to poison her by slow degrees. The bribe had done her no good. She had married, all her children had died, her husband had gambled away her money, and she herself had come to die in the workhouse.

“Mrs. Forester told me of a girl who had gone to a famous school at Brighton. She was allowed to study after hours to fit her for the place of a pupil-teacher, which she wanted to get. After some time, she looked so pale and thin, that the mistress thought she was over-worked and called in a doctor. He asked her many questions, and at last ‘if she ever saw any strange visions.’ This she could conscientiously say she did not. On learning this, the doctor said that being the case, it could do her no harm to continue her studies, but that if she ever fancied she saw anything unusual, it would be a sign that her brain was overworked, and she must give up her studies at once.

“It was very soon after this that one night she distinctly heard the door of her room, which was behind a screen at the foot of her bed, open and shut again. She got up and went to the door, but it was closed, and when she opened it, there was no one there. This happened several times. At last she locked the door. Still it happened again. That night, however, she assured herself that the delusion came from being over-tired, and by sheer force of will she went to sleep.

“The next night, however, the same thing happened, and she again locked the door. Happening to look up soon after, she saw something hanging over the screen in front of her. It was a hand--an attenuated human hand. It remained there some time, then it disappeared.

“The girl then felt that she must lessen her studies, but, for fear they should be stopped altogether, she said nothing, whilst at the school, of what she had seen. Soon after this, however, she went home to the old aunt who had brought her up, and who was in very poor circumstances. She was almost surprised at the extreme and anxious tenderness with which she was received. After tea she said, ‘Auntie, I have a curious little story I want to tell you,’ and she told her what she had seen. The aunt said, ‘My love, you have unconsciously made easier for me the task of telling you some very sad news; I did not know how to break it to you, but Edward’ (the young man to whom the girl was engaged) ‘is dead; he died the night you saw the hand.’

“Mrs. Forester told this story to Lord Rayleigh, who said, ‘That is a very simple and explicable story: it is a case of telepathy.’

“The Duchess of Cleveland says that when the Sultan was at Buckingham Palace, one of his servants offended him, and he condemned him to death. The Sultan was informed that he could not execute him in this country; then he said he should do it on board his own ship. One of his wives also is said to have been executed whilst he was here, ‘because, poor thing, she had been so dreadfully sea-sick, that it was quite disgusting,’ and she is said to be buried in the palace garden.

“‘Mr. Lowell asserted to me,’ said the Duchess, ‘that there were no really old families in England. “Surely the Nevilles?” I protested. The next morning Lowell said, “I’ve been thinking that I am descended myself from the Nevilles, but I never thought it worth while before to inquire about it.”’

“‘Some one went,’ said the Duchess, ‘to inquire after the health of Madame Brunnow. “Oh,” said the servant, “she will never be any better.” The inquirer was admitted afterwards to see Baron Brunnow, to whom he said, “I am so grieved to hear from your servant that Madame Brunnow is never likely to be any better.” “Did he really say that?” said Baron Brunnow. “Oh, the faithfulness of these English servants! The fact is, Madame Brunnow really died three days ago; but the servant knows that it was not at all convenient that she should die before the reception of the Duke of Edinburgh is over, so--for inquirers--she is still only very ill.”’”

* * * * *

_“Raby Castle, Oct. 28._--A pleasant Mr. and Mrs. Wilkinson--neighbours--came to stay yesterday. He told me a very remarkable story.

“One day last year, Mr. Gurdon, an excellent Catholic priest belonging to a mission in the East End of London, had come in from his labours dreadfully wet and tired, and rejoicing in the prospect of a quiet evening, when the bell rung, and he was told that a lady wanted to see him on most urgent business. He said to a friend who was with him, how sincerely he dreaded being called out again into the wet that night, and how he hoped that the visit meant nothing of the kind; but he admitted the lady. She was a remarkably sweet, gentle-looking person, who told him that there was a case in most urgent need of his immediate ministrations at No. 24 in a street near, and she implored him to come at once, saying that she would wait to point out the house to him. So he only stayed to change his wet things, and then prepared to follow the lady. He took with him the Host, which he wore against his breast, holding, as is the custom, his hand over it. It is not considered right for a priest carrying the Host to engage in conversation, so Mr. Gurdon did not speak to the lady on the way to the house, but she walked a little way in front of him. At last she stopped, pointed to a house, and said, ‘This, Father, is No. 24.’ Then she passed on and left him.

“Mr. Gurdon rang the bell, and when the servant came, asked who it was who was seriously ill in the house. The servant looked much surprised and said there was no illness there at all. Much astonished, Mr. Gurdon said he thought the servant must be mistaken, that he had been summoned to the house to a case in most urgent need. The servant insisted that there was no illness; but Mr. Gurdon would not go away without seeing the owner of the house, and was shown up to a sitting-room, where he found the master of the house, a pleasant-looking young man of about five-and-twenty. To him Mr. Gurdon told how he had been brought there, and the young man assured him that there must be some mistake--there was certainly no illness in the house; and to satisfy Mr. Gurdon, he sent down to his servants, and ascertained that they were all perfectly well.

“A tea-supper was upon the table, and very cordially and kindly the young man asked Mr. Gurdon to sit down to it with him. He pressed it, so they had tea together and much pleasant conversation. Eventually the young man said, ‘I also am a Catholic,’ adding, in an ingenuous way, ‘but I fear you would think a very bad one;’ and he explained that the sacraments and confession had long been practically unknown to him. ‘As long as my dear mother lived,’ he said, ‘it was different: but she died three years ago, and since her death I have paid no attention to religion.’ And he described the careless life he had been leading.

“Very earnestly and openly Mr. Gurdon talked with him, urging him to amend his ways, to go back to his old serious life. At first he urged it for his mother’s sake, then from higher motives. He seemed to make an impression, and the young man was touched by what he said, and said no one had spoken to him thus since his mother died. At last Mr. Gurdon said, ‘Why should you not begin a new life now? I might hear your confession, and then be able to give you absolution this very evening. But I should not wish you to decide this hurriedly: let me leave you for an hour--let me leave you perfectly alone for that time--you will then be able to think over your confession, and decide what you ought to tell me.’ The young man consented, but urged Mr. Gurdon not to leave the house again in the rain: there were a fire and lights in the library, would not Mr. Gurdon wait there?

“Mr. Gurdon willingly went to spend the time in the library, where two candles were lighted on the chimney-piece. Between these he placed the Host. Then he occupied himself by examining the pictures in the room. There were many fine engravings, and there was also the crayon portrait of a lady which struck him very much. He seemed to remember the original quite well, and yet he could not recall where he had seen her. On going back to the other room, he told the young man how very much he had been struck by the picture. ‘Ah!’ he said, ‘that is the portrait of my dear mother, and it is indeed the greatest comfort I have, it is so very like her.’ At that moment Mr. Gurdon suddenly recollected where he had seen the lady: she it was who had come to fetch him to the house.

“Mr. Gurdon heard the young man’s confession and gave him absolution; he seemed to be in the most serious and earnest frame of mind. He could not receive the sacrament, because it must be taken fasting, so the evening meal they had had made it impossible. But it was arranged that he should come to the chapel at eight o’clock the next morning, and that he should receive it then. Mr. Gurdon went home most deeply interested in the case, and truly thankful for having been led to it; but when morning came, and the service took place in the chapel, to his bitter disappointment the young man was not there. He feared that he had relapsed altogether, but he could not leave him thus, and as soon as the service was over he hastened to his house. When he reached it, the blinds were all down. The old female servant who opened the door was in floods of tears: her master had died in his sleep.

“On the last evening of his life his mother had brought Father Gurdon to him.”

* * * * *

“_Muncaster Castle, Oct. 30._--What a gloriously beautiful place this is!--an ascent from the station, and then a descent through massy woods, till the castle appears--infinitely picturesque in outline and in its red and grey colouring--on the edge of a gorge, wooded on both sides, and which now has every tint, from the dark blue-green of the hollies and the russet of dead fern, through crimson, scarlet, orange, to the faintest primrose colour of the fading chestnut leaves. Then behind are the finest of Cumbrian mountains, and in front terraced gardens, and the not far distant sea. The interior has almost an equal charm, in the thick velvet-pile carpets of the long passages hung with portraits, the fine collection of books in the (too dark) octagonal library, and the low hall, which has an organ, flowers, and books, and is the common sitting-room. I sleep in ‘the ghost-room,’ and in a red silk bed used by Henry VI. when he was here, and when he gave ‘the luck of Muncaster’ to the family--an old Venetian glass bowl, from which every child of the house has been christened since. Once it was thrown from an upper window: the owners never had the courage to hunt for and examine it, and it remained buried in the earth for some years: then it was dug up quite uninjured.

“We have driven up Eskdale--a delightfully wild mountain glen, with a clear, tossing river, and dark mountains of jagged outline, covered with brown bracken wherever a turfy space is left between the rocks.

“My host--‘Josceline’--is geniality itself, and very amusing, and Lady Muncaster excessively pleasant. Only her sister, pretty Lady Kilmarnock, is here with her little Ivan, and two young ladies, Miss Rhoda Lestrange and Miss Winifred Yorke,[471] whom her friends call ‘Frivolina.’ The Muncasters have lived here for six hundred years; then they came from Pennington, where a mound still exists which was crowned by their residence in ancient British times.”

* * * * *

“_Alnwick Castle, Nov. 4._--Yesterday I left Muncaster at eight, and had two hours in the middle of the day to wait at Carlisle. Whilst I was sauntering round the cathedral, one of the Canons came up to me, introduced himself as a college acquaintance--son of Richmond the artist--and asked me to luncheon. He also showed me the cathedral, ‘restored’ out of much interest, with a miserable modern reredos and other rubbish, but with two fine old tombs, and the modern monuments of Paley and Law. Below the great east window Sir Walter Scott was married. A noble fragment remains of a beautiful renaissance screen, and at the back of the stalls are very curious early pictures of the lives of S. Anthony, S. Augustine, &c. Close to the cathedral is the Fratry--the refectory of the abbey--now used for lectures. Carlisle is a black and truly uninviting place.

“Lady Airlie and Lady Griselda Ogilvy were at the station, and I travelled with them as far as Naworth. On arriving here, it was pleasant to be met by the cordial welcome of Duchess Eleanor, always most genial and kind. The actual Duchess[472] did not appear till dinner, when she was wheeled into the room in a chair, very sweet and attractive-looking, but very fragile. The Duke[473] looks wiry, refined, rather bored, and some people would find him very alarming. Lord and Lady Percy seem to be two of the most silent people in the world--she pretty still in spite of her ten children. There are also here pleasant little Lady Constance Campbell, Miss Ellison, who goes about with Duchess Eleanor, and Lady Emma and Miss M’Neile--the former a violent Radical, who went to bed at once when the Primrose League became the topic of conversation. We played at whist in the evening, but it was broken at ten by going to prayers, which the Duke reads in the chapel. It is the only time I have seen evening prayers in any country-house for the last fifteen years.

“This morning Duchess Eleanor showed me the rooms--the magnificent Italian rooms, which owe their glory to her husband, Duke Algernon, who, when remonstrated with for thus changing a mediaeval fortress, said, ‘Would you wish us only to sit on benches upon a floor strewn with rushes?’ He purchased the whole of the great Camuccini collection at Rome, because of his great wish to have one single picture, which they would not sell separately. It is the so-called ‘Feast of the Gods’ by Gian Bellini, with a landscape by Titian. Other noble pictures involved in the purchase are a Crucifixion by Guido, singularly dark for the master; a splendid portrait attributed to Andrea del Sarto, but more like Franciabigio; and a little Raffaelle of SS. Mary Magdalen and Catherine. Bought from the Manfrini Palace at Venice are two noble works of Pordenone--one of them the picture of the father, mother, and son mentioned by Byron (in ‘Beppo’). From the Davenport collection are portions of a grand fresco of the ‘Salutation,’ by Sebastian del Piombo, once in S. Maria della Pace at Rome. The magnificent decorations of the rooms are by Canina. But the most lasting attraction of the castle is the library, with the really splendid collection of books formed by Duke Algernon.

“The Percies are Irvingites now, as well as the Duke and Duchess. Her father, Mr. Drummond, was ‘one of the twelve apostles,’ in whose time it is a tenet of faith that the Lord must return. Now only one ‘apostle’ is alive, and when he dies what will happen? Meantime, though a very old man, he is hard at work beating up recruits and inciting proselytism. The family go to the church here, but then the vicar of Alnwick is also an Irvingite. All the gibberish which the Irvingites talk when seized by the spirit is taken down and treasured up as ‘prophecy.’”

* * * * *

“_Nov. 5._--This Irvingite family is constantly waiting and looking out for the millennium: it is terribly anxious work. But their faith is most simple and touching. When one of the Percy boys was very ill, they had him anointed with oil; after that he recovered. ‘We had no doubt it would be so,’ said Lady Percy, ‘no doubt whatever.’ After the anointing, the friends of a patient have altogether done with human agency, and leave everything in the Divine hands. It is curious to hear members of this family say casually--‘The angel was here on Monday, and will be here again on Friday.’

“I have had an interesting hour with the Duchess in her own sitting-room, where she showed me all the treasures in her cabinet--two miniatures of Elizabeth, contemporary, for they are painted without any shadow, which she forbade, upon her face, and two others, evidently painted afterwards, and naturally much more becoming; a miniature of Mary Queen of Scots painted in prison, with the fat face and thick neck which want of exercise caused in one used to so much riding; some of the hair of Charles I., cut off by Sir Henry Halford when the king’s coffin was opened at Windsor; miniatures of James I., Anne of Denmark, and three of their children; the splendid ‘George’ of the fifth Earl of Northumberland, made with the blue enamel which is now a lost art; one of the amber snuff-boxes which Queen Charlotte had constructed in Germany for her ladies, with her miniature on the outside, her dog inside the lid, and her monkey at the bottom of the box; the pencil-case of Lord Chesterfield, with a diamond at the end, being the pencil mentioned by Pope. Not less interesting is a little (Dutch) silver woman, which runs by clockwork, because it was the means of saving all the family plate. For when burglars broke into Sion, it scampered about the floor when they were going to pack it up, which made them think the plate was possessed, and they took to flight, leaving all their booty behind, with the baskets in which they had intended to carry it off.”

* * * * *

“_Nov. 6._--All this morning I was left to ‘browse in the library,’ as Dr. Johnson expresses it. In the afternoon I had a walk with the Duke and Percy to Alnwick Abbey--utterly unknown to history, and with only the ruin of its fine gateway standing, yet which must have been one of the most important buildings in the North of England. Its substructions were sought and dug for in exact accordance with the rules laid down for building a Premonstratensian abbey, and so they were found. The church must have been grand as any cathedral.”

* * * * *

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

“_Holmhurst, Nov. 27, 1887._--I am greatly enjoying a little solitude in this time so congenial for hard work, when all nature seems wrapped in a swampy mist-cloud. There are great improvements in the garden. Along that little upper walk to the field, where the frames were, is now a rockery with rare heaths, and behind it a bed of kalmias, and then the cypress hedge of my especial little garden. Rock and fern are also put on the steep descent to the pond, opposite the line of tree-fuchsias.

“I wonder if you remember hearing of the extraordinary visitation of crickets on the night of (my mother’s death) Nov. 12-13, seventeen years ago--the uproar, like the sea in a storm, all night, scarcely allowing a voice to be heard: then heard no more till the night, twelve years after, in which dear Lea passed away. I was so struck by coming across an allusion to it when reading the last chapter of Ecclesiastes as the lesson in church last Sunday--‘And the grasshopper shall become a burden, because man goeth to his long home.’”

* * * * *

“_Dec. 24._--The dreary Christmas season of damp and dyspepsia, bills and bother, is less odious than usual this year, as the day itself is swallowed up in Sunday. I have, however, also had a real pleasure in a present from the Duchess of Cleveland of her Life of Everard Primrose, only printed for his friends. It is most beautifully, touchingly, really nobly done, and the most perfect memorial of a high-minded single-hearted young man’s life. I think I never read so perfect a biography. The story is entirely told in Everard’s own admirable letters, but the Duchess has not shrunk from her own part, and the little touches from her own life, the Duke’s, &c., are indescribably simple, graceful, and sincere. The book gives one a far higher opinion of _her_ (of Everard I had always the very highest), and makes one regret many hasty judgments. I have been quite engrossed with the book, so perfectly delightful is it.”

* * * * *

After a busy six weeks of work, I spent the New Year again at Cobham, always charming in its quiet home life, but was glad to return soon again to work.

* * * * *

JOURNAL.

“_Holmhurst, Feb. 10, 1888._--The news of Lady Marian Alford’s sudden death removes from the cycle of life one whom I had felt to be a true friend for more than thirty years. Our meetings were at long intervals, but when we met, it was as more than mere acquaintances. With a grace which was all her own, she often unfolded beautiful chapters in her own life to me, and she was one of the very few persons who have read in manuscript much of these written volumes of my past. She was a perfect _grande dame_, unable to harbour an ignoble thought, incapable of a small action. Regal, imperious, and extravagant,[474] she was generous, kind, and personally most unselfish, and, had the real greatness and goodness that was in her been regulated and disciplined by the circumstances of her early life, she would have been one of the noblest women of her century. Alas! only yesterday she was! How soon one has to school oneself to say ‘would have been.’ Thus, however, it will certainly be with oneself. The day after one dies people will say--and how few with even a pang--‘He would: he might have been.’”

* * * * *

“_March 14._--Met Lady Fergusson Davy (_née_ Fortescue). She told me that when Lady Hills Johnes, the friend of Thirlwall, was twenty-four, she was once in society with the late Lord Lytton, who was talking of second-sight, and of his own power of seeing the future of those he was with. She urged him very much to tell her future, but he was very unwilling to do so. Still she urged it so much that at last he did. He did it after the manner of the Chaldees--told it to her, and wrote it down at the same time in hieroglyphics. He said, ‘You will have a very great sorrow, which will shake your faith in man: then you will have another even greater sorrow, which will come to you through an old and trusted servant: you will marry late in life a king among men, and the close of your existence will be cloudlessly happy.’ All the first part of the prophecy has come true--the breaking off of her first engagement; the terrible murder of her father by his servant; her marriage with Sir James Hills; all that remains now is happiness.”

* * * * *

“_Holmhurst, May 14._--I have just returned from an interesting month in London, seeing many people delightfully and making some pleasant new acquaintance. At Lady Delawarr’s I was presented to the young Duchess of Mecklenbourg, very pretty and full of life and animation. No one else came up to talk to her, and I was left to make conversation from five till a quarter to seven! by which time I think we had both exhausted all possible topics, though she was very charming. At last she said, ‘I always go at six to read to the Duchess of Cambridge.’--‘Well, ma’am,’ I answered, ‘you will certainly be terribly late to-day.’--‘What very odd things you do say to me!’ she said. The next day I sent her my ‘Walks in London,’ and as her speaking of the Duchess of Cambridge convinced me of her identity, I directed to the ‘Hereditary Grand Duchess of Mecklenbourg-Strelitz.’ The next time I saw her I had found out, and said, ‘I am sorry, ma’am, that I have made three mistakes in one line in directing to you--that you are not ‘Hereditary,’ not ‘Grand,’ and not ‘Strelitz;’ for she was the Duchess Paul of Mecklenbourg-Schwerin; but she laughed heartily.

“In going to London, I first saw, on a placard at the station, that Matthew Arnold was dead. It seemed to carry away a whole joyous part of life in a moment--for I have known Matthew Arnold ever since I remember anything, though I did not know till I lost him that his happy personality and cordial welcome had made a real difference to me for years, especially in the rooms of the Athenaeum, where I have spent so much time of late years. He had an evergreen youth, and died young at sixty-six, and he was so impregnated with social tact and courtesy, as well as with intellectual buoyancy, that he was beyond all men liveable with. Herman Merivale has written some lines which seem to express what I shall always remember--

‘Thrice happy he, whose buoyant youth In light of Beauty sought for Truth,

* * * * *

And to the longing listener showed How Beauty decks the ugliest road.’

“All who knew Matthew Arnold well loved him, though ‘the Apostle of Moderation in Criticism’ would certainly have been shocked by some of the fulsome articles which have followed his death; and I doubt of any of his writings surviving his generation, especially his refined and delicate verses, which surely lack the fire of a poet whose work is to be eternal. I went on April 19, with Montagu Wood, to his funeral in the graveyard of the ancient church at Laleham, where his father was vicar before he went to Rugby, and where his children are buried. It was a day of pitiless rain, which pelted upon the widow and sisters and crowd of mourners round the grave, and on the piles of exquisite flowers beneath which his coffin was hidden. As Alfred Austin says in a beautiful article upon him, ‘Wherever he lies, there will be a Campo-Santo.’ I was glad in going down to the funeral to make friends with Edward Arnold, a charming fellow, who is the present editor of _Murray’s Magazine_.

“At dinner at the Miss Monks’ I was interested to find myself sitting next to Lady Sawle, who told me that she was niece of the Rose Aylmer who was the love of Landor’s youth. It was on her that he wrote the lines which Archbishop Trench declared to be better than many an epic, and which Charles Lamb said he lived upon for a fortnight. Lady Sawle was herself one of the three Roses to whom Landor afterwards addressed a poem, the third Rose being her mother. She described the death, when she was at Rome, of Miss Bathurst--beautiful, radiant, and a splendid horsewoman, riding along the narrow path between the Acqua Acetosa and the Ponte Molle. The horse suddenly slipped backwards into the Tiber. She called out to Lord Aylmer, ‘Uncle, save me!’ but he could not swim, nor could any of the gentlemen or the groom who was present. Another groom, who was a good swimmer, had been sent back to Rome with a restive horse. She sank in her long blue habit, and her body was never found. All Rome mourned ‘La bella Inglesa,’ and the little party of friends, closely united and present at her death, dispersed sadly. One of them alone, Mr. Charles Mills (of the Villa Mills), returned to Rome in the autumn. As he was about to enter the city, he sent his carriage on to the gate from the Ponte Molle, and walked slowly along the Tiber bank by what had been the scene of the accident six months before. As he walked, he saw two peasants on the other side of the river catch at something which looked like a piece of blue cloth on the mud, and pass on. A sudden impulse seized him, and he got some men to come at once with spades and dig there in the Tiber bank. There Miss Bathurst was found as if she were embalmed, in her blue riding-habit, perfectly beautiful, and with her long hair over her shoulders. There was only one little mark of a wound in her forehead. For a minute she was visible in all her loveliness--a minute only. She was buried in the English cemetery.”[475]

* * * * *

On 28th May 1888 I went abroad to my French work, feeling as usual greatly depressed at leaving home and going off into solitude, but soon able to throw myself vigorously into all the interests of my foreign life and its work. How full each week seemed!--the two first alone amongst quiet villages and churches in Picardy and afterwards in Auvergne, and many others after my friend Hugh Bryans joined me at wild S. Flour, in the hill country of Auvergne, at beautiful Obazine, and at Rocamadour again, then at beautiful S. Emilion, in wandering amongst the innumerable historic relics of La Vendée; lastly by the Loire and its surroundings. Three places especially come back to me with pleasant memories--the home-like inn at S. Emilion, its beautiful old buildings radiant with the blossom of pinks and valerian, and the sunset walks on its old walls looking into the vineyards and cornfields:--the little fishing port of Le Croisic, with its gay boats, its snow-white houses, and its windy surroundings:--and charming Clisson, with its pleasant inn and its balconies overhung with roses and wistaria. Hugh was a capital companion, and full of interest in what he saw, though--like so many at twenty-four--he pretended to hate all the historic detail. However, I am sure my endless archaeological inquiries must have sorely tried his patience, and he was always unweariedly good to me.

* * * * *

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

“_Beauvais, June 1, 1888._--A number of friends wrote urging me to give up what was ‘entirely an imaginary duty.’ However, I felt it was a duty to finish what I had worked at so long, though perhaps it had not been a duty to begin it; and so, much as I hated coming, I am here! It is no use thinking of all one has left, and there is a great deal in what one _has_, most of all _le grand air_ for hours and hours, and the marvellous light and shade, which is in itself such a beauty in this pellucid atmosphere. Then the peasants in Western France are delightful, and I have not much fear of being taken up here; and I come so well primed and informed that I know exactly what to look for everywhere, and where to find it, and almost what to say about it.

“I left dear Holmhurst at 6.30 P.M. and at 2.30 A.M. was carrying my own portmanteau down the desolate moonlit streets of Abbeville, where the old town struck me more than ever, such a complete change from England, and so romantically picturesque.”

* * * * *

“_Clermont Ferrand, June 9._--Oh, it has been so hot! Never in my life have I been so grilled, roasted, boiled, and melted down; and it has been hard having to work on all day, whatever the intense exhaustion from the heat. But I have kept up to exactly the tale of work measured out for each day before I left home.”

* * * * *

“_Le Puy, June 13._--We had an exquisite journey on Tuesday by rail down the valley of the Alagnon to Neussargues, the quantity of old castles on the rocky hills as striking as those on the Rhine were forty years ago, and the mountain flowers lovely. Then we drove up through the cool forests to the high plateau which is under snow nine months of the year, and which was quite chilly even now. Here, in the evening, we reached the old episcopal town of S. Flour, on a great basaltic rock, the most wonderfully placed of all French cities, and much recalling Orvieto. Everything seemed to belong to another world. From my window I could throw anything sheer down the most tremendous of quite perpendicular precipices, and the view was magnificent. The house had been in the same family for four hundred years, and the landlady showed with pride the dark passage where her ancestor intercepted the Protestants when they were trying to take the city by stealth, the stone on which they were beheaded, and the drain by which their blood flowed away. The other side of the house opened into a great square, with the cathedral standing amongst trees as in an English close, and houses with sixteenth-century colonnades. I saw the huge modern viaduct bridge of Garrabit, most extraordinary certainly, but though much more interesting to most people, less so to me than the glorious views of S. Flour itself, on its black and orange rocks, backed by the great purple towers of the cathedral.”

* * * * *

“_S. Nectaire le Haut, June 28._--It was dark and raining in torrents before we arrived here, and the driver suddenly announced not only that he had lost his way, but that one of our wheels was likely to come off! We were skirting a precipice by a rocky road without any parapet, and at last, by holding the carriage lamps low, found that we had somehow got into a very ancient churchyard, where stone coffins were strewn all about. At last we knocked up a woman at a farmhouse, who guided us back to the hotel, which we had long passed in the dark. This is an enchanting place, beautifully situated in a wooded gorge below the old romanesque church, where the Sunday congregation--from many far-away villages--winding up the hill with baskets of food for the day, has been most picturesque. There are lovely walks in all directions, and Switzerland at its best never had more beautiful flowers, fields covered with lilies, orchis, narcissus, globe ranunculus, pansies, pinks, &c.”

* * * * *

“_Le Croisic, July 17._--At this little fishing-town there is no fine scenery, but it is most artistically lovely, with wide views over the grey reaches of sea and yellow sandy flats to the soft hills, and endless fishing-boats with red sails and nets.

“Yesterday we spent the day at La Guerande, a little unaltered mediaeval town above the salt-flats; a very superior Winchelsea, described in Balzac’s wonderful novel of ‘Beatrix.’”

* * * * *

I returned to England on August 7th, just in time to attend Alwyne Greville’s wedding in London. In September I paid the Eustace Cecils a visit, and then went to the Spencer Smiths at Kingston near Wareham.

* * * * *

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

“_Sept. 17._--It was a great pleasure to find Sir Howard and Lady Elphinstone at the Eustace Cecils’. I like them both so very much. They say the Queen is much occupied in learning Hindustanee and speaks it now quite well--a great delight to her Indian subjects. She has three Indian servants in constant attendance, and converses fluently with them. This afternoon has been delightful, with Mrs. Spencer Smith and her children, at St. Alban’s (St. Aldhelm’s) Head. In the little hollow with stone cottages on the way thither a boy opened a gate for us whose name was Sagittary Clump. The name came from his parents’ lodger, but it must have had its origin in Sagittarius. Mrs. Spencer Smith spoke to the boy’s father about his daughter’s misconduct. ‘I can’t help it,’ he said; ‘I’d given her her documents,’ meaning that he had spoken to her seriously: Shakspeare uses ‘documents’ in the same sense. Walking up the hill, we were terribly bitten by harvest-bugs, which little Michael Smith poetically called ‘Ces petites bêtes rouges dans les fleurs bleues’ (harebells). Close to the coastguard station, near the edge of the cliff, is a tiny chapel, perfectly square, supported by a single pillar, and with only one wee romanesque window, so that almost all the light comes from the open door: however, there is only service here in summer. A monk of Sherborne Abbey was always kept here to toll a bell to warn off ships, whilst he prayed for the shipwrecked. Seven little children aged from three to four came up to us while we were drawing. ‘We be going to throw ourselves over the cliff, we be: we be going to smash ourselves quite up, we be,’ the little monsters announced to their mothers, as they all seven marched away arm-in-arm to the edge of the cliff. Then ‘little sister’ made ‘Ernest’ sit down upon a thistle, at which ‘Ernest’ roared; and finally the mother caught up Ernest and carried it off, ‘little sister’ whacking its little naked behind with a stick all the way as they went. Then a young Palgrave appeared, who took the Spencer Smith children down to a wreck in Chapman’s (Shipman’s) Bay, to their great delight. There were seven parrots saved from that ship, but one was lost which was prepared for death by being able to say the Lord’s Prayer straight through. We went afterwards to the desolate village of Worth, where, in the wind-stricken rectory, the clergyman and his wife see no one for five months of the year, and have to shout into each other’s ears to be audible in the roaring winter blast. The church has a Saxon arch, and in its graveyard two stone sarcophagi, one that of a child-abbot, with an incised crosier lying upon it; also the gravestone, of Mr. ‘Jessy,’ ‘who, by his great courage, innoculated his wife and two sons from the (cow)’--_sic._ He rode up to London with saddle-bags to give his experience to the Government. The Dorsetshire here is pure Anglo-Saxon: King Alfred spoke Dorsetshire. The people are very long-lived; at Steeple in Purbeck there have only been four rectors since the time of Charles I. Three Messrs. Bond have lasted 160 years, and an old Mrs. Ross of 101 drives up this hill in a dogcart to visit her old servant of ninety-four in the village. In church the clerk said ‘Stand in a wee (awe) and sin not!’”

* * * * *

_To_ LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD.

“_Cadland, Sept. 21._--This comfortable house stands in a park, which is a piece of enclosed forest full of noble oaks and hollies, with glints of blue sea and shipping between. The passages are entirely clothed with fine prints and drawings, and in the rooms are many fine portraits, especially that by Zoffany of the Drummond who founded the Bank. The collection of autographs is priceless, and includes many by early kings of France, letters of Marie Antoinette, a charming one of the little Dauphin, and the execution-warrant of Madame du Barry. Amongst the drawings is the touching sketch which Severn made ‘to keep himself awake’ sitting by the death-bed of Keats.... We have driven to ‘the Cottage,’ a charming house where Lady Elizabeth Drummond lived, in woods of ilex and fir above the Solent.... The company has included Valletort; Harry Forster, a very good-looking fellow; Robert Scott, Lord Montagu’s second son; and Christopher Walsh, a very nice son of Lord Ormathwayte.”

* * * * *

“_Malshanger, Sept. 25._--I came here on the 22nd to visit Mr. Wyndham Portal, and (in her grandmotherhood) his most beautiful as well as charming wife. After luncheon we drove to the Vyne, admirable in the rich colour of its old red brick and grey copings, and greatly beloved by Horace Walpole, who used to stay there with his friend John Chute, to whom he gave many pictures, and whose ‘Chutehood’--depression of spirits and gout--he often deplored. It was to him that Gray wrote ‘suavissime Chuti.’ The house has always been cared for and never allowed to ‘run down,’ and there is much of interest in its fine old rooms, especially in its two stories of ‘gallery,’ lined with busts and portraits. Four of these were brought hither by Lady Dacre of Hurstmonceaux, upon her second marriage with Challoner Chute of the Vyne, and include a portrait of Chrysogona Baker, afterwards Lady Dacre; of the widow of the Lord Dacre who was executed, with his picture hanging behind her, and two of the Chute Lady Dacre herself, one of them copied from a picture now at Belhus, the place of the Lennards. The present owner of the Vyne, who married Miss Eleanor Portal, showed it all admirably, and has written a capital book on the place.[480] He educates his own beautiful boys, making scholars of them before they are ten years old.

“This district--‘Portalia,’ as people call it--is quite peopled with Portals and their connections. They were a French Protestant family, greatly persecuted under Louis XIV., when they took refuge at La Cavalerie in the Larzac. Jean François de Portal escaped to Holland, and his eight children, concealed in barrels and smuggled out of the kingdom by faithful nurses, reached England. The eldest of these became tutor to George III., and the second, Henri, obtained the monopoly of the manufacture of bank-notes, which the family have enjoyed ever since. The last Portal left his vast landed estates to his eldest son, Melville, and his mills to his second son, Wyndham: now the land is only a burden, but, police-guarded, the mills at Laverstoke constantly increase in value, and turn out daily 50,000 Bank of England notes, 12,000 Indian notes, and 100,000 postal orders. By the process of one beautiful machine, the linen rags (nothing but new rags of the best linen being used) are reduced to pulp, the pulp is flattened into paper, stamped, drained, dried, and behold! before it leaves the machine, a bank-note ready for the printer. All the machinery is turned by the transparent Teste, which is full of trout almost up to its source. The workmen, who live in comfortable cottages near the mills and receive high wages, are hereditary, and always fulfil their quota of duty from father to son. Mr. Portal throws open his fine gardens here every Saturday to the people of Basingstoke, who play tennis and generally enjoy themselves, and do no harm whatever.”

* * * * *

JOURNAL AND LETTERS TO MISS LEYCESTER.

“_Ford Castle, Northumberland, Nov. 23._--I set out to come here on Wednesday evening, after attending Miss Higginson’s wedding at Marlow. When we--two other guests, Mr. and Mrs. Bellairs, and I--reached the desolate station amongst the bleak moorlands, we found only one little gig in waiting, and no chance of anything else. Mrs. B. and I struggled into it, and came through the howling raging storm for seven miles here; Mr. B. walked; but our reception in these fine old rooms made us forget all else, and to-day has been like all days at Ford and Highcliffe--drawing, reading aloud with talking at intervals, and walks in the glen and gardens.”

* * * * *

“_Nov. 26._--A delightful walk, combating with the wind, to the Devil’s rocks, ‘where,’ say the Northumbrians, ‘the devil hanged his grandmother.’ Mr. Neville (the rector) dined. He says the old rectory here was haunted. His sister came to stay with him in the spare room that looked out on the castle. The second day she said very quietly but firmly that she could not sleep in that room again; another must be given her or she must leave. Then she described that, on two successive nights, the curtain of her bed had been drawn, and a strange voice had distinctly said to her, ‘This is not a spare room.’

“Mr. Neville said--

“‘I belong to the Neville-Rolfes of Hitcham in Norfolk. After my cousin, Charles Neville-Rolfe, who was beloved by every one, died, his boxes were all found to be fastened with letter-locks, and the family were a long time before they were able to get them undone, as he had not left the clue. My cousins suggested to me afterwards that I should ask Crisp the carpenter how he had discovered it at last; so, as I was rubbing an inscription on a stone in the church, I got him to come and move part of a pew which covered it, and I asked him about it. He said, “Whilst we were puzzling over those locks, I heard in a dream the voice of Mr. Charles, and he said, ‘Crisp, come and walk and talk,’ and I said, ‘Yes, sir, gladly;’ and then he turned to me and said, ‘Crisp, guess!’--and I woke, and ‘guess’ was the word we wanted.” I told my cousins afterwards what Crisp had told me, and they said, “Yes, but the really curious part was that only three letters were wanted. Crisp thought ‘guess’ was spelt ‘ges,’ still we acted on what he said, and it was right.’”

“Lady Waterford says--‘My maid is very good, very good: her only fault is that she has three hands, she has a right hand and a left hand, and a little behind-hand.’

“Mr. Bellairs, the Highcliffe agent, who is here, said--

“‘My grandfather was both at Trafalgar and Waterloo, for he was wounded as a middy at Trafalgar, and then went into the army. It was odd when, long afterwards, some one said about Trafalgar, “It was so and so” and he said, “No, it was not, for _I_ was there,” and that the conversation then went on to Waterloo, “It was so and so.”--“No, I beg your pardon, but I was _there_.”

“‘Afterwards he fell in love with Miss Mackenzie, one of two heiress sisters. He had nothing to marry upon, and the father forbade him the house, but he was allowed one interview, and in that he found out that the butler was just leaving, and the family would be wanting another. He dressed up and came and applied for the place. He got it, and it was three weeks before he was found out, and then Mr. Mackenzie allowed that he was too much for him, and allowed that he should marry his daughter. But he insisted that my grandfather should leave the army. “Very well,” he said, “if you like I will go into the Church.” So that was agreed to, and in time he became a Canon. He was as earnest in the Church as everywhere else. Soon after his appointment to a country living, as he was crossing some fields on a Sunday, he found a number of miners crowding round some prize-fighters. “Come,” he said, “I can’t have this: I shall not allow this.” “But you can’t prevent it,” they cried. “Can’t prevent it! you’ll soon see if I can’t fight for my God as well as for my king: I’ll fight you all in turn,” and he polished off the two strongest miners in fair fight, and then the others were so pleased, they chaired him, and carried him through the village to his church, which they filled from that time forward.’

“Most delightful and full of holiest teaching have been the many quiet hours I have spent with the lady of the castle. There is a sentence of Confucius which says--‘If you would escape vexation, reprove yourself liberally and others sparingly.’ It is exactly her case. And there is another sentence of Confucius which applies to her--‘The wise have no doubts, the virtuous no sorrows, the brave no fears.’ Being here so quietly, I have seen even more of her than on other visits, and more than ever has she seemed to be a fountain of original, interesting, noble, and elevating words and thoughts. She is wonderfully well now, and able to walk, and take all her old energetic interest in the place and people, and oh! how we have talked!”

* * * * *

“_Littlecote, Wilts, Dec. 3._--A charming visit to this beautiful old house, which mostly dates from Henry VII., and has a noble hall hung with armour and the yellow jerkins of the Commonwealth, a long gallery filled with fine Popham portraits, and a charming old pleasaunce with bowling-green and long grass walks. I sleep in the ghost-room, and just outside my door is the ante-chapel where Wild Darrell roasted the baby as described in the notes to ‘Rokeby,’ but the grandfather of the present possessor was so bored by inquiring visitors that he burnt the old hangings of the bed by which the nurse identified the room of the crime, and the bed itself, with much other old furniture, was sold to provide the fortunes of the younger children in the present generation. Nothing can be more delightfully comfortable, however, than the house as it now is, and my young host--Frank Popham--is most pleasant and genial. It has been a great pleasure to find Lady Sherborne domesticated here, and to listen once more on a Sunday evening to her exquisite singing of ‘Oh rest in the Lord’--so delicate and touching in its faintly vanishing cadences as to draw tears from her audience. Very pleasant too has it been to meet charming Mrs. Howard of Greystoke and her daughter again.”

* * * * *

“_Dec. 11._--My old cousins, Mr. and Mrs. Thurlow, who had often invited me before to their house of Baynards, wrote that this week was my last chance of going, as Baynards was just sold, so I have been for one night. The house is partly modern, but the place was an ancient royal residence, and was part of the dower of Katherine Parr. A pretty statue of Edward VI. was discovered there walled up, and Margaret Roper lived there afterwards, and long kept her father’s head in a box, which still exists at the foot of the staircase. There are also numbers of fine portraits, the dressing-box and travelling trunk of Elizabeth, and I slept in a magnificent old tapestried room and in Henry VIII.’s bed.

“Mrs. Thurlow says that Cardinal Wiseman went to dine with some friends of hers. It was a Friday, but they had quite forgotten to provide a fast-day dinner. However, he was quite equal to the occasion, for he stretched out his hands in benediction over the table and said, ‘I pronounce all this to be fish,’ and forthwith enjoyed all the good things heartily.”

* * * * *

“_Dec. 12._--Henry Lyte says that Porson was told to write a Latin theme as to whether Brutus did well or not in killing Cæsar--‘Si bene fecit aut male fecit.’ He wrote--‘Non bene fecit, nee male fecit, sed interfecit.’

“The Stuart Exhibition is most indescribably interesting. A glorious Vandyke hangs there representing Henrietta Maria in radiant youth and happiness, with husband and children. Close by hangs the most touching portrait in the gallery--Henrietta Maria, the same person exactly, with the same curls, only grey, the same features sunken and worn by sorrow, in her old age at Chaillot, by Le Fevre.”[481]

* * * * *

“_Cobham, Jan. 3, 1889._--Drove with Lady Kathleen Bligh, Lady Mary, and Lady Lurgan to Rochester to see the interesting old hospice for ‘six poor travellers, not rogues or proctors,’ where that number are still daily received and cared for. They are given half a loaf, boiled beef, and porter for supper, have six small clean comfortable rooms lighted by a street gas-lamp outside, and are sent away with fourpence each in the morning. On Christmas Day a lady sends the travellers of the day some tobacco, a pipe, and a sixpence each, and quaint are their letters of thanks. ‘May you live for ever and a day after,’ was the good wish of one of them this year.

“Lord Darnley went himself into the village of Cobham to engage lodgings at a poor woman’s cottage for a man who wanted to come there. Lady Kathleen went to see the poor woman afterwards, and found her greatly delighted. ‘As soon as my Lord was gone,’ she said, ‘up I went to my room, and down upon my knees I dropped to return thanks to the Almighty, because the Lord above, and the Lord below, were working together for my good.’”

* * * * *

“_Jan. 10._--To tea with Mrs. Humphry Ward, almost a celebrity now as authoress of ‘Robert Elsmere,’ at her house in Russell Square. She said it tried her somewhat to receive from an American ‘Whiteley’ his circular with--‘for economy in literature we defy anything to beat our Elsmere at six cents.’”

* * * * *

On Shrove Tuesday, March 6, I left home for the south, and spent a fortnight at Mentone in the Hotel d’Italie, which I remembered--one of the few houses then existing--as the residence of Mrs. Usborne when we were living close by in 1869-70. My cousin Florentia Hughes was at Mentone with her youngest daughter, and we had many pleasant excursions together. In the hotel were Lord Northbrook and his daughter, with whom I dined several times, meeting the excessively entertaining Lord Alington and his pleasant daughters. On the 22nd I reached Rome, where I spent six weeks in the Hotel d’Italie, seeing many friends, correcting my “Walks in Rome,” and drawing a great deal.

* * * * *

JOURNAL.

“_April 7._--On Friday I went with some friends to Albano, and, whilst they drove to Neni, drew in the glen at Ariccia, and never was I so tormented by children as by a beautiful little cowherd--Amalia Maria--who, on my refusing her demand for _soldi_, vowed she would ‘lead me a life,’ which she did by fetching six other little demons worse than herself, when they all joined hands and danced round me and my campstool, kicking and screaming with all their might. Then they fetched a black _pecorello_, and having tried to make it eat my paints, danced again, the _pecorello_, held by a string, prancing behind them. Happily at last the cow which Amalia Maria was supposed to be chaperoning made its escape over a hedge, and whilst she was pursuing it over the country, I fled, and joined my companions at a little caffè, where we had a delicious luncheon of excellent bread, hard-boiled eggs--painted purple for Lent--and sparkling Aleatico, for fourpence a head. Afterwards we sat to draw, looking down upon that loveliest of lakes and woods full of cyclamens and anemones.

“The crowds in the Roman galleries are endless. Whole families arrive together, every member of them carrying a campstool, and they will sit down opposite each of the statues in turn, and move onwards gradually, whilst the father reads aloud from a guidebook, and they all drink it in. He often begins the description at the wrong end, but they do not find it out, and ... it does not signify! An American, a Mrs. Ruggles, coming to the Apollo Belvidere, said, ‘Is _that_ the Apollo Belvidere?’--‘Yes, that’s the Apollo Belvidere.’--‘Well, then, if that’s the Apollo Belvidere, I don’t think much of _him_: give me Ruggles.’”

* * * * *

“_April 18._--Caught in tremendous rain and hail near a warehouse at the back of the Palatine, and took refuge under a rude porch with a number of peasants and was kept there an hour. One of the men described his life as a soldier when his battalion was sent against the brigands near Pescara. Of these, the famous Angelo Maria was so horrible a monster, that his own mother determined to rid the world of such a fiend and to deliver him up. He discovered this, seized his mother, laid her on a table, ripped her up, and taking out her steaming heart--ate it! Words cannot describe the horrible gestures with which the peasant told this story, or the dramatic power with which he described the sister seeing the terrible scene through a chink in the door, and coming afterwards to the guard-house, saying that she wished to betray her brother. ‘Oh,’ said the officer, ‘you need not suppose that we trust you; this is a trap you have laid for us.’--‘Yesterday,’ she answered, ‘I might have laid a trap, but I had not then seen that monster eat my mother’s heart.’ And he was taken.

“But Capolo Roscia was worse. He came one night to a _masseria_. The doors were barred, but he forced his way in with his band. The head of the farm hid himself in the straw, but he was found and dragged out. All the men in the _masseria_, eighteen in number, were brought out and made to sit in a row. ‘Now you must all be shaved,’ said Capolo Roscia, and he cut all their eighteen heads off and put them in a basket.

“‘Oh, in that time when we were brigand-hunting we did not stop much to inquire how far they were guilty. “A ginocchio: avete cinque minuti,” we shouted to a peasant if we caught him. “Oh, ma signori, signori!” he would say. “A ginocchio! Un minuto, due, tre, cinque--bo-o-o-ah!” and he was done for; for he had given the brigands provisions, and so he was as bad as themselves. Even with _i sindaci_, well, we often did the same; but--we got rid of the brigands.’”

* * * * *

“_Easter Sunday, April 21._--To St. Peter’s. The service was under the dome, but the group around the shrine would not call up even a reminiscence of the glorious services under the Papacy. The relics were shown afterwards from a high gallery--the spear-head of Longinus, the bit of the true cross, the napkin of Veronica, to the sight of which seven thousand years’ indulgence is attached. I gazed hard, but could only see its glittering frame, nor could any other member of the congregation see any more.”

* * * * *

After leaving Rome, I spent ten days with a pleasant party of friends at beautiful Perugia, and then went on to Venice, where I saw much of Ainslie Bean, who took me in his gondola to many places I wanted to see, and much also of the Comte and Comtesse de Lützow, on the eve then of the great but still unforeseen sorrow of losing the dear daughter Maude who was the sunshine of their lives. I was at the Pension Anglaise, crowded with lively, kindly ultra-English people, whose mistakes were amusing. “Gesu-Maria!” suddenly exclaimed the gondolier on narrowly escaping a concussion at a sharp corner. “Why on earth does he say ‘Je suis marié’?” said a Mrs. R. Afterwards I had a week’s hard work in intense heat in Eastern France, and reached home on May 27.

* * * * *

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

“_Holmhurst, May 27, 1889._--How quiet it is here! how shady! how thankful I am to be back! The heat yesterday at Amiens was appalling, but I reached the green retreat this morning at nine, a telegram announcing my advent having only been delivered five minutes before, so that I had the amusement of seeing Holmhurst as I had never done before, in complete _un_-dress.... I never saw such foliage. Charles II. might easily hide this year in any of the oak trees.”

* * * * *

JOURNAL.

“_July 16._--Dined at Lord Chetwynd’s, taking down a Mrs. Severn. She talked of the difficulties of faith; of the comfort she had received from Farrar’s ‘Justice and Mercy;’ of the simple impossibility of eternal punishment; of the verse ‘The Lord shall save all men, _especially_ such as are of the household of faith,’ as especially indicating gradations of happiness in a future state.”

* * * * *

“_July 18._--With troops of the London ‘world’ to a garden-party at Hatfield to meet the Shah of Persia (Nasr-ed-Din), who looks most savage and unimpressionable. He is, however, preferred to his servants, who give themselves endless airs, refusing the rooms prepared for them, &c., and their hosts are afraid to complain of them to the Shah, for fear he should cut off their heads! He is a true Eastern potentate in his consideration for himself and himself only: is most unconcernedly late whenever he chooses: utterly ignores every one he does not want to speak to: amuses himself with monkeyish and often dirty tricks: sacrifices a cock to the rising sun, and wipes his wet hands on the coat-tails of the gentleman next him without compunction. He expressed his wonder that Lord Salisbury did not take a new wife, though he gave Lady Salisbury a magnificent jewelled order. He knows no English and very few words of French, but when the Baroness Coutts, as the great benefactress of her country, was presented to him by the Prince of Wales, he looked in her face and exclaimed, ‘Quelle horreur!’”

* * * * *

“_July 22._--A wonderful speech (at the Aberdeens’) on Christian work from the Bishop of Ripon (Boyd Carpenter)--eloquent, elevating, touching beyond description. He pictured the system of work going on through all creation--some one resting under a tree as under an object in repose, and then, if the senses could be quickened, hearing the pulse, the ever-labouring pulse which sends the sap through its every fibre: of how fallacious is the ordinary view of God as a sovereign in contemplative repose--how inconsistent with the description given us, ‘My Father worketh and I work:’ of the way in which every practical worker might be a particle of the Spirit of God: of the way in which the Christian life of every individual might radiate on others and permeate their existence, like the halos--unseen by the wearers--on the brows of saints: of the way in which the impression of a visit carried away from each country-house might influence a life, and the duty of leaving the right impression--never by ‘religious talking,’ but by loving action: that the usual saying was ‘Omnia vincit labor,’ but a truer one would be ‘Laborem vincit amor.’”

* * * * *

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

“_Holmhurst, August 15, 1889._--I wish you were here this morning. A delicate haze softens the view of the distant sea, sprinkled over with vessels, and the castle-rock rises up pink-grey against it. Far overhead, the softest of white clouds float in the blue ether. In the meadows, where the cows are ringing their Swiss bells, the old oak-trees are throwing long deep shadows across lawns of the most emerald green, and the flower-beds and the terrace borders are brimming with the most brilliant flowers, over which whole battalions of butterflies and bees are floating and buzzing; the little pathlet at the side winds with enticing shadows under the beech-trees, whilst the white marble Venetian well, covered with delicate sculpture of vines and pomegranates, standing on the little grassy platform, makes a point of refinement which accentuates the whole. Selma steals lazily round the corner to see if she can catch a bird, but finds it quite too hot for the exertion; and Rollo raises himself now and then carelessly to snap at a fly. The doves are cooing on the ledge of the roof, and the pigeons are collecting on the smokeless chimneys. Upstairs Mrs. Whitford and Anne are dusting and laughing over their work, with the windows wide open above the ivied verandah, and Rogers is planting out a box of sweet-scented tobacco-plants which has come by the post.

“Such is little Holmhurst on an August morning. You would be amused with my hearing the other day that one of the servants had said, ‘Our master’s a gentleman as knows his place,’ which meant that I never find fault with an under-servant except through an upper, or cast even the faintest shadow upon an upper-servant if an under-servant is present. After all, it is only another form of Landor’s observation--‘The spider is a gentleman, for he takes his fly in secret.’”

* * * * *

_To_ LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD.

“_St. Michael’s Mount, Sept. 7, 1889._--This is a wonderful and delightful place. It was nearly 10 P.M. when I reached the Marazion station. The day had been very hot, and the evening lights and reflections perfectly lovely; but night had quite closed in. Lord St. Levan’s carriage met me at the station, and stopped at the head of a staircase leading to the sea, where four sturdy boatmen took possession of me and my things, and rowed away on a waveless sea, following up the long stream of brilliant light which fell from one of the upper windows of the castle on the sacred mount, grim and black in the still night. An old man with a lanthorn met me at the landing-place, and guided me up a steep pathlet in the rocks. At the door a maid received me, for the family were all at dinner, but I found a pleasant meal ready for me in a small sitting-room, and then was ushered in to the large party--Lord and Lady St. Levan, six daughters, a son, a niece--Lady Agnes Townshend, Hugh Amherst, two Misses Tyssen Amherst, Mr. and Lady Harriet Cavendish, Miss Hill Trevor, Mr. Stewart, a young Manners, and Mrs. and Miss Lowther. With the latter I have spent many pleasant mornings in drawing on the rock (really improving greatly, I think, in knowledge of the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of everything), whilst the whole family has gone out fishing, and most glorious are the subjects. Mrs. Lowther’s enthusiastic energy makes her a first-rate companion. ‘Elle est au-dessus de l’ennui et de l’oisiveté, deux vilaines bêtes,’ as Madame de Sévigné would have said.

“It is a life apart. The chapel-bell rings at nine, and I always meet Mrs. Lowther on the staircase hurrying up to the service, which is reached by an open-air walk at the top of everything. Then, before breakfast in the ‘Chevy Chase Hall’ (surrounded by old stucco hunting scenes), we linger on the grand platform, looking down into the chrysoprase waves with sea-birds floating over them, and across to the mainland with its various bays, and its fleeting golden lights and purple shadows.

“On Friday we went a long drive, passing St. Buryan’s, one of the three parishes of the Deanery of St. Levan. A Mr. Stanhope was long the rector here, having also a rich living, where he resided, in Essex. At St. Buryan’s he kept a curate, to whom it was only necessary to give a very small stipend indeed, because he was--a harmless maniac! He used to be fastened to the altar-rail by a long chain, which allowed him to reach either the altar or the reading-desk. When once there, he was quite sane enough to go through the service perfectly! On week-day evenings he earned his subsistence by playing the fiddle at village taverns; but he continued to be the officiating clergyman of St. Buryan’s till his death in 1808.

“This truly aquatic family bathe together from a raft at 7 A.M. most mornings. To-day they were all rowed in their scanty bathing costumes, looking like Charon’s souls being ferried to purgatory, into the little port, and there (at twelve mid-day) one after the other took a header into the sea, and swam--many of the guests with them--to the main-shore at Marazion, to the great astonishment of the natives on the beach there. The parents followed or accompanied their mermaid-daughters in safety-boats, but instead of being anxious about those who became exhausted, encouraged them to hold on. George Manners was almost choked by a butterfly flying down his throat, mistaking his head for an unexpected islet.

“The place is beyond everything poetical: even I have been unable to refrain from some verses, which I send you.

“Grey cloud-wreaths lovingly entwine, And in their mystic maze enfold The sacred Mount, which day’s decline Shadowed upon a sheet of gold: And faint and sweet, the surges beat The burthen of the ancient lay, Which low or loud, through mirk and cloud, The Past bewails eternally.

But when the radiant morn awakes To kiss fresh life into the flowers, The windows beam, the turrets gleam, The blue waves break in silver showers, Tossing their glistening foam away In merry riplets to the shore: The Present reigns; the murmuring Past, Though whispering still, is heard no more.

Serene, the great Archangel keeps His vigil here on high, Whilst in the changeful world below Fleet life is fluttering by. Through shine or shower, his silent power, Unheard, unseen his sway, Spirits of ill, which daunt or chill, Shall drive rebuked away.”

* * * * *

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

“_St. Michael’s Mount, Sept. 7, 1889._--I have enjoyed my visit here extremely, and, difficult as it was to manage coming, it is more difficult to get away, from the extreme kindness and genuine hospitality of Lord and Lady St. Levan, who would like one to stay months. I think I never saw such excellent people, or a happier, more united family; and being very well off, their kindnesses to rich and poor cannot be calculated. Then it is indeed the most delightful of homes, so healthy in its pure air of mingled sea and mountain exhilaration, so glorious in its views over land and water, with every atmospheric effect which Nature, never the same, can paint upon both. Looking down from the ramparts into the deep clear chrysoprase water is in itself a delight, and watching the fish rising and leaping with sparkling showers, and the great white seagulls swooping down upon them. No wonder the sons of the house, devoted to sport of every kind, think there is nothing to compare to the fishing excursions round their home. But there is unspeakable grandeur, too, when the sacred Mount is enveloped in sea-fog, shrouding it from all sign of the mainland and everything else, and when nothing is heard but the distant booming of the waves far down below. This is the one great house of England, I suppose, which is approached by no road whatever, for even the pathlet which winds among the cliffs and low wind-blown bushes of the island is lost where it crosses the turfy slopes which intervene here and there. The castle is in seven stories (of which I inhabit the second); many of the rooms are walled with rock, and in one of the narrow passages it is known that a number of skeletons--naughty nuns, I suppose--are walled up. I never saw a place where so much of daily life was in the open air.”

* * * * *

“_Holmhurst, Sept. 19._--From the Mount I went to visit the Tremaynes in the Vale of Tavistock. It was an exquisite still evening when I arrived at Sydenham, and it is a beautiful drive through a richly-wooded valley, till a sharp turn brings one to the old bridge over the clear tossing Lyd, on the other side of which rises the noble old manor-house, only separated from the road by ‘the green court’ with a wrought iron gate. By this gate, as I drove up, stood, with her daughter, Mrs. Tremayne, her exquisite profile, quite white, like a Greek gem, relieved against the dark yew foliage: it is a picture that remains with one. We had tea in the old panelled hall, surrounded by four fine Chinese dogs.

“It would be difficult to over-praise the sweet seclusion of the spot, the constant merry ripple of the sparkling river, the deep shade of the tall trees, the old-fashioned gardens of splendid herbaceous flowers, the charming old rooms and staircase, in which--even in this desolate place--the two powdered footmen do not look out of keeping. But the great charm lies in the family itself--in the ever-genial, courteous, sweet-tempered father--the perfectly beautiful and dignified but simple mother--the daughters and the only son.

“A relic in the house is the ‘tongue-token,’ only given during the Civil Wars to the most faithful friends of the King and Queen,--a little gold medal which could be concealed under the tongue. In this case it was given to the Tremayne of the day, because, at imminent risk to himself, he rode to announce to the King at Oxford the birth of the Princess Henrietta at Exeter.

“We went several excursions: to the fine old gateway of Bradstone; to the Kellys of Kelly, who have a most admirable collection of Alpine plants, growing upon little but old mortar; to the Duke of Bedford’s house of Ensleigh, beautiful in hilly woods feathering down to a river; and to Launceston, a dull place, where the castle recalls that of Gisors.

“From Sydenham I went to see the Elphinstones[484] at their beautiful Government House at Plymouth, and on the same evening to Whiteway, where I paid a delightful visit to the dear Dowager Lady Morley, who is still as genially kind and as sharply truth-exacting as ever. It was comically characteristic that when the foolish Bishop of Exeter (Bickersteth) came over to Whiteway, Lady Morley, with innocent pride, showed him the improvements she had made. ‘You should not take a sinful pride in your possessions,’ said the Bishop; ‘_all_ God’s works are beautiful, and all these are the works of God.’--‘That is all very well,’ answered Lady Morley, ‘but _I_ made this walk.’ It was sad to see Lady Katherine, the companion of many happy mountain excursions long ago, laid up as a permanent invalid; but she is indescribably brave and cheerful.

“A child at Whiteway, being asked where the eggs were laid, answered, ‘On an average.’--‘What do you mean? who told you so?’--‘Father; he said the hens laid, on an average, twenty eggs a day.’

“With the Lowthers and Listers we one day met the Halifaxes and their two eldest children at Bovey, and we all went a delightful excursion over Dartmoor to several of the great tors, which rise above the russet wastes of moor, like castles in the south of France, and to Tecket Falls, near which Lord Devon has a cottage. Hence, after ascending through the mazes of a wood, Charlie H. insisted on our being taken blindfold till we reached ‘Exclamation Point,’ where the present Archbishop of Canterbury had fallen on his knees from the beauty of the view. We did not return till eight, when the Halifaxes stayed to dine, and went home at eleven, walking miles over the moors by night in true Charlie Halifax fashion.

“Endless was the amusing talk of Devonshire quaintnesses. ‘How did you break your arm?’ said Lady Katherine to an old woman. ‘Well, ‘twere all along of gathering apples; ‘twere first the apples and then the fall: I were like Eve, I reckon.’ ‘Blow your nose,’ she said to a child. ‘Yes, mum, but her won’t bide blowed.’”

* * * * *

_To_ LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD.

“_Holmhurst, Nov. 1889._--I have been far too long without writing, life ripples by so quickly: it seems every day more different from the years before I was grown up, when all was so long.... My ‘outing’ to the North was very enjoyable. I was nearly a week at Tatton, where the host and hostess were boundlessly kind. The party there had admirable elements--Lord Savile, Lord and Lady Knutsford, Lord and Lady Jersey, Lord and Lady Waldegrave, Lord and Lady Amherst, Sir Redvers and Lady Audrey Buller, Mr. and Mrs. Piers Warburton, Mrs. Percy Mitford, Mrs. Legh of Lyme, Sir Charles Grant, and Dick Bagot. We were all taken to see the Ship Canal in a royal way, with special trains, luncheon sent on, and tea at the mouth of the Canal in ‘Bridgewater House,’ where the old Duke of Bridgewater spent his later years, and where his picture still presides in the seldom-used dining-room.

“I left with Mrs. Legh, whose ponies met us at the Disley station, and took us a wild drive over moor and fen, rock and fell--a drive of glorious views, but no road whatever--before returning to Lyme. Lady Lovelace came in the evening and was most agreeable, especially in her reminiscences of India and Lady Canning. With her and Mrs. Legh I went to draw the old hall at Marple, an interesting house of the Usherwoods, who inherited it from the Bradshaws: the regicide’s chamber has its original furniture and tapestry.

“Next, I went to Ingmire, a fine old place of Mrs. Upton Cottrell-Dormer, beautifully situated amongst the Westmoreland fells, though geographically in Yorkshire. John Way, the vicar of Henbury, was there, who said that when the boys in his school were reading of Jezebel, how she ‘painted her face, tired her head,’ &c., he asked, ‘Why do you suppose she did that?’--‘She wanted to get married,’ promptly answered a boy--true, probably, too. He described how his great-grandfather, Sir Roger Hill, and his son lay dying at Denham at the same time. It was of the most vital importance to the son’s wife to keep her husband alive beyond his father, just sufficient time to enable him to sign a will, and this she did by killing one pigeon after another, keeping his feet immersed in the body of the hot steaming bird, and, as soon as it chilled, changing it for another. The pigeons conquered, and the Hedgeley property was left away to the son’s widow. The Denham property went to the daughter, Mrs. Lockey, whose daughter Abigail married Mr. Way, and was mother of Benjamin Way and Lady Sheffield.

“From Ingmire I went to Muncaster, which I thought even more beautiful and delightful than before. With Lady Muncaster and Lady Kilmarnock I had one lovely day at Wastwater--glorious in the last coruscations of Nature. The Bishop of Carlisle had just been at Muncaster, who said that a boy in a Board-school examination, being asked one of the foolish Catechism questions of ‘Why is a boy baptized when by reason of his tender age?’ &c., wrote, ‘Why indeed?’

“Another child in a higher class, being asked to define faith, said it was ‘the power of believing absolutely what was utterly incredible.’”

* * * * *

“_Bramfield House, Hertford, Nov. 27, 1889._--Lady Bloomfield is very comfortably established here in a good house of Abel Smith’s, near a pretty little church and village, and in the midst of the amiable Smith colony. She finds no end of good works to do, and really is beyond measure kind, in addition to a thousand other unostentatious goodnesses, in filling her extra rooms with homeless and feeble gentlefolk needing help, kindness, and temporary home. We went through Panshanger yesterday, but I do not admire this cabbage-tree district, all so prosperously unpicturesque.

“You must buy, you really must, ‘John Smith on Church Reform.’ It is by no means the dull book it sounds. You will delight in it, and will present it to Mr. Neville, as I shall to our little clergyman, who is becoming quite as like naughty Rome as he dares, but is a good little man all the same.”

* * * * *

In quoting so constantly from journal and letters, I do not think I have mentioned how much poverty had been pressing upon me in the last few years. Not only had Messrs. Daldy and Virtue, representing my first publishers, ceased to pay even the interest of their large debt, or paid it most irregularly, but under my second set of publishers I had made _nothing whatever_ during the seven years I had been with them. Their accounts showed that 28,000 of my books had been sold in the time, but the innumerable percentages, &c., had swallowed up the whole of the profits, leaving me nothing but the loss of money expended on woodcuts, &c.

“’Tis a very good world that we live in, To lend, or to spend, or to give in; But to beg or to borrow, or get a man’s own, ’Tis the very worst world that ever was known.”

Whilst I was at Muncaster, however, Mrs. Arthur Severn came to the castle, and told me how Mr. Ruskin also had made nothing by his books in the hands of my then publishers, but that they had brought him in a good income since they were removed to the hands of Mr. Allen of Orpington. To his hands, therefore, I soon after removed all my books. I had no complaint of unfairness to make against those I had lately employed; they only acted according to their agreements and their usual method, which I had long hoped against hope might eventually result to my advantage: and they behaved very handsomely about parting with the books, though it must have been both a loss and disappointment to them.

* * * * *

_To_ LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD.

“_Campsea Ashe High House, Dec. 27, 1889._--We have had a very pleasant merry week in this most kindly and happy of family homes, not going out much, but the days full of intellectual interest, the evenings of games, acting, &c. The party has been the two really charming Miss Farquhars, their brother Ernest, pretty, attractive Miss Theresa Lister, Lady Cecily Clifton, Captain Sydney, Kenneth and Miss Matheson, James Lowther, young Brooke--a pleasant clever little county magnate, delightful Jack Cator and his remarkably nice sister, a young Macgregor in the Guards, and to-day the Anstruther Thompsons, the Edmund Fanes, Miss Mullholland, and a young Burroughs have come. Last night we acted a play, ‘The Bilious Husband,’ before a large audience of neighbours. Can you fancy me as Captain Marmaduke Mynch of the Royal Berkshire Plungers? Then there was ‘Barnum’s Show’--Miss Matheson as a mermaid, myself as a dwarf, Miss Lowther as the tattooed woman, Miss Farquhar the fat woman, Brooke a Zulu, Ernest Farquhar an Arab, and Mr. Lowther as ‘The Bearded Lady!’ Another day I dressed up and came in as an old aunt of the family--being the first scene of the word _Antidote_, for which we made a little story. I have liked my frivolous week very much, but it is enough, and I shall be glad to go back to my solitary work at Holmhurst on Monday.

“Kenneth Matheson very kindly said, ‘I know you will consider it sacrilege my pressing you to come to Highcliffe whilst I am its tenant’--which I allowed to be the case!

“I was very glad to hear of Lady Ossington’s will--just like an echo from the generosity, justice, and beneficence of her life.”

* * * * *

From Christmas 1889-90 people were already beginning to talk a great deal about the “Influenza epidemic” which was spreading over Europe, and was like a malarial fever. I was in London for a few hours on January 11, and bringing it back to Holmhurst with me, was very ill for nearly a month, but with the comfort of being in my own home, and, to me, the great comfort of being alone. In illness I quite feel the extreme blessing of religion--not the religion worried and touzled by a thousand million vagaries of personality, but the simple main facts, in which I believe so fully. I find some lines of Elizabeth Trench which exactly express what I feel myself:--

* * * * *

“Lord, I believe not yet as fain I would; Dimly Thy dealings have I understood: Thy word and message yet to me have brought Only a shadow of Thy wondrous thought.

Fain would I follow on to know thee, Lord, Fain learn the meaning of Thy every word; Truth would I know--the truth that dwells in Thee, Setting the lowest heart from doubting free.

Lord, I believe! oh fan this trembling spark, Lest all my hope be lost in endless dark; And where I yet believe not, lead Thou me, And help my unbelief, which seeks for Thee.”

“When all fails, and to stand firm seems impossible, stand on the wood of the Cross; it will float with you,” said Queen Marie Leczinska.

“The Mercy of God--_all_ is included in that word Mercy,” was a saying of the Mère Angelique.

* * * * *

Yet I find it very difficult to endure any other religious book than the Bible itself: all are so self-asserting, so self-seeking; and hymns, with one or two sublime exceptions, are either abjectly foolish or full of the self, even if it be the religious self, of man.

* * * * *

JOURNAL.

“_Feb. 13, 1890._--In December my old servant Joe Cornford died, who had been all my lifetime in the family service. For several years he had been too old and infirm to do any work, but, when he was well enough, he made a pretence of picking up a leaf or two, and received his wages all the same. If it had not been for his grumbling old wife, it would have been a pleasure to see him slowly dragging himself about the walks, but her temper was a trial! He was worse for some time. One day I went in to the lodge to see him after breakfast, and at that moment he suddenly died! Again, as often before, I felt the wonderful power of the great mystery of death, actually seeing life ebb downwards: the forehead become white and waxen, then the cheeks, then the whole being. How I was reminded of the lines of Caroline Bowles (Mrs. Southey):--

‘Oh change, oh wondrous change! Burst are the prison bars, This moment there so low, So agonized, and now Beyond the stars!

Oh change, stupendous change! There lies the soulless clod; The sun eternal breaks, The new immortal wakes-- Wakes with his God.’

“I was at his funeral some days afterwards, the poor old man carried to the grave by our workmen, and followed by seventeen of his descendants, children and grandchildren. He has left me a chair which came out of Hurstmonceaux Castle.”

* * * * *

“_Feb. 26, 1890._--Went to see Lady De Ros,[485] aged ninety-five. She brought out for me her greatest treasure, a beautifully printed Church of England Prayer-book in Spanish. It belonged to the great Duke of Ormonde, and descended from him to Lady Eleanor Butler, by whom and Miss Ponsonby--‘ladies of Llangollen’--it was given to the Duke of Wellington as a boy. He taught himself Spanish by following its services, as he himself says in an inscription on the fly-leaf. In his old age, when Lady De Ros was with him at Strathfieldsaye, she found it in the library, and told him what a valuable book she thought it. ‘Then, if you think it such a valuable thing, I will give it you, my dear.’--‘So, as Douro and Charles were just coming, I took my book away at once,’ said Lady De Ros, ‘for fear they should stop me.’ Some years afterwards the Duke asked Lady De Ros to lend him the book to show to some great librarian. She let it go, but made it a condition that, before it was returned, the Duke should write its history in the book with his own hands; and this he did.

“Lady De Ros also showed me a brush of hogs’-bristles, mounted in ebony, and with a silver plate. And she told how, when she was hunting wild boars with the Duke on Mont St. Jean near Cambrai, an immense boar sprang out of the thicket close by her. The Duke speared it. It was a horrid sight and she shrank from it. ‘Oh, my dear,’ said the Duke, ‘you must not mind it, for I am prouder of having killed that boar than of the battle of Waterloo.’

“Lady De Ros was very full of her dispute with Sir William Fraser about the house in which the ball was given at Brussels by her father, the Duke of Richmond, on the eve of the battle of Waterloo. She was quite certain of her facts, and that the house was now gone. She had been living in the house itself, in the Rue de la Blanchisserie (‘where the Duke would direct to me “in the wash-house“‘), and cited as a proof that the ball was given in her own house, the fact that her youngest sister, who had been sent to bed, stole out, and watched the company arrive through the banisters. ‘I believe Sir William Fraser asserts,’ said Lady De Ros, ‘that I am confused and doting now through my great age, but you know very old people remember the long-ago as if it was to-day, and that is the case with me. In 1860 I went back to see Brussels, and I could not find our house then; the whole street was swept away. At last, as I was walking up and down, I was attracted by the name on a pastry-cook’s shop: it was a name I remembered in that long-ago time. So I went in and asked if they knew anything of our house. “Oh, a house in the Rue de la Blanchisserie,” they said; “it has been pulled down years and years ago.”’

XXVI

AT HOME AND ABROAD

“Le monde n’est éternel pour personne; laisse le passer, et t’attache à celui qui l’a fait.”--DIDEROT, “_Sarrasins_.”

“Time there was, but it is gone; Time there may be--who can tell? Time there is to act upon, Help me, Lord, to use it well.” --LADY WATERFORD’S _Note-Book_.

“Non aver tema, disse il mio Signore: Fatti sicuro, chè noi siamo a buon punto: Non stringer, ma rallarga ogni vigore.” --DANTE, “_Purgatorio_,” Canto ix.

“I hope the hereafter will not lack something to remind us of the beautiful earth-life--beautiful in spite of its sin and sorrow.”--WHITTIER’S _Letters_.

When my friend George Jolliffe had passed his diplomatic examination, I promised him that I would go out and pay him a month’s visit wherever he was sent to. Thus I came to set out for Constantinople on April 10, 1890. The faithful Hugh Bryans went with me. At Vienna I spent several days with the Lützows, who showed me the sights in the most agreeable way. The town was full of grand-dukes or exiled princes--Cumberland, Parma, Tuscany, &c., all very rich and adding to its prosperity.

* * * * *

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

“_British Embassy, Constantinople, April 22, 1890._--We came straight through from Vienna, through the strange unknown country. There were vast plains of corn till Belgrade, a poor town hanging shaggy on the hillside: then we entered low wooded hills like the Sabina. In the Servian villages of rude huts and ruder fences we could see the swarming people, men and women in loose folds of white linen, the former with the air of princes. All seemed remote and unreal, and the shadows, as in Syrian clearness, fell pure blue upon the dusty hills. By the second morning we were passing through Roumelia. All had become poorer. The villages, of wretched huts, stood in wattled enclosures of thorns, inside which all the domestic animals are driven. Now, the men were seen in crimson and green, with magnificent mahogany-coloured faces beneath their turbans, and the women, all closely veiled, moved like masses of dark drapery; a little mosque appeared, with a delicate and refined minaret; a little fountain-cistern with a gothic arch in a grove of thorns; marshes with storks; plains with buffaloes.

“About 3 P.M. the lovely Sea of Marmora gleamed upon the right, with a variety of inlet bays of solitary beauty, and, in the distance, the aërial mountains of Asia. Then a succession of battlemented towers rose on the left from the untrodden plain--the walls of Stamboul! Through these the train passes. We were far from the station still, but what a change from our two days’ desolation! We rushed across many shabby courts, paved either with mud or rough stones. The old houses, with their projecting lattices, were veiled in a web of flowering wistaria, and shaded by pink Judas-trees in fullest bloom. Then above us rose the mosques with their slender minarets and huge storm-blasted cypresses. St. Sophia itself, Achmet, Suleiman, Mahmoud were passed, with many a strange gothic fountain or decorated cistern, before we reached the shed-like station, where George was a most welcome sight, armed with an Embassy cavass to extricate us from the mass of yelping, screaming natives.

“Off we went across the creaking, rocking, timber bridge over the Golden Horn, thronged by the strangest of multitudes. Then up the steep street of Galata, where the lattices project till they almost obliterate the sky, and the pavement is made of rough stones set edgeways, up which the horses scrambled like cats. A road succeeded, a dusty deep-rutted track, overlooking an old burial-ground without barriers, where, amid the immemorial cypresses, thousands of battered tombstones remain, neglected, ruined, but never wilfully destroyed; and so we reached the handsome palace of the Embassy, with its delightful garden, overlooking the valley of the Golden Horn.

“I have been here two days now, and cannot say how delightful I find it to be with George, with whom every thought may be exchanged. I live in the room of an absent attaché, and the life is like that of a college. Unfortunately, on the first afternoon I caught a dreadful chill in the boat, and have been very ill ever since, though I dragged myself out yesterday to take advantage of a rarely procured permit to see the famous church of St. Irene, where the Council of Constantinople was held, and where the Christian emperors, Constantine, Arcadius, &c., repose, some of them in grand porphyry sarcophagi. I went with two clergymen, friends of Arthur Stanley, Canon Farrar of Durham, and Dr. Livingstone, who had been to every other scene of a General Council: this was the last!”

* * * * *

“_April 27._--I have been suffering terribly from rheumatic fever, but am better to-day, and have been to St. Sophia. The carriage stopped at an obscure door on the N.W., where the cavass took off his boots and fetched some of the Turkish guardians of holiness, who, for a very large consideration of baksheesh, put slippers over ours. Then we passed the curtain, and found ourselves at once at the northern extremity of the great western narthex, like that of St. Mark’s at Venice on a huge scale, and--almost immediately--from a side-door, in the church itself.

“It is so unspeakably, overwhelmingly, indescribably, entrancingly, bewilderingly glorious, words can give no idea of it.

“Of the immense space--a St. Mark’s lifted into the heavens, soaring far above in the mystic involutions of its entwining arches and the delicate nuances of its grey-golden colouring, never sufficiently defined to be obtrusive in any special point, only melting and harmonising into a whole as tender and glorious as the hues on a dove’s back. So also in the architectural details; all the walls, all the chapels are filled with the most exquisite and graceful sculptured ornament, but the grand impression of space is never lessened by any single object leaving its own identity upon the vision, till the gaze rests far above upon the pendentives of the mightiest dome, where float the four huge prophetic seraphim[486] with their many wings folded in repose--with twain they covered their breasts, with twain they covered their feet, and with twain they did fly.

“Close to the entrance was a vast fountain gurgling, rushing, spouting--a fountain of ablutions. Far towards the east, and beneath the two floating green banners of the Prophet, was the _mimber_ or pulpit of Friday prayer, and near it a platform for the choir, who face, not the east, but the Kibla, the holy house of Mecca. Under the shadowy arches are the cup and cradle of Jesus of Bethlehem, revered as a great teacher, the latter a hollowed block of red marble; the ‘sweating column,’ the ‘shining stone,’ and the ‘cold window,’ fresh with the north wind, where the Sheik Shemseddin, the companion of Mahomet II. (the Conqueror), expounded the Koran. We may also see the pillar on which Mahomet the Conqueror left the mark of his bloody hand; for through the church itself, and the crowds of clergy and virgins who had taken refuge there, he rode, exclaiming ‘There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his Prophet,’ and ordaining the violation of sanctuary. Here and there, but lost in the extreme immensity, are chapels or refuges where groups of men, or of veiled women apart from them, seem to hold little services, with private litanies of their own. In some of these, solitary individuals, wrapped in devotion or penance, were perpetually smiting the earth with their foreheads: in one an old man was shouting, yelling, screaming portions of the Koran, flinging the words with savagest ferocity amongst groups of squatters in fezes and turbans, who received them quite unconcerned.

“The columns in the church make up the mystic number of forty, typical to the Eastern mind of all pomp and splendour. The cupola is inscribed ‘God is the light of the heavens and the earth!’ On its Rhodian tiles are written ‘God hath founded it, and it will not be overthrown: God will support it in the blush of the dawn.’ Nothing probably remains of the fourth-century church of Constantine, but the present church is chiefly that of Justinian, who employed a hundred architects, each with a hundred masons under him, of whom five thousand worked on the right, and five thousand on the left, according to the advice given to the emperor by an angel. The church itself is under the guardianship of an angel, who appeared to a boy watching the tools of lazy masons, and bade him hurry them back to their work, saying he would guard his charge till he came back. But the boy never came back, for the emperor intercepted him, and sent him off, well provided for, to the Cyclades, that the angel might be obliged to watch for ever.

“Our driver stuck his cigarette behind his ear and took us to the Hippodrome, where we saw the great obelisk, raised by Theodosius on a base with curious reliefs: and the brazen serpents supposed to have been brought from Delphi, or the remains of them, for the Sultan Murad broke off one of their heads. Along the side of the square runs the screen of the Mosque of Ahmed (the state church), enclosing its vast dusty court, old elm-trees, cloister, and a fountain, around which were groups of people washing, dressing, and being shaved before entering the sanctuary.

“We drove by the tomb of the Sultan Mahmoud the Reformer, where we stared through a metal screen at his sarcophagus, to the finest of the great mosques or _djami_, the glorious Suleimanyeh, which Solyman the Magnificent intended to surpass St. Sophia. On its giant dome is the truly catholic inscription (Sura xxiv. 36), ‘God is the light of heaven and earth. His light is in the windows on the wall, in which a lamp burns covered with glass. The glass shines like a star, the lamp is lit with the oil of a blessed tree. No Eastern, no Western oil; it shines for whoever wills it.’ On the ever-clean matted floor of this mosque of glorious proportions numbers of barefooted children were sporting as in a playground, and very pretty and graceful were the interlacing groups which they made. The ecclesiastical revenue of Suleimanyeh is 300,000 piastres. Behind is a curious burial-ground, crowded with tombs, chiefly of women, marked by a sculptured rose, whilst the headstones of the men are crowned by a turban or fez. In two great sepulchral chapels or _turbé_ lie Solyman the Magnificent and his immediate family and successors. The sarcophagi are covered with splendid embroideries and delicate muslins, those of the sultans being often shrouded by their favourite wives with their shawls--most precious of their possessions. At their heads are their tall white turbans, with bunches of peacocks’ feathers on either side. The famous Roxolana lies amongst the group of ladies.

“But all through the streets of Stamboul the greatest feature is the little burial-grounds, with their closely packed tombs and their huge cypresses or tamarind trees, which always give them picturesqueness, between the houses, at the angles of the streets, everywhere--the dead forced, as it were, into the very life of the living, and never to be forgotten for a moment.

“The next great feature--and an odious one--is the swarms of dogs, like little foxes, which lie about everywhere in the sun, encumbering the footways, and refusing to move for any one. They are the friends of cats, but if a strange dog enters their quarter, they demolish him at once. They never bite a human being, at least they have never been known to bite more than one, and that was--the Russian ambassador! Successive travellers have given the idea that they are scavengers, but it is quite false: a man goes round at night with a cart and takes everything undesirable away. All night the air resounds with the yells of the dogs. The English doctor is obliged to poison them by hundreds near the hospital, or all the patients would die of the noise.

“We ended our first eventful drive at the Mosque of Bajazet, where the court was now turned into a bazaar, and round the central fountain glowed a moving mass of colour--white turbans, green turbans of Mecca, pilgrims, negroes, Armenians, robed women in shot violet silk. Overhead a perfect roar of wings indicated that the sacred pigeons of the mosque were moving in vast battalions from one part to another. At the many-coloured stalls, the beads--especially the green beads--were quite irresistible. In the _turbé_ of Bajazet, under the head of the Sultan, is a brick made of all the dust collected off his clothes and shoes during his lifetime: his mother and his two daughters lie beside him.

“It is a great pleasure having Gerard Lowther here; and the other attachés, Finlay and Tower, are charming.”

* * * * *

“_May 12._--As I have felt stronger, each day here has been more full of interest. On alternate mornings I stay quietly in the Embassy garden or the adjoining cemeteries and have luncheon with my kind hosts, with whom I have several times been out afterwards to the bazaars, steep, rugged, stony lanes, arched overhead, and a blaze of colour from their shops and costumes. Here we have been served with cups of coffee in the inner den of Marchetto, the tradesman of ‘Paul Patoff,’[487] whilst going through the wearisome routine of bargaining for old silver, weighing and reweighing, and only discovering one had concluded a purchase when one had utterly despaired of it. How forcibly the truth of that verse of Proverbs strikes one here--‘It is nought, it is nought, saith the buyer, but when he goeth his way, he boasteth thereof.’ The whole bazaar seems like an inextricable web to outsiders, yet any one or anything can be found there in ten minutes by one who knows the place; and, amid all the bustle and confusion, one sees many a charming picture of an old Turk with snowy beard and robes, sitting cross-legged at an angle of his counter, poring over an ancient parchment Koran, and as utterly absorbed in it as if he were in the Great Desert. How the names Aladdin, Mustapha, Scheherazade, Zobeide, recalled the large edition of the ‘Arabian Nights’ which was at Hurstmonceaux Rectory in my childhood.

“On other days I have gone off immediately after breakfast with a cavass from the Embassy--Dimitri--as my guard, making much use of the trams, from which one sees so much that is curious, and in which one has so many experiences of Turkish life, from the ladies like bundles of green, brown, or shot silk, who are huddled behind the curtain at the end of the carriage, to the child-pasha well provided with copper coins to quiet the numerous clamourers for baksheesh. Thus I have twice reached Yedi Kouli, the Seven Towers, where the triple walls of the town make their farthest angle close to the Sea of Marmora--bluest of blue waters melting into chrysoprase-green near the shore. Here I was drawing an old gate in pencil in my little book, heedless of an old Turk who had been cursing the ‘christian dog’ as a breaker of the second commandment, when suddenly, with a spring, he flew upon me, and in an instant his long talons would have torn out my eyes, if Dimitri, throwing himself upon him, had not hurled him on his back in the gutter, after which he got up, and went away quite quietly. Another day, after we had made the circuit of the wonderful walls, I was sitting to draw in the middle of the white dusty road near the Adrianople gate, and Dimitri had fallen asleep on a tombstone a few steps behind me, when suddenly he called out with a rueful voice that he had been robbed, plundered of his watch and chain, whilst I, rather more in evidence in the sunshine, had escaped. It is near this gate, the Polyandria of the Greeks, that we saw the curious mosque, once a church covered with mosaics like St. Mark’s, and still retaining many of them. One was shown as the Virgin waiting for her Teskerei, or passport, to go into Egypt!

“All around the walls are tombs: the woods are filled, the hillsides are powdered, with them. The woods are all of cypress, which is supposed to neutralise effluvia. When a death occurs, a body is hurried to the grave as soon as possible, for the soul is always in torment, it is believed, between the death and burial. Little parcels of food are laid in holes by the side of the grave, and large headstones are always erected, stones on which the angels Nebir and Munkir sit to judge the souls of the dead. We saw many touching little funerals--young girls being carried to the grave without any coffin or shroud. The blocks of stone on the road date from the time of Justinian. At an angle of the cemetery opposite the gate of Silivri a row of head-stones marks the graves of the heads of Ali Pacha (de Tébelin) and his four sons, cut off in 1827. Close to this a lane turns off through the tombs and cypresses to the monastery of Baloukli. Here, from a courtyard, filled, like everything else, with tombs, we descended a staircase at the head of which an old priest was squatting as guardian of a number of huge brass alms-dishes. In the subterranean chapel below are more alms-dishes, and a fountain with the ‘miraculous fish,’ black on one side, red on the other. On the 29th of May 1455, a monk was engaged in frying them, when a man rushed in and announced the capture of Constantinople by the Turks. ‘I shall believe it,’ said the monk, ‘when these fish leap out of the frying-pan,’ and they leapt out immediately, and have remained half-cooked to this day! At the little restaurant close to the monastery, shaded by pink Judas-trees and strewn with white sand, we had our luncheon, bread, pilaf, galetta, hard eggs, wine, and syrup of roses.

“Beyond the Adrianople Gate the walls and cemetery descend together to Eyoub, a hamlet at the head of the Golden Horn, with a very sacred mosque, which heretics are not allowed to enter, as it contains the sword of Mahomet, with which the Sultan girds himself on the day of his installation, and in its court, shaded by noble plane-trees, the tomb of Eyoub, standard-bearer of the Prophet, near whose resting-place are grouped a number of royal _turbé_, those of the Valide Sultana, mother of Selim III., and of Hussein Pacha being the most remarkable. We made a separate excursion hither, finding the rugged streets round the mosque occupied by the gay booths of a fair shaded by banksia roses in full bloom, and the keeper of the sanctuary standing at the gate with a drawn sword to prevent the entrance of the giaours. But we wandered behind, by the steep ascent between the eternal burial-grounds, where there was a grand view down the Golden Horn between the old cypresses, all the mosques of Stamboul embossed upon an aërial sunset sky.

“On May 3 we met a large party at Dolma Baghtché, one of the great palaces which are memorials of the extravagance of Abdul Medjid. The rooms are those in which his son, the savage Abdul Aziz, used to throw everything that came to hand at those who offended him. They are only used by the present Sultan for the great reception of Beiram, when all the great dignitaries of the empire flock to kiss the hem of his garment. The palace is vast, but decorated like a French café, with glass banisters to the staircase and numbers of fifth-rate pictures: nothing but the hall is worth seeing. Close by is the mosque of Abdul Medjid, with two slender minarets, and beyond it the palace of Teheragan-Sérai, where the ex-Sultan Murad is kept a prisoner, no one being allowed to linger either on the road or in a boat in front of the building. The existing Sultan goes to see him sometimes, but asserts ‘My brother and every one belonging to him are quite perfectly mad.’

“We all went by carriage with an order to the Seraï or Seraglio near St. Sophia, which occupies at least two-thirds of the ancient Byzantium, selected by Constantine for his capital. By an unkempt ascent we reach the Bab-el-Sélam, or Gate of Safety, which had doors on either side, and in the intermediate space of which high officials condemned by the Divan were executed. Passing an avenue of cypresses, we reached a second gate, the Bab Seadet, or Gate of Happiness, guarded by white eunuchs. It was here that the sultans used to give up their unpopular ministers to the popular fury; that Murad III. gave up his favourite falconer, Mehemet, to be cut to pieces before his eyes; that Mahomet III. gave up his three chief eunuchs, and Murad IV. his grand-vizier Hafiz, who was killed by seventeen wounds. Many old aunts and cousins of sultans still reside in the inner apartments, guarded by numbers of eunuchs, the historic criminal figures of Turkish history, whose existence is expressly condemned by the Koran, and who are generally bought or stolen as children from Syria or Abyssinia. Without name, family, or sex, they often marry, and even have harems for the sake of feminine friendship.

“The treasury is full of boundless barbaric treasures, uncut emeralds, &c., and much fine armour and china. The finest single object is the throne of Selim I., taken from the Shah of Persia, of green enamel studded with pearls and rubies. In the Salle du Divan is the curious bed where the sultans received ambassadors, though they only saw him through the window. We also saw the glorious Bagdad mosque lined with blue Persian tiles, built by the Sultan Amurath in remembrance of one he had known at Bagdad. In the garden is the famous cage where, from the time of Mahomet IV., sultans shut up princes who rebelled against them: Abdul Aziz was confined there from his deposition to his death. Afterwards, I sat with Sir George Bowen on the terrace, which has an exquisite view up the Bosphorus, while immediately below us ran the railway line, which suggests the fall of Turkey. We were served with sweetmeats of rose-leaves, and coffee in golden cups studded with diamonds, by an attendant who bore an embroidered cloth upon his shoulder to conceal the empty cups which had been used by Christians, and were therefore unclean. This would sound hospitable on the part of the Sultan if one forgot to mention that we had each had to pay about fifteen francs to enter the palace, and that there were about thirty of us.

“Another day we went to the mosque of Selimyeh, beautifully situated, and afterwards I sat to draw under a bower of banksia roses, surrounded by a marvellous group of Turkish figures, in the Saddlers’ Bazaar (_serra-jobane-jamissi_). Here the people were good to us, as there are so many Christians in that quarter of the town, but generally the natives never cease cursing those who are breaking the second commandment by making a likeness of something in heaven or earth. In the courtyard of Suleimanyeh I was less fortunate: a number of soldiers crowded in front, wholly obstructing all view, and on Dimitri remonstrating, their officer came up quite furious, with ‘My men shall stand where they like, and if they wish to hide the man’s view they shall certainly do so.’ Twice I have toiled to the distant mosque of Mehmedyé, for Mahomet the Conqueror built it on the site of the famous church of the Holy Apostles, founded by Constantine the Great, and where he was buried with eleven other emperors. A dial over a gate near this is inscribed (from the Koran), ‘Didst thou not see thy Lord, how He extended thy shadow?’ On some of these excursions it has been most difficult to procure anything whatever for luncheon, for it is the fast of Ramazan, when no good Turk allows any food whatever to pass his lips between sunrise and sunset, on the approach of which he will begin to hold in his hands the viands which he will devour the very instant the gun fires. Wine at all times is described as ‘the father of all abominations,’ yet Solyman the Great, who burnt all the vessels laden with wine in the port, himself died drunk: Murad IV., who cut off the head of any one who smelt of wine, was a regular drunkard: Bajazet I. and II. both drank, and to Selim II. was given the surname of ‘mesth’--the drunkard: so much for the far-famed Turkish consistency.

“We went to the evening service at St. Sophia, three white-turbaned figures receiving us in the dark at a postern door, and--after exacting ten francs apiece--conducting us by a winding stair to the broad gallery, far beneath which the great chandeliers gleamed like flower-beds over the immense grey space, intersected by long lines of black figures--all males, for women are soulless--bending, curvetting, prostrating symmetrically like corn in a wind, and with the same kind of rush and rustle. It is a curious but monotonous sight, a repetition of the same movement over and over again, and the shrill harsh cry of the swaying and falling lines, even more discordant in its echo by the choir, soon grates upon one: especially as the priests never cease whispering and worrying for extra baksheesh.

“After waiting one morning for a weary time with an order at the ‘Selamlik,’ we saw the Sultan go to the Yildis mosque. The coachman was gorgeous in his golden livery, but the ‘Sultan of Sultans, the King of Kings,’ was a piteous sight, a mixture of boredom and terror. Cringing cowardice prevents his going to Stamboul more than one day in the year, and this occurred lately. It is a great day for the court ladies, who are all allowed to accompany him in three hundred carriages, and avenge themselves for veiled faces by exhibiting their bare arms covered with bracelets and as much else as they dare. Mahomet says, ‘He who espouses only one wife is praiseworthy,’ and now it is considered indiscreet to have more than four legitimate wives, who are all equal, and who have each their own dowry and servants. Women are generally well treated here now, a divorce is easy, and each wife has a right to a separate room, and may even exact a separate house, if she cannot get on with the other wives.

“Almost every night through the streets there is a rush of the Talumbodgi or firemen--half-naked savages with primitive engines, who scurry to save the valuables of burning houses, not for the owners, but for themselves, so that they are far more dreaded than the flames. In recent conflagrations in Galata and Pera it is certain that the fire began in three or four places at the same moment; for when a street in Constantinople is wholly bad or unsafe, the authorities do not scruple to set fire to it, regardless of the consequences, though the people are such fatalists that they will not leave their dwellings till the last moment, and then fly, leaving everything behind them.”

* * * * *

“_May 22._--I write during a quiet day with George at the Embassy, after my return from Broussa, where I have been spending a week.... It was a voyage of five hours in a steamer crowded with Turks on their carpets, sleeping, praying, or reciting the Koran, and at the ends of the vessel knots, lumps, and clusters of women. Outside Seraglio Point the view of Stamboul is very fine, St. Sophia and the Achmet mosque rising above the old sea-walls, and the gardens lovely with rich green and pink Judas bloom. We passed the islands--Antigone, where Sir H. Bulwer lived with the Greek princess, and Prinkapo, to which the Empress Irene was banished, and where she is buried. After two hours it became very rough, and all were sick, especially a number of Turkish officers, who up to that time had been eating voraciously. So it was indeed a relief when we entered the comparatively calm bay of Mudania, with its glorious leaping ‘multitudinous seas’ of sapphire and chrysoprase waves, amid which endless dolphins--true clowns of the sea--were tumbling and sporting.

“At Mudania a horde of half-naked savages leaped on board to seize our luggage, and a hand-to-hand fight ensued, during which we had to scale the bulwarks of the vessel to reach the pier. Then came a scramble and a bargaining for carriages, but at last we were off and up the hills, where boys were selling piles of cherries for half a piastre (1¼ d.) on the ascent. In the valley beyond, we came up with a knot of carriages in a desolate place, the inmates standing in the road round one whose wheel was coming off. It had contained two ladies, and I took up one of them, who turned out to be Miss Holmes, sister of the librarian at Windsor. Very lovely was the ascent to Broussa, through the rich green walnut-woods and by rushing streams, to the exquisite chain of mosques and minarets under the lower slopes of Olympus. At the table-d’hôte we had the British Consul, who stated that he ‘was not at all gone on mosques;’ he had been seventeen years in Constantinople and had seen nothing but St. Sophia--‘what on earth was the good?’ The hotel was delightful, and nothing could be more exquisite than the view from my window, whence I watched the long lines of camels following the inevitable donkey, and the handsome population, arrayed in every colour of the rainbow as to male turbans and girdles and the loose robes women are arrayed in. Thence also, I constantly heard, from the mosque of Murad, the shrill voice ‘La Ilah il Allah vè Mohammed resoul Allah,’ calling the people to prayer.

“On the first day I joined Miss Holmes and her friend Miss Bacon on a long excursion through the town, going first to the famous Green Mosque (Yéchil-Djami), which stands on a platform with old trees and a glorious view over the plain. We were not allowed to enter at once; it was the service for women, who are permitted this mosque only. ‘Priest very old and well covered up: it must be so,’ said the dragoman; ‘it is necessary to guard their moralities: just let them a little loose, and it is a very bad job.’

“Close by is a beautiful _turbé_ with an entrance worthy of the Alhambra, and lovely tiles and jewelled glass within. Beneath the dome lies the sarcophagus of Mahomet I., with those of his son, his six daughters, and their nurse--the last very plain, but close to the royal coffins. In the centre of the mosque itself is a beautiful fountain, which freshens the air with a rush of falling waters: around are inscriptions--‘God is love,’ ‘Mahomet is the prophet of God,’ and the names of the six caliphs who were the companions of Mahomet. The _mimber_ here is only ascended by the Sheik el Islam himself, when he gives the blessing with the Koran. As an interior, Oulou-Djami, the great mosque in the centre of the town, has even more perfect proportions--a perfection of interlacing architecture inclining to gothic, forming twenty-four cupolas, and centering in the great dome above a splashing fountain. Outside this mosque, facing the street, a bay-tree overshadows the tomb of a sainted dervish: sick people hang bits of their clothes around it, and think that, with them, they leave their ailments there. Oulou-Djami stands on the edge of the vast bazaar, where splendid Eastern dresses are seen in perfection: the perfectly fitting jackets and breeches of the men, of richest embroidered stuff, never costing less than from £3 to £10, so that one wondered at their not minding the frequent torrents of rain; but it is all ‘kismet.’ When at home these glorious-looking Turks do nothing, for there is nothing to do: if a house takes fire, they do not care--there is nothing to burn but a few divans: perhaps the owner takes his clothes with him when he escapes--there is nothing else to take. They rise early and have a cup of coffee, at ten they breakfast, at six is dinner, at eight they go to bed: a few possible visits are the only variety of the day.

“It was a delightful drive to the Citadel, where all the space not occupied by wonderful old buildings is shaded by the most magnificent planes and cypresses, watered by crystal streams, which have their source here. The tombs of the first Osmanli princes, Osman and Orchan, are here, restored after an earthquake. On the tomb of Osman lies the order of the Osmanlieh: two of his sons and fourteen of his daughters surround him. A more curious family burial-place is that of Mouradié, a green enclosure, bright with fountains and roses, and containing a whole succession of venerable _turbé_ of the family of Murad I. and Mehemet II., chiefly murdered victims. Amongst the latter, the tomb of the hero-prince Djem is especially rich and striking. The grave of Murad, by his own desire, is left open to the rain of heaven, and is covered with sickly grass. Of the early Broussa Sultans, several--being sons of fathers of eighteen and mothers of sixteen--were generals of armies and governors of provinces at fourteen, and their enormous families were due to the fact that they continued to have children from sixteen to seventy.

“We drove on to another noble mosque at Tchékirgué, about two miles from Broussa, with more tombs and relics. Amongst the latter is shown a prayer, inscribed on wood and enclosed in a bottle. ‘When the bottle breaks, Broussa will become christian,’ is the tradition--suggesting an easy and cheap enterprise for missionaries. In front of this mosque (Ghazy-Hounkiar) is a fountain surrounded by cold and hot springs alternately, and a little below the village, on the edge of the valley, are the picturesque old domed baths, the strong sulphuric springs of which are famous throughout Turkey. All around Broussa is rich soil and vegetation; hollyhocks grow wild along the hedges: it is a glorious climate: only justice and government are needed.

“I am sorry to go away without seeing more of the Bosphorus, but I have just been to Therapia, where the _villeggiatura_ life in summer must be delightful.”

* * * * *

“_May 23._--My last hours at Constantinople were spent in an expedition with the Whites in their picturesque state barge to the Sweet Waters of Europe. I believe I have said nothing of Sir William White, though he is the ambassador in whose house I have been living so long. His simple manners are full of bluff humour. He is said to understand the Turk perfectly, and rose entirely by his own merits, with the help of a lucky appointment to the Conference of 1876-77.”

* * * * *

_To_ LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD.

“_Ober-Ammergau, June 2._--We have seen the Passion-Play. It is a day to have lived for: nothing can be more sublimely devotional, more indescribably pathetic.

“Our journey from Constantinople was accomplished very easily. We stayed to see Buda-Pesth, a very handsome modern city, and then had two days of perfect enjoyment at Halstadt and the exquisite Gosau Lake. On Friday night we slept at Oberau, and drove here early on Saturday morning, finding the Lowthers at once in the village street, and spending most of that day in drawing with them. We went at once to the house of the Burgomaster to inquire where we were billeted. All the material part of life is most comfortably and economically arranged for visitors. I am quartered with St. Thomas, and all through the day one meets peasants with long hair, recalling Biblical figures. The Burgomaster’s beautiful daughter is the Virgin Mary. In a gracious and touching spirit of unselfish love all these villagers live together for mutual help and comfort. They have been trained under their late pastor, Aloys Daisemberger, to regard the Passions-Spiel, which is the great event of their quiet lives, not only as a religious service of thanksgiving to which every talent and energy must be contributed for the glory of God, and a manifestation of gratitude for His preservation of them, but they are also taught to look upon it as an instrument which God’s grace has placed in their hands for the calling back of Europe to Christianity, through the dark mists of infidelity which have been creeping over it in the nineteenth century. And truly in this the actual visit to Ober-Ammergau may be as full of teaching as the great representation itself--the simple contact with such men as ‘Christus Maier,’[488] as he is called, whose life’s work is ‘to endeavour to do God’s will _aufs innersten_, and to be helpful to those around him.’ Here, in Ober-Ammergau--perhaps here alone--religion takes no heed of Roman Catholic or Protestant vagaries; the will of God, the example of Christ, those are the only guidance of life. In the five sermons of Daisemberger preparatory to the Passion-Play of 1871,[489] there is not a single word which indicates Romanism. ‘Look, O disciples of Christ,’ says Daisemberger to his people; ‘see your Master, how gentle, how kind He is, how mild in His intercourse with those around Him, how full of heartiest sympathy for their joys and sorrows. Then can you, in your intercourse with those around you, be grumbling, rough, discourteous, self-asserting, repellent, and wanting in sympathy? Oh no! you could never endure to be so unlike your Master.’

“It is a beautiful place, a high upland mountain valley, covered with rich pastures and enamelled with flowers. A long street, or rather road, lined by comfortable detached timber houses, leads to the handsome church, around which the older part of the village groups itself above the clear rushing Ammer, and is highly picturesque. Beyond the village, in the meadows overlooked by the peak of the Kofel, is the theatre where the great drama of the Passion is enacted, which, ever since 1634, has commemorated every tenth year the then deliverance of Ammergau from the plague which was devastating the neighbouring villages.

“All through Friday it was curious to meet a succession of London acquaintances, and most unexpected ones, but from all being here with one object, no one was uncongenial. And all is so perfectly managed, there is no fuss or hurry; comfortable accommodation, good seats, excellent food are provided for all who are permitted to come, for the visitors for every performance are limited to the 2000 for whom there is room; no unexpected persons, no excursionists are ever admitted. No thought of gain has ever the slightest influence upon the villagers, and the prices are only such as pay what is absolutely due.

“Yesterday morning, I imagine, no visitor could sleep after four, when their peasant hosts began to tramp overhead and clatter down their narrow oak staircases. Then, after an excellent breakfast of hot coffee, cream, eggs, and toast, many visitors and all the people of Ober-Ammergau hurried to the six-o’clock service in the church, where all the five hundred actors knelt with their pastor in silent prayer, and many of them received the Sacrament. At eight all were comfortably placed in their seats in the open-air theatre, and the soft wild music of Schutzgeister, which seems to come from behind the hills, preluded the performance.

“One might be seated in the Piazza del Popolo at Rome with one’s back to the gate. There is the same vast intervening space, and the same three branching streets (the central closed by an inner theatre for tableaux), with marked buildings at the entrance. Only here those buildings are the houses of Annas, Caiaphas, and Pilate, and the streets are those of Jerusalem, lined with Eastern houses, domes, and here and there a palm-tree, and they melt far away into lovely ethereal mountain distances, the real mountains of the Bavarian Alps. The performance begins when the spirit-chorus of eighteen persons, male and female, in many-coloured tunics and mantles, advance in stately lines from either side of the stage, and in a chaunt, weird but most distinctly audible, explain what is coming, and urge those present to receive it in a humble spirit of reverence and adoration of God. Then, on the central stage, begin the strange series of types and antitypes, and, as the veil falls the second time, the vast Hosanna-procession of five hundred men, women, and children, singing, shouting, and strewing palm-branches, appears down the distant streets, and, as it draws nearer, and the mountains resound with jubilant shouts and the whole air is ablaze with life and colour, the serene, rapt, stately figure of the Christus, riding upon the ass, but even then spiritualised into absolute sublimity by the sense of his divine mission, comes for the first time before us. Afterwards, through the long eight hours of thrilling tension which follow, overshadowing the endless, almost wearisome, series of Old Testament scenes, drawing every heart and eye nearer to himself through the agony of the trial, the cross-bearing, the crucifixion, does that sublime figure become more familiar; never again can the thought of the God-man be severed from it. And in the great drama itself one sees all the rest, but one feels with, one lives for, the Christ alone; and the dignity of his lofty patience, unmoved from the holy calm which pervades his whole being even when four hundred savage Jews are shouting and jibing round in clamorous eagerness for his death, must be present with one through life.

“I cannot tell it all. Words fail and emotions are too much. Through that long day--oh! is it that day alone?--one knows how to live with, to suffer with Christ: one is raised above earth and its surroundings: one dies with Him to sin and suffering: one is raised with Him into heavenly places. After some hours, England is forgotten, Germany is forgotten. You are a Jew. Jerusalem is your home: all, _all_ your interests are centred there: nothing earthly is of the very least importance to you except the great tragedy that is being enacted before your eyes. It is perhaps the humanity of Christ which is brought most forcibly before you; but oh! how divinely human, how humanly divine!

“Could one wonder that Mr. Vanderbilt, the American millionaire, said that he owed everything--everything for this world and the next--to Ober-Ammergau? it had unveiled and explained religion for him: it had made the Bible a living reality.

“I think of the Old Testament scenes, the Fall of the Manna is the most beautiful. More than four hundred Israelites, including a hundred and fifty children, are seen--groups of the most exquisite and harmonious colour--with Moses and Aaron in the desert; and between you and them, and amongst and around them, falls mysteriously the soft vaporous manna; whilst the chorus in sweet, wild, lingering monotone chaunt the beautiful hymn beginning--

‘Gut ist der Herr, gut ist der Herr.’

“Of the New Testament scenes, the leave-taking with the family of Bethany is perhaps the most pathetic. It is an exquisite sunset scene. Huge olive-trees stretch their gnarled boughs overhead and are embossed against the amber sky, in the distance the village of Bethany stands out in the soft blue mists of evening. Through the sunset comes the Christ in lingering last words with the sisters and Lazarus, and there, under the old trees, is their last farewell, touching indescribably, after which the weeping family return to Bethany, and he goes away, a solitary figure upon the burnt hills in the twilight, to his death at Jerusalem.

“At Ober-Ammergau one for the first time realises the many phases of the trial--in the house of Caiaphas, of Annas, of Pilate, of Caiaphas again, of Pilate again; and all is terribly real--the three crosses, for instance, so really heavy, that none but a very strong man can support them. One thinks better of Pilate after the performance, through which one has watched his struggles--his weary, hopeless struggles to save the life of Christ. Almost every act, nearly every word, is directly taken from the Gospel history. Amongst the few touches added is that of Mary the mother, accidentally arriving at Jerusalem, meeting the other Marys in one of the side streets and talking of the condemnation of a Galilean which has just taken place. Then, as the street opens, suddenly seeing the cross-bearing in the distance, and thrilling the whole audience with anguish in her cry of ‘It is my son: it is Jesus!’ The Last Supper is an exact reproduction of Leonardo’s fresco, and many of the other scenes follow the great masters.

“How thrilling were the words, how almost more thrilling were the _silences_, of Christ.[490]

“The evening shadows are beginning to fall as we see Christ raised on the cross. He hangs there for twenty minutes, and most indescribably sublime are the words given from thence. When all is over, it is so real, you think that _this time_ death must really have taken place. The three crosses, the bound thieves, the fainting women, the mounted centurion, the soldiers drawing lots, all seem to belong to real events, enacted, not acted. The deposition of the dead Christ on the white sheet is a vast Rubens picture.[491]

“The resurrection is more theatrical, but in the final scene, where the perfect figure of the spiritual Christ is seen for the last time, he goes far away with his disciples and the Marys, and then, upon Olivet, in the midst of the group relieved against the golden sunset, he solemnly blesses his beloved ones, and whilst you gaze rapt, seems to be raised a little, and then you look for him and he is not.

“Each one of the four thousand spectators then sits in a vast sense of loneliness amid the silent Bavarian hills. The long tension is over. The day is lived out. The Master we have followed we can follow no longer with material sight. He has suffered, died, and risen from the grave, and is no longer with us: in the heavens alone can we hope to behold Him as He is.”

* * * * *

After leaving Ober-Ammergau, Hugh Bryans and I went with the Lowthers and Mrs. Ridley to Rothenburg, still an unaltered diminutive mediaeval city, and the most interesting place in Germany. Then I paid a delightful visit to my dear Bunsen friends at Carlsruhe and Herrenalb, and on our way back to England we saw the marvellous Schloss Eltz, going thither in a bullock-cart up the bed of the river from the attractive little inn at Moselkern, kept by a very old man and woman, sitting upon the very border-land of heaven.

* * * * *

During the varied occupations of this summer of 1890 I was asked to write biographies of several members of my family for the “Dictionary of National Biography,” and did so. My articles appeared, but greatly altered. The editor had a perfect right to condense them at his pleasure, but I was astonished to find _additions_. Bishop Hare was saddled with a third son, Richard Hare, “an apothecary of Winchester,” who was the father of James Hare, afterwards called the “Hare with many friends.” This son of my great-great-grandfather is entirely imaginary; our family was never in the remotest degree related to Richard or James Hare. It gave one a terrible impression of how the veracity and usefulness of a work of really national importance might be spoilt by the conceited ignorance of an editor; and to add such trash to an article published with the signature of another was as unjustifiable as it was abominable.

* * * * *

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

“_Woodbastwick Hall, August 6, 1890._--I have enjoyed a visit at Cobham very much. We had only the usual circle of guests, but summer days in that beautiful place are a delicious halt in life. Thence I went to Osterley, which looked bewitching, with its swans floating in sunshine beyond the shade of the old cedars. Those radiant gardens will now bloom through five years unseen, for Lord Jersey has accepted the Governorship of New South Wales, which can only be from a sense of duty, as it is an immense self-sacrifice, though he and Lady Jersey can never fail anywhere to be a centre of all that is most interesting and useful. To English society her absence will be a terrible loss, as, with the utmost simplicity of high breeding, she is the one person left in England who is capable of holding a _salon_ and keeping it filled, to the advantage--in every best sense--of all who enter it. Nothing can be more charming than the relation of Lord and Lady Jersey to their children, and the fact that the latter were always of the party, yet never in its way, was the greatest testimony to their up-bringing. The weather was really hot enough for the luxury of open windows everywhere and for sitting out all day. The party was a most pleasant one--M. de Staël, the Russian Ambassador; Lady Crawford, still lovely as daylight, and her nice daughter Lady Evelyn; Lady Galloway, brimming with cleverness; M. de Montholon, French Minister at Athens; Mr. and Mrs. Frank Parker, most amusing and cheery; Sir Philip Currie, General Fielding, &c. Everything was most unostentatiously sumptuous and most enjoyable. On Monday we were sent in three carriages to Richmond, where we saw Sir Francis Cooke’s collections, very curious and worth seeing as it is, but which, if his pictures deserved the names they bear, would be one of the finest galleries in the world. Then, after a luxurious luncheon at the ‘Star and Garter,’ we went on to Ham House, where Lady Huntingtower showed the curiosities, including all the old dresses kept in a chest in the long gallery. Finally, I told the Jersey children--splendid audience--a long story in a glade of the Osterley garden, where the scene might have recalled the ‘Decameron.’ I was very sorry to leave these kind friends, and to know it would be so long before I saw them again.

“I came here with the Lowthers, finding kind Mrs. Cator surrounded by three sons and eight daughters. This is a luxurious modern house, replacing one which was burnt. Only a lawn and trees separate it from the Norfolk Broads, and we have floated down the Bere in a delightful sailing-boat, through the huge thirsty water-plants, to the weird remains of St. Benet in the Holme, of which the Bishops of Norwich are still titular Abbots.”

* * * * *

“_Sept. 6._--I have enjoyed a visit to Holmbury (Mr. Leveson Gower’s), now let to Mr. Knowles of the _Nineteenth Century_--a lovely place with a delightful view over Surrey plains. I like its homelike character better than the larger place of Mr. Ralli, whither we went yesterday to a garden-party. Mr. Knowles is most delightful company, full of pertinent and never _im_pertinent questions. He has talked much of Tennyson, with whom his family are very intimate, and who used often to stay with him when he first married and lived on Clapham Common. Tennyson speaks every thought without respect of persons. ‘What fish is this?’ (at dinner).--‘Whiting.’--‘Yes, the meanest fish there is.’ Yet his kindness of heart is such, that when his partridge was afterwards given him almost raw, he ate steadily through it, for fear his hostess might be vexed.

“After dinner Tennyson will sit smoking his pipe by the chimney-corner. That is his great time for inspiration, but he will seldom write anything down. ‘Thousands of lines just float up this chimney,’ he said one day. Sometimes he will go into the drawing-room and recite something he has just composed. Some of these poems Mr. Knowles has written down. If asked to repeat them again, Tennyson can never do it in the same way, something is always altered or forgotten: so hundreds of his poems are lost. One day lately, when he was unusually melancholy, his nurse, whom he greatly likes (he always has a nurse now), took him to task. ‘Mr. Tennyson, you ought to be ashamed of yourself for grumbling in this way: you ought to be expressing your gratitude for your recovery from your bad illness by giving us something--by giving it to the world.’ And he took her reproof very well, and went away to his own room, and in half-an-hour had written his lines ‘Crossing the Bar,’ which he gave to her.

“Tennyson was very rude to Mrs. Brotherton, a neighbour at Freshwater. The next day he came to her house with a great cabbage under each arm. ‘I heard you liked these, so I brought them.’ It was his idea of a peace-offering.

“My ‘France’ is just appearing, under the guardianship of Ruskin’s friend Allen. I think it is good. I have certainly worked hard at it. The woodcuts are beautifully engraved, and with the letterpress I have even more than usual followed Arthur Young’s advice to authors--‘To expunge as readily as to compose.’”

* * * * *

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

“_Oct. 14, 1890._--I went on the 27th to Worth, the ultra-luxurious house of the Montefiores, where the servants have their own billiard-tables, ballroom, theatre, and pianofortes, and are arrogant and presumptuous in proportion. It was a pleasure to drive over to the picturesque old manor-house of Gravetye, which belongs to Mr. W. Robinson, who wrote ‘The English Flower-Garden;’ but except the thickets of Michaelmas daisies, I was disappointed in his flowers, for he only attempts those which belong to the naturally existing soil. A far more beautiful garden is that of Mrs. Rate at Milton Court, near Dorking, whither I went afterwards. John Evelyn’s own house of Wotton is much altered, but this, which was the dower-house of the Evelyns, remains as it was in his time, and most lovely are the ranges of brilliant old-fashioned flowers relieved against the yew-hedges. Mrs. Rate took me a long drive over the back of Leith Hill, with views of unspeakable beauty: abroad, there is nothing like such radiance and wealth of woodland, such exquisite delicacy of misty distance. I was put down at the station on my way to Highcliffe, to which I hastened in answer to an unusually urgent and affectionate invitation from its dear lady, bidding me on no account to miss coming at that time; at another time it might not be possible. I found the dear Lady Waterford sadly ailing, but I hope I was able to be useful to her during some days of extreme quietude and much reading aloud. She had lately been to the Queen at Osborne, crossing the Solent in the _Elfin_, seated between the two great bags--‘as big as large arm-chairs’--containing the Queen’s letters for the day. ‘The Queen would have my drawings in. It was dreadful! for you know how a big portfolio slides off the table, and the Queen looked at them all so closely, and I was afraid the portfolio would slip and catch hold of her nose, and then I should have been sent to the Tower or something. There was one of the drawings she liked so much that I gave it to her. It was of Time with his scythe over his shoulder. A quantity of little children were gambolling and sporting in front and beckoning him onwards, but behind were a number of old people trying to hold him back; for one wanted to go on with his book, another to finish a drawing, and so on, and so they were clinging to his skirts as he was striding away.’

“Lady Waterford cannot understand the physical signs of age which seem to be suddenly attacking her: yet spiritually she is more than ever living in Eternity’s sunrise. Truly those who have lived much at Highcliffe or Ford can never ‘think this life a low and poor place in which to seek the Divine Master walking to and fro.’[492]

“I felt sadder than usual in leaving Highcliffe this time, as if it might be a last visit, yet it is difficult to imagine life without what has given its greatest interest and charm. The dear lady was down before I came away, though it was very early, and I retain a beautiful picture of her standing in the conservatory under the great brugmantia laden with its orange flowers. She came with me through the rooms, and I looked back at her, and found her still looking after me, and so, somehow walked away sadly down the dewy lanes to the station, with a desolate feeling that I might see her no more.

“I went on to Babraham (the Adeanes’), whence I drove with Charlie to spend the afternoon at Audley End--what a magnificent place! Afterwards I had two days at pleasant, merry Hardwick.”

* * * * *

_To_ LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD.

“_Nov. 10, 1890._--On October 20 I went to Tatton, meeting a large and pleasant party for the week, and one sees every one there to perfection, Lady Egerton knowing so well how to unlock a portal of communication--often of friendship--with just the right key. Truly, indeed, might Lady Egerton say--

‘Je suis né pour plaire aux nobles âmes, Pour les consoler un peu d’un monde impur.’[493]

The country is black but always interesting. Little Knutsford was sanded all over in patterns (as in India) for a wedding: it is a custom which dates from King Alfred, who met a wedding-party as he was passing through the town and threw down some sand, saying that he hoped the descendants of the marriage might be as numerous as its grains. The patterns of sand--flowers, love-knots, &c.--are made through the spout of a teapot. One day the conversation fell upon the little hamlet of Flash in the Cheshire hills. Pedlars from Manchester used to waste their time there in drinking on their way to London, whence the term ‘flash-goods!’ We drove to Holford Hall, passing on the outskirts of Tabley many of the brown many-horned sheep, which are said to have descended from some washed ashore from the Armada. I was glad to go again with Lady Egerton to Arley, where the beautiful gardens, really modern, have all the picturesqueness of antiquity. It is typical of the kindness which old Mr. Warburton shows in everything that all round the roads on his estate he leaves open spaces with plenty of brambles for blackberry gatherers.

“Lord Donington told Lady Egerton that when he went to live where he does now, his two young boys were taught by an admirable English governess. One day, having observed the housekeeper carefully locking the door of a spare bedroom, she casually said, ‘Do you always keep the doors of the unused bedrooms locked?’--‘No,’ said the housekeeper, ‘only this one;’ and she invited the governess to look into it, saying that there was a mystery about it. Some one always seemed to come to sleep there, whom she could not imagine, and she believed some trick was being played upon her. As an experiment, she said she would be very much obliged if the governess would take away the key after the room was locked, and keep it till the following morning. The next day they went together to the room, which showed every appearance of having been slept in, yet the window was carefully fastened inside, and there was no other possible entrance.

“Some time after, a young man came to shoot with the boys, and was put into that room. In the morning he came down with a very scared look, and said he was very sorry, but he must leave. Being much pressed, he allowed that he had been dreadfully frightened. He had kept his candle by his bed to finish a book he had been reading, and, looking up, he saw an old man sitting by the fire, who eventually rose, came, looked into the bed, and seeing him there, walked away. ‘And,’ said the visitor, ‘_that_ is the man!’ pointing to a picture on the wall of an ancestor who had died centuries before.

“Amongst the guests at Tatton were a Mr. and Mrs. Crum, most delightful people. He had made a fortune as a manufacturer, and they now live at Broxton Old Hall, a dower-house and beautiful old black and white manor of Sir Philip Egerton’s, whither I went to visit them. Thence I saw Mr. Wolley Dodd’s wonderful garden, the most interesting herbaceous collection in England. Mr. Wolley, well known as an Eton master, married Miss Dodd, the heiress of Edge, and of a family which has lived there from Saxon times, and of which a member was knighted at Agincourt; and he has turned a farmyard, a quarry, a pond, a wood, &c., into the most astonishing of gardens, in which each genus of plants is provided with the exact soil it loves best, and grows as it never does elsewhere. Near Edge we saw the noble old black and white house of Carden. We also saw the once splendid church of Malpas, utterly ruined by its so-called ‘restoration’ under a Chester architect named Douglas--old pavements, old pews ruthlessly destroyed, and a vestry by Vanbrugh only spared for want of funds to pull it down. A miserable window commemorates Reginald Heber, once rector, and a lime avenue leads to his rectory. I was several days at Drayton as I returned--most beautiful and interesting.

“C. writes to me for advice, but I feel more and more diffident about giving any. I found such a capital bit about this in a novel called ‘Margaret Maliphant,’ the other day. The old servant Deborah says, ‘What you think’s the right way most times turns out to be the wrong way; and when you make folks turn to the right when they was minded to turn to the left, it’s most like the left would have been the best way for them to travel after all. I’ve done advisin’ long ago; for it’s a queer tract of country here below, and every one has to take their own chance in the long-run.’

“_How_ tiresome the shibboleth which many clergymen talk in church is! Mr. ---- has been dwelling upon the exceeding _sinfulness of sin_. We _may_ find a meaning for this, but is it in fact different from the _beautifulness of beauty_, which we should call nonsense?”

* * * * *

_To_ LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD.

“_Nov. 30, 1890._--I had a pleasant visit at St. Audries, Sir A. Acland Hood’s beautiful place. It is a red sandstone house, enfolded amongst green hills, chiefly covered with golden or russet woods or rich growth of arbutus, and in front is the sea. In the morning-room are Turner’s water-colour pictures of Sussex (including one of Hurstmonceaux), executed for Mr. Fuller of Rosehill, of whom, with two other fortunes, Lady Hood was the heiress. In a corner of the hall are baby-clothes of three boys beneath the portrait of another remote ancestor, Edward Palmer of Ightham Mote. One Whitsunday morning a servant came in and said, ‘Sir, your lady has presented you with a son.’--‘The most joyful news you could have brought me!’ said Mr. Palmer. The following Sunday the servant came again: ‘Sir, your lady has presented you with another son.’--‘Oh, God bless my soul! you don’t say so?’ exclaimed Mr. Palmer. But the third Sunday the servant came in with ‘Sir, your lady has presented you with another son.’ It seemed quite too much; but the babies all lived, and grew up to be very distinguished men, being all knighted for their valour by Henry VIII.[494] I was delightfully taken about--to Crowcombe, where the Carew heiress has married Cranmer Trollope, and where there are noble Vandykes and a fine Titian portrait: to Quantockshead, with a delightful old hall and carved chimney-pieces: and to Nettlecombe, where the old hall of the Catholic Sir Alfred Trevelyan nestles close to the parish church. Sir Alfred described how the ‘church restorers’ at Bideford had turned all that was worth having out of the church. A figure of a man was bought by an old woman, but she thought it was too undressed and kept it--in bed! There it was found with its head comfortably laid on the pillow, a figure of St. John Baptist. The old woman had some notion of its value, as she asked £600 for it; but it was well worth that, as it was a priceless Donatello!

“All about this neighbourhood it is the same thing. Sir A. Hood had been to see a friend of his, and remarked, ‘What a pretty and peculiar flower-stand you have.’--‘Yes,’ said the friend, ‘and an interesting one too, for it is the font of Ongar church, in which Gunthran the Dane was baptized, and by which King Alfred stood as his sponsor.’

“Mr. W. Neville, who was one of the guests at St. Audries, had been to hear Dr. Parker, of the Congregational Hall, preach. He began his sermon by saying, ‘My brethren, I have received a letter from a gentleman saying that he intends to be present to-day and to make a philosophical analysis of my discourse to you. I am sure you will all sympathise with me in the embarrassment and nervousness which I must experience on such an occasion, though certainly I may derive some little comfort from the fact that my correspondent spells “philosophical” with an _f_.’

“Mr. Neville told me that he had asked a boy in his parish what was the difference between the head and the stomach. ‘The head has brains in it, if the owner has any,’ replied the boy; ‘the stomach has bowels; they are five--_a-e-i-o-u_.’

“It was only a drive from St. Audries to Dunster, where I spent three days, and which is, as Charlie Halifax has often described it, quite the most beautiful place in the south of England. It is an old castle, of which the earlier parts are of Edward I., on a great height, rising from glorious evergreen woods, with a view of the sea on one side and russet moorland on the other: in the depth, on one side, a tossing crystalline river and old pointed bridge; on the other, the town with its ancient market-house and glorious church. I slept in ‘King Charles’s Room,’ in a great carved bed. The cottages in the villages around are covered with myrtle, coronilla, and geranium.

“Mrs. Stucley, one of the Fanes of Clovelly, was at St. Audries. She told me that one Sunday their clergyman preached entirely on Thermopylae, and wound up by saying that the Spartans were much the bravest men that ever lived; that there was never any battle like Thermopylae. Afterwards, at luncheon, Colonel Stucley said he did not agree with what the preacher had said, for all the Thespians perished, whilst the Spartans survived: had the Thespians survived, they might have proved as good as their rivals.

“Three weeks afterwards the clergyman surprised the Stucleys by saying, ‘Well, my case is proved. I’ve the opinion of the greatest Greek scholar of the age--Mr. Gladstone--that it is as I stated it, that the Spartans were the bravest.’ He had actually written to Mr. Gladstone, and produced the answer.

“Afterwards Mrs. Stucley was dining out in London, and went down with Mr. Godley, one of Gladstone’s secretaries. She said, ‘I am afraid my name may not be unknown to you?’--‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Thermopylae,’ and went on to tell that when one of the secretaries opened the letter, they all discussed the question, and not being able to agree, took it in to Mr. Gladstone, who was so excited by it that he left his finance and all else, and walked about for three hours talking of nothing but Thermopylae.

“Except the Lefevres and Brasseys, I think my Dunster visit is the only time I have ever stayed in a Radical house; but its mistress, Mrs. Luttrell, with the support of her own family twelve miles off, holds out as a Conservative.

“From Somersetshire I went to Hatfield, arriving just after sunset. You could only just see the red colouring on the majestic old house, but all the windows blazed and glittered with light through the dark walls; the Golden Gallery with its hundreds of electric lamps was like a Venetian illumination. The many guests coming and going, the curiously varied names inscribed upon the bedroom doors, give the effect of having all the elements of society compressed under one roof. It was pleasant to meet Lady Lytton, beautiful still, and with all the charm of the most high-bred refinement. Another guest was Count Herbert Bismarck. Lady Salisbury had spoken of him as a fallen power, greatly broken by his fall, and so had enlisted our sympathies for him, but he quenched them by his loud authoritative manner, flinging every sentence from him with defiant self-assertion. He was especially opinionated about Henry VIII.’s wives, utterly refusing to allow that Anne of Cleves did not precede Anne Boleyn. He is a colossal man and a great eater, and would always fill two glasses of wine at once, to have one in reserve. At dinner he was rather amusing about the inefficiency of doctors, and said that the only time when cause follows effect was when a doctor follows the funeral of his patient. Lord Selborne, who was sitting near, spoke of Baron Munchausen, how he took the whole College of Physicians up in his balloon, and kept them there a month, and then, when he sent them down again out of pity for their patients, found all their patients had got quite well in their absence, but that all the undertakers were ruined.

“The life of a Prime Minister’s family is certainly no sinecure. Lady Salisbury and her daughter have constantly to go off to found or open charities of every description. Lord Salisbury is occupied with his secretaries to the very last moment before breakfast and luncheon, into which he walks stooping, with hands folded behind him, and a deeply meditative countenance, and by his side the great boar-hound called ‘Pharaoh’--‘because he will not let the people go;’ but when once seated as a host, he wakes up into the most interesting and animated conversation.

“How cold it is! but, as Mr. Bennett has been saying in Curzon Street Chapel, ‘Winter is like the pause of the instrument; not the paralysis, but the preparation of Nature.’ These sermons at Curzon Street are one of the greatest interests of London now. Last Sunday’s was on ‘anonymous sins.’ ‘How many there are,’ said the preacher, ‘even in fashionable life, who say, “Lord, I will follow Thee, I mean to follow Thee ... but ...;”’ and proceeded to describe how ‘the future of the world depends upon its unknown saints.’ Very different are these from the nonsensical sermons one often hears about ‘the awful circumstances of the times,’ interlarded with prophetic texts.

“There has been a long and amusing Review of my ‘France’ in the _Speaker_, reproaching me with my Roman Catholic tendencies, as evinced in the length of my account of Ars and its Curé, the writer being evidently unconscious that for every English traveller who lingers at Lyons, at least a hundred (Catholics) turn aside to Ars. This Review is noticed in an American paper, which says, ‘As a matter of fact, Mr. Hare is a well-known Low Church clergyman, who _poses at clerical meetings as an advanced Evangelical_!’ The other Reviews seem to have been mostly written by men who knew nothing of the subject, and who have not taken the trouble to know more of the book than, at most, the first chapter. One of them asserts that ‘the illustrations, said to be taken from original sketches, are evidently all from photographs’ (!); but ‘j’ai pour principe que le radotage des sots ne tire pas à conséquence,’ as Ernest Renan says.”

* * * * *

_To_ LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD.

“_Dec. 7, 1890._--I have had an interesting visit to the De Capel Brookes in the old grey Tudor house of Great Oakley Hall in Northamptonshire. Thence I saw two of the finest houses in England. Rushton (Mr. Clarke Thornhill’s) is a great Tudor house with a screen like that of a Genoese palace. In the garden is ‘Dryden’s Walk,’ and the three-cornered lodge built by Richard Tresham (with Lyveden and the town-hall of Rothwell) as a strange votive offering to propitiate the Trinity for success in the enterprise of the Gunpowder Plot. Rockingham is even more interesting. Once the hunting-palace of King John, it was inhabited ever afterwards by the English kings till the time of Henry VII., since which the Watsons have possessed it. The position is splendid, with a wide view of map-like Northamptonshire country, and it is approached by a gateway between noble Plantagenet towers. All additions have been made in the best taste, and the great drawing-room is magnificent. King John’s treasure-chest remains in the hall. There is a noble Sir Joshua, and a most beautiful Angelica Kauffmann, probably her finest work. Other interesting pictures came to the Watsons through marriages, many of Lord Strafford and his surroundings through the marriage of his daughter with Lord Rockingham; those of Henry Pelham, the Duke of Newcastle, &c., through the daughter of the former.

“How interesting is the Parnell crisis! At Miss Seymour’s I met a Countess Ziski, who talked of how curious it was that abroad, if a woman misconducts herself, she is boycotted, but no notice is taken of the misconduct of the man: here, if a woman misconducts herself, an easy-going society makes excuses for her, but the man is cashiered for ever.

“The Dean of Chester says that a friend of his was once baptizing a child of six. All went well, till it came to making the sign of the cross, when the child exclaimed, ‘If you do that again, I’ll hit yer in the eye.’ At a recent Board-school examination ‘Education’ was defined as ‘that which enables you to despise the opinions of others, and conduces to situations of considerable emolument.’ I think it was Miss Cobbe who defined ‘Conscience’ as ‘that which supplies you with an excellent motive for doing that which you desire to do, and which fills you with self-satisfaction when you have done it.’”

* * * * *

_To_ W. H. MILLIGAN.

“_Llandaff, Dec. 18, 1890._--I was a week at Ammerdown, meeting Lord and Lady Temple, the Phelips’s of Montacute, and a charming Miss Devereux, Lord Hereford’s daughter.... The Dean of ---- had been out with a shooting party in the neighbourhood. ‘I hope you sent some pheasants the Dean’s way,’ said the owner of the ground to a keeper. ‘Oh yes, that I have, and his holiness has been pepperin’ away as stiff as a biscuit.’

“Here at Llandaff it has been interesting to meet Mr. Herbert Ward of the African Stanley rearguard, a most frank, simple, and evidently most truthful fellow, who speaks with great moderation of the leader of the expedition, to whom they owed so much of suffering, misery, death, and slander.

“Have you never remarked how hypnotism is described in Wisdom xvii.?”

* * * * *

_To_ LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD.

“_Honingham, Norfolk, January 8, 1891._--I enjoyed my Christmas visit to the Lowthers, though it was rather spoilt by what novelists would call the incipient agonies of a cold, which has about attained its perfection now, and I am glad to be in this warm house of the hospitable Ailwyn Fellowes’s, where I am well looked after.

“I heard such a capital story of Bishop Magee the other day. He was in a carriage on the Great Western with two young clergymen, one of whom began, and went on violently abusing the Bishop of Peterborough by name, without observing who he was. At Swindon the Bishop got out to have some soup. When he was gone, the other curate said, ‘How could you go on like that? couldn’t you see that _was_ the Bishop of Peterborough?’--‘Why didn’t you stop me?’--‘Well, I did all I could; I’m sure I kicked you hard enough.’--‘What _can_ I do?’--‘Well, if I was you, I should apologise.’ So, when the Bishop came back, the young man said, ‘I’m very sorry, my Lord, to have said all I did in your presence. I am sure I had not an idea who you were, and if there is anything you especially objected to, I should be very glad to withdraw it and apologise.’--‘Well,’ said the Bishop, ‘there was one thing, there certainly was one thing which annoyed me very much: you _would_ call me Majee; now my name is Magee!”

* * * * *

Alas! the shadows which I had observed during my last visit to my dear friend Lady Waterford were now gathering very thickly around her. She had failed rapidly from the time of her removal from Highcliffe to her Northumbrian home, and was no longer able to answer me; but I still wrote to her.

* * * * *

_To_ LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD.

“_Athenaeum Club, March 1, 1891._--I am thankful still to hear of you from many common friends, and quite satisfied without hearing from yourself, and rejoice to think of you as able to enjoy drives. I think you will often find out, by carriage, points which will be almost new to you, and I can imagine how lovely the effects must have been in the hazy hollows of the Cheviots in these last days, when even here sunshine has broken through the fog in which London was shrouded for a week. It is Sunday, and I am just going to Curzon Street Chapel. I would not miss one of Mr. Bennett’s sermons on any account.... The one which struck me most was on the brief text ‘Nothing but leaves!’--so many bear those, quite a great growth of them, and no more: I am sure I do.”

* * * * *

“_March 16._--Two days ago I ran in from this Club to luncheon at the Brownlows’ close by, and had such a pleasant visit.

“I went first into the large room they call the library on the ground floor--the most enchanting of rooms, hung all round with noble Italian pictures, some of them bequeathed by Miss Talbot, and bright with many flowers; some of your prettiest drawings on the table; Westminster Abbey, faint, grey, and impressive, beyond the leafless trees outside the window. Here I found Lord Pembroke, always as genial, pleasant, and charming as he is handsome.

“The staircase is quite beautiful, chiefly designed by Lord Brownlow, but partly taken from the old palace-inn at Parma, with friezes and alcoves, and lighted by a copy of Michelangelo’s lanthorn. In the wide gallery above we found Lady Brownlow. Her two sisters came in, and then we had luncheon.

“Afterwards we went to the pretty little sitting-room, full of beautiful things, which is called Lady Lothian’s. What an attractive group the sisters made--the pale, spiritual, abstracted Lady Lothian, the very type of refined gentleness: Lady Brownlow, with her noble Bronzino-like head and colouring, and the figure of a classic caryatide: Lady Pembroke, less interesting at first, but so intensely _grande dame_; and then the two husbands leaning over them, on such happy, devoted terms with all three, were such noble specimens of humanity. The conversation there is delightful--so un-Londony, so original, so high-minded and high-meaning.

“To-day I have been to Edward Clifford’s studio to see his drawings and his Burne-Jones’s--all of the usual lean, limp, scared-woman kind. What was more interesting was the handsome, radiant, bright-eyed elderly woman who was looking over the drawings: it was the famous Madame Novikoff. I had much talk with her, and found her most simple and attractive, and not the least an alarming person.”

* * * * *

It was on the day after writing this that I first truly realised that my dearest Lady’s illness must be fatal. Our Lady was told that it must be so, that the end might come any day, any hour. At first she shed a few natural tears, and said, “I thought I should have lived to seventy-seven, as my mother did,” and then added sweetly, “But why should I mind, since God so wills it? tell me how it will be.”--“Perhaps in your chair, just as you are sitting now.”--“Oh, that will be well--so quiet, so well.” One day soon afterwards she wished to go out into the garden when it was not thought good for her. “Perhaps you might die when you are out.”--“And why should it not be like that? If God called me in the garden, it would be as well as in any other place.” I could not go to Ford, because Lady Waterford was not allowed to see any one unnecessarily, but for many weeks succeeding my whole heart was there with the faithful friend, the kind sympathiser, the constant correspondent of thirty years. One heard of the gradual increase of the disease: of her laying aside all painting and writing: of her reading prayers to her servants for the last time; but still talking in her wise and beautiful way of all things “lovely and of good report,” laughing brightly over old recollections: then of her lying constantly on a sofa, always rejoicing to see those she loved, but mistaking her younger relations for their mothers, dear to her in the long ago. Often also others, those dearest to her, who had gone before, appeared to be present with her as angel ministrants to cheer and comfort. The sweet face of old Lady Stuart, her mother, seemed visibly present: she imagined her old governess to be in the house, and bade Miss Lindsay to be sure to arrange for the drives which she knew the old lady liked. Through the flowers upon her table she constantly saw her sister Charlotte, Lady Canning, in all her loveliness. Her sense of the companionship of this beloved sister was so vivid, and she spoke of her so often, that at last one of those present thought it necessary to say to her, “Dear lady, Lady Canning died very many years ago.” “Oh, did she? How delightful! then I shall soon be able to talk to her. I see her now, but soon we shall talk as we used to do.” One evening there was a beautiful sunset. Our dear Lady sat watching it. “It is like the coming of the Lord,” she said. Surely the watchers at Ford realised General Gordon’s words--“Any one to whom God gives to be much with Him, cannot even suffer a pang at the approach of death. For what is death to a believer? It is a closer approach to Him whom, even through the veil, he is ever with.”

Mr. Neville, the rector of Ford, prayed with her daily. “How I wish that others might have the solace this is to me,” she said, with her peculiar emphasis on the word “solace.”

Lady Brownlow was with her three days, and was her last visitor: she came away saying it had been like being in a beautiful church, so pervading was the sense of holiness. “Oh, darling Adelaide! goodness and beauty, beauty and goodness: those are ever the great things!” were our dear Lady’s last words to her, as she took her hands and gazed at her earnestly. They were very characteristic.

* * * * *

_To_ LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD.

“_April 12, 1891._--How often my thoughts go to Ford, and how well I can imagine all that surrounds you there--the snowy Cheviots, that pretty little garden in the bastion tower, the warm bright library; most of all the constant care of Miss Thompson and Miss Lindsay. I am so glad I know it so well, and have so many memories of happy visits--in the old castle, in the cottage with dear Lady Stuart, in the renewed castle since. I seem to see you this bright Sunday morning, and hope it is as bright with you. Inwardly I am sure the sun is shining, and that the Saviour you have loved so well is very near you in hours of weakness. I often wish I could do something--anything--for you, but I can only think of you with ever-grateful love, and pray that all may be peaceful and smooth with you.

“Lady Bloomfield is feeling the loss of her old friend Mrs. Hogg,[495] but she had the most gentle and peaceful end, just talking to her sister and daughter very calmly and quietly without any pain or fear, and then falling sweetly asleep and not waking....

“‘The Blessed Trinity have you in his keeping,’ as Margaret Paston wrote in 1461.”

* * * * *

“_April 26._--Another week of bitter cold and biting winds, and I fear you will have been the worse for them. Your state of suspension from so much that you used to be able to do so constantly recalls that of my dearest mother--in winter--for many years; but when the limbs seemed least helpful, and eyes and hands least active, all happy memories of her wealthy past seemed brighter to her, and she was always able to find comfort in the feeling that ‘they also serve who only stand and wait.’ ... I know that, to the weakest, Christ can give such blessed assurance of His love, that in the joy of it all pain and fear are unfelt and vanish. Oh, would that I could do anything for you, but you know how much I always am your most affectionate and grateful

“A. J. C. H.”

This letter was read to our Lady: then I was told to write no more. The end was very near, and each hour became filled with a tensity of waiting for the silent summons. There were none of the ordinary signs of an illness. Our Lady suffered no pain at all, scarcely even discomfort. Her former beauty returned to her, only in a more majestic form, the signs of age seeming to be smoothed away, except in the grey hair half hidden by soft lace. She rarely spoke, and noticed little except the beauty of the flowers by which she was surrounded. But when she did speak, those with her knew that, with entire and humblest prostration of self at the foot of the Cross, her faith and hope had never been brighter. She looked beyond the snowy hills into a sky of unearthly beauty. And so, peacefully, radiantly, our dearest Lady fell into the ever-smiling unconsciousness, in which, on May 11th, she passed away from us to join the beloved and honoured who are at rest with Christ. As I think of her, some lines come back to me which I read to her on my last morning at Ford:--

“Now for all waiting hours Well am I comforted, For of a surety now I see That, without dire distress Of tears or weariness, My Lady verily awaiteth me: So that, until with her I be, For my dear Lady’s sake I am right fain to make Out of my pain a pillow, and to take Grief for a golden garment unto me; Knowing that I, at last, shall stand In that green garden-land, And, in the holding of my Lady’s hand, Forget the grieving and the misery.”[496]

I should have gone to Ford afterwards, but our Lady only died on Monday, and it was late on Wednesday night before I heard that she was to be buried on Thursday afternoon, so to arrive in time was impossible. Miss Lindsay wrote to me how her coffin was carried on the shoulders of her own labourers to the churchyard, how all the village and all her tenantry came to her funeral, with the few intimate friends within reach, and how Helmore’s music was sung. It was well the end was at Ford. Highcliffe is a rapidly changing place, and it has already passed to comparative strangers; but at Ford she will always be _the_ Lady Waterford, “the good, the dear Lady Waterford.”

There our Lady rests, within view of her own Cheviots, surrounded by the affectionate Border people, to whom their “Border Queen” was their greatest pride and interest and joy. An aching void will remain in our hearts through life, but it is only for our poor selves. When one thinks of her, earth fades and vanishes, and if--when one is alone--one allows oneself to think, to dwell upon all the glory of what she _was_, an all-pervading sense of peace and holiness comes upon one, and one seems, for the moment, almost to pass into the Land of Beulah--into the higher life, without worry or vexation, where she _is_.

When her things were being distributed, the distributors were surprised to hear that “the odd man” most earnestly begged for something: it was for her old sealskin jacket. It was thought a most singular request at first, but he urged it very much: he should “treasure the jacket as long as ever he lived.”

He had been walking by her donkey-chair in the road, when they found a female tramp lying in the ditch, very ill indeed. Lady Waterford got out of her chair and made the man help her to lift the poor woman into it. Then she took off her own jacket, and put it upon the sick woman, and walked home by the side of the chair, tending and comforting her all the way. “But it was not my Lady’s putting her jacket on the woman that I cared about,” said the man, “but that she did not consider her jacket the least polluted by having been worn by the tramp; _she wore it herself afterwards_ as if nothing had happened.”

XXVII

SOCIAL REMINISCENCES

“Napoleon used to say that what was most fatal to a general was the knack of combining objects into pictures. A good officer, he said, never makes pictures; he sees objects, as through a field-glass, exactly as they are.”--_Macmillan_, No. 306.

“Small causes are sufficient to make a man uneasy when great ones are not in the way. For want of a block, he will stumble on a straw.”--SWIFT.

“Errors like straws upon the surface flow, He who would search for pearls must dive below.” --DRYDEN.

_To the_ HON. G. JOLLIFE.

“_Holmhurst, August 1891._--I enjoyed my months in London at the time, yet was very glad to come away. It is a terrible waste of life. The size and lateness of dinners have killed society. Scarcely any one says anything worth hearing, and if any one does, nobody listens.

“‘Que de bonnes choses vont tous les jours mourir dans l’oreille d’un sot,’ was always a true saying of Fontenelle, but is less true now than formerly--there are so few _bonnes choses_.

“People love talking, but not talk. Dinners are rather display than hospitality, supplying abundance of sumptuous viands, but no _esprit_. I heard pleasanter conversation in one quiet luncheon at the Speaker’s from his delightful family than at a hundred parties: as a social art it is extinct. One never hears such conversationalists as gathered round my aunt Mrs. Stanley’s homely table long ago, or as, in later times, round Arthur Stanley, Mrs. Grote, Madame Mohl, the first Lady Carnarvon, Lord Houghton, Lady Margaret Beaumont. The dinners, in food sense, have never any attraction to me. L. and I dined out together at ---- and I think it was an even match which of us suffered most, L. or myself: myself, because the dinner was too good; L., because it was not good enough.

“From what I hear from the East End, the scandal of Tranby Croft seems to be acting as the _affaire du collier_ did in France in preparing the way for a revolution. But the West End goes on as if nothing had happened. I saw the Emperor (of Germany) several times, a fat young man with a bright good-humoured face, though apparently never free from the oppression of his own importance, as well as of the importance of his dress, which he changes very often in the day. And I went, one glorious afternoon, when the limes were in blossom, with several thousand other people to Hatfield to meet the Prince of Naples, whose intelligence (especially on subjects connected with Natural History) seems to have pleased everybody. He is very small, but has none of the aggressive ugliness of his father and grandfather. One day I went to luncheon with Miss Rhoda Broughton, who is seen at her very best in her little house at Richmond, most attractive in its old prints and furniture and lovely river view. Then I spent a Sunday with my cousin Theresa Earle in her pretty Surrey home, and wound up the season by meeting a large party at Cobham.”

* * * * *

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER (_æt._ 94).

“_Holmhurst, Sept. 2, 1891._--You will imagine how your birthday makes me think of you, and how much I give thanks for the blessing which your love and kindness has been to us for so many years. I like to think of you on your peaceful sofa, and I know you are like John Wilson Croker, who, when some one remarked in his presence that death was an awful thing, said, ‘I do not feel it so. The same Hand which took care of me when I came into this world will take care of me when I go out of it.’”

* * * * *

_To_ W. H. MILLIGAN, _and Note-book_.

“_Holmhurst, Oct. 1891._--I have returned from my autumn visits, which have been delightful. The Watsons, who live at Rockingham, the old royal palace of the Midlands, are well worthy of its noble rooms and its brilliant gardens, relieved against the quaintest of yew hedges.

“At Hovingham, in Yorkshire, I found Mrs. Lowther, and we sketched together very happily. It is an unusual great house, approached through a riding-school and a sculpture gallery, which contains a huge work of Giovanni da Bologna and the loveliest little Greek statue in England. Genial Sir William Worsley, the adopted uncle of all the nicest young ladies in the county, is a centre of love and goodness, and his saint-like wife, crippled and utterly motionless from chronic rheumatism, is the sunshine of all around her. Most quaint are some of the old-fashioned dependants. The old coachman seriously asked his master, ‘Is it true, Sir William, that Baron Rothschild was refused when he offered to pay the whole of the natural debt if he might drive eight horses like the Queen, instead of seven horses and a mule?’

“We saw Gilling, the fine old Fairfax castle, and spent a delicious day at Rievaulx. Sir William has oratorios(!) annually performed in his riding-school.

“I arrived at Bishopthorpe the day before the Archbishop’s enthronement, and found a large party of relations assembling; but it would be difficult to crowd the house, as there are forty bedrooms and the dining-room is huge. The palace lies low, and out of the dining-room window you could very nearly fish in the Ouse, which often floods the cellars, the only part remaining of the original house of Walter de Gray. The rococo gateway is imposed by guidebooks upon the uninitiated as that of Wolsey’s palace at Cawood: perhaps a few of its ornaments came from thence. The ceremony in the Minster was very imposing, the more so as a military escort was given to the Archbishop, as having been an old soldier. Most moving was his address upon the responsibilities, and what he felt to be the duties, of his office. The ebb and flow of processional music was beautiful, as the long stream of choristers and clergy flowed in and out of the Minster. The Archbishop’s brothers--one of them, Sir Douglas-Maclagan, being eighty--made a very remarkable group.

“Most happy and interesting were my four succeeding days at Hickleton, where I met one of the familiar circles of people I always connect with Charlie Halifax--Lady Ernestine Edgecumbe, Lady Morton, Canon and Lady Caroline Courtenay, the Haygarths. More characteristic still of the host was the presence of a nun in full canonicals--Sister Caroline--‘this religious,’ as Charlie called her--who appeared at meals, though only to partake of a rabbit’s diet. In the churchyard a great crucifix, twelve feet high, is being erected, and the people of Doncaster do not come out to stone it; on the contrary, the crucifix and its adjuncts attract large congregations of pitmen, who would not go to church at all otherwise; and the neighbourhood is beginning to wonder how long the Church of England can dare to deny its Lord by condemning the crucifix, the vacant cross being but the frame of the picture with the portrait left out, and in itself an eloquent protest against the omission. Another smaller crucifix commemorates the three dear boys who have ‘gone home.’ The shadow of their great loss here is ever present, but it is truly a sanctified grief: their memory is kept ever fresh and the thought of them sunny, and thus they still seem to have their part--invisible--in the daily life, upon which their beautiful pictured semblances look down from the walls of their home. Only a deep sudden sigh from the father now and then recalls all he has undergone. The short morning services in the house-chapel, with its huge crucifix from Ober-Ammergau, where the household sing in parts, are very touching. Still more so are the Sunday services in the beautiful church, close to the house, the low mass, then the full surpliced choir and the blazing lights, and the holy rood above the reredos glittering through them in a golden glamour. In the darker aisle where we sat were the sleeping alabaster figures of the late Lord and Lady Halifax upon their great altar-tomb, and near me the dearest friend of my long-ago was kneeling--a stainless knight--in a rapt devotion which seemed to carry him far into the unseen. I could only feel, as Inglesant at Little Gidding, the presence of a peace and glory utterly unearthly, and as if there--as nowhere else--Heaven took possession of one and entered into one’s soul.

“A journey through the Fen country took me to Campsea Ashe, where the artistic party collected in the pleasant Lowther home spent a most pleasant week in drawing--studying--by the silent moats of old-timbered houses--Parham, Seckford, and Otley. We went also to the attractive old town of Woodbridge, where Percy Fitzgerald lived, who wrote so many capital articles. A characteristic story told of him is that he once spent the evening in the company of a bore who buzzed on incessantly about this lord and that till he could bear it no longer and left the room, but as he did so, opened the door once more, and, putting in his head, said, ‘_I_ knew a lord once, but he’s dead!’

“I was at Felixstowe for a day afterwards, and made acquaintance--friends, I hope--with Felix Cobbold, a most attractive fellow, with a delightful house, and a garden close above the sea, which truly makes ‘the desert smile’ in that most hideous of all sea-places. Then I was a night at the Palace at Norwich, full of childish reminiscence to me, and most stately and beautiful it all looked--the smooth lawns and bright flowers, the grand grey cathedral and soaring spire, the old chapel and ruin; only the palace itself has had all the picturesqueness washed out of it. Its geography is entirely altered, but it was delightful to recognise old nooks and corners, and I almost seemed to see my Mother sitting by the old-fashioned chimney-piece in the Abbey-room. I spent a delightful evening with the Bishop (Pelham), who poured out a rich store of anecdote and recollection for hours. He spoke much of Manning, whom he had known most intimately--how his characteristic had always been his ambition. He wanted in early life to have gone into Parliament; then, when that failed, he wished to have entered diplomacy; then his father’s bank broke, and he was obliged to go into the Church. ‘Your uncle Julius and he,’ said the Bishop, ‘were once with my brother (Lord Chichester), and Manning had been holding forth upon the celibacy of the clergy. “At least you will agree with me,” he said, turning to my brother, “that celibacy is the holier state.” “Then of course you think,” said my brother, “that matrimony is a _less_ holy state than celibacy.” And he started, with a reminiscence of his own happy married life, and said, “Oh no!”’

“The Bishop talked much of Jenny Lind’s visit to Norwich when he was here with the Stanleys; how the Duke of Cambridge had spoken to her of the wonderful enjoyment her noble gift of voice must be, and how she had answered, ‘I do enjoy it, and I thank God for giving it to me, and I feel that in return I ought to use it first for His glory, and then for the raising of my profession.’ When her great concert took place, Mr. Thompson, a Norwich doctor, who had the management of the town charities, ventured to put the best of the workhouse school-girls under the orchestra, where no one could see them, whilst they could hear everything. But Jenny was sometimes greatly overcome at the end of one of her own songs, and it was so then, and when her song was over, she retired to her own room; but, to reach it, she had to pass under the orchestra, and there she saw a number of girls in tears, and asked who they were. Mr. Thompson came to explain with some diffidence, for he did not know how she would take it; but she was much interested, and asked, ‘Is there any one of your charities especially to which I could be of any use?’ And he thought a minute and said, ‘What we really want is a children’s hospital; there has never been one in Norwich.’--‘Then that is just what I will give a concert for,’ said Jenny Lind; and of course every one was delighted, and so the hospital was started. Afterwards she sent down some one incognito to see how it was managed, and the report was so favourable that she said she would give another concert, and that set it up altogether. It is now the ‘Jenny Lind Hospital.’

“Talking of the late event at York led to the Bishop’s saying, ‘I heard a fine thing of Archbishop Musgrave. I was not meant to hear it, though. I was at Bishopthorpe to preach a consecration sermon for the Bishop of Ripon. It was before I was a bishop myself, and I knew nothing about precedence, and did not take my proper place in the procession as was intended, though I was all ready, and I let them all pass out before me. Only the Archbishop and Mrs. Musgrave remained. The Archbishop had had a stroke of apoplexy then, from which he was only just recovering, and it was his first appearance since, and they were all very anxious about him. Just as they were leaving the house, the Archbishop said to his wife, “My dear, take this key: it will unlock that box, in which you will find a commission ready signed and sealed for the three bishops present to take my place if anything _happens_ to me during the service: whatever happens to me, the service must not be stopped.” And they went on quietly to the church. I did not know which to admire most, the Archbishop for making the speech, or Mrs. Musgrave’s perfect calmness in hearing it and in taking the key. I spoke of it to Mrs. Bickersteth (the Bishop of Ripon’s wife) afterwards, and she said, “That explains what the Archbishop said to me last night--‘I am afraid you may be anxious about the service to-morrow: set yourself quite at rest: everything is quite settled, so that, whatever happens to me, the ceremony of to-morrow will be carried out.’”

“The Lowthers joined me at Norwich, and we went together to Woodbastwick, and for a delightful visit to the Locker-Lampsons at Cromer. What an enchanting place it is! All the society meets on the beach. Two bathing-machines were drawn up side by side, and their inmates were in the sea. ‘I hope you will kindly consider this as a visit,’ said one of them to his neighbour, with his head just above the water. ‘Oh, certainly,’ said the neighbour, ‘and I hope you will kindly consider this as a visit returned.’

“Mr. Locker is delightful. He says, ‘I suppose what makes a bore is a man’s perpetually harping upon one subject, not knowing what details to leave out, and insisting upon making his voice heard at unsuitable times. But certainly a bore is a bore in accordance with what he is talking about: if, for instance, a man went on talking for hours of my “Lyra Elegantiarum,” I should never think him a bore.’ ‘My dear,’ he says to Mrs. Locker-Lampson, ‘are you not sometimes of rather _too_ rigid a disposition? You know, at railway stations you often point out to me a man as eternally damned because he wears trousers with rather a broad check, and has an unusually large cigar in his mouth.’

“In Lady Buxton’s pretty house are a whole gallery of Richmond portraits--a stately full-length of (her aunt) Mrs. Fry, most speaking likenesses of her benignant father, her beautiful mother, of Sarah and Anna Gurney, the ‘Cottage Ladies’--of her father-in-law, Sir Fowell of the Slave Trade--of her sons and brothers-in-law. Yellow tulips, like those at Florence, grow wild in her fields in abundance, and the cows eat them.”

* * * * *

_To the_ COUNTESS OF DARNLEY.

“_Hotel d’Italie, Rome, March 30, 1892._--I think you will have wondered what has become of me, and that you will like to know.

“I have been abroad since November 16, beginning by a week at Paris with George Jolliffe, who was very ill then, and a month spent at Cannes in visits to the De Wesselows, old friends of my Hurstmonceaux childhood; and to my old schoolfellow Fred Walker and his nice wife, one of the few people I know who have seen two separate and undoubted ghosts with their own eyes. How civilised and be-villa’d Cannes is now, almost the least pretentious house remaining in it being the little Villa Nevada, where the Duke of Albany died, which was close to us, and which was so often visited by ‘Madame d’Angleterre,’ as the people of Cannes call our Queen. My ever-kindest of hosts were more people-seeking than place-seeing. We had one delightful picnic, however, at the old deserted villa of Castellaras, looking upon the blue gorge of the Saut de Loup. A little suspicion of earthquake remained in the air from the alarm of the last shock, when my friends’ native housemaid had refused to leave the window, saying, ‘Puisque le dernier jour est arrivé, je veux avoir les yeux partout, pour voir ce que se passe!’ Here at Rome there was a smart shock this spring. Our old friend Miss Garden asked _her_ ‘donna’ if she was frightened. ‘Oh yes,’ she said; ‘I felt the two walls of my little room press in upon my bed. I knew what it was. But I could not remember which was the right saint to pray to in an earthquake. So I just prayed to my own grandmother, for she was the best person I ever knew, and immediately I heard the voice of my grandmother, who said, “Don’t be frightened; it will all pass; no harm will come to you.” So then I was quite calm and satisfied.’ Might not this incident account for many stories of Catholic saints?

“I spent a week at Bordighera. Such varied points for walks! villages like Sasso, which are just bright bits of umber colour amongst the tender grey olives; little painted towns amongst the orange-gardens, like Dolceacqua, with its pointed bridge and blue river and great deserted palace of the Dorias. George Macdonald, a most grand old patriarch to look upon, is king of the place. He writes constantly, and never leaves the house, except to see a neighbour in need of help or comfort. One after another of his delicate daughters has faded away, but his sons seem strong and well, and there are several adopted children in the house, half in and half out of the family, but all calling Mrs. Macdonald ‘Mama.’ It is a very unusual household, but ruled in a spirit of love which is most beautiful. I dined with them, the dining-table placed across one end of the vast common sitting-room. On Sunday evenings he gives a sort of Bible lecture, which all the sojourners in Bordighera may attend.

“Then I was a month in a palatial hotel at S. Remo, and greatly enjoyed bright winter days of quiet drawing in its ravines with their high-striding bridges, by its torrents full of Titanic boulders, or on its pathlets winding through vine and fig gardens or along precipitous crags; most of all in a delicious palm-shaded cove by the sea, where I spent whole days alone with the great chrysoprase waves breaking over the rocks in showers of crystal spray. With a charming Mrs. Rycroft and her pleasant Eton boys, I made longer excursions to Ceriano and Badalucco, very curious places surrounded by high mountains, with deep gorges, old bridges, and waterfalls.

“But it is in changed, spoilt Rome that I have spent the last two months. All picturesqueness is now washed out of the place, so that people who have any interest about them now usually give it only a glance and pass on. It has been delightful for me, however, that Miss Hosmer is settled in this hotel, and that we dine together daily at a little round table, where she is a constant coruscation of wit and wisdom. All day she is shut up in her studio, which is closed to all the world, but she cannot have a dull time, by the stories she has to tell of the workmen and models who are her only companions. Here are a few of them, only they sound nothing without her twinkling eyes and capital manner of telling:--

“‘Minicuccia was an excellent model, but very jealous. “Have you seen Rosa? What fine arms she has!” I said to her one day. “I have seen _Rosaccia_” she replied, “and I should have thought, Signorina, that a lady of your taste would have known better than to admire her arms. What are they in comparison with really fine arms--with mine, for instance?”

“‘One day Minicuccia was at a café, and some one admired the legs of another model. Forthwith she gathered up her petticoats, and danced with her legs perfectly bare all about the place. She was not a bad woman; on the contrary, she was a very moral one, and there was never a word against her, but she wanted to show what fine legs were. The police, however, heard of that escapade, and she was put in prison for a month afterwards for such an offence against the _decenza pubblica_. Poor Minicuccia!

“‘Then there was Nana, whom Lady Marian (Alford) painted so often, and whom she was so fond of. She was a magnificent woman. Dear Lady Marian used to say, “I would give anything to be able to come into a room with the grace and dignity of Nana.” Her dignity was natural to her. Another model once said to me, “I met that Nanaccia; she was walking down the Via Sistina as if it all belonged to her.”

“‘There was a very nice boy-model I had, Fortunato he was called. He is dead now--died of consumption, for he was always delicate. One day he said to me, “Last Sunday, Signorina, I went to the garden of the Cappuccini, and it is _such_ a garden!--quite full of fruit, the most beautiful fruit. And the Fathers are so kind; they said I might eat as much as ever I liked; only think of that, Signorina!”--“Well, that was kind indeed; but what sort of fruit was it?”--“O, cipolle and lettuge,[499] Signorina--most delicious fruit.”

“‘Marietta was another model who came to me, a large handsome woman. One day I said to her, “Now, Marietta, I want you to look sad--_tutta dolorosa_.”--“What! _lagrime_, Signorina?”--“No,” I said, “only _look_ sad; but if I wanted _lagrime_, could I have them too?”--“Sì, Signora: basta pensare a quel calzolajo chi m’a fatto pagare sette lire in vece di cinque, et piango subito.”[500]

“‘Marietta had a brother who managed her little business for her. I asked her if it would not be very easy for him to misappropriate a _scudo_ now and then. “Facile sì,” she said, “_essendo fratello_.”

“‘Mariuccia lived to be old, and many is the dinner and _paolo_ I have given her; but when she was fifteen or so, she was the model for Mr. Gibson’s ‘Psyche borne by the Zephyrs.’ She was always a wonderful model: no one could act or stand as she did.

“‘Then there was that woman who had the drunken husband, who used to beat her. One night he came in late and fell down dead drunk across the bed. She took her needle and thread, and sewed him up in the sheets so that he could not move, and then she took a stick, and beat him so that he died of it: she was imprisoned for some years for that, though.

“‘I asked one of the workmen what he did when every one was away. “Why, Signorina, I have the studio to clean out.”--“Well, I suppose that takes you half-an-hour; and what do you do then?”--“Ma, Signorina, sto a sedere.”--“And after your dinner, what do you do then?”--“Sto ancora a sedere, Signorina.”--“Well, and in the evening?”--“Ma, Signorina, continuo di stare a sedere.”

“‘My man Gigi came to me the other day and said, “I went to the Acqua Acetosa[501] last Sunday, Signorina, and I liked the water so much, I drank no less than twenty _fiaschi_ of it.”--“Well,” I said, “Gigi, that was a good deal; I’ll get twenty _fiaschi_ of it, and put twenty _scudi_ down by them, and then, if you can drink them all off, you shall have the _scudi_.”--“Well, Signorina, perhaps I did exaggerate a little: now I come to think it over, perhaps it was ten _fiaschi_ I drank.”--“Well, do it again before me, and you shall have ten _scudi_.” “Now, Signorina, you know I like to be precise, perhaps it was six _fiaschi_ I drank.”--“Well, do it again and you shall have six _scudi_.”--“Well, I suppose it really was two _fiaschi_.”--“Oh, I could drink that myself!”’

“You may imagine how entertaining stories like these--traits from the life around one--make our little dinners, and afterwards we often go into the Storys’ apartment close by, where the easy intellectual pleasant talk and fun are always reviving. Besides, it amuses Mrs. Story, who is most sadly ailing now, though her cheerfulness is an example. She says she comforts her sleepless nights by the old distich--

‘For all the ills beneath the sun There is a cure, or there is none: If there is one, try to find it; If there is none, never mind it.’

“Nothing can describe the charm of Mr. Story’s natural bubble of fun and wit, or the merry twinkle which often comes into his eye, even now, at moments when his wife’s illness does not make him too anxious.[502] He and Miss Hosmer are capital together. It is difficult to say what are their ‘projecting peculiarities,’ as Dr. Chalmers would have called them, they have so many; but they are all of a perfectly delightful kind.

“‘Well, what’s the news, Harriet?’ he said as we went in to-night. ‘Why, that I am going to be married.’--‘What! to the Pope?’--‘Yes, only I didn’t want it to get out till he announced it himself.’

“‘An American was looking at my statue of Canidia the other day,’ said Mr. Story, and exclaimed--“Ah! Dante, I suppose, or is it--Savonarola?” Another man who came to my studio said, “Mr. Story, have you baptized your statue?”--“Why, yes,” I said; “generally we think of the name first, and then we set to work in accordance with it.”--“Well,” he said, “there’s some as doos, and there’s some as doosn’t.”’

“Mrs Story was very amusing about an Italian who wanted a portrait of his father very much, and came to an artist she knew and asked him to paint it. The artist asked, ‘But when can I see your father?’--‘Oh, you can’t see him: he’s dead.’--‘But how can I paint him, then?’--‘Well, I can describe him, and he was very like me: I think you can paint him very well.’ So the artist painted away, according to the description, as well as he could. When he had finished the portrait he sent for the son, anxious to see if he would find any likeness. The son rushed up to the picture, knelt down by it, was bathed in tears, and sobbed out, ‘O padre mio, quanto avete sofferto, o quanto siete cambiato: O non l’aveva mai riconosciuto.’

“Mr. Story says that when _Othello_ was performed at Rome, he saw it with an Italian friend, who said afterwards, ‘Convengo che ci sono qualche belle concette in questa dramma, ma fare tanto disturbo per un fazzoletto non mi conviene.’

“Miss Hosmer told of a countryman who was asked what he thought of a train, for he had just seen one for the first time--seen it as it was entering a tunnel. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it was just a black monster with a goggle eye, and when it saw me, it gave a horrible shriek and ran into its hole.’

“I should like you to have heard Miss Hosmer’s recollections of Kestner, whose name was so familiar to me in old Bunsen days. He died soon after she first came to Rome, but she recollects him as always wearing his old red studio cap. He knew he was dying, and when it was very near the end, he said to those who were with him, ‘Now, my dear friends, it is a very sad experience to see a person die: I must beg you to leave me: it is my great wish to be alone, and you may come back in two hours.’ They came back in two hours, and found him lying peacefully dead. That is a beautiful story, I think. It was Kestner who, priding himself very much on his good English, said to Lord Houghton, ‘Allow me to present to you my knee-pot (_nipote_).’

“Outside the charmed circle of Palazzo Barberini there is little now at Rome but the most inferior American society. ‘We must stop at Milan, you know, going back; there is a picture there by a man called Leonard Vinchey we must be sure to see,’ said a neighbour at the hotel luncheon. And, ‘Mr. Brown, sir, how’s Mrs. Brown’?--‘Well, she’s slim but round’ (meaning weak but about): this is the sort of thing one hears.

“In this hotel is the intelligent Indian Princess Tanjore, with whom I have spent several evenings very pleasantly. Her ‘lady’ is Miss Blyth, sister of the Bishop of Jerusalem, and authoress of that capital novel ‘Antoinette.’

“Dear old Miss Garden, whom you will remember hearing of as the kindest and most original of Scottish ladies, still lives at 64 Via Sistina. ‘How did you manage to boil the eggs so well, Maria, when you can’t tell the clock?’ said Miss Garden to her old donna, ‘for the eggs are just perfect.’--‘Why, I’ll tell you how it is,’ said Maria: ‘a lady I lived with showed me how to do it. I just put them into the water, and then I say thirty-three _Credos_, and then I know that they’re done.’

“With Miss Garden and Mrs. Ramsay I went one day to the curious little early christian cemetery of S. Generosa, a lovely spot, where marble slabs covering the graves of martyrs under Diocletian are still seen in a little hollow surrounded by wild roses and fenochii.

“My room in this hotel looks out on the Barberini gardens, and the splash of its fountain is an enjoyment. Its being lighted by electricity for the King’s visit the other day was a type of the times, rather a contrast to twenty years ago, when there were torches on every step of the great staircase to welcome even a cardinal, and when not only the staircase, but the whole street as far as S. Teresa, was hung with tapestries for the Prince’s funeral.

“On Ash-Wednesday I went, as I have always done here, to the ‘stations’ on the Aventine. It is still a thoroughly Roman scene. Before one reaches S. Sabina, one is assailed by the chorus of old lady beggars seated in a double avenue of armchairs leading up to the door, with ‘Datemi qualche cosa, signore, per l’amore della Madonna, datemi qual’co;’ and behind them kneel the old men--‘Poveri, poveretti cieci, signore,’ in brown gowns and with arms stretched out _alla maniera di S. Francesco_. Spread with box is the church itself, with its doors wide open to the cloistered porch and the sacred orange-tree[504] seen in the sunny garden beyond. The Abbot is standing there, and has his hand kissed by all the monks who arrive for the stations, till a cardinal appears, after which he takes the lower place and is quite deserted. Then we all hurry on to S. Alessio and its crypt, and then to the Priorato garden, where, by old custom, we look through the keyhole of the door, and see St. Peter’s down a beautiful avenue of bays.

“The passage of the Pope to the Sistine on his coronation anniversary was a very fine sight. Borne along in his golden chair, with the white peacock fans waving in front of him, and wearing his triple crown, Leo XIII. looked dying, but gave his benediction with the most serene majesty, sinking back between each effort upon his cushions, as if the end had indeed come. Only his eyes lived, and lived only in his office; otherwise his perfectly spiritualised countenance seemed utterly unconscious of the thundering _evvivas_ with which he was greeted, and which rose into a perfect roar as he was carried into the Sala Regia. The potency of ‘Orders’ here is so great, that my Swedish decoration not only gave me the best place, but I took in two young men as my chaplain and equerry! After the Pope had entered the Sistine, we sat in great comfort in the Sala Regia till he returned, and then, as there was no one between us and the procession, we saw all the individual faces of the old cardinals--how few of them the same now as those I remember in the processions of Pius IX.

“There are no _evvivas_ now for the comparatively young king with the white hair and the ever-tragic countenance: the taxes are too great. I believe that he can read, if no one else can, the handwriting on the wall which foretells the doom of his southern kingdom. And yet personally no one could be braver or more royal, and, where they detest the king, the people honour the man. ‘Your king is at that house which has fallen down, helping with his own hands to dig out that old man who is buried: he won’t leave till the old man is safe,’ said Mrs. Story to her Italian maid Margherita. ‘Si, Signora, casa di Savoia manca qualche volta di testa, mai di cuore;’ and it is quite true. All one hears of the King’s self-abnegation is so fine. He used to be quite devoted to smoking, but he was ill, and one day his physician told him that it was extremely deleterious to him. He instantly took his cigar out of his mouth, threw it into the back of the fire, and has never smoked again.

“The Pope’s secretary has just died of the influenza. Leo XIII. was much attached to him, and is greatly distressed by his death. There is something touching in the newspaper account of the Pope’s having refused to eat, and his attendants having had to use _qualche dolce violenze_ to make him do it.

“We have had two months of rain, only four fine days last week, in which I went to the Crimera, to Fidenae, to Ostia, and to a touching and beautiful Mass in the heart of the Catacomb of S. Praetextatus, where the martyrs’ hymn was sung by a full choir upon their graves, its cadences swelling through the subterranean church and dying away down the endless rude passages, so long their refuge, and at last their place of death.

“And now I must stop. I am just come up from luncheon. ‘Wal, I guess I’m stuffed, but I’m not appeased,’ said my neighbour as we came out; and she was _con rispetto parlando_, as they say here--a lady.”

* * * * *

_To_ HUGH BRYANS.

“_Rome, April 26, 1892._--How I wish you were here: how you would enjoy it, though there is little to admire now in this much-changed Rome beyond the extreme loveliness of the spring, with its Judas and May flowers, and the golden broom of the Campagna. I have just been, with my old friends Mrs. Ramsay and Miss Garden, to the Villa Doria to pick anemones. There were thousands of them, and the ladies gathered them in like a harvest. Their servant was told off to look after the violets. Their late man, Francesco, said his was usually a very light place--‘ma nella primavera, al tempo dei violette, e duro veramente.’

“I have seen little of the Easter ceremonies. On Holy Thursday I went to St. Peter’s, and watched in the immense crowd for the extinction of the last candle and beginning of the Miserere; but all the effect was lost and the music inaudible from the incessant moving and talking. Afterwards there was a fine scene at the blessing of the altar in the already dark church--the procession, with lights, moving up and down the altar-steps, and then kneeling all along the central aisle, whilst the relics were exhibited from the brilliantly lighted gallery.

“Fifty-eight artisans and schoolmasters from the Toynbee Hall Institute, with some of their wives, have been in Rome for the Easter holidays. On Thursday I took them all over the Palatine, finding them most delightful companions, and the most informed and interested audience I have ever known. So since that I have been with them to the Appian Way, and Miss Fleetwood Wilson kindly invited the whole party to tea at the old Palazzo Mattei, unaltered through three hundred years. I made friends with many of the party individually, and think that for really good, intelligent, high-minded society, one should frequent the East End.

“What struck me most of all was the absence amongst them of the scandal-talk which in our own society is so prevalent. ‘Consider how cheap a kindness it is not to speak ill: it only requires silence,’ is an exhortation of Bishop Tillotson. They remember this; we don’t.

“Do you recollect the pretty Miss Cators? With them and some pleasant Americans, and Lanciani the famous archaeologist, I have been up Monte Cavi. Lanciani was most delightful, and told us about everything in a way which had all the enthusiasm and colour without the dry bones of archaeology, and oh! what lilies, violets, cyclamen, narcissus, covered the woods. Another day he lectured on old Fidenae, standing aloft on the ancient citadel, with all his listeners in groups on the turf around him, and afterwards they all had luncheon--still in scattered groups: it was like the pictures of the miracle of the loaves and fishes.

“It has been a great pleasure to see a good deal of ‘Mark Twain’ (Mr. Samuel Clemens) and his most charming wife. He is a wiry, thin old man, with abundant grey hair, full round the head, like an Italian _zazzara_. He speaks very slowly, dragging his words and sentences laboriously, and is long in warming up, and when he does, he walks about the room whilst he makes all his utterances, which have additional drollery from the slowness with which they are given. He began life as a wharfinger, throwing parcels into barges, and as he threw them the overseer called out ‘Mark one, Mark twain,’ and the chime of the words struck him, and he took the name. Speaking of the Catacombs he said, ‘I might have hooked the bone of a saint and carried it off in my carpet-sack, but then I might get caught with it at the frontier. I should not like to get caught with a thing like that; I would rather it were something else.’ ‘That story by Symonds,’ he said, ‘of a crucifix which contained a dagger, reminds me of the State of Maine. Spirits were strictly forbidden there, but pocket-testaments became very abundant. They contained two or three leaves, then there was a whisky flask. Now with one of those crucifixes and one of these pocket-testaments, one might cope with the worst society in the world.’

“‘My man George has made his fortune,’ said Mark Twain. ‘He used to bet on revivals, then he took to betting on horses: he understands it all round, and he has made a good thing of it.

“‘One night when I came home unawares, I found the house-door open. After going in and poking round, I rang up George. “Well,” I said, “George, you’ve been here probably some hours with the house-door undone.”--“Good heavens!” he cried, striking his forehead, and rushed up the stairs five steps at a time. When he came down I said, “Why, George, what was the matter?”--“The matter! why, that the house-door was left open, and that there were fifteen hundred dollars between my mattresses.”’

“Mrs. Clemens spoke to George one day about his answering ‘Not at home’ when she did not want to see visitors. In England it is understood, but in quiet places in America it is not: it is a lie. And Mrs. Clemens said, ‘George, you really should not say what you know is not true; you should say I’m engaged or that I beg to be excused.’ George came close up to her and said, ‘Mrs. Clemens, if I did not lie, you’d not be able to keep house a month.’

“A rival to Mark Twain, or rather one who draws him out capitally, is an American Miss Page, a very handsome elderly woman like an ancient Juno. She said yesterday, ‘I must be going home soon to see all the coloured friends and relations. Aunt Maria was groaning very much one day, so I asked her if she had found religion. She said, “No, but she was on the anxious bench.” A few days after she had “found religion,” and I asked her about it. “Why,” she said, “I got religion, and when I found that I’d got religion, I just did make the chignots (chignons) fly. And so we did all; we danced so hard that Uncle Adam had to be sent right away the next day to bring them all home in a wheelbarrow.”

“‘My cousin was begged of by a woman one night,” said Miss Page. ‘She was very violent, and she said, “You must give me money, you _shall_, or I’ll say you’re Jack the Ripper.” He went close up to her, and in sepulchral accents whispered “I _am_!” and the woman ran off as hard as she could.’

“There are other friends I must tell you about. At No. 38 Gregoriana, in a delightfully home-like apartment with a view of St. Peter’s, live Miss Leigh Smith and her friend Miss Blyth. The former is a sister of Madame Bodichon, who was such an admirable artist, and is of a most serene, noble, and beautiful countenance, but perhaps severe: the latter is gentleness and sweetness itself, though she is less striking in appearance. Every one likes them both, but every one loves Miss Blyth. They are known as ‘Justitia’ and ‘Misericordia.’

“Another person of interest, another American, who has come to Rome to visit Miss Hosmer, is Mrs. Powers. She is charming. She said this to me to-day: ‘I took a young lady with me on a Mississippi steamer. She was very pretty and attractive. On the deck she sat by an old lady, who looked at her and ejaculated “Married?”--“No.” “Engaged?”--“No.” Just then her husband came up, and she said to him, “Here’s a young lady who says she’s not married and not engaged: how’s that?” He looked her all over and said, “Guess the pattern don’t take.”’

“And now, that you may be introduced to all my present society, Miss Hosmer is going to give you one of her dinner enliveners. ‘An American came in one day with, “Have you heard this extraordinary news from England?”--“No; what?”--“Why, about the Archbishop of Canterbury.”--“No; what about him?” “Why, about his having refused to bury a waiter at the Langham Hotel.”--“No; what a proud contemptuous priest he must be; but what possible reason could he give for refusing to bury the waiter?”--“Why, that he was not dead.”

“‘That’s a good catch,’ says Miss Hosmer, who is talking to you; ‘and now I’ll give you another. A young man--a very charming young man--was engaged to be married, and he went down from London for the wedding to the place where his bride lived, full of the brightest hopes and expectations, and in his pocket he carried the ring with which he was going to marry his love. But alas! when he reached his destination, his love had changed her mind, thought better of it, would not marry him at all. So he came away very miserable, and he thought he would go and hide his sorrows in a little fishing-village, where he had often been in happier days; he really could not face the world yet. And as soon as he arrived at the village, he went out in a boat, and took the ring from his pocket, and threw it far out to sea. Next day a remarkably fine fish was brought to table, and when it was opened, what do you think they found?--“Why, the ring,” of course you will say, as I did--No, a fishbone.’ A most provoking story!

“There are two Misses Feuchtwanger in the hotel, kindest of elderly American ladies, full of funny reminiscence. ‘Mrs. Broadhurst,’ said one of them, ‘liked nothing so much as going to dine with her old “Black Mammy;” it was the thing she liked best: and so, through a long course of years, she heard Black Mammy’s old husband say grace, and the words he used were always the same. “Beautiful mansions, we thee redorable, many sensations, Amen.” The sound meant a whole world to him.’

“But I shall send you too much anecdotage, so good-night.”

* * * * *

_To the_ HON. G. H. JOLLIFFE _and_ JOURNAL.

“_Rome, April 27._--All the features of this Roman spring have been American. Mrs. Lee was in this hotel. ‘I was just raised in the South,’ she said, ‘and I’m a Southerner to the backbone. Some one wanted to be complimentary, and wrote of me in a newspaper as one raised in the lap of luxury, but I was just raised in the lap of an old nigger.’ She was very full of having been to the masquerade ball at La Scala. ‘It was awfully indecent. I could not have let my daughter go, but for me it did not matter; so I just went, and stayed to the end, for I thought some one might come along and say, “Ah! you don’t know about that, because it happened after you left,” so I thought I’d just see what was indecent for once; it might be my only chance; and I made quite sure nothing should happen after I left.’

“‘Don’t you know,’ she says, ‘that we call a story we have heard before “a chestnut”? Why, in America the smart young men used to wear a little bell on their watch-chains, and if they heard a story too often, they rung it to show the story was stale. That was the chestnut-bell.’

“Perhaps the most interesting American here is the Bishop of Nova Scotia. ‘“I’ve captured a church,” said a young American parson to me. “Captured a church! what in the world do you mean?”--“Why, I went into a church where the boys (soldiers) go, and I was asked to take the service. Soon the boys came in, and I saw that there was going to be a row. A lot of them sat down by the door, and as soon as I began to preach, one of them crowed like a cock. I said, ‘Just crow again, will you; I’m not ready for you yet.’ So he crowed again. Then I said, ‘Now, if you crow again, I’ll just fix up your beak to the anvil of God’s righteousness, and I’ll beat out your brains with the sledge-hammer of the wrath of God. Now, crow again, if you dare,’ and he did not crow any more, so I captured the church.”

“‘I would not give five cents to hear what Bob Ingleson considers to be the faults of Moses, but I’d give every cent I possess to know what Moses thinks of the faults of Bob Ingleson.

“‘I asked somebody if he thought my sermon was too low or too high, and he said “Neither, but I thought it was too long.”’

“I always dine at a little table with Miss Hosmer, where I am sure her fun and wit are more nourishing than all the rest of the viands put together. She says, ‘Our real name is Osmer, but our country people could never manage a name like that, so we voluntarily added the H. Generally, provided we are born somehow, we never care who our fathers and mothers were; but I did, and I had an uncle who found out that we were descended from a robber chieftain on the Rhine. Afterwards, in Turner’s “History of the Anglo-Saxons,” I found that the robber chief Osmer was one of the sons of Ida, king of Northumberland, and Ida claimed descent from Odin, so it is from Odin that I descend.’

“‘I promised to tell you about the siege of Rome,’ said Miss Hosmer the other day. ‘All that year we knew it was coming, and at last it came. The Italians had 70,000 men, and the Pope had only 11,000, so of course all effectual resistance was out of the question; but it was necessary to make a semblance of defence, to show that the Romans only gave in to force. September came, and the _forestieri_ who remained in Rome were all urged to leave, but Miss Brewster and I elected to stay. We were not likely to have another chance of seeing a bombardment, so we just hung an American flag out of our windows; that we were told we must do, as it might be necessary to protect us from pillage. All the other _forestieri_ left, and most of the Roman aristocracy. In the last days, when the Sardinians were just going to enter, there was a solemn Mass in St. Peter’s for the Pope, to implore protection for him against his enemies. I went with Miss Brewster. It was the most striking sight I ever saw. Every corner of the vast church was filled. Every one was in black--every one except the Pope in his white robes, and when he appeared, a universal wail echoed through the church. It was not a silent cry; it was the wail of thousands. There was not a dry eye in the church. The Pope passed close to me. His face was as white as his dress, and down his face the large tears kept rolling, and all his clergy, in black, were crying too. Oh, it was a terrible sight. I am not a Catholic, I am much the contrary, but I sobbed; every one did. Well, the Pope passed into the chapel where he was to say Mass, and he said it, and he walked back again; but he was still crying. It was very piteous, and when we went out into the piazza, there was Monte Mario white with the tents of the Italians, waiting, like vultures, to descend. It was uncertain, for the last few days, by which gate they would enter. It was thought it would be by the Porta Angelica, then by the Porta del Popolo; finally, it was by the Porta Pia.

“‘We were told that there would be no bombardment, but at five in the morning we were waked by the cannon, and they went on till ten. Shells came flying over our house, and one of them struck the church near us, and carried part of it away. At ten there seemed to be a cessation, so I sallied out as far as the Quattro Fontane, with my man Pietro behind me. When I got into the Via Pia (now Venti Settembre), I heard a cry of “In dietro! in dietro!” and the people ran. I thought I might as well get out of the way too, but indeed, any way, I was carried back by the crowd. I heard what I thought was a scampering of feet behind me, and when I reached the Quattro Fontane, I looked back, and seeing a man I knew, I said, “Why, what is the matter with you?” for he was covered with blood, and he said, “Why, Signorina, did not you know that a shell burst close behind you, and it has carried off several of my fingers, Signorina?” So I just took him into my house and gave him some wine, and bound his hand up as well as I could, and then sent him on to a surgeon. Then I went up to Rossetti’s house beyond the Cappuccini, because I thought from his loggia I should be able to see all that was to be seen; but as soon as we reached the roof a musket-ball grazed my face, and others were playing round us, so I said, “We had better get out of this,” and we went down.

“‘After the firing finally stopped, we went to Porta Pia to see the damage. The house which is now the British Embassy was completely riddled. Six dead Zouaves were lying in the Villa Napoleone opposite, and though the statues of S. Peter and S. Paul, which you will remember at the gate, were otherwise intact, both their heads were lying at their feet.

“‘At four, we went out again to see the Italian troops march into the city. There was no enthusiasm whatever. The troops divided, some going by S. Niccola, others by the Quattro Fontane, to their different barracks.’

“No one who did not know the ‘has been’ can believe how the sights of the Rome of our former days have dwindled away. All is now vulgarity and tinsel: the calm majesty of the Rome of our former winters is gone for ever.”

* * * * *

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

“_Cadenabbia, May 13._--At Florence, I went with the Duchess of Sermoneta and Lady Shrewsbury to spend an evening with the grand old family of Torrigiani, in the palace where the four sons, their wives, and children innumerable, live with their charming mother, the Marchesa Elisabetta, in perfect harmony and love; and another day went out to Poggio Gherardo, a grand fortified villa, approached through half-a-mile of roses, where the Ross’s now live. Then I was half a day at Padua, visiting it as a tourist after many years, with my own book as a guide, and a most delightful book I thought it!

“At Venice, I went to see ‘Pen Browning’ at the Palazzo Rezzonico, his most beautiful old palace, full of memorials of Pope Clement XIII. The son Browning has no likeness to either father or mother: he has worked hard, both as painter and sculptor, and has a good portrait as well as a bust of his father, from his own hands. There were many relics of his parents and their friends, amongst them a sketch by Rossetti of Tennyson reading one of his own poems to them, with an inscription by Mrs. Browning. ‘Pen’ was going off to his house at Asolo, a place which his father first brought into notice when he walked there and wrote ‘Pippa Passes.’

“Calling on a Mrs. Bronson in a neighbouring house, I met a young lady with fluffy hair, a Countess Mocenigo. ‘My dear, how many Doges had you in your family?’ said Mrs. B. ‘Seven,’ she answered, and there really were seven Doges of the name Mocenigo, besides all those from whom she was descended by the different marriages of her ancestors.

“Venice is still as full of odd stories as when my sister went to a party there, and was surprised because the oddly dressed old lady by her side never answered when she spoke, and then found she was made of wax. Most of the company were, being ancestors present thus in the family life of the present. Recently a lady named Berthold has lived at Venice who was of marvellous beauty and charm. All the society flocked to her parties. One evening she invited all her friends as usual. They found the palace splendidly lighted, and listened to the most exquisite music. At the close of the evening, curtains which concealed a platform at the end of the principal room were drawn aside, and within, the beautiful hostess was seen, seated on a throne, and sparkling with jewels, in all her resplendent loveliness. And then, as she waved a farewell to all present, the curtains were suddenly drawn, and she disappeared for ever. No human eye has seen her since. She had observed signs, unperceived by others, that her beauty was beginning to wane!

“In the hotel was a charming old lady who had just come back from Japan, and who was arrayed in a thick quilted and embroidered dress, presented to her by a Japanese lady. Her name, American fashion, was Mrs. Mary Ridge Perkins. Her husband had sent her abroad, as she said, ‘with a big letter of credit.’ ‘Mary, you may just go and do the honours of the old country alone.’ She hates English aristocrats, but was ameliorated towards Lord Digby, with whom she travelled back from Japan. He pressed her to come and see him in London--‘Not if you have your paint on.’ She has no children of her own, but, in the war, she and her husband adopted no less than thirty, who were rendered homeless. They all call her ‘Auntie Perkins,’ but their children call her grandmother. All the thirty are married now, and Mrs. Perkins never intends to leave her own home again, except to visit them. She came down to the gondola to see me off to the station with no bonnet on her aureole of short white curls, and I was touched by her parting benediction: ‘May your life always be happy, for you have always made others happy.’

“Here, at pleasant Cadenabbia, I have been glad to fall in with Lord and Lady Ripon. He said, ‘Do you know that _you_ have been the cause of my buying a property in Italy?’ It was in consequence of the sentence in my ‘Cities of Central Italy’ beseeching some Roman Catholic nobleman to save such a sacred and historic place, that he had bought S. Chiara’s convent of S. Damiano near Assisi, giving its use to the monks on the sole condition that it was never to be ‘restored.’

“An odd thing has happened to me here, almost like a slight shadow on the path. I met ---- who lives here, and whom I used to know very well, and went up to meet him with pleasure, and he cut me dead! I have not an idea why, and he will give no explanation. ‘Il faut apprendre de la vie à souffrir la vie.’

“The Archbishop of York and Augusta are at Cadenabbia, and have taken me across the lake in their little boat to tea with Charlie Dalison on that lovely terrace of Villa Serbelloni.”

XXVIII

A KNOCKING AT THE DOOR

“Let us try to see, try to do, better always and better. No honourable, truly good and noble thing we do or have done for one another, but will bear its good fruit. That is as true as truth itself, a faith that should never fail us.”--CARLYLE’S _Letters_.

“What I must do is all that concerns me, and not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness.

“It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what your duty is better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion: it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who, in the midst of the crowd, keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”--EMERSON.

“On parent knees, a naked new-born child, Weeping thou sat’st, while all around thee smiled: So live, that, sinking in thy last long sleep, Calm thou may’st smile while all around thee weep.” --SIR W. JONES, _from the Persian_.

The summer of 1892 was full of quiet pleasures. Visits to Cobham, Chevening, and to Mrs. Rycroft at Everlands, leave little to be remembered except the pleasant parties and the extreme kindness of hosts and hostesses everywhere. I am indeed glad that my visiting-lines are cast in such pleasant places, that I so seldom have to consort with the drearier part of human nature--the “Hem-haw, really, you don’t say so” sort of people. In these houses, where the conversation is perfectly charming, yet where no evil is spoken of any one or by any one, one sees truly how a christian spirit will christianise everything it touches, and one learns--as, indeed, when does one not learn?--that the best shield against slander is to live so that nobody may believe it.

In September I was at gloriously picturesque Montacute in Somersetshire, a noble house of yellow grey stone, where all the surroundings, terraces, vases, flowers, chime into the most harmonious whole. With its charming owner, Mrs. Phelips, I made an excursion to Ford, a grand old abbey altered into a luxurious dwelling-house by Inigo Jones, and where Time has blended the new work with the old, till they are equally picturesque. The great hall has its gothic roof of abbatial times, and in the stately saloon are noble Mortlake tapestries, said to have been presented by Charles I. to his Chancellor, but more probably the gift of Anne. Then I was with Lord Zouche, a pleasant friend of late times, at his fine old haunted house and ferny deer-park at Parham, meeting, with others, Lord Robert Bruce, called “the King of Hayling Island,” where he lives and brims over with fun and anecdote. I saw from Parham the new castle at Arundel, magnificently uncomfortable and containing little of interest. But there was something touching in looking into the open grave in which Cardinal Howard was to be laid in a few days, and remembering the different phases in which I had known him well--as the smartest of young Guardsmen, as a priest, where he seemed so unnatural, and finally as Cardinal. The recollection came back of how, when the other cardinals were shuffling along St. Peter’s, Cardinal Howard marched along in stately complacency, holding back his train on one side as a lady does her dress. “E troppo soldato,” said the other cardinals.

At Petworth I saw the magnificent Vandykes, Turners, and Reynoldses in the waste of its dreary saloons. Then with Mary Hare I went to Woolbeding, a drive through loveliest lanes, across an open common covered with fern turned brown by the early frost, and then down an avenue of magnificent Scotch firs, to where lines of gorgeous flowers led up to the house, like a French château with high roof and dormer windows. I had always wished to see its charming owner, Lady Lanerton, who was just what I expected--a beautiful old lady, quite unable from rheumatism to move out of the chair in which, put upon wheels, she can be taken to the services in the little church in the garden, filled with memorials of those she has loved and outlived. In her face was the satisfied and restful expression of one waiting in grateful patience and humblest hope upon the borderland. She seemed to say, what I have just read as amongst Mrs. Stowe’s last words, “I feel about all things now as I do about the things that happen in a hotel after my trunk is packed to go home. I may be vexed and annoyed--but what of it? I am going home soon.” In the garden, amongst the splendid profusion of old-fashioned flowers, I was glad to find Lady Bagot, linked with many memories of my long ago.

* * * * *

_To the_ HON. G. H. JOLLIFFE.

“_Nov. 1._--I have had an interesting and most pleasant visit to Sir John Lubbock, one of the most delightful of men, so entirely captivating in his simplicity of true wisdom, that no one could fail to be fond of him. His home of High Elms, near Orpington, is a beautiful place, quite near London, but with glorious woods and an entirely country aspect. Professor Forster and many other clever men were there, all far too learned for me, but I did not even try to ‘live up to them,’ and so enjoyed myself thoroughly. I went on from High Elms to Sir George Higginson’s at Great Marlow, and he--a very dear old friend--with all the manly straightforwardness of a splendid soldier and the chivalry of the most refined gentleness, is almost as attractive as Sir John, doing far more than many cleverer people to make life pleasant, and verifying Madame Swetchine’s words, ‘C’est par l’esprit qu’on s’amuse, c’est par le cœur qu’on ne s’ennuie pas.’ Thence, I was taken to see my Dashwood cousins at West Wycombe House, which is full of curious pictures and furniture, recalling a French château of the beginning of the eighteenth century, even in the peculiarly refined and delicate loveliness of its chatelaine.”

* * * * *

_To_ VISCOUNT HALIFAX.

“_Nov. 9._--I have been very ill. It was a bad chill at first, followed by most terrible pains, which I thought were part of the chill, and struggled against, moving about when I ought to have kept perfectly still. When at last I sent for a doctor, he said I had been in most imminent danger for several days, and that I must have died before another forty-eight hours were over if he had not come just then. A slight operation was necessary at once to re-arrange an internal misplacement, and this relieved the agonising pain. I have not often been before so immediately, never so suddenly, face to face with possible death. For some hours no one knew how it would go, yet I have often _felt_ more ill. There was constantly in my mind a text which I believe is in the Old Testament somewhere, ‘Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?’ and I rested upon it somehow. There seems something almost cowardly in the way in which, when very ill, one turns for comfort to texts and hymns and prayers, which one seldom thinks of at other times. But I _do_ find them a comfort, and I suppose it is partly the natural transition from active to contemplative life.... Still I cannot say what my extreme thankfulness was when it was pronounced that all was going on well and that I was likely to recover. I suspect that I shall have to ‘go softly’ for a long time to come, perhaps always, and never be quite as well as I have been: still, in the many mercies which are left to me, I shall never have time to think of the disagreeables.

“How strange it is when one knows, when one is told, that one is almost in the valley of the shadow of death! I felt more surprised than frightened; indeed, I do not think I felt frightened at all, I could leave it so completely in wiser Hands. But I know that I looked very wistfully at all the little familiar pictures on the wall, feeling how sorry I should be to see them for the last time, and to part from all ‘the boys’ and my many interests here, and go into the unknown, of which one knows so little; only that I do, absolutely and entirely, trust in the mercy of God, and know that it will be well somehow; as to the how, God will know best how to settle it.

“Perhaps it may be, as in Michelangelo’s sonnet--

‘Not death indeed, but the dread thought of death saveth and severeth.’

“I may not always go on feeling so; but I feel now as if I had left my long youth on the other side of this illness. Andersen says, ‘The stem of the pine-tree forms knots which betray the age of the tree: human life has also its perceptible rings;’ I suspect this illness will be a perceptible ring to me.”

* * * * *

_To the_ HON. G. H. JOLLIFFE.

“_Dec. 21, 1892._--You know how ill I was in November, but you do not know all the serious thoughts it awakened. ‘Il est ennuyeux de vivre dans la grâce de Dieu, mais tout le monde veut y mourir;’ is that what you would answer? I have a great deal to say about it, but as you will like facts better, I will only tell you that since I recovered I have been quite a tour of visits, beginning with Lady Beauchamp,[507] and meeting charming Lady Granville and a party of sixteen young men and maidens at Madresfield Court, a moated house with a lovely view of the Malvern Hills, and full of precious collections of every kind--old books, old music, old miniatures, ivories, enamels, &c. In my room, ‘the Stuart Room,’ it was a pleasure to live with portraits inscribed ‘Mary Stewart, Princess of Orange,’ and ‘King James III.’ There is a chapel, where Lady Mary Lygon watches over the musical part of the services, aided by a footman who sings splendidly and plays five instruments well!

“I was several days at Moor Park near Ludlow, the stately house of Mrs. Johnston Foster and her pleasant heiress-daughters. They have built a huge and handsome church near their present home, and another in Yorkshire. Mrs. Foster took me to spend the day at the curious old house of Kyre, where there is a hiding-place in the hall behind a picture on a sliding panel, and an oubliette in the floor beneath a trap-door. Amongst the pictures was a curious portrait of Lady Pytts, whose daughter married Sir Thomas Stanley, the first baronet of Alderley, and planted the Alderley wood with beech-nuts from her old home, for before that ‘there were no beech-trees in Cheshire.’ The lady of the house, Mrs. Childe, has a wonderful power of making slight sketches from all such old portraits in the houses where she visits, and has many volumes of them.

“At Hereford I spent a most pleasant day with kindly Dean Herbert, who showed me all the details of his cathedral, which is beautiful still, though somewhat spoilt by Wyatt. Nothing was more interesting than the slab tombs of a bishop and dean, who were such friends, that their hands are represented as clasping each other from their adjoining gravestones. How seldom this can have been possible!

“I was one day with my Biddulph cousins at Ledbury, and was even more struck than before with their delightful old house of 1590, ‘entre cour et jardin,’ like the houses of the Faubourg S. Germain, entered by a court from the little town, and with a delicious garden and an old deer-park--perhaps the smallest in England--on the other side. I was at Shakspeare’s Charlecote afterwards, and at Warwick, and oh! so bitterly cold!

“It has been almost constantly bad weather, but I do not mind that as I used. I think it was Caroline Fox who first reminded us of ‘A wet day and all its luxuries, a fine day and all its liabilities.’

“Then I had a happy week at beautiful old Blickling, with Constance, Lady Lothian, who--though no blood relation to her--reminded me more than any one else of my dear Lady Waterford, with much the same charm of manner and power of enjoyment of all the smallest things of beauty. The park, gloriously wild, belonged to Harold, and endless illustrious owners since. The house is a dream of beauty externally, and is full of ghost-stories. It was the family home of the Boleyns, and in the tapestried drawing-room Anne Boleyn is still supposed to walk at night with her head in her hand. In the present serving-room the devil appeared to Lord Rockingham, who threw an inkstand at him, which missed, and marked the wall. When Lord and Lady Lothian first came to Blickling, they altered the house and pulled down partitions to make the present morning-room. ‘I wish these young people would not pull down the partitions,’ said an old woman in the village to the clergyman. ‘Why so?’--‘Oh, because of the dog. Don’t you know that when A. was fishing in the lake, he caught an enormous fish, and that, when it was landed, a great black dog came out of its mouth? They never could get rid of that dog, who kept going round and round in circles inside the house, till they sent for a wise man from London, who opposed the straight lines of the partitions to the lines of the circles, and so quieted the dog. But if these young people pull down the partitions, they will let the dog loose again, and there’s not a wise man in all London could lay that dog now.’

“Lady Lothian took me to Mannington, Lord Orford’s[508] curious little place. The garden, with its clipped hedges, statues, and vases, is surrounded, with the house, by a wide moat. The house is full of old pictures and furniture. In the dining-room is a sculptured skeleton whispering to a monk. It was here that Dr. Jephson saw his much-talked-of ghost. He had been sitting up late over the MSS., when an old man appeared to him. He spoke to the figure, and, though it did not answer, he was for some time quite certain of the apparition. Whilst I was at Blickling, however, Dr. Jephson was one of my fellow-guests, and he now thinks the vision was an optical delusion.

“On the outer wall of the house of Mannington are a number of Latin inscriptions, put up by the present owner. They are all most bitter, vehement, and incisive against women. But in a distant part of the grounds there is also a monument to ‘Louise,’[509] with ‘Pensez à lui, et priez pour elle.’ This is in a little wood, close to an old ruined chapel, within which Lord Orford has already placed his own sarcophagus, with an inscription (saying nobody else would ever do it), and around which he has collected a vast number of architectural fragments from destroyed churches. Lord Orford seldom comes to Mannington now, but till five years ago he was much here in strictest seclusion, with his adopted son and his wife, who were much tried by the dinner at half-past six, always of exactly the same food, after which he would talk to the lady with incessant quotations from the Latin poets, of which she did not understand a word. Every Saturday he used to pass Blickling on his way to Norwich, where he used to see his doctor, play a game of whist, and hear a mass, returning next day.

“I was two days at Titsey with Granville Leveson Gower, who is a delightful archaeologist. I remember him at Oxford. Now he has six sons of his own, several of them very handsome.

“And all this time dear Lady Egerton’s death has been a shadow. She was a most kind friend to me, and ‘La Mort laisse souvent plus de vide que la Vie ne prenait de place.’ It was characteristic of her great unselfishness that, when she knew her illness must be a very suffering one and certainly fatal, she insisted upon being removed from the home she loved so devotedly to a hired house at Eastbourne, in order that Tatton might not be left with any distressing association for her husband. Truly of her may be said--

‘But by her grave is peace and perfect beauty, With the sweet heaven above, Fit emblems of a life of Work and Duty Transfigured into Love.’”

* * * * *

_To_ W. H. MILLIGAN _and_ JOURNAL.

“_Belvoir Castle, Jan. 6, 1893._--‘Be firm with the weather, and it’s sure to clear up,’ said old Miss Hammersley, and, after the terrible early winter, the weather, though bitterly cold, is most glorious. My arrival at this stately castle was a fiasco. The Duchess had forgotten that she had told me to come to their little station of Redmile, and when I arrived at that desolate place, with deep snow on the ground and night fast closing in, there was nothing to meet me. The stationmaster sent his little boy to the next village, and in an hour he returned with an open waggonette, agonisingly cold across the open plain. But I was repaid when we entered the still loveliness of the ice-laden woods, every bough sparkling in the moonlight like crystallised silver; and still more when we emerged upon the plateau at the top of the hill, and the mighty towers of the castle rose pale grey into the clear air, looking down into the wooded frost-bound gorges like the palace of the ice-queen. I found the Duchess waiting for me in the corridor, with that genial solicitude for one’s comfort which goes straight to the heart when one does meet with it, which is so seldom.

“It was a great pleasure to find the all-delightful Speaker here, with his pleasant daughters, also my friend Wilfrid Ricardo. The rest of the party are Lady Bristol and her daughter, Lady Clancarty and hers, pleasant Fred Henniker and his sister, Mr. Macalmont, Mr. G. H. Smith, Miss De la Brosse, &c., besides the sons and daughters of the house.

“How I like all the mediaeval ways--the trumpeters, who walk up and down the passages and sound the dressing-time: the watchman, who calls the hours through the night; the ball-room, always ready in the evenings for those who want to dance: the band, in uniform, which plays soft music from an adjoining room during dinner, at which all the hunting men appear in their red coats, and add brilliancy and colour to the immensely long table with its glorious old silver ornaments.

“On the first morning, the Speaker and I went after breakfast with the Duchess to her private rooms, filled with comfort and sunshine, where she fed thousands of birds upon the little platform outside her windows, and the Duke, amongst other treasures, showed me a deed of King John conferring Haddon upon Richard Manners.

“At 12, I met the Duke and Duchess again, and walked alone with them on the terraces and along the exquisitely beautiful wood walks, all glistening in silvered splendour, whilst the sun was bright and the air quite still. The Duke told me how he had the bill--at £60 a piece--of those curious statues by Cibber which are such an ornament to the garden. Nothing could be more delightful than the way in which he talked about the place, and with great affection of his brother the late Duke. When we reached a little garden where there is a slab inscribed with verses by Mrs. Kemble, he was tired and returned. I went on with the Duchess, a long and most attractive path through the woods, and she talked of her real devotion to the Queen, and of the Queen’s extreme kindness to her, especially in insisting on the Duke’s going to Wiesbaden to the doctor who cured his eyes when he seemed upon the verge of total blindness. After luncheon, the Duke took the Speaker and me to see in detail the miniatures, which are so beautifully arranged in little panels on the drawing-room walls, with movable glasses in front. Wonderful are those portraits of Sir Philip Sidney, of his friend Prince Henry (with pearl earrings), and of Charles I. as a boy, with an inscription speaking of him as ‘the Hope of England.’ Then we saw those two little tables; one a sort of shrine to the Duke of Wellington, with the (framed) letter which he wrote to the then Duchess after her son Lord Robert was wounded in Spain--the prettiest, kindest letter ever written: the other a shrine to the Duke of York, with his little bust, part of his famous Protestant speech on yellow satin, and part of the famous Cheshire cheese presented to him after it, and a bit of which he sent, with a letter, to the Duchess of Rutland.

“In an exquisite old case worked by the Duke’s great-grandmother, and beneath a heart of pearls enclosing his hair, is the last letter of her son, Lord Robert Manners, who fell as captain of the _Resolution_ in action under Rodney. The letter is addressed to the captain of another ship, asking him to come to see him, and is written in the utmost cheerfulness--‘though one leg is off, the other shattered, and one arm broke.’ He died immediately afterwards of lockjaw. The beautiful portrait of this very handsome young hero hangs in the ball-room.

“Yesterday the Duchess was ill, and I went out alone with the Duke to the kitchen-garden and to the fine stables, of Charles II.’s time, where there are still sixty horses, over which Edward Manners presides as ‘field-master.’ The Government gives £5 annually as a retaining fee for ten of the best horses being always entered to serve in case of an invasion. I cannot say how delightful I think the Duke, what a noble old man in every truest sense.”

* * * * *

JOURNAL.

“_Jan. 1893._--Mrs. Kemble was certainly the living person I most wished to see, but I have let too many opportunities slip, and she has passed away without my knowing her. She must have been a great and generous woman, and those who knew her always loved though they feared her. Miss Hosmer has often told me how dearly she and her companions loved Mrs. Kemble when she was at school in America near the place where she lived. She would come voluntarily and read to the school-girls half a play in the morning and would finish it in the evening. Once, when she was reading, snow came on, and when she was to go home it was quite deep; so all the school-girls turned out with spades and brooms and cleared it away before her.

“But her severe manner terrified those who were given that way. ‘We had some private theatricals,’ Mrs. Story told me, ‘and Mrs. Kemble came to look on at the rehearsal, at which a girl was acting who was supposed to do it very well. Afterwards, when she came in, Mrs. Kemble walked up to her, and ‘_Are_ you a fool?’ was all she said.

“Dr. Silas Bartol, the Unitarian minister at Boston, took his girl to see Mrs. Kemble. He was nervous, and said, ‘My daughter wished so much to have the honour of knowing--rather of hearing--rather of seeing Mrs. Kemble, that I have ventured to bring her.’ Mrs. Kemble bowed stiffly, and motioned them to sit down, but she said nothing. The girl only sat and stared at her. Then the father[510] tried again--‘My daughter is very young--is very nervous--is very shy.’ Then Mrs. Kemble looked at them both, and, in her most sepulchral accents, said, ‘Shy! I also am shy. And since your daughter has nothing to say to me, and since most assuredly I have nothing to say to her, I will wish you good morning.’

“To some Americans she met she said, ‘We hate you for your politics: we hate you for your prosperity: we hate you for your manners: and ... I don’t wonder at it.’

“Mrs. Sartoris had more talent, but Mrs. Kemble had the greater genius. Those who met her recognised it at once. I heard one who loved her best say, ‘She married Mr. Butler because, for once in her life, she was a fool. He was very faulty as a husband, but she was so imperious, _no one_ could have lived with dear Mrs. Kemble.’

“When Mr. Cummings was taking the duty in the chapel at Dresden, they lived in the same house. Mrs. Cummings wishing to be civil, after some time sent her card, and asked if she might wait on Mrs. Kemble. The daughter came up at once and explained, very civilly, that her mother now saw no one, so Mrs. Cummings thought no more about it. But some time after, as she was sitting alone in her room, came a tap at the door, and on her opening it, she saw a lady in black velvet and lace, closely veiled, who startled her by saying in sepulchral accents, ‘I’m come to say that I shall never come again.’--‘Oh, is that really you, Mrs. Butler?’ said lively little Mrs. Cummings, and the sound of her real name, unheard for years, made her quite pleasant, and she came in, and was glad to hear of many mutual friends in the Berkshire of Massachusetts. But unfortunately Mrs. Cummings made some allusion to Shakspeare, and ‘I did not come here to speak of Shakspeare,’ said Mrs. Kemble in her most awful accents, and the charm was broken.

“When in Boston long ago, while she was reading in public, she ordered dresses, pink and blue satin, at the great shop, the Marshall & Snelgrove of the town, but gave no address. The shopmen were afraid to ask her. The manager felt he must run after her and ask where the things should be sent. Unfortunately, to attract her attention, he touched her. ‘Unhand me, ruffian,’ she shouted in her most ferocious tone. ‘And such was the man’s terror,’ said my informant, ‘that, though he was quite young, his hair was turned white that night.’

“From personal vanity she was absolutely free. Miss Hosmer once expressed her regret that she had been photographed in a hat--‘We would so much rather have seen your head.’--‘My dear,’ said Mrs. Kemble, ‘my sister, and my friends, and you yourself expressed a wish to possess my photograph, so, as I was passing a photographer’s shop, I just went in and flopped down and was photographed as I was.’

“A lady was once alluding to the hope she entertained of reducing her figure. In her most tragical voice Mrs. Kemble said, dwelling on every syllable, ‘With a hereditary tendency to fat, nor exercise, nor diet, nor grief may avail.’”

* * * * *

_To_ MRS. C. VAUGHAN _and_ JOURNAL.

“_Longford Castle, Salisbury, Jan. 18._--I have been five days in this magnificent old place, and it has been a very interesting visit--and weird, from being with people to whom the other world is so very near, who seem to be as intimate with the dead as with the living, and who think no more of ‘receiving a message’ from one of their ‘guiding spirits’ than we should of a note from an ordinary acquaintance. These spirits, the wise ‘Huldah,’ the scientific ‘Iganesis,’ the sympathetic ‘Echord,’ the evangelistic ‘Ernest,’ and ‘Semirus,’ the wise physician, are the friends of the Radnors’ daily life. There comes a rap, such a noise as we should speak of as ‘only the furniture,’ and then it is supposed that one of the spirits has something to say, and a pencil is put into the hand of a medium. One cannot say that she writes, for she often even goes fast asleep! but _it_ writes, frequently volumes--not the sprawling incomprehensible stuff which I have often seen before from ‘Planchette,’ but clear MS. in different handwritings, and purporting to come from one of the spiritual friends. Personally, I should say that most of these communications were not the least worth the immense amount of time and thought given to them. The letters--‘messages’--from Echord and Ernest, are excellent certainly, but mild and affectionate religious platitudes, such as might be written by an Evangelical clergyman of rather poetical tendencies. They all, however, speak of the dead as not asleep, but in action: of there being no ‘place,’ but ‘a state’ after death: of existence after death being a process through gradations. None of the spirits have seen ‘God,’ but ‘the dear Master,’ ‘the sweet Master,’ is ever with them and amongst them. The communications from Semirus are more important. He is the great physician, and his advice has provided means of healing and safety for numbers, where earthly physicians have proved powerless or helpless. The Bishop of Salisbury has been scandalised at the state of things at Longford and felt impelled to come and testify against it. He recognised all that happened as fact, as every one must, but denounced it as ‘devilry,’ saying that the owners of the castle were risking their own souls and all the souls around them. They answer: ‘It was said to Christ, Thou hast a devil.’

“The great medium is Miss K. Wingfield, now aged about twenty-six. The Radnors have known her and her family most intimately for many years, and are certain of her absolute trustworthiness with regard to what she hears or writes. She is almost as a daughter to them, and they have watched the development of her psychical powers, through various steps, with the greatest interest. Her most remarkable gift is automatic writing, which has been given in many languages, several with which she is wholly unacquainted (including a very old form of Chinese, only decipherable at the British Museum), and in many different handwritings. When her hand writes, or rather the pencil in her hand, she has never the least idea of what is being written. A divining rod has unfailing power in her hands.

“The really remarkable communications are those which have reference to History. In August 1889, Sir Joseph (then Mr.) Barnby, came down to Longford to play the organ at Lady Skelmersdale’s marriage. One day at this time Miss Wingfield’s hand wrote a communication in strange old-fashioned characters, which purported to come from one ‘John Longland.’ When asked why he came, he said that he had been brought ‘by the influence of Mr. Barnby, whose music he had heard in Eton College Chapel, where he was buried.’ Later in the day, the party went to Salisbury Cathedral, and while Lady Radnor and Miss Wingfield were sitting in the Hungerford Chapel (the freehold family pew of the Radnor family), Mr. Barnby played. Whilst he was playing, Miss Wingfield saw, as in a vision, various scenes enacted, culminating in a procession of monks and other ecclesiastics with banners and canopies: one of these, a grave-faced man, came up to the chapel and looked in at her through the bars. At the same time he announced (by loud raps on the wainscot, which is the ordinary means of communication) that he was John Longland, that it was he who had written in the morning, and that he had come to the cathedral because he had been Dean there in 1514, and that he had more to tell. Another vision in the cathedral showed the gorgeous ceremonial of a consecration, which was announced to be that of one Brian Duppa, Bishop of Salisbury: in a third vision, Brian Duppa was again seen, lying dead in his coffin.

“On reaching Longford, Miss Wingfield received more writing from John Longland, who described himself as anxious to confess how faithless he had been to his intimate friendship with Thomas Bullen (Anne’s father); that he had been instrumental in persuading Henry VIII. to divorce Catherine and to marry Anne, thus advancing his friend’s daughter, and that afterwards--entirely from motives of personal pique against his former friend--he had influenced Henry against Anne, and fostered suspicions which led to her execution. He again said that he was buried in Eton College Chapel.

“Anxious to verify these statements, Mr. Wingfield (Coldstream Guards) purposely went to Eton to search for the tomb of John Longland, and nowhere could it be found. The Radnors and Miss Wingfield then thought that John Longland must be a ‘lying spirit,’ and not finding any record of his being Dean of Salisbury either, they tore up his writings.

“After Mr. Barnby had left Longford, John Longland came again, but no one would listen to him. He was, however, so persistent, that the Radnors decided to have a hunt for a list of officers of the cathedral. In a lobby cupboard they discovered some old volumes of county history, uncut and covered with dust. In one of these they found that John Longland had been Dean of Salisbury at the date mentioned, and that he was translated to Lincoln in 1521. Turning to ‘Britton’s Lincolnshire,’ equally covered with dust, showing it had not been moved for months (so that there was no possibility of Miss Wingfield having seen the statement), it was found that Bishop John Longland was a person of great learning and piety, &c., that he was confessor to Henry VIII., and suspected of having unduly influenced the King with regard to Catherine and Anne, &c. He died at Woburn, and was privately buried in Eton College Chapel, of which he was ‘visitor,’ his heart being sent to Lincoln.[511] The Radnors afterwards learnt that the tombstone of Longland was removed from Eton College Chapel during a ‘restoration.’

“Some time after, when Miss Wingfield went for the first time to the Palace at Salisbury with Lady Radnor, she exclaimed, ‘There is my Bishop that I saw!’ and went straight up to a portrait on which the name of Brian Duppa was found to be inscribed in very small characters.

“The day after I came was Sunday--thick snow without, with bright sunshine, which together threw a glorious light on the pictures. Lady Radnor showed them all delightfully. Amongst those which remain in one’s mind are a delightful full-length of his boy by Rubens in the Long Parlour, which the family chiefly inhabit, and the ‘Child Feeding Chickens,’ and Mrs. Edward Bouverie and her child, by Reynolds, in the great saloon. In the Long Gallery are two grand Claudes and a steel chair of enormous value, the delicate work of one Thomas Ruker, given by the city of Augsburg to Rudolph II. in 1577. This gallery opens on one side toward the chapel, with the font in which little Lucius Hare, son of Lord Coleraine, who once lived here, was baptized; and on the other to a sort of ‘Tribune’ with the choicest pictures--the Egidius of Quentin Matsys, the Erasmus of Holbein, a fine Sebastian del Piombo, and a glorious Paris Bordone of a scornful beauty--‘Violante’--in a red velvet dress. In a passage is the curious portrait of Mrs. Honeywood, aged ninety-three, who had 367 descendants at the time of her death. She is represented with a glass goblet. In her great age she was sure she was doomed to eternal damnation. ‘I am as certain to be lost,’ she said, ‘as that goblet is to be broken to pieces,’ and she dashed it to the ground, and it rolled away quite unhurt. So after that she remained perfectly satisfied that all would be well with her. But the pictures which interested me most personally were the noble Vandyke of my great-great-great-great-grandmother, Margaret Carey, Countess of Monmouth, and the Holbein of Mary Boleyn, who married William Carey, and was also my grandmother by just ten removes.

“The house is built in a triangle, with three round towers at the angles, known as the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Lord Radnor told me how, when he walked out with his father every summer evening, as they neared the house he always saw his father take off his hat, look up at the windows, and bow three times. When his father died he often regretted that he had never liked to ask him why he did this. But now he _had_ asked his father’s spirit through a medium, and the spirit answered that he had always repented not having told him the cause, in an old distich, which he wrote:--

‘Owner of Longford, whoe’er you be, Turn and bow with bends full three, And call on the name of the Trinitie, Or castle and lands will pass from thee.’

And since that he had always done the same.

“In one of the round towers is a pleasant room with ancient panelling of white and gold. This is now Lady Radnor’s boudoir, and here she has often sung to us delightfully. The grounds, with their two rivers, and the garden with its terraces and vases and yew-hedges, are enchanting. The younger son, Stuart Bouverie, called ‘Toby’ in the family, is, at fourteen, a clever mechanician.”

* * * * *

On the 17th of February 1893, my dear old cousin Charlotte Leycester died peacefully at her house in London. For months past she had been failing in her great age (ninety-five) as to physical powers, but her mind was as much alive as ever, and her affection and sympathy as warm and ready. “She seemed,” as I have read in the novel “Diana Tempest,” to “have reached a quiet backwater in the river of life, where the pressure of the current could no longer reach her, would never reach her again.” In the last days of her own life, my dearest mother begged me always to be all I possibly could to this dear cousin and friend of her whole life, and I believe that I have been able to fulfil her wishes. She has had a home at Holmhurst every summer, and I have never allowed a week, generally not three days, to pass without writing to her. She carries away with her my closest link with the past, but no one could wish to keep her here. Better that she should go in her great age before the suffering of age came.

Just when her gentle life flickered out in sleep, I read in Grinnell’s “Pawnee Hero Stories”--“The sun was glad. He gave them great age. They were never sick. When they were very old, one morning their children said, ‘Awake, rise and eat.’ They did not move. In the night, in sleep, without pain, their shadows had departed for the sandhills.”

* * * * *

_To_ HUGH BRYANS.

“_June 20, 1893._--I was in London a long time, but saw and heard little of interest. At Mr. Knowles’s one day I met the honest sturdy Miss Octavia Hill, and another day Bret Harte, a young-old man, with white hair and an unwrinkled rosy face. It was odd to hear him called ‘Mr. Harte.’ After luncheon Mr. Knowles read Tennyson’s ‘Boadicea’ in a weird monotonous kind of chaunt, imitating him exactly, I should think. He said that was the way Tennyson always wished his poems to be read--straight on, without emphasis or any change of voice. One day I went with the Lowthers to draw at Fulham, and we had tea delightfully in the open air with the Bishop and Mrs. Temple, he helping his boy meanwhile to do Latin verses. George Lefevre had a great pleasant party at the old palace at Kew, to which we went by the river, and where we saw the Tecks with their daughter and the Duke of York a very little while before their marriage. For this I saw the picturesque procession capitally.”

* * * * *

_To_ VISCOUNT HALIFAX.

“_October 20, 1893._--I have been little away from home all summer, being so busy with my Waterford Memorial, at which I have certainly worked _con amore_.

“One little frisk I have had to Montacute, whence Mrs. Phelips took me to see two fine old houses, Barrington, and Wolferton near Dorchester. Then I was three pleasant days with Lord Arthur Hervey, the delightful old Bishop of Bath and Wells, in his moated fortified palace, as picturesque and as beautiful as it could possibly be. How attractive is all the apple-filled neighbourhood of Avalon--‘the Apple Island’--and how delightful its legends of Arthur if one seeks them.

“‘As Arthur ever still in British memory lives,’ says the inscription at Cardeña on the tomb of the Cid, but I fear few think of him where he lived. The Bishop took me to Cheddar. How very grand it is! We mounted by a coombe into the hills, and so descended upon the gorge. ‘Imagine yourself a river working its way down,’ said the Bishop, as the narrow ravine opened beneath us with its great purple rocks in labyrinthine windings of inexpressible beauty. Very lovely, too, I thought the little lake at the bottom, covered with a kind of ranunculus unknown elsewhere.

“The Bishop talks freely on all subjects with perfect ease and simplicity, in the repose of a mind at rest and the humility of real knowledge. He was much occupied with the question as to whether the children of Israel were 200 or 400 years in the wilderness, all depending upon where a stop ought to be placed. He was also full of derivations of names, and mentioned several interesting ones--Bevan, ap Evan; Bethel, ap Ithil; Coblentz, confluence; and Snowdon and Ben Nevis, meaning the same thing. He talked of having known Madame de Gontaut long ago, and how, when Louis XVIII. did something she could not approve, she always turned his portrait to the wall. The last time he went to see her, the servant said, ‘Depuis qu’elle est en enfance, Madame la Duchesse ne reçoit pas.’ He told of having been in his childhood at the ball which George IV. gave to children, and how a little girl being asked there what she would like to have, said, ‘I should like to have too much.’ In his room hung a beautiful engraving from Millet’s ‘Angelus,’ which he aptly called ‘the picture of the good lout’[512]

“Later, for my little ‘Sussex’ book, I was four days wandering about the deep sandy lanes and semi-forest tracts in the central part of the county. One of the prettiest places was Broadhurst, near Horsted Keynes, where the saintly Archbishop Leighton passed the last years of his life, and taught his sister’s children and grandchildren under the old oaks. I slept two nights at Groombridge Place, a delightful house, little altered since it was built in James I.’s time, and with three terraced gardens, and peacocks innumerable sunning themselves on the grey parapet of the wall above the moat.

“At Holmhurst I have been much alone, and I feel, with Carlyle, that ‘the memory of many things which it is not at all good to forget rises with strange clearness on me in these solitudes, very touching, very sad, out of the depths of old dead years.’”

* * * * *

The only incidents of my autumn were visits to Sir Raymond and Lady Burrell at Knepp Castle, containing one of the finest collections of portraits to be found at any small place in England; and to the Palace at Chichester, where the noble old Bishop Durnford seemed at ninety-one more full of tireless energy than ever, and whence I was taken to visit the site of the original bishopric, Selsey, with its lichen-covered walls and storm-beaten gravestones.

In December, whilst staying at ever-pleasant Thorncombe with my cousin Victoria Rowe, I sat for my portrait to Mr. Eddis.

* * * * *

JOURNAL.

“_Dec. 5, 1893._--I had a delightful morning with Mr. Eddis, now eighty-three, but full of vigour and vivacity, and still more of reminiscence. He said, ‘You would not have been here now having your portrait painted if it had not been for the Athenaeum. When I was a very young man, one Magrath, who was secretary there, told me he wanted a sketch made of himself, and that he would give me £5 for one. So I did it, and it was such a success, that no fewer than sixty members of the club put their names down to be drawn by me. I was doubtful if I should do them, for I wanted to study, and I had not studied enough, but I asked Hilton, who was a very good artist then, and he told me it would be folly to refuse what came so easily; and so I did the portraits, and from that time orders have poured in all through my long life, and so I have never had time for real study since: I have only learnt through my work.’

“‘What one learns most by experience is the value of reflected light. I once had a discussion with Gladstone about what was the brightest colour in Nature. He maintained red was: he was perfectly certain, and very determined in his opinion. I said blue was. I told him how, in the evening, when all was mysterious, the red flowers in the garden disappeared, but the blue remained visible. But he was unconvinced. Then I showed him how, in a photograph of a flower-bed, the red flowers remained dead, undetached from the leaves, but the blue flowers were light and visible in all their forms. Then--“Good night, Mr. Eddis,” he said.’

“‘Did you know D’Israeli?’ said Mr. Eddis. ‘No, he must have been before your time, but I used to meet him often. He always struck me as _lying in wait for points_: to make a point was what he cared for most.

“‘James Croker had much to do with the building of the Athenaeum. They wanted him--the members did--to make an icehouse for them, but he wouldn’t. Afterwards some one found in a waste-paper basket a couplet he had written--

‘My name is James Croker, I’ll do as I please; You wish for an ice-house, I’ll give you a frieze.’

“‘Sydney Smith did not make at the time all the jokes which were attributed to him: he thought of them afterwards, and circulated them. He told me once, for instance, that Landseer had asked him to sit for his portrait, and that he had answered, “How could I possibly refuse a chance of immortality,” which was perhaps a very natural thing to say. But it was reported afterwards in London, and reported with at least his consent, that he had answered, “Is thy servant a dog, that I should do this thing?”

“‘One of his best real sayings was of Dr. Whewell--“Science is his forte, omniscience his passion.”

“‘Macaulay, it is true, talked incessantly--talked like a machine, but he had his attractive points. I found this out especially when he brought the present Lady Knutsford, as a very little girl, to me to be painted, and talked nonsense to her the whole time, but it was always nonsense which had a lesson in it.

“‘Lady Waterford was the most glorious specimen of womanhood I ever saw. She came in with Lady Canning when I was drawing the Archbishop of Armagh[515]--“the Beauty of Holiness,” as he was called. Lady Canning had the lovelier face and the more beautiful eyes, but Lady Waterford was always the more striking from the grand pose of her head and her majestic mien. In seeing her, one felt as if one looked upon a goddess.’

“This afternoon Victoria took me to see Mr. Watts.[516] A drive through wooded lanes and water-meadows; then the carriage stopped at the foot of a wooded knoll, and we walked up little winding paths through the bracken and Scotch firs to the house--a rustic hermitage. You enter directly upon the principal dwelling apartment--two low rooms, with old carved furniture and deep windows, and much colour and many pictures. The ceiling is in panels, decorated in stucco by Mrs. Watts (_née_ Fraser Tytler). At least she has finished one room, and is going to do the other with an epitome of the religion of all the nations of the earth--‘A work,’ she said, ‘which gives me much study.’

“Soon Mr. Watts came in, like a pilgrim, like a mediaeval hermit-saint, in a brown blouse and slippers, with a skull-cap above his white hair and beard, and his sharp eager features, in which there is also boundless tenderness and refinement. He sat by me on the window-sill, and began at once to talk of Lady Waterford--of her wonderful inspirations, her unrivalled colouring, her utter unconsciousness of self, and her majestic beauty--how, when he first saw her out walking at Blickling, with her grand mien, he could not but exclaim--‘It is Pallas Athene herself!’

“He regretted that she should never have been painted in later life. ‘When she came into a studio, it was like a glorious vision.’ His wife said how often he spoke of Lady Waterford, and that to herself it was a lifelong regret that she should never have looked upon one who so occupied his thoughts and admiration.

“Mr. Watts took us into his studio, an immense and beautiful room added to the cottage. Here were many of his pictures, the work of years, on which, from time to time, he adds a few touches. He likes to have many of his works around him, and to add to them thus.

“At the end of the room hangs his vast ‘Court of Death,’ which can be lowered by pulleys whenever he wishes to add to it. He was greatly pleased with a photograph of it, which has the effect of a Tintoretto, and which, while preserving the grand masses, blots out the detail. ‘Death’ is throned in the upper part of the picture. ‘I have given her wings,” said Mr. Watts, ‘that she may not seem like a Madonna. In her arms nestles a child--a child unborn, perhaps, who has taken refuge there. By her side the angels of silence guard the portals of the unseen. Beneath is the altar of Death, to which many worshippers are hastening: the old mendicant comes to beg; the noble offers his coronet; the warrior does not offer--but surrenders--his sword; the sick girl clings for refuge to the feet of Death. I have wished to paint Death entirely without terrors.

“‘You wonder what that is, that other picture of a figure of a rich man in Eastern dress whose face is half-hidden, buried away in the folds of his garment. I meant that for the man who was “very sorry, for he had great possessions.” He cannot give them up. He has tried, but he _cannot_. He is going out into the world again, and yet--and yet he is very sorry. I have only got to give him a number of rings and to put a gold chain round him, and I think his story will be told.’

“‘And that great picture?’ we asked. ‘Oh, that is the Angel of Rest. He has come to that old man, by whom all the instruments of music and science are lying, that weary old man, and he is touching his hand and bidding him come with him and rest.’

“Besides these, Mr. Watts produced from a corner a grand chalk portrait of Lady De Vesci--a most noble picture, giving all the dignity and all the sympathy and pity of her expression. Mr. Watts said he was going to give it to her little girl.

“He said, ‘I am within two years of eighty, and I have worked all my life, but I do not feel old or feeble. I do not even use a maul-stick, and I intend to do my best work yet.’

“On the walls were photographs from Lady Waterford’s drawings, placed beside Titians, and in their ideas as fine.

“Mr. Watts took me to the window of the other room to look out into ‘the half-clothed trees of the winter world.’ In the foreground, a number of cocoa-nuts, open at the ends, were hung up, and wrens and other tiny birds were fluttering in and out of them. ‘They like cocoa-nut,’ he said, ‘and I like to see them enjoy it.’

“He said he had no wish to go into the world again. Living was outliving. Holland House, the second home of many years, was swept away for him, and all its intimates were passing away, and its memories perishing. Nothing else in London could attract him.

“He had wished to make large pictures of Hope, Charity, and Faith. With the two first he had no difficulty, but he lingered long over the third. He showed us the picture he had done--of a woman seated, looking upwards, an Amazonian woman, sheathing her sword, and bathing her blood-stained feet in a brook of clear water. ‘She had found out that all that was no use--no use at all.’ His words, his thoughts, his works, all seemed imbued with the truest spirit of religion. ‘With theology,’ he said, ‘I have nothing to do.’

“He said he had no models. ‘Models are well as studies to draw from, but they check inspiration.’ He rejoiced in Lady Waterford’s using no models for her smaller pictures, and said she would not have been so truly great had she done so.”

* * * * *

“_Dec. 7._--Another delightful sitting with Mr. Eddis. I told him of our visit to Watts, and he said how he felt, on seeing his pictures and those of Alma Tadema, that Watts was the head, while Tadema was only the hand.

“He talked of his own early life as a student. At that time, Fuseli[517] had recently been the head of the Academy--the very fierce head. He used to say to his pupils, ‘You may be very good buttermen, you may be very good cheesemen, but students of Art you will never be; and now, give me my umbrella, and I’ll go and look at Constable’s pictures.’

“‘Turner[518] often used to come in and look at us and our work. There was a student amongst us who had painted in a red background, and he painted it the crudest, brightest red he could manage. Turner came in and said, “Come now, this will never do; give me your palette and brush,” and in a few minutes he had toned and mellowed it down with a hundred delicate gradations of tint. “Well now, don’t you think it’s improved?” said Turner. “No, I don’t,” answered the man; “I think it was much better before,” which annoyed Turner rather.

“‘I remember that he came to me that day. I was copying a Vandyke, and he looked at my work. “Part of that is very good,” he said; “why isn’t all the rest as good?”--“Because,” I said, “all the rest is me, and that part is an accident.”--“Well, let that accident to-day become principle to-morrow,” said Turner, and we were always rather friends afterwards.

“‘Turner was proud of his picture of Carthage. He had received many mortifications about his pictures, and people had haggled about the prices--very small prices too--that he asked for them. When Lord Francis Egerton came and told him that a subscription was on foot to buy that picture from him and present it to the National Gallery, he burst into tears, he was so moved. But he said, “No, I will not sell it, but I will leave it to the National Gallery.”

“‘Afterwards, however, he changed his mind, and wished to be buried in that picture. He spoke of it to Chantrey, who was his executor, and begged that he would see that it was done, urging him to promise that it should be done. “Yes, since you wish it, I’ll see you buried in that picture,” said Chantrey, “but, as sure as you’re alive now, I’ll see you dug up again.”

“‘Eventually the picture was left to the National Gallery.

“‘I was very near becoming an Academician,’ said Mr. Eddis, ‘but I never did. I had painted a picture of the “Raising of Jairus’s Daughter,” which was considered a good thing, and my election was thought certain. I was advised to call upon some of the principal members, not to ask them to vote for me, but to conciliate them by the attention. It went rather against the grain with me, and I asked Stanfield about it. “Your election is as certain,” said Stanfield, “as that I am sitting upon this sofa, but you may perhaps hasten it a little if you call as you’ve been advised.” I never did, however; I let it slip, and I was never elected. Then younger men cropped up, and I was forgotten: it was all as well, perhaps.’

“In the afternoon Victoria took me to Lady Sligo’s new house, to which, instead of the suitable name of Altamont,[519] she has insisted on giving that of Mount Brown. It is beautifully situated on a wooded platform above the town of Guildford. I thought the inside of the house very charming, but Frank Thomas, the architect, who was with us, objected because ‘there was too little of the architect, and too much of Lady Sligo in it,’ which seemed to me just its greatest recommendation.

“‘May I tum in?’ said a little boy, knocking at his little sister’s door. ‘No, oo mayn’t,’ answered the little sister. ‘May I tum in now?’ said the little boy. ‘Yes, oo may,’ answered the little sister. ‘And why mightn’t I tum in before?’ said the little boy. ‘Because Mammy said oo wasn’t to see me in my chemise, and now I’ve taken it off,’ answered the little sister.”

* * * * *

“_Dec. 8._--‘I see some pictures by amateurs,’ said Mr. Eddis this morning, ‘which produce the same effect that _we was_ does in conversation: it is because they have never studied the grammar of art.

“‘You would scarcely remember Chantrey, I think. He was always a kind friend to me. He rose quite from the ranks, and began as a carver of wood. Rogers was always said to have a table which had been carved by Chantrey.

“‘Lord Eldon sat to me three times, and, while he sat, told me all the story of his life, so when that Life was published, it was all familiar to me: he had told it all. He was unsuccessful as a lawyer in early life, had no practice whatever, and his friends advised him to throw up the profession altogether. Only two friends urged him to wait just a little longer, and he took their advice, and in that “little longer” the tide turned, and carried him on to the Chancellorship: “And then,” said Lord Eldon, “I was able to provide those two friends with very good places.’”

* * * * *

In December 1893 my “Story of Two Noble Lives” appeared, and was warmly welcomed by the upper classes of society--“the public” for whom it was especially written. The last time I had gone out with Lady Waterford, we walked up and down the little ilex avenue by the churchyard at Highcliffe. She spoke then of the great and increasing desolation of her life, and said, “If I survive Charles Stuart, there will not be any one left who would even put up a monument to me.” At the time I inwardly said, “I will,” and held firm to that resolution; and from what people say of the book, I feel that I may venture to regard it, though very unworthy, as a memorial of my dear Lady and her so-beloved sister. Lady Canning’s is the better portrait, for her letters remained; the destruction of all Lady Waterford’s best letters has prevented an equally good picture of her life being produced. General Stuart and many other of Lady Waterford’s friends assured me that a detailed memoir of her was impossible; but no good work was ever successfully carried through which has not at one time seemed impossible.

It was curious, on going to London, to see how opinions differed about the book--how one heard, “Oh, all the interest is confined to Lady Canning,” or, “Of course all one’s sympathies are with Lady Waterford; it is only Lady Waterford one cares for,” or, “The old French history is the only point of interest.” The Reviews were just the same, wishing that the first, or the second, or the third volume were excluded--“the general public would have been sure to welcome the book if it had been much shorter.” But that was exactly the welcome I did not care that it should receive. The general public had no interest in, could not understand, and was not constituted to benefit by such “noble lives,” while the inner circle for whom they were intended could always skip--skip a whole volume if it pleased, just as suited the reader. “Le plus grand malheur d’un homme de lettres n’est peut-être pas d’être l’objet de la jalousie de ses confrères, la victime de la cabale, le mépris des puissants du monde; c’est d’être jugé par des sots.” I was, however, very grateful for the letter of “a Radical,” well known, though quite unknown to me, who wrote that the book had shown him that he had often talked and written of what he had known nothing about, of a class he had misjudged or judged only from individuals, and that “the Story” had taught him what noble, devoted, unselfish lives might belong to the class he had maligned, and that he would never speak against it--in generalities--again. Lady Cork was furious because the married life of Lord and Lady Canning had not been painted as cloudlessly, beatifically happy. But how could I do this with all the written evidence before me? And, after all, what made Lady Canning’s so perfectly “noble” a life was that, however much she suffered, she allowed her mother and sister to live and _die_ under the impression that she was the happiest of wives.

A very large first edition--5300 copies--was produced. I felt these would be called for, and that such an edition would probably cover the very heavy expenses. But the sale of the book is not likely to go on; the generation contemporary with the two sisters will have passed away. For myself, if I like a book, I prefer that it should be very long. It enables you to make a real acquaintance with the people described, to learn to love them perhaps, and to be very sorry to part with them. I wonder if it will be so if some of these--very long--journals are ever made public.

XXIX

WRITING THE GURNEY MEMOIRS

“O thou wealthy Past, Thine are our treasures!--thine and ours alone Through thee: the Present doth in fear rejoice; The Future, but in fantasy: but thou Holdest secure for ever and for ever The bliss that has been ours; nor present woe, Nor future dread, can touch that heritage Of joy gone by--the only joy we own.” --FANNY ANNE KEMBLE.

“The stream bears us on, and our joys and our griefs are alike left behind us: we may be shipwrecked, but we cannot be delayed: whether rough or smooth, the river hastens towards its home, till the roaring of the ocean is in our ears, and the tossing of the waves is beneath our keel, and the lands lessen from our eyes, and the floods are lifted up around us, and the earth loses sight of us, and we take our last leave of earth and its inhabitants, and of our further voyage there is no witness, but the Infinite and the Eternal.”--REGINALD HEBER, _Farewell Sermon at Hodnet_.

I had frequently been urged by my friend Madame E. de Bunsen to write the lives and edit the letters of her family--the Gurneys of Earlham; but I had long declined. Much as I honoured the life-work and character of the Gurneys, I felt that I was so little in sympathy with their outward forms of religion, with their peculiar expression of it--with their religious talking, in fact--that I doubted if I could do them justice. Others seemed much better fitted for the task.

But towards the close of 1893 it was again urged upon me--urged with great persistency; and when I had taken many of the Gurney journals and letters home, a memoir seemed gradually to unravel itself in my mind, and at length I promised to do my best. I know, however, how true it is that “in a whole imbroglio of capabilities, we go stupidly groping about, to grope which is ours, and very often clutch the wrong one.”[521]

In many respects the work soon brought its own reward--inwardly, in being led to enter into the spiritual life and difficulties of so many holy departed ones: outwardly, in many visits to still living members of the family, whose life is a constant example, and has often an intellectual as well as a spiritual charm. Especially charming were some winter days at Colne House, the delightful home of Catherine, Lady Buxton, second daughter of Samuel Gurney; and a lovely spring day with Mrs. Ripley at Earlham, in the old-fashioned rooms, and on the green lawns, fragrant to the family--but also to thousands of others--with endless sacred memories.

* * * * *

_To the_ HON. G. HYLTON JOLLIFFE.

“_London, April 1894._--I have had a pleasant time here, and as usual have found that there is more to be learnt by enduring the ups and downs of social pleasures than by withdrawing from them, while in the mornings I have been very busy at the Athenaeum with a new edition of ‘Walks in London’ and the production of my little ‘Sussex.’ At Lady Wynford’s I met Miss Harynden, the authoress of ‘Ships that Pass in the Night,’ a very delicate-looking brown ‘Girton girl’--only her degree was not taken at Girton, but at the London University. She was very simple and nice, but seems to _feel_ her books too much. She said she was generally ill and fretful because she was writing, but more ill and more fretful if she was not. She did not find her lodging at Hampstead quiet enough to write in, but shut herself up by day in a desolate cottage on the Heath. She said she had received hundreds of letters about her ‘Ships that Pass.’ That very morning she had a very kind one from an unknown gentleman, saying he liked her book very much, but was disappointed because--in spite of the title--he found no information about shipping in it!

“A little Gould child said the other day, ‘Can God Almighty do everything, mother?’--‘Yes, my dear, God is omnipotent.’--‘I know one thing He couldn’t do, mother.’--‘Quite impossible, my dear.’--‘Yes, mother; God couldn’t make a stone so big that He couldn’t carry it,’--deep unconscious theology.

” ...There is no place where Death makes a stranger impression than at the Athenaeum. You become so accustomed to many men you do not know, to their comings and goings, that they become almost a part of your daily life. You watch them growing older, the dapper young man becoming grizzled, first too careful and then too neglectful of his dress: you see his face become furrowed, his hair grow grey, then white, and at last he is lame and bent. You become worried by his coughs, and hems, and little peculiarities. And--suddenly--you are aware that he is not there, and all your little annoyances immediately seem to have been absurd. For a time you miss him. He never comes. He will cough no more, no longer creak across the floor. He has passed into the unseen; gradually he is forgotten. His place knows him no more. But the wheel goes on turning; it is others; it is oneself perhaps, who is waning away.”

* * * * *

_To the_ HON. MRS. W. LOWTHER.

“_Holmhurst, May 21, 1894._--You said you would like to hear about Belvoir.

“I went with Henry Maxwell-Lyte. At Grantham was a quantity of red cloth, and crowds of people to see the Princess (Louise), and a string of carriages from the castle, and George Manners to show us which we were to go in. In mine I found a young man, who turned out to be Cecil Hanbury of La Mortola, with whom I made great friends, and found, as I always do, that it makes all the difference if one has one special friend in a large party. The Princess was already at tea when we arrived, and very gracious and kind. But though she is such a really charming person, the conversation had the effect of muffled drums, which always accompanies the presence of royalty. Lord Lorne is much improved in appearance by age--a good Rubens, as his uncle, Ronald Gower--also at Belvoir--is a bad Bronzino. The Duke, as always, was most delightful, so courteous, considerate, and full of interesting information. In the mornings we walked, drew, or sat in the gardens--a many-hued carpet of spring glories. In the evenings most of the company danced. The last day we drove, all the way through the property, to Croxton Old Park, where there was once a monastery, but nothing is left of it now. There is a quaint little house, where the Duchess Mary-Isabella, whoever she may have been, died, and in its succursale we had tea, with all possible ‘ameliorations.’ ...

“Holmhurst is now a nest of spring blossoms, the azaleas glorious, and the gold of the laburnums quite hiding the leaves.

‘A tout oiseau Son nid semble beau:’

But my nest really _is_ ‘beau.’ I am sometimes blamed for caring so much about it, so that it was a comfort to read somewhere (I cannot remember where), ‘Every man’s proper mansion-house and home, being the theater of his hospitality, the seate of self-fruition, the comfortablest part of his own life, a kind of private princedome, nay, to the possessor thereof an epitome of the whole world, may well deserve by these attributes, according to the degree of the master, to be decently and delightfully adorned.’”

* * * * *

It had weighed upon my mind for the last two years that my “France” remained unfinished. There was still another volume which could not be written without personally visiting all the places of interest in Normandy and Brittany, and my publishers were constantly urging its completion. The book has always been utterly unremunerative, very much the contrary, which is very depressing in its way, but “on ne vit dans le mémoire du monde que par ses travaux pour le monde.’[522] So I determined to give up London and home pleasures this summer, and to set about it, taking my young cousin Theodore Chambers as my companion and guest.

We left Holmhurst together on the first of June, and spent June in Normandy and July in Brittany. It was one of the most laborious journeys I ever made--eight or nine hours a day of walking, standing, collating, correcting, simmering in the relaxing western heat, and constantly soaked by the Scotch mist which pervades that district five days out of seven. For the latter month young Inverurie, Lady Kintore’s eldest boy, was also with me, a most kind and pleasant fellow-traveller, but, though eager about drawing, neither of my companions had any more interest in architecture or history than a stone. Thus my associations with North-Western France are not transcendent. Places, even the most beautiful, are innutritious to the mind in the long run; one needs people with mental life, and enthusiasm to see them with.

To the cloudiest days, however, come gleams of sunshine. I remember with great pleasure the Abbey of S. Waudrille near Caudebec, restored once more to the Benedictines, ejected at the Revolution. We were cordially pressed to go and stay there, and shown the charming rooms we might have, and I should really have liked it. Then five days at Mont S. Michel were enchanting, and the invigorating air, which the hundred and thirty steps to our bedrooms gave us full opportunity of benefiting by. And then from Brittany come recollections of many wonderful calvaries; of Tregastel and its golden rocks; of S. Jean du Doigt in its deep hollow, lovely in spite of soaking rain; and of Carnac and its wild moorland, redolent of sweet basil and thyme. We also saw two stately well-kept houses, Josselin of the Duc de Rohan, and Maintenon of the Duc de Noailles; but, after all, seeing houses without their owners is like seeing frames without portraits. More living to me, because I felt already so familiar with the place, was Les Rochers, pervaded by the spirit of Madame de Sévigné, and even more fragrant from the memories she has bequeathed to it than from the blossoms with which the glorious old orange-trees in its garden are covered now as in her day. It was enchanting to reach home again at the end of July. My companions said the journey had turned my hair grey, and so it really had--rather.

* * * * *

JOURNAL.

“_August 16._--Most delightful has been the return to Holmhurst with its freedom and peace. The shades in my life now are seldom troubles, only uncongenialities, and the ‘small fretting fretfulnesses’ which accompany them: still, when these are past, the relief is enormous, and visits from such delightful young friends as Herbert Vaughan, Cecil Hanbury, and George Cockerton have been a great enjoyment. The last is indeed, in every respect, a dear and true friend. No rules of friendship, I feel, are better than those inculcated by Buddhism:--

“‘An honourable man should minister to his friends and companions by giving presents, by courteous speech, by promoting their interests, by treating them as his equals, by sharing with them his prosperity.

“‘They, in return, should show attachment, by watching over him when he is off his guard, by guarding his property when he is careless, by offering him a refuge in danger, by adhering to him in misfortune, by showing kindness to his family.’

“The natural beauty of the garden here is a never-failing delight to me. Most people seem to be so full of expectations from the future that they do not allow themselves to enjoy the present; but when I am at home, I am sure that is not the case with me. On the prettiest site in the grounds I have just finished putting up the statues of Queen Anne and her four satellites by Bird, which formerly stood in front of St. Paul’s. They were taken away four years ago, and disappeared altogether till last spring, when my friend Lewis Gilbertson discovered them in a stonemason’s yard on the point of being broken up for the sake of the marble. I found they belonged to three people--the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and the Lord Mayor, and all these were persuaded to resign their claims to me. The statues were brought down to Holmhurst at great expense, and put up, at much greater, on a home-made pedestal like their old one; and now I hope they are enjoying the verdure and sea-breezes after the smoke of the City.”

* * * * *

_To_ W. H. MILLIGAN, _and_ JOURNAL.

“_Alderley Rectory, Oct. 5, 1894._--I left home on September 29, to visit the Townshend Marshams at Frognal--the place I have so often heard of and thought of, from Lord and Lady Canning having been there so frequently as the guests of Lord and Lady Sydney, who left it to the Marshams. No wonder they loved it, and that it was one of the places poor Lady Canning most looked forward to seeing again on her return from her long Indian exile. It is an enchanting old house!--its endless succession of small sitting-rooms, all lived in, all full of pictures, books, and flowers, and opening on to a sunny terrace and broad expanse of lawn, with pine-trees beyond it. In one of the rooms Lady Sydney still presides from her picture, but as few alive now can remember her, radiant in loveliness, with a coronet surmounting her abundant and beautiful hair. Upstairs there is an oak gallery, half library, half passage, but deliciously pleasant and quaint. The boy of the family is named Ferdinand, from Ferdinando Marsham, Charles I.’s esquire, upon whose tombstone it is said that ‘he was lamented by all gentlemen.’ Amongst the many curious pamphlets in the house is an account of Charles I.’s execution, printed whilst the king’s body was still lying at Whitehall, and mentioning his famous word, ‘Remember,’ as referring to his ‘George,’ which he had desired might be given to his eldest son. A sketch by Lady Sydney represents the drawing-room at Frognal, with both the Cannings and many other habitués of the house introduced, and easily recognisable as portraits.

“Through a most picturesque and lovely bit of primeval chase belonging to Frognal we walked to Chislehurst, to see the fine tomb of Lord Sydney by Boehm, surrounded by memorials of his family, and, on the common, the Prince Imperial’s Memorial Cross. Mr. Marsham Townshend, who recollected having seen the Empress in all her splendour at Paris, happened once to come upon her here, a widowed and lonely exile, in her deep mourning, attended by a single servant, sobbing alone before this memorial of her murdered son. Often, in the years she was at Chislehurst, while the family at Frognal were sitting at tea in the hall, a carriage would dash up, and the Empress Eugénie come in to stay for two hours. She loved the Sydneys.

“It was most delightful at Frognal having old Mrs. Sackville of Drayton there--‘still constant in a wondrous excellence.’

“A longish journey took me to Bromsgrove, where a carriage met me and an old Mrs. Laurence, who is apparently ‘a power’ in American society, with her nephew, Mr. Mercer, and brought us to Hewell, the great modern house which Bodley has built for the Windsors. It has an immense hall, with open galleries round it, never a comfortable arrangement, I think, but it is handsome, has two beautiful Italian chimney-pieces, and is divided by arches into compartments at the two ends. Lady Windsor is quite as beautiful and fascinating as before she married, and her mother, Lady Paget, is rather additionally embellished than otherwise by added years. Lady De Vesci was at Hewell also, supremely beautiful in her own--a poetical way.

“I have enjoyed being in this familiar place, where the Rector of Alderley, Mr. Bell, and his daughters, are very kind. He has just been driving me to see the Ernest Leycesters at Mobberley. Passing beneath a field on the way to Chorley, he said, ‘A curious thing happened there when I was a little boy. A farmer went out very early to look over his land, and in that field he found a place where the soil had been recently upturned. ‘Oh, poachers must have been here,’ he said to himself, ‘and have buried their game;’ so he dug, and very soon came upon a sack. ‘Here it is,’ he said, when behold! from the sack emerged the long tresses of a young woman! Pale as death, he rushed across the field to Ellen Baskerville’s house, and told what had happened. It was the body of a young woman, buried in Alderley Churchyard a few days before. Resurrection-men had dug it up, and being suddenly surprised, had hastily buried it here.

“‘When I was living as chaplain in the Infirmary at Norwich,’ said Mr. Bell, ‘I was startled by hearing what seemed to be loud and furious imprecations overhead. They did not stop, and at last I ran upstairs to see. There, in bed, was the old fat swarthy cook, screaming with all her might, and a huge monkey was sitting on the bed grinning at her. I seized a newspaper which lay there, rolled it up, and hit out at the monkey. But the beast knew better than to be afraid of that, seized it, tore it up, and made at me. Then I caught up a large ruler, which was happily lying near, to defend myself with. The monkey did not like that, and bounded across the room and out at the window, and I heard a scream from the people upon whom it had descended in the street.

“‘The woman told me how the monkey had come in at the window, and jumped straight on to her bed, where it had found the pot of ointment used for her bad leg, and eaten it all up directly. Having finished that, it made for the table, where it found her wig-box, pulled it open and began to demolish her wig. _That_ she could not stand. “Oh, ye varmint! ye varmint!” she shouted, and continued shouting till I came to the rescue.’”

* * * * *

“_Temple Newsam, Oct. 9._--This grand old house in the Black Country has been receiving the Duke and Duchess of York. They were just gone when I arrived, but the Duchess’s pleasant brother, Prince Adolphus, is here, and his future bride, Lady Sybil Grosvenor, with Lady Grosvenor and her daughter, also the William Lowthers and the beloved Halifax’s. With the Lowthers I have been two excursions--to Swillerton, Sir C. Lowther’s rather fine house, and to the beautiful old house of Ledstone, a very picturesque place.”

* * * * *

“_Ravenstone, Oct. 14._--This lovely little place of Mrs. Howard is above Lake Bassenthwayte, not considered a beautiful lake, but infinitely lovely at the spot to which she has taken me, through the garden of Sir H. Vane, where a richly wooded promontory embossed upon the still evening sky was reflected in every detail in the calm limpid waters.

“We have been for service to the most delightfully primitive little church--a Dalesman’s church--such as Wordsworth has described. At Greystoke we have spent a day, received by the little girl, daughter of the house, with the manners of a princess. Little of the old castle remains.”

* * * * *

“_Bishopthorpe, Oct. 16._--‘That is a portrait of Bishop Willmer of Louisiana,’ said the Archbishop, showing his study. ‘He was at one of the conferences at Lambeth in Archbishop Tait’s time. When he went away Mrs. Tait said to him, “Well, good-bye, Bishop; I hope you’ll come again at the next conference.”--“No, Mrs. Tait, neither you nor I will be at the next conference.”--“Oh, Bishop, but I hope we shall see you again.”--“No, Mrs. Tait,” said the Bishop very solemnly, “neither you nor I shall be at the next conference, but we shall meet again very soon.” Three months after that--one in America, the other at Edinburgh--the Bishop and Mrs. Tait died on the very same day.

“‘Bishop Willmer had the utmost simplicity of character, but he was a true apostle. One day, crossing a green at Boston, he found a little boy playing pitch-and-toss. He was very fond of little boys, and he stopped and spoke to this one--spoke to him very kindly. “Now, are you a good little boy?” he said at length. “Well, I sometimes say cuss words,” answered the boy. “Oh, I’m sorry for that,” said the Bishop; “but at any rate, I see you speak the truth.”--“Oh, only dogs tell lies,” said the boy. “Well, now,” said the Bishop, “would you like to do me a kindness?”--“Yes,” said the boy. “Well, I expect a parcel at the railway station, and I want you to go for it, and bring it to a particular house. There will be seven dollars to pay for that parcel, and here are the seven dollars, and there are fifty cents for yourself.” The boy took the $7.50 and went off.

“‘When the Bishop reached the house, he told what he had done, and was heartily jeered at--that he should trust a Boston waif like that. There was a very large party, and they all went in to dinner. Before it was over, a servant came in and said that there was a boy there who wanted to speak to the Bishop. The Bishop went out, and the whole company followed him--they followed him into the hall, and there was the boy at the door. He was not the least abashed, but, when he saw the Bishop, said, “Well, I’ve brought the parcel, but it cost seven dollars fifty cents: you did not see the fifty cents marked in the corner.”--“Well, how did you get the parcel, then?”--” Oh, I paid the fifty cents you gave me.”--“And how did you know you’d get the fifty cents again?”--“ Well, I thought as a chap as would trust me with seven dollars would never make a trouble for fifty cents.”

“‘Well,’ said the Bishop, before they parted, ‘now I should like to give you my blessing;’ and the boy knelt on the door-mat, and solemnly and episcopally, before all the company, the Bishop gave the poor boy his blessing.’

“The chapel here in the palace is thirteenth-century, and has been restored by Archbishop Maclagan. The stained windows by Kempe are beautiful, representing the Crucifixion, and the saints connected with York. ‘I wished that the Saviour should be represented without any appearance of suffering,’ said the Archbishop--‘as the offering of humanity, not the sacrifice for sin. The suffering crucifixes only grew up in mediaeval times with ideas of purgatory. The early artists wished to excite faith, not pity, and represented the Saviour’s triumph over death, even while enduring it. The earliest crucifix, in the Catacomb of Pope Julius, given by Mrs. Jameson, but which totally disappeared a few years since, represents on the cross a beautiful youth, draped from head to foot, and without suffering.’

“I have had a delightful long drive with Augusta to Bramham. The old house was burnt down sixty years ago, and has never been rebuilt. But its glorious old gardens are kept up. There is nothing like them in England. They were laid out by Le Nôtre when he laid out Versailles, and are more like that than any other place. Eighty acres are intersected by grand avenues with immense walls of clipped beech, ending in summer-houses, statues, vases, or tanks walled in with stone and surrounded by statues and vases of flowers. Mr. Fox, a most grand old man, showed me everything, and talked of the change from the old times of his youth, when Yorkshire country visits were so cheery, and the chief dissipation of the county people was a ball at York. ‘Now every man with three hundred a year and a daughter thinks he must go to London.’ He talked of the degeneracy of Temple Newsam from the time when three litters of cubs were regularly brought up in the woods near the house. His sitting-room is full of hunting pictures and caricatures of his old friends--a great enjoyment to him.

“I asked Augusta much about Mrs. (Adelaide) Sartoris, whom she had known well. She said: ‘Edward Sartoris did not go with Adelaide when she went to Vichy. Leighton, who was always as a slave to her, went with her, took her lodgings, and did everything for her. Then he said, “You will be very dull, knowing no one here; I know some young men here, and I will introduce them to you. They are Burton and Swinburne, but you know one is a believer in Buddhism, the other in nothing; so you must not mind what they say.” Then Leighton left.

“‘The next evening Adelaide was having her coffee in the gardens, when the two young men came up and sat down by her. At first they made themselves very agreeable. Then at length they began to air their opinions, and to say things evidently intended to shock. Adelaide laid down her cup, looked at Burton, and said very slowly, “You believe, I think, in _Juggernaut_, therefore, with regard to Juggernaut, I shall be very careful not to hurt your feelings. And you, Mr. Swinburne (turning to him), believe, I think, in _nothing_, but if anything is mentioned in which you _do_ believe, I shall be very careful not to hurt your feelings either, by abusing it: now I expect that you will show the same courtesy to me.”

“‘The young men laughed, and for some days all went well. Then the impression passed, and one day they began to talk as before. Adelaide again laid down her cup, and began again in the same slow tones--“You believe, Mr. Burton, I think, in Juggernaut”.... Then they burst out laughing, and they always behaved themselves in future.’

“‘When I was a girl,’ said Augusta, ‘I was with Mary at Madame de l’Aigle’s near Compiègne. There was to be a little function in the village, and some music was got up for it. We assisted at the practices, and Leighton also, who was there as a beautiful young man. But before the day of the function came he had to go. “Oh, Fay, why should you desert us? what can we do without our tenor?” said Madame de l’Aigle. But she implored him in vain; he said he _must_ go. We all continued, however, to urge him, and at last he said, “Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do: I must go, but I’ll come back.”--“What! all the way from London?” “Yes.” And he did. It was not long after that we found out why he thought himself obliged to go: it was because the sale of the pictures of that poor artist, Mason, who had died leaving his wife and children terribly unprovided for, was going to take place, and Leighton thought that if he were present at the sale, and seen bidding for the pictures, they would fetch higher prices. It was only one of a thousand kindnesses Leighton has done.... People have sometimes called him affected, but he was not. His manners were perfectly natural: he could not help being the spoiled darling of society.

“‘George IV., as Prince Regent, was very charming when he was not drunk, but he generally was. Do you remember how he asked Curran to dinner to amuse him--only for that? Curran was up to it, and sat silent all through dinner. This irritated the Prince, and at last, after dinner, when he had had a good deal too much, he filled a glass with wine and threw it in Curran’s face, with “Say something funny, can’t you!” Curran, without moving a muscle, threw his own glass of wine in his neighbour’s face, saying, “Pass his Royal Highness’s joke.”

“‘That story reminds me of the old Queen of Sweden. She was furious at the appointment of Bernadotte, and would have nothing to do with him; at which people congratulated him rather, because if she had seen him, they said, she would certainly have killed him. But at last she seemed to get tired of her estrangement, and she invited Bernadotte to a banquet. He was delighted--so glad to be friends; but as he was going to her palace, a paper was put into his hands inscribed--by whom he never knew--with the words, “If she offers you food or drink, as you value your life, refuse it.” He arrived, and the Queen was most affable, courtesy and kindness itself. After dinner a cup of coffee was brought on a golden salver, and, with the most exquisite grace, the Queen offered it to Bernadotte. He was just about to drink it when he remembered the warning, and he returned it to her, saying, “Après vous, Madame.” The Queen turned deadly pale, looked him full in the face, and--drank it. Next day Stockholm was agitated by terrible news. The Queen-Dowager had died in the night.’

“The dining-room here is hung with Archbishops, a very fine set of portraits. Sir Joshua painted Archbishop Harcourt, and came down with the picture to Bishopthorpe. At dinner, the chaplain, who was afterwards Archbishop Markham, said, ‘Who is the fellow who has painted that vile picture of the Archbishop?’--‘The fellow is me,’ said Sir Joshua, who was sitting by him; but he was so struck by what Markham said that he insisted on taking the picture back with him to London, and repainted it as it is now. Talking of the portraits led to Sir T. Lawrence, who was an endless time over his pictures. That was the case with his portrait of Lady Mexborough and her child. Lord Mexborough asked to have it home again and again, but it was no use. At last he said he _must_ have the picture. ‘Well,’ said Sir Thomas, ‘I’ve been a long time, I allow; but I’ve got well forward with Lady Mexborough: it’s the baby wants finishing. Now if Lady Mexborough would kindly bring the baby and give me another sitting, I really will finish.’--‘Well, Sir Thomas,’ said Lord Mexborough, ‘my wife will be happy to give you another sitting whenever you like, but _the baby’s in the Guards_!’”

* * * * *

“_Lincoln, Oct. 18._--Between York and this, I turned aside to visit Howden, a most grand church. In the vicarage garden I saw an old lady feeding chickens, and I could not help going up to her and saying, ‘Were you not once a Miss Dixon?’ She was so exactly like her sister, who was with Miss Dixon, the miniature-painter, at the little Holmhurst hospice last year. Her husband, Mr. Hutchinson, showed me all the relics, the remains of the shrine of S. John of Howden, bearing a statue of the Virgin with the dove whispering into her ear, as S. Gregory is so often represented at Rome: the Saltmarshe Chapel, with its old tombs and its stone altar with five crosses: and the lovely ruined choir, with exquisite chantry chapels opening from it. Then, in the vicarage garden, are remains of an old palace of the Bishops of Durham, with a beautiful old gateway.

“I also saw Selby, a very fine church with a Norman nave, but less interesting than Howden.

“Lincoln is altogether delightful, with its crown of yellow-grey towers rising high above the red roofs of the town. And it is most pleasant in staying with the beloved Precentor Venables to go back into the old Hurstmonceaux days, which he, and almost no one else, remembers, even though I could not join in his loyal reverence for Uncle Julius, when it was extended to Aunt Esther also. Time seems to have stood still with him and Mrs. Venables more than with any one I know, and it is difficult to believe that it is more than half a century since they came to Hurstmonceaux as bride and bridegroom--half a century of such entirely happy married life, that one cannot contemplate one surviving the other.[528]

“We visited the delightful and beautiful old Bishop King, who now has fitted up the ruins of the old palace, and lives appropriately in the heart of the cathedral society--‘very rightly placed,’ he says, ‘below the church, and far above the world.’ He has an expression of gentle benignity which I never saw equalled except by Pius IX., and a manner in which the greatest dignity of office and the most perfect personal humility are marvellously blended. He was sitting in what I thought was a purple dressing-gown, but was told it was a cassock: a jewelled cross was on his breast. I hoped to have seen him mitred in the cathedral, but he only appears thus on great festivals. He talked of the Church in France, and I urged him to visit Ars and enjoy its atmosphere of spiritual love and blessing: he said he should go there. We also visited Dean Wickham and his delightful wife, who is Gladstone’s daughter, thinking her father’s principles always right, but so full of goodness, gentleness, and beneficence herself, that it is impossible to connect her with his practice.”

* * * * *

“_Nov. 16._--At Letton, the pleasant house of the Gurdons in Suffolk, I have met a large party, including the Hamonds of Westacre, into whose courtyard an invisible horse and rider clatter whenever any death is about to occur in their family. I have been taken to see Hingham, where the church contains the very fine tomb of Thomas, Lord Morley, of 1435. Another day we went to Dereham. S. Werburga was the great saint of the place, and was stolen by the Abbot of Ely, that her body might be venerated there with her two sainted sisters. By her empty grave a miraculous spring gushed forth to console the people of Dereham. So many children died from being bathed in it, that it is now shut off by a railing. In the church is the feeble monument of Cowper and Mrs. Unwin.

“Several curious stories were told:--

“Some young men once determined to frighten the famous naturalist Cuvier. One of them got horns, hoofs, and a tail, and appeared by Cuvier’s bedside. ‘I am the devil,’ he said, ‘and I am come to eat you.’ Cuvier looked at him. ‘Carnivorous! horns--hoofs--impossible! Good-night;’ and he turned over and went to sleep.

“Mrs. Hall Dare had told of a young girl friend of hers. She was with a number of other girls, foolish and frivolous, who went to consult an old woman who had the reputation of being a witch, and who was supposed to have the power of making them see their future husbands. She said they must say their prayers backwards, perform certain incantations with water, lock their doors when they went to bed, and then they would see whom they were to marry, but they would find their doors locked in the morning.

“The girl followed all the witch’s directions. Then she locked her door, went to bed, and waited. Gradually, by the firelight, a young man seemed to come in--to come straight through the locked door--a young man in uniform; she saw him distinctly.

“He went to the end of the room and returned. As he passed the bed his sword caught in the curtain and fell upon the floor. Then he seemed to pass out. The girl fainted.

“In the morning at first she thought it was a dream, but there, though her door was still locked, lay the actual sword upon the floor! Greatly aghast, she told no one, but put it away and kept it hidden. It was a terrible possession to her.

“The following year, at a country-house, she met the very young man she had seen. They fell violently in love and were married. For one year they were intensely--perfectly--happy.

“Then her husband’s regiment had to change its quarters. As she was packing up, with horror which was an instinct, she came upon the sword put away among her things. Just then, before she could hide it, her husband came in. He saw the sword, turned deadly pale, and in a stern voice said, ‘How did you come by that?’ She confessed the whole truth.

“He was rigid. He said, ‘I can never forgive it; I can never see you again;’ and nothing she could say or do could move him. ‘Do you know where I passed that terrible night?’ he said; ‘I passed it _in hell_!’ He has given up three-quarters of his income to her, but she has never seen him since.

“A Miss Broke, a niece of our host, told me even a more curious story.

“A few years ago there was a lady living in Ireland--a Mrs. Butler--clever, handsome, popular, prosperous, and perfectly happy. One morning she said to her husband, and to any one who was staying there, ‘Last night I had the most wonderful night. I seemed to be spending hours in the most delightful place, in the most enchanting house I ever saw--not large, you know, but just the sort of house one might live in one’s-self, and oh! so perfectly, so deliciously comfortable. Then there was the loveliest conservatory, and the garden was so enchanting! I wonder if anything half so perfect can really exist.’

“And the next morning she said, ‘Well, I have been to my house again. I must have been there for hours. I sat in the library: I walked on the terrace; I examined all the bedrooms: and it is simply the most perfect house in the world.’ So it grew to be quite a joke in the family. People would ask Mrs. Butler in the morning if she had been to her house in the night, and often she had, and always with more intense enjoyment. She would say, ‘I count the hours till bedtime, that I may get back to my house!’ Then gradually the current of outside life flowed in, and gave a turn to their thoughts: the house ceased to be talked about.

“Two years ago the Butlers grew very weary of their life in Ireland. The district was wild and disturbed. The people were insolent and ungrateful. At last they said, ‘We are well off, we have no children, there’s no reason why we should put up with this, and we’ll go and live altogether in England.’

“So they came to London, and sent for all the house-agents’ lists of places within forty miles of London, and many were the places they went to see. At last they heard of a house in Hampshire. They went to it by rail; and drove from the station. As they came to the lodge, Mrs. Butler said, ‘Do you know, this is the lodge of my house.’ They drove down an avenue--‘But this _is_ my house!’ she said.

“When the housekeeper came, she said, ‘You will think it very odd, but do you mind my showing _you_ the house: that passage leads to the library, and through that there is a conservatory, and then through a window you enter the drawing-room,’ &c., and it was all so. At last, in an upstairs passage, they came upon a baize door. Mrs. Butler, for the first time, looked puzzled. ‘But that door is not in my house,’ she said. ‘I don’t understand about your house, ma’am,’ said the housekeeper, ‘but that door has only been there six weeks.’

“Well, the house was for sale, and the price asked was very small, and they decided at once to buy it. But when it was bought and paid for, the price had been so extraordinarily small, that they could not help a misgiving that there must be something wrong with the place. So they went to the agent of the people who had sold it and said, ‘Well, now the purchase is made and the deeds are signed, _will_ you mind telling us why the price asked was so small?’

“The agent had started violently when they came in, but recovered himself. Then he said to Mrs. Butler, ‘Yes, it is quite true the matter is quite settled, so there can be no harm in telling now. The fact is that the house has had a great reputation for being haunted; but you, madam, need be under no apprehensions, for you are yourself the ghost!’

“On the nights when Mrs. Butler had dreamt she was at her house, she--her ‘astral body’--had been seen there.”

* * * * *

“_Ashridge, Nov. 19._--I arrived here by tea-time, passing in the beech woods Lady Lothian, who reminded me of Lady Waterford, as I saw her in her long black dress and black hat, backed by the leafless trees against the golden sunset. Then Lady Brownlow came in, still radiant in her marvellous Bronzino-like beauty. There is much charm too in the guests--Mrs. Dallas Yorke, with her subtle refinement, Mrs. Norman Grosvenor, the Jerseys, pleasant Jack Cator, and many others. Before dark, Lady Lothian took me to the drawing-room, built entirely from designs of Lord Brownlow, and thoroughly Italian in its marble pillars, green hangings, and many fine pictures, a Mona Lisa which disputes originality with that at Paris, a beautiful Lo Spagna of a saint, and the sketch for the Tintoret of the Presentation of the Virgin. The dinner was lighted from brilliant sconces on old boiserie from a Flemish sacristy. In the evening ‘Critic’ was acted as a charade, led by Lady Jersey.

“Breakfast was at small tables. Lord Brownlow, at ours, talked of a neighbouring house where a Lady Ferrers, a freebooter, used to steal out at night and rob the pilgrims coming from St. Albans. She had a passage from her room to the stables. In the morning one of the horses was often found tired out and covered with foam: no one could tell why. At last the poor lady was found dead on her doorstep in her suit of Lincoln green. She constantly haunts the place. Mr. Ady, who lives there now, meets her on the stairs and wishes her good-night. Once, seeing her with her arms stretched out in the doorway, he called out to his wife who was outside, ‘Now we’ve caught her!’ and they rushed upon her from both sides, but caught--nothing.

“Lady Brownlow came over to our table. ‘I’ve come to join in your conversation.’--‘Well, you’ve stopped it,’ said Lord B. ‘However, I bring you this story. A man in a foreign hotel took a loaded pistol to bed with him. By-and-by he saw a terrible deformed hand brandished at the foot of the bed. “If you don’t go, I’ll fire,” he shouted. It did not go and he fired. It was at his own foot.’

“It was Sunday, but I did not go to church, and walked with Lady Lothian through the sunlit green glades and russet woods of autumn. The house is of immense length of frontage, and behind it rises the chapel like a great church. ‘Can you tell me in what part of this _village_ Lord Brownlow lives?’ asked an American when he came to Ashridge. In the evening we went to service in the chapel through the splendid conservatory, with long falling festoons of Ipomea. There was a full congregation and singing. Two panes of Holbein glass recall that Ashridge was the palace of Edward VI. and Elizabeth when young, but she hated it.

“We knew what you would say if you found Lady Waterford’s drawings all lying about,’ said Lady Brownlow, ‘so we worked hard to hang them up the day before you came.’ And they looked grand together, and such a variety--the supreme desolation of the Hagar, the self-abandonment of the Prodigal’s repentance, the proud Othello, the lovely springing, leaping children.”

* * * * *

“_Middleton, Dec. 9._--A very agreeable visit to Lord and Lady Jersey. The country is hideous, but the house pleasant and comfortable, and a large new ball-room is hung with many fine portraits--the first Duke of Buckingham by Mytens and by Van Somer; Frances, Countess of Jersey, beloved by George IV., who was sent to meet Queen Caroline and persuaded her to eat onions--‘There is nothing the king likes so much as the smell of onions’--and Sarah, Countess of Jersey, the queen of Almack’s, a huge noble picture by Lawrence. Joining the village church is the mortuary chapel which she built, with her tomb, a copy of the Scipio tomb at Rome, and lovely medallions of her daughters, Sarah, Princess Esterhazy, and Lady Clementina Villiers. The font is said to have been that of Edward the Confessor at Islip, but is of Gothic, not Saxon date.

“Conversation fell on Christine, Lady Saye and Sele, who had three husbands. When she married the first surreptitiously, she took the bull by the horns, and said to her father at dinner, ‘Father, I’m married!’--‘Well, my dear, but at least wait till Thomas has left the room.’--‘No, father, Thomas need not leave the room, for Thomas is the man I’ve married.’”

My home life this year was very quiet and uneventful, only marked by my books. The Edgeworth family had placed Maria Edgeworth’s letters in the hands of Lionel Holland, now a publisher, and desired him to find an editor. He asked me to accept the office--certainly not a remunerative one, as I only received fifty pounds for it, the whole large profits of the book falling to the publishers. I demurred at first, but eventually undertook it, and became interested in the work, and the simple, high-toned, unselfish character of the lady whose letters I was selecting; and the book at once became popular, and had a very large circulation.

But “The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth” was rather a by-play. Most of my time was given to “The Gurneys of Earlham,” which gave me plenty of very hard and anxious work. I could not help feeling, as I attacked the mines and mountains of self-introspection in the form of religious journals which each one of the Gurney brothers and sisters left behind them, how unsuited I was for the task, how little I could enter into their feelings. Indeed Catherine Vaughan had written to me--“You are unworthy even to unfasten the shoe-latchets of those saints,” and I quite agreed with her. Still, into the beauty of their _actions_, of their devoted and unselfish lives, I could fully enter, and when the peculiar shibboleth of those times is sifted from their words, they said a great deal that was most beautiful and touching. The work has brought me into contact with many good people. And the Gurneys are still, as they were in the early days of Earlham, most liberal to all who do not agree with them, if only they are trying to follow the same Lord and Saviour--the dearest friend of the Gurneys of old time, and I think of most of those of present date.

At Christmas I was with the Halifaxes.

* * * * *

_To_ W. H. MILLIGAN.

“_Hickleton, Dec. 28, 1894._--Can it be I? I say to myself, when I am called in pitch darkness in these winter mornings, and hurry in the dawn through the still dark shrubberies to the brilliantly lighted church, where, amid clouds of incense and the chanted salutation of the Blessed Sacrament, I receive ‘the mass,’ kneeling under the shadow of a great crucifix. Then, after breakfast, there is matins, what we should call early morning service, at which there are few worshippers; but when it is over, and you think you are going away, not a bit of it; there is a sound like the sea rushing in, and instantly the church is filled--thronged with people--and these come, not to receive the Sacrament, but to adore it! Charlie Halifax says, ‘How strangely things come round. My uncle, a lawyer--who had his home here with my father and mother, and died when I was five years old--used to be a great friend of Newman and Lord Devon, and others who thought as they did, and his beautiful spiritual letters and his religious sonnets remain to us. He longed for what he thought was the impossible; he longed to have it here, and now here it is. At that time there was only celebration here four times in a year; he never hoped it could be otherwise, and yet what he so longed for--what I, too, so longed for as a boy--has been all realised.

“‘Do you know that when Miss Margot Tennant (Mrs. Asquith) said to Jowett, “What do you _really_ think of God?” he said nothing for a moment, and then answered, “I think all that signifies is what God really thinks of me.”’

“I have had many delightful talks with Charlie. When I am with him I feel imperceptibly lifted heavenwards. I do not agree with him in everything, but oh! I _love_ him always. With him, as indeed with every one else, even where I most disagree, I am careful never to speak slightingly of anything he holds sacred. If it made any difference at all, it would only cause him to hold the cloak tighter.”

* * * * *

“_Hatfield, Jan. 30._--After a visit to Lord and Lady Knightley at Fawsley, in bitter cold and snow, I came here to meet a huge party--Cadogans, Iveaghs, Hampdens, and very many others. Most of the company have skated in the morning, but I have thoroughly enjoyed the equably warm passages and rooms of this immense house. Arthur Balfour is here, with charming manners, quite unspoilt. He stays in his room and does not appear till luncheon-time, so getting many quiet hours for work. Lord Warkworth was here for one night, a most promising youth, who breaks the silence of the Percies. Lord Rowton also is here, and most agreeable in his natural ripple of pleasant talk. He says that he once asked Disraeli what was the most remarkable, the most self-sustained and powerful sentence he knew. Dizzy paused for a moment, and then said, ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’

“Disraeli used to say that, _apropos_ of history, he should always remember going to a breakfast at Lord Houghton’s, and, as the door opened, hearing the loud voice of Bunsen exclaim, ‘Modern history! why, modern history begins with Abraham!’

“He described how the Duke of Wellington would always arrange everything for a battle--he did before Waterloo--and then would sleep soundly for an hour. ‘How could you sleep so soundly?’--‘Why, I had arranged everything.’

“Lady Salisbury said that her _masseuse_ went constantly to the Queen. She told Lady Salisbury that what appeared to be lameness in the Queen was merely that her feet were too small to support the weight of her body. Her hands are those of a little child.

“She gave the most graphic description of an awful storm she encountered in going to S. Tropez. ‘The rivers, you know, generally flow into the sea, but then the sea flowed into the rivers: it was such a reversion of things.’

“Describing his great-grandfather, Lord Salisbury said he swore so horribly that he used to be called ‘Blastus, the king’s chamberlain.’

“I said how one of the things I most wished to see, Lady Anne Grimston’s[529] tomb, was in Hertfordshire. ‘Oh,’ said Lady Salisbury, ‘I will drive you there in my sledge;’ and so she did, across the snow-laden roads. It is the most extraordinary sight. Lady Anne Grimston was a sceptic, and when she lay upon her deathbed in 1717, her family were most anxious to make her believe in a future state, but she wouldn’t. ‘It is as likely,’ she said, ‘that I should rise again as that a tree should grow out of my body when I’m dead.’

“Lady Anne Grimston died, and was buried in Tewin churchyard, and over her grave was placed a great altar-tomb, with a huge massive stone slab on the top of it. In a year or two, this slab showed signs of internal combustion, and out of the middle of it--out of the very middle of it--grew a tree (some say six different trees, but one could not see in winter), and increased, till, in the time which has elapsed, it has become one of the largest trees in Hertfordshire. Not only that, but the branches of the tree have writhed about the tomb like the feelers of an octopus, have seized it, and lifted it into the air, so that the very base of the tomb is high up now, one with the tree or trees, so are they welded together. Then a railing was put round the tomb, and the tree has seized upon it in the same way, has twisted the strong iron rails like pack-thread, and they are to be seen tangled and twirled high in the branches of the tree. Another railing has now been put, and the tree will behave to it just as before.

“If this tree were abroad, it would become the most popular place of pilgrimage in the world. As it is, thousands visit it--even across the snow a regular path was worn to it. Tewin churchyard preaches more sermons than a thousand clergymen.

“‘I have brought back Mr. Hare a most firm believer in a future state,’ said Lady Salisbury as we re-entered the Golden Gallery at Hatfield, where all the guests were sitting.”

* * * * *

“_London, Feb. 2._--I dined with my two friends, Lewis Gilbertson and Frank Cookson, who live so happily together in the charming little canonical house of the former in Amen Court. Gilbertson told me how Mr. Spooner of Oxford, celebrated for his absence of mind, was one evening found wandering disconsolately about the streets of Greenwich. ‘I’ve been here hours,’ he said. ‘I had an important appointment to meet some one at “The Dull Man, Greenwich,” and I can’t find it anywhere; and the odd thing is no one seems to have heard of it.’ Late at night he went back to Oxford. ‘You idiot!’ exclaimed his wife; ‘why, it was the Green Man, Dulwich, you had to go to.’”

* * * * *

_To_ HERBERT VAUGHAN OF LLANGOEDMORE.

“_April 21._--My visit at Elton has been most pleasant, Lord and Lady Carysfort so kind, the house a climax of comfort, and the party one of old friends, Knightleys, Peels, Lady Tollemache, and beautiful Lady Claude Hamilton the elder. Then the gardens and groves are quite beautiful, especially at this time--

‘When daisies pied and violets blue, And lady-smocks all silver white, And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadows with delight.’[530]

But what I really cared for most was that I accomplished my long-wished-for pilgrimage to Little Gidding.

“It is a most attractive spot, a bosky hollow in the uplands, with a pool and an oak-wood. The monastic house is gone, but probably stood where a farmhouse stands now, and whence the raised path which led to the still existing chapel is yet visible in the turf. An ancient box-tree with a stem like an oak, contemporary with the old house, stands on the grass. An old contemporary book in the library at Elton had made me even more familiar than ‘John Inglesant’ had done with Nicholas Ferrar, his sister--‘a tall ancient gentlewoman about eighty years of age, she being matron of the house’--and with Mrs. Collet and her sixteen children, including the seven sisters named after the Christian virtues--the Patient, the Cheerful, the Affectionate, the Submiss, the Moderate, and the Charitable--who spent their home hours in making such wonderful books of Christian Harmonies.

“To me the chapel was of most touching interest, backed by the oak-wood--‘the fine grove and sweet walks’ which the little book describes. A broad paved path leads to the door, but in the midst of the path rises a high grey altar-tomb--Nicholas Ferrar’s, I suppose--and on its paving-stones are inscriptions over graves, in which you may still make out the oft-repeated names of Ferrar and Collet. Inside, the chapel is lined by stalls of Charles I. date, with round-headed canopies and divided by oak pillars. Below is the open space where the sisterhood, who kept the six canonical hours, ‘prayed publicly three times a day after the order of the Booke of Common Prayer,’ and where the writer of my little book himself saw ‘the mother-matron with all her traine, which were her daughters and daughters’ daughters, who, with four sonnes, kneeled all the while in the body of the half-space, all being in black gownes and round Monmouth capps, save one of the daughters, who was in a friar’s grey gowne.’ There are brasses on one side of the chancel arch to John Ferrar, 1637, and John Ferrar, 1719; and on the other side to Susanna Collet, daughter of Nicholas Ferrar, who ‘had eight sons and eight daughters, and who died at the age of 76;’ below this is a brass to ‘Amy, wife of John Ferrar, 1702.’ And within is the chancel, where, with the sacrament, Inglesant received stillness and peace unspeakable, and life and light and sweetness filled his mind; where in the misty autumn sunlight and the sweeping autumn wind, heaven itself seemed to have opened to him.’

“There were many minor relics of those who did not wish it, but were called ‘the Nuns of Gidding’--an embossed book-cover of their gold-thread work, and tapestry cases to hold the sacred books; and in the farmhouse some old church plate, given to Nicholas Ferrar, and a chalice inscribed ‘What Sir Edmund Sandys bequeathed to the remembrance of friendship, his friende hath consecrated to the honour of God’s service,’ and on the handle--‘For the church of Little Gidding of Huntington Shire.’

“The owner of the property came to dinner at Elton, and told me that Charles Fitzwilliam, Lord Fitzwilliam’s brother, was lost many years ago in the wilds of America. When at the very last gasp, he saw the lights of a farmhouse, to which he made his way. The woman of the house received him most kindly, warmed and dried him, and made him some tea. ‘It will do you good; it’s Gidding tea: I had it over from Gidding.’--‘What! Gidding in Huntingdonshire.’--‘Yes.’--‘Why, that’s where I come from: I’m a Fitzwilliam!’”

* * * * *

_To_ W. H. MILLIGAN.

“_July 20, 1895._--I have come away from London because all that was interesting in the season seemed to be at an end; but I enjoyed it to the last, though certainly what I find to delight in would not please many others. Most of all I have liked my quiet writing-table at the Athenæum, and the silence, not the society, of the club, where no one, except Lord Acton and myself, seems to work in the mornings. Then, after two o’clock, I never go back, but see people for the rest of the day. The garden-parties make this delightful, and I had charming afternoons at Osterley, at Roehampton, and at Sion, where the brilliant groups of people are so picturesque under the great cedar-trees. It was a great pleasure once more, to be welcomed to Holland House, and to find how much those who possess it appreciate its great interest and charm. Once a week the writing-time was broken into, and I went with drawing-parties to the garden at Lambeth, to Waltham Abbey, and to the roof of the Record Office, whence we tried to paint St. Paul’s and all the satellite City churches reared up against an opal sky. In the evenings there was less of interest, and a great party at Devonshire House left more to recollect than the daily dinners, with little real conversation. I think it is Bacon who says, ‘A crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is not love.’ The last day, however, a dinner at Lady Audrey Buller’s was most pleasant. It was in honour of her cousin Captain Townshend, the hero of Chitral, who gave me a most graphic description of lying all day smoking behind a barrier of earth, with a spyhole through which he could fire at any man who showed himself, hearing the thud of the return shot against his barrier afterwards. Returning to England, he was shocked to find no one but boys at the balls--‘boys who shake hands with a movement like that of kangaroos.’ I sat by ---- the widow of the historian, who talked of other historians, especially of Mr. Freeman--how he had the head of a Jupiter on the body of a gorilla: how he did not eat, but devour; it was no use to put anything less than a joint before him: how scenery never gave him the power of realising an event which he could not read of. One day at dinner Mr. Parker was within one of him. To him Freeman talked incessantly across the lady who was next him. At last there was a pause. The lady thought she would have her innings. ‘It has been very hot weather lately, Mr. Freeman,’ she said. ‘Stuff and nonsense,’ said Freeman. ‘Parker, you were saying,’ &c. His biographer misses all his characteristics, but errs most in speaking of him as a typical Teuton, when he was undoubtedly a typical Celt.

“I grumbled very much at being engaged to spend a Sunday in the country during my London time, but never enjoyed a visit more than that to Mr. and Mrs. Tower at the Weald, in Essex. It is only seventeen miles from London, but wild and most beautiful, with glorious trees, a delightful old house, and a still more delightful walled garden, with the curious brick chapel of Mary I., a long tank, and an acre of splendid roses. We ate rather too much and long, but the company was charming. I went and came back with young Lord Abinger, whom I like particularly.

‘How delightful the elections are, and the blatant, self-seeking hypocritical Radicals getting the worst of it. Do you know Luttrell’s lines?--

‘Oh, that there might in England be A duty on Hypocrisy, A tax on humbug, an excise On solemn plausibilities.”’

* * * * *

_To_ VISCOUNT HALIFAX.

“_Penrhyn Castle, Sept. 22, 1895._--I left home in the case of one

‘Chi per lungo silenzio parea fioco,’[531]

and have much enjoyed my holiday talking-time. How many delightful people there are in the world. I so seldom see any one I cannot care in the least about. One side, one aspect, seems unprepossessing, but then, if one takes the trouble to go round on the other side, one is sure to find something. Was it not Socrates who said, ‘It is impossible to lead a quiet life, for that would be to disobey the Deity.’ And I am sure no one can carry their eyes about with them through a variety of people as I do, without learning fresh lessons of compensating qualities to be traced in most, and the uniform case of all in the fight to be fought, however different the enemies with which each has to contend. I saw no end of people in Shropshire when I was at Buntingsdale--so familiar in my long-ago--for Gertrude Percy’s wedding at Hodnet. After that I was in quieter scenes, but oh! how lovely, on Wenlock Edge, that eighteen-mile long strip of craggy wooded hill which stretches from Wenlock to Craven Arms, with such fine views over the rich plain below. Wenlock Abbey I saw the evening I arrived, with its grand ruin, and the curious cloistered abbot’s house, so well restored as a residence by the Milnes-Gaskells. Lutwyche, which Lord and Lady Chetwynd have hired, is a charming old house in the very centre of all the beauty, and each day we went to some wonderful old grange, manor, or mansion--Langley, Shipton, Stokesay, Wilderhope, but I think you would have liked best of all Pitchford, the gem of old black and white houses, though you would not have enjoyed as I did the untouched pews of the church, where there is a gigantic oaken effigy of a thirteenth-century De Pitchford. At Condover we saw Miss Mary Cholmondeley the authoress,[532] who looks a genius, which most authoresses I have met do not. Even in conversation, ‘les gens d’esprit sont bêtes’ is usually as true as possible.

“Penrhyn Castle has been delightful, and my room, with its exquisite views over sea and mountains, the most delightful thing in it. Lady Penrhyn presides over the great place with the calm of perpetual moonlight: sunlight is left to her beautiful and impulsive step-daughter Miss Alice (Pennant), who orders out no end of carriages to take guests up into the hills or wherever they want to go. And of course I longed to go to Ogwen Bank and Capel Curig, connected with my mother’s childhood, and more than ever admired these rude savage purple mountains, which have so much individual character that height is quite a secondary consideration. Then yesterday we went to that island in the Menai Straits, where there is an old chapel of great sanctity, to which Welsh funerals still wind along a narrow causeway, singing their beautiful hymns as they go.

“Do you know that ‘The Gurneys of Earlham’ is out? You will not like it, I think, and indeed I feel myself, that Carlyle would be justified in saying it was ‘a very superfluous book.’ Still, I will anticipate your asking me, and tell you that, up to its lights, it is not a bad piece of work. The whole family are a singular instance of unity without uniformity. While I have worked at the book, I have become irresistibly and most strongly attracted by such characters as Catherine Gurney and Richenda Cunningham, though for the great fetish of the family, the self-opinionated, self-parading, egotistical Joseph John, I never could have any warm feeling. Yet a descendant of one of his cousins (Lady Fry) assures me that she was so distressed on hearing of his death in her childhood, that she pulled down all the blinds of her doll’s house. So he must have had his attractive points.

“The book is certainly better reading than the earlier memoirs of those it concerns. Of those memoirs I heard an amusing story the other day. Mr. Parke of Andover, a great American philosopher and thinker, at one time quite lost the power of sleep. He said he had long tried all remedies in vain, but at last found a remedy which never failed. It was to have a book read to him, the story of a woman’s life. It always took effect at once, and soothed him into the sweetest slumbers. If he was nervous, his wife would take the book and begin--‘Elizabeth Fry was born’--‘But,’ said Mr. Parke, ‘she has begun that book constantly for two years, and I have never found out where she was born yet, for with the first words I am in dreamland.’

“Here are two little stories for you. Miss R. told me how the Bishop of Winchester and the Dean of Windsor were walking together down the street of Windsor, when they saw a little boy struggling to reach a bell. ‘Why, you’re not tall enough, my little man; let me ring the bell for you,’ said the Bishop. ‘Yes, if you please, sir,’ said the boy modestly. So the Bishop gave the bell a good pull. ‘Now then, sir, run like the devil,’ shrieked the boy, as he made off as hard as he could.

“Little E. L. was very naughty indeed the other day, and not only scratched her governess, but spit at her. ‘How can you have been so naughty?’ said her mother, ‘it can only have been the devil who made you do such a thing.’ ‘Well, perhaps it was the devil who told me to scratch her,’ replied little E----, ‘but, as for the spitting, it was entirely my own idea.’”

* * * * *

_To_ W. H. MILLIGAN.

“_Garrowby, Yorkshire, Oct. 4._--The glorious weather which illuminated Wales continued at Lyme, which was still in the full splendour of summer flowers. I drew with Lady Newton each day, one day at Prestbury, where there is a wonderful old Norman mortuary chapel, like those in Brittany. Mrs. Mitford was at Lyme, and it was a pleasure to talk with her of the dear Lady Egerton, whom we both so much appreciated, and who preserved her sunny nature to the last. ‘How sad to see you suffering so!’ said Mrs. M. to her in her last terrible illness. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but then, you know, I have _enjoyed every day of my life_.’ Thinking of her, it is a difficult endeavour to be ‘doux envers la mort,’ as Bossuet said after Henrietta Maria’s death.

“I went on to flattest Lincolnshire, to Revesby Abbey, to visit my distant cousin, dear Edward Stanhope’s widow. It is delightful to see how, by making the effort at once, it is no effort to her now to talk of him, and indeed he is so often spoken of, that he seems to have a part still in the family life, and his cheerful grave, like a little garden, under the east window of the church which he built, has nothing sad. It is as if he had gone from this room into the next. Yet how delightful he was, how truly lovable! I was taken, by my urgent desire, to Mavis Enderby; but it is a little inland village with an insignificant church, which could by no possibility have given any tidal warning; so I suppose Jean Ingelow only took the name[533] because of its musical sound. On the way we passed some grassy mounds. ‘What are those?’--‘The remains of Bolingbroke--of the castle of Bolingbroke.’ How Arthur Stanley would have loved them; yet they are amongst the things which are worth seeing but not worth going to see. Another day we went by the remains of the old house of Eresby, which gave its name to Willoughby d’Eresby, to visit the grand tombs of the Willoughbys at Spilsby. They are all of alabaster, the last representing a mother who died in childbirth, with the infant which cost her life by her side in its cradle. Sir John Franklin was born at Spilsby, and he and his two brothers have monuments in the church. Their father was a small farmer close by, and when his farm failed, he settled in the village itself, and kept its shop, grocery on one side the door, drapery on the other. And, coming from thence, John Franklin became the most famous of those Arctic travellers whom Wilkie Collins aptly describes as ‘the men who go nowhere and find nothing.’ In this drive we passed by Keil, where the church tower had suddenly collapsed. ‘Well, now, how was it? was it a hurricane, or did the soil give way, or what?’ said Mrs. Egerton to the sexton, who for a minute answered nothing, and then, ‘Well, mum, ‘twere this way; her just squatted and settled.’

“The house at Revesby was full of interesting objects. Amongst them was a magnificent repeater watch which belonged to the old Lord Stanhope.[534] One night, when he was out late, a man pounced upon him with pistols and ‘Your money or your life.’ Always imperturbable, Lord Stanhope replied very slowly, ‘My friend, I have no money with me.’--‘No,’ said the robber, ‘but you have your watch; I must have your watch.’--‘My friend, this watch was given to me by one very dear to me, and I value it extremely. It is considered to be worth £100. Now, if you will trust me, I will this evening place a hundred-pound note in the hollow of that tree.’ And the highwayman trusted him and Lord Stanhope placed the note there.

“Very many years after, Lord Stanhope was at a public dinner in London, and opposite him sat a City magnate of great wealth and influence. They conversed pleasantly. Next day Lord Stanhope received a letter from him, enclosing a hundred-pound note, and saying, ‘It was your Lordship’s kind _loan_ of that sum many years ago that started me in life, and enabled me to rise to have the honour of sitting opposite your Lordship at dinner.’

“When I was a child, ‘Marmion’ made me long passionately to see Whitby, and ‘Sylvia’s Lovers’ afterwards increased the longing. Now I have been there, and what a wonderful place it is. I think nothing on the English, or French, or Spanish, or German coasts is equal to it. The first morning was a thick fog--a most blessed fog. I felt a presentiment of what would happen. I was certain where the abbey was, and through the dim streets, up the slippery steps, and between the gravestones of the churchyard dripping with wet, I made my way to a certain field, which I was sure was the right place, and there I waited. Soon out of the thick mists rose, bathed in sudden sunlight, the grand ruin of an abbey, all glorious in the heavens, but no earth visible. It was as the summit of Mont Blanc is sometimes seen, but a New Jerusalem, in splendour beyond words--‘And the building of the wall of it was of pure gold.’ And then suddenly the fog came down again and it vanished, and in a few minutes, when the veil drew up the second time, a noble ruined abbey stood there, every arch and pillar reflected in the waters of a lonely tarn, but it was only the bones of the glorious vision which had been.

“The old courthouse of the Cholmondeleys was the abbot’s house, and in it was ‘Lady Anne’s Chamber,’ terribly haunted. A figure used to come down from a picture over the chimney, and was seen by many still living. Close by was a passage with an oubliette, down which ‘the nuns used to throw their babies.’ All, except the offices, has been cleared away by Sir C. Strickland, and a hideous modern house built. Down the steep way below the house Sir Nicholas Cholmondeley used to drive his four-in-hand furiously.

“The fog was fainter all the rest of that day, and oh! how I luxuriated in the winding ways upon the cliffs, in the dark red roofs piled one upon another, and the delicate grey distances of buildings or sea.

“Here, at Garrowby, I have been very happy with the Halifaxes. I always feel better for the life with them, and I have especially liked the spiritual part of it here, where there is no chaplain, as at Hickleton, and where the services in the beautiful little chapel are led by Charlie Halifax himself. Everybody joins, and a footman sings gloriously at the very pitch of his voice. In everything Charlie recalls to me something which I have read with a higher reference--‘Not by his doctrines has Christ laid hold upon the heart of men, but by the story of his life.’[535] He has ‘under all circumstances that just admixture in the moral character of sweetness and dignity’ which Marcus Aurelius speaks of. Unlike everything else is the simplicity and singleness of heart and purpose written so distinctly on everything he says and does. Action is easy and natural where faith is so absolute. ‘At all times a man who would do faithfully must believe firmly,’ was a saying of Carlyle. And though religion pervades everything, no house was ever so gay as that of which Charlie is master. What merriment we have had over our games in the evening: what fun over the mysterious disappearances by day into the four secret chambers which make this house so curious: what admirably good stories have been told; and while the loss of the dear boys who are gone ever leaves a blank in the parents’ hearts, how happy life is made for the children who remain! ‘La joie est très bonne pour la santé: ce qui est sot, c’est d’être triste’[536]--this seems to be one of the minor guides of action. The place is not very interesting, but the house delightfully full of books and pictures. In the park are African cows, Japanese deer, emus, and kangaroos. Lady Ernestine Edgecumbe and Lady Beauchamp are here. It is a little society of those who feel that ‘we may not only know the truth, but may live even in this life in the very household and court of God.’”[537]

* * * * *

_To_ GEORGE COCKERTON.

“_Holmhurst, Oct. 9._--My return home was saddened by finding dear old Harriet Rogers--Lea’s niece--in a dying state at her little cottage in the grounds. She was just able to recognise me, and whispered touchingly, ‘I thank you! I thank you!’ As in the many other people I have now seen enter the shadow of death, there was no fear and no joy; the power of mental emotion seemed past. Yesterday, whilst I was with her, she died, passing the barrier quite painlessly. Yet what a change for her! There is always something very awe-striking in it.

‘And her smooth face sharpened slowly,’

is a line of the ‘Lady of Shalott’ which Tennyson afterwards removed, as giving too painful an image of death; but it is exactly what happens. To-day I feel it--yes, _odd_ to see the same farm and garden life, in which she was interested and had a share, going on the same, and that her part in it should be so suddenly over--snapped. How she must be longing to tell one now what she felt at that momentous moment. I am exactly like the person in ‘Hitherto’--‘I can’t get over expectin’ her to come in and talk it all over. It seems as though she couldn’t do nothin’ without tellin’ folk how!--But there, I dare say,--if ‘tain’t wicked to think of it,--it’s half over heaven by this time.’

“‘Il faut mourir et rendre compte de sa vie, voilà dans toute sa simplicité le grand enseignement de la maladie. Fais au plus tôt ce que tu as à faire; rentre dans l’ordre, songe à ton devoir; prépare-toi au départ; voilà ce que crient la conscience et la raison.’[538]

“My ‘North-Western France’ is now ready to appear. It has been an immense labour, one compared with which ‘The Gurneys of Earlham’ is as a drop to a river; but I have no doubt the latter will be more read, and certainly more reviewed, for scarcely any Englishmen know enough of France to be critical about descriptions of it. I have another little book ready too--‘Biographical Essays’--which is sure to meet with plenty of abuse, but does not deserve much, all the same. In it I have tried to give such a picture of Arthur Stanley as may make people love him as a friend, whilst they shrink from following him as a guide.”

XXX

IN MANY PLACES

“The whole value and meaning of life lies in the single sense of conscience--duty.”--FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE.

“Do weel and dread nought though thou be espyit; He is little gude worth that is not envyit: Take thou nae heed what tales man tells; If thou would’st live undeemed, gang where nae man dwells.” --SIR WALTER SCOTT _in Orloff Davydoff’s Album_.

“True happiness is only to be obtained by devotedness to the will of God. Seeking the universal good--the highest good of all. Life can only be truly happy, not when we are in ecstasy, but when we are doing right.”--THOMAS COOPER, _Thoughts at Fourscore_.

“Let nothing disturb thee, Let nothing affright thee-- All passeth: God only remaineth. Patience wins all things; Who hath God lacketh nothing: Alone God supplieth.” --ST. THERESA’S _Bookmark_.

Greatly as I always enjoy my little home of Holmhurst, dear as every corner of it is to me, I never feel as if it was well to stay there too long in winter alone. In summer, Nature itself can give sufficient companionship; but when earth is dead and frost-bound, the silence in the long hours after sunset becomes almost terrible, and I increasingly feel that late autumn and winter are the best time for visits.

* * * * *

_To_ VISCOUNT HALIFAX.

“_Holmhurst, Nov. 25._--I have much enjoyed a visit from Mr. and Mrs. Cummings, the Americans who were so kind to us on our terrible return journey from Italy in 1860, and of whom the wife, at least, is so clever, that she is suffering--as Mrs. Kemble said once of some one--from a constipation of her talents. They came here fresh from a visit to Haworth, much impressed with its severe desolation,--‘that any one should be able to have any hope, or look forward to a future life, on the top of Haworth hill is nothing short of a miracle.’ They have made a Brontë museum there now, chiefly full of Branwell’s drawings, of great interest, chiefly military. Did you know that Mr. Nichols hoped to have been rector when Mr. Brontë died? But it was given by election, and he was unpopular, and it went against him. He is still living in Ireland, whither he took all the Brontë memorials he cared for. The rest were sold by auction, and the butcher, baker, and candlestick-maker of Haworth bought them. The sexton showed Mrs. Cummings some of Charlotte’s underclothing, delicately marked by herself with her C. B., and her wedding shoes, of some grey material to match her dress. He had often seen her and her sister come out of the house, and go through the little gate at the back to the moors, which at Haworth are grass, not heather. After Charlotte married, Mr. Nichols would not let her write. His mind was of the very narrowest, and he disapproved of novels, and when she was pent up in that solitude, and all her secret thoughts were pent up too, and never allowed to come out in writing, she--died.

“Mrs. Cummings says we should not like America; ‘it is a country utterly without perspective; one must go up to the Indians and the Jesuit missionaries for that.’ She has been describing Miss Louisa Alcott,[539] the well-known authoress. ‘She lived with her old father and her beautiful mother and her three sisters. They used to write little stories. One day her sisters said, “Louisa, you must write something more than these.”--“I would, but I can’t do it here,” she answered. So the sisters clubbed their little savings together, and they sold a few things, and Louisa went to Boston. There she called upon Roberts, the publisher of all American good things, and said, “I want to write a story.”--“Very well,” he answered; “what kind will you take?”--“Oh, I can’t make up anything,” said Louisa; “I can only just write what I know.”--“Oh, you can just write what you know,” said Roberts; “then don’t stay talking here; go away at once and begin.” So she went and lived by herself and wrote, and in five weeks she brought him her “Little Women.” He took it and said, “Come again to-morrow.” And when she went next day he said, “Well, I will take your story, and I will offer you one of two things; either you can take two hundred dollars down for it, or you can take your chance.”--“But what would you do if you were me?” asked Miss Alcott. Roberts said he had never been placed in such an awkward predicament in his life, but he spoke the truth and said, “I would take my chance.” She did, and soon after he had to pay her 10,000 dollars.[540] She wrote “Little Men” afterwards, but it did not answer as well; boys do not take books to their pillows as girls do.’

“‘I love crying,’ said Mrs. Cummings, ‘but then I must have somebody to cry to. I cried as a little girl because I thought my mother might die, but I cried most because I thought that then I should have no one to cry _to_.’ Miss Alcott said to her, ‘My dear, I shouldn’t mind dying if it wasn’t for the funeral.’

“‘Mr. Tennyson was very rude and coarse,’ said Mrs. Cummings, ‘but he died well--reading his little book in the moonlight: he really couldn’t have done it better.’

“‘Louisa Payson, who wrote “The Pastor’s Daughter” and many other books,[541] would not say “thank you” when she was a little girl. Her father, the stern minister, punished her in various ways, but it was no good--she said she couldn’t. So at last, at five years old, he turned her out of doors late on a winter’s evening. He went to his affairs, forgot her, I suppose; but her mother was in an agony, and she prayed for her child with all the spirit that was in her. At last she could bear it no longer, and she opened the door a little way, and then she heard a little wail of “I can’t say thank you: I can’t say thank you.” What was the end I do not know, but at any rate Louisa did not die, and lived to write books.’

“These are some snatches from the Holmhurst tea-table.”

* * * * *

_To_ HERBERT VAUGHAN.

“_Kingston Vicarage, Wareham, Nov. 10._--You would have liked going with us to Wool, on a ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ pilgrimage, for there, rising by the reedy river-side, is the old gabled house to which Tess was taken after her marriage. It is exactly as Hardy describes it;[542] even the plank bridge remains across which Angel carried her in his sleep to the stone coffin at Bindon Abbey. The two old pictures mentioned in the book really hang at the top of the staircase, and the lady in one of them is supposed to blow out the candle of any one who ventures up the stairs after midnight. The whole country-side is full of memories of the D’Urbervilles, and there are many still living who depose to having met their phantom coach and four with outriders. The family still exists at Kingston as--Tollerfield!

“We had an awful storm last night, but such hurricanes are the fashion in Purbeck. A Mr. Bellasye, returning home, met, not his bathing-machine, but his bathing-_house_ coming to meet him across the hedges and ditches. Mr. and Mrs. Wordsworth had a huge hole blown into their roof by one gust; but that did not much signify, as the next gust blew a haystack on to the roof and filled the hole up. All the cabbages and other vegetables in the kitchen-garden are frequently blown out of the earth and into a heap in a corner, and on one occasion those in the rectory-garden were all blown into the church porch.”

* * * * *

_To_ VISCOUNT HALIFAX.

“_Elvedon, Thetford, Nov. 14._--All the way back from Dorsetshire did I come for the pleasure of meeting the Duchess of York here (at Lord and Lady Iveagh’s); but that was not to be, as an impending event is considered too near for her to travel with safety. The Duke is here, and very unaffected and pleasant, really a very nice prince, and quite good-looking. He never fails to be punctual to the moment--a grand quality for a prince, and due, probably, to naval discipline. He talks a great deal, and talks well, but in reality princes have no chance--no chance at all--conversationally, as no one ever contradicts them, however much they disagree; no subjects are aired but those which they choose for themselves, and the merest commonplaces from royal lips are listened to as if they were oracles.

“Anything more odious or annoying than being a prince certainly cannot be imagined. Such a wearisome round of dullest duties and painful ‘pleasures’ as it is their life’s-work to live in like a tread-mill. Then, every fault of manner, far more of conduct and character, is commented, dwelt on, and exaggerated. I should be sorry for any prince, but am really dreadfully sorry for this one, as he would have been charming, and might have been extremely happy if the misfortune of his birth had not condemned him to the severe and miserable existence of princedom, in which all minor faults are uncorrected because unsuggested, though I believe such a true friend and fine character as, for instance, Lord Carrington, would always notice any sufficiently grave to be of consequence either to the country or the royal family.

“I floated here in the luxurious saloon carriage of a special train, but felt rather shy, because whereas all the rest of the party were on terms of christian-name intimacy, I knew none of them before except Lord Rowton, who is, however, always very kind and pleasant. But I was interested to see those who are so frequently part of the royal circle, and liked them all, especially and extremely Lord and Lady Carrington; but then--everyone does!

“I wonder if you know this house of Elvedon. It was Duleep Singh’s, and he tried to make it like an Indian palace inside. Much of his decoration still remains, and the delicate white stucco-work has a pretty effect when mingled with groups of tall palms and flowering plants. Otherwise the house (with the kindest of hosts), is almost appallingly luxurious, such masses of orchids, electric light everywhere, &c. However, a set-off the other way is an electric piano, which goes on pounding away by itself with a pertinacity which is perfectly distracting. In the evenings singing men and dancing women are brought down from London, and are supposed to enliven the royal guest.

“You know, probably, how this place is the most wonderful shooting in England. The soil is so bad that it is not worth cultivating, and agriculture has been abandoned as a bad business. Game is found to be far more profitable. The sterile stony fields are intersected at intervals by belts of fir; the hedges, where they exist, are of Scotch fir kept low; and acres of thick broom are planted. Each day I have gone out with the luncheon party, and we have met the shooters at tents pitched at different parts of the wilderness, where boarded floors are laid down, and a luxurious banquet is prepared, with plate and flowers. The quantity of game killed is almost incredible, and the Royal Duke shot more than any one, really, I believe, owing to his being a very good shot, and not, as so often is the case in royal battues, from the birds being driven his way.

“A great feature of the party is Admiral Keppel, kindest, most courteous, and most engaging of old gentlemen, so captivating that there is always a rivalry amongst the ladies as to who shall walk with him, and amongst the men to get hold of his stories. He told me of how his father first started him on his naval career, and, while he talked it over at Holcombe, made him sit in the same chair in which he had talked the same subject over with Nelson when he was starting _him_.

“He described the prayers at Holcombe on Sunday evening in his boyhood. After dinner the men were allowed an hour or two over their wine. Then the prayer-bell rang, and they all went in. Afterwards an old servant stayed to take up those who could not get up from their knees, and carry them to bed by turns when they were too drunk to go by themselves.

“He remembered Charles James Fox reeling down the corridor at Holcombe, falling helplessly from side to side. His father followed him, and he followed his father, who kept exclaiming, ‘Good God! drunk! Good God! drunk again!’ for the expression had not gone out then.

“He said that the present Lord Leicester and his father had married at exactly a hundred years apart.”

* * * * *

_To_ W. H. MILLIGAN _and_ JOURNAL.

“_Nov. 27, Hornby Castle, Bedale._--I came here yesterday. Several people were in the castle omnibus when I got into it at the station, of whom a grand lion-like old man turned out to be Mr. Bayard, the American Ambassador. It was dark when we arrived. We found the Duchess (of Leeds), tall, gracious, and most winning in manner, and indeed all the family, in a noble hall, coved at the top, with busts in the upper niches, like the halls of Roman palaces, and looking (by daylight) into a courtyard, which is very picturesque and curious.

“Lady Harewood is here, sweet-looking and very white, with a pleasant daughter, Mr. and Lady Alice Shaw Stewart, and several young men. Mr. Bayard came down to dinner much delighted with a book he had found in his room--the ‘Life of Agrippina’--in which ‘What news from Armenia?’ is anxiously asked, showing how the same subject occupied conversation then as now, at a distance of nineteen centuries. He said, ‘When bad men _conspire_, good men ought to _confederate_.’

“This morning, in the library, I had much and delightful talk with Mr. Bayard. He gave an interesting account of the allotment of land in America: how a reserve was left to the Indians, but they were dying out, chiefly because of their catching all the vices of Europeans, especially their love of alcohol. He said they were like the buffaloes. These used to come down and swoop through the country in vast herds, and devour all the spring produce; and later, in their vast battalions they would swoop back again; but now, fettered and shut in by barriers and fences, they pined, starved, and died; and so it was with the Indians. He described how, after an unjust woman had published a libel on her country,[543] the greatest suffering had resulted to the slaves, who would follow their former masters to suffering, wounds, imprisonment, and death. A Southern lady, when ‘the army of liberation’ approached, had entrusted all her silver and jewels to her slaves, and they had brought it all back safely after the army had passed.

“He talked of the Banco di S. Giorgio at Genoa--‘one of the most interesting buildings in the world;’ that whereas the Bank of London had lasted two centuries, that of Genoa had lasted five: that the Bank was the greatest evidence of the philosophy of nations. No aspersion was ever cast upon it, and this was because those who administered it had never derived any profit from it, only honour. An instance of its usefulness as a record-office occurred lately, when a man in America offered Mr. H. an autograph letter of Columbus. To all appearance it was genuine, but Mr. H. asked leave, which was readily granted, to have a photograph facsimile made of it before purchasing. In the Banco di Giorgio the original letter was found, and, when compared with the facsimile, proved that the copy was false. This was especially fortunate, as, after Napoleon I., ‘that great collector of other people’s property,’ took away the archives of Genoa, though most were restored, all were not.

“The library at Hornby is full of interest, but I can only remember a fifteenth-century ‘Roman de la Rose;’ a first edition of Shakspeare, which came to its present owners through Henrietta, Duchess of Marlborough, who inherited it from William Congreve; and a copy of ‘Dionysius the Areopagite,’ by Beghir, ‘the one-eyed scribe of Brabant’--most delightful name--with notes by Dean Colet.

“The Duchess has shown us the house minutely and delightfully. The family portraits were full of interest, beginning with that of Sir William Hewitt, whose daughter married William Osborne, the apprentice who saved her when she fell over London Bridge, and who founded the Leeds family. In a curious Hogarth of ‘The Beggar’s Opera,’ the Duke of Bolton is represented watching the acting of Polly Peachum, whom he afterwards married: the picture is here because Sir Conyers d’Arcy, an ancestor of the house, is also represented. Mr. Bayard was delighted to find portraits of the wife of the seventh Duke, who was Miss Caton, one of four beautiful American sisters.[544] The Duchess was amused that I had never heard of ‘Godolphin Arabian,’ the ancestor of a succession of famous racehorses.[545] In one of the rooms is the miniature spinning-wheel of Madame de Pompadour; in another, a bed of such glorious embroidery that when Lady Marian Alford was here, she could not get up for looking at it.”

* * * * *

“_Nov. 29._--At breakfast, at one of several little round tables, Mr. Bayard talked pleasantly of a grave in the cemetery at Nuremberg. It is one of Adam Kraft’s iron tombstones, and it bears no name. Affixed to it is a human skull, exquisitely modelled, with a jaw which opens and shuts. In the forehead--the bronze forehead--is a white patch of some other metal. The story is that the owner of that skull was very unhappily married. His misery drove him from home, drove him into very bad company, and he sank lower and lower. One day he suddenly died and was buried; but soon afterwards his family began to suspect foul play, and he was exhumed. At first his body seemed to bear no witness, but then, in his forehead, under his hair, a large nail was found, buried up to the hilt, hammered in so accurately that no blood had come. Every one believed that it was his wife who had done it, but it could not be brought home to her; his associates were too bad for their evidence to be trusted. But the model of his skull was laid upon his grave, and his wife left the place; she could not continue to exist near it.

“We went to luncheon at Thorp-Perrow with Sir Frederick and Lady Milbank, who have a glorious garden. He is full of antiquarian lore and interests, and has a precious collection of old locks and keys. She knows sixteen languages well, and is learning a seventeenth. Hungarian she acquired for the sake of its literature. A despatch came to the Foreign Office in Hungarian, and no one there could read it, but Austen Lee sent it to Lady Milbank, who translated it at once. The Milbanks were very intimate with Madame Goldschmidt, whom they lived next door to in London. One day in a church--a country church--they saw her go out of her pew and shake a woman by her shoulders. ‘What on earth had that unfortunate woman done?’ they asked when they came out. ‘Why, didn’t you hear she was singing a false second.’”

* * * * *

“_Hams, Birmingham, Nov. 30._--This is a large house of extreme comfort, and its owner, Lord Norton, who looks sixty, though he is eighty-two, is one of the most agreeable hosts in England. Walking on the terrace this morning, he said he ought to put up a slab to record how the whole constitution of New Zealand was settled on that terrace: that which was arranged while walking up and down there had never been altered. The view of the pretty windings of the Thame recalled the exclamation of a famous landscape-gardener when he saw it--‘Clever!’ ‘It was not made, it is natural,’ said Lord Norton. But no, his friend could not regard it except from the gardening point of view, and ‘clever’ was all he could say. The river was terribly polluted by Birmingham, and Lord Norton went to law about it. ‘Should the convenience of one man be considered before that of millions?’ exclaimed the Birmingham advocate at the trial. ‘Yes,’ shouted the opposition, ‘for the grandeur of English law is that millions may not interfere with the comfort and well-being of a single individual. Now the pollution is partially diverted into a sewage farm five miles in extent.

“The clergyman here has only the care of three hundred souls, so he keeps three hundred chickens, and is often able to supplement his income by getting fifty pounds for a cock.

“An oak avenue leads to the church, being a remnant probably of the Forest of Arden, of which there are many traces still, but such an avenue is very rare. The late storm had blown down several fine trees. ‘How strange it is,’ said Lord Norton, ‘that amid the thousand--the million--theories that science has put forth, there should be none about the wind: it is one of the many incidental proofs of the truths of the Bible, that our Saviour saw this when he spoke of--“The wind bloweth where it listeth,” &c.

“‘Those who say that as to religion we know nothing, do not recognise that half religion is instinct (every one has the instinct that there is a God), and the other half what Pascal calls “the submission of reason.”’

“Lord Norton used to know very well Ellis the shoemaker, who devoted himself to the reformation of boys. He said, ‘I do not take them to make shoes only; I take them to give them a conscience.’ He said, ‘Many people say that the boys are fools, but they are philosophers. They reason at night. I overhear them; I hear them reasoning as to whether there is a God.’ There was one boy especially who denied this, who laughed at all who believed. One day this boy was given a parcel to take to Sir Moses Montefiore. Now the boys may steal, but however much they do that, when they are entrusted with anything, they are most tenacious to fulfil their trust. This boy only knew of Sir Moses by his popular name of ‘the King of the Jews,’ and all day long he asked his way to him in vain. He could not find him anywhere. Evening closed in, and he was faint with hunger and fatigue. He was quite sinking, but at the last gasp cried, ‘O God, if there be a God, help me.’

“Immediately a policeman rushed at him. ‘What have you got there, you young rascal? What’s in that parcel?--something you’ve been stealing, I suppose?’--‘No, ‘taint; it’s a parcel for the King of the Jews, and I can’t find him.’--‘Why, you young fool,’ said the policeman, shaking him, ‘it’s Sir Moses Montefiore you mean: I can show you where to find him.’

“That night the boys were philosophising as usual, declaring that there was no God, there couldn’t be, when the boy who had taken the parcel shouted, ‘Stop that rubbish, you fellows; there _is_ a God, and I _know_ it: and as for you, you’re just as much able to judge of God as a worm is to judge of me.’”

* * * * *

“_Dec. 2._--A walk amidst the remnants of the Forest of Arden led to much talk about trees. ‘When Gladstone meets any one new,’ said Lord Norton, ‘his first thought is, “What does he know? what can I get out of him?” When he met Lord Leigh, he had heard of Stoneleigh, that it possessed some of the finest oaks in England; so, when he sat down by him, he began at once, “Lord Leigh, have you any theory as to the age of oaks?”--“Yes, certainly I have; I possess several myself that are above a thousand years old.”--“And how do you know that is so?” said Gladstone. “Well,” said Lord Leigh, “I have several that are called ‘Gospel Oaks,’ because the old Saxon missionaries used to preach under them more than eight hundred years ago, and they would not be likely to choose a young oak to preach under: we may suppose that they chose an oak at least two hundred years old.”--“Well, that is a very good reason,” said Gladstone.’

“Lord Norton had lately been with Gladstone to Drayton, full of Peel relics, and with the wonderful collection of portraits which Sir Robert brought together. All the heads of Government, from Walpole to the Peel Administration, are represented. The pistols are preserved with which Peel intended to fight O’Connell at Calais, but O’Connell’s wife prevented it by giving notice and getting him arrested at Dover.

“While talking of hunting as conducive to the manliness of Englishmen, Lord Norton said, ‘When I was hunting with Charlie Newdigate, a boy almost naked, not quite, came out of a coal-pit, and on a donkey, without saddle or bridle, hunted with us all day, not going over the hedges, but through them. Newdigate was delighted. “_That’s_ the stuff English heroes are made of,” he said, and he had a long talk with the boy afterwards, and explained to him all about the field, &c.... In Northumberland there was a boy who would ride one of his father’s bulls. His father cut him off at last, and would have nothing more to do with him. ‘I’m not a bad father,’ he said, ‘and I don’t mind his riding my bull, but when he takes him out with the hounds it’s too much.’”

* * * * *

“_The Deanery, Llandaff, Dec. 7._--Lord Robert Bruce told me the facts of Lord Llanover’s ghost story. As Sir Benjamin Hall and he were riding in the Park in London, Sir Benjamin distinctly saw Lord Rivers, who was an intimate friend of his, and he _saw him vanish_. He went to his club immediately afterwards, and told what he had seen, and before he left the club a telegram was brought in announcing that Lord Rivers was dead. Afterwards Sir Benjamin Hall went to Mrs. Hanbury Leigh, and told her what had happened, adding, ‘You know this must mean something; it must mean that I am myself to die within the year;’ and so he did.

“I have enjoyed being again with the cousin so deeply loved in my childhood, and also seeing the really beautiful work of the gentle and, I am sure, holy Dean amongst the young men preparing for orders, who hover reveringly around him.’

“Catherine Vaughan has told me how, after Augusta Stanley’s death, she said to Mrs. Drummond (of Megginch), who was living at the Deanery, ‘Augusta’s presence so seems to fill this place, that I quite wonder she never appears here;’ and was startled by the way in which Mrs. Drummond said, ‘_She does_.’ Augusta used on her death-bed to say to Arthur, ‘I shall always be near you when you give the Benediction.’ One day in the Abbey, between the arches, but quite near Arthur, Mrs. Drummond most distinctly saw Augusta--a vaporous figure, wrapped in folds of vaporous white drapery, but with every feature as distinctly visible as in life. This was just before the Benediction, and as its last tones died away the appearance vanished. Mrs. Drummond had no doubt about it at all.”

* * * * *

_To_ GEORGE COCKERTON.

“_Burwarton, Shropshire, Dec. 12._--This is a charming place in the high Clee Hills, and Lord and Lady Boyne, who live in it, are quite delightful. I have been working for a great part of several days in the library at a little book on ‘Shropshire,’ which I hope to be able to finish another year. You would have been amused by the quaint sayings of an old clergyman who came to dinner. Speaking of an unusually stupid neighbour he said, ‘His folly is incredible, but even he has his lucid intervals, for the other day he told me he knew he was an ass.’

“I would give up, if I were you, taking the extra work you speak of. There is an old Swedish proverb which says--‘You cannot get more out of an ox than beef,’ and there is no use, none, in trying to do, or to be, two things at once.”

* * * * *

_To_ VISCOUNT HALIFAX.

“_Rome, April 23, 1896._--I wonder if you know that I have been abroad since the first of February. At first, for a month, I was on ‘the Rivieras,’ finishing up a little volume which will be so called, and which will appear before next winter. Some new places are opened up now by a railway--a most beautiful miniature railway--from Hyères to S. Raphael, and amongst them is S. Maxime, a quiet scene of tranquil beauty, where the pension is still only six francs, in a charming little hotel with a garden which comes down to a sea-cove, where you look across transparent shallows of emerald-green water into mountain distances, not grand, but supremely lovely, and where, in our long-ago days, you and I should have been in a fever of romantic interest over the old castle of Grimaud, which was the cradle of the princely Grimaldis.

“At Nice, I was not in the town, but at the old Villa Arson, which you will remember. It is now a hotel, though its wonderful garden, full of statues, staircases, fountains, and grottoes amongst the flowers and palm-trees, is quite untouched. It was all beautiful, and the sky was cloudlessly blue for a month; and I lingered at Bordighera with the Strathmores and my dear old friend Emilia de Bunsen, and then at Alassio with my cousin Lady Paul, and at beautiful Rapallo. But oh! the difference on entering real Italy, and finding oneself in the delightful old-world streets of Lucca, with their clean pavements and brown green-shuttered houses, with the air so much more bracing, the sky so much more soft, and the pleasant manner and winning tongue of the Italian people.

“At the Florence station I had an unpleasant experience, in being robbed of £100 by two roughly-jostling men at the entrance of the carriage. It was a great loss, but I could not help admiring the cleverness with which they contrived to extract my pocket-book out of the inner breast pocket of my coat _with a greatcoat over it_. They were taken up afterwards--Frenchmen, I am glad to say, not Italians--and immense booty of watches, purses, &c., found upon them, all taken at Florence station; but I have no chance of recovering my notes. I have had to appear against them already six times and to identify them in prison.

“My last six weeks have been spent in Rome,--spoilt, destroyed, from the old Rome of our many winters here, but settling down now into the inferior mediocrity to which the Sardinian occupation has reduced it. And, though one does not see them every hour as one used to do, there are still many lovely and attractive corners to be hunted up. The Italian archaeologists (so called) are also finding out that they have made a great mistake in tearing away all the plants and shrubs which protected the tops of the ruins, and are comically occupied in planting little roots of grass and chickweed on their barren summits. There are very few capable or interested winter visitors now. They mostly belong to the class of the first of the three audience-seekers to whom Pius IX. addressed his usual question of ‘How long have you been in Rome, and how much have you seen?’ and who answered, ‘I have been here three days, and have seen everything.’[546]

“Good old Dr. Gason has died lately (the man of whom Pius IX. said--‘un certo pagano, chi si chiama Jasone’), the leader of the Evangelical party here--one of a class who seemed to me ‘every one’ when I was a boy, and when the dreary desert of Sunday was only enlivened by Foxe’s ‘Book of Martyrs’ and ‘Josephus,’ and almost everything pleasant was a ‘carnal indulgence.’ How few there are who think like that now--no one who has a real part in my life since dear Charlotte Leycester passed away. Certainly, there is no one now to think one--well, much worse than a pagan for taking one’s sketch-book on Sundays to the Palace of the Caesars, where I have spent many quiet hours meditating on my past and its past. I am often oppressed, however, by my great loneliness, by the want of any relation who has a real interest in me, by the constant feeling--however kind people are--of _signifying_ nothing to anybody. And those who remember our old life--the old life with the mother and Lea which was so different from this--are becoming very, very few. I can only try to say--

‘Call me, silent voices, Forward to the starry track Glimmering in the heights beyond me, On, and always on.’[547]

“The ruin of the great families here is depressing. There has been a sale at the old historic Orsini palace, at which a marble statue holding a baton behind the auctioneer seemed to repeat his action and to preside coldly over the ruin of his house and dispersion of its treasures. And on the floor of the hall, appropriately surrounded by overthrown marble pedestals, lay the great bust of the Orsini Pope, with a look of unutterable disgust upon his face at having been just sold for £6. I bought a little Madonna, which will adorn Holmhurst, if I can get it out of the country.

“There is a new line to Viterbo now, which brings many places, formerly difficult of access, within easy reach. With the Gordons from Salisbury I went to Anguillara, splendid in colour from the orange roofs of its quaint houses rising high above the broad, still lake in which Bracciano and other towns on the farther shore were reflected. We wandered afterwards in the beautiful gardens of an old ‘Ser Vincenzo,’ with woods--real trees--of camelias in fullest bloom, and larks singing, and carpets of violets. Then another day, a large party of us went to Segni in the purple recesses of the Volscian mountains, and saw that wonderful arch whose origin is lost in pre-historic mystery. We took our luncheon with us, and ate it on the down above the huge stones of the wall. But generally we have something odd at the village inns. ‘How I like topographical gastronomy!’ said old Mrs. Blackburn of Moidart on one of these tourettes.

“Few interesting visitors have been at Rome this year, but having Lady Airlie and Lady Kenmare here has been very pleasant, and dear old Miss Garden--even in her great feebleness, which, alas! is constant now--always ripples with wit and wisdom. At Mrs. Terry’s I met Miss Paterson, the martyr-bishop’s sister, who told me how her old father, when he first learnt his son’s determination to go out, began to say, ‘Oh, I cannot let him go,’ and then broke in with, ‘But oh! I _cannot_ deny him to God.’ He parted with him knowing they could never meet again, but, after a time, in his letters found interest and consolation. To-day--a desperately wet day--has been enlivened by a summons to luncheon with the Crown Princess of Sweden, whom I think one of the most charming, natural, and attractive of human beings; and oh! how simple, how utterly without affectation is that sort of person who can have nothing to _pretend_ to. It is that, I suppose, which makes such people so much the easiest to talk to, which makes one feel so far more at rest with them than with persons of another, even of one’s own class. The Princess’s health obliges her to winter in Italy, away from her husband and her little sons, but she will hurry back to them with the warm weather. There was no one else at luncheon but the lady and gentleman in waiting, and the conversation was chiefly about ghost stories, the Princess declaring that ‘every hair of her head had curled up’ from one I had told her at Eastbourne.

“There is a sort of homely amusement in seeing--I cannot help sometimes counting them!--the great number of people who go about here with the familiar little red and black volumes of ‘Walks in Rome.’ Sometimes also I am touched by a kind note from an unknown hand saying that one of my other books has been helpful to them. I am so glad when this happens. As to any other feeling about my books, I think I gradually get to _realise_ how ... ‘there is one glory of the terrestrial, another glory of the celestial,’ and how one has to keep that in one’s heart.”

* * * * *

_To_ MISS GARDEN _at Rome_.

“_Viterbo, May 1, 1896._--Yesterday I went to Toscanella. The landlord of the hotel was to engage a little carriage for me, which I found at the door when I went down, but with a horse which was an absolute skeleton. Still they declared it could go, and it _could_. How it rushed, and tore, and swung us down the rose-fringed descent to the great Etruscan plain, where the faint dome of Montefiascone rose in the blue haze against the heavens, beyond the aërial distances of burnt grass, broken here and there by Etruscan caves and ruins. Then how the skeleton horse still galloped into the uplands, till great towers appeared grouped like ninepins, or rather like S. Gemignano. It is yet a long circuit to the town, a descent into a rocky gorge, then a steep ascent winding round the hill outside the walls, a sort of Calvary to this Jerusalem, where the great churches stand, S. Pietro like the most magnificent cathedral, girdled by huge walls and towers, with a ruined episcopal palace beside it, and a triumphal arch, like those of Brittany, in front of the east end. The church was locked and the key was away, but a little girl snatched a sick bambino from its cradle, and carried it, and guided me to S. Maria in the depth below--even far lovelier and more refined in the delicate sculpture of its roseate stone than the great church above. All its great western doors were open to the brilliant sunshine, yet it was terribly damp, the font and all the lower part of the pillars green as the grass outside. But the exquisite pulpit and bishop’s throne were unhurt, and the lovely frescoes--even more beautiful in effect than detail--with which the walls were covered. Having secured the key, we returned to S. Pietro, entering it by the crypt--_l’incolonnata_--a perfect maze of little columns like the mosque at Cordova in extreme miniature. Most grand is the upper church in its orange-grey desolation; mass there only once a year. But our bambino was worse for the damp, so we did not stay long, and indeed it was cheering to emerge on the breezy uplands, where the whole air was embalmed with sweet-basil, as one trod it down.

“The city of Toscanella scrambles, a mass of brown towers, golden roofs, and grey houses, along the opposite hill, and has a thousand corners which are enough to drive an artist frantic--such gothic windows; such dark entries; such arcaded streets, with glints of brilliant foliage and flowers breaking in upon their solemn shadows. At a little inn I had luncheon--a dish of poached eggs, excellent bread, cheese, and wine, and all for forty centimes, so living is not dear in Toscanella.

“Then oh! how the skeleton horse galloped home under the serene loveliness of the pellucid sky, over the plain where all the little grasses and flowers were quivering and shimmering in golden sunset ecstasy.

“I cannot say the food here is delicious; it would be an exaggeration. All the little somethings and nothings a butchered calf is capable of, and vegetables lost in garlic and oil. The host’s name is Zefferino; he is a very substantial zephyr. He arranged for my going this morning to S. Martino, which I was most anxious to visit, for love--or was it hate?--of Donna Olimpia Pamfili. I so longed to see where the great ‘papessa’ died; and how the plague got hold of her on that most grand height, overlooking seventy miles of pink and blue distances, one cannot imagine. Rocky honeysuckle-hung lanes lead up to it--a little brown-walled town, with gates and fountain, and just one street--the steepest street in the world, up which the great white oxen can only just struggle--leading up to the palace and church. Before the high altar of the latter is Olimpia’s tomb, providently placed in her lifetime, with, I thought, a rather touching inscription, saying that she had really tried to do all the good she _could_; and in the palace are her full-length portrait and furniture of her time, and two pictures of Innocent X. The great cool halls are let in the summer months, and have, oh! such a view from their terrace; while close behind the palace is another gate of the walled town, from which glorious forest--the great Ciminian oak forest--begins at once, and stretches away to infinity. I drew there, and five little swineherds in peaked hats and about a hundred pigs grouped themselves around me. How _human_ the latter are! They all had names, to which, when their masters called them, they responded from a great distance, grunting loud, and running up as hard as they could.

“Then this afternoon--oh! wealthy Viterbo!--I have been again to the glorious Villa Lante. Surely never was there so beautiful a garden; never one so poetical out of nymph-and faun-land--the green glades, the moss-grown staircases, the fountains and vases, the foaming waterfalls, the orange-trees and flowers!”

* * * * *

_To_ W. H. MILLIGAN.

“_Abbazia di S. Gregorio, Venice, May 17._--On arriving here, I was persuaded to go to one of the principal hotels, sumptuously luxurious, and consequently intensely unsympathetic and unattractive. The mass of Americans, travelling like their own trunks, and with as much understanding of the place, drove me away at last, and I was enchanted to find a refuge in this dear little abbey, with its venerable court full of flowers and beautiful decorated gateway, outside which the green waves of the Grand Canal sparkle and dance. Walter Townley and his charming bride have the other rooms, and we go together for our dinner to a restaurant, and close by are Lady Airlie and Lady Kenmare, and, just opposite, Basil and Lady Margaret Levett, all as perfect types of high-bred excellence as can be found anywhere. I have enjoyed Venice more than any other part of this time abroad--have had very happy times with these friends in the afternoons, and in the mornings by myself drawing in desolate but lovely corners, unknown places, quite overlooked in what Symonds calls ‘Ruskin’s paint-box of delirious words.’ Yet I find colouring here very difficult, and quite a new style necessary, where _every_ shadow is transparent. Miss Clara Montalba thoroughly understands this, and the delicate drawings which come from her fairy brush have as much of the most refined poetry of the place as mine have of its most unimaginative prose. But, with the love which I suppose every one has of seeking what is unusual, she paints rather the dull and foggy than the bright days. From the windows of the old house in the Zattere, where she lives with her mother and two sisters, she has the most glorious subjects, in which shipping is the great feature. Her sister Hilda has also a studio in the top of the house--such a quaint and picturesque place, with two tame doves flying about in it. She described an old palace in which they had lived near Vicenza, where the immense dining-room table had a central leg, with a fireplace in it to keep the dinner hot.

“Two sets of people ought always to live in Venice: those who have heart complaints and those who are afraid of horses; the peaceful floating gondola life would be so suited to them. Lord Houghton’s sister, old Lady Galway, spent many winters here for the former reason. But no one ought to come here unless they at least _intend_ to see the best of it, and to enjoy it.”

* * * * *

_To_ W. H. MILLIGAN.

“_August 1, 1896._--I have enjoyed my six weeks in London with their much people-seeing. People laugh at me for liking it all so much, and still more for expressing my liking for it; but I believe I shall never turn out to be ‘one of those whom Dante found in hell-border because they had been sad under the blessed sun.’[548] How many people in ‘the world,’ so called, are perfectly charming! Surely if there are many like the Woods, Jerseys, William Lowthers, Pennants, Ilchesters, and oh! how many others, good must far predominate over evil in society.

“You know how I have always said I hated leaving London for Sundays, but I did leave it for three of them. The first was spent at Reigate Manor--Lady Henry Somerset’s charming old house, with an oak panelled hall and staircase, such as one is surprised to find near London. Lady Henry is a delightful hostess, and though so enthusiastically interested in all her good works, keeps them quite in the background. I was so glad to find George Curzon at Reigate, as pleasant as ever, and his American wife; and he has so much to say on all subjects that one does not wonder he has been spoken of as the man who ‘had seen everything, known everything, read all books, and written most of them.’ But yet the ‘feature’ of the party was Lord Carlisle’s son, Hubert Howard, who jumped upon the donkeys browsing in the park, and was kicked off by them; then upon a stray long-haired pony, and was kicked off by it; and who finally would go out to sea on the lake in a barrel in his Sunday clothes, and of course the barrel upset in the midst, and the nails with which it was studded left him with very few clothes at all.[549]

“Then I was two days at Hatfield--days of brilliant sunshine, glowing gardens, scent of lime-flowers, great kindness from host and hostess, and much pleasant companionship. The rooms have names of trees: I was in the hornbeam room, whence S. Alban’s Abbey was visible. I drew hard on Sunday amid the brilliant flowers of the garden: oh! how wicked it would have been thought when I was younger; but now no one thought it so. Most of the guests did nothing but talk and enjoy the summer beauty. Madame Ignatieff, coming to Hatfield, said, ‘Ah, I see what your life in great country-houses is--eat and doddle (dawdle), doddle and eat.’ Dear Sir Augustus Paget, of many pleasant Roman memories, sat out by me part of the time, and on the Monday morning kept me after breakfast talking of how very happy he was, how many enjoyments in his life. I could not help feeling afterwards what characteristic ‘last words’ those were. I went into the drawing-room to take leave of Lady Salisbury, and in an instant Lady Cranborne ran in saying that Sir Augustus had fallen in the hall. He scarcely spoke again, and on Saturday his bright spirit had departed. I was _very_ sorry. I had known him so long, and--I am again quoting George Eliot, whom I have just been reading--‘how unspeakably the lengthening of memories in common endears one’s old friends.’

“Lady Salisbury is delightful, not only to listen to but to watch. She is so young in her spirit. ‘On a l’age de son cœur.’ All she does, as all she says, is so clever, and her relation to her many daughters-in-law, to the great variety of her visitors, to her vast household, is so unfailingly sagacious. Even ‘to know her is a liberal education,’ as Steele said of a lady he admired. She is a great contrast to Lord Salisbury: as I watched him solemnly and slowly walking up and down the rooms with his hand on the head of his great dog Pharaoh, I was always reminded of Henry Vaughan’s lines--

‘The darksome statesman, hung with weight and woe, Like to thick midnight fog, mov’d there so slow, He did not stay, nor go.’

“The next Sunday I was at Osterley, in intensely hot weather. Sir E. Burne Jones was there (as well as at Hatfield), the painter of morbid and unlovely women, who has given an apotheosis to ennui--the Botticelli of the nineteenth century. He is very agreeable naturally, and made infinitely more so by his seductively captivating voice. He spoke much of Mr. Pepys’ ‘Diaries,’ and what a pity it was he became blind, ‘we might have had so many more volumes.’ He described going to dine with the Blumenthals, where the footman at the door presented him with a gilt apple, and informed him that he was Paris, and would go down to dinner with whichever of the Graces he presented it to. ‘I knew I must make two deadly enemies,’ said Sir Edward, ‘so I shut my eyes and stretched out the apple into space; _some one_ took it.’ He said peacocks made their shrill cry because they were afraid a thief might come and steal their beauty away, and then he talked of the Talmud--‘that great repository of interesting stories.’ The Grand-Vizier, he said, was terribly afraid Solomon would marry the Queen of Sheba, so he told the king her legs were hairy. Then, in his wisdom, Solomon surrounded his throne with running water, and covered it with glass. And when the queen came to him and saw the water, she lifted up her trailing robe, and he beheld her legs reflected in the glass, and they were not hairy, and he said, ‘The Grand-Vizier is a liar,’ and he put him to death. The beloved Halifaxes were at Osterley, quite delightful always--

‘Bright sparklings of all human excellence, To which the silver wands of saints in heaven Might point in rapturous joy.’[550]

“After leaving London finally I went to Oxton Hall in Nottinghamshire for my dear Hugh Bryan’s wedding with Miss Violet Sherbrooke--such a pretty wedding--and thence to Wollaton Hall, Lord Middleton’s glorious old house near Nottingham. On the way I stayed to draw Nottingham Castle, which I had drawn as a boy, but they have quite spoilt it by tearing up its fine old plateau of grey flagstones, and putting down asphalt, only, of course, in the drawing I left that out. Wollaton is a beautiful old grey stone building full of varied ornaments--niches, pinnacles, and busts, with a central tower and huge central hall. It was built by John of Padua with stone from Ancaster, all brought on donkeys, and for which nothing was paid, coal being taken and given in exchange for it from a pit already open in Elizabeth’s time. In the church, to which we went on Sunday morning, is the tomb of John of Padua’s clerk of the works, also the monument of Lady Anne Willoughby, _née_ Grey, aunt of Lady Jane, and a beautiful tomb of a Willoughby who was Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, with little effigies of his four wives, one of whom was mother of the Arctic voyager. The afternoon was wet, and amongst other relics we saw the clothes of this Willoughby hero, left behind when he went to the North Pole, and preserved with many other old dresses in a vast deserted upper chamber called ‘Bedlam,’ probably because the ‘gentlemen’s gentlemen’ slept there in old times, as in a dormitory. There is much else to see in the house, which was strongly fortified against the Nottingham rioters, and a number of handcuffs are hanging up which were prepared for them. The first evening I was alone with my delightfully genial host and hostess, but on Saturday many guests came, including the exceedingly pleasant young Lord Deramore.

“The late Lord Middleton lived in this palace in most primitive fashion. He used to have dinner-parties, but the dinner consisted in a haunch of venison at one end and a haunch of venison at the other, and currant-jelly in the middle, and then two apple-pies to match.

“Here is a delightful story of the present Bishop of London for you, which is _molto ben trovato_, at any rate. One day, he took a cab home to Fulham from the City, and wishing to be liberal, gave the man sixpence beyond the full fare. The man looked at it. ‘What, aren’t you satisfied?’ said the Bishop. ‘Oh yes, I’m _satisfied_,’ said the man; ‘but if I might, I should like to ask you a question.’ ‘Oh certainly,’ said the Bishop, ‘ask whatever you like.’ ‘Well, then, if St. Paul had come back to earth and was Bishop, do you suppose he’d be living in this here palace?’ ‘Certainly not,’ replied the Bishop promptly, ‘for he’d be living at Lambeth, and it would be a shilling fare.’

“And now, after all these luxurious fine houses, I am in what, to me, is the tenfold luxury of Holmhurst.

‘My green and silent spot amid the hills, Oh, ’tis a quiet spirit-healing nook.’[551]

I should not like to live in a bare or commonplace house, but then I don’t; and oh! the luxury of absolute independence. I should rather _like_ a carriage and horse perhaps, but I don’t in the least _want_ them. Certainly, in words I have been reading of Bishop Fraser, ‘living in comfort is a phrase entirely depending for its meaning on the ideas of him who uses it.’”

* * * * *

_To_ FRANCIS COOKSON.

“_Sept. 7._--Is it a sign of old age coming on, I wonder, when one has the distaste for leaving home by which I am now possessed? I simply hate it. When one has all one wants and exactly what one likes, why should one set off on a round of visits, in which one may, and probably will, have many pleasant hours, but as certainly many bare and dull ones, often in dreary rooms, sometimes with wooden-headed people, and without the possibility of the familiar associations which habit makes such a pleasure? Then, in most country-houses, ‘l’anglais s’amuse moult tristement,’ as Froissart says. I cannot say how delightful I always find my home life--the ever-fresh morning glories of the familiar view of brilliant flowers, green lawns, and oak woods; and then the sea, which to me is so much more beautiful in its morning whiteness with faint grey cloud-shadows, or smiling under the tremulous sun-rays,[552] than in the evening light, which brings a lovely but monotonous blueness with it: the joyous companionship of my little black spitz Nero (‘Black,’ not the wicked emperor): the regularity of my proof-sheet work, and other work, till luncheon-dinner, after which there are generally visitors to be attended to; and then quiet work again, or meditation on the long-ago and the future, when

‘Silent musings urge the mind to seek Something too high for syllables to speak.’[553]

Then there is always my library, in which 6000 agreeable friends are always ready to converse with me at any moment, and ‘vingt-sept années d’ennui et de solitude lui firent lire bien des livres,’ as Catherine II. said in her epitaph on herself, might certainly be applied to me. Only I can imagine, if eyes and limbs failed, the winter evenings becoming long and monotonous. ‘Meglio solo che male accompagnato’ is a good Italian proverb, only it would be pleasant to be ‘ben accompagnato.’ I am beginning to feel with Madame de Staël--‘J’aime la solitude, mais il me faut à qui dire; j’aime la solitude.’

“The neighbours are very kindly beginning to consider me ‘the hermit of Holmhurst,’ and come to visit me in my cell, especially on Tuesdays, without expecting me to go to them. I would not have a bicycle on any account, for then I might be obliged to go, and I am too poor to have a carriage. So, in six weeks, I have only twice been outside the gates--for one day to London for George Jolliffe’s wedding, and for two nights to Battle, whence, to my great joy, the Duchess asked me to ‘mother’ her guests--charming Lady Edward Cavendish, the Vincent Corbets, and Mr. Armstrong, the Oxford history professor--to Hurstmonceaux. How beautiful, how interesting it all looked. No other place ever seems to me half so romantic; but though ‘at each step one treads on a memory,’ as Cicero says, I can go there now without a pang; my affections are too full of Holmhurst to have any room for it, and the old family are almost forgotten there already, ‘so much has happened since they left.’ ‘Lord! to see how the world makes nothing of a man, an houre after he is dead,’ writes Pepys in his Diary.

“I wonder if you ever saw Coventry Patmore here, who died lately. He often came to Holmhurst during the latter part of his residence at Hastings, where he wrote ‘The Angel in the House’ in memory of his first wife, and in memory of his second spent most of the large fortune she had brought him, £60,000, in building a beautiful church, S. Mary Star of the Sea; and whilst building it, though always a devout Catholic, imbibed, from being brought into close contact with them, a hatred of priests which never left him. The existence of ‘In Memoriam’ may be said to be due to Patmore. When young, he and Tennyson lodged together at some house in London, where they had a violent quarrel with their landlady, and left suddenly in a huff. Once well away, they recollected that the MS. of ‘In Memoriam’ was left in the cupboard of their room with the unfinished ham and the half-empty jam-pot. The timid Alfred would not face the wrath of the landlady, but Patmore went back to get it. He found the woman cleaning her doorstep and told her that he was come to get something he had left behind. ‘No,’ she said, ‘there was nothing, and she had seen quite enough of him, he should not go upstairs.’ But the slim Patmore took her by surprise, slipped past her, rushed up to the room, and from the jam cupboard extracted the MS., and made off with it in spite of her imprecations.

“Tennyson recognised what Patmore had done at the time, and said he should give him the MS. But he never did; he gave it to Sir J. Simeon, who left it to his second wife. When Tennyson’s MSS. rose so much in value, his family asked for it back, and Lady Simeon has promised that it shall go back at her death. In another generation, if Tennyson’s fame lasts so long, it will probably be sold for a large sum.

“Apropos of poets, pleasant old Miss Courtenay was talking to me the other day of how Browning was beyond all things a man of the world rather than a poet. When she saw Mrs. Browning at Naples long ago, and expressed some surprise at his being so much with Lockhart, who was then in his last serious illness, Mrs. Browning said, ‘Yes, and isn’t it delightful that Mr. Lockhart likes him so much; he told me the other day, “I like Robert so much because he is not a damned _literary_ person!’”

“The clergyman in the little iron tabernacle of a church at our gate seemed to some to preach at me last night for not having been at the morning service, at which there was the Sacrament. He was quite right. I really might have gone, for I had no ‘boys’ here, and I was not merely kept away by my detestation of sermons, so seldom, what Spurgeon said they should be, ‘the man in flower;’ but I never thought of it, and was very busy at home about a thousand things. But though I revere the Sacrament as a holy commemorative ordinance, I cannot feel as if it did one the slightest good, except as concentrating one’s thoughts for a few minutes on sacred memories. James Adderley, the monk-preacher, says there are many who regard the Sacrament like a ‘mourning ring;’ and that is exactly how I look upon it. I cannot understand how people can consider such a mere commemorative service ‘a thing to live by,’ as they call it; and all the transubstantiation idea is to me too truly horrible. If I were dying--dying, I mean, in the trembling hope of a near blessed reality--the reception of this mere type would be no comfort to me. Then, also, as I am on the confession tack, I do not believe for one instant in ‘original sin;’ rather, as Solomon--who had much personal knowledge of the subject--says, that ‘God hath made man upright, but he hath sought out many inventions.’[554] ... And yet, truly, in my own way, I always feel that--

‘Malgré nous, vers le ciel il faut tourner les yeux.’”[555]

* * * * *

JOURNAL _and_ LETTERS.

“_Chesters, Northumberland, Oct. 6._--All my dread of visits passed away when they began. Capital indeed is Milton’s advice--

‘Be not over-exquisite To cast the fashion of uncertain evils.’

And then I know one ought to go into the world ‘as a fireman on duty,’ which Cardinal Manning said was his only way of visiting it for thirty years. One thing a man who pays a good many visits should always be certain of--_never_ to outstay his welcome. It would be dreadful to see one’s hostess begin to have the fidgets. It is safest--at latest--to go by the eleven o’clock train, but a good and pleasant plan is to take leave overnight, and _be_ gone the next morning. I was full of enjoyment at Penrhyn Castle--the genial and charming family, the great variety of the guests, and the excursions, in spite of furious storms, into the Welsh hills. Then I was with a most kind bachelor host, Fred Swete, at Oswestry, and spent the day at Brogyntyn with Lord Harlech, a perfect example of old-fashioned courtesy and kindness. In his grounds is a long terrace with a glorious view over the plains and hills of Shropshire, including the beloved Hawkestone range of my childhood. The next day, at the Brownlow-Towers’ pleasant house at Ellesmere, a little girl of eight was most amusingly _fin de siècle_. ‘Now, darling, you must go up to the schoolroom and stay there,’ said her mother after luncheon. ‘No, darling, no,’ answered the child. ‘I must not, darling,’ with an exact imitation of its mother’s manner, ‘for I’ve been listening, and it’s going to be interesting.’

“We made delightful excursions from Lutwyche to draw at Bridgenorth and an old moated grange called Elswick, meeting Lady Boyne and her party, who came from Burwarton as to a half-way house.

“Then I was at Ridley Hall, full of--oh! how many memories of my long-ago. But it was the greatest pleasure to see Frank and Lady Anne Lyon there, and how much they appreciated and cared for the place. Lord and Lady Wantage were at Ridley, and I went with them to Hexham Abbey, once a most grand church, but utterly ruined by an ignorant restoration. And now, wandering still on the footprints of past days, I am at Chesters with the widow and children of my dear old friend George Clayton, he as well as all the earlier generation of his family having passed away, and Miss Annie Ogle, whom I knew so well in those far-away days, here as a delightful _old_ lady, with snow-white hair, but the same winning character and ways as in her youth. A museum has been built now for the immense collection of Roman altars and fragments, &c., from the ‘stations’ of the Roman wall, one of the best of which (Cilurnum) is just in front of the house; while below ‘the riotous rapids of the Tyne,’ as Swinburne calls them, with their rocky shores and bosky banks, are the boundary of the park.”

* * * * *

“_Redholm, North Berwick, Oct. 17._--I am staying here with Robert Shaw Stewart, a friend of old Roman days, and his kind wife, who was a daughter of Charles Warner, the well-known statesman-philanthropist of Trinidad,--‘fort comme le diamant, plus tendre qu’une mère’--of whom Froude has given so charming a description. The Dalzells and all my other dear friends of past days here have gone over the border-land, but, in this hospitable house, I have seen quite a diorama of people. A topic has been the three modern Scotch novelists, Crockett,[556] Barrie,[557] and Ian Maclaren (Watson): Crockett such a delightful fellow, so full of sunshine, of real happy enjoyment of people and things: Barrie, a weaver’s boy as to his origin, but simple and straightforward to a degree, though his books have made him rich: Watson just a little spoilt since the great success of his annals of Drumtochty, which, under another name (Logiealmond, near Glenalmond) was the place where he was minister. The Free Kirk minister in this place, Dr. Davidson, told me how when they all were at college together, Barrie and Crockett used to tell stories in class. They sate up in a corner, with a little coterie round them, and held their audience enthralled. No one listened to the lecturer, and some of the students outside the charmed circle used to say, ‘Had not you better send down to the professor and tell him not to make so much noise?’ The lower orders in Scotland seem to read the modern national novelists just as much as the upper, and they read other deeper books too, and think calmly in a way very unlike Englishmen. ‘The Shorter Catechism,’ which they all understand, is a proof of this. When it was published, indeed, there was a far more serious catechism for adults: this one was only intended for ‘those of tender years,’ yet there is much requiring deepest thought in it, though the peasant classes always master it.”

* * * * *

“_Airlie Castle, Oct. 18._--Monday was fearfully cold, and it was a pleasure to see the beautiful face of Lady Airlie--more picturesque and distinguished in late middle life than any one else--looking out of a close carriage come to meet me. Her most poetical home is just suited to her--the tiniest castle in the world, with its one noble gate-tower giving access to a little green plateau beneath which the Melgum and the Isla rush through deep wooded gorges to their meeting-place. And into these gorges the castle windows look deep down. Then, to those who know Lady Airlie, I need not say how beautiful the little rooms are, how splendid the few flowers, how much of story clusters round the furniture and pictures--‘only a few; I do not like a room or a wall to be crowded, even with the best things,’ says their mistress.

“In the serene beauty of her age, she herself lends a lustre to her surroundings; quietly, contentedly severing most links with the great world in which she has so long been a star, ‘elle dépose fleur à fleur la couronne de la vie.’[558]

“Lady Maude White is here, returning to an intellectual world with which she has never broken a single link, after many years of privation, solitude, and duty nobly borne, first with her brother, and then with her husband, at a horse-ranch in America.

“The castle of Airlie has never recovered its burning by Argyll and the Covenanters, when

‘It fell on a day, a bonnie summer day, When the corn was brearin’ fairly, That there fell out a great dispute Between Argyll and Airlie.’

The family were always for the King and the Church, indeed too much so, for Maryott Ogilvy was the mistress of Cardinal Beaton, for whom he built several castles, and who was enormously endowed by him. Of their six children, the eldest girl had the richest dower in Scotland, and married the Lord Crawford of that day. It was David, Lord Ogilvy, who was out in the ‘45, who rebuilt a bit of the old castle, just enough to live in by himself after he came home, and added a few rooms for his wife when he married a second time. Behind the castle is a delightful old garden, to which Lady Airlie has added hedges and peacocks in clipped yew, with divers other ‘incidents;’ and all along the ledges of the gorges run wonderful little pathlets--beautiful exceedingly in the crimson and gold of their autumnal glory. But they will be gone directly; for, as Edward Fitzgerald says, ‘The trees in the Highlands give themselves no dying airs, but turn orange in a day, and are swept off in a whirlwind, and winter is come.’

“We drove to Cortachy through woods laid prostrate by the great storm of 1893, which has left the trees piled on one another, like the dead of a vanquished army on a battlefield. Lady Airlie made the whole of the weird desolate country live through her interpretation of it:--

“‘Those are the black hornless cattle of Angus. That is the hill of Clota, on the top of which is the old tower where the last witch was burnt. In the church books there is an entry that on a particular day there was no service, because all the congregation were gone to the burning of the witch. That village in the hollow, which is so red and striking in the sunset, is Kirriemuir: it is the “Thrums” of Barrie’s novel. Now we will leave the carriage at “the Devil’s Stone:” it is just a stone which the devil threw at the kirk, but it missed and fell into the stream: it rests the opposite way to all boulders, and it is of a different formation from all the other stones in the district. Dicky Doyle loved the story and the stone, and used to paint it. And now we will go into the “Garden of Friendship.” I made it when I first married out of an old kitchen-garden, and I cut down a belt of trees and let in the view. The lines in the summer-house are by Robert Lowe. All the trees bear the names of the different friends who planted them. That one was planted by Dr. John Brown. He was often here. He told me that my Clementine was a lassie who had said something she might be proud of. That was because one day when I said to her, “I am so tired; are not you tired, darling?” she answered, “Tired! oh no, not a bit. I have a box of laughter inside me, and the key that unlocks it is ‘fun.’” Over there is our deer-forest. Charlotte, Lady Strathmore, took me up to the tower of Glamis once, and stretched out her hand towards our hills--“You have a deer-forest, and a river, and _scenery_” she said, “and I have _nothing_.”

“‘Here is King Charles’s room. Charles II. was here for the gathering of the clans, but they did not gather as they ought, and he went away disappointed. He left a Prayer-book and a Euclid here: he was a great scientist. Under the floor at that corner is a secret room: we have never seen it. Some workmen found it after the great fire here whilst every one was away, and before we came back it was walled up, and it has never been thought worth while to disturb it again. Those are the portraits of the Ogilvy who was out in the ‘45 and his first wife. She was shut up in the Tolbooth for singing Jacobite songs in the Canongate. He was devoted to her, but after they went to St. Germains he was told that he must take a mistress because it was the fashion, and he did. After her death he married again, an extravagant woman, who wheedled him out of £3000 which he had saved to buy the property on the other side of the river at Airlie,[559] and spent it on her own devices. They quarrelled at last, for she would give a ball at Airlie Lodge at Dundee, and he told her if she did he would never forgive it; and she had the ball, and he never saw her again.’

“Lord Airlie is a splendid young man,[560] and has the most delightful of wives in one of the granddaughters of the beloved Lady Jocelyn. He is a consummate soldier. His devotion to his profession only allows him to be six weeks at Cortachy in the year, but in that time he drives about and visits every person on the estate. He has the firm faith and strong religious feeling of his Ogilvy forbears. One day, at the gate of Airlie Castle, with its unprotected precipices, he had mounted a dogcart with his sister Clementine. The horse plunged and backed violently. They were on the very edge of the abyss. ‘Make your peace with God,’ he said to his sister; ‘in an instant we shall be over.’ At the very last moment a man rushed out and caught the horse, but the wheels were half over then.

“To-day we have been to see the Monros at Lindertis--a semi-gothic house, most comfortable inside. Mrs. Munro is a capital portrait-painter in the style of Raeburn, and has done first-rate work. All evening Lady Airlie has talked delightfully:--

“‘We were a very quarrelsome family as children. At Gosport, whilst we were at church, my next sister, Cecilia,[561] who had been left at home, fell out of the window. She lived for some days, very suffering and scarcely conscious, but she used constantly, in her half-delirium, to say, “Oh, don’t quarrel, don’t quarrel;” and it made a very great impression upon me, and afterwards I always tried never to quarrel. My father never let us complain. If anything unpleasant happened and my mother murmured, he would always say, “Oh, don’t; we have so much more than we _deserve_.” He always thought it so ill-bred--so ill-bred towards God--to murmur. A widow, especially, should never murmur. If one has had a great place and occupied a great position which all vanishes with one’s husband, one ought to be so filled with gratitude for the has-been as to leave no room for complaints. “I have lived my life: I have enjoyed to the utmost,” that should always be the feeling. It is terrible when a widow murmurs, for it is God who gave the husband, who gave the home; and when He takes them away again, how can one doubt that He knows best when one has had enough? For children, leaving an old home is worse than for the widow: she has lived her life, but theirs is to come.

“‘Before I grew up, my mother often took me with her to Miss Berry’s in the evening. My father was away at the House, and she took her work and went there, and Miss Berry liked to see that good and beautiful young woman sitting there. At Miss Berry’s house I saw all the clever men of the day, so I knew them all before I really came out. I shall never forget going down once to Richmond to take leave of Miss Berry before we went into the country, and her saying to me, “Allez vous retremper l’âme à la campagne;” it seemed to me such a beautiful thought. Forty years afterwards my daughter Blanche told it to Schouvaloff, the Russian Minister. “Oui,” he said, and added, “et engourdir l’esprit.” It was as characteristic of him as the first part of the sentence was of Miss Berry.

“‘As soon as I came out, I went with my parents to the Grange, where the first Lady Ashburton was very kind to me, and I passionately adored her. There I first saw Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle, but he had known my mother very well before. Mrs. Carlyle really loved Lady Ashburton, yet she was madly jealous of her. When they were at home, and Carlyle would come in quite tired out with a long day’s work, she would say, “Now just walk down to Bath House and see Lady Ashburton, and that will refresh you.” She meant him to go, but as soon as he was gone her grief was passionate, because she felt it would not have been the same thing to him if he had stayed with her. He was always pleasant, but to a few--to my mother especially--he never failed to show the most intense delicacy of feeling.

“‘I cannot describe what Charles Buller was. Girl as I was, I loved him, but so did every one else; he was so very delightful. I remember as if it were to-day going once into my mother’s room: all her long beautiful hair was down and she was sobbing violently. “Oh,” she said, “Charles Buller is dead.” How I longed to cry too, but I did not dare. I only went to my own room in most bitter grief. Wherever he went, Charles Buller brought sunshine with him. He left me his Coleridge in his will. It surprised people that he should leave anything to a young girl like me, and when I went to the Grange again, many spoke of it. Each had something to show which had belonged to him: we all mourned together.

“‘Oh, how many recollections there are which will always remain with one, which will stay by one at the resurrection. Many of my happiest are of the Grange. Lord Houghton asked me once how long I had been there, and he told me long afterwards that I had answered “Oh, I cannot tell; I only know that it is morning when I come, and night when I go away.” This bookcase is full of the gifts of friends, and recalls much of my past. Here is a volume of Thackeray with an etching by himself, and here are all John Morley’s and Lord Sherbrooke’s books, which they gave me as they came out. Here is Lord Houghton’s “Monographs,” with a touching letter from him after we had had a little coldness; and here are two bound volumes of Mrs. Carlyle’s Letters to me.”

* * * * *

“_Balcaskie, Oct. 21._--What a wild country is this ‘low, sea-salted, wind-vexed’ Fife, with its little royal boroughs along the coast, each with its tiny municipality. About them their natives have the same pride, however, as an Aberdonian, who said the other day, ‘Just tak’ awa Aberdeen and twenty mile round her, and where are ye?’ The sea-line is broken by islets, the most important of them being May, where S. Adrian lived in a hermitage, and where the steps at the very difficult landing-place are worn away by the knees of the pilgrims to his shrine. S. Monan lived there after him, but also frequented a little cave on the mainland, where the old church stands to which we went on Sunday, so near the waves that, in rough weather, the roar of the surges mingles with the music.

“Highly picturesque is this house of Balcaskie, and its high-terraced gardens with their vases and statues. The Anstruthers have taken me to Balcarres to spend the afternoon with ever-sunny Lady Crawford. Her husband, weird-looking as an old necromancer, only came in as we were leaving, but several of the handsome sons were at home. The house looks gloomy outside from the black stone of the country, but is bright and cheerful within, and has a beautiful oak-panelled parlour.

“On Sunday afternoon we went to Kellie, a noble stern old castle, with corbie-steps and tourelles. It was neglected and deserted by the Earls of Kellie, but has been restored by Mrs. Lorimer, widow of an Edinburgh professor, who rents it. ‘Two little red shoes’ haunt it, pattering up and down its winding staircases at night. At Crail we saw wonderful old tombs of the Lindsays in the churchyard, and inside the church that of Miss Cunningham, who, said the sacristan, died on the eve of her marriage with some great poet whose name he could not remember: we afterwards found it was Drummond of Hawthornden.”

* * * * *

“_Bishopthorpe, Oct. 23._--This house has a charm from the great variety of its styles, even the gingerbread-gothic is important as being of a date anterior to Horace Walpole, who has the reputation of having introduced that style.

“The Archbishop of York says, ‘From sudden death, good Lord deliver us,’ means, ‘From dying unprepared for death, good Lord deliver us.’

“Lord Falkland has been here. He had been lately at Skelton Castle. His hostess, Miss Wharton, took him to his room, down a long passage--a large room, panelled with dark oak and with a great four-post bed with heavy hangings. It was very gloomy and oppressive, Lord Falkland thought, but he said nothing, dressed, and went down to dinner.

“When he came upstairs again, he found the aspect of the room even more oppressive, but he made up a great fire and went to bed. In the night he was awakened by a pattering on the floor as of high-heeled shoes and the rustling of a stiff silk dress. There was still a little fire burning, but he could see nothing. As he distinctly heard the footsteps turn, he thought, ‘Oh, I hope they may not come up to the bed.’ They _did_. But then they turned away, and he heard them go out at the door.

“With difficulty he composed himself to sleep again, but was soon reawakened by the same sound, the rustling of silk and the footsteps. Then he was thoroughly miserable, got up, lighted candles, made up the fire, and passed a wretched night. In the morning he was glad to find an excuse for going away.

“Afterwards he heard an explanation. An old Wharton, cruel and brutal, had a young wife. One day, coming tipsy into his wife’s room, he found her nursing her baby. He was in a violent temper, and, seizing the baby from her arms, he dashed its head against the wall and killed it on the spot. When he saw it was dead, he softened at once. Even in her grief and horror Mrs. Wharton could not bear to expose him, and together they buried the child under the hearthstone; but she pined away and very soon she died.

“She used to be heard not only rustling, but weeping, wailing, sobbing, crying. At that time the Whartons were Roman Catholics, and when the family were almost driven from their home by its terrors, they got a priest to exorcise the castle and to bury the baby skeleton in consecrated ground. Since then, there have been no sobs and cries, only the rustling and pattering of feet.”

* * * * *

_To_ MISS GARDEN _at Rome_.

“_Oct. 26, 1896._--The first three volumes of the ‘Story of my Life’ are come out, and I send them to you. Even the favourable reviews complain vehemently about their length; and yet, if they were not in a huge type and had not quite half a volume’s space full of woodcuts, they might easily have been two very moderate volumes.[562] Then, say the reviewers, ‘the public would have welcomed the book.’ But after all, it was not written or printed for the public, only for a private inner circle, though I am sure that, in return for having been allowed to read it, ‘the public’ will kindly be willing--well, just to _pay_ for the printing! Then it is funny how each review wants a different part left out--one the childhood, one the youth, one the experiences of later life: there would be nothing left but the little anecdotes about already well-known people, which they all wish to keep, and, in quoting these, they one and all copy each other; it saves trouble. The _Saturday_ had what the world calls ‘a cruel review’ of the book, but what was really an article of nothing but personal vituperation against its author. I know who the review was by, and that it was not, as every one seems to think, by one of the family from whom I suffered in my childhood; certainly, however, if any one cares to know how the members of that family always spoke to and of me in my youth, they have only to read that article. I think there is a good bit about criticism in Matthew Arnold’s Letters. ‘The great thing is to speak without a particle of vice, malice, or rancour.... Even in one’s ridicule one must preserve a sweetness and good-humour.... I remember how Voltaire lamented that the “literae humanae,” _humane_ letters, should be so dreadfully _inhuman_, and determined in print to be always scrupulously polite.’ Then, how truly Ruskin says, ‘The _slightest_ manifestation of jealousy or self-complacency is sufficient to mark a second-rate character of intellect.’

“As you know, I never intended the book, written seventeen and printed two years ago, to appear till after my death, but this year it was so strongly represented to me that then all who would care to read about my earlier years would then be _dead too_, that I assented to the story up to 1870 being published. To tell the truth, I feel now how sorry I should have been to have missed the amusement of hearing even the most abusive things people say. And certainly, as regards reviews, I feel with Washington Irving, ‘I have one proud reflection to sustain myself with--that I never in any way sought to win the praises nor deprecate the censures of reviewers, but have left my work to rise or fall by its own deserts. If my writings are worth anything, they will outlive temporary criticism; if not, they are not worth caring about.’[563] Yet, yet, just for the sake of variety, I should like some day, as a change to the unknown, to read a really favourable review of _something_ I have written, though I read somewhere, ‘To like to be right is the last weakness of a wise man: to like to be thought right is the inveterate prejudice of fools.’[564]

“One of the things people find fault with is that I have not shown sufficient adoration for Jowett, who was so exceedingly kind to me at Oxford. But I always felt that it was for Arthur Stanley’s sake. Jowett only really cared for three kinds of undergraduate--a pauper, a profligate, or a peer: he was boundlessly good to the first, he tried to reclaim the second, and he adored the third.”

* * * * *

“_Blaise Castle, Henbury, Nov. 23._--I came here to charming Mary Harford[565] from Lockinge, where I paid a pleasant visit to Lord and Lady Wantage, meeting a large party. Lady Wantage, beautified by the glory of her snowy hair, was most charming--so thoughtful and kind for every one--‘elle brillait surtout par le caractère,’[566] and though ‘few can understand an argument, all can appreciate a character.’[567] One of the most agreeable guests, a ripple of interesting anecdote, which began even in the omnibus driving up from the station in the dark, was Lord James of Hereford. At dinner he told how Sir Drummond and Lady Wolff had a Spanish dog, who was the best-bred creature in the world. One day its mistress had a visitor who engrossed her so much that she forgot her dog’s dinner. It would not scratch or whine, it was too well conducted, but it went out into the garden and bit off a flower, and came and laid it at its mistress’s feet: the flower was a forget-me-not.

“George Holford of Westonburt was at Lockinge, and very pleasant. Once he walked from London to Ardington, close to Lockinge, where his grandmother, Mrs. Lindsay, was then living. When he was within a mile and a half of it, he saw a man kneeling on the body of another man on the road. He went up to them, called out, had no answer, and at last struck the kneeling man with his stick. His stick went through the man. His story was received at Lockinge with shouts of derision.

“Three years after, at a tenants’ dinner, Lord Wantage told the story of his nephew’s ‘optical delusion’ to the farmer sitting next, who said, ‘It is a very extraordinary thing, my Lord, but a man _was_ once murdered by his servant on that very spot. The servant knocked him down, knelt upon him, and killed him; and ever since the place has had the reputation of being haunted.’”

* * * * *

_To_ VISCOUNT HALIFAX.

“_Jan. 9, 1897._--My Christmas was spent very pleasantly at Hewell, where Lord and Lady Windsor had a large party. Most lovely and charming was the hostess, most stately and beautiful the great modern house by Bodley, greatly improved and embellished since I saw it last. How closely, during a week’s visit, one is thrown with people, whom one often does not see again for years, if ever. It is, as Florence Montgomery says--‘People in a country-house play their parts, as it were, before one, and then the curtain falls, and the actors disappear. The play is played out.’[568] How laden with gifts children are nowadays, and how far too luxurious their life is, as much in excess that way as in the privations and penances which I remember in my own childhood.

“Some people are very angry with me for telling the truth in the ‘Story of my Life’[569] about these young years, when I was suffering ‘from an indiscriminate theological education,’ as Mr. Schimmelpennick calls such, and when I was made so constantly to feel how ‘l’ennui n’a pas cessé d’être en Angleterre une institution religeuse.’[570] And it is not merely the ‘canaille of talkers in type’[571] who find fault, but many whose opinion I have a regard for. They think that the portrait of a dead person should never be like a Franz Hals, portraying every ‘projecting peculiarity,’ but all delicately wrought with the smooth enamelling touch of Carlo Dolce. They wonder I can ‘reconcile it to my conscience’ to hold ‘another estimate of the Maurices to that which has been hitherto popular.’ ‘Collect a bag of prejudices and call it conscience, and there you are!’[572] For myself, I believe, and I am sure it is the discipline of years which tells me so, that the rule of after-death praise is a false one to be regulated by. It is true that there is often an enlightenment from death upon sensations and sympathies towards one who is gone, but I cannot feel that a faithful record of words and actions ought to be altered by the mere _glamour_ of death, which so often gives an apotheosis to those who little deserve it. One of my reviewers says he would like to read a truthful word-portrait of Augustus Hare by one of the persons he describes in print: so should I exceedingly, and most appallingly horrible it would be!

‘O wad some power the giftie gi’e us To see oorsels as ithers see us,’[573]

is what I would often say. Lately, a wonder whether I can have misjudged or exaggerated my remembrance of the long-ago has made me give many solitary evenings to old-letter reading; yet contemporary letters only confirm _all_ I have expressed. How interesting they are! It is as Archbishop Magee says, ‘Old letters are like old ghosts, coming often uncalled for and startling us with their old familiar faces--pleasant some of them, and some of them very ugly, but all of them dead and bearing the stamp of death--and yet they will survive ourselves.’

“Most extraordinarily _virulent_ certainly reviews can be! Really, ‘hurricanes of calumny and tornados of abuse’[574] have been hurled at me. As Cardinal Manning said, ‘To write anonymously is always a danger to charity, truth, and justice.’ _Blackwood_ (_i.e._ the Maurice spirit in _Blackwood_), in an article which breathes of white lips, after dwelling scornfully upon ‘the sickening honey of the “Memorials,”’ writes:--

“What is Mr. Augustus Hare? He is neither anybody nor nobody--neither male nor female--neither imbecile nor wise.... As we wade through this foam of superannuated wrath ... this vicious and venomous personal onslaught ... Mr. Hare’s paragraphs plump like drops of concentrated venom over the dinted page.... Such a tenacity of ill-feeling, such a cold rage of vituperation, is seldom to be met with.’

“I wonder a little if any one can really from his heart have offered such ‘a genuine tribute of undissembled horror,’ or whether these sentiments were only written to order? And then I look at Dante and read:--

‘Vien dietro a me, e lascia dir le genti; Sta come torre ferma che non crolla Giammai la cima per soffiar de’ venti’[575]

And so--

‘I, painting from myself and to myself, Know what I do, am unmoved by men’s blame, Or their praise either.’”[576]

* * * * *

JOURNAL.

“_Jan. 31, 1897._--Saw Lady Delawarr, and heard all about her marvellous escape. Lady Mary (Sackville) first heard a crackling noise between two and three in the morning, and, looking out of her room door, saw that the staircase[577] was in flames. She rushed into her sister Margaret’s room, roused her, shrieked to the maids and governess, and finding a fiery gulf separated them from their mother’s room, the sisters flew in their night-dresses down the stairs, already in flames, and into the street. Lady Delawarr, stupefied by smoke, slept on heavily, though for twenty minutes her old servant Vincent, who occupied a room off the garden, threw stones at her window. He dragged his mattress beneath it, and strained it across the garden area. At last he roused her, and she rushed to the door, but closed it again as the flames poured in. Then she threw up the window. ‘Jump, my lady, jump!’ shouted Vincent; ‘there is not a moment to lose.’ There was not time even to throw out her diamonds, but she knotted her sheets firmly together, and sliding down them, dropped upon the mattress. With her it held, but the fat cook, who had not had courage to face the fiery staircase, leapt from the fourth floor, and under her great weight the mattress gave way and she fell into the area, breaking her leg in three places and fracturing her skull, and now she is dead. For a whole hour Lady Delawarr crouched behind the lilac bushes in the ice-bound garden, with the blazing house between her and all else. Then she succeeded in breaking the window of a carpenter’s shop which adjoined the garden, and was dragged through it, and reached a friend’s house in a four-wheel cab.

“This cab she sent back to fetch her daughter Mary, but the horse fell on the ice in Grosvenor Square, and Lady Mary, as she was, had to walk up Upper Brook Street to the house where her mother had taken refuge.”

* * * * *

“_Jan. 28._--Dined at Lady Hope’s to meet Dr. Tucker, Bishop of Uganda, who had walked 10,000 miles in his bishopric; there were no other means of locomotion. He said Africa as a whole was more swamp and thicket than desert. ‘Were not the lions alarming?’ ‘Not very; they seldom attacked unless irritated.’ Once he saw five at the same time around him, but ‘they all had their own affairs to attend to.’ Snakes were worse, especially puff-adders, which would attack whenever they could.”

* * * * *

“_Feb. 2, 1897._--Dreadful news has come of the terrible murder in the Benin expedition of my dear Kenneth Campbell (of Ardpatrick), than whom no one was better, braver, more attractive to look upon, or more pleasant to live with.

‘I loved him, and love him for ever: the dead are not dead, but alive.’[578]

Yet a shadow is thrown over everything, and when even his friend feels as if he could never write or speak of him without tears, what must not it be to his parents! One had felt that he, if any one, had ‘i pensieri stretti ed il viso sciolto’ which would ‘go safely over the whole world,’ as Alberto Scipioni said to Sir Henry Wotton, and which the latter recommended to Milton when asked for advice as to his travels.”

* * * * *

_To_ MRS. C. VAUGHAN.

“_May 8, 1897._--Do you remember the article on my book, or rather on me, headed ‘A Monument of Self-Sufficiency,’ which amused us both so much? Dining at Lady Margaret Watney’s, I sate opposite to Mr. E. G. who wrote it--a pleasant man and much liked--and longed to make acquaintance with him, but had not the chance. Last night I dined with Lady Ashburton, a quiet party, with all the beautiful Kent House pictures lighted up. Mr. Henschel whistled like a bullfinch at dinner, and sang gloriously ‘Der Kaiser’ afterwards. Mrs. F. Myers, who sate by me, was most agreeable, and is one of those with whom one soon penetrates ‘l’écorce extérieur de la vie,’ as our dear S. Simon calls it. Amongst a thousand interesting things, she told me that, at Cambridge, she found Lord De Rothschild’s son especially difficult to get on with, till one day he startled her by asking, ‘Have you got any fleas?’ She was surprised, but found that special point of Natural History was just the one thing he cared about, knew about, and would talk on for ever; and she was able to get him some rare fleas from a friend in India, with which he was greatly delighted.

“I also sate at dinner by ...whose father was ambassador at Vienna. He rented Prince Clary’s house. One day, as a little girl, she was at the end of the drawing-room with her mother, when they both saw a chasseur--their own chasseur, they supposed--standing in an alcove at the end of the room. ‘Oh, there is Fritz,’ said her mother. ‘What can he be doing there? Run and tell him to go downstairs.’ She ran across the room, but as she came up to the alcove the chasseur seemed to vanish. This happened three times; then the mother said, ‘If we were superstitious we might say we had seen a ghost, but it can be only a question of angles.’ Soon afterwards her father met Prince Clary at dinner and began, ‘Have you ever been troubled by any appearance?’ &c. ‘Oh, don’t speak of it,’ exclaimed Prince Clary; ‘it is a most painful subject: the fact is, that, in a fit of anger, my father killed his chasseur on that spot.’ Sir Augustus Loftus, who succeeded at the Embassy, took the same house, and reproached them much for not warning him of the apparition, on account of which he soon left and went to live in a hotel.

“At Easter I was with the Carysforts at Elton, and was taken to see Castor, with its fine Roman and Norman remains, and Stobbington, a very interesting old house, with a most curious collection of rare living fish, the pets of its owner. Lady Alwyn Compton, who was at Elton, told me a curious story. It was one of the great commentators--Calamy, she thought--who had occasion to go to a market-town in Devonshire, and take a lodging there whilst the assizes were going on. In the evening a servant came to his room and said that the master of the house hoped that he would do him the honour of coming down to supper with him. He said, ‘Oh, pray thank him very much, but say that I never take supper.’ But the servant came three times with the same message, and at last he said to himself, ‘Well, he seems so anxious to have me that it is rather churlish not to go,’ and he went. There were many people in the room, quite a number of guests, and a great supper prepared. But, being a religious man, before sitting down he said grace aloud, and, as he said it, the whole thing vanished.

“Archbishop Benson told Lady Alwyn that two Americans were talking to each other about spiritualism. Said one to the other, ‘You do not believe in ghosts, do you?’--‘No, certainly not!’ ‘You would not believe even if you saw one?’--‘No, certainly not.’ ‘Well, I am one!’ and he vanished on the spot.

“Afterwards I saw Higham Ferrers on my way to stay at Ecton, such a pleasant old house; and the next week I was with the George Drummonds at Swaylands, which has the finest rock-garden in England, and drew with Miss Henniker in the delicious old gardens of Penshurst Place.”

* * * * *

_To_ HUGH BRYAN _and_ JOURNAL.

“_Castle Hale, Painswick, June 17._--‘Voici venir les longs crépuscules de juin,’[579] and I will employ one of them in writing to you. I have had a Whitsuntide of visits, beginning with the Deanery of Hereford. Mrs. Leigh[580] was full of her visit to Butler’s Island, from which she was lately returned--her last visit, she thinks, but I expect she will not long be able to keep away from the old home in the rice-swamps which she loves so dearly. Before she left, she had a little feast for all the older negroes, who had been slaves, and whose ancestors had been on the place since her great-grandfather’s time. She thanked them for coming in a little speech, expressing her attachment to them, but saying that as her years were advancing, she might not meet them often again on earth, but that she trusted to see them again hereafter. She was much moved herself, and many of the negroes wept; then, as by a universal impulse, they all sprang up and sang the Doxology! Her daughter Alice had a supper for the younger negroes in another room. One of them, a young man, made a speech, and ended it by saying, ‘I am sure that this festival will be remembered by our offspring long after their forespring are dead and gone.’

“‘Old Sie is my foreman,’ said Mrs. Leigh. ‘His grandfather lived with my great-grandfather, the first of our family who established himself on Butler’s Island. He was a very clever, efficient slave. Once, when all the other slaves were out at another island trying to cultivate it--it is called “Experiment” still--there came on one of those tremendous hurricanes which are, happily, very rare with us. The slaves, who are like sheep, all wanted at once to take to the boats and get home. Had they succeeded in embarking, they would all have been lost, as many other negroes were then, when all boats were swamped. But, at the point of the whip, Sie’s grandfather drove them all back inland to a hut where they could take refuge. Afterwards Sie was offered his freedom, but he would not take it; so my grandfather had a silver cup made for him, with an inscription recording what he had done. Last winter I said to Sie, “I think you had better let me buy that cup from you; you are all free now, and your children are not likely to care for it.” He considered awhile, then he said, “No, Missus, I tink not: I keep cup;” and then he thought a little more and said, “Missus, when I be gone done dead, you have de cup.”’

“I went with the Leighs to see the wonderful old church of ‘Abbeydore in the Golden Valley,’ as romantic as its name, and Kilpeck, a marvellous old Norman building.

“I went next to Madresfield, a first visit in a new reign, and very different it looked in its long grass and flowers, with the lovely Malvern hills behind, from the frost-bound place I remember. Its young master has spent all the time of his possession in beautifying it, planting glorious masses of peonies, iris, and a thousand other flowers in the grass, and making a herbaceous walk--winding--with a background of yew hedge, which is a very dream of loveliness. I was very happy at Madresfield, liking Beauchamp and Lady Mary so much, and all the many guests were charming, especially the Arthur Walronds, genial Dick Somerset, delightful Lady Northcote, the evergreen Duchess of Cleveland--‘Aunt Wilhelmine’--and three pleasant young men, Charlie Harris, Victor Cochran, and Lord Jedburgh. What a pleasure there is in thoroughly well-bred society! There is a capital passage in Ouida’s last book about this--‘You are always telling me that I wear my clothes too long: you’ve often seen me in an old coat--a shockingly old coat; but you never saw me in an ill-cut one. Well, I like my acquaintance to be like my clothes. They may be out at elbows, but I must have ’em well cut.’

“One afternoon we drove to Eastnor, which was in great beauty, and the castle--hideous outside--a palace of art treasures within, infinitely lovely from the flowers with which Lady Henry Somerset fills it.

“But most I liked the rambles about the inexhaustible gardens of Madresfield itself, with my charming young host and hostess, and one or other of the guests, and the practice inculcated by the oft-repeated questions which they ask so cheerily--‘Is it wise? is it kind? is it true?’ the very thought of which stops so much scandal; yet one has to consider all the three questions together, for the last would so often bring an affirmative where there would be a negative for the two others. The house itself is full of interesting and precious things, old furniture, miniatures, enamels, &c.

“Now I am with Mrs. Baddeley, whom you will remember as Helen Grant, the second of the three beautiful sisters whom all the great artists wanted to paint, but who have been such dear friends of mine from their earliest childhood, and often at Holmhurst, whether I were there or not. Helen’s husband, St. Clair Baddeley, is full of amusing stories, and his adopted father, Mr. Christie, with whom they live, is the dearest of old gentlemen. Just behind this house is the old courthouse where Charles I. lodged in most troublous times, and whence he fled. Many of his Cavaliers took refuge in the church, and numbers of them were afterwards shot in the churchyard, where old helmets are still dug up, and where a row of yews are said to mark their graves. There are ninety-nine yews altogether, and it is said that a mystic power guards this number; if any one tries to plant more, the old yews destroy them. In their shadow are a number of fine tombs, executed by Italian workmen, who left the place because they were not allowed to have their own chapel, but who were brought over when Painswick was a very flourishing town from its cloth factories, now transferred to Yorkshire.

“Just before her marriage, H. went to see Lady Burton at Mortlake, and was taken to Burton’s mausoleum as a natural part of her visit. Afterwards Lady Burton wrote to her saying that she wanted to ask a very great favour. It was that she would never wear again the hat in which she had come down to Mortlake. H. liked her hat very much--a pretty Paris hat in which she fancied herself particularly, but she said she would do as an old friend of her future husband wished, though utterly mystified. Afterwards Lady Burton wrote that when H. had come into the room on her visit, she was horrified to see three black roses in her hat; that they were the mark of a most terrible secret sect in Arabia, mixed up in every possible atrocity, and that--especially as worn by a girl about to be married--they were a presage of every kind of misfortune; that, in another case of the same kind, she had given the same warning, and the girl, who disregarded it, died on the day before her wedding. H. wore her hat again, but took out the black roses.

“Sir Richard Burton died of syncope of the heart--died twenty minutes before Lady Burton’s priest could arrive; so her report of his having been received into the Roman Catholic Church was a complete delusion.

“H. says that Count Herbert Bismarck went lately to a great function in Russia. While he wished to be incognito, he still did not see why he could not have the advantages of his cognito. ‘Stand back; you must keep the line,’ said an official as he was pushing through. ‘You do not know who I am: I am Count Herbert Bismarck.’ ‘Really? Well that quite _explains_, but it does not _excuse_ your conduct,’ rejoined the officer.

“At the silver wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales, a northern town wished to present an address, but there was a great discussion as to its wording; for some time they could not agree at all. ‘Conscious as we are of our own unworthiness,’ was universally condemned, but when some one proposed, ‘Conscious as we are of each other’s unworthiness,’ it was agreed to to a man.

“Mr. P----, Q.C., who has just been here, has called to mind that the Queen’s name is neither Victoria nor Guelf. Her real name is Victorina Wetting (pronounced Vettine). She was christened Victorina, and then there was a little girl called Victorina who played a most unpleasant part in Queen Caroline’s trial, and the Duke and Duchess of Kent changed their child’s name to Victoria, that it might not be the same. And Wetting is her husband’s--the real Saxe-Coburg name.

“H. had been at Oxford when Max Müller one day received a letter which pleased him so much that he insisted on sending a very nice letter in return, though it was evidently only written to get an autograph. It asked if there was any reason, other than coincidence, for _meche_ and _mechant_: wick, wicked. One day an American was shown in to Max Müller, saying, ‘I have come, sir, four thousand miles to see you,’ &c. The professor was terribly pressed for time, and bored too; but as to the latter, felt that in a quarter of an hour he would be released, as he had a lecture to deliver. So he was civil, and then excused himself, saying that he was afraid he must go to his lecture, but that if his visitor wished to go to hear it, he could. ‘No,’ said the American, ‘I will not go with you, for I am rather deaf; but I can make myself perfectly happy here, and you shall find me here on your return.”

“St. Clair has been talking of Mrs. Procter, whom he knew well, and how she used to say, ‘Never tell anybody how you are, because nobody wants to know.’ All her circle are gone now, Lowell, Matthew Arnold, Browning, Adelaide Sartoris. When she was dying, her nun-daughter came and tried to get a priest in, but she would not have it. She had preserved the letters of Thackeray, Dickens, and others in three tin boxes. Mrs. Procter left Browning and two others her executors, but the nun wanted all the papers to be given to a young Nottingham doctor, to be published just as she wished, and, when they would not have it so, she put the whole of the correspondence on the kitchen-fire: it was her vendetta on her mother for having refused the priest.

* * * * *

_To the_ COUNTESS OF DARNLEY.

“_Holmhurst, June 29, 1897._--I said I would tell you about the Jubilee. For the first few days I was with the hospitable Lowthers, and thence, on Sunday, went to the Thanksgiving service at St. Paul’s. Going very early, I had perhaps the best place in the choir, and enjoyed seeing the gradual gathering of so much of the bravery, learning, and beauty of England beneath the dusky arches and glistening mosaics. When the long file of clergy went out to meet the royal procession at the west door, the faint distant song was very lovely, gradually swelling, and lost in the blare of trumpets, the roll of drums, and the triumphant shout of welcoming voices as the clergy re-entered the choir. The most important figure was the Bishop of Finland in a white satin train with two gorgeous train-bearers; but the newspapers tell this, and how the lines of royal persons sate on crimson chairs opposite the entrance of the choir, and how the Bishop of London preached touchingly, not effusively, about the Queen and her reign, and officiated at the altar in a gorgeous mitre and cope.

“On Monday Miss Lowther and I went to tea with my friend (minor-canon) Lewis Gilbertson at his lovely little house in Amen Court, and then were taken, by one of the many secret staircases of the cathedral, to emerge over the portico for the rehearsal of the next day’s ceremony. Perhaps, in some ways, this was more impressive than the reality, as none of the vast surrounding space was kept clear; all was one sea of heads, whilst every window, every house-top, even every chimney-pot, was crowded with people. Never was anything more jubilant than the ‘Te Deum,’ more reverent than the solemn Lord’s Prayer in the open air--every hat off. When the appointed programme was over, the crowd very naturally asked for ‘God save the Queen,’ and after some hesitation, and goings to and fro of dean and canons, it was begun by the bands and choristers, and taken up vigorously by the mile of people as far as Temple Bar. How grand it was!

“That evening the dear Queen said to Miss ... ‘To-morrow will be a _very_ happy day for me;’ and I think it must have been. Where are anarchists and socialists before such a universal burst of loyalty--not of respect only, but of heartfelt filial _love_?--Nowhere! Their very existence seems ridiculous. I saw all from the Beaumonts’ in Piccadilly Terrace, where a most kind hostess managed all most beautifully for us, and, entering through the garden, we had neither heat nor crowd to fear. No small part of the sight was the crowd itself--the unfailing good-humour increased by the extreme kindness of the police towards fainting women and all who needed their help. The Colonial procession was charming--its young representatives rode so well, and were in themselves such splendid specimens of humanity, and so picturesquely equipped. Then the group of old English generals on horseback drew every eye, and the sixteen carriages of princesses, amongst whom the Duchess of Teck was far more cheered than any one except the Queen herself. And lastly came the cream-coloured horses with their golden-coated footmen, and the beloved Lady herself--the ‘Mother of the Land,’--every inch a queen, royal most exceedingly, but with an expression of such love, such gratitude, such devotion, such thankfulness! Oh, no one felt for and _with_ her only as a sovereign; it was a far closer tie than that.

“In the evening, Mrs. Tilt and her sister went with me to the Maxwell-Lytes on the top of the Record Tower, whence we saw the bonfires round London light up one by one, and St. Paul’s in silver light--a glorified spiritual church rising out of the darkness of the city against the deep blue sky. Far more than the illuminations of the noisy streets, it was a fitting end to so solemn and momentous a day.

“And on Wednesday I was in the Green Park, and heard the thousands of school-children sing their farewell to the Queen as she went away to Windsor.”

* * * * *

_To_ MRS. C VAUGHAN.

“_March 1897._--I think the reviews of the first three volumes of my ‘Story’ must be coming to an end now. I have had them all sent to me, and very amusing they have been, mostly recalling the dictum of Disraeli, that ‘critics are those who have failed in art and literature.’ Many criticisms have been kind. One or two, but not more, have been rather clever, and some of the fault-finding ones would have been very instructive if I had not so entirely agreed with them at the outset on all their main points--that I was a mere nobody, that my life was wholly without importance, and that it was shocking to see parts of the story in print, especially the painful episode which I called ‘The Roman Catholic Conspiracy;’ for reviewers, of course, could not know the anguish it cost when I was led to publish that chapter, by its being my _one_ chance of giving the true version of a story of which so many false versions had been given already. However, it is as Zola says, ‘Every author must, at the outset, swallow his toad,’ _i.e._, some malicious attack in the periodicals of the day; only I think my toads become more numerous and venomous as years go on.

“Some of the reviews are very funny indeed. The _Saturday Review_ of ‘A Monument of Self-Sufficiency’ contrives to read (oh! where?) ‘how sweet and amenable and clever Augustus was,’ but is so shocked by a book ‘wholly without delicacy’ that it--‘cannot promise to read any more of it’!! The _British Review_, which thinks me an absolute beast, has a stirring article on ‘Myself in Three Volumes.’ The _Pall Mall Gazette_ dwells upon their ‘bedside sentiment and goody-goody twaddle,’ and is ‘filled with genuine pity for a man who can attach importance to a life so trivial.’ The _Athenæum_ describes me as a mere ‘literary valet.’ The _New York Tribune_ finds the book ‘the continuous wail of a very garrulous person.’ The reviewer in the _Bookbuyer_ speaks of the ‘irritation and occasional fierce anger’ which the book arouses in him(!). The _New York Independent_ dwells upon my ‘want not only of all kindly sense of humour, but also of propriety.’ It is long since the _National Observer_ has met with an author ‘so garrulous or so self-complacent.’ Finally, the _Allahabad Pioneer_ (what a name!) votes that Mr. Hare’s chatter is ‘becoming a prodigious nuisance,’ and ‘if it had its deserts his book would make its way, and pretty quickly, to the pastry-cook and the trunk-maker.’

“What fun! Yet I am glad that most of the more respectable reviews say exactly the opposite, and certainly the public does not seem to agree with those I have quoted; it would be terribly expensive if it did. They are only birds of prey with their beaks cut and their claws pulled out, and if a book is found to be interesting, people read it whatever they say. They influence nobody, except just at first those who choose books for lending libraries.

“What is really almost irritating is the very ragtag and bobtail of reviews, whose writers can scarcely even glance at the books they are penny-a-lining--such as the _Table_, which ‘explains’ that ‘my grandmother was the wife of Archdeacon Hare;’ as another (I have lost it now) which speaks of ‘Priscilla Maurice, second wife of Julius Hare;’ as the _Weekly Register_, which reviews the life of ‘Esmeralda,’ or the student of the book who writes in _The Dial_ and describes my life at ‘Balliol College,’ or _Household Words_ (copied by the _Free-thinker_ and several other even inferior reviews), which ‘quotes’ in full a long story about Mr. Gladstone and Father Healy which is not to be found in the ‘Story’ at all.

“Then, did you see Mr. Murray’s letter to the _Times_, which certainly gives a touching picture of the spirit of self-sacrifice which actuates publishers in their daily life, for he announces that my ‘Handbook of Berks, Bucks, and Oxon,’ which had three editions before his father’s death, and on which the author was only paid _altogether_ £152, left, at that death, a deficit of £158!! I was sorry, all the same, that he was annoyed at my description of his father wrapt in his _enveloppe de glace_; for old Mr. Murray (who had cut me dead for all the years since the appearance of my Italian Handbooks) asked me to shake hands with him once again a few months before he died, which I did most cordially.”

* * * * *

_To_ FRANCIS COOKSON.

“_Holmhurst, August 29, 1897._-- ...With me, life has rippled on through several months, only I have been away for some days with the Lowthers to draw under Carlandi, and quite lately I have sorrowed bitterly at the early death of my dear Inverurie, kindest and most affectionate of young friends. I feel his being taken so much myself that I cannot bear even to think of what it must be to his nearest belongings; and yet--while absolutely free from all humbug--surely never was there any young man more simply and trustfully prepared for an early death.

“He cared less for ‘the world’ than any young fellow I have ever known, and was more in love with his family, his homes, and their surroundings.

‘Felix ille animi, divisque simillimus ipsis. Quem non mordaci resplendens gloria fuco Sollicitat, non fastosi mala gaudia luxus Sed tacitos sinit ire dies et paupere cultu Exegit innocuae tranquilla silentia vitae.’[581]

“Last week I was for three nights at Hurstmonceaux, actually--for the first time in thirty-seven years--at my old home of Lime. What a mixture of emotions it was; but within all is so changed, I could not recall my mother and Lea there; and the present inhabitants, the young Baron and Baroness von Roemer, were boundlessly good to me. Outside, there were many spots alive with old memories, especially in the garden, where my mother and I lived so much alone--our earthly Paradise. Did you know that the word Paradeisos means a garden?

“How I should like you to know the peculiar surroundings of Lime, different to those of any other place I have seen--the brown parched sun-dried uplands, the bosky ferny hollows, the reedy pools fragrant with mint, the eternal variety of pink lights and grey shadows on the soft downs beyond the wide Levels, which recall O’Hara’s lines--

‘Where the herds are slowly winding over leagues of waving grass, And the wild cranes seek the sedges, and the wild swans homeward pass.’

“We made a little excursion. In my very early childhood I was once at the ever-haunted Warbleton Priory, and the recollection of its utter weirdness and of the skulls kept there had always so remained with me that I had quite longed to see it again. The many stories about it are such as ought never to be told, only whispered. The very approaches have a mystery. No one will stay there now, even by broadest daylight; so we went to an old manor near Rushlake Green for the keys, but found even that so bolted and barred that we were long in obtaining them. ‘Oh no, there is never any one there,’ said the servant, ‘but you must go on till you come to a black gate, then drive in.’ To reach this, we followed a lane with well-built cottages, but they were deserted, their windows broken and their gardens overgrown; no one could live so near the accursed spot. Through the black gate we enter dark woods. A cart-track exists, winding through thickets with fine oaks interspersed, and by reedy ponds dense with waving cotton-plants. Then we cross open fields entirely covered with thistles--enough to seed all Sussex--for no one will work there. Then, through another black gate, we enter a turf-grown space, with lovely distant view between old trees, and there, with high red-tiled roofs, golden here and there with lichen, is a forlorn and mossy but handsome old stone house, built from and rising amidst other remains of an Augustinian priory. In its little garden are roses, and box bushes which have once been clipped into shapes. Inside, the mildewed rooms have some scanty remnants of their old furniture. In one of them, where a most terrible murder was committed, the blood then shed still comes up through the floor--a dark awful pool which no carpenter’s work can efface. The most frightful sounds, cries, and shrieks of anguish, rumblings and clankings, even apparently explosions, are always heard by night, and sometimes by day. In the principal room of the ground floor, in the recess of a window, are two skulls. They are believed to be those of two brothers who fought here and both fell dead. From one, the lower jaw has fallen down, increasing its ghastly effect. Successive generations of farmers have buried them, and instantly everything has gone wrong on the farm and all the cattle have died: now they have altogether abandoned a hopeless struggle with the unseen world. Besides this there is a tradition--often verified--that if any one touches the skulls, within twelve hours they pass through the valley of the shadow of Death. So naturally Warbleton Priory is left to the undisputed possession of its demon-ghosts.”

* * * * *

JOURNAL _and_ LETTER _to_ W. H. MILLIGAN.

“_Thoresby, Oct. 22, 1897._--I began my little tour of visits at Maiden Bradley.... You know how it is almost the only remnant the title possesses from the once vast Somerset estates. The 12th Duke left everything he possibly could away, and when the present Duke and Duchess succeeded, they were pictureless, bookless, almost spoonless. Still they were determined to make the best of it. ‘He could not take away our future: we will not lament over all that is lost, but enjoy to the very utmost what we have;’ this has been the rule of their existence, and so ‘Algie and Susie,’ as they, always speak of each other, have had a most delightful life, enjoying and giving enjoyment. No one ever looked more ducal than this genial, hearty, handsome Duke: no one brighter or pleasanter than his Duchess: ‘all who have to do with her find nothing but courtesy, gentleness, and goodness,’ as Brantôme wrote of Claude of France. I liked my visit extremely. My fellow-guests were Sir E. Poynter of the Royal Academy, Lady Heytesbury, and Mrs. Kelly, an authoress. With the last I saw stately Longleat, which I had not visited since I was fourteen, and--as horses are the one indulgence the Duke gives himself--he drove us luxuriously about the country on his coach-and-four.

“The following week was delightful--with the Boynes in their beautiful hill-set home. They took me glorious excursions, and we picnicked out in beautiful places five days running. One day we went to Kinlet--a really great house, as well kept by Swedish maids (its mistress is a Swede) as if there were a dozen men-servants. And the last day we went to a real still-standing Norman farmhouse (Millichope), with its original round arched doors and windows.

“From Burwarton I went on to my pleasant cousin’s, the Francis Bridgemans, close to that beautiful church at Tong, and we spent a day with Francis’s kind old father, Lord Bradford, at Weston, and he showed us all the pictures and treasures in the house, and drove us about in his sociable to the ‘Temple of Diana’ and other points of interest in the park of a very comfortable well-to-do place.

“Next, I visited Lady Margaret Herbert (daughter of my dear Lady Carnarvon) as châtelaine at Teversal manor in Notts, a smoky wind-stricken country, but with Hardwicke and other fine houses to see. The charming aunt of my hostess, Lady Guendolen, was living with her as chaperon, none the worse in body for being a strict vegetarian, and in mind the sunniest of the sunny, delightful to be with.

‘And scarcely is she altered, for the hours Have led her lightly down the vale of life, Dancing and scattering roses, and her face Seems a perpetual daybreak.’[582]

I was glad to be taken to spend the day at Bestwood, the Duke of St. Alban’s modern place, its woods an oasis in the wilderness, and its honours were charmingly done by Lady Sybil Beauclerk and her good-looking brother Burford. In the Duchess’s room were a series of albums with all the original drawings for Dickens’s works. All the best pictures were burnt in a fire.

“The Ladies Herbert sometimes, but in a far-away sense, remind me of their mother, who was quite the most perfectly brilliant person I have ever known. I have always heard that she was this even as a girl, and that it was a perpetual surprise to her parents, who were very inferior people. Lady Dufferin used to say that they were like savages who had found a watch.

“Taking stern dismal Bolsover--its delicate carvings utterly ruined by ‘trippers’--on the way, I came on to meet a large party here at Thoresby, which is in more than usual autumnal forest glory. We have just been spending the afternoon at Welbeck, shown all the improvements by Mrs. Dallas Yorke, in the absence of the tall handsome Duchess, who, however, returned before we left. One did not wonder that she is such a special joy to the old people of the place, because they had ‘been so long without a duchess, and when there was one long ago, it was only such a little one.’ She has built a delightful gallery--Florence-fashion--between the old house and the new, and hung it with a galaxy of old prints, and has made fascinating little terrace-gardens, and edged their beds with dwarf lavender, so that ‘when the ladies’ dresses brush against it, its scent may be wafted into the house.’

“And meantime my thoughts have been much at Llandaff, with the cousin[583] who was the dearest friend of my boyhood, seeming to pass with her through the closing scenes of the good Dean’s life, and to see him as she did, lying in his cathedral, dressed in his surplice, in the majesty of eternal repose.”

* * * * *

_To_ MRS. C. VAUGHAN.

“_Holmhurst, Nov. 16, 1897._--Here I am again in quietude, thinking of you very much in your last days at Llandaff; busy over the building of which I am architect, overseer, a hundred things at once, and planting a great deal, with a reminiscence of Dumbiedykes in Walter Scott--‘Be aye sticking in a tree; it will be growing, Jock, while you’re sleeping.’ My only companions now are the pleasant Hospitallers in the little Hospice, whom I constantly meet in the garden and wood walks. I wish you could see their little house, and the late roses lingering on their porch.

“I have been away for a week. Lady Stanhope took me from Chevening to see Lullingstone Castle in Kent, the old house of the Dykes, with a good brick gateway, a richly ceilinged upper gallery, and a chapel with interesting tombs. Two days afterwards, Lady Chetwynd took me to a finer place--Chawton in Hants, where the Knights, of Godmersham, live now, representing several old extinct families, especially the Lewknors, with whom I am very familiar through their tombs scattered all over Sussex, and who are commemorated at Chawton by many portraits and fine tapestried needlework. A little bookcase with a globe outside and a series of Elzevir Histories of the World within, was very attractive.

“Then I went to stay with ‘the richest man in the world,’ genial unassuming Mr. Astor, in his beautiful Cliveden, much improved since he bought it from its ducal owners, and enriched within by glorious portraits of Reynolds and Romney, and without by the noble terrace parapet of the Villa Borghese and its fountains, already looking here a natural part of the Buckinghamshire landscape, and replaced on its old site by a copy, which is just the same to nineteenth-century Italians! All the splendid sarcophagi and even the marble benches of the world-famous villa are now also at Cliveden, where they are more valued than at Rome. We had a charming party--Jane, Lady Churchill, retaining in advancing years ‘sa marche de déesse sur les nues,’[584] for which she was famous in her youth; the Lord Chancellor, Lady Halsbury, and a daughter; pretty gentle Princess Löwenstein; the Duchess of Roxburghe, ever wreathed in smiles of geniality and kindness, with two very tall agreeable daughters; Lord Sandwich, as bubbling with fun as when he was a young man; Lord and Lady Stanhope--always salt of the earth; with Mr. Marshall Hall and Sir Arthur Sullivan as geniuses; so, as you will see, ‘une élite très intelligente.’ Every one of these delightful people, too, was simplicity itself, rare as that virtue is to find. I see that Queen Adelaide, as Duchess of Clarence, wrote to Gabrielle von Bülow--‘How rarely you meet a really simple man or woman in our great world; they would be hard to find even with Diogenes’ lantern.’ Certainly ‘learned’ people are scarcely ever agreeable. There is a very good sentence in Hamerton about that--‘A good mental condition includes just as much culture as is necessary to the development of the faculties, but not any burden of erudition heavy enough to diminish, as erudition so often does, the promptitude or elasticity of the mind.’

“On Sunday morning we all went to the beautifully situated little church at Hedsor, arriving early and seeing the congregation wind up the steep grassy hill as to a church in Dalecarlia. In the afternoon we were driven about the grounds of Cliveden to the principal points--Waldo Story’s grand fountain in the avenue and his noble landing-place on the river. Exquisitely beautiful were the peace of the still autumn evening, the amber and golden tints of the woods, and the wide river with its reflections. Mr. Astor has attended to all the historic associations of the spot; placing a fine statue of Marlborough in the temple built by Lord Orkney, who was one of his generals, and portraits of Lady Shrewsbury and her Duke of Buckingham, and of Frederick and Augusta of Wales, in the successor of the house where they lived. Another portrait of Frederick, with his three sisters, Anne, Emily, and Caroline, all playing on musical instruments, has the old house in the background. Our host seemed to me quite absolutely frank and delightful; indeed, Surrey’s lines on Sir T. Wyatt might be applied to him--

‘An eye whose judgment no effect could blind, Friends to allure and foes to reconcile, Whose piercing look did represent a mind With virtue fraught, reposèd, void of guile.’

“Now, I am enjoying the time alone at home, with its much-reading opportunity, and I often think that my natural bent would have been to enjoy it quite as much as a boy, when all the family except you treated me not only as a consummate dunce, but a _hopeless_ dunce; and when almost every book was thought wicked, or at best quite unsuited for a boy’s digestion. Now, eyes ache often, but I may say with Lady M. Wortley Montagu, ‘If relays of eyes were to be ordered like post-horses, I would admit none but silent companions.’

“Les années d’ennui et de solitude lui firent lire bien des livres’--part of Catherine II.’s epitaph on herself--is certainly true in my case. Just now I have been labouring through the two long thick volumes which are called ‘Memoirs of Tennyson,’ though, when you close them, you have less idea of what the man was like than when you began--of the rude, rugged old egotist, who was yet almost sublimely picturesque; of the aged sage, who in dress, language, manners was always posing for the adoration of strangers, and furious if he did not get it, or--if he did. The book is most provoking, for it would by no means have destroyed the hero to have truthfully described the man.

“There have been no end of hard-worked boy-friends here for Sundays, and it is no trouble, but very much the contrary. We always get on together capitally--

‘That which we like, likes us: No need of any fuss,’

is a capital Feejee proverb.[585]

“I think it is Frederick Locker who says that one gradually finds out how much of the affection one inspires is ‘_reflected_.’ ‘Though thou lose all that thou deemest happiness, if thou canst but make the happiness of others, thou shall find it again in thine own heart,’ is a sentence of George Ebers, of which I mentally leave out as irrelevant the conclusion--‘Is not this playing at being God Almighty?’”

* * * * *

_To_ MISS GARDEN _at_ LUCCA, _and_ JOURNAL.

“_Holmhurst, August 1, 1898._--I have been much in London since I wrote last, enjoying the garden-parties at Sion, Osterley, Holland House, Hatfield, Lady Penrhyn’s, Lady Portman’s, &c., and seeing many pleasant people, mostly ‘grandes dames de par le monde.’ Yet, in the season, it is all too great a hurry; one seldom has time to become really acquainted with any one; there are few who have even sufficient personality to leave an individual impression on the mind; if any one does, he or she is ‘like a tree in the steppe’ in the monotony of London life. I dined out daily for two months, but how difficult it is to remember any dinner-party! ‘Who cares for the whipped cream of London society?’ was a saying of Walter Scott. I do recollect one dinner, however, at Mr. Knowles’s, from the fine effect of light on Leighton’s ‘Clytie,’ the principal ornament of his dining-room, all the illumination being given to one fold of the dress, and the rest effectively left in shadow. One charming person whom I remember was Lady Blake, lately returned to England with her husband, who had been governor of Jamaica. She was fond of tame animals. ‘In Jamaica,’ she said, ‘I often had a large snake coiled round my waist; my tiger-cat I generally led by a string, for I never knew what he might do, but my tame crocodile always quietly followed me.’ She was Irish--a Bernal Osborne. ‘Oh, I assure you the Irish are very good to us, quite charming, in fact.’ ‘But if you do anything they don’t like, they kill you.’--‘Naturally.’

“On July 11 I was at Miss Fleetwood Wilson’s wedding to Prince Dolgorouki, and also at Lady Mary Savile’s in the Church of the Assumption, which was a most picturesque ceremony, performed by Cardinal Vaughan--such a fine cardinal!--in a jewelled mitre, with all accompaniments of cross-bearers, incense-swingers, &c.

“The nobly Christian death of Mr. Gladstone and the almost ludicrous apotheosis of one who, in his political life, did nothing and undid so much, were events of the spring. I have personally more individual recollection of his kindness to those who needed it than of his witty sayings; but they were constant. ‘What do you think of Purcell’s Life of Manning?’ some one said to him shortly before the end. ‘I think that Manning need have nothing to fear at the day of judgment.’ He was formidable to strangers, chiefly on account of ‘those demoniac eyes of his,’ as Cardinal Alcander said of Luther; and though in his private capacity he was all goodness, it seemed inconsistent with his public one. Yet what admirers he had! I remember his saying once to Lord Houghton, ‘I lead the life of a dog,’ and the answer, ‘Yes, of a St. Bernard--the saviour of men.’ Joseph Parker used to describe him as ‘the greatest Englishman of the century, he was so massive, sincere, and majestic. If he had had humour he would have been too good to live, but eagles don’t laugh.’

“How much and long people have talked of him, and now what a silence will fall upon it all. An amusing breakfast at Mr. Leveson’s has just been recalled to me, where Lady Marian Alford said, ‘Gladstone really puts his foot in it so often, he is a perfect centipede.’ Directly after, a wasp lighted on the breakfast-table and there was some question of killing it. ‘Oh, don’t; I can’t bear killing anything,’ cried Lady Marian. ‘What! not even a centipede?’ quietly said Lord Lyons, who was present.

“I was with Mrs. John Dundas at Holt in Wiltshire, where the little village once prospered exceedingly owing to its mineral spring. Ten smart carriages used to wait round its fountain at once whilst their owners drank the waters, and a house is pointed out where some Duchess or other died. Then the fashion changed, and drainage was allowed to filter into the spring, and Holt sank into obscurity.

“We went to see Mr. Moseley, the admirable old Rector, who is half-paralysed. A farmer had been to him to ask whether he did not think he might get his hay in on a Sunday afternoon, as the weather was likely to change, and he answered, ‘Certainly; it is God’s hay; save it by all means.’ How unlike most English priests, but how Christ-like--‘personne moins prêtre que Jesus Christ.’ ‘From the fetters of spiritual narrowness, Good Lord deliver us,’ is a petition which I feel more and more ought to be added to the Litany.[586] Yet in many houses I visit I still find much of the old Sabbath-bondage remaining, though certainly it is true that ‘we almost sigh with relief when we discover that even saints can find monotony monotonous.’

“There is a perfect cordon of drawable old manor-houses round Holt, and it is only two miles from Bradford-on-Avon, from which the great town in Yorkshire was colonised, and which owes much of its foreign look to French refugees. Its houses rise high, tier above tier, on the hillside, blue-grey against the sky. Over the Avon is a beautiful bridge with a fine old bracketed mass-chapel, long used as a lock-up. A tiny Saxon church--the only real one probably in England--has been discovered walled up into cottages; and there is a noble old ‘palace’ of the Dukes of Kingston standing in high-terraced gardens. Great Chalfield is a most lovely Tudor house, with an old chapel and moat. At South Wraxhall how I recalled many visits from my miserable so-called tutors at Lyncombe, in days of penury and starvation. How indefinite the misty future seemed in the thinking-time which those long solitary rambles afforded, and how I longed to penetrate it. At fifteen ‘j’ai trop voulu, des choses infinies,’ but I was at a parting of the ways of life then, and I think I decided in those early days to try to do the best I could here, and leave the eternities and infinities--of which I heard so much more than of realities--to take care of themselves, for:--

‘Though reason may at her own quarry fly, Yet how can finite grasp infinity?’

“But I am moralising too much and must return to my old houses, which were full of smugglers formerly--‘moonrakers’ they called them in Wiltshire, because many of the smuggled goods were concealed in the ponds, and when the excisemen caught the smugglers extracting them at night, and demanded what they were doing, they answered, ‘Oh, we are raking out the moon.’ I was working in Shropshire for some time after my Wiltshire visit, inspecting almost every church and old house for my book, and hospitably entertained by genial Fred Swete at Oswestry and the Misses Windsor Clive at beautiful Oakly Park near Ludlow.

“While in London I went for two days to Bulstrode, which the late Duke of Somerset left to his youngest daughter, Lady Guendolen Ramsden, who is the most charming of hostesses, but the place is disappointing--a very large modern villa, only one room remaining of the old house where Mrs. Delany lived so much with Margaret, Duchess of Portland, and nothing of that of Judge Jeffreys, which preceded it. It contains an early portrait of Shakspeare, and a most grand Sir Joshua of a Mrs. Weddell. We dawdled most of the day in the verandah. Oh, the waste of time in country-house visits; but Lady Guendolen had much that was pleasant to tell of her mother, the witty (Sheridan) Duchess of Somerset. ‘She was once at a bazaar selling things, and a fat, burly, plethoric farmer asked her the price of something and she mentioned it. The price seemed to him absurd. ‘Do you take me for the Prodigal,’ he said. ‘Oh, no,’ she replied; ‘I take you for the fatted calf.’ This made Graham Vivian, who was one of the party, recollect. ‘I was walking by the Duchess’s donkey-chair, and suddenly the donkey brayed horribly. “Will he do it again?” said the Duchess. “Not unless he hears another,” answered the donkey-boy. “Then mind _you_ don’t sneeze,” said the Duchess, turning to me.’

“About Mr. L., who always speaks his mind, Lady Guendolen was very amusing:--‘Mr. L. took me in to dinner, and I thought I was making myself very agreeable to him, when he suddenly said--“Talk to your neighbour on the other side.” I felt humiliated, but I thought he fancied I couldn’t, so I did, and went on, and never spoke another word to Mr. L. I told him of it afterwards, that he had hurt me so much that I dreamt of it, and I told him my dream--that I said to him that I was considered to become very amusing after I had had two glasses of wine, and he answered, ‘_Then_, my dear lady, you must have been most uncommonly sober this evening.’”

* * * * *

_To_ VISCOUNT HALIFAX.

“_Holmhurst, August 21, 1898._--I have been for three days at Hurstmonceaux, doubly picturesque in the burnt turf of this hot summer, upon which the massy foliage of the trees is embossed as in Titian’s landscapes. I always feel there, as nowhere else except in the views of the Roman Campagna from the Alban Hills, the supreme beauty of looking down upon vast stretches of flat pasture-land, reaching for ten miles or more, and iridescent in its pink and blue cloud-shadows, with here and there a ripple of delicate green in softest glamour of quivering light. Every hour one sees it change--luminous with long lines of natural shadow, purple from drifting storm-clouds--

‘Then at some angel evening after rain Glowing like early Paradise again.’

It is a pleasure now to be there, though life there is living amongst the sepulchres. ‘La morte, l’estrema visitatrice,’[587] has come to all I knew, and the gravestones of most of them are _moss-grown_--not only of all the family of my childhood, but of all the neighbours, and all that generation of poor people. How often there comes into one’s mind something like the lines often repeated in the cemetery of Port-Royal--

‘Tous ces morts ont véçu, toi qui vis, tu mourras: Ce jour terrible approche, et tu n’y penses pas.’

‘Ce n’est pas le temps qui passe, ce sont les hommes,’ was a saying of Louis Philippe. How different everything is to the time which Hurstmonceaux recalls; all hurry now and energy and updoing, and then such an extreme quietude of intellectual pursuits, in which every uninitiated visitor was considered an unendurable bore, if, however interesting he might be in himself, he did not fall in with the mutual admiration society of which the Rectory was the axis. I remember how Thomas Carlyle and Monckton Milnes, with his ‘gay and airy mind,’[588] were amongst those so considered, for they had naturally their outside views and intelligence, and the Rectory group never tried for a moment to penetrate ‘l’écorce exterieur de leur vie;’ and, while bristling with prejudices themselves, they always found much to be shocked at in every outside person they came across. It seemed oddly apropos in all the remembrance of the closed Hurstmonceaux life to read in Madame de Montagu--‘It is not a good thing for everybody to see each other every day and too closely; they risk becoming unconscious egoists, critics, rulers, or subjects, and exhaust themselves by revolving perpetually on a tiny axis.’ Yet in many ways how much more really interesting the life was then; how picturesque Uncle Julius’s enthusiasm, how pathetic his pathos over the books which were his realities; how interesting the conversation, and how genial the courtesy of such constant visitors as Bunsen and Landor, though the latter was such a perfect original, ‘dressed in classical adorning,’ as Arthur Young said of some one; then how unruffled my dearest mother’s temper, over which even Aunt Esther’s _strenuous_ exactions were powerless; and how ceaseless the flow of her _love_--not charity, as people use the word now--to the poor of the cottages in the hazel-fringed lanes around her, whose cares she made her own, more moved and stirred by the querulous mutterings of Mrs. Burchett or Mrs. Cornford than by the most important events of English politics or the world’s history. Certainly she had a wonderful power with the poor, and an influence which has never passed away, for she had the rare art of entering into and understanding all their feelings; and then, when with them, she always gave them her _whole_ attention. I feel that my two books give very different ideas of what Hurstmonceaux was fifty years ago, but both are quite true; only the ‘Memorials of a Quiet Life’ is the inside, and the ‘Story of my Life’ the outside view. How much of life, after sixty, consists in retrospect! It is, as Fanny Kemble says--

‘Youth with swift feet walks onward in the way, The land of joy lies all before his eyes; Age, stumbling, lingers slower day by day, Still looking back, for it behind him lies.’

One great difference of feeling older is that one is afraid to put off doing anything. ‘By the street of By-and-by, you come to the house of Nowhere,’ is an admirable Spanish proverb.

“I have greatly enjoyed the vivid, charming, simple letters of Mary Sibylla Holland--‘anche oggi si sente una dolcezza d’affetto a leggere quel libro.’”

* * * * *

_To_ W. H. MILLIGAN.

“_Holmhurst, Sept. 29, 1898._--The building and changes here go on well, but very slowly, a result of having the work done with my own stone, and as much as possible by the men of our village. I think all will look well in the end. Not a chair or a book will be moved from the older part of the house, consecrated by my mother’s memory, but room will be given for the many things connected with Esmeralda, which I bought back at Sir Edward Paul’s sale, and, if I survive her, for many precious pieces of furniture, pictures, prints, and books from Norwich which Mrs. Vaughan says that she has left me. Where you will remember a steep grass bank, there is now a double stone terrace, with vases and obelisks, and luxuriant beds of brilliant flowers edged with stone, copied as a whole from the Italian Villa Lante near Viterbo. At the end are a staircase and gateway to the Solitude, the ‘Ave-Vale Gate,’ with ‘Ave’ on the outside and ‘Vale’ within. Cypresses are growing up beside it to enhance the impression of Italy, which is further carried out in a widening staircase from the centre of the terrace, with lead vases on the piers, copied in design and proportions from one at the Villa Arson near Nice. Just now, in this hot noon-day, the gorgeous flowers against the stone parapet, and background of brown-green ilex and blue-green pine are really very Italian, while below in the meadows all is as English as it can be, the cows feeding in the rich grass, the heavy rounded masses of oak foliage, and the misty sea asleep in the motionless heat. Nothing seems to move, except my little black Pomeranian spitz, Nero, frisking and barking at the butterflies. I am sure that much the happiest part of my present life is that spent at home, though there is nothing to tell about it--‘l’histoire ne se soucie pas des heureux.’

“Emmie Penrhyn is here, whose visits are always an unusual pleasure to me, and who is one of the dearest relations I have left, partly because, more than any one else, she has a distant likeness to my mother. She lives happily and most usefully at Richmond in a very little world, with a weak body but an all-sufficing soul.

“I have grieved so truly over the news of Ranulph Mostyn’s death in India, that I could not help writing to his mother. Yet I always hesitate about whether letters of condolence can be of any comfort, and can only act upon the knowledge that I like myself to have them in any great sorrow. No Christian disquisitions, however: they always seem forced and unmeaning. ‘Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief;’ that is somewhere in Shakspeare. Thirlwall’s Letters have an excellent passage about them--‘Expressions of general condolence may be welcome as tokens of goodwill, but can scarcely exert any general alleviating power. The afflicted ones stand within a circle of images and feelings of their own, which, painful as they may be, they would not part with for worlds. Any attempt to draw them out of that circle can only inflict a useless annoyance.”

* * * * *

_To_ MRS. C. VAUGHAN.

“_Holmhurst, Oct. 16, 1898._--I am alone this evening; the wind is wailing a dirge, and ‘the dark sea drinks in the greyness of the sky.’[589] But I have been away for three weeks. First to the sisters of my old friend Willie Milligan, who now live in the Barrington dower-house at Shrivenham, close to Beckett, the ideal ‘great house’ of my boyhood, so stately and luxurious. Now, so are the mighty fallen, it is let to some Australians, and the family--unless helped by an heiress--can never afford to live there again. Then I was with the delightful Boynes in the high Shropshire uplands, seeing in the most charming way many beautiful old houses. I saw two more from my next visit at Oxton in Notts--Wiverton, and Annesley where the Miss Chaworth Musters, beloved by Byron, once walked on the beautiful old terraces. Another echo from my long-ago came from my visit to Streatlam, where I so often was in my young days, and which is now inhabited by Lord Strathmore’s sister, Lady Frances Trevanion, and her pleasant cheery husband, both most kind cousins to me. The long galleries are filled with family portraits, including a great one of Mary Eleanor Bowes, whose strange story I have so often told. Lady Frances’s time is greatly taken up by the manners and morals of her dogs, the very smallest and noisiest I ever saw. They must be the sort of dogs Chaucer speaks of--

‘Of small houndes hadde she, that she fedde With rosted flesh and milk, and wastel brede; But sore wept she if one of hem were dead.’

“It was a short journey from Streatlam to Kiplin, the beautiful old house of Admiral Carpenter.... He told me how his grandfather had six sons, Talbots, and was fond of making them all lie down full length on the dining-room floor, joining one another, that he might see how many yards of sons he had! I saw Richmond from Kiplin: what a beautiful place, few abroad equal to it.

“But my most interesting visit was that to Baddesley Clinton in Warwickshire, rising, with a fortified central gate-tower, from a deep still moat, and with an inner courtyard full of flowers. It has dark tapestried rooms, several priest’s hiding-holes, ghosts of a lady and a child, and a murder-room, stained with the blood of a priest whom a squire of Edward IV.’s time slew when he caught him chucking his wife under the chin.[590] Then there are all the refined luxuries of fast-day dinners, evening prayers in the chapel with a congregation of maids veiled like nuns, and a live Bishop (of Portsmouth), in violet robes and gold cross and chain, to officiate.

“Such a bishop he is! such a ripple of wit and wisdom! and so full of playfulness! I read and copied somewhere--“A man after God’s own heart is never a one-sided man. He is not wholly spiritual, he is not wholly natural; he is not all earnestness, he is not all play; he cannot be all things at once, and therefore he is all things by turns.”[591] Our Bishop at Baddesley was just like this in his fun, in his love of cats, and never more charming than when he gathered up all the scraps of toast left at breakfast, and throwing open one of the windows, called ‘Quack, quack!’ and crowds of ducks came rushing under the bridge over the moat to scramble for them, one brown duck, which the Bishop called ‘the orphan,’ being especially cared for. Speaking of the frequent ignorance of religious intolerance led him to tell of the people of Imola and Brigatella, who were always quarrelling. When the priest at Brigatella began the paschal mass with ‘Christus immolatus est,’ his congregation thought it was some compliment to the people of Imola, and declared they would kill him unless he began ‘Christus brigatellatus est.’

“He had been with the Calthorpes of Woodland Vale to see an old house of theirs in the Isle of Wight, which was quite deserted, and in the very room where it occurred was told the reason why. A friend who had come there to stay with Mr. Calthorpe saw there, in the dawn of the morning, an old woman sitting knitting at the foot of the bed; he even heard the click of the knitting-needles. At first he thought she had mistaken the room, but it happened again the next day. The third time it happened, he kicked out. The old woman then turned round her face towards him, and displayed--a death’s-head. Another guest met the old woman on the stairs and equally saw the death’s-head. No servant would stay in the house, and now it is pulled down.

“After the evening service in the chapel, the Bishop went to have a cigar before going to bed. When I excused myself from joining him, he told of Benedict XIV., who offered a pinch of snuff to one of his Cardinals. ‘Santo padre, non ho quel vizio,’ he answered. ‘Se fosse vizio, tu l’avrei,’ said the Pope.

“Most charming of all was the châtelaine, the widow of my cousin Heneage Dering, whose first wife was her aunt, Lady Chatterton, the well-known novelist. The niece (‘Pysie’ Orpen) was then married to Marmion Ferrers, the last of a famous Catholic family lineally descended from the Earl of Derby attainted in the Wars of the Roses, and himself legally Baron Compton and De Ferrers, though he never claimed the title on account of his poverty and having no son. He was the pleasantest and most genial of men--‘the old squire’ he used to be called in Warwickshire. One day he found an old woman stealing his wood, and, when she expected a great scolding, he only said, ‘That load of wood is a great deal too heavy for you; you must let me carry it home for you,’ and he did. Another day he caught three poachers, and said, ‘Come, now, let us have it out!’ and they pulled off their coats and had a regular set-to: he floored two of them, he was so strong, and then he let them all go.

“His life seems to have been made up of deeds of faith and charity, but his property fell into decadence and must have been sold, if Heneage Dering, who had married his wife’s aunt, had not come to the rescue. They all lived together in the old house, mediaevally, almost mediaeval even in their dress; and after Lady Chatterton died, and then Marmion Ferrers, a final break-up of the remaining links with the past was prevented by the marriage of Heneage Dering with the widowed ‘Pysie.’ They were perfectly happy for several years, but he always said ‘a sudden death is the happiest death,’ and so in 1892 it was.

“Over the chapel door is inscribed--

‘Transit gloria mundi, Fides catholica manet,’

and the Catholic religion nourishes as much at Baddesley still as it did in the time of Sir Edward Ferrers, who founded this branch of the family in 1517, and left ‘five masses in worship of the five wounds principal that Our Lord suffered in His bitter Passion,’ and who is depicted kneeling before a crucifix, with the legend ‘Amor meus crucifixus est’ issuing from his mouth. On Sunday afternoon we went to hear the Benediction service beautifully sung by the invisible nuns of a convent close by--a convent of ‘Colettines’ from Bruges, a severe form of Poor Clares, founded here in 1850, the first of the Order since the Dissolution. A niece of Lord Clifford was their abbess. There are 250 Catholics at Baddesley.

“As we drove to Warwick, we passed through a village where the learned Dr. Parr was rector. ‘He took pupils,’ said the Bishop. ‘They were not very bright. One of them said, “I make a point of never believing anything I do not understand.” “Then your creed must be most uncommonly brief,” said Dr. Parr.’

“In returning home, I lingered one day with my kind friend E. Mathews at Sonning. I had often longed to go there on a pilgrimage to dear Hugh Pearson’s grave, and never before been able. What a lovely village it is, with its old red roofs nestling under tufted trees, and how fragrant is the beloved memory of the true pastor who gave himself so royally for his people. ‘Go and break it to my family,’ were his first words when told he could not live, meaning by his family his parishioners, the people in the village, who loved him so, and amongst whom he was almost ideally happy, for he was not only always striving to do good for the poor and helpless, but was successful in doing it.

‘His virtues walked their humble round, Nor knew a pause, nor felt a void, And sure the Eternal Master found His single talent well employ’d.’[592]

“My volume on ‘Shropshire’ has come out--another book-child launched into public life.”

* * * * *

_To_ W. H. MILLIGAN, _and_ JOURNAL.

“_Belvoir Castle, Nov. 18, 1898._--I have been with my dear Lowthers at Campsea Ashe, enjoying their large party of pleasant musicianers, Countess Valda Gleichen, radiant Mrs. Arkwright of the lovely voice, &c., but enjoying much more two quiet days with the family when the others were gone. Mrs. L. took me to Crowe Hall, a moated house with a delightful old lady-farmeress, of the hard-working high-thinking type, so familiar in my boyhood, but almost extinct in these days of over-dressed, gig-driving, pianoforte-strumming minxes.

“One of those kind and characteristic telegrams of the Duchess of Rutland, extending over a whole page, has brought me here, where there is a large party too, almost entirely composed of the Duke’s innumerable nephews and nieces. As I do not either shoot or care for the regular evening ball in the gallery, what I like best is the daily walk with the Duke and Duchess, meeting them in the hall as the clock strikes 12.15, and wandering in the wood walks or on the nearer terraces, already fragrant with violets, listening to the Duke’s reminiscences of his own past and Belvoir’s past, always of endless interest. How I pity my host and hostess in their over-anxious cares about their immense estates; but they must be comforted themselves by the pleasure they are able to give. Sightseers are admitted always, and the great Midland towns daily pour their legions into these beautiful woods: they do no harm and behave wonderfully well, but one almost feels as if the public, who most enjoy it, ought to help to keep up the place. In the case of Belvoir, the scourge of the death-duties affects what is the pleasaunce of thousands.

“I went with Mrs. G. Drummond to Bottesford, where there is such a grand series of monuments of the Earls of Rutland and their families, including one of some children who died by witchcraft. Their nurse was condemned to be burnt for it, but said, ‘If I am guilty, may this bit of bread choke me,’ and it did! The Duchess Elizabeth, who made all the charming walks here, moved all the Dukes to her new mausoleum in the Belvoir woods, but she left the Earls at Bottesford.

“Hearing of her again here has recalled much that Lady Waterford used to tell me of the Duchess Isabella, who was called ‘Was a bella’ in her later years. She used to describe the painting of her fine portrait by Sir Joshua, how he would rush forward and look closely into her eyes, take her well in, and then go as far back as possible and look at the general effect in a distant glass, chiefly making his picture from that. Lady Adeliza Manners once met a very beautiful peasant girl near Belvoir, very beautiful except that she had lost one of her best front teeth. ‘What a misfortune,’ said Lady A.; ‘how could it have happened?’--‘Oh, the Duchess (Isabella) had lost one of her front teeth, so she forced me to have mine taken out to replace it.’

“I wonder if you went to Harlaxton when you were here--the immense modern house by Blomfield, of which a most pleasant Mr. Pearson Gregory suddenly found himself the heir from a godfather. He was staying at the castle and took me there. When the Empress Frederick was here, she admired it beyond words, but I did not: it is magnificent, but too heavy, and the staircase very dark. Outside there are garden-staircases and fountains, which are really beautiful, almost worthy of the Villa Aldobrandini. There is a picture of a De Ligne baby, the heir of the place, whose cradle was put too close to the fire: a coal flew out, and it was burnt to death. The village is rendered infinitely picturesque by stone wells and portals made from fragments of a recently destroyed moated manor-house, of which only the gateway is left.

“There is a great charm in being made a sharer in what Disraeli called ‘the sustained splendour of a stately life,’ but much of the pleasure of a great country-house depends upon whom it falls to your lot to take down to dinner, and the Duchess attends to this with careful cleverness. I was especially amused by one sentence in that delightful ‘Isabel Carnaby’--‘There is one good thing in getting married. You know then that, whatever happens, there is one woman you will never have to take in to dinner again as long as you live.’

“And what funny things people say at dinner. Lately--not here--a very ‘great lady’ said to me, ‘I can assure you that the consciousness of being well dressed gives me an inward peace which religion could never bestow.’”

* * * * *

JOURNAL.

“_Holmhurst, Jan. 21, 1899._--I sit alone on my hilltop, amid the swirling mists, and howling winds, and swelching rain, and am often very desolate and full of melancholy thoughts, which require active work to drive them away. But I ought not to complain, for before Christmas I was a week with the kind Llangattocks at the Hendre in beautiful Monmouthshire, seeing much that was interesting, and driving with four horses and postillions, to Raglan, and through the beautiful brown billowy country of the Forest of Dean. Then I had a quietly happy fortnight at Torquay with my kind Thornycroft cousins; and went from them to Mount Ebford to Pamela Turner, a very pleasant first cousin I had not seen for years; paying, lastly, a sad visit--because probably the last ever possible--to beautiful Cobham.... Yet I am alone now, and perhaps it is as well that my thoughts should be always turning to the ‘undiscovered country’ which will be so much to us, and of which we know nothing, even though we may be very near its shores. I work on, I enjoy on, but I feel more that life is becoming a waiting time.

‘I have a journey, sir, shortly to go; My master calls me, I must not say no.’[593]

And there is a sentence of Epictetus which seems to demand thinking about. ‘If the Master call, run to the ship, forsaking all these things, and looking not behind. And if thou be in old age, go not far from the ship at any time, lest the Master should ask, and thou not be ready.’ ... It was Adrienne de Lafayette who said, ‘Must we not all die? The great thing is to be always ready; as for the kind of death, that is only a detail.’ I think and think, as so many millions have thought, how it can be after death, and such inquiries and searchings have no answer. Still, as Jowett wrote towards the close of life, ‘Though we cannot see into another life, we believe, with inextinguishable hope, that there is still something reserved for us.’

“I feel the view usually held now on these subjects is wholesomer than that of my childhood, when ‘good people’ talked with such dogmatic assurance, in all ‘le bel air de leur devotion,’ of how glorious their life in another world would be, whilst definitely condemning so many of their neighbours to the hell which, in their imagination, was their God’s vindictive retaliation for His injuries. I often remember her words, and I think I realise the feeling with which my dear old friend Mrs. Duncan Stewart once said to me, ‘I should say, like Dr. Johnson, I am speaking in crass ignorance, according to the failings of my fallible human nature; and yet, may we not all, whilst acting like fallible human beings as we are, trust respectfully to God’s mercy, though speaking of no glorious future as reserved for us, lest He should say, “What hast thou done to deserve this?”’

“Lord Llangattock writes urging me to join the Anti-vivisection Society; but I answer I am not competent to judge of it. Then he sends me its pamphlets, which seem to me rather blasphemous, asserting that ‘Christ died just as much for all animals as for all human beings.’ What! for bugs, lice, ringworms, mosquitoes? ‘Don’t kill that flea; Christ died for it.’ Then how about cobras and puff-adders? Surely it must have been the Devil that died for those. What nonsense people, especially ‘religious people,’ write in these little pamphlets, almost as great nonsense as most country clergy preach in the dreary Sahara of their endless sermons. ‘Long texts, short sermons,’ was John Wesley’s maxim, and what a good one!”

* * * * *

JOURNAL _and_ LETTERS.

“_Rome, March 10, 1899._--I was very ailing, and Catherine Vaughan insisted on my seeing Dr. Sansom, who found me so ‘run down’ that he insisted on my coming out here to my ‘native air;’ therefore here I am, and already it has done me good. I found my dear old friend Miss Garden rather better than I left her three years ago, and full of her sister Mrs. Ramsay’s escape, having been upset in a carriage close to the edge of the Tarpeian rock. ‘If the horse had not been _assolutamente pecora_,’ said the coachman, ‘she must have gone over.’

“The other day I was with a circle of old friends who were discussing the ‘Story of my Life.’ ‘Surely the early part must have been exaggerated,’ said one of them, ‘that story of Aunt Esther hanging the cat, for instance,[594] because the child loved it.’ ‘I can testify that that story was absolutely true, for _I was there_,’ said an old clergyman present, ‘and I have shuddered over the cruel recollection ever since.’ It was Canon Douglas Gordon. I had quite forgotten that he was a pupil of Mr. Simpkinson, curate of Hurstmonceaux, at the time. Mr. Gordon also said, ‘I can vouch, too, for the truth of the story of the bullying at Harrow, for _I was myself the victim_;’ and he told how a brutal bully got a dead dog, and cut off its feet, ears, &c., and forced him to drink them in coffee. That day he ran away. ‘Alexander Russell’ went with him. They had only four miles to go to his father Lord Aberdeen’s house at Stanmore. He and Lord Abercorn were governors of the school. They happened to be together, and they sent him back in a carriage that evening with a letter to the head-master saying that, in the interests of the school, what had happened had better be hushed up; but that it was so dreadful, that he--the master--must be compelled to take the awful bullying in the school seriously in hand. And he did. Mr. Gordon says that the wickedness of Harrow at that time was quite appalling: things which could never be mentioned were then of nightly occurrence all over the school. The masters were as bad, and would come into the very pupil-rooms humming obscene songs.

“What an age of independent criticism it is! An acquaintance here said to me the other day, ‘I have a horror of the patriarchs, and how any one can set up such wicked, low, mean men as an example, I cannot understand--Jacob and the rams, for instance. No wonder the Jews were bad with such examples to follow.... I believe in Christ thoroughly and cling to the thought of Him: of course the story of His birth and all that is very difficult, but “autre pays, autres mœurs,” that is what I say.’”

* * * * *

“_March 24._--We have been to Tivoli on the most glorious day--a pellucid sky, and exquisite blue shadows flitting over the young green of the Campagna. From the station I went to S. Antonio, the old hermitage and shrine bought by the Searles. Mrs. Searle met me most kindly. I said, ‘_What_ a beautiful home you have!’ ‘Yes,’ she answered, ‘and the really delightful thing is that _the Lord_ has given it to us.’ I could hardly help saying, ‘I suppose that means you bought it.’ Afterwards I found she was one of the very few ladies who belong to the Salvation Army. She is kind and Christian beyond words--‘vraie marchande de bonheur’--and her lovely home is a centre of thoughtful charity; but being in this Catholic country gives her many qualms and shocks. One day lately she was alone in a lane near her home, and came upon a shrine of the Virgin with her little statue, and was filled with righteous indignation at ‘that doll.’ As she stood there, a number of peasant women came up and knelt before the shrine and prayed most devoutly. When they got up she said, ‘How could you pray to that graven image? I wonder what you were praying for.’ ‘Why, we were asking the Madonna to send us rain; our land needs it so much,’ said the women, much surprised at her wrath. ‘How can you pray to _her_ for that?’ said Mrs. Searle; ‘let me show you how to pray,’ and then and there she knelt down in the dusty road and prayed aloud, prayed with her whole heart to her Lord, that He would send them the rain they needed; and immediately, though the sky had been quite clear till then, it _poured_!

“The women went away to their priest and told him that they had seen a lady who reviled the Madonna, but who was a powerful witch and had been able to bring the rain by her enchantments.”

* * * * *

“_March 29._--To Sutri with Mrs. Ramsay. In the early morning the dew was like crystal, every leaf glistening. The mountains rose pale blue against an opal sky, but were hidden at their base by the delicate mists of the plain. It was a long, long drive before we reached the great solid rock, which is hewn away within into all the circular steps of a vast amphitheatre overhung by mighty ilexes. Behind it, is an Early Christian church, also hewn out of the rock,--pillars, font, and altar all one with it.

“Se voi pensate sedere sopra una cittadina Americana, voi vi sbagliate,’ was heard by Gery Cullum from an American lady here in altercation with her cabman.”

* * * * *

“_April 1._--I have had one of my Palatine lectures quite in the old way, and a luncheon with the charming Crown Princess of Sweden has been a great pleasure.

“Dining at Palazzo Bonaparte, M. de Westenberg told me that one day when Madame Mère was living there, a stranger came to the palace and insisted upon seeing her on a matter of vital importance. He was evidently a gentleman, but would not tell his name or errand. At last his urgency prevailed, and Madame Mère admitted him. He gave her a crucifix and said it belonged to her son in St. Helena, and then he said, ‘You need no longer be unhappy about him, for he has just entered into rest: his sorrows are over.’ It was on that day that Napoleon died in St. Helena.

“Miss Garden says, ‘Lanciani came to me one day. He was not married then, and he said, “I am too miserably dull; it cannot go on; I must either take a wife or a cat.” “Well, and which should you prefer, Signer Lanciani?”--“Oh, a me sono tutte due eguale,” he said. “But la signora madre, which would she prefer?”--“Oh, la madre,” he said meditatively, “il gatto.”

“‘All life has its sorrows,’ says Miss Garden, ‘only they are unequally distributed. Do you know what Eddie Baddeley’s sorrow is? He is only three, you know. It is that the turkey-cock at the Villa Borghese will not make friends with him. “But don’t you think he will ever like me?” he said to his mother. “No, my dear,” she said, “I don’t think he ever will.” But it was just one of those cases in which I think a lie would have been permissible; she had better have held out hopes.’”

* * * * *

“_Palazzo Guadagni, Florence, April 17._--I have been here ten days as the guest of the ever-kind Duchess Dowager of Sermoneta, and found Mrs. and Miss Lowther here. It is an unusual life. We scarcely see our hostess till dinner-time, unless she asks us to drive with her, and we have each a most comfortable apartment, with excellent food and service, and the whole day to employ as we like. Many are the old friends we have seen, but most frequently the Marchesa Peruzzi, Story’s daughter, who has all his agreeable power of narration. ‘The reason why we loved Mrs. Browning so much as children,’ she says, ‘is because she always treated us as her equals, and talked to us as such. Pen and I used to sit at her feet, and she was just as courteous to us as to any of the grown-up people.’”

* * * * *

“_Arco in Sud Tyrol, April 27._--I came here with the Lowthers, and we have been some days with two delightful Misses Warre, sisters of the head-master of Eton. It is an exquisitely beautiful place, with glorious excursions. One day we have spent most deliciously at Castel Toblino, a grand old castle which looks at itself in a glassy lake surrounded by mountains. General Baratieri, a hero, though a most unfortunate one, is one of those of whom we have seen something here.”

* * * * *

“_Holmhurst, May 10._--Reached the dear home with great thankfulness, after a most severely hard-worked fortnight for a new edition of my ‘Paris.’”

* * * * *

“_June 14, 1899._--At luncheon at Lady Constance Leslie’s I met Mr. Holman Hunt, a charming, simple, natural man. He spoke of the great difficulty of getting any one to do such work as is wanted for St. Paul’s Cathedral; that few would give up the high prices paid now for other work for the small prices the Government would pay. He talked of Leighton, whom he had known intimately in early life. Three tailors in Bond Street, thinking it might be a good speculation, clubbed together to buy one of his first pictures. They offered £100 for it: he stuck out for £200. Eventually it was arranged that they should pay £150, but a suit of clothes was to be thrown in. Then came the violent abuse of all Leighton’s work, and the tailors got alarmed, and sold the picture for £100 without any suit of clothes. That picture was afterwards bought for thousands by the Gallery at Liverpool, and there it is now, unlikely ever to come to the hammer again.

“After this, when Leighton’s pictures were accepted for the Academy and he was hard at work for the next year, he was told by his studio-man that some one wanted to speak to him. He sent out word that he was very busy and could not see any one; but the man was pertinacious and would not go away. At last Leighton said, ‘Well, he had better come in for a minute and say what his business is.’ So he was let in. But it was a man who stood by the door and did not come further. ‘Well,’ said Leighton, ‘what do you want?’ ‘To come straight to the point at once,’ said the man, ‘I want that picture’ (pointing to the work upon the easel). ‘You get £300 now for your pictures, don’t you? Well, I will give you £700.’ ‘But you have not even seen the picture,’ said Leighton; ‘you don’t even know what the subject is.’ ‘No, I don’t,’ said the man, ‘and, if I did, I should know no more about it than I do now.’ That man was Agnew. He acquired the picture: it was his first venture.

“Mr. Holman Hunt said, speaking of the bad results of Board Schools, that he had been away lately. When he came back, a boy came to him as a model, a very good boy, whom he had not seen for some time. ‘Well,’ he said to the boy, ‘it’s a long time since I’ve seen you; I’ve been away; I’ve been at Stratford-on-Avon.’ ‘Ah,’ said the boy slowly, ‘so you’ve been at Stratford-on-Avon, have you? That’s where Shakspeare lived, him as married Anne Hathaway, and him as they called the Swan of Avon and the smooth-tongued liar (lyre). It’s well I didn’t live in them times, or they might have been calling me some such beastly names as that.’”

* * * * *

“_Holmhurst, Sept. 8._--Early on the morning of July 29 I was summoned from home by telegraph to the dying bed of my dear cousin Catherine Vaughan, perhaps more than any one else still left bound up with all my life in the long-ago. She had forbidden any one to come to her when ill, but desired that, if it was known she was dying, I should be sent for. I found her terribly ill and suffering, though delighted to see me. That Saturday was a day of great anguish, both for herself and those with her. But she grew calmer in the night, and was with us still for four days and nights, during which I seemed to go back into my old life with my mother, constantly by her side, fanning her, wiping the poor brow, trying to help her to bear through. Almost her very last words were ‘Dear, dear Augustus.’ Then, the day before she quite left us, she was unconscious, and we sate in a great calm, only waiting for the coming of the angel. A majestic beauty had come back to her in the shadow of death, a likeness to her mother, to her brother Arthur Stanley at his best, to the ‘Curly Kate’ of sixty years ago, only now they were snow-white curls which rippled over the pillow. I think it was the so frequent sight of this life-long friend, more intimate and dearer than ever in the last few years, yet so much older than myself, which has always made me feel young, and that, with her passing away, a bridge is broken down. It has been since quite a small added pain to take leave of the old furniture and pictures, the inanimate witnesses of our lives--‘auld nick-nackets’ somebody called them--but still silent and sacred memorials of the dear Alderley and Norwich family homes, which have now passed almost to a stranger. They could still recall to those familiar with them so much that only Kate and I knew, and so much more that only Kate and I cared about.

‘Yea, truly, as the sallowing years Fall from us faster, like frost-loosened leaves Pushed by the misty touch of shortening days, And that unwakened winter nears, ’Tis the void chair our surest guest receives, ’Tis lips long cold that give the warmest kiss, ’Tis the lost voice comes oftenest to our ears; We count our rosary by the beads we miss.’[595]

“How long and how full the hours of watching by a death-bed seem! how full of what varied emotions and anxieties, an almost agonising eagerness to do the right thing every minute even in a physical sense, but much more to _say_ the right thing, only the right thing, to one who is on the awful threshold of so great a transition, to whom, because she is on the very brink of unravelling the great mystery, all the commonplaces, even of religion, must fall so flat. One can only try to help, to _support_ the beloved one, who is passing away from our possibilities, spiritually as well as physically, try to recollect what would be a comfort to oneself in such a crisis, and let oneself go _with_ the departing one to the very portal itself.

“With dear Kate I had often spoken of this, yet, when the reality came, it was unlike all we had imagined, and I suppose it is always so. But I felt how well it must always be to talk over the end of life with those you are likely to be near when the close really comes. It makes a sort of death-bed comradeship, if I can so call it, which could never exist without it, and certainly in this case it made Kate cling to my being constantly with her, when she would allow no one else to see her. Then how seldom _any_ words are possible from a dying person. In the six death-beds I have attended it has been so; and even in this case, when it lasted four days and nights, there was little speech, only an urgency that I should never leave her, that I should keep near her, that I should be close by her side as long as she was on earth at all, till she passed into the unseen.

“Whilst feeling the change which her loss makes in my life, I have read words of Bishop Magee which have come home to me. ‘The most beautiful and natural of sunsets is still a sunset, and the shadows that follow it are chill and depressing. I begin to feel the peculiar sadness that the death of much older relatives brings to those who are entering themselves on old age. When I see all those whom I remember once, middle-aged men and women, younger by many years than I am now, all passed and gone, I feel somehow as if light was going out of life very fast. There are so few living with whom one can recall the _past_, and grow young again in recalling it.’”

* * * * *

JOURNAL.

“_Holmhurst, Sept. 31._--I have been a week at Swaylands to meet the Duchess of York, and as there were scarcely any other guests, saw a great deal of her, and was increasingly filled with admiration for the dignified simplicity and single-mindedness, and the high sense of duty by which her naturally merry, genial nature is pervaded, and which will be the very salvation of England some day. Before her scandal sits dumb: she has a quiet but inflexible power of silencing everything which seems likely to approach ill-natured gossip, yet immediately after gives such a genial kindly look and word to the silenced one as prevents any feeling of mortification. All morning the Duchess was occupied with her lady in real hard work, chiefly letters, I believe; in the afternoons we went for long drives and sight-seeings--of Penshurst, Knole, Groombridge, Hever, Ightham, and she was full of interest in the history and associations of these old-world places. At Hever the owners were away, but we got a table from a cottage, and an excellent tea-meal was spread upon it at the top of the high field above the castle. If the Duchess is ever Queen of England, that table will be considered to have a history.”

* * * * *

“_Holmhurst, Sept. 8._--I have been in Suffolk on an ancestor-hunt, which involved a delightful visit to Herbert and Lady Mary Ewart at Great Thurlow. It was in the time of George I., I think, that our great-great-uncle Francis Naylor, the owner of Hurstmonceaux Castle, a ‘Medmenham Brother’ and the wildest of the wild, was led to a changed and better life by his love for the beautiful Carlotta Alston of Edwardstone. Unfortunately, whilst they were engaged, his father, Bishop Hare, found out that her elder sister, Mary Margaret, was one of the greatest heiresses in England, married her without telling his son till the day before the wedding, and then positively forbade him to become his brother-in-law. Francis Naylor was very much inclined to go to the devil again, but Carlotta maintained her influence, and eventually they were married without the Bishop’s consent. They were too poor to live at Hurstmonceaux, but the third Miss Alston had married the rich Stephen Soame, and she gave them a home, and there, in the house of the generous Anne Soame, they lived and died. The old Jacobean mansion of Little Thurlow was magnificent and had eighty-one bedrooms; its beautiful wrought-iron gates with pilasters were given by Charles II., who often stayed there, and the family lived at Little Thurlow in most unusual state, even for that time, driving out daily in three carriages-and-four. Sir Stephen Soame, the builder of the house, has a grand tomb in the church where Francis and Carlotta Naylor and Anne Soame are buried behind his stately carved pew, and there are a most picturesque grammar-school and almshouses erected by him. I remember some of the Soames coming to Hurstmonceaux--as cousins--in my childhood, but their direct line died out at last, and the place went to some very distant relations from Beverley, who pulled down the old hall, because ‘they could not live in a house where you could drive a coach-and-four up the great staircase.’ Old Mrs. Soame, however, of the second set, did not die till she was 104, and the last of her two daughters only in 1885. Yet the Misses Soame had never been to London: their travels were limited to being driven twice a year to Lowestoft in their large yellow chariot with post-horses. They always intended to try the railway by going from Haverhill to the next station and having their carriage to meet them there; but when the day came they shrank from the feat. They were ‘worth an income to the doctor, the chemist, and the fishmonger,’ and they left a fortune to the family of a man who had once proposed to one of them.”

* * * * *

“_Holmhurst, Oct. 23._--Again I have been on an ancestor-hunt. I met Mrs. Lowther at the old haunted house of Lawford Hall near Manningtree, and our hostess, Mrs. Mouncey, sent us to Hadleigh, where Mary Margaret Alston’s grandfather, Charles Trumbull, was the very saintly Rector in the time of James II., and resigned his living for his ordination oath’s sake on the advent of William III. The Rectory, now known as the Deanery, is a glorious old house, with a grand brick gateway, priests’ hiding-holes, and curious pictures by Canaletto--an intimate friend and visitor of one of the rectors--let into its walls. It was the home of Rowland Taylor, the Marian martyr, who was dragged down the street of Hadleigh to his stake outside the town ‘cracking jokes all the way,’ and another vicar was Hugh Rose, when Archbishop Trench was the curate.

“Two days later I went to Edwardstone, a delightful old place near Sudbury, one of the many of which Bishop Hare’s wife was the heiress, and where numbers of her Alston ancestors are buried; and then I was two days at the familiar Campsea Ashe, where, as its beloved owner says, ‘If you do not know how to enjoy yourself, you must be made to.’ Mr. Astor was there, and told me that the origin of the American expression ‘a chestnut’ lay in the rivalries of the theatres in Chestnut Street and Walnut Street in New York. An expected star who came out in the Walnut Street Theatre could only do things which had already appeared in Chestnut Street, and when the young men saw them they said, ‘That’s a chestnut,’ and it passed into a proverb.

“Mr. Astor was very funny about a man who was always late for everything, and who one day, when he was expecting a party to stay with him, rushed home after all his guests had arrived. On the stairs he met a man, with whom, to make up for lost time, he shook hands most warmly, saying, ‘Oh, my dear fellow, I’m so glad to see you; do make yourself quite at home and enjoy yourself.’ It was a burglar, very much surprised at his cordial reception, for he was carrying off all the valuables. He also said--

“‘You know Dr. N. and his wonderful tales. I heard him tell of going to shoot chamois. He had sighted one a long way off and fired. He said the chamois never moved, but put up one foot and scratched its ear. He fired again, and it put up the other foot and scratched the other ear. Then he fired again and killed it. When he came up to it, he found that each of the first shots had touched an ear. The chamois had only thought, “Oh, these damned fleas!”

“‘Then Dr. N. told of how he went after bears. A grisly came and he shot him: then another grisly came and he shot him: then a third grisly came.... “If you say you shot _him_” said a man present, “I’ll throw this bottle at your head.” “Well, the third grisly escaped,” calmly said Dr. N.’

“The last two days of my absence I spent with the Grant Duffs at Lexden Manor, where Sir Mountstuart was most agreeable and anecdotive, and whence Lady Grant Duff drove me to see the old gateway of Layer Marney, beautiful in its great decay.”

* * * * *

“_London, Nov. 29._--Luncheon with the C.’s, who had dined last night with the Wilberforces. Canon Wilberforce told them of a missionary establishment in Africa, a most admirable mission, which had been most effective, had converted the whole neighbourhood, built church and schools, and done no end of good.

“Then, in some crisis or other, the mission was swept away and the place was long left desolate.

“After many years the missionaries returned, expecting to find everything destroyed. But, to their astonishment, they found the church-bell going and the buildings in perfect repair, all looking as before--only there _was_ a difference. They could not make out what it was.

“So they went to the chief and asked him about it. ‘Well, yes,’ he said, ‘there _is_ one little difference. You used to tell us that God was love and always watching over us for good, while the devil was always seeking to destroy us; so we felt it was the devil we had better propitiate, and it is the devil we have worshipped ever since you left, and--it has most completely answered.’”

* * * * *

“_Dec. 22, 1899._--I am just at the end of a long retreat in a sort of private hospital, where I have been for the sake of the ‘Nauheim cure’ for an affection of the heart, from which I have now suffered for more than a year, and which was greatly increased by the anxieties and sorrows of last August. I am better since my ‘cure,’ but am seldom quite well now, and, as I read in a novel, ‘my dinner is always either a satisfying fact or a poignant memory,’ and generally the latter. The South African war news is casting a shadow over the closing year, and the death of Lady Salisbury has been a real sorrow--an ever-kind friend since my early boyhood. I went to the memorial service for her in the Chapel-Royal--a beautiful service, but a very sad one to many.”

* * * * *

_To_ MRS. _and_ MISS AGNES THORNYCROFT (_after a happy visit to them at Torquay_).

“_Liskeard, May 7, 1900._--I will begin a history to my two kindest of hostesses from this dreary wind-stricken little town, which is as ugly as it can be, but with a large, clean, old-fashioned posting-inn. I got a little victoria to take me the 2½ miles to St. Cleer’s Well in the uplands, in a moorland village, approached by primrosy, stitchworty lanes. The well is a glorious subject for sketching, old grey stones tinged with golden lichen, a canopy of open Norman arches, and background of purple hill. It was so bitterly, snowily cold that I feared, as I sate down on my camp-stool, that sciatica would never allow me to rise from it; but Providence sent me a whole schoolful of children, boys and girls, about sixty of them, who pressed close round through the whole performance, so I just wore them like an eider-down, and was rather hot than otherwise. Returning, the evening was still so young that I took the carriage on to St Keyne’s Well, on the other side of Liskeard, but it was scarcely worth the visit.”

“_Helston, May 8_, 6 P.M.--No farther than this, for when I arrived here at midday, I found there was no chance of getting on to the Lizard; the whole town was in too great a turmoil to attend to any individual, for it was Furry Day, a local floral festa from very early times, and all the gentlemen and ladies of the neighbourhood (the real ones!) were dancing in couples, with bands playing through the streets, under garlanded arches and flags flying from every window. This sounds lovely, but really was not--only curious, though it gave infinite satisfaction to the thousands of spectators, who on this day bring great wealth to the town. But oh! the noise and discomfort for an unwilling spectator--the organs, and peep-shows, and wild-beast shows, and ‘Boer and Briton’ shows, and horsemanship-ladies careering through the streets after the dancing was over. If any one wishes to know what the Inferno is like and the worst din the human mind can imagine, they should spend a ‘Furry Day;’ only, to be sure, at Helston all the people are quite good, which would probably make a very considerable difference!”

“_Helston, May 10._--Yesterday I breakfasted in the coffee-room with an old gentleman who was exceedingly angry with me because I did not think Sterne’s ‘Sentimental Journey’ should be one of the twelve novels to be saved if all the rest in the world were swept away--‘only the most dense ignorance of literature’ could make me confess such a thing!

“It was a drive of ten miles in a grand and lonely landau through a country brilliant with gorse and blackthorn. Beneath a great plantation on the right was the Loe Pool, only separated by a strip of silver sand from the sea, and described in Tennyson’s ‘Morte d’Arthur.’ Beyond a wooded hollow with rocks and fir trees the road enters upon the high-lying plain of the Lizard, wind-stricken, storm-swept, without a tree, the houses of ugly Lizard-town rising black against a pellucid sky on the horizon. A scrambling walk down a rugged lane, and then a pathlet marked by white stones above tremendous precipices brought me to Kynance Cove--a little disappointing, for it was high water when it ought to have been low, and a grey colourless day when it ought to have been brilliant. However, my drawing ‘answered,’ as Aunt Kitty would have said, and in two hours, as it began to mizzle, I was ready to return.”

“_Tintagel, May 10._--The ‘girling’ of the sea in the old ballad of ‘Sir Patrick Spens’ just expresses what one hears here. This ‘Wharncliffe Arms’ is an ideal inn, and very striking is the little glen, now so primrosy, with the black ruined castle, the cries of the seabirds--

‘And the great sea-waves below, Pulse of the midnight, beating slow.’”[596]

* * * * *

“_Royal Hotel, Bideford, May 15._--This house has beautiful old rooms built by John Davy, the first tobacco merchant, with splendid Italian ceilings: the little _Revenge_ was built in a shipping yard just before the house, and in a narrow street on the other side the river is a public-house which is the house of Sir Richard Grenville. I thought the path above the precipice at Lynton the most beautiful sea-walk I ever saw. In places it is a sheer wall of rock rising from the waves--

‘Which roar, rock-thwarted, under bellowing caves Beneath the windy wall.’”

* * * * *

“_Middlewick, Corsham, May 18._--The kind Clutterbucks, with whom I am staying, took me to Castlecombe yesterday, the home of the Scroopes for five hundred years, and quite one of the most enchanting places in England, in its green glen, its clear rushing river, its exquisite church tower and old market-cross. I saw it last at nine years old, and was enchanted to find its loveliness all and more than I remembered. To-day we went to luncheon at Harnish, and I visited once more the little rectory where I was at school for three and a half most miserable years. How different a little boy’s path is now! We saw Corsham Court afterwards, with Cronje’s flag floating over its staircase.”

“_Holmhurst, May 23._--I found a very large party on Saturday at hospitable Mr. Astor’s, and Cliveden in great beauty, entrancing carpets of bluebells under the trees. A telegram from the Queen of Sweden took me to Roehampton on Monday. It was twenty-two years since I had seen the King, and I thought him even handsomer and more royal-looking than of old. The Queen is not less fragile, and as full of good thoughts and words as ever. I had luncheon with the royal pair and their household, and a long talk with the Queen afterwards, who told me much of my especial Prince, now Regent in his father’s absence.”

XXXI

FAREWELL

“Pleasure to our hot grasp Gives flowers after flowers; With passionate warmth we grasp Hand after hand in ours: Now do we soon perceive how fast our youth is spent.” --MATTHEW ARNOLD.

“Oh, He has taught us what reply to make, Or secretly in spirit, or in words, If there be need, when sorrowing men complain The fair illusions of their youth depart, All things are going from them, and to-day Is emptier of delights than yesterday, Even as to-morrow will be barer yet: We have been taught to feel this need not be, This is not life’s inevitable law; But that the gladness we are called to know Is an increasing gladness, that the soil Of the human heart, tilled rightly, will become Richer and deeper, fitted to bear fruit Of an immortal growth from day to day, Fruit of love, life, and inefficient joy.”--R. C TRENCH.

“Lord, I owe thee a death: let it not be terrible: yet Thy will, not mine, be done.”--HOOKER.

“When the tapers now burn blue, And the comforters are few, And that number more than true, Sweet Spirit, comfort me!”--HERRICK.

I must close this book. Printers are calling for its last pages. It is like seeing an old friend go forth into a new world, and wondering if those who inhabit it will understand him and treat him well. Perhaps no one will read it except the intimate circle--a large one certainly--who have loved Hurstmonceaux, Stoke, and little Holmhurst at different times. But I can never regret having written it, and it has been so great an enjoyment to me, that perhaps others may like it; for I have concealed nothing, and Coleridge says, “I could inform the dullest author how he might write an interesting book. Let him relate the events of his own life with honesty, not disguising the feelings that accompanied them.”[597]

Most people will say two volumes would have been enough, but the fact is I have written chiefly for myself and my relations, and not for the general public at all. They may read the book if they like, but it was not intended for them, and, as Walter Scott describes it--

“Most men, when drawn to speak about themselves, Are moved by little and by little to say more Than they first dreamt; until at last they blush, And can but hope to find secret excuse In the self-knowledge of their auditors.”[598]

Except that I have seen more varieties of people than some do, I believe there has been nothing unusual in my life. All lives are made up of joys and sorrows with a little calm, neutral ground connecting them; though, from physical reasons perhaps, I think I have enjoyed the pleasures and suffered in the troubles more than most. But from the calm backwater of my present life at Holmhurst, as I overlook the past, the pleasures seem to predominate, and I could cordially answer to any one who asked me “Is life worth living?”--“Yes, to the very dregs.”

Sainte-Beuve says, “Il est donné, de nos jours, à un bien petit nombre, même parmi les plus délicats et ceux qui les apprécient le mieux, de recueillir, d’ordonner sa vie selon ses admirations et selon ses goûts, avec suite, avec noblesse.” And latterly my days have been “avec suite;” “avec noblesse” is what they ought to have been. In my quiet home, of which little has been said in these volumes, days succeed each other unmarked, but on the whole happy, though sometimes very lonely. The whole time passes very quickly, yet it is, as I remember the Grand Duchess Stephanie of Baden wrote to my aunt Mrs. Stanley--“In youth the years are long, the moments short, but in age the moments are long, the years short.” Really I have been alone here for thirty years, twelve in which my dearest Lea was still presiding over the lower regions of the house, and eighteen in absolute solitude. It is the winter evenings, after the early twilight has set in, which are the longest. Then there are often no voices but those of the past:--

“Time brought me many another friend That loved me longer; New love was kind, but in the end Old love was stronger.

Years come and go, no New Year yet Hath slain December, And all that should have cried, Forget! Cried but--Remember!”

People say, “It is all your own fault that you are solitary; you ought to have married long ago.” But they know nothing about it; for as long as my mother lived, and for some time after, I had nothing whatever to marry upon, and after that I had very little, and I have been constantly reminded that people of the class in which I have always lived do not like to marry paupers. Besides, the fact is, that except in one impossible case perhaps, very long ago, “I have never loved any one well enough to put myself in a noose for them: it is a noose, you know.”[599] What I have to regret is that I have no very near relations who have in the least my own interests and sympathies, though they are all very kind to me. I have far more in common with many of my younger friends, “the boys,” who cease to be boys after a few years, and many of whom, I am sure, turn to Holmhurst as the haven of their lives. But one feels that there would be this difference between any very congenial near relations and even the kindest friends: the latter are very glad to see one, but would be very sorry to see more of one; whilst the former, if they existed, would take it as a matter of course.

By friends I often feel that I am greatly over-estimated, so many ask my advice, and act upon what I tell them. It is a responsibility, but I feel that I am right in urging what I have always found answer in my own case, and what has greatly added to my happiness. When a wrong, sometimes a very cruel wrong, is done to one, one must not try at once to do some good to those who have done it, because that would be to mortify them; but if one immediately, at once, sets to think of what one can do for somebody else, it takes out the taste. Then one can very soon paste down that unpleasant page of life, as if it had never existed, and all will be as before.

Also, always believe the best of people till the worst is proved, and meditate not on your miseries, but your blessings.

The greatest of all the blessings I have to be grateful for is, that though, since my serious illness six years ago, I have never been entirely without pain, I have, notwithstanding this, good health and a feeling of youth--just the same feeling I had forty years ago. I suppose there will be many who will be surprised to see in these pages how old I am; I am unspeakably surprised at it myself. I have to be perpetually reminding myself of my years, that I am so much nearer the close than the outset of life. I feel so young still, that I can hardly help making plans for quite the far-distant future, schemes of work and of travel, and I hope sometimes of usefulness, which of course can never be realised. I have very good spirits, and I feel that I should be inexcusable if I were not happy when I remember the contrast of my present life to my oppressed boyhood, or to the terrible trial of the time when every thought was occupied by such tangled perplexities as those of the Roman Catholic conspiracy.

My next greatest blessing is my home, so infinitely, so exquisitely suited to my needs, and indeed to all my wishes. As I write this, and look from my window across the tiny terrace with its brilliant flowers to the oakwoods, golden in the autumn sunset, and the blue sea beyond, with the craggy mass of Hastings Castle rising up against it, I feel that there are few places more lovely than Holmhurst. Then the walks in the grounds offer a constant variety of wood and rock, flowers and water, and the distant view changes constantly, and composes into a hundred pictures. And in the little circle of this pleasant home love assuredly reigns supreme. I look upon my servants as my best and truest friends; their rooms, in their way, are as pretty and comfortable as my own, and I believe that they have a real pleasure in serving me. We unite together in looking after our less fortunate friends, who come in batches, for a month each set, to the little Hospice in the grounds. I could not ask my servants to do this, but they are delighted to help me thus, as in everything. When one of our little household community, as has happened four times now, passes, in an honoured and cherished old age, from amongst us, we all mourn together, watch by the deathbed, and follow the flower-laden coffin to the grave.

My local affections are centred in Holmhurst now. Rome, which I was formerly even fonder of, is so utterly changed, it has lost its enchaining power, and, with the places, the familiar faces there have all passed away. I go there every third year, but not for pleasure, only because it is necessary for “Walks in Rome,” the one of my books which pays best.

In the summer I generally have guests at Holmhurst, but even then my mornings are passed in writing, and several twilight hours besides. In the evenings there is generally reading aloud, or there are drawings to be looked at, or if “the boys” are with me there are games. Then the early months of spring are often spent abroad, and the later in London, and in the autumn I have the opportunity of far more visits than I like to pay: so that I have quite sufficient people-seeing to prevent getting rusty, or at any rate to remind me of my utter insignificance in every society except my own. However, Reviews are a perfect antidote to all follies of vainglory. I used to be pained by the most abusive ones, though I generally learnt something from them. Latterly, however, I have been more aware of the indescribable incapacity and indolence of the writers, and have not cared at all. I a little wonder, however, why I have scarcely ever had a favourable Review. My work cannot always have been so _terribly_ bad, or it would not have had so wide a circulation--wider, I think, than has attended any other work of the kind.

How I wish one knew something, anything, of the hereafter to which the Old Testament never alludes, and of which the New Testament tells us nothing satisfactory. Can we really sleep, for millions of years perhaps, or can we live in another hemisphere, or can we linger here near people and places we love, incorporeal, invisible? I believe all the truths of revealed religion, but there is so much that is unrevealed. Oh! if the disciples, during their three years’ opportunity, had only asked our Saviour a few more questions--questions so absolutely essential, to which the answers would have been of such _vital_ importance. For oh! how far more important what our state after death is than all our life’s work, than everything we have done or said or written, or what any one has thought of us. I can truly say with Olga de la Ferronays, “Je crois, j’aime, j’espère, je me repens;” but how strangely dim is the clearest sight as to the future. “The awful mysteries of life and nature,” says Whittier, “sometimes almost overwhelm me. What? Where? Whither? These questions sometimes hold me breathless. How little, after all, do we know! And the soul’s anchor of Faith can only grapple fast upon two or three things, and fast and surest of all upon the Fatherhood of God.”[600]

It is astonishing how little good can be derived from all the religious teaching which is the form and order of the day, from the endless monotony of services, from the wearisome sermons, not one of which remains with me from the thousands upon thousands I have been condemned to listen to, some few of them excellent, but most of them a farrago of stilted nonsense. I suppose that there are some types of mind which are benefited by them: I cannot believe that they were good for me. “Oh, stop, do stop; you have talked enough,” my whole heart has generally cried out when I have listened to a preacher--generally a man whom one would never dream of listening to in ordinary conversation for a quarter of an hour. It is a terrible penalty to pay for one’s religion to have weekly to hear it worried and tangled by these incapable and often arrogant beings. What does really remain with me, and raise my mind heavenwards with every thought of it, is the gentle teaching of my sweet mother in my childhood, and the practical lesson of her long life of love to God and man; the austere, unswerving uprightness and justice which was the mainspring of life’s action to the dear old nurse who was spared for forty-eight years to be the blessing of our home, ever one of those who, as Emerson says, “make the earth wholesome;” the remembrance of Hugh Pearson, Lady Waterford, and many other holy ones entered into the Perfect Life, and the certainty whence their peace in life and their calm in death was derived. Whittier again echoes my own thoughts when he says, “I regard Christianity as a life rather than a creed; and in judging my fellow-men, I can use no other standard than that which our Lord and Master has given us, ‘By their fruits ye shall know them.’ The only orthodoxy that I am especially interested in is that of life and practice.”

I know my own great imperfection and unworthiness, and when I turn from myself to others, I cannot judge them. One cannot know all the secret guiding wires of action in them. I think perhaps the secret of any influence I have with boys is, that though I am willing to tell them what I think best as to the future, I never condemn their past; I am not called upon to do so. Southey’s lines come back to me:--

“Oh, what are we, Frail creatures that we are, that we should sit In judgment man on man! And what were we If the All-Merciful should mete to us With the same rigorous measure wherewithal Sinner to sinner metes!”[601]

When I look at the dates of births and deaths in our family in the Family Bible, I see that I have already exceeded the age which has been usually allotted to the Hares. Can it be that, while I still feel so young, the evening of life is closing in. Perhaps it may not be so, perhaps long years may still be before me. I hope so; but the lesson should be the same, for “man can do no better than live in eternity’s sunrise.”[602]

“La figure de ce monde passe. Sans la possession de l’éternité, sans la vue religieuse de la vie, ces journées fugitives ne sont qu’un sujet d’effroi, le bonheur doit être une prière et le malheur aussi. Pense, aime, agis et souffris en Dieu; c’est la grande science.”[603]

“Seek out with earnest search the things above; Thence to God’s presence rise on wings of love. By Truth the veils of earth and sense are riven, And Glory is the only veil of Heaven. Seek’st thou by earthly roads to find thy way? Surprise will seize thy rein and bid thee stay; Only man’s Guardian has cross’d o’er that sea, And those whom He has bidden--‘Follow me.’ He who has journeyed on without this Friend, Worn out, has failed to reach his journey’s end. Oh, Sàdi, think not man has ever gone Along the path of Holiness alone, But only he who treads behind the Chosen One.”[604]

“Then gin I thinke on that which Nature sayd, Of that same time when no more Change shall be, But stedfast rest of all things, firmely stayd Upon the pillours of Eternity, That is contrayr to Mutabilitie; For all that moveth doth in Change delight; But thence-forth all shall rest eternally With Him that is the God of Sabaoth hight: O! that great Sabaoth God, grant me that Sabaoth’s sight.”[605]

INDEX

A.

Abbots-kerswel, iv. 249.

Aberdare, Henry Bruce, 1st Lord, iv. 427, 428; v. 225.

Aberdeen, Hon. Ishbel Marjoribanks, Countess of, v. 192, 204, 205, 380.

---- John Gordon, 7th Earl of, iii. 43; v. 192, 204, 205, 380.

---- Lady Mary Baillie, Countess of, v. 204.

Abinger, James Scarlett, 4th Lord, vi. 380.

Ackermann, Félix, i. 36, 97, 158; ii. 192, 195, 423; iii. 53-56, 338, 349.

---- Madame Victoire, i. 31, 32, 96, 339-340; ii. 192, 195, 405, 422-423, 499; iii. 52-64, 189, 253, 308, 310-312, 339, 351.

---- Victoria, iii. 309.

Acland, Sir Thomas, ii. 149.

Acland-Hood, Sir Alexander, vi. 233.

Acton, Sir John, iv. 437.

Acuto, ii. 426, 438-441; iv. 103.

Adeane, Lady Elizabeth, iv. 360.

---- Henry John, i. 214.

Adelaide, Madame, de France, iii. 23; iv. 339-340; vi. 109.

---- of Saxe-Meiningen, Queen of England, i. 189, 294; vi. 106, 478.

Aïdé, Mrs., iv. 293.

Aigues-Mortes, v. 431.

Ailesbury, Maria Tollemache, Marchioness of, v. 213, 233; vi. 67.

Airlie, Hon. Blanche Stanley, Countess of, iv. 127-128, 325-326; v. 274-275, 278, 289, 312, 384; vi. 90, 97, 135, 415-420, 436-443.

---- David Stanley William Ogilvy, 10th Earl of, vi. 440.

---- Lady Mabel Gore, Countess of, vi. 440.

Alacoque, Marguerite Marie, i. 445.

Alatri, iv. 103.

Albanie, Louisa of Stohlberg, Duchesse d’, vi. 121.

Albert, H.R.H. the Prince Consort, i. 302; ii. 286-288.

Albrecht, Archduke of Austria, 11. 35-36.

Alcock, Mrs., story of, iii. 118-123.

---- Sir Rutherford, v. 209.

Alcott, Miss Louisa, the authoress, vi. 405.

Aldeburgh, vi. 23.

Alderley, i. 61, 66; ii. 292, 293; vi. 351.

Aldermaston, ii. 219.

Alderson, Miss Louisa, iv. 73, 123.

Alemayu, Prince of Abyssinia, v. 237-238.

Alexander, Mary Manning, Mrs., i. 185, 248-251, 357, 469, 481; ii. 128.

Alford, Henry, Dean of Canterbury, i. 479; ii. 390-391, 432-433; iii. 155-157, 393-394.

---- Lady Marian, i. 293; ii. 298; iii. 28, 368; iv. 51, 55-60, 121, 399; v. 20-21, 66, 213-214, 294, 415, 455; vi. 110, 141-142, 270, 404, 483, 484.

Alfriston, i. 505.

Algeciras, iv. 33.

Alice, H.R.H. Princess, of Hesse, ii. 288; iv. 101; v. 147.

Alington, Henry Gerard Stuart, 1st Lord, vi. 164.

Allan, Charles Stuart, ii. 515.

---- John Hay, ii. 515.

Almena, Marqueza d’, iv. 41.

Alnwick Castle, ii. 353; iii. 33; vi. 134-139.

Alston, Carlotta, i. 2; vi. 517.

---- Mary Margaret, i. 2, 5; vi. 519

Altieri, Prince and Princess, v. 148, 159.

Alton Barnes, i. 45-48, 191-192, 278; iii. 110.

Amadeo, Duke of Aosta and King of Spain, iv. 31.

Amboise, ii. 495.

Amesbury, v. 292-293.

Ammerdown Park, vi. 240.

Amory, Henrietta Unwin, Lady Heathcote, vi. 90.

Ampère, J. J., v. 305.

Ampthill, Arthur, 2nd Lord, vi. 75.

Ampthill Park, iv. 412-422; v. 55.

Anagni, iv. 103.

Ancaster, Mary Panton, Duchess of, vi. 105.

Anderson, Henry, of Bradley, ii. 320.

Andover, Henry Charles Howard, Viscount, iv. 392, 393.

---- Lady Jane Coke, Viscountess, iv. 453-454.

Anglesey, Henry-William Paget, 1st Marquis of, v. 335.

Angoulême, Marie Therése de France, Duchesse d’, ii. 298; iii. 43-44; vi. 113.

Anguillara, vi. 414.

Annesley, vi. 494.

Anson, Sir John, iv. 359.

Anthony, iv. 243.

Antibes, iii. 146-149.

Antonelli, Cardinal Giacomo, ii. 72; iii. 71; iv. 172.

Antrobus, Marianne Dashwood, Lady, v. 292.

Aponte, Dom Emmanuele, i. 6-8.

Apponyi, Countess, v. 148.

Aquila, iv. 179.

Aram, Eugene, ii. 232-234.

Arcachon, ii. 465.

Archaeological Society, Roman, speech at the, v. 179.

Arco, vi. 310.

Argyll, George Douglas Campbell, 8th Duke of, iv. 329.

---- John Campbell, 2nd Duke of, iv. 216-217.

Arkcoll, Mrs. Thomas, ii. 228, 244.

Arles, iii. 184; vi. 3, 39.

---- sur Tech, v. 440.

Arley, iv. 461; vi. 230.

Armagh, Lord John George Beresford, Archbishop of, vi. 326.

Arnold, Edward, iii. 329.

---- Edward, the younger, vi. 145.

---- Mary Penrose, Mrs., i. 177; iii. 327-329, 418; iv. 63.

---- Matthew, the poet, i. 177, 512; v. 288; vi. 143-144.

---- Dr. Thomas, Headmaster of Rugby, i. 160.

Arpino, iv. 181.

Ars, Jean-Marie Vianney, le Curé d’, ii. 417-420.

Ars, visit to, iii. 134-136.

Arthur, King of Britain, vi. 320.

---- H.R.H. Prince, iv. 88, 90-93, 224.

Arundel, vi. 297.

Ashburnham House, London, iv. 337.

Ashburnham, Bertram, 4th Earl of, vi. 79.

---- Lady Catherine Baillie, Countess of, v. 323; vi. 76.

---- Hon. John, iv. 271.

---- Lady Mary, v. 320.

Ashburton, Lady Harriet Montagu, Lady, vi. 441.

---- Louisa Stewart Mackenzie, Lady, iv. 90, 91, 99, 121, 154, 305, 329; v. 60, 61, 66, 73, 211, 284, 294, 297, 314.

Ashdown, ii. 229.

Ashley, Hon. Anthony Lionel, iv. 290-291.

Ashridge, vi. 367.

Astor, Hon. W., vi. 478, 519, 525.

Athelstan, Mrs., ii. 270.

Atkens, Mr., of Kingston-Lyle, ii. 140.

Aubrey, Sir George, v. 333.

Audley End, iv. 243.

Augusta of Saxe-Weimar, Empress of Germany, v. 195.

Aumale, Henri de Bourbon, Duc d’, iii. 18; v. 446; vi. 109.

Austin, Alfred, the poet, v. 92.

Autun, ii. 320.

Avalanche, on the Mont Cenis, v. 133-135.

Avalon, the Isle of, vi. 320.

Avezzano, iv. 180.

Avila, iv. 43.

Avonmore, Therèse Longworth, Lady, v. 412.

Aylesford, Jane Knightley, Countess of, v. 292.

B.

Babington, Mrs. Catherine, ii. 351.

Babraham, vi. 229.

Babworth Hall, v. 41, 366, 417.

Bacon, Sir Hickman, vi. 64.

---- Mrs. Nicholas, iii. 169.

Baddeley, Helen Grant, Mrs. St. Clair, vi. 459, 460.

Baddesley-Clinton, vi. 34, 495.

Baden, Frederic William, Grand Duke, and Louisa, Grand Duchess, iii. 109.

---- Louis, Hereditary Grand Duke of, v. 211, 212, 213, 225-228.

Baden-Baden, i. 384.

Bagot, Mr. Charles, iii. 132.

---- Lucia Welbore, Lady, iii. 32, 368; vi. 298.

---- William, Lord, iii. 368.

Baillie-Hamilton, Mrs. Cospatrick, iii. 395.

---- James, vi. 17-18.

Baker, Sir George and Lady, v. 245.

---- Sir Samuel, iv. 388, 482.

---- Thomas Barwick Lloyd, iv. 350.

Balcarres, vi. 443.

---- Anne Dalrymple, Countess of, iv. 137.

---- Colin, 3rd Earl of, iii. 25.

---- James, 5th Earl of, iii. 24.

Balcaskie, vi. 442.

Balfour, Right Hon. Arthur, v. 92; vi. 373.

---- Charles, of Newton Don, vi. 88.

---- of Burleigh, Lady Katherine Gordon, Lady, vi. 94.

---- Minnie Georgiana Liddell, Mrs. Charles, vi. 88.

Bamborough Castle, ii. 271, 354; iii. 8, 170.

Bampfylde, Hon. Coplestone, v. 318.

Bankes, Rev. E. S., v. 457.

Bankhead, Charles, Secretary of Legation at Constantinople, i. 26.

---- Maria Horatia Paul, Mrs., i. 27, 28, 296.

Bantry, Jane Herbert, Countess of, vi. 94.

Bar-le-Duc, iii. 333.

Baratieri, General, vi. 510.

Barcelona, iv. 28.

Baring, Mrs. Drummond, v. 41, 417.

---- Hon. Mary, iv. 95.

Barker, Mary Ann Stewart, Lady, iv. 304, 331.

Barnard, Lady Anne, iii. 14, 27, 324-326.

Barnard Castle, ii. 275, 340.

Barnby, Sir Joseph, the musician, vi. 314.

Barnekow, Countess, v. 145, 152, 158.

---- Elizabeth de, v. 152.

Barraud, Madame and Mademoiselle, ii. 116, 125-128.

Barrère, Madame, iii. 87.

Barrie, James M., the novelist, vi. 434-435.

Barrington, Hon. Adelaide, ii. 139.

---- Hon. Augusta, ii. 139.

---- George, 5th Viscount, ii. 320.

---- George, 7th Viscount, iv. 362, 395.

---- Hon. Jane Liddell, Viscountess, iii. 138, 140; iv. 362, 395; v. 20, 210.

---- Maria Lyon, Hon. Mrs. Russell, ii. 282.

---- Shute, Bishop of Durham, ii. 139.

---- William Keppel, 6th Viscount, ii. 139, 140.

Bassi, Donna Laura, i. 7.

Bathurst, Benjamin, vi. 146.

---- Miss Rosa, vi. 145.

Bathyany, Count and Countess, iv. 285, 286, 429.

Battle Abbey, iv. 300-301; v. 66; vi. 4.

Baume, La Sainte, vi. 40.

Bayard, Hon. T. F., American Ambassador, vi. 402.

Bayley, Mrs., iii. 130-134.

Baynards, vi. 162.

Beaconsfield, Benjamin Disraeli, the Prime Minister, 1st Earl of, v. 47-48, 210, 343-344; vi. 99-100, 325, 373.

Bean, Ainslie, the artist, vi. 168.

Beauchamp, Lady Emily Pierrepont, Countess, vi. 101.

---- William, 7th Earl, vi. 459.

Beauclerk, Lady Sybil, vi. 475.

Beaujour, Château de, ii. 500-503.

Beaumont, Hubert G., ii. 66, 147; v. 377-378.

---- Lady Margaret, iv. 62, 65-69, 122, 148, 307, 329; v. 196; vi. 253.

---- Wentworth, iv. 62.

Beaurepaire, Mademoiselle de, iv. 411.

Beckett, ii. 138-140, 217, 229; vi. 494.

Beckwith, Priscilla Maria Hopper, Mrs., of Silksworth, ii. 422.

Bedford, Lady Elizabeth Sackville West, Duchess of, iv. 145; v. 60.

----Francis Russell, 9th Duke of, v. 60-61.

Belgians, Marie Henriette, Queen of the, vi. 29, 68.

Belgium, tour in, ii. 377.

Belhaven, Hamilton Campbell, Lady, ii. 335-337, 354-355, 358; iii. 35-36; iv. 268.

---- Robert, Lord, ii. 354, 358; iii. 35, 45-46.

Bell, Rev. Edward, vi. 351-353.

Bellagio, iii. 106.

Bellairs, Mr. and Mrs., vi. 158.

Belsay, ii. 347.

Belvoir Castle, iv. 58-60; vi. 305, 341-342.

Benalta family, story of, ii. 454-460.

Benedict, Sir Julius, the composer, v. 8.

Benedict XIV., Pope, vi. 497.

Beneventum, v. 271.

Bengivenga, Francesca, iii. 200.

Bennett, Rev. T. J. Filmer, vi. 237, 242.

---- Hon. Frederick, ii. 268-269.

---- Hon. George, ii. 268-269.

Bennigsen, Countess Marie Paul von, v. 91.

Bentinck, Penelope Leslie, Mrs. Cavendish, v. 70, 191, 275.

Bentley, Harriet, iii. 406, 412

Benzoni, the sculptor, iii. 83.

Berchtesgaden, iii. 231.

Bergeret, Madame, story of, iii. 177-182.

Berkeley Castle, i. 287; v. 304.

Berlin, v. 91-94.

Bernabo, Cardinal, iv. 172.

Bernhardt, Sarah, the actress, v. 198.

Berri, Caroline, Duchesse de, iii. 15-17, 43-44.

Berry, the Misses Mary and Agnes, i. 299-300; vi. 440.

Bestwood, vi. 475.

Betharram, iii. 487.

Beust, Frederick Ferdinand, Count von, iv. 145.

Biarritz, ii. 488; iv. 42.

Bidart, ii. 489.

Biddulph, Lady Elizabeth, v. 53. 221; vi. 302.

Bideford, vi. 524.

Birch, Sir Arthur, vi. 56.

Birtles, iii. 117.

Bishopthorpe Palace, vi. 256, 354, 356, 360, 444.

Bismarck, Count Herbert, vi. 236, 461.

Black, William, the novelist, v. 16.

Blackett, Sir Edward and Lady, of Matfen, ii. 266-267, 341, 346; iii. 170, 323; v. 19.

Blackmoor, iv. 131.

Blackwood, Sir Arthur, iii. 243.

Blaise Castle, vi. 447.

Blake, Edith Bernal Osborne, Lady, vi. 482.

---- Sir Francis, iii. 31.

Blake, Mrs. Jex, v. 237.

---- William, the artist, iii. 14.

Bland, Ven. Archdeacon, v. 424.

Blenkinsopp Castle, ii. 353.

Blessington, Harriet Power, Countess of, i. 20, 37; ii. 408.

Blickling, v. 452; vi. 105, 303.

Bligh, Hon. Arthur, iv. 237.

---- Hon. Ivo, iv. 237.

---- Lady Kathleen, iv. 426; vi. 105, 163, 164.

Blomfield, Charles James, Bishop of London, i. 470.

Blommart, Miss Elizabeth, ii. 489.

Bloomfield, Hon. Georgiana Liddell, Lady, iv. 305, 365; vi. 97, 184, 247.

---- John Arthur Douglas, Lord, v. 220.

Blyth, Miss Mary Popham, the authoress, vi. 275.

Bodley, G. F., the architect, iv. 476; vi. 448.

Bodryddan, iii. 123.

Boleyn, Anne, Queen of England, vi. 303, 315.

---- Lady Mary, vi. 317.

Bologna, i. 7-9; iii. 380; iv. 313.

Bolsover Castle, vi. 475.

Bolsover, Augusta Browne, Lady, v. 366.

Bolvilliers, Comtesse de, i. 343-351.

Bonaparte, Letizia Raimolino, Madame Mère, vi. 509.

---- Madame Jerome, v. 301.

Bonis, Madame Maria de, iii. 373, 378.

Bonnyrigg, ii. 341.

Bordighera, vi. 265.

Borghese, Adèle de Rochefoucauld, Princess, ii. 58.

---- Lady Guendolina Talbot, Princess, ii. 58, 59.

---- Marc-Antonio, Prince, ii. 58, 375.

---- Pauline Bonaparte, Princess, ii. 336.

Borghese, Teresa de Rochefoucauld, Princess, ii. 58; iii. 85, 194.

Bosanquet, Charles, of Rock, ii. 278.

---- Mrs., of Rock, ii 279.

Boscobel, iv. 440.

Bothwell Castle, iii. 48.

Boughton, v. 448.

Bourbon, Louis Henri Joseph, Duc de, iii. 21-23; vi. 122.

Bourges, ii. 310.

Bouverie, Hon. Stuart, vi. 318.

Bowes, Lady Anna, ii. 172, 173.

---- John, of Streatham, ii. 173, 178, 179, 274-276; v. 20.

---- Mrs. John, iii. 275.

Bowles, Miss, iii. 294, 298.

Boyle, Carolina Amelia Poyntz, Lady, i. 89, 291-292.

---- Hon. Carolina Courtenay, i. 289-294, 436-437, 508-509; ii. 381-384; iv. 61.

---- Edmund Montagu, iv. 249; v. 412.

---- Hon. John, iv. 249.

---- Miss Mary, i. 293; iii. 368, 370; iv. 55, 214, 426.

---- Ella Gordon, Hon. Mrs. Richard, the authoress, iv. 60.

Boyne, Lady Katherine Scott, Viscountess, iv. 445; v. 457; vi. 411, 433.

Bozledene Wood, i. 361.

Bracciano, iii. 375.

Bradford-on-Avon, vi. 484.

Bradford, Orlando Bridgeman, Earl of, vi. 474.

Bradley Manor, in Devon, i. 287.

---- in Northumberland, ii. 320.

Bradley, Rev. Charles, i. 297-299, 303-315, 332-335, 368, 369, 390-393, 396-398, 408.

---- Mrs. Charles, i. 303, 307, 369.

Brainscleugh, ii. 358.

Bramham, vi. 356.

Bramshill, v. 340.

Brandling, Charles, v. 229; vi. 105.

Brassey, Albert, ii. 391; iv. 427.

Brassey, Annie Allnutt, Mrs. Thomas, afterwards Lady, iii. 416; v. 69.

---- Henry, ii. 391.

---- Thomas, afterwards Lord, ii. 25; iv. 379.

Braybrooke, Hon. Florence Maude, Lady, iv. 223.

Breamore, iv. 348.

Breadalbane, Lady Alma Graham, Marchioness of, vi. 80, 81.

Bremen, v. 129.

Bremer, Margaret, Countess, v. 15.

Bretton Park, iv. 64-69.

Bridges, Mrs., v. 449.

Bridgeman, Hon. Francis, vi. 474.

---- Gertrude Hanbury, Hon. Mrs. Francis, vi. 474.

---- Lady Selina, ii. 389.

Bright, Right Hon. John, the orator and statesman, v. 196; vi. 95.

Brimham Rocks, ii. 339.

Brinkburn Abbey, ii. 365.

Bristol, Geraldine Anson, Marchioness of, vi. 306.

Broadlands, iv. 340-341; v. 295.

Brodie, Sir Benjamin, i. 248.

Brogyntyn, vi. 433.

Bromley, Miss Caroline Davenport, iv. 476; v. 20, 32, 38, 310, 425.

Brontë, Branwell, iv. 69; vi. 394.

---- Charlotte, the novelist, iv. 69; vi. 394.

Brooke, Rev. Stopford, iv. 335; v. 209-210.

Brooks, Bishop, vi. 310.

Broughton, Miss Rhoda, the novelist, iv. 218-219, 326, 330, 383; vi. 253.

Brown, Dr., Professor at Aberdeen, i. 22.

---- Dr. John, the author of “Rab and his Friends,” vi. 438.

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, the poetess, ii. 91, 409; vi. 431, 510.

---- Robert, the poet, ii. 408; iv. 218-219; v. 24, 289; vi. 85, 96, 431, 463.

Brownlow, Lady Adelaide Talbot, Countess, v. 204, 212; vi. 242, 246, 367-368.

---- John, 2nd Earl, ii. 137.

---- Adelbert, 3rd Earl, v. 204; vi. 242, 243, 367-368.

Brougham, Henry, 1st Lord, the legal orator, iii. 143-144; iv. 472; v. 321.

Broussa, vi. 209-214.

Bruce, Rev. J. Collingwood, the antiquarian, ii. 318; iii. 49.

---- Lord Robert, vi. 297.

---- Hon. Mrs. Robert, iii. 203.

Brunnow, Baron and Baroness, iv. 129.

Bruschi, Countess, v. 143.

Brussels, vi. 191.

Bryan, Hugh, vi. 146, 148, 192, 222, 424.

Bryce, James, the historian, v. 196.

Brymer, Dr. (Archdeacon of Wells), i. 338.

---- Marianne Wilkinson, Mrs., i. 338.

Brympton, v. 73.

Buccleuch, Lady Elizabeth Montagu, Duchess of, v. 449.

Buchanan, Miss Helen, iii. 181.

Buckhurst, v. 455; vi. 17.

Buckland, Dr. William, v. 358.

Bufalo, The Venerable Gaspare del, ii. 425, 442.

Bulkeley, Anna Maria Hare, Mrs., i. 3, 494.

Buller, Right Hon. Charles, the politician, vi. 442.

---- Sir Redvers and Lady Audrey, vi. 182, 379.

Bulman, Mrs., ii. 346.

Bülow, Madame de, v. 200.

Bulstrode, vi. 486.

Bulwer, Sir Henry, iv. 76.

Bunsen, Charles de, ii. 109; v. 85, 86, 155.

Bunsen, Isabel Waddington, Mrs. Charles de, v. 85, 155.

---- Christian, Chevalier, afterwards Baron, i. 162-163, 164, 465, 504; vi. 373.

---- Emilia de, iii. 109; v. 1, 76, 78; vi. 412.

----Frances Waddington, Madame, afterwards Baroness de, i. 465; ii. 293; iii. 333-336; iv. 321-323; v. 1, 3, 54, 130, 157.

----Frances de, ii. 293; iii. 109; iv. 322; v. 1, 76, 87.

---- George de, i. 481; v. 91.

---- Rev. Henry de, ii. 328; iv. 440.

---- Mary Battersby, Mrs. Henry de, v. 33.

---- Matilda de, ii. 293.

---- Theodora de, i. 464; ii. 294.

---- Theodore de, i. 163; v. 86.

Buntingsdale, i. 144, 208; ii. 326-327; v. 217; vi. 381.

Burford, Charles de Vere, Earl of.,, vi. 475.

Burghley House, v. 51.

Burne-Jones, Sir Edward, the artist, vi. 423-424.

Burney, Miss, the authoress, ii. 436.

Burns, Robert, the poet, ii. 164.

Burr, Mrs. Higford, ii. 220.

Burrell, Sir Raymond and Lady, vi. 323.

Burton, Isabel Arundel, Lady, vi. 460.

---- Sir Richard Francis, the traveller, vi. 357-358, 461.

Burwarton, v. 457; vi. 411.

Butcher, Miss, iv. 33.

Bute, John Patrick Stuart, 1st Marquis of, iv. 269-271, 400; v. 197, 225.

---- Gwendoline Howard, Marchioness of, iv. 270.

Butler, Rev. W. J., Vicar of Wantage, afterwards Dean of Lincoln, ii. 222-224.

Butler, Mrs., i. 501.

---- story of Mrs., vi. 365-367.

Buxton, Catharine Gurney, Lady, vi. 263, 339.

---- Miss Richenda, v. 99.

Byng, Hon. and Rev. Francis, iv. 475.

C.

Cadenabbia, vi. 293.

Cadiz, iv. 33.

Cadland, vi. 155.

Cadogan, Lady Augusta, v. 351.

---- Lady Beatrix Craven, Countess, vi. 372.

---- George Henry, 5th Earl, vi. 372.

Cadouin, v. 437.

Caen, i. 319.

Caerlaverock Castle, ii. 164.

Caiëtani, Don Filippo, ii. 58.

---- Don Onorato, iii. 87.

Cairns, Mary Harriet M’Neile, Countess, v. 205, 212.

Caister Castle, vi. 103.

Caithness, Marie de Mariategni, Countess of, iv. 325.

Calotkin, Count, i. 15.

Cambo, ii. 490.

Cambrai, vi. 44.

Cambridge, H. R. H. Adolphus, Duke of, iv. 455.

Cameron, Lady Margaret, v. 362.

---- Lady Vere, ii. 8, 481, 482.

Campbell, Janey Callander, Lady Archibald, v. 289, 290.

---- Charlotte Malcolm, Lady, i. 88.

---- Colin, i. 309, 310, 313.

---- Lady Constance, vi. 135.

---- Gertrude Blood, Lady Colin, vi. 31.

---- Lady Evelyn, vi. 17.

---- Mary Meredith, Lady Frederick, iv. 236.

---- Lord and Lady George, vi. 4.

Campbell, Kenneth, of Ardpatrick, vi. 454.

Campsea Ashe, v. 444; vi. 23, 186, 258, 499, 519.

Canevari, G. B., the portrait painter, ii. 75.

Cannes, iii. 136-156; iv. 163-165; vi. 264.

Canning, Charlotte Stuart, Countess, ii. 360; iii. 324; vi. 334, 349-350.

Canons Ashby, v. 405.

Canossa, iv. 313.

Canterbury, i. 357-366; ii. 23-25; iii. 331-332, 394.

---- Edward White Benson, Archbishop of, vi. 97, 182, 456.

---- Archibald Tait, Archbishop of, iii 35-36, 39; v. 205, 383.

Capel, Monsignor, ii. 486.

Capheaton, ii. 350.

Caprarola, Palace of, iv. 108-113.

Capri, ii. 81.

Carcolo, Marchese, iv. 101.

Cardwell, Edward Viscount, and Viscountess, iv. 362-363, 401.

Carew, Frances Anne Buller, Mrs. Pole, iii. 375, 425; iv. 244.

---- Miss Julia Pole, iii. 372; iv. 246.

---- William Henry Pole, iv. 243; v. 71.

Carham, iii. 326.

Carlandi, Onorato, vi. 468.

Carlisle, vi. 134.

Carlo Borromeo, St., iv. 112.

Carlsruhe, i. 6; iii. 109, 333.

Carlyle, Jane Baillie Welsh, Mrs., v. 7, 314; vi. 441.

---- Thomas, the author, i. 166; iv. 71, 81, 123, 154-155, 305, 367, 383; v. 274, 310, 310, 313-314, 319, 384; vi. 96, 442, 488.

Carmichael, Sir William, iii. 46.

Carnac, vi. 345.

Carnarvon, Lady Evelyn Stanhope, Countess of, iv. 126, 149, 222, 223, 228, 300; vi. 253, 474.

Carnarvon, Henrietta Howard, Countess of, iv. 228.

Caroline, Empress of Austria, ii. 42.

---- of Brunswick, Queen of England, iii. 14-15.

Carpenter, Hon. Walter Talbot, Admiral, vi. 494.

Carr of Hedgeley, family of, ii. 280.

Carrington, Charles Robert Wynn, Earl, vi. 399.

Carysfort, Charlotte Heathcote, Countess of, v. 196; vi. 376, 455.

---- William Proby, 5th Earl of, vi. 376.

Cator, John, vi. 367.

---- Mary Mohun-Harris, Mrs., vi. 225.

---- the Misses, vi. 280.

Castagnuolo, iv. 194, 319-320.

Castel Fusano, ii. 390; iv. 100.

---- del Monte, v. 270.

---- Toblino, vi. 510.

Castlecombe, vi. 525.

Castlecraig, iii. 46.

Castletown of Upper Ossory, Augusta Douglas, Lady, iv. 171, 173, 174, 218, 220, 224, 231, 232; v. 209.

---- of Upper Ossory, John FitzPatrick, Lord, iv. 232-233.

Castro, Don Alessandro del, iii. 194.

Cavaillon, vi. 38.

Cavendish, Admiral and Mrs. George, ii. 94, 97.

---- Lady Beatrice, v. 229.

---- Hon. Compton, v. 229.

---- Mr. and Lady Harriet, vi. 175.

---- Louisa Lascelles, Hon. Mrs., i. 212.

---- Lord Richard, i. 212.

Cavoni, Marchesa, v. 154.

Cecchi, Cardinal, iii. 68.

Cecil, Lord Eustace, i. 241; v. 195; vi. 22-23, 81.

Cecinelli, Lucia, i. 53.

Cenci, Count Bolognetti, iii. 49, 85, 87.

Chaise Dieu, La, iii. 150.

Chalfield Manor, Great, vi. 485.

Chalus, v. 434.

Challinor, Mrs. Hannah, i. 151.

Chambers, Theodore, vi. 343.

Chambord, Henri, Comte de, iii. 16-18.

Champlatreux, vi. 100.

Chantrey, Sir Francis, the sculptor, vi. 331.

Charlemont, Hon. Elizabeth Somerville, Countess of, iv. 483; v. 8, 11, 12, 285.

Charles II., King of England, vi. 439.

Charles X., King of France, iii. 43.

Charlotte of Mecklenbourg-Strelitz, Queen of England, ii. 436-437; vi. 105.

---- Princess, of Belgium, ii. 36, 37.

Charlton Hall, iv. 390.

---- House, near Greenwich, v. 280.

Charltons of Hesleyside, the. ii. 343.

Charteris, Lady Caroline, iv. 213.

Chartwell, i. 507; ii. 321.

Chatterton, Henrietta Georgiana, Lady, vi. 497.

Chawton, vi. 477.

Cheddar Cliff, vi. 320-321.

Cheney, Edward, of Badger, iv. 128, 325, 395.

Chequers, ii. 8.

Chesham, Henrietta Lascelles, Lady, iv. 145.

Chesterfield, Anne-Elizabeth Forester, Countess of, iv. 228.

Chesters, ii. 341; iii 49; vi. 435.

Chetwode, Mrs. George, i. 157.

Chetwynd, Harriet Johanna Camphill, Viscountess, vi. 382, 477.

Chevening, iv. 126, 235-237; vi. 295, 476.

Chevreuse, ii. 125.

Chewton, William Frederick, Viscount, iv. 240.

Chichester, vi. 19.

Chichester, Miss Catherine, ii. 94, 286.

---- Richard Durnford, Bishop of, vi. 19-20, 324.

---- Henry Thomas Pelham, 3rd Earl of, iv. 90, 348; vi. 260.

Childe, Frances Christina Leighton, Mrs., vi. 302.

Chillingham, ii. 267-271, 364; iii. 33.

Chingford, i. 312, 400.

Chipchase, ii. 343.

Chiswick, v. 24.

Cholmondeley, Miss Mary, the novelist, vi. 383.

---- Mary Heber, Mrs., i. 143.

Christ-Church, Hants, iv. 211.

Christian, H. R. H. the Princess, vi. 87.

Christina, Queen of Spain, ii. 57.

Church, Richard William, Dean of St. Paul’s, iv. 245.

Churchill, Jane Conyngham, Lady, vi. 478.

Chute, Challoner, of the Vyne, vi. 156.

Cimies, iv. 165.

“Cities of Northern and Central Italy,” iv. 352-356, 375.

Civita Castellana, ii. 53; iv. 107.

Clairvaux, vi. 17.

Clanricarde, Hon. Harriet Canning, Marchioness of, iv. 64.

Clarence, H. R. H. William, Duke of, iv. 144.

Clarendon, Lady Caroline Agar, wife of the 5th Earl of, ii. 139.

Clarke, Miss Freeman, the authoress, iv. 90.

Clayton, Mrs. Anne, ii. 318-319.

---- George Nathaniel, ii. 318, 353: vi. 435.

---- Isabel, Mrs. G. Nathaniel, ii. 318; vi. 435.

Clayton, John, of Chesters, ii. 318, 343.

---- Miss, ii. 274, 318, 341-344.

---- Mr. Matthew, ii. 318-319.

Clemens, Mr. Samuel (Mark Twain), vi. 281-283.

Clermont-Tonnerre, Comte and Comtesse de, iv. 85.

Cleveland, Lady Caroline Lowther, Duchess of, iv. 412, 417, 419-424, 468-469, 482; v. 19, 229-230, 285; vi. 79.

---- Elizabeth Russell, Duchess of, v. 230-231.

---- Harry George Powlett, 4th Duke of, iv, 83; v. 68; vi. 120-123.

---- Lady Wilhelmina Stanhope, Duchess of, iv. 83, 145, 279, 334, 338, 376; v. 210; vi. 82, 120, 128-129, 140, 459.

---- William Henry, 1st Duke of, iii. 46.

Clifford, Captain, ii. 81.

---- Edward, the artist, iv. 72; vi. 243.

Clinton, Elizabeth Grant, Lady Charles, ii. 477; iv. 328; v. 205.

---- Lady Louisa, i. 383.

---- Miss Louisa, i. 59, 210, 257, 387-388.

Clisson, vi. 147.

Clive, Mrs. Archer, the novelist, i. 453.

---- Lady Catherine, v. 308.

---- Charles Meysey, of Whitfield, v. 16.

---- Lady Mary, v. 459.

Cliveden, v. 229; vi. 478, 479, 525.

Close, Mr. and Mrs., of Nottingham, vi. 58.

Cluny, iii. 383.

Clutterbuck, Marianne Lyon, Mrs., of Warkworth, ii. 17, 284, 352.

Clyde, Falls of the, iii. 49.

Clyde, Colin Campbell, Lord, General and hero, iv. 211-212.

Cobbold, Felix, vi. 259.

Cobham, Claude Delawal, iii. 152-153.

Cobham Hall, Kent, iv. 237-238, 356-357, 411-412; v. 16, 31; vi. 141, 254, 295, 503.

Cockerton, George, vi. 347.

Coigny, Augustin, Duc de, iii. 18-19.

Colchester, v. 446.

Cole, Miss Florence, ii. 45, 54; iv. 129.

---- Miss Louisa, ii. 46; iv. 129.

---- Sir Henry, Director of South Kensington Museum, iv. 157.

Colegrave, Mrs. Francis, ii. 94, 286.

Coleman, Miss Sarah, i. 173.

Coleridge, John Duke Coleridge, Baron, iv. 77, 78.

Collatia, ii. 390.

Collet, Susanna, vi. 376-377.

Collins, Staunton, i. 154, 190.

Colonna, Isabella de Toledo, Princess, iii. 191.

Colquhoun, J. A., i. 507; ii. 322.

---- Archibald, iv. 6.

Combermere, Mary Gibbings, Countess of, v. 22, 315.

Compton, Florence Anderson, Lady Alwyne, iv. 336, 399; vi. 456.

---- Mrs., iii. 326.

Condé, Louis Philippe d’Orléans, Prince de, vi. 109.

Condover, vi. 383.

Conington Castle, iv. 424.

Conington, John, Professor of Latin, ii. 4.

Conques, v. 442.

Consolo, the musician, v. 176.

Constantinople, vi. 193-209.

Conwy, Shipley, iii. 129.

---- Colonel Shipley, iii. 130.

Cookson, Francis, vi. 375.

Coomb Bank, iv. 236.

Copeland Castle, ii. 364.

Copenhagen, v. 99-101.

Copley, Lady Charlotte, v. 419.

Corbet, Hester Cotton, Lady, of Adderley, iii. 401; iv. 133.

Cordova, iv. 30.

Cori, iv. 104.

Cork and Orrery, Edmund, 8th Earl of, i. 293.

---- Lady Emily De Burgh, Countess of, iv. 125, 410; vi. 335.

---- Isabella Poyntz, Countess of, v. 301.

Cornford, Joseph, vi. 189.

Corry, Montagu Lowrie, afterwards Lord Rowton, v. 47, 48.

Cortachy, vi. 438.

Costa le Cerda, Vicomte, ii. 115-116, 121.

Cotehele, iv. 248.

Cottrell Dormer, Mr. and Mrs., of Rousham, ii. 150.

---- Mrs. Upton, vi. 183.

Coulson, Colonel, ii. 354.

---- Mary-Anne Byron, Hon. Mrs., ii. 354.

---- Misses Mary and Arabella, of Blenkinsopp, ii. 176, 272.

Courmayeur, i. 458; ii. 409.

Courtenay, Hon. and Rev. Charles and Lady Caroline, vi. 257.

---- Lady Agnes, iii. 320.

---- Edward Baldwin, Lord, iv. 385.

---- “Sir William” (Nichols Tom), i. 361-365.

---- Miss, vi. 431.

Cousin, M. Victor, iii. 146.

Coutts, Angela Georgina, Baroness Burdett, the philanthropist, iv. 71, 396; vi. 77, 172.

Coventry, Miss Augusta, iv. 231.

Cowburne, Mrs., i. 128, 209.

Cowdray, vi. 20.

Cowell, Sir J., v. 70.

Cowley, Henry Richard Wellesley, 1st Lord, the Ambassador, iv. 81.

---- Olivia de Ros, Countess, iv. 81, 394.

Cowling Castle, v. 32.

Cowper, Lady Anne Florence de Grey, Countess, iv. 414-416.

---- Hon. Henry, iv. 145, 308, 416; vi. 95.

Cowper-Temple, Hon. William, iv. 341.

Coxe, Rev. Henry Octavius, Bodleian Librarian, ii. 157; v. 202.

Cracroft, Colonel and Mrs., iii. 382.

Cradock, Hon. Harriet Lister, Mrs., i. 512; ii. 137-138.

Cranborne, Lady Alice Cicely Gore, Viscountess, vi. 422.

Craster, family of, ii. 279.

Craven, Lady Emily Grimston, Countess, v. 47, 296.

---- Pauline de la Ferronays, Mrs. Augustus, v. 22.

Crawford, Misses Annie and Mimoli, iv. 106.

----Frank Marion, the novelist, iv. 106; v. 177.

---- James Ludovic Lindsay, 9th Earl of, vi. 120.

---- Emily Florence Wilbraham, Countess of, vi. 224, 443.

Crealock, Lieutenant-General Henry Hope, iv. 66.

Crecy, ii. 380.

Creslow Pastures, ii. 220.

Cresswell, Sir Cresswell, the judge, ii. 353.

Crewe, John, 3rd Lord, v. 13, 63.

Crewe Hall, v. 62.

Crichton, Colonel and Lady Madeleine, iv. 94.

Crichton Castle, ii. 172.

Crockett, Samuel Rutherford, the novelist, vi. 434-435.

Croglin Grange, story of, iv. 203-208.

Croisic, Le, vi. 147, 152.

Croker, James, vi. 325.

---- John Wilson, vi. 255.

Cromer, v. 449; vi. 262-263.

Crowcombe, vi. 233.

Croyland, iii. 164.

Crozant, Le, v. 433.

Crum, Mr. and Mrs., vi. 231.

Cuffe, Sir Charles, ii. 358.

Cullum, Gery Milner Gibson, vi. 24, 508.

Cummings, Mr. and Mrs. E. C., iii. 380; vi. 310-311, 394-397.

Cunliffe, Sir Robert, iv. 486.

Curran, John Philpot, vi. 359.

Curzon, Hon. George Nathaniel, afterwards Viceroy of India, v. 284, 296; vi. 421.

Cushman, Miss Charlotte, the actress, iii. 204-207, 386.

Cust, Hon. Archdeacon Arthur, afterwards Dean of York, iv. 411.

---- Lady Caroline, iv. 58-59.

Cuvier, Frederic, the naturalist, vi. 363.

D.

Daldy and Isbister, Messrs., v. 241-243.

Dalison, Charles Burrell, iv. 17, 89, 316; vi. 294.

Dallas, Mrs., iii. 380.

Dalton Hall, iii. 131; iv. 63.

Dalzel, Mrs. Allen, iii. 172.

---- Aventina Macmurdo, Mrs., ii. 17-19, 172, 357; iii. 172, 174-176.

Dampierre, ii. 125.

Darley, George, i. 164.

Darling, Mr., of Bamborough, ii. 272.

Darnley, John Stuart Bligh, 6th Earl of, vi. 164.

---- Lady Harriet Pelham, Countess of, iv. 223, 237, 426; v. 31, 199.

Dasent, Sir George, the author, i. 67, 449; v. 339, 341; vi. 31, 61-63, 75-77.

Dashwood, Anna Maria Shipley, Mrs., i. 17, 26, 158; iii. 125, 127-128.

Dashwood, Bertha Abercromby, Lady, ii. 466, 477; v. 193.

---- Sir Edwin, ii. 466.

----Florence Norton, Lady, vi. 299.

---- Sir Francis, iv. 445.

D’Aubigné, M. Merle, the historian, i. 453.

Davenport, Augusta Campbell, Mrs. Bromley, v. 216.

---- Edward, of Capesthorne, ii. 142.

---- Miss Evelyn Bromley, v. 289.

Davidoff, Adèle, Madame, i. 351; ii. 65-67, 76, 115, 416.

Davidson, Susan Jessop, Mrs., of Ridley Hall, ii. 172-177, 266, 272-274; iii. 322-323; iv. 272, 458; v. 20.

Davy, Jane, Lady, v. 56-57.

Dawkins, Mrs. Francis, ii. 297; iii. 71-75, 315.

Daylesford, iv. 435.

Days near Rome, iv. 84-85, 162.

De Capel Brooke, Mr. and Mrs., vi. 238.

Decies, John Beresford, Lord, iv. 290.

Deimling, Herr Otto, i. 162.

De Jarnac, Hon. Geraldine Foley, Comtesse, iv. 300.

Delamere, Hugh Cholmondeley, 2nd Lord, v. 195.

Delawarr, Constance Baillie-Cochrane, Countess, v. 455; vi. 143, 452.

De L’Isle, Philip Sidney, Lord, iv. 459.

Dempster, Mr. and Mrs., of Ormistoun, iv. 267-268.

Denbigh, Rudolph Feilding, 8th Earl of, iv. 427, 465; v. 281.

---- Mary Berkeley, Countess of, iv. 427, 465; v. 195.

Denfenella, ii. 168.

Denison, Alfred, iv. 465; v. 316.

Denison, Lady Charlotte, iii. 42.

---- Rev. George Anthony, v. 278.

---- Mr. Stephen, ii. 272.

Denman, George, Judge, iv. 283.

Dent, Emma Brocklehurst, Mrs., iv. 439.

Deramore, Sir R. W. de Yarburgh Bateson, Lord, vi. 425.

Derby, Edward Smith Stanley, 13th Earl of, iii. 131.

Dereham, vi. 363.

Dering, Edward Heneage, vi. 34, 497.

---- Rebecca Dulcibella Orpen, Mrs., vi. 497.

Derwentwater, James Radcliffe, Earl of, ii. 266, 351.

De Ros, Georgiana Lennox, Lady, vi. 190-191.

De Selby, Mrs., iii. 71, 73.

---- Mrs. Robert, iii. 192.

Des Voeux, Miss Georgiana, ii. 371-372; iii. 139.

De Vesci, Hon. Evelyn Charteris, Viscountess, vi. 329, 351.

Devon, William Reginald Courtenay, 12th Earl of, iv. 240, 385, 387; v. 461.

Devonshire, Lady Georgiana Spencer, wife of the 5th Duke of, i. 5, 6.

Dickens, Charles, ii. 275.

---- Lady Elizabeth, v. 20.

Dictionary of National Biography, vi. 223.

Dilston, ii. 266, 320.

Dino, Duc de, v. 155.

Dixon, Louisa Simpkinson, Mrs., iii. 397.

Dixon-Browne, Mr. and Mrs., of Unthank, iii. 170.

Dodd, Mr. Wolley, the botanist, vi. 231.

Dolceacqua, ii. 253.

Dolgorouki, Prince Nicol, iii. 68, 84.

---- Princess, the story of, iv. 293-299.

Domremy, vi. 44.

Doncaster, ii. 261.

Donington, Charles Abney-Hastings, Lord, vi. 230.

Donoughmore, Thomasine Steele, Countess of, v. 383; vi. 97.

Dorchester, Dudley Carleton, 4th Lord, v. 205.

Doria, Donna Guendolina, ii. 71.

---- Prince Filippo, ii. 424.

---- Donna Olimpia, ii. 72.

---- Donna Teresa, ii. 70.

D’Orsay, Count Alfred, artist and dandy, i. 18, 20, 29, 37; ii. 408; v. 299.

Dorset, John Frederick Sackville, 3rd Duke of, vi. 121.

Douglas, Lady Agnes, v. 138, 145, 150.

Dowdeswell, Miss, iii. 76, 82.

Downshire, Caroline Frances Cotton, Marchioness of, v. 223.

Doyle, Sir Francis, the poet, v. 16, 55.

---- Percy, iv. 360.

---- Richard, the artist, iv. 67, 325; v. 46.

Draycot, iv. 394.

Drayton House, v. 447.

Drummond, Augusta Charlotte Fraser, Mrs. Robert, vi. 12, 26.

----Frances Jemima Oswald, Mrs., of Megginch, vi. 410.

---- George, of Swaylands, vi. 456.

---- Elizabeth Norman, Mrs. George, vi. 456, 500.

---- Henry, founder of the Irvingites vi. 136.

---- William [1585-1649], of Hawthornden, the poet, vi. 444.

Dublin, Richard Chevenix Trench, Archbishop of, iv. 90, 328.

Dubois, Madame, iv. 163.

Ducie, Henry John Moreton, 3rd Earl of, iv. 381, 397; v. 298.

Ducie, Julia Langston, Countess of, iv. 219, 435; v. 30, 273, 281.

Duckworth, Sir John and Lady, iv. 245.

---- Robinson, afterwards tutor to Prince Leopold and Canon of Westminster, i. 446, 472; ii. 4, 33.

Dudley, 1st Earl of, i. 20; iv. 421.

Dufferin, Helen Selina Sheridan, Baroness, vi. 475.

Dugdale, Alice Trevelyan, Mrs. Stratford, v. 13.

Dumbleton, Miss Harriet, i. 269.

Dumfries, ii. 163.

Dundas, Hon. Alice Wood, Mrs. John, iv. 369; v. 422; vi. 484.

Dunlop, Harriet, Mrs., iii. 258, 260, 281-282, 288, 290, 292, 298, 304, 306, 317.

Dunraven, Anne, Countess of, v. 148, 151.

Dunottar, ii. 166.

Dunstanborough Castle, ii. 269-270, 364; iii. 35, 36.

Dunster Castle, vi. 235.

Duntrune, ii. 165.

Dupanloup, Felix Antoine Philibert, Bishop of Orleans, iii. 360.

Du Quaire, Fanny Blackett, Madame, iv. 200, 219, 220; v. 198, 311, 386; vi. 28-31.

Durham, ii. 262.

Durham, Beatrix, Countess of, ii. 364-366; iii. 35-39.

---- George Frederick, 2nd Earl of, ii, 364-365; iii. 35-36; iv. 124.

---- Sir Philip, v. 15.

Dutton, Hon. Julia, iv. 466.

---- Hon. Ralph and Mrs., iv. 71, 331. 397; v. 287.

Dyrham Park, i. 315.

Dysart, Elizabeth Tollemache, Countess of, v. 235.

E.

Eardley, Sir Culling, ii. 289.

Earle, Theresa Villiers, Mrs., the authoress, vi. 254.

Eastbourne, i. 63, 210, 256, 376, 505.

East Hendred, 11. 230.

Eastlake, Elizabeth Rigby, Lady, iii. 154-155, 418; v. 308, 311.

Ebury, Robert, 1st Lord, iv. 400; vi. 89.

Eccles Greig, ii. 168.

Eddis, E. V., the portrait-painter, vi. 324-326, 330-333.

Edgecumbe, Fanny-Lucy Shelley, Hon. Mrs. George, iv. 247-248.

---- Lady Ernestine, vi. 257.

---- Hon. George, iv. 247.

---- Sir Richard, iv. 248.

Edgeworth, Life and Letters of Maria, vi. 370.

Edinburgh, iv. 449.

Edinburgh, H.R.H. Duke and Duchess of, v. 210.

---- H.R.H. the Duchess of, vi. 261.

Edwardstone, vi. 519.

Egerton, Lady Blanche, iii. 32.

---- Rev. Charles, i. 137.

---- Elizabeth Sykes, Mrs., iv. 460.

---- Miss Mary, vi. 97.

---- Lady Mary, iv. 348, 464.

---- of Tatton, Lady Charlotte Loftus, Lady, iv. 460-462; v. 65.

---- of Tatton, Lady Mary Amherst, Lady, vi. 229-239, 305.

---- of Tatton, William Egerton, William, 1st Lord, iv. 382; v. 18.

Elcho, Lady Anne Anson, Lady, ii. 356; iii 42; v. 206.

Eldon, John Scott, 1st Earl of, vi. 333.

Eliot, William, Lord, iv. 245.

Elizabeth, Queen of England, iv. 77, 337; v. 332.

Ellice, Lady Jane, iv. 9, 51, 136, 209, 213, 254, 338, 405, 406, 408; v. 214; vi. 21.

---- Mr. William, iv. 51, 405; v. 214.

Elliot, Lady Harriet, iv. 447.

---- Miss Margaret, iv. 324.

Ellis, Hon. Harriet, iv. 182, 189.

Ellisland, ii. 164.

Ellison, Mr. Cuthbert, i. 50.

---- Mrs. of Sugbrooke, iii. 169.

Elphinstone, Sir Howard, iv. 230; vi. 152, 181.

Elsdon, ii. 345.

Elton Hall, v. 271; vi. 376, 455.

Eltz, vi. 223.

Elvedon, vi. 400.

Ely, iii. 8.

Embrun, vi. 46.

Enfield, Lady Alice Egerton, Viscountess, v. 363.

Enniskillen, William Willoughby, 3rd Earl of, iv. 382.

Ensleigh, vi. 181.

Erskine, Emmeline Adeane, Mrs. Thomas, novelist, iii. 201; v. 278.

---- Thomas, of Linlathen, essayist, ii. 165, 278.

Escrick, ii. 437.

Escurial, Palace of the, iv. 42.

Eslington, ii. 320, 364.

Este, iii. 229.

Eugène Beauharnais, Prince, i. 20.

Eugénie de Montijos, Empress of the French, i. 492; iii. 392; iv. 225, 434; v. 205, 210-211, 417-418; vi. 350-351.

Eulenborg, Count, v. 96, 98.

Evans, Rev., iii. 3.

Eversley, Charles Shaw-Lefevre, Viscount, ii. 217; iv. 343; v. 221, 340.

Evreux, i. 326.

Ewart, Herbert and Lady Mary, vi. 517.

Exeter, Lady Georgina Pakenham, Marchioness of, v. 47.

Exeter, Henry Phillpotts, Bishop of, ii. 264; iv. 249.

---- William Alleyne Cecil, 3rd Marquis of, v. 47, 52.

F.

Faa, Esther, Queen of the Gipsies, iv. 250-252.

Facchini, Giacinta, “the Saint of St. Peter’s,” ii. 429-430; iii. 253-254.

Fairholme, Grace Palliser, Mrs., iv. 133, 135, 136, 139, 143.

Falconnet, Mademoiselle Judith, ii. 59.

Falk, Paul Ludwig, the politician, v. 92.

Falkirk Tryst, iii. 48.

Falkland, Byron Plantagenet Cary, 12th Viscount, vi. 445.

Fane, Captain, iv. 288.

Farfa, iv. 190.

Farley Hungerford, i. 271-272.

Farnese, Cardinal Alessandro, iv. 112.

Farquharson, Miss, of Invercauld, v. 456.

Favart, Madame, v. 176.

Fawsley, v. 404.

Feilden, Mr. and Mrs. Arbuthnot, iii. 78-80; iv. 106.

Feilding, Lord and Lady, i. 340.

Felbrigge, v. 451.

Felixstowe, vi. 259.

Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn and Mrs., vi. 241.

---- Susan Lyon, Mrs., ii. 272, 317.

Fénélon, Chateau de, v. 437.

Fergusson, Sir James, v. 8.

Ferney Voltaire, i. 453.

Ferrar, Nicholas, of Little Gidding, vi. 376-378.

Ferrara, ii. 47; iii. 345.

Ferrers, Sir Edward, vi. 498.

---- Laurence, 4th Earl, iv. 236.

---- Marmion Edward, vi. 497.

Ferronays, M. de la, ii. 68.

Fersen, John Axel, Comte de, iv. 273-279.

Feuchères, Sophia Dawes, Madame de, iii. 21-23; iv. 338-339; vi. 122.

Feuchtwanger, the Misses, vi. 285.

Fiano, Don Marco, Duke of, ii. 59, 424.

---- Donna Giulia Boncompagni, Duchess of, ii. 59.

Fielding, Copley, the artist, i. 165, 505.

Filiol, Sybil, i. 157.

Fina, S., iii. 344.

Finucane, Miss Anastasia, iii. 209, 378.

Firle, v. 407.

Fisher, Captain Edward, iv. 201, 203, 307.

----Frederick, iii. 67, 414.

FitzClarence, Lady Frederick, iii. 29-30.

Fitzhardinge, Georgina Sumner, Lady, v. 304, 306.

FitzGerald, Edward Fox, i. 29.

---- Jane Paul, Mrs. Edward, i. 29; iii. 267, 269, 271, 272; iv. 243.

---- Pamela Sims, Lady Edward, i. 28; iv. 243; v. 413.

---- Percy, the author, vi. 259.

Fitzherbert, Mrs., iii. 324.

Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond, v. 14.

---- Mrs., iii. 226.

Fitzwilliam, Lady Albreda, iv. 282.

---- Hon. Charles, vi. 378.

---- Lady Frances Douglas, Countess, iv. 269, 281-282.

---- William, 6th Earl, iv. 269, 281.

Flahault, Margaret, Baroness Keith, Comtesse de, iv. 61.

Fletcher, Miss, of Saltoun, ii. 355; iii. 40, 42, 43.

---- Lady Charlotte, ii. 356; iii. 43-45.

Flint, Professor Robert, theologian, v. 323.

Flodden Field, ii. 281.

Florence, ii. 84; iii. 315; iv. 193; vi. 510.

Florence, Henry, iii. 363.

Flower, Constance de Rothschild, Mrs. Cyril, afterwards Lady Battersea, vi. 90.

---- Professor (Sir) William Henry, vi. 81.

Foley, Henry Thom, 5th Lord, v. 284.

---- Lady Mary Howard, Lady, v. 413.

---- Miss Margaret, the sculptress, iv. 90.

Folkestone, Matilda Chaplin, Viscountess, v. 15.

Fontainebleau, i. 451.

Fontaines, iii. 183.

Fontarabia, ii. 493.

Fontenay, iii. 385.

Ford Abbey, vi. 296.

Ford Castle, ii. 280-282, 360-363; iii. 323-326; iv. 51, 133-144; vi. 158-161, 244-249.

---- Mary Molesworth, Mrs., of Pencarrow, vi. 95.

Forester, Hon. Eleanor Fraser, Mrs. Henry, vi. 123.

Forli, iv. 315-318.

Forster, Harry, vi. 156.

---- Professor, iv. 326.

Fortescue, Elizabeth Geale, Countess, iv. 249.

---- Hugh, Earl, iv. 249.

Foscolo, Ugo, iv. 346.

Foster, Dr., Bishop of Kilmore, ii. 233.

---- Miss, ii. 234.

---- Mrs. Johnston, vi. 301.

Fotheringham, Mrs., of Fotheringham, ii. 165.

Fotheringhay, v. 272.

Fox, Charles James, the politician, vi. 401.

---- George Lane, of Bramham, vi. 357.

---- St. George Lane, v. 416.

Framlingham, v. 445.

France, publication of volumes on, vi. 238.

Francesca Romana, St., iii. 225-226.

Francesco d’Assise, King Consort of Spain, iv. 35-37.

Francesco II., King of Naples, iii. 85, 96-97.

Francheschi, Signor, v. 22.

Franklin, Lady, iii. 2.

Franzoni, Madame, iv. 166-167.

Fraser, Mrs., v. 323.

Fray, Miss, i. 268.

Frederick the Great of Prussia, ii. 148; v. 92.

---- Crown Prince of Prussia, afterwards Emperor of Germany, ii. 374; v. 96, 97; vi. 69.

Freeman, Edward Augustus, the historian, iv. 354-356. 424; vi. 380.

Frere, G. E., v. 331.

Fribourg, in Breisgau, iii. 109.

---- in Switzerland, ii. 112.

Fritwell Manor, ii. 151.

Froude, James Anthony, the historian, iv. 397; v. 18, 197, 289.

Fry, Elizabeth Gurney, Mrs., i. 229; ii. 437.

---- Mrs., of Clifton, iv. 78-80.

Fryston, iv. 69.

Fullerton, Lady Georgiana, ii. 400, 403; iii. 270, 287.

Fuseli, Henry, R.A., vi. 330.

Fyler, Rev. J., Vicar of Cornhill, iv. 264, 266.

---- Gabet, M., ii. 421.

G.

Gabriac, Marquis de, ii. 115.

---- Marquise de, ii. 67.

Gabrielli, Augusta Bonaparte, Princess, v. 140.

Gaebler, M. Bernard, i. 161.

Gage, Henry, 5th Viscount, v. 407.

Galicano, the Hermitage of, ii. 98.

Galloway, Lady Mary Cecil, Countess of, vi. 224.

Galway, Henrietta Eliza Milnes, Viscountess, vi. 421.

---- Rev. Father, ii. 398-404, 427; iii. 263, 287.

Garden, Miss Henrietta, i. 108; iii. 193, 213, 220; v. 135, 345; vi. 264, 275, 279, 415, 505, 509.

Gargilesse, v. 433.

Garrowby, vi. 389.

Gaskell, Charles Milnes, vi. 28.

---- Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson, Mrs., the novelist, ii. 224; iii. 117.

Gasperoni, the robber chieftain, ii. 54.

Gatton Park, v. 33.

Gaussen, M., i. 453.

Gayford, Mrs., i. 53, 369.

Gemmi, adventure on the, i. 462.

Geneva, i. 452; ii. 379.

Genoa, ii. 253; iii. 187.

George III., King of England, ii. 434-436.

George IV., King of England, iii. 14, 15, 176, 324; iv. 308; v. 335; vi. 359.

Germany, H.R.H. Frederick, Crown Prince of, ii. 374; v. 96, 97; vi. 69.

----Frederick William II., Emperor of, vi. 253.

---- H.R.H. Victoria, the Crown Princess of, v. 75, 96-98; vi. 69, 70.

Ghizza, Ancilla, iii. 234.

Giacinta, the “Saint of St. Peter’s,” ii. 429-430; iii. 253-254.

Gibraltar, iv. 34-37.

Gibside, ii. 180.

Gibson, John, the sculptor, iii. 76-78.

Gidding, Little, vi. 376-378.

Gidman, John, i. 131; ii. 33, 83, 386; iii. 232, 406, 412; iv. 46; v. 378.

---- Mary Lea, Mrs., i. 205-207, 210; ii. 33, 468, 489; iii. 195, 316, 399, 403, 409, 412, 413, 414; iv. 46, 299, 373-375; v. 315, 325, 352, 369-381.

Gilbertson, Rev. Lewis, Minor Canon of St. Paul’s, vi. 375, 464.

Gilling Castle, vi. 256.

Gioberti, Signor, iii. 167.

Girgenti, v. 251.

Gladstone, Catherine Glynne, Mrs., ii. 381; iv. 397, 462; v. 210.

---- Rt. Hon. William Ewart, the statesman, iv. 397, 461-462; v. 210; vi. 235-236, 325, 408, 483.

Glamis Castle, i. 22; v. 44, 217-218.

Glamis, John Lyon, 6th Lord, i. 23.

---- John Lyon, 7th Lord, i. 23.

---- John Lyon, 8th Lord, i. 23.

Glassenbury, vi. 55.

Glastonbury, i. 98.

Gleichen, Countess Valda, vi. 499.

Glemham, v. 445.

Gloucester and Bristol, Charles John Ellicott, Bishop of, iv. 401.

Glyn, Hon. and Rev. Edward Carr, afterwards Bishop of Peterborough, iv. 283, 284.

Glynde Place, v. 407.

Goldschmidt, Jenny Lind, Madame, i. 236; iii. 146-149; iv. 80; v. 200; vi. 260-262, 406.

Goldsmid, Nathaniel, ii. 68; iii. 168.

---- Mrs. Nathaniel, iii. 69, 71-75, 93.

Goldstone Farm, i. 150, 208.

Gondi, Count, iii. 252.

Gontaut, Duchesse de, Governess of the Children of France, vi. 321.

Gordon, Alexander, v. 319-320.

---- Hon. Sir Arthur, afterwards Lord Stanmore, v. 203, 208.

---- Hon. Canon Douglas, iv. 347; vi. 105, 414.

Gordon, Lady E., vi. 405, 414.

---- Hon. John, iii. 43.

---- Misses Duff, iv. 370.

---- Isabella Grant, Lady Francis, iv. 66, 67, 410.

Gore, Lady, i. 278.

Gorhambury, v. 47.

Gosau, Lakes of, 11, 41.

Gosford, ii. 356.

Gower, vi. 101.

---- Granville Leveson, vi. 305.

---- Lord Ronald, iv. 61; v. 228, 275, 340, 372, 374; vi. 341.

Grammont, Antoine, Duc de, vi. 29.

Granada, iv. 37-39.

Grande Chartreuse, La, ii. 258.

Grant, Dr., Bishop of Southwark, ii. 442.

----Frederick Forsyth, i. 440; ii. 151, 168.

---- General, the American, v. 97.

---- Miss Katherine, v. 429.

---- Lady Lucy, v. 281.

---- Miss Mary, the sculptress, iv. 397; v. 281.

---- Owen, v. 279; vi. 96.

---- Duff, Sir Mountstuart and Lady, vi. 520.

Granville, Castalia Campbell, Countess, vi. 301.

---- Mr. Court, and Lady Charlotte, ii. 353.

Gravetye, vi. 227.

Gray, Dr. Asa, the botanist, v. 300-301.

Great Oakley Hall, vi. 238.

Greenwell, Rev. Canon William, the archaeologist, v. 424.

Greenwood, John, of Swancliffe, v. 425.

Gregory, Pearson, of Harlaxton, vi. 501.

---- Mrs., ii. 482-486; iv. 200.

Gregory XVI., Pope, iii. 74.

Grenfell, Alethea Adeane, Mrs. Henry, v. 326.

Grenoble, vi. 51.

Gresford, i. 96; ii. 448.

Grey, Albert, vi. 18.

---- Anna Sophia Ryder, Lady, of Falloden, ii. 279, 363.

---- Charles, 2nd Earl, the Prime Minister, iii. 36; iv. 286.

---- Charlotte Des Voeux, Lady, ii. 251, 371, 377; iii. 139, 154; iv. 327.

---- Lady Elizabeth, ii. 276, 366.

---- Hon. and Rev. Francis, ii. 276-278, 366; v. 231, 461.

---- Hon. Sir Frederick, iv. 283.

---- George, of Falloden, iv. 290.

---- Right Hon. Sir George, of Falloden, statesman, ii. 279, 363; iii. 36; iv. 99; v. 2.

---- Sir George, of New Zealand, ii. 214-217; iii. 330.

---- Rev. Harry, i. 253.

---- Henry George, 3rd Earl, the politician, iii. 35, 36; iv. 62.

---- Lady Georgiana, ii. 332, 334-335, 337-339.

---- John, of Dilston, ii. 266.

---- Maria Copley, Countess, iii. 35-36; iv. 62.

---- Mrs. William, iv. 473.

Greystoke, vi. 354.

Greville, Hon. Alwyn, v. 214.

---- Mrs., _née_ Locke, ii. 94.

---- Sabine Thellusson, Mrs., iv. 370, 484; v. 38-41, 289-290.

---- William Fulke, v. 223.

Grignan, Chateau de, vi. 37.

Grigor, Dr., of Nairn, iii. 373; iv. 89.

Grimaldi, ii. 250.

---- the Marchesa, ii. 320.

Grimston, Lady Anne, vi. 374-375.

---- Lady Jane, v. 48.

Groombridge Place, vi. 322-323.

Grosvenor, Hon. Mrs. Norman, vi. 367.

---- Lady Sybil Lumley, Countess, vi. 353.

Grosvenor, Hon. Victoria, vi. 77.

Grote, Harriet Lewin, Mrs., ii. 26-29, 218; iv. 480; v. 307-308, 310-312; vi. 253.

Grove, Elizabeth Hill, Mrs. Thomas, iii. 394; v. 291.

Guerande, La, vi. 152.

Guildford, the trial at, iii. 294.

Guiness, Adelaide Maria Guiness, Mrs. Edward, v. 204.

Guizot, M. François Pierre Guillaume, Prime Minister, i. 320.

Gunnora, Duchess of Normandy, i. 319.

Gurdon, story of Father, vi. 130.

Gurney, Miss Anna, i. 230.

---- Mrs. Catherine, i. 229.

Gurneys of Earlham, the, vi. 337-339, 370-371, 384.

H.

Haddington, Helen Warrender, Countess of, iv. 445.

Hadleigh in Essex, vi. 518.

Haig of Bemerside, the Misses, iii. 378.

Hailes Abbey, iv. 438.

Hailstone, Mr. and Mrs., of Walton, iv. 68.

Hale, Dr. Douglas, ii. 369, 497.

---- Mrs., ii. 497; iii. 414.

Halifax, Lady Agnes Courtenay, Viscountess, iv. 290; vi. 353, 424.

---- Miss Caroline, i. 284.

---- Sir Charles Wood, Viscount, the statesman, iv. 290, 325, 362; v. 421.

---- Charles Lindley Wood, Viscount, President of the Church Union, v. 461; vi. 64, 97, 181-182, 257-258, 353, 424.

---- Lady Mary Grey, Viscountess, iv. 290, 475.

Hall, Mrs. Richard, iii. 159, 196, 198.

Hallam, Arthur, i. 509.

Hallein, mines of, ii. 42.

Hallingbury, iii. 7.

Hallstadt, ii. 40.

Halsbury, Hardinge Stanley Giffard, Lord Chancellor, vi. 478.

Hamilton, Alexander, 10th Duke of, ii. 336, 359.

---- Hon. Emma Elizabeth Proby, Lady Claude, vi. 376.

---- Lady Emily, iii. 48.

---- Hon. Frances Scott, Mrs. Baillie, iv. 259.

---- Rev. Henry Parr, Dean of Salisbury, iv. 346.

---- Hon. Margaret Dillon, Mrs., i. 382.

---- Princess Mary of Baden, Duchess of, ii. 358.

---- Mary Grove, Mrs. Cospatrick Baillie, iii. 395.

---- Lady Margaret, vi. 97.

---- Hamilton, Mrs., iv. 211-212, 215, 338-340, 404, 408.

Ham House, v. 231; vi. 225.

Hampden, Great, ii. 8.

---- Eliza Ellice, Viscountess, v. 407.

Hams, vi. 406.

Hanbury, Cecil, of La Murtola, vi. 341, 347.

Hanover, H.R.H. Princess Frederika of, v. 195.

---- H.R.H. Princess Mary of, iv. 429; v. 351, 429.

---- H.M. Queen Mary of, iv. 431-434; v. 351.

---- H.M. King George of, ii. 152, 153; iv. 431; v. 307.

Harcourt, Archbishop, iii. 157.

---- House, vi. 80.

---- Right Hon. Sir William, the statesman, v. 273.

Hardwick Hall, Suffolk, vi. 24, 102-103.

Hardwicke, Lady Elizabeth Lindsay, Countess of, iii. 24-27, 324; iv. 139-140.

Hardwicke, Hon. Susan Liddell, Countess of, ii. 403; iv. 409; v. 222.

Hardy, Thomas, the novelist, vi. 398.

Hare, Anna-Maria Clementina, i. 11, 13.

---- Anne Frances Maria Louisa, i. 39, 161, 338-357, 370; ii. 55-57, 70, 72, 114-115, 182-213, 284, 400, 409-432, 499-517; iii. 68, 89, 232, 233-272.

---- Augustus John Cuthbert: birth of, i. 42; baptism, 50; adoption, 51; is sent to England, 53; childhood of, 54-166; sent to school at Harnish, 167; private school life of, 170; at Harrow, 214-246; at Lyncombe, 247-296; at Southgate, 297-401; tour in Normandy, 318-331; tour in Belgium, Germany, and France, 377-387; goes to University College, Oxford, 402; second tour in Germany and France, 422-436; in France and Switzerland, 450-465; in Wales, 501-503; in Scotland, ii. 17-23; leaves Oxford, 31; in Switzerland and Austria, 33-44; first journey to Rome and Naples, 45-84; summer at Florence and Lucca, 84-103; autumn in Northern Italy and Paris, 103-128; writes Murray’s Handbook for Berks, Bucks, and Oxfordshire, 133-241; second summer in Scotland, 162-172; has to leave Hurstmonceaux, 227; leaves Lime, 243; settles at Holmhurst, 244; spends the winter at Mentone, 246-258; writes Murray’s Handbook for Durham and Northumberland, 260-366; spends the spring at Nice and early summer in Switzerland, 370-380; second winter at Rome, 384-409; visit to Escrick, 433; spring at Pau and Biarritz, 462-497; summer in Northumberland, iii. 8-49; third winter at Rome, 50-109; winter at Cannes, 134-152; fourth winter at Rome, 183-232; death of his sister, 232; is attacked by a Roman Catholic conspiracy, 272-312; fifth winter at Rome and dangerous illness, 314-320; sixth winter at Rome, 333-386; death of his adopted mother, 400; writes “Memorials of a Quiet Life” under great opposition, iv. 1-9; visits at Penzance and Bournemouth and Highcliffe, 6-14; lawsuit about a portrait by Sir J. Reynolds, 17-24; travels in Spain with Miss Wright, 24-44; autumn of 1872 in Northumberland and Yorkshire, 51-71; visit at Hatfield, 72-82; publication of “Wanderings in Spain,” 83-84; seventh winter at Rome, 85-123; autumn of 1873 in the North of England, 132-148; work in 1874 on “Cities of Northern and Central Italy,” 162-197; becomes a member of the Athenaeum, 198-199; publishes a third volume of “The Memorials,” 309-311; tour for work in 1875 in Northern and Central Italy, 312-323; visits in London and the country, 323-351; publishes “Cities of Northern and Central Italy,” 352; is attacked by Mr. John Murray, 353; by Mr. Edward Freeman, 354; attends Lady Augusta Stanley’s funeral, 366; visit at Powdenham, 385; at Charlton, 388; at Highcliffe, 404; at Cobham, 411; at Ampthill, 412; at Conington, 424; at Sarsden, 426; at Donington, 440; at Raby, 442; at Whitburn, 443; at Winton, 447; at Ravensworth, 451; at Kinmel, 458; at Tatton, 459; at Sherborne, 465; at Osterley, 467; at Hinchinbroke, 470; writes the Memoirs of Baroness Bunsen, v. 1; visit at Llanover, 3; at Milford, 38; at Babworth, 41; at Thoresby, 43; at Glamis, 44; at Gorhambury, 47; at Goldings, 53; at Ampthill, 55; at Crewe, 62; at Battle Abbey, 66; meets the Crown Princess of Germany, 75; visits the Princess of Wied, 77; visits and tour in Germany, 85-99; in Denmark, 99-102; in Sweden, 102-108; in Norway, 108-118; visit to the King and Queen of Sweden and Norway, 118-129; undertakes to be with the Crown Prince at Rome, 132; is overtaken by an avalanche on the Mont Cenis, 134; at Rome with the Crown Prince, 135-177; speech before the Roman Archaeological Society, 179-190; in London with the Crown Prince, 195-213; visits with the Crown Prince, 213-217; at Llanover with the Hereditary Grand Duke of Baden, 225-228; suffers from the bankruptcy of his publishers, 241; makes a tour in Sicily and Apulia in 1879-80, 245-271; edits the Life of Amelie von Lassaulx, 292; goes to Holyrood as equerry to the High Commissioner, 318-324; visits Rome, Capri, Calabria, and Venice in 1882, 344-352; tour in Holland in 1882, 363-365; death of his old nurse, 369-381; travels in Russia in 1883, 391-401; tour in Picardy and Switzerland in 1884, 408-411; loss of fortune, 416; first journey in France for literary purposes in 1885, 430-442; his failures in trying to help young men, 462-470; reaches middle life, vi. 1-3; travels in France and Italy in 1886, 8-17; travels in France in 1887, 35-54; is arrested at Vizille, 48; publishes “Paris,” and “Days near Paris,” 114-117; travels again in France in 1888, 146-152; last visit to Ford, 158; spring on the Riviera and at Rome and Venice in 1889, 165-170; loss from books, 165; illness at Holmhurst in 1889, 187-188; journey to Constantinople, Broussa, and Oberammergau in 1890, 192-225; last visit to Highcliffe, 228-229; his loss in Lady Waterford, 241-251; spring on the Riviera and at Rome and Venice in 1892, 263-294; serious illness at Holmhurst in 1892, 299-301; loss of Miss Leycester, 318-319; writes a volume on Sussex, 322; publishes “Two Noble Lives,” 333-336; writes the “Gurney Memoirs,” 337-339; travels in Normandy and Brittany in 1894, 342-346; publishes “Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth,” 370-371; publishes “The Gurneys of Earlham,” 384-385; publishes “North-Western France” and “Biographical Sketches,” 392; spring on the Rivieras and at Rome and Venice in 1896, 411-421; visits at Reigate, Hatfield, and Osterley, 421-424; visit at Wollaton, 425; visits at Oswestry, Lutwyche, Chesters, North Berwick, Airlie Castle, Bishopthorpe, 434-436; publishes the first three volumes of “The Story of my Life,” 446; visits at Lockinge, Blaise Castle, Hewell, Elton, Madresfield, Painswick, Hereford, 447-463; visits at Maiden-Bradley, Burwarton, Teversal, Thoresby, Cliveden, 473-480; builds at Holmhurst, 491; visits at Shrivenham, Oxton, Streatlam, Kiplin, Baddesley-Clinton, Sonning, and Belvoir, 494-502; at Rome in the spring of 1899, 505-510; at Florence and Arco, 510; attends the deathbed of Mrs. C. Vaughan, 513-516; is at Swaylands with the Duchess of York, 410; visits in Suffolk, 517-521; undergoes the Nauheim treatment, 521; tour in Devon and Cornwall, 522-524; visits at Corsham and Cliveden, 525; visit to the King and Queen of Sweden, 525.

Hare, Augustus William, Rector of Alton-Barnes, i. 6, 13, 14, 43-49.

---- Mrs. Augustus (Maria Leycester), i. 43, 54-80, 98-171, 187-196, 200-201, 210-212, 240, 254, 259, 262, 365, 376-377, 437-438, 442-444, 450, 454, 464, 466, 469, 487-492; ii. 14-17, 44-49, 76, 80, 85, 97, 109, 130, 227-229, 243, 246-247, 259, 326-328, 367-372, 392-393, 460-497;